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Foreign literature of the XX century in brief. Part 2. Cheat sheet: briefly, the most important

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Table of contents

1. Italian literature
2. Colombian literature
3. Cuban literature
4. German literature
5. Norwegian literature
6. Polish literature
7. French literature
8. Czech literature
9. Chilean literature
10. Swedish literature
11. Swiss literature
12. Yugoslav literature
13. Japanese literature

Roman (1889)

In December 1886, Count Andrea Sperelli was waiting for his beloved in his chambers. The exquisite furnishings evoke memories - Elena's hands touched these things, Elena's eyes fell on these paintings and curtains, the smell of these flowers intoxicated Elena. When she bent over the fireplace, her figure was reminiscent of Danae Correggio. Two years have passed, and Elena must again cross the threshold of the room. The great farewell took place on March 25, 1885. This date is forever engraved in Andrea's memory. Why did Elena leave, why did she renounce the love that bound them forever? Now she is married: a few months after her sudden departure from Rome, she married an English aristocrat.

Andrea hears footsteps on the stairs, the rustle of a dress. Elena looks even more seductive than before, and when looking at her, the young man feels almost physical pain. She came to say goodbye. The past will never return. Andrea obediently escorts her to the carriage, tries to call out for the last time, but she presses her finger to her lips with a pained gesture and gives vent to tears only when the carriage moves off.

In the Sperelli family, secularism, elegance of speech, and love for everything refined were hereditary traits. Count Andrey worthily continued the family tradition. Endowed with a tremendous power of sensitivity, he squandered himself, not noticing the gradual decline in abilities and hopes. While he was young, captivating youth redeemed everything. His passion was women and Rome. Having received a significant inheritance, he settled in one of the most beautiful corners of the great city. A new streak in life began. Donna Elena Muti was made for him.

She was unspeakably beautiful. She had such a rich timbre of voice that the most banal phrases acquired some hidden meaning in her lips. When Andrea saw the first glimpse of tenderness in her eyes, he told himself with delight that an unknown pleasure awaited him. The very next day they smiled at each other like lovers. Soon she gave herself to him, and Rome shone with new light for them. The churches of the Aventine Hill, the noble garden of St. Mary Priorato, the bell tower of St. Mary in Cosmedine - everyone knew about their love. Both of them knew no measure in the extravagance of soul and body. He liked to close his eyelids in anticipation of a kiss, and when her lips touched him, he could barely hold back the Scream, And then he himself began to shower her with small, frequent kisses, bringing caresses to complete exhaustion and forcing her to burn in the flames of passion.

In the first days after the separation, he felt the attacks of desire and pain so keenly that he seemed to die from them. Meanwhile, the connection with Elena Muti raised him in the eyes of the ladies to an unattainable height. All women are possessed by a vainglorious desire for possession. Andrea could not resist the temptation. He moved from one love to another with incredible ease, and the habit of deception dulled his conscience. The news of Elena's marriage inflamed an old wound: in every naked woman, he sought to find the perfect nakedness of his former lover. Courting donna Ippolita Albonico, Count Sperelli severely insulted her lover and was stabbed in the chest in a duel.

The Marquise d'Ataleta took her cousin to her estate - to recover or die. Sperelli survived. It was a period of purification for him. All the vanity, cruelty and lies of his existence have disappeared somewhere. He rediscovered the forgotten impressions of Childhood, again indulged in art and began to compose sonnets. Elena seemed to him now distant, lost, dead. He was free and felt the desire to surrender to a higher, purer love. At the beginning of September, the cousin told him that a friend would soon come to visit her. Maria Bandinelli recently returned to Italy with her husband, Minister Plenipotentiary of Guatemala.

Maria Ferres struck the young man with her enigmatic smile, luxurious lush hair and voice, as if combining two timbres - female and male. This magical voice reminded him of someone, and when Maria began to sing, accompanying herself on the piano, he almost burst into tears. From that moment on, he was seized by the need for gentle adoration - he experienced bliss at the thought that he was breathing the same air as she. But jealousy was already stirring in his heart: all Mary's thoughts were occupied with her daughter, and he wanted to completely possess her - not her body, but her soul, which belonged undividedly to little Dolphin.

Maria Ferres remained true to the girlish habit of writing down every day all the joys, sorrows, hopes and impulses of the past day. A few days after the arrival at the estate of Francesca d'Ataleta, the pages of the diary were completely occupied by Count Sperelli. In vain Mary persuaded herself not to succumb to the surging feeling, appealing to prudence and wisdom. Even her daughter, who always brought her healing, turned out to be powerless - Maria loved for the first time in her life. Her perception became so acute that she penetrated the secret of her friend - Francesca, was hopelessly in love with her cousin. On October XNUMX, the inevitable happened - Andrea snatched a confession from Maria. But before leaving, she returned the volume of Shelley to him, underlining two lines with her fingernail: "Forget me, for I will never be yours!"

Soon Andrea left the estate of his sister. Friends immediately drew him into the maelstrom of social life. Having met one of the former mistresses at the reception, he plunged into the abyss of pleasure with one jump. On New Year's Eve, he ran into Elena Muti on the street. The first movement of his soul was to reunite with her - to conquer her again. Then doubts arose, and he was filled with confidence that the former miracle would not be resurrected. But when Elena came to him to say a cruel goodbye, he suddenly felt a violent thirst to crush this idol.

Sperelli meets Elena's husband. Lord Heathfield inspires him with hatred and disgust - the more he wants to take possession of a beautiful woman in order to get fed up with her and be freed from her forever, because now Mary owns all his thoughts. He uses the most sophisticated tricks to win a new lover and return the old one. He was granted the rarest, great feminine feeling - true passion. Realizing this, he becomes the executioner of himself and the poor creature. They walk with Mary in Rome. On the terrace of the Villa Medici, the columns are covered with inscriptions of lovers, and Maria recognizes Andrea's hand - two years ago he dedicated a poem to Goethe to Elena Muti.

Lord Heathfield shows Andrea the richest collection of depraved books and obscene drawings. The Englishman knows what effect they have on men, and with a mocking smile follows his wife's former lover. When Andrea completely loses his head, Elena contemptuously sends him away. Offended to the depths of his soul, he rushes away and meets his good angel - Mary. They visit the grave of beloved poet Percy Shelley and share their first kiss. Maria is so shocked that she wants to die. And it would be better if she died.

It becomes known that the plenipotentiary minister of Guatemala turned out to be a cheater and fled. Maria is disgraced and ruined. She needs to go to her mother in Siena. She comes to Andrea to give him the first and last night of love. The young man pounces on her with all the madness of passion. Suddenly she breaks out of his arms, having heard already. her familiar name. Sobbing Andrea tries to explain something, screams and begs - the answer is the knock of a slammed door. On June XNUMX, he comes to the sale of the property of the Plenipotentiary Minister of Guatemala and, choking with despair, wanders through the empty rooms.

E.A. Murlshkintseva

(II fu Mattia Pascal)

Roman (1904)

Mattia Pascal, a former curator of books in a library bequeathed to his native city by a certain Signor Boccamazza, is writing the story of his life. Mattia's father died early, and the mother was left with two children - six-year-old Roberto and four-year-old Mattia. All affairs were managed by the manager Batta Malanya, who soon ruined the family of the former owner. After the death of his first wife, the elderly Malanya married the young Oliva, to whom Mattia was not indifferent, but they had no children, and Malanya began to offend Oliva, considering her to blame for this. Oliva suspected that it was not about her, but about Malanya, but decency prevented her from verifying her suspicions. Friend Mattia Pomino told him that he was in love with Malania's cousin Romilda. Her mother wanted to marry the girl to the rich man Malanya, but this did not work out, and now, when Malanya began to repent of his marriage to the childless Oliva, she is plotting new intrigues. Mattia wants to help Pomino marry Romilda and makes acquaintance with her. He keeps telling Romilda about Pomino, but the lover himself is so timid that she eventually falls in love not with him, but with Mattia. The girl is so good that Mattia cannot resist and becomes her lover. He is going to marry her, and then she suddenly breaks up with him. Oliva complains to Mattia's mother about Malanya: he received evidence that they do not have children through no fault of his, and triumphantly told her about it. Mattia understands that Romilda and her mother have vilely deceived both him and Malanya, and in retaliation makes Oliva a child. Then Malanya accuses Mattia of having dishonored and killed his niece Romilda. Malanya says that out of pity for the poor girl, he wanted to adopt her child when he was born, but now that the Lord has sent him a legitimate child from his wife as a consolation, he can no longer call himself the father of another child who will be born to his niece. Mattia is left in the cold and forced to marry Romilda, as her mother threatens him with a scandal.

Immediately after the wedding, Mattia's relationship with Romilda deteriorates. She and her mother cannot forgive him for berefting his legitimate child, for now all of Malanya's fortune will go to Oliva's child. Romilda gives birth to twin girls, Oliva has a boy. One of the girls dies a few days later, the other, to whom Mattia manages to become very attached, before she reaches the age of a year. Pomino, whose father becomes a member of the municipality, helps Mattia get a job as a librarian at the Boccamazzi library. Once, after a family scandal, Mattia, in whose hands a small amount of money accidentally turned out to be unknown to his wife or mother-in-law, leaves home and goes to Monte Carlo. There he goes to the casino, where he wins about eighty-two thousand lire. The suicide of one of the players makes him change his mind, he stops the game and goes home. Mattia imagines how his wife and mother-in-law will be amazed at the unexpected wealth, he is going to buy out the mill in Stia and live in peace in the village. Having bought a newspaper, Mattia reads it on the train and stumbles upon an announcement that in his homeland, in Miragno, a heavily decomposed corpse was found in the mill lock in Stia, in which everyone identified the librarian Mattia Pascal, who disappeared a few days ago. People believe that the cause of suicide was financial difficulties. Mattia is shocked, he suddenly realizes that he is completely free: everyone considers him dead - which means that he now has no debts, no wife, no mother-in-law, and he can do whatever he pleases. He rejoices at the opportunity; to live, as it were, two lives and decides to live them in two different guises. From his former life, he will only have a squinting eye. He chooses a new name for himself: henceforth his name is Adriano Meis. He changes his hairstyle, clothes, invents a new biography for himself, throws away the wedding ring. He travels, but is forced to live modestly, as he must stretch his money for the rest of his life: the lack of documents deprives him of the opportunity to enter the service. He can't even buy a dog: you have to pay taxes for it, and this also requires documents.

Mattia decides to settle in Rome. He rents a room from Anselmo Paleari, an old eccentric who is fond of spiritualism. Mattia is imbued with great sympathy for his youngest daughter Adriana - a modest kind girl, honest and decent. Adriana's son-in-law Terenzio Papiano, after the death of his sister Adriana, must return the dowry to Anselmo, since his wife died childless. He asked Anselmo for a delay and wants to marry Adriana so as not to return the money. But Adriana is afraid and hates her rude, prudent son-in-law, she falls in love with Mattia Pascal. Papiano is sure that Mattia is rich and wants to introduce him to an enviable bride, Pepita Pantogada, in order to distract him from Adriana. He invites Pepita to Anselmo for a séance. Pepita arrives with her governess and the Spanish painter Bernaldes.

During a séance, in which all the inhabitants of the house take part, twelve thousand lire disappear from Mattia's locker. Only Papiano could steal them.

Adriana offers Mattia to report to the police, but he cannot report the theft - after all, he is a nobody, a living dead man. Nor can he marry Adrian, no matter how much he loves her, because he is married. To hush up the case, he prefers to lie, as if the money was found. In order not to torment Adriana, Mattia decides to behave in such a way that Adriana stops loving him. He wants to start courting Pepita Pantogada. But the jealous Bernaldes, whom Mattia accidentally offended, insults him, and the code of honor obliges Mattia to challenge Bernaldes to a duel. D Mattia cannot find seconds - it turns out that for this you need to comply with a bunch of formalities, which cannot be done without documents.

Mattia sees that his second life has come to a standstill, and leaving his cane and hat on the bridge so that everyone would think that he had thrown himself into the water, he gets on the train and goes home.

From Adriano Meis, he only has a healthy eye: Mattia had an operation and no longer mows.

Arriving at home, Mattia first of all visits his brother Roberto. Roberto is shocked and does not believe his eyes. He tells Mattia that Romilda, after his imaginary suicide, married Pomino, but now her second marriage will be considered invalid by law, and she is obliged to return to Mattia. Mattia does not want this at all: Pomino and Romilda have a little daughter - why destroy their family happiness? Yes, he does not like Romilda. Pomino and Romilda are shocked and confused to see Mattia alive, after more than two years have passed since his disappearance. Mattia reassures them: he does not need anything from them.

On the street, no one recognizes Mattia Pascal: everyone considers him dead.

Mattia goes to the cemetery, finds the grave of an unknown person whom everyone took for him, reads the heartfelt inscription on the gravestone and puts flowers on the grave.

He settles in the house of his old aunt. From time to time he comes to the cemetery "to look at himself - dead and buried. Some curious asks: "But who will you be to him?" In response, Mattia shrugs, squints and answers:

"I am the late Mattia Pascal."

With the help of Don Eligio, who replaced Mattia as curator of books at the Boccamaody Library, Mattia puts his strange story on paper in six months. In a conversation with Don Elijo, he says that he does not understand what morality can be drawn from it. But Don Elijo objects that there is undoubtedly a moral in this story, and this is what it is: "Outside of the established law, outside of those particular circumstances, joyful or sad, that make us ourselves ... it is impossible to live."

O. E. Grinberg

(Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore)

Tragicomedy (1921)

Actors come to the theater to rehearse. The prime minister, as always, is late. The prime minister is dissatisfied with the fact that he has to put on a chef's hat during the play. The director exclaims in his hearts: "... what do you want from me, if France has long ceased to supply us with good comedies and we are forced to stage the comedies of this Pirandello, who to understand - you need to eat a pound of salt and who, as if on purpose, does everything so that the actors, both critics and the audience spat?" Suddenly, a theatrical porter appears in the hall, followed by six characters, led by the Father, who explains that they came to the theater in search of the author. They offer the Theater Director to become his new play. Life is full of such absurdities that do not need credibility, because they are the truth, and to create the illusion of truth, as is customary in the theater, is pure madness. The author gave life to the characters, and then changed his mind or could not elevate them to the rank of art, but they want to live, they themselves are a drama and are burning with the desire to present it in the way that the passions raging in them prompt them.

Interrupting each other, the characters try to explain what the matter is. Father married Mother, but soon began to notice that she was not indifferent to his secretary. He gave them both money so they could leave his house and live together. He sent his son, who at that time was two years old, to the village, where he hired a nurse for him. But Father did not lose sight of his wife's new family until she left town. The Mother had three more children: a Stepdaughter, a Boy and a Girl, whom the legitimate Son despises because they are illegitimate. After the death of her roommate, Mother and children returned to their hometown and, in order to earn at least a little money, began to sew. But it turned out that the owner of the fashion shop, Madame Pace, gives her orders only to force the Stepdaughter into prostitution: she says that the Mother ruined the fabric and subtracts from her salary, so the Stepdaughter, in order to cover the deductions, secretly sells herself from her mother. The stepdaughter blames the Son for everything, then the Father, they are justified. Mother suffers and wants to reconcile everyone. The father says that in each of the participants in the drama there is not one, but many appearances, each has the ability to be one with some, another with others, talking about the integrity of the individual is nonsense. The son, whom the Stepdaughter considers to be the culprit, says that he is a dramaturgically "unrealized" character, and asks to be left alone. The characters quarrel, and the Director believes that only the author can restore order. He is ready to advise them to turn to a certain playwright, but the Father suggests that the Director himself become an author - it's all so simple, the characters are already here, right in front of him.

The director agrees, and scenery is set up on the stage, depicting a room in Madame Pace's establishment. The director invites the characters to rehearse in order to show the actors how to act. But the characters want to speak to the public themselves, like that; what they are. The director explains to them that this is impossible, they will be played by actors on the stage: the Stepdaughter - the Premier, the Father - the Premier, etc. In the meantime, the characters will play out the drama in front of the actors who will be the audience. The director wants to see the first scene: the conversation between the Stepdaughter and Madame Pace. But Madame Pace is not among the characters who came to the theater. The father thinks that if the scene is properly prepared, Madame Pace might be attracted to it and she will appear. When hangers and hats are hung on the stage, Madame Pace really appears - a fat vixen in a fiery red wig with a fan in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The actors at the sight of her are horrified and run away, but the Father does not understand why in the name of "vulgar verisimilitude" it is necessary to kill this "miracle of reality, which is brought to life by the stage situation itself." Madame Pace. in a mixture of Italian and Spanish, she explains to the Stepdaughter that her mother's work is no good, and if the Stepdaughter wants Madame Pace to continue to help their family, she needs to decide to sacrifice herself. Hearing this, the Mother, with a cry, rushes at Madame Pace, rips off her. heads the wig and throws it on the floor.

With difficulty calming everyone, the Director asks the Father to play the continuation of this scene. The father enters, gets acquainted with the Stepdaughter, asks her how long it has been. she's at Madame Pace's. He offers her a fancy hat as a gift. When Stepdaughter draws his attention to the fact that she is in mourning, he asks her to take off her dress as soon as possible. The Premier and the Premier try to repeat this scene. Father and Stepdaughter are completely unrecognizable in their underwear, everything is much smoother, outwardly more beautiful, the whole scene goes to the accompaniment of the prompter's voice. The characters are laughed at by the acting. The director decides not to let the characters go to rehearsals in the future, but for now he asks them to perform the rest of the scenes. The director wants to remove the Father's remark, where he asks the Stepdaughter to take off her mourning dress as soon as possible: such cynicism will lead the audience into indignation. The stepdaughter objects that this is true, but the Director believes that in the theater the truth is good only up to a certain limit. The stepdaughter embraces the Father, but then suddenly the Mother bursts into the room, who tears the Stepdaughter away from the Father, crying: "Unfortunate, this is my daughter!" The actors and the Director are excited about the scene, the characters are sure that the main thing is that this is how it really happened. The director believes that the first action will be a success.

There is a new decoration on the stage: a corner of the garden with a small pool. Actors sit on one side of the stage, characters on the other. The director announces the start of the second act. The stepdaughter tells that the whole family, contrary to the wishes of the Son, moved to the Father's house. The Mother explains that she tried with all her might to reconcile the Stepdaughter with her Son, but to no avail. The Father gets into an argument with the Director about illusion and reality. The skill of the actors is to create the illusion of reality, while the characters have their own, different reality, the character always has his own life, marked by characteristic features inherent in him alone, he is more real than an ordinary person, especially an actor, who can often be " no one." The reality of people changes, and they themselves change, while the reality of the characters does not change and they themselves do not change. When a character is born, he immediately gains independence, even from the author, and sometimes he happens to acquire a meaning that the author never dreamed of! The father complains that the author's fantasy brought them into the world, and then denied them a place in the sun - so they are trying to fend for themselves. They asked the author many times to take up the pen, but to no avail, and they went to the theater themselves. The director continues to direct the scenery. The son is very disturbing to the stepdaughter. He is ready to leave the stage and tries to leave, but it does not work, as if some mysterious force keeps him on stage. Seeing this, the Stepdaughter begins to laugh uncontrollably. The son is forced to stay, but he does not want to take part in the action. The girl is playing by the pool. The boy hides behind the trees, clutching a revolver in his hand. The mother enters the Son's room, wants to talk to him, but he does not want to listen to her. The Father tries to force him to listen to the Mother, but the Son resists, a fight breaks out between the Son and the Father, the Mother tries to separate them, in the end the Son knocks the Father to the floor. The son does not want to disgrace himself in public. He says that by refusing to play, he is only fulfilling the will of the one who did not want to bring them on stage. The director asks Son to just tell him personally what happened. The son says that, passing through the garden, he saw a Girl in the pool, rushed to her, but suddenly stopped when he saw the Boy, who looked with crazy eyes at his drowned sister. When the Son reaches this point in his story, a shot is heard from behind the trees where the Boy was hiding. The boy is carried backstage.

The actors return to the stage. Some say that the Boy really died, others are convinced that this is just a game. Father screams:

"What a game! Reality itself, gentlemen, reality itself!" The director loses his temper, sends everyone to hell and asks for light.

The stage and hall are lit up with bright light. The director is annoyed: the whole day is wasted in vain. It's too late to start rehearsal. The actors disperse until the evening. The director instructs the illuminator to turn off the light. The theater plunges into darkness, after which, in the depths of the stage, as if due to an oversight of the illuminator, a green backlight lights up. Huge shadows of characters appear, except for the Boy and the Girl. At the sight of them, the Director flees the stage in horror. Only the characters remain on the stage.

O. E. Grinberg

Play (1922)

The action takes place in a secluded villa in rural Umbria at the beginning of the XNUMXth century. The room reproduces the decoration of the throne room of Henry IV, but to the right and left of the throne are two large modern portraits, one of which depicts a man in the costume of Henry IV, the other a woman in the costume of Matilda of Tuscany. Three young men - Arialdo, Ordulfo and Landolfo - dressed up in costumes of the XNUMXth century, explain to the fourth, who has just been taken into service, how to behave. The newcomer - Bertoldo - cannot understand in any way which Henry IV is being referred to: French or German. He thought that he should imitate Henry IV of France, and read books on the history of the XNUMXth century. Arialdo, Ordulfo and Landolfo tell Bertoldo about Henry IV of Germany, who waged a fierce struggle with Pope Gregory VII and, under the threat of excommunication, went to Italy, where in the castle of Canossa, which belonged to Matilda of Tuscany, he humbly asked for forgiveness from the palas. Young men, having read books on history, diligently portray the knights of the XNUMXth century. The most important thing is to answer in tone when Henry IV addresses them. They promise to give Bertoldo books on the history of the XNUMXth century so that he will quickly get used to his new role. Modern portraits that cover niches in the wall where medieval statues should have stood seem anachronistic to Bertoldo, but the rest explain to him that Henry IV perceives them quite differently: for him they are like two mirrors reflecting the images of the Middle Ages come to life. Bertoldo all this seems too abstruse, and he says that he does not want to go crazy.

Enter the old valet Giovanni in evening dress. The young men begin to jokingly drive him away as a person from a different era. Giovanni tells them to stop playing and announces that the owner of the castle, the Marquis di Nolli, has arrived with a doctor and several other people, including the Marquise Matilda Spina, depicted in the portrait in the costume of Matilda of Tuscany, and her daughter Frida, the bride of the Marquis di Nolli. Signora Matilda looks at her portrait, painted twenty years ago. Now it seems to her like a portrait of her daughter Frida. Baron Belcredi, the Marquise's lover, with whom she dives endlessly, objects to her. The mother of the Marquis di Nolli, who died a month ago, believed that her crazy brother, who imagined himself Henry IV, would recover, and bequeathed to her son to take care of his uncle. The young Marquis di Nolli brought a doctor and friends in the hope of curing him.

Twenty years ago, a company of young aristocrats decided to arrange a historical cavalcade for entertainment. The uncle of the Marquis di Nolli dressed up as Henri IV, Matilda Spina, with whom he was in love, Matilda of Tuscany, Belcredi, who thought of making a cavalcade and who was also in love with Matilda Spina, rode behind them. Suddenly the horse of Henry IV reared up, the rider fell And hit the back of his head. No one attached much importance to this, but when he came to his senses, everyone saw that he took his role seriously and considered himself a real Henry IV. The madman's sister and her son had been pleasing him for many years, turning a blind eye to his madness, but now the doctor decided to present Henry IV at the same time to the Marquis and her daughter Frida, like two drops of water similar to her mother, as she was twenty years ago - he believes that such a comparison will give the patient the opportunity to feel the difference in time and generally cure him. But first, everyone is preparing to appear before Henry IV in medieval costumes. Frida will portray his wife, Bertha of Susi, Matilda, her mother Adelaide, the doctor, Bishop Hugh of Cluny, and Belcredi, the Benedictine monk accompanying him.

Finally, Arialdo announces the arrival of the emperor. Henry IV is about fifty years old, has dyed hair and bright red spots on his cheeks, like dolls. Over the royal dress he wears the robe of a penitent, as in Canossa. He says that since he is wearing the clothes of a penitent, it means that he is now twenty-six years old, his mother Agnes is still alive and it is too early to mourn her. He recalls various episodes of "his" life and is going to ask for forgiveness from Pope Gregory VII. When he leaves, the agitated Marchioness falls almost unconscious into a chair. In the evening of the same day, the doctor, the Marquise Spina and Belcredi discuss the behavior of Henry IV. The doctor explains that madmen have their own psychology: they can see that there are mummers in front of them, and at the same time believe, like children, for whom play and reality are one and the same. But the marquise is convinced that Henry IV recognized her. And she explains the distrust and dislike that Henry IV felt for Belcredi by the fact that Belcredi is her lover. It seems to the Marquise that Henry IV's speech was full of regrets about his and her youth. She believes that it was misfortune that made him put on a mask that he wants to, but cannot get rid of. Seeing the marquise's deep emotion, Belcredi becomes jealous. Frida tries on a dress in which her mother portrayed Mathilde of Tuscany in a magnificent cavalcade.

Belcredi reminds those present that Henry IV must "jump over" not the twenty years that have passed since the accident, but as many as eight hundred, separating the present from the era of Henry IV, and warns that this may end badly. Before playing the planned performance, the marquise and the doctor are going to say goodbye to Henry IV and convince him that they have left. Henry IV is very afraid of the hostility of Matilda of Tuscany, an ally of Pope Gregory VII, so the marquise asks to be reminded that Matilda of Tuscany, along with the abbot of Cluniy asked for him Pope Gregory VII. She was not at all as hostile to Henry IV as it seemed, and during the cavalcade, Matilda Spina, who portrayed her, wanted to draw the attention of Henry IV to let him know: although she mocks him , but in fact she is not indifferent to him.The Doctor in the costume of the Abbot of Cluny and Matilda Spina in the costume of the Duchess of Adelaide say goodbye to Henry IV.Mathilde Spina tells him that Matilda of Tuscany bothered for him before the pope, that she is not an enemy, but a friend of Henry IV. Henry IV is excited. Having seized the moment, Matilda Spina asks Henry IV: "Do you still love her?" Henry IV is confused, but, quickly mastering himself, reproaches " Duchess Adelaide" is that she betrays the interests of her daughter: instead of talking to him about his wife Bertha, she endlessly tells him about another woman.

Henry IV speaks of his forthcoming meeting with the Pope, of his wife Bertha of Susie. When the marquise and the doctor leave, Henry IV turns to his four confidants, his face completely changes, and he calls the recent guests jesters. The youths are amazed. Henry IV says that he fools everyone, pretending to be crazy, and everyone becomes jesters in his presence. Henry IV is indignant: Matilda Spina dared to come to him with her lover, and at the same time she still thinks that she showed compassion to the poor patient. It turns out that Henry IV knows the real names of the young men. He invites them to laugh together at those who believe that he is crazy. After all, those who do not consider themselves crazy are in fact no more normal: today one thing seems true to them, tomorrow another, the day after tomorrow a third. Henry IV knows that when he leaves, the electric light is on in the villa, but he pretends not to notice. And now he wants to light his oil lamp, the electric light blinds his eyes. He tells Arialdo, Aandolfo, Ordulfo and Bertoldo that they played a comedy in vain in front of him, they had to create an illusion for themselves, feel like people living in the XNUMXth century, and watch from there how, in eight hundred years, people of the XNUMXth century rush to trapped in unsolvable problems. But the game is over - now that the young men know the truth, Henry IV will no longer be able to continue his life as a great king.

A knock is heard at the back door: it is the old valet Giovanni, who is pretending to be a chronicler monk. The young men begin to laugh, but Henry IV stops them: it is not good to laugh at an old man who does this out of love for his master. Henry IV begins to dictate his life story to Giovanni.

After wishing everyone good night, Heinrich heads through the throne room to his bedchamber. In the throne room, in place of the portraits, exactly reproducing their poses, are Frida in the costume of Matilda of Tuscany and the Marquis di Nolli in the costume of Henry IV. Frida calls out to Henry IV; he shudders in fear. Frida becomes scared and starts screaming like crazy. Everyone in the villa rushes to her aid. No one pays attention to Henry IV. Belcredi tells Frida and the Marquis di Nolli that Henry IV has long recovered and continued to play a role in order to laugh at them all: four young men have already managed to divulge his secret. Henry IV looks at everyone with indignation, he is looking for a way to take revenge. He suddenly has the idea to plunge into pretense again, since he has been so treacherously betrayed. He starts talking to the Marquis di Nolli about his mother Agnes. The doctor believes that Henry IV has again fallen into madness, but Belcredi shouts that he has begun to play a comedy again. Henry IV tells Belcredi that although he has recovered, he has not forgotten anything. When he fell from his horse and hit his head, he really went crazy, and this went on for twelve years. During this time, his place in the heart of his beloved woman was taken by a rival, things have changed, friends have changed. But then one fine day he seemed to wake up, and then he felt that he could not return to his former life, that he would come "hungry like a wolf to the feast, when everything had already been cleared from the table."

Life has moved on. And the one who secretly pricked the horse of Henry IV from behind, forcing it to rear up and throw off the rider, lived calmly all this time. (The Marquise Spina and the Marquis di Nolli are amazed: even they did not know that the fall of Henry IV from a horse was not accidental.) Henry IV says that he decided to remain mad in order to experience a special kind of pleasure: "to experience his madness in an enlightened consciousness and thereby take revenge on the rude the stone that broke his head." Henry IV is angry that the young men told about his recovery. “I have recovered, gentlemen, because I can perfectly portray a madman, and I do it calmly! So much the worse for you if you experience your madness with such excitement, not being aware, not seeing it,” he declares. He says that he did not participate in the life in which Matilda Spina and Belcredi grew old, for him the Marquise is forever the same as Frida. The masquerade that Frida was forced to play is by no means a joke for Henry IV, rather it is just an ominous miracle: the portrait came to life, and Frida now belongs to him by right. Henry IV hugs her, laughing like crazy, but when they try to pull Frida out of his arms, he suddenly grabs a sword from Landolfo and wounds Belcredi, who did not believe that he was crazy, in the stomach. Belcredi is carried away, and soon a loud scream from Matilda Spina is heard from behind the scenes. Henry IV is shocked that his own invention has come to life, forcing him to commit a crime. He calls his associates - four young men, as if wanting to defend himself: "We will stay here together, together ... and forever!"

O. E. Grinberg

(Felumena Marturano)

Play (1946)

The action takes place in Naples in the rich house of the fifty-two-year-old Don Domenico Soriano, a successful businessman. In the room are Don Domenico himself, Donna Filumena Marturano, the woman with whom he lived for the last twenty years, Donna Rosalia Solimene, an old woman of seventy who shared the most sorrowful moments in Filumena's life, and Alfredo Amoroso, Don Domenico's elderly servant. Once Don Domenico took Filumena to him from the lowest strata of Neapolitan society; at that time she worked in a brothel. After the death of his wife, after two years of their acquaintance, Filumena hoped that Don Domenico would marry her, but this did not happen. So she lived in his house with Rosalia Solimene as a half-lover, half-slave, and besides, she checked the work of his factories and shops, while the owner himself had fun in London and Paris, at the races and with women. Finally, Filumena decided to put an end to her disenfranchised position: she pretended to be terribly ill, that she was in death throes, called the priest supposedly for the last communion, and then asked Don Domenico to fulfill the wish of the dying woman and allow her, who was on her deathbed, to combine bonds with him marriage. As soon as Don Domenico complied with her request, Filumena immediately jumped out of bed in good health and announced to him that they were now husband and wife. Don Domenico realized that he had fallen for her bait and was completely in her power. Now he is furious and promises that he will spare neither money nor strength to destroy and crush the insidious.

During an angry squabble, Filumena accuses Domenico of always treating her low, and even when he thought that she was dying, at her bedside, he kissed some girl whom he brought into the house under the guise of a nurse. At the end of her accusatory speech, Filumena declares that she has three sons, whom Domenico does not know about, and in order to raise them, she often stole money from him, and now she will ensure that they will also bear the surname Soriano. Domenico and Alfredo are stunned. Rosalia had known about this for a long time. Filumena asks Domenico not to be too frightened, for the children are not his and are already adults. She often sees them, but the sons do not know that she is their mother. One of them became a plumber with her help, he has his own workshop, he is married and has four children. The second, his name is Riccardo, runs a men's underwear shop; the third, Umberto, became an accountant and even writes stories for the newspaper.

Alfredo confusedly reports that the waiters from the restaurant came and brought the dinner that Domenico ordered in the morning, he thought that by the evening he would already become a widower and be able to have fun with young Diana, just the one with whom he kissed at the bedside of the "dying" Filumena. Soon Diana herself appears. She is cutesy elegant and looks down on everyone. At first she does not notice Filumena, chatting about her plans, but when she sees her, she gets up and moves back, Filumena treats her rather abruptly and sends her out. Domenico swears that as long as he lives, the feet of the sons of Filumena will not be in his house, but she is sure that he did it in vain, for she knows that she will not be able to keep her word; Someday, if he doesn't want to die damned, he'll have to ask her for alms. Domenico does not believe her and continues to threaten to kill her.

The next day, Alfredo, who had been sitting all night next to Don Domenico at the parapet of the monument to Caracciolo, coughs and asks the maid Lucia to bring him coffee. As he waits, Rosalia emerges from Filumena's room. She must, on behalf of her mistress, send three letters. Alfredo tries to find out to whom they are addressed, but Rosalia strictly keeps a trusted secret. Returning from the street, Don Domenico himself drinks the coffee intended for Alfredo, much to the displeasure of his servant. Soon Filumena comes out of the bedroom and orders to prepare two rooms for her two single sons. A married man remains to live where he lived before. Lucia has to move to the kitchen with all her things.

While the women are busy preparing, Diana and lawyer Nocella enter the house. They wish to speak with Don Domenico, and all three retire to the master's office. Meanwhile Umberto, one of Filumena's sons, comes into the dining room and writes something. Riccardo, who appeared after him, does not pay the slightest attention to him and immediately begins to flirt with Lucia. Michele, the third son, enters last. Riccardo behaves rather defiantly; his demeanor leads to the fact that Michele is forced to fight him. Umberto tries to separate them. Behind this brawl, Filumen finds them. She wants to have a serious talk with them, but this is prevented by the intrusion of a pleased Domenico, Diana and a lawyer. Nocella's lawyer explains to Filumena that her act was illegal and that she has no rights to Don Domenico. Filumena believes the lawyer's words, but calls three young people from the terrace, tells them about her life and admits that she is their mother. All three are very excited. Michele is glad that his children have a grandmother, about whom they have been asking for so long. Since Filumena is about to leave Don Domenico's house, he invites her to move in with him. She agrees, but asks her sons to wait for her downstairs.

Left alone with Domenico, she informs him that one of these young men is his son. She refuses to say which one. He does not believe her, being convinced that if she ever had a child from him, she would definitely take advantage of this to marry him to herself. Filumena replies that if he had known about the alleged child, he would have forced him to kill. Now, if his son is alive, it is only her merit. Finally, she warns Domenico that if the children find out that he is the father of one of them, she will kill him.

Ten months after the previous events, Don Domenico, who managed to divorce Filumena, is now really going to marry her. During this time he has changed a lot. There are no more commanding intonations or gestures. He became soft, almost submissive.

The three sons of Filumena appear in the room, having come to her wedding. While their mother is gone, Domenico talks with them, trying to determine from their behavior and habits which of them is his son. However, it is difficult for him to make a choice, because all of them, like him, like girls, but none of them can sing, although Domenico himself In his youth, gathering with friends, he loved to sing, then serenades were in vogue, Filumena comes out of his room ; she is in a wedding dress, very pretty and looks rejuvenated. Domenico asks the young people, together with Rosalia, to go to the dining room and have something to drink, and he resumes a conversation with the bride on a topic that has long tormented him: he is interested in which of the three is his son. He asks her for "alms", which Filumena predicted.

All these ten months he came to her, to Michele's house, and tried to talk to her, but he was always answered that Filumena was not at home, until, finally, he came and asked her to marry him, because he understood that loves her and cannot live without her. Now, before the wedding, he wants to know the truth. Filumena arranges a test for Domenico: first, she confesses that his son is Michele, a plumber. Domenico immediately tries to come up with something that could improve his son's life. Then she assures him that his son is Riccardo, and then she admits that she is Umberto, but she does not tell the truth. She proved to him that if Domenico finds out who his real son is, she will single him out and love him more, and the rest will suffer or even kill each other. Their family gained fullness too late, and now it must be valued and protected. Domenico agrees with Filumena and admits that children are children, no matter whose they are, this is a great happiness; let everything remain the same and everyone go their own way. After the marriage ceremony, Domenico promises the young people that he will love them equally strongly, and beams with happiness when all three, saying goodbye, call him dad.

E. V. Semina

(Napoli millionaria!)

Play (1950)

The action takes place in 1942, at the end of the second year of the war in Italy. The Iovine family, consisting of fifty-year-old Gennaro Iovine, his wife Amalia, a beautiful thirty-seven-year-old woman, their children - the eldest Maria Rosaria and Amedeo and the youngest Rita, lives in a small, dirty and smoky apartment on the ground floor. During the fascist regime, they subsist on the money received from the operation of the "underground coffee house", which they maintain in their apartment, and on income from the sale of products on the black market.

Amedeo, a young man in his twenties, works for a gas company, while his sister Maria Rosaria helps her mother at home. In the morning, when Amedeo is getting ready for work, indignant at his father, who ate his portion of pasta, loud screams are heard on the street: this is Amalia Jovine scolding her neighbor Donna Vicenza, who decided to create competition for her and also opened a coffee shop in the house opposite, and takes for a cup of coffee half a mile cheaper. The first visitors come to Amalia's coffee shop: Errico Handsome and Peppe Jack. These are two drivers, idle due to the ban on the use of motor vehicles. The appearance of Errico Handsome justifies his nickname - he is handsome, handsome in the spirit of the Neapolitan street, he is about thirty-five years old, he is of a strong physique, smiles willingly and good-naturedly, but always with the air of a patron. He comes across as a handsome swindler. Peppe Jack is more vulgar and not so cunning, but stronger, he can lift the car with one shoulder, for which he was given the nickname Jack. He listens and thinks more. Behind them enters Don Ricardo. This is a wealthy employee, an accountant. He carries himself modestly, but with dignity. All respectfully respond to his greeting. He came to buy from Amalia some food for his sick wife and children. Due to lack of money, he has to part with his wife's gold earring, which is set with a diamond.

Don Gennaro is surprised that there are foodstuffs in their house that cannot be obtained with ration cards. He is against the fact that in his family someone was engaged in speculation. Amalia, however, replies that she has nothing from the resale, but simply renders a service to Errico Handsome, who leaves a lot of goods with her. So recently he brought a large amount of products, including cheese, sugar, flour, lard and two centners of coffee, which Amalia poured into the bottom mattress. A frightened Amedeo runs in, who has already managed to go to work with his friend Federico, and reports that Donna Vicenza, an hour after the quarrel with Amalia, decided to set up a competitor and inform the carabinieri on her. Her threats were also heard by Donna Adelaide, Amalia's neighbor, who now retells Donna Vicenza's speech in full detail.

The Jovine family, however, does not panic, but begins to carry out a pre-prepared plan, the purpose of which is to mislead the carabinieri. Don D^ennaro gets into bed and pretends to be a dead man. The rest pretend to be deeply grieving relatives, and two young people even dress up as nuns. Soon the foreman of the Carabinieri Chappa enters with his two assistants. This is a man in his fifties. He knows his business; life and service hardened his soul. He is well aware that in certain cases, especially in Naples, you need to pretend that you do not notice "something". He ironically notes that too many dead people have recently divorced in Naples. Straight epidemic! Then, turning to an official tone, he invites everyone to stop the masquerade. He asks the "dead man" to stand up and threatens to put handcuffs on him otherwise. No one wants to give up first and stop the draw. Chappa does not risk touching the "dead man", but promises that he will leave only when the dead man is taken away.

From afar, a siren signal is heard, announcing an enemy air raid. Chappa's aides flee to the hideout, with some of the company gathered in the room following them. Then Chappa, admiring the restraint of Donna Gennaro, promises him that if he gets up, he will neither arrest him nor search him. Gennaro gets up, and the foreman, satisfied that he was right, keeps his word. Then, under the sincere admiration of those present, the generous foreman Chappa leaves ..

The following events of the play take place after the landing of the Anglo-American troops. Donna Amalia's room shines with cleanliness and luxury. Amalia herself has also become completely different: she is smart, hung with jewelry and looks younger. She is preparing for the birthday of Errico Handsome, which will be celebrated in the evening in her coffee shop. From the busy traffic in the alley, it seems that "freedom" has come and food supplies are sold in abundance.

Don Gennaro disappeared a year and a half ago after one of the air raids. Since then, nothing has been heard of him.

Maria Rosaria is followed by two friends with whom she is going to go on a date in the evening. The girls meet with American soldiers and are sure that they will marry them when their lovers collect all the documents necessary for the wedding. The possibility that young people will leave for America without them does not frighten the girls; from their glances and omissions it is clear that the girls have already crossed a certain, unacceptable line in relations with their lovers, they are leaving.

Errico appears in the coffee shop. Now he is an arch-millionaire and dressed chic. The fact that he is the idol of the women of the quarter is well known to him and flatters his vanity. He does business with Amalia, but he also likes her as a woman. He wants to talk to her about something important, but someone constantly interferes with them. Don Riccardo enters the room, he has lost weight, turned pale, is poorly dressed, he looks miserable. A few months ago he lost his job and is now barely making ends meet. Before he had two apartments and a house. He was forced to sell the apartments (Amaliya bought them), and mortgage the house (she also gave him the money as a pledge with the right to redeem within six months). The ransom deadline has passed, but Riccardo asks Amalia to make concessions and extend it. She treats him ruthlessly and harshly, reminding him of the times when he and his family used expensive shops, and her children ate pea-husk soup. Riccardo is humiliated and, muttering something, leaves. Handsome once again tries to convince Amalia to become his lover. Amalia is not indifferent to Handsome, but she cannot give in to her desire. Three days ago she had received a letter addressed to Gennaro from a man who had been with him all last year. Gennaro must return. Their conversation is interrupted by Federico, who suddenly appeared from the street, and then Amedeo.

Maria Rosaria sadly returns from a failed date: her lover has already left for America. She confesses to her mother that she has committed an irreparable offense; mother arranges a scandal for her daughter and beats her. Don Gennaro appears on the threshold of the house, followed by a whole crowd of shocked neighbors. He was in a concentration camp, fled, went all over Europe and is now glad that he returned home and sees his relatives. During the birthday celebration, no one wants to hear about what Gennaro had to endure, and he, under the pretext of being tired, goes to Ritucci's room.

The next day, a doctor is called to the girl, who says that if one medicine is not available, the girl will die. No one can get this medicine. Not even on the black market. Amalia is desperate. Upon learning that Jovina needs to save the child, Riccardo comes to the coffee shop, who accidentally turned out to have the right medicine, and gives it to Amalia for free. Riccardo's behavior and words make her reflect on her heartless behavior towards him. Gennaro exacerbates her torment, calling her pursuit of big money, jewels, insane.

Amedeo, who contacted Peppe Jack and helped him steal cars, comes to his senses, listening to the words of his father, and happily avoids prison, although the foreman Chalpa was waiting for him at the crime scene. Maria Rosaria, who confessed her sin to her father, is forgiven by Gennaro. Amalia, he also relieves the soul and inspires faith that she is. still be able to become a decent person.

E. V. Semina

(Il deserto dei Tartari)

Roman (1940)

The action takes place in an indefinite time, most reminiscent of the beginning of our century, and the unknown state depicted on its pages is very similar to Italy. This is a novel about time eating life. The irreversibility of time is the fate of man, the night is the highest point of the tragic tension of human existence.

Young lieutenant Giovanni Drogo, filled with bright hopes for the future, is assigned to the fortress of Bastiani, located next to the endless Tatar desert, from where, according to legend, enemies came. Or they didn't come. After a long wandering, the lieutenant finally finds his way to the Fortress. During the journey, Drogo's enthusiasm for his first appointment fades, and the sight of the bare yellowish walls of the fort leads to utter despondency. Major Matti, understanding the mood of the young officer, says that he can file a report on his transfer to another place. In the end, a confused Drogo decides to stay at the Fortress for four months. At Drogo's request, Lieutenant Morel leads Drogo to a wall beyond which lies a plain framed by rocks. Behind the rocks - the Unknown North, the mysterious Tatar desert. They say that there are "solid stones". The local horizon is usually covered with fog, but they say that they saw either white towers, or a smoking volcano, or “some kind of elongated black spot” ... Drogo cannot sleep all night: water is squelching behind his wall, and nothing can be done about it .

Soon Drogo takes over the first duty and observes the changing of the guard, performed under the command of senior sergeant Tronk, who has been serving in the Fortress for twenty-two years and knows by heart all the subtleties of the fortress charter. Servant Tronk does not leave the Fortress even while on vacation.

At night, Drogo composes a letter to his mother, trying to convey the oppressive atmosphere of the Fortress, but in the end he writes a simple letter with assurances that he is doing well. Lying on his bunk, he hears the sentries calling to each other mournfully; "... it was on this night that a slow and inexorable countdown began for him."

Wanting to buy an overcoat simpler than the one that was in his luggage, Drogo meets the tailor Prosdochimo, who has been repeating for fifteen years: they say, he will leave here any day. Gradually, Drogo learns with surprise that there are many officers in the Fortress who have been waiting with bated breath for many years when the northern desert will give them an extraordinary adventure, "that wonderful event that everyone has at least once in their life." After all, the Fortress stands on the border of the Unknown, and not only fears, but also hopes are tied to the unknown. However, there are those who have enough strength to leave the Fortress, for example, Count Max Latorio. Together with him, his friend, Lieutenant Angustina, served his two years, but for some reason he resolutely does not want to leave.

Winter is coming and Drogo is preparing to leave. It remains a trifle - to pass a medical examination and receive a paper about unsuitability for service in the mountains. However, the habit of the narrow closed little world of the Fortress with its measured life takes its toll - unexpectedly for himself, Drogo remains. There's still plenty of time ahead, he thinks.

Drogo goes on duty to the New Redoubt - a small fort a forty-minute walk from the Fortress, standing on top of a rocky mountain above the Tatar desert itself. Suddenly, a white horse appears from the side of the desert - and everyone knows that Tatar horses are exclusively white! With you, everything turns out to be much simpler - the horse belongs to Private Lazzari, she managed to run away from her master. Wanting to quickly return the mare, Lazzari gets out of the walls of the fort and catches her. When he returns, the password has already been changed, but he does not know the new one. The soldier hopes that, having recognized him, his comrades will let him back in, but those, following the charter and obeying the mute order of Tronk, shoot and kill the unfortunate.

And soon, on the horizon of the Tatar desert, a black human snake begins to move, and the entire garrison is thrown into confusion. However, everything is quickly clarified: these are the military units of the northern state marking the border line. In fact, the demarcation marks have been established for a long time, there is only one unmarked mountain, and although it is of no strategic interest, the colonel sends a detachment there under the command of Captain Monty and Lieutenant Angustina to get ahead of the northerners and attach a couple of extra meters of territory. In his elegant uniform, the proud Angustina is completely unsuited to mountain travel; he catches a cold in the icy wind and dies. He is buried as a hero.

Several years pass; Drogo leaves for the city - on vacation. But there he feels like a stranger - his friends are busy with business, his beloved girl has lost the habit of him, his mother internally resigned himself to his absence, although she advises him to apply for a transfer from the Fortress. Drogo goes to the general, confident that his request for a transfer will be granted. But, surprisingly, the general refuses Drogo, motivating the refusal by the fact that the garrison of the Fortress is being reduced and, first of all, old and honored warriors will be transferred.

In anguish, Drogo returns to Bastiani's fortress. A feverish turmoil reigns there - soldiers and officers leave the garrison. Drogo's gloomy despondency is dispelled by Lieutenant Simeoni: through his spyglass, he saw some kind of lights on the edge of the Tatar desert, which now disappear, then reappear and constantly make some kind of movement. Simeoni believes that the enemy is building a road. Before him, "no one had observed such a striking phenomenon, but it is possible that it had happened before, for many years or even centuries; say, there could be a village or a well, to which caravans were drawn, - just in the Fortress until now no one used such a strong spyglass as Simeoni had." But then an order comes in prohibiting the use of optical devices not provided for by the charter in the Fortress, and Simeoni surrenders his pipe.

In winter, Drogo clearly feels the destructive power of time. With the onset of spring, he peers into the distance for a long time with the help of a breech pipe and one evening he notices a small fluttering tongue of flame in the eyepiece. Soon, even in broad daylight, against the backdrop of a whitish desert, you can see moving black dots. And one day someone talks about the war, "and the seemingly unrealizable hope again began to breathe within the walls of the Fortress."

And then, about a mile from the Fortress, a pillar appears - strangers pulled the road here. The enormous work that has been carried out for fifteen years has finally been completed. "Fifteen years for the mountains is a mere trifle, and even on the bastions of the Fortress they did not leave any noticeable trace. But for people this path was long, although it seems to them that the years have somehow flown by imperceptibly." Desolation reigns in the Fortress, the garrison has been reduced again, and the general staff no longer attaches any importance to this citadel lost in the mountains. The generals do not take seriously the road laid across the northern plain, and life in the fort becomes even more monotonous and secluded.

One September morning, Drogo, now a captain, is walking up the road to the Fortress. He had a month's vacation, but he survived only half the term, and now he is returning: the city has become completely alien to him.

"The pages are turning, months and years pass," but Drogo is still waiting for something, although his hopes are weakening every minute.

Finally, the enemy army really approaches the walls of the Fortress, but Drogo is already old and sick, and he is sent home to make room for young, combat-ready officers. On the way, Drogo overtakes death, and he understands that this is the main event of his life. He dies looking up at the night sky.

E. V. Morozova

(Gli Indifferenti)

Roman (1929)

Italy, twenties of the XX century.

Three days in the life of five people: an elderly lady, Mariagrazia, the mistress of a declining villa, her children, Michele and Carla, Leo, Mariagrazia's old lover, Lisa, her friend. Conversations, dates, thoughts...

Of all five, one Leo is satisfied with life and says that if he happened to be born again, he would like to be "exactly the same and bear the same name - Leo Merumechi." Leo is alien to repentance, longing, remorse, dissatisfaction with himself. His only desire is to enjoy life. Carla's youth excites in him unbridled lust, which he, without hesitation, is ready to satisfy almost in front of his former mistress in her own house. Here, however, he has no luck: trying to spur Carla's sensuality and give her courage, he so diligently pumps her with champagne that at the decisive moment the poor thing simply starts to feel sick. And he immediately rushes to Lisa, another former mistress, and when she rejects his harassment, he tries to seize her by force. This self-satisfied vulgar man, pouring out flat witticisms and teachings, almost despises Mariagracia, even for Carla, whom he so persistently seduces, does not feel either love or tenderness. To top it all off, Leo Merumechi is dishonest - he manages Mariagrazia's affairs and robs her family without a twinge of conscience.

Mariagrazia is languishing with jealousy, she feels that Leo has not had the same feelings for her for a long time, but does not see the true reason for the cooling - his passion for Carla. In her life there is nothing but a relationship with her lover - no interests, no responsibilities. She now and then arranges the stupidest scenes of jealousy, not embarrassed by children who have long been aware that Leo is something more than a friend of the house. The most amazing thing about this woman is her absolute blindness. She seems to refuse to perceive reality, does not see that the children have become strangers, turns a blind eye to Leo's rudeness and cruelty, still manages to consider herself a seductive beauty, and Leo is "the kindest person in the world." Her jealousy is directed at Lisa, and no assurances from her friend can convince her of anything. And yet, in the wretched spiritual world of Mariagrazia, in a tasteless combination of stupidity with sentimentality, there is a place for spontaneity and impulsiveness, and her "flabby trusting heart" is capable of some semblance of love and suffering.

Carla is weighed down by the meaninglessness of existence and would like to "change her life at any cost", even at the cost of a connection with her mother's lover, who, in essence, is indifferent to her and even sometimes disgusting. Unlike her mother, she has no illusions about Leo, but life in her parents' house, where "habit and boredom always lie in wait," depresses her. She suffers from the fact that every day she sees the same thing and nothing changes in life. Her mother and brother are also indifferent to her - the only time when her mother tries to seek solace from her, Carla feels only embarrassment. True, she has some spiritual doubts about a possible connection with Leo, but not because she takes away her mother’s favorite toy, but because of her own indecision and lack of will. But after all, she does not know another way to "start a new life", just as she does not know what this life should be like. Alluring visions appear in Carla's head, because Leo can give her so much: a car, jewelry, travel, and yet this is not the reason for her decision to give herself to him. In reality, she simply succumbs to his pressure. But a vague need for love lives in her soul, and when, during the first date with Leo, a misunderstanding arises in his house related to the note of the same Leo, Carla involuntarily presents him with a story about a fictitious lover who alone loves and understands her. And the date itself gives rise to dual feelings in the girl: natural sensuality takes its toll, but Carla does not receive either tenderness or consolation from her lover. After a night of confusion and self-pity, morning comes, fears disappear, soberly assessing what happened, Carla, with some disappointment, understands what her new life will actually be like. But the road is paved, Carla does not want to "dig into her own and other people's feelings" and accepts Leo's forced offer to marry him, without telling her mother about anything.

Only Michele is clearly aware that the life that everyone around him lives is a lie, a "shameful comedy." He thinks all the time that this world belongs to people like his mother and Lisa, with their ridiculous claims, and even self-confident scoundrels like Leo. This young man, on whom time has left an indelible mark, is unhappy and lonely even more than others, because he is aware of his own inferiority. His feelings and thoughts change seven times a day - either it seems to him that he is striving for a different, honest and pure life, or he craves worldly goods and plays in his imagination the moment when he sells his sister Leo (not knowing that Carla has already become his mistress). Prone to introspection, Michele knows that he is vicious and that his main vice is indifference, lack of sincere feelings. He is disgusted by those around him, but even he envies them, because they live a real life, experience real feelings. It is love, hate, anger, pity; of course, he knows such feelings, but he is not capable of experiencing them.

He understands that he should hate Leo, love Lisa (who suddenly came up with the sugary-sentimental idea of ​​​​love for a pure young man), "feel disgust and compassion for his mother and tenderness for Carla", but remains indifferent, despite his best efforts. "flare up". Any act of Michele is dictated not by impulse, by direct feeling, but by a speculative idea of ​​​​how another, more sincere, full-fledged person would have acted in his place. That is why his actions are so ridiculous that he becomes ridiculous. Feigning indignation, he throws an ashtray at Leo, but he does it so sluggishly that it hits his mother's shoulder, after which another farcical scene is played out. He is not at all in love with the overripe Lisa, but for some reason he is going on a date with her. On this date, Lisa tells him the news that should have broken through the armor of his indifference - about Leo's relationship with Carla. And again - no anger, no disgust. Even this blow does not bring him out of his spiritual stupor. And then Michele, mostly just to convince Lisa, who does not believe the badly acted scene of the anger of the insulted brother, buys a gun, goes to Leo (on the way, imagining a rather romantic picture of the trial and at the same time hoping that Leo will not be at home ) and shoots him, forgetting, however, to load the gun. Enraged, Leo nearly pushes him out of his mouth in the most humiliating way, but then Carla appears from the bedroom. Brother and sister must be talking like close people for the first time in their lives, and Leo, for whom their intention to sell the villa to start a new life means disaster, has to propose to Carla. Michele asks his sister to reject Leo, because this marriage would mean the embodiment of his shameful dreams of selling his sister, but he realizes that he lost here too: Carla believes that this is the best she can count on. There is only one path left for Michele, followed by Mariagrazia, Lisa, Leo, Carla and most of the people who surround him - the path of lies, unbelief and indifference.

Italy, 1943-1944

Cesira is thirty-five years old and a native of Ciociaria, a mountainous area south of Rome. As a young girl, she married a shopkeeper, moved to Rome, gave birth to a daughter and was very happy at first - until the true face of her husband was revealed to her. But then he fell seriously ill and died (Chesira looked after him, as befits a loving wife), and she again felt almost happy. She had "a shop, an apartment and a daughter" - is that not enough for happiness?

Cesira can barely read (although he counts money well) and is not interested in politics. There is a war going on, but she does not really know who is fighting with whom and why. The war is even profitable so far: trade is going on faster than in peacetime, because he and his daughter work on the black market and successfully speculate in food. She is firmly convinced that, no matter how the circumstances develop, nothing threatens Rome, since Pala “lives” there.

However, Mussolini soon returns, the Germans come, the streets are full of thugs in black shirts, and most importantly, the bombing and famine begin, and Cesira decides to wait out this "bad time" in the village, with his parents. She herself is a strong woman and is not afraid of anything, but her daughter, eighteen-year-old Rosetta, is timid, sincerely religious and very sensitive. Cesira proudly believes that Rosetta is the embodiment of perfection, "almost a saint", however, she will soon come to the conclusion that perfection, based on ignorance and lack of life experience, crumbles like a house of cards in contact with the dark sides of life. In general, despite the fact that Chezira is a simple, almost illiterate woman, she is endowed with a realistic natural mind and powers of observation, she is insightful, sees people through and is prone to a kind of philosophical generalizations. Unlike most peasants, for whom nature is only a habitat and an instrument of production, she sees and feels the peculiar beauty of the Italian mountains, sometimes covered with emerald grass, sometimes scorched white by the hot sun.

Chezira intends to spend no more than two weeks in the village, but the journey drags on for a long nine months, full of adversity, deprivation, bitter experience. They are unable to reach Chezira's parents because they, like the rest of the villagers, have fled from the coming war. The town of Fondi, which Cesira remembered as noisy and lively, is also deserted, the doors and windows boarded up as if a plague had swept through the streets, unharvested crops were thrown into the surrounding fields. In the end, two women find refuge in one strange family, of course, not for free (Cesira has a huge sum of money by peasant standards - one hundred thousand lire). Here Cesira is convinced for the first time that war, violence and lawlessness expose the most unattractive qualities of a person, those that are customary to be ashamed of in peacetime. Concetta, her silly husband and two deserter sons shamelessly steal and sell property abandoned by neighbors, because these things, in their opinion, "do not belong to anyone." Concetta is ready to sell the innocent girl Rosetta to the local fascists in exchange for the safety of her sons. At night, Chezira and her daughter run away to the mountains, where many refugees from Fondi are already hiding, rent a dilapidated shed from a peasant, clinging to a rock, and stock up on food for the winter.

Accustomed to prosperity, Cesira is struck by the incredible poverty in which the peasants of Sant Eufemia live (they even use chairs only on holidays, the rest of the time they sit on the ground, and the chairs hang suspended from the ceiling), and the respect they have for money and people, having money. The refugees from Fondi are merchants, artisans are richer, they have not yet run out of money and food, so they spend all their time eating, drinking and endlessly talking about what will happen when the British come. These ordinary people do not feel hatred either for their own or for the German fascists and do not themselves understand why they "cheer" for the allies. The only thing they want is to return to normal life as soon as possible. The most amazing thing is that everyone is sure that with the arrival of allies, life will become much better than before.

Only one person, Michele, understands what is really going on in the country. Michele is the son of a merchant from Fondi. He is an educated man and unlike anyone Cesira has ever met. What amazes her most is that Michele, raised under a fascist regime, hates fascism and claims that Mussolini and his henchmen are just a bunch of bandits. Michele is only twenty-five, there were no significant events in his life, and therefore Cesira, in the simplicity of his soul, believes that his convictions arose, perhaps, simply from the spirit of contradiction. She sees that Michele is an idealist who does not know life, and his love for the peasants and workers is rather theoretical. In truth, practical, cunning, down-to-earth peasants do not particularly favor him, and his own father calls him a fool to his face, although at the same time he is secretly proud of him. But Chezira understands what a pure, honest, deeply decent person he is, she loves him like a son and takes his death hard (he dies when the end of the war is already near, shielding the peasants from the shots of the brutalized Germans).

The life of Cesira and Rosetta in Sant'Eufemia is uneventful, but the war is gradually approaching, the first meeting with the Germans takes place, which immediately convinces the locals that nothing good should be expected from them (a refugee who was robbed by the Italian fascists turns to the Germans, and in the end they take the stolen goods for themselves, and he himself is sent to the front to dig trenches). Cesira sees with her own eyes that the Germans, the Italian deserters, her neighbors - all behave like dishonorable people, and it occurs to her again and again that in order to recognize a person, one must see him during the war, when everyone shows his inclinations and his nothingness. doesn't hold back.

Winter passes, Sant'Eufemia experiences German raids and British bombings, hunger and danger. In April, the refugees are happy to learn that the British have broken through the German defenses and are advancing. Cesira and Rosetta, along with the others, descend into Fondi and find a pile of ruins on the site of the town, and from the balcony of the surviving house, American soldiers throw cigarettes and candies into the crowd of refugees. It turns out that Rome is still occupied by the Germans and they have nowhere to go. Here, in Fondi, to the sound of American cannons, Cesira falls asleep and sees in a dream a hall full of fascists, the faces of Mussolini, Hitler, sees how this hall takes off into the air, and feels stormy joy, understands that, without knowing it, she must , always hated fascists and Nazis. It seems to her that now everything will be fine, but the war is not over yet, a new ordeal lies ahead: in a remote village, Moroccan soldiers rape her daughter, rape her in a church, right at the altar, and soon Chezira realizes that these few minutes have changed Rosetta beyond recognition . "Almost a saint" becomes a whore. Cesira returns to Rome, as she dreamed, but in her soul reigns not joy, but despair. On the way, the robbers kill Rosetta's friend, and Chezira, full of self-disgust, takes his money, but this death tears off the mask of callousness from Rosetta's face, she cries "for all the people crippled by the war," and hope revives in Chezira's soul.

I. A. Moskvina-Tarkhanova

(La bella estate)

Tale (1949)

Italy of the thirties of our century, the working outskirts of Turin. In these dim scenery, the sad story of the first love of the young girl Ginia for the artist Guido unfolds.

Ginia works in a tailor shop and keeps company with the factory workers and the guys from the neighborhood. One day she meets Amelia. About Amelia it is known that "she leads a different life." Amelia is a model, artists draw her - "full face, profile, dressed, undressed." She likes this work, a lot of people often gather in artists' workshops, you can sit and listen to smart conversations - "cleaner than in the movies." It's cold to pose naked only in winter.

One day, Amelia is invited to pose by a fat artist with a gray beard, and Genia begs to go to him with her friend. The bearded man finds that Ginia has an interesting face and makes some sketches of her. But the girl does not like her images - she turned out to be some kind of sleepy. In the evening, remembering "Amelia's swarthy belly", "her indifferent face and drooping breasts", she can't understand why artists paint naked women. After all, it is much more interesting to draw dressed! No, if they want to be posed naked, then "they have other things on their minds."

The work at the Bearded Man is over, and Amelia sits in a cafe all day. There she strikes up a close acquaintance with Rodriguez, a hairy young man in a white tie, with jet-black eyes, who is constantly drawing something in his notebook. One evening, she invites Ginia to go to him, or rather, to the artist Guido, who rents an apartment on shares with Rodriguez. She has known Guido for a long time, and when Ginia asks what they did with him, a friend laughingly replies that they "beat glasses".

Laughing fair-haired Guido, illuminated by a blinding lamp without a lampshade, does not at all look like an artist, although he has already painted many paintings, all the walls in the studio are hung with his works. Young people treat the girls with wine, then Amelia asks to turn off the light, and the amazed and frightened Ginia watches the cigarette lights flicker in the dark. From the corner where Amelia and Rodriguez are sitting, there is a quiet squabble. "I feel like I'm in a movie," Ginia says. “But you don’t have to pay for a ticket here,” Rodriguez’s mocking voice is heard.

Ginia liked Guido and his paintings, she wants to look at them again. "If she were sure that she would not find Rodriguez in the studio, she would probably have plucked up the courage and would have gone there alone." Finally, she agrees to go to the studio with Amelia. But Ginia is disappointed - Rodriguez is alone at home. Then Ginia chooses the day when Rodriguez sits in a cafe, and goes to Guido alone. The artist invites her to sit down, while he continues to work. Ginia looks at a still life with "transparent and watery" slices of melon, on which a ray of light falls. She feels that only a real artist can draw like that;

"I like you, Genia," she suddenly hears. Guido tries to hug her, but she, red as a cancer, breaks free and runs away.

The more Ginia thinks about Guido, the less she understands "why Amelia got involved with Rodriguez and not with him." Meanwhile, Amelia invites Ginia to pose with her for an artist who wants to portray the struggle of two naked women. Ginia flatly refuses, and her friend, angry, coldly says goodbye to her.

Wandering alone on the streets, Ginia dreams of meeting Guido. She's just sick of this blonde artist and studio. Suddenly, the phone rings: Amelia invites her to a party. Arriving at the studio, Ginia listens with envy to the chatter of Guido and Amelia. She understands that artists do not lead the same life as others, they should not be "serious". Rodriguez - he does not paint pictures, so he is silent, and if he speaks, he mostly mocks. But the main thing is that she feels an irresistible desire to be alone with Guido. And so, when Amelia and Rodriguez settle down on the couch, she throws back the curtain that hides the entrance to another room, and, plunged into darkness, throws herself on the bed.

The next day, she thinks of only one thing: "From now on, she must see Guido without these two." And she also wants to joke, laugh, go wherever her eyes look - she is happy. "I must really love him," she thinks, "or I wouldn't be nice." Work becomes her joy: after all, in the evening she will go to the studio. She even feels sorry for Amelia, who does not understand how good Guido's paintings are.

Entering the studio, Ginia hides her face on Guido's chest and cries for joy, and then asks them to go behind the curtain, "because in the light it seemed to her that everyone was looking at them." Guido kisses her, and she shyly whispers to him that yesterday he hurt her very much. In response, Guido calms down, says that this will all pass. Convinced of how good he is, Genia dares to tell him that she always wants to see him alone, even if only for a few minutes. And she adds that she would even agree to pose for him. she leaves the studio only when Rodriguez returns.

Every day, Ginia runs to Guido, but they never have time to talk in detail, because at any moment Rodriguez can come. “I would need to fall in love with you in order to grow wiser, but then I would lose time,” Guido remarks somehow. But Genia already knows that he will never marry her, no matter how much she loves him. “She knew this from the very evening when she gave herself to him. Thanks also to the fact that for the time being, when she came, Guido stopped working and walked behind the curtain with her. She understood that she could meet him only if she became his model Otherwise, one day he will take another."

Guido leaves for his parents. Amelia comes down with syphilis and Ginia warns Rodriguez about it. Soon Guido returns and their dates resume. Several times girls slip out of the studio to meet Ginia, but Guido says that they are models. And then Ginia finds out that, despite her illness, Guido takes Amelia as a model. Ginia is at a loss: what about Rodriguez? To which Guido angrily replies that she herself can pose for Rodriguez.

The next day, Ginia comes to the studio in the morning. Guido stands behind an easel and draws a naked Amelia. "Which of us are you jealous of?" - the artist asks Giniya sarcastically.

The session is over, Amelia is getting dressed. "Draw me too," Genia suddenly asks, and with a pounding heart begins to undress. When she is completely naked, Rodriguez comes out from behind the curtain. Having somehow pulled on her clothes, Ginia runs out into the street: it seems to her that she is still naked.

Ginia now has a lot of time, and since she has already learned how to cope with homework in a hurry, this only makes her worse, because there is a lot of time to think. She starts smoking. Often she bitterly recalls that she and Guido "didn't even say goodbye."

It's a slushy winter outside, and Genia longingly dreams of summer. Although in her heart she does not believe that it will ever come. "I'm an old woman, that's what. Everything ended well for me," she thinks.

But one evening Amelia comes to her - the former, not changed at all. She is being treated and will soon be completely healthy, says Amelia, lighting a cigarette. Ginia takes a cigarette too. Amelia laughs and says that Jeania impressed Rodriguez. Now Guido is jealous of him. Then she invites Ginia to take a walk. "Let's go wherever you want," Ginia replies, "lead me."

E. V. Morozova

(A ciascuno il suo)

Roman (1966)

The action takes place in post-war Italy, in a small Sicilian town. Apothecary Manno receives an anonymous letter, where he is threatened with death, without going into an explanation of the reasons. The pharmacist's friends - Don Luigi Corvaia, notary Pecorilla, teacher Laurana, lawyer Rosello, Dr. Rosho - consider the anonymous letter a cruel joke. Manno himself is inclined to think that they want to scare him in order to discourage him from hunting - the season opens in a few days, and envious people, as always, itching. However, just in case, the pharmacist notifies the sergeant of the Carabinieri about the incident, and when he unfolds the letter, Paolo Laurana sees the word "UNICUIQUE" on the back of the sheet, typed in a characteristic typographic font.

On the twenty-third of August 1964, the day of the opening of the hunting season, the pharmacist Manno and his constant companion Dr. Roshot are found dead. The author of the anonymous letter carried out his threat, and the inhabitants of the town begin to wonder what the late pharmacist did. Everyone pities the poor doctor who suffered for the sins of others. The police also zealously take up the case: both victims were prominent and enjoyed general respect. In addition, Dr. Rosho has influential relatives: he himself is the son of a famous oculist professor, and his wife is the niece of the canon and cousin of the lawyer Rosello.

Together, the police and the residents of the city find the answer to the murder: the pharmacist obviously cheated on his ugly, withered wife, and some jealous man killed him. The lack of evidence and the excellent reputation of the deceased do not bother anyone: since it came to murder, it means that the matter is unclean. Only Laurana takes a different view: although the instinct of the Sicilian calls for caution, he in a roundabout way finds out that only two people subscribe to the Catholic newspaper "Osservatore Romano" - a canon and a parish priest.

The priest's numbers for the last month are safe and sound. Laurana looks fascinated at the subtitle "UNICUIQUE SUUM" (lat. "to each his own"). The canon is in for a misfortune: in this house, read newspapers become household items. The canon is firmly convinced that the pharmacist paid the price for a love affair, and the husband of his beloved niece simply turned up under the arm of the killer.

The investigation could have ended there, but, unfortunately, Laurana was lucky. This quiet and shy Italian teacher is respected in the town, but he has no close friends. School memories connected him with Dr. Rosho - they studied together at the gymnasium and at the lyceum. After the death of Rosho, Laurana experiences a feeling of emptiness and pain - this was almost the only person with whom he could discuss literary novelties or political events. Laurana's personal life did not work out because of a selfish and jealous mother - on the threshold of her fortieth birthday, he remains for her a naive and inexperienced boy who is not ripe for marriage.

In September, Laurana comes to Palermo to take exams at the Lyceum. In a restaurant, he meets a former school friend - now a member of parliament from the Communist Party. Rosho voted for the communists, although he hid it out of respect for his wife's relatives. Shortly before his death, the doctor visited Rome to meet with a deputy and find out whether it is possible to publish exposing materials in the newspaper about one of the most eminent citizens of the town, who holds the entire province in his hands and is involved in many dirty deeds.

Returning home, Laurana tells Rosello's lawyer about her discovery. He is burning with the desire to take revenge on the unknown killer. The beautiful widow of the doctor also becomes agitated, for before she sincerely believed that her husband died because of the love affairs of the pharmacist. Signora Louise even allows Laurana to look at the papers of the deceased, although she is extremely upset by the version that the pharmacist served as a false bait - everyone in the town knew that Manno and Rochot hunted together.

Laurana seeks help from the parish priest, whom she treats with sympathy despite her anti-clerical beliefs. He says that the most influential person in the province is the lawyer Rosello, who has reached a high position through bribery, bribes and other frauds. Laurana suddenly opens her eyes: it has long been rumored in the town that the lawyer and his cousin love each other from a young age, but the canon opposed the marriage between close relatives, which is why Louise married Dr. Rochot. The beauty of this woman immediately aroused in Laurana a keen desire, and now horror has been added to this feeling - no doubt she was an accomplice in a cruel and insidious crime.

A fatal accident once again comes to the aid of Laurana. Thinking about getting a driver's license, he goes to the Palace of Justice and collides on the stairs with the lawyer Rosello, who comes downstairs in the company of two men. Laurana knows well the deputy Abello, famous for his scholarship, but she sees his companion for the first time. This man with a broad, rough face smokes Branca cigars - a stub of just such a cigar was found at the scene of the murder of the pharmacist Manco and Dr. Rochot. Soon Laurana finds out that she was not mistaken in her assumptions: the man who smoked cigars is a member of the local mafia.

After the meeting at the Palace of Justice, Rosello's lawyer starts avoiding Laurana. On the contrary, the beautiful signora Louise takes a keen interest in him. Laurana almost feels sorry for Rosello and is not going to inform: he has a deep disgust for the law and, like all Sicilians, deep down he considers a double-barreled shotgun to be the best way to fight for justice.

In early November, Laurana goes to class and is surprised to see the widow Rosho on the bus. Signora Louise admits that she thought a lot about her husband's trip to Rome, and recently she managed to find the doctor's secret diary behind the books. Now she had no doubts: Cousin Rosello most likely arranged the murder. Laurana does not believe her ears: this lovely woman is pure - in vain he offended her with suspicions. They agree on a date at the Romerio cafe at seven o'clock in the evening. Lauran waits in excitement until half past nine - Louise is gone, and anxiety for her life is growing in him. He goes to the station square, and then a resident of the town, familiar to him by sight, but not by name, kindly offers to give him a ride.

The case of the disappearance of Paolo Laurana has to be closed: he was seen in the Romeris cafe, and he was obviously waiting for someone - apparently, it was a love date. Perhaps he will still return home, like a walking March cat. Unknown to the police, Laurana's body lies at the bottom of an abandoned sulfur mine.

A year later, on the day of the feast of Mary the maiden, Canon Rosello, as usual, gathers friends. The mourning is over, and the engagement of the lawyer's nephew to his niece Louise can be announced. Notary Pecorilla and Don Luigi Corvaia go out onto the balcony. Both are eager to share the secret: the poor pharmacist had nothing to do with it - Rosho caught his wife and cousin at the scene of the crime and demanded that Rosello get out of town, otherwise information about his dirty deeds will appear in the press. As for the unfortunate Laurana, he was just a fool.

E. D. Murashkintseva

(Il barone rampante)

Roman (1957)

The incredible events of this novel, which combines the features of an essay, a utopia, and a philosophical and satirical story, take place at the turn of the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries. His hero, Baron Cosimo di Rondo, at the age of twelve, protesting against the boiled snails served every day for dinner, climbs a tree and decides to spend his whole life there, making it a rule never to touch the ground. And so, strictly fulfilling his decision, young Cosimo begins to equip his life in the trees.

Learning to move from tree to tree, he finds himself in the garden of the Marquis d'Ondariva, where he meets his daughter Viola. However, their friendship does not last long - the girl is soon sent to a boarding school.

Cosimo is supplied by his younger brother Biagio - he brings him blankets, umbrellas, food and everything necessary for life. The humble Abbé Voschlafleur, teaching the brothers all the sciences, gives Cosimo lessons in the open air. Biagio sees how his older brother, "sitting on an elm branch and dangling his legs, and the abbot - below, in the middle of the lawn on a bench," repeat hexameters in one voice. Then Biagio watches as the abbot, "dangling his long thin legs in black stockings," tries to sit on a tree branch.

Cosimo successfully hunts and, like Robinson Crusoe, sews clothes for himself from the skins of the animals he has killed. He tames Viola's forgotten dachshund and names it Ottimo-Massimo, believing that the girl will like it.

Cosimo fishes, catches swarms of bees and gradually ceases to observe the customs established in the family, such as going to mass, and less and less appears on the oak branch near the open window of the church.

In the forest where Cosimo lives, the robber Forest Jan is in charge. One day, when the young baron is sitting on a branch and reading Le Sage's "Gille Blas", Lesnoy Gian jumps out into the clearing: he is being chased by the gathering. Cosimo saves the robber, and he asks him to read a book. A touching friendship develops between them. Now all the books from the home library that Biagio brings to his brother are also read by Lesny Jan, from whom they return "disheveled, with mold spots and snail marks, because God knows where he kept them." The robber gets used to reading, and "soon for the brother, always urged on by the insatiable robber, reading from half an hour of fun turned into the main occupation and the main goal", because before giving the book to the robber, he has to at least look through it: Forest Jan is picky and does not read bad books. Gradually, the formidable robber becomes disgusted with "criminal and vicious people", ceases to engage in his robbery business, ends up in prison, and then on the gallows - like the hero of the last book he read.

During his acquaintance with the robber, Cosimo develops an irrepressible passion for reading and serious pursuits. He himself is looking for the abbot Aoshlafler and demands that he explain this or that subject to him. The kindest abbot writes out the latest books for his pupil, and gradually a rumor spreads around the district that "a priest who watches over all the most blasphemous books in Europe" lives in the castle of Baron di Rondo. The church tribunal arrests the abbot, and he has to spend the rest of his life in "prison and monastery." Cosimo, who went hunting, does not have time to say goodbye to his mentor.

Cosimo enters into correspondence with the greatest scientists and philosophers of Europe. Unfortunately, these letters disappeared without a trace - "for sure they were eaten away by mold and gnawed by squirrels."

Reading the "Encyclopedia" by Diderot and d'Alembert, Cosimo is imbued with the desire to "do something for the good of his neighbor." With the help of Ogtimo-Massimo, he prevents a wildfire and then saves the locals from Muslim pirates.

Despite his hectic life, Cosimo does not feel satisfied: he still has not met love - how to find love in the trees? Unexpectedly, he learns that a whole colony of Spaniards lives in the trees in Olivebass, and immediately embarks on a journey through the forests, "at great risk overcoming areas where there is almost no vegetation."

In Olivebass, a colony of exiles really settled on the trees - Spanish feudal lords who rebelled against King Charles III because of some privileges. Cosimo meets Ursula and learns the mystery of love. Soon forgiveness comes out to the Spaniards, they descend from the trees and leave; Ursula's father calls Cosimo with him - by marrying his daughter, he will become his heir. The young man refuses: "I settled in the trees before you, I will stay in them after you!" he answers.

Arriving home, Cosimo falls seriously ill. Recovering, he, forced to sit motionless on a tree, begins to write "The draft constitution of an ideal state located in the trees," in which he describes an imaginary above-ground republic inhabited by just people. He sends his work to Diderot. Rumors about Cosimo roam Europe, newspapermen in their fabrications place him somewhere "between a hermaphrodite and a siren." Viola returns - she grew up and became a real beauty. Children's affection turns into a violent passion. "For Cosimo, and for Viola too, the most wonderful time in her life began, she rushed through the fields and roads on her white horse and, seeing Cosimo between the foliage and the sky, she immediately got off her horse, climbed up the crooked trunk and thick branches" . Lovers get to know each other and themselves. But time passes, passionate lovers quarrel and part forever.

After that, "Cosimo walked for a long time in rags through the trees, sobbing and refusing to eat." The Baron is insane. It was during this period that he mastered the art of printing and began to publish pamphlets and newspapers. Gradually reason returns to Cosimo; he becomes a Freemason, and the journal he publishes is called The Intelligent Vertebrate.

The winds of freedom are blowing over Europe, a revolution is taking place in France. Cosimo helps the locals get rid of the tolls and tax collectors. A tree of freedom is planted in the village square, and Cosimo, with a tricolor cockade on a fur hat from the top, makes a speech about Rousseau and Voltaire.

Cosimo successfully exterminates the Austrian regiment that has gone deep into the forest and inspires a detachment of French volunteers under the command of the poet, Lieutenant Papillon, to fight. Soon, the French troops from the republican become imperial and pretty sick of the locals. Making a trip to Italy after the coronation, Napoleon meets with the famous "patriot living in trees" and says: "If I were not Emperor Napoleon, I would like to be a citizen of Cosimo Rondo!"

Cosimo is getting old. Napoleon's army is defeated on the Berezina, the British land in Genoa, everyone is waiting for new coups. The nineteenth century, having begun badly, continues even worse. "The shadow of the Restoration hangs over Europe; all reformers, whether Jacobins or Bonapartists, are defeated; absolutism and the Jesuits triumph again, the ideals of youth, the bright lights and hopes of our eighteenth century - everything has turned to ashes." Ill Cosimo spends whole days lying on a bed set on a tree, basking near the brazier. Suddenly, a hot air balloon appears in the sky, and at the moment when it flies past Cosimo, he "with truly youthful dexterity" grabs his dangling rope with an anchor and, blown away by the wind, disappears into the sea distance.

"Thus disappeared Cosimo, without giving us the consolation of seeing him return to earth even dead."

E. V. Morozova

(Nome Della Rosa)

Roman (1980)

The Notes of Father Adson from Melk fell into the hands of the future translator and publisher in Prague in 1968. On the title page of the French book of the middle of the last century, it appears that it is a transcription from the Latin text of the XNUMXth century, allegedly reproducing, in turn, the manuscript , created by a German monk at the end of the XIV century. Investigations undertaken in relation to the author of the French translation, the Latin original, as well as the personality of Adson himself do not bring results. Subsequently, the strange book (perhaps a fake that exists in a single copy) disappears from the publisher's field of vision, adding one more link to the unreliable chain of retellings of this medieval story.

In his declining years, the Benedictine monk Adson recalls the events he witnessed and participated in in 1327. Europe is shaken by political and ecclesiastical strife. Emperor Louis confronts Pope John XXII. At the same time, the pope is fighting the monastic order of the Franciscans, in which the reform movement of non-acquisitive spiritualists, who had previously been severely persecuted by the papal curia, prevailed. the Franciscans unite with the emperor and become a significant force in the political game.

In this turmoil, Adson, then still a young novice, accompanies the English Franciscan William of Baskerville on a journey through the cities and largest monasteries of Italy. Wilhelm - a thinker and theologian, a tester of nature, famous for his powerful analytical mind, a friend of William of Ockham and a student of Roger Bacon - performs the emperor's task to prepare and hold a preliminary meeting between the imperial delegation of the Franciscans and representatives of the curia, In the abbey where it should take place, Wilhelm and Adson arrive a few days before the arrival of the embassies. The meeting should take the form of a debate about the poverty of Christ and the church; its purpose is to clarify the positions of the parties and the possibility of a future visit of the Franciscan general to the papal throne in Avignon.

Having not yet entered the monastery, Wilhelm surprises the monks, who went out in search of a runaway horse, with accurate deductive conclusions. And the rector of the abbey immediately turns to him with a request to investigate the strange death that happened in the monastery. The body of the young monk Adelma was found at the bottom of the cliff, perhaps he was thrown out of the tower of a tall building hanging over the abyss, called Khramina here. The abbot hints that he knows the true circumstances of the death of Adelmo, but he is bound by a secret confession, and therefore the truth must come from other, unsealed lips.

Wilhelm receives permission to interrogate all the monks without exception and examine any premises of the monastery - except for the famous monastery library. The largest in the Christian world, capable of being compared with the semi-legendary libraries of the infidels, it is located on the top floor of the Temple; only the librarian and his assistant have access to it, only they know the layout of the storehouse, built like a labyrinth, and the system for arranging books on the shelves. Other monks: copyists, rubricators, translators, who flock here from all over Europe, work with books in the copying room - the scriptorium. The librarian alone decides when and how to provide the book to the one who claimed it, and whether to provide it at all, for there are many pagan and heretical works here.

In the scriptorium, Wilhelm and Adson meet the librarian Malachi, his assistant Berengar, the translator from Greek, Venantius, an adherent of Aristotle, and the young rhetorician Bentius. The late Adelm, a skilled draftsman, decorated the margins of his manuscripts with fantastic miniatures. As soon as the monks laugh, looking at them, the blind brother Jorge appears in the scriptorium with a reproach that laughter and idle talk are indecent in the monastery. This man, glorious for years, righteousness and learning, lives with a sense of the onset of the last times and in anticipation of the imminent appearance of the Antichrist. Looking around the abbey, Wilhelm comes to the conclusion that Adelm, most likely, was not killed, but committed suicide by throwing himself down from the monastery wall, and the body was subsequently transferred to Khramina by a landslide,

But on the same night, in a barrel of fresh blood from slaughtered pigs, the corpse of Venantius was found. Wilhelm, studying the traces, determines that the monk was killed somewhere else, most likely in Khramina, and thrown into a barrel already dead. But meanwhile, there are no wounds on the body, nor any injuries or signs of a struggle.

Noticing that Benzius is more excited than others, and Berengar is frankly frightened, Wilhelm immediately interrogates both. Berengar admits that he saw Adelm on the night of his death: the face of the draftsman was like the face of a dead man, and Adelm said that he was cursed and doomed to eternal torment, which he described to the shocked interlocutor very convincingly. Benzius also reports that two days before the death of Adelmos, a dispute took place in the scriptorium about the admissibility of the ridiculous in the image of the divine and that holy truths are better represented in gross bodies than in noble ones. In the heat of the argument, Berengar inadvertently let slip, albeit very vaguely, about something carefully hidden in the library. The mention of this was associated with the word "Africa", and in the catalog, among the designations understandable only to the librarian, Benzius saw the visa "the limit of Africa", but when, intrigued, he asked for a book with this visa, Malachi declared that all these books were lost. Benzius also tells about what he witnessed, following Berengar after the dispute. Wilhelm receives confirmation of the version of Adelm's suicide: apparently, in exchange for a certain service that could be associated with Berengar's abilities as an assistant librarian, the latter persuaded the draftsman to Sodom sin, the severity of which Adelm, however, could not bear and hurried to confess to the blind Jorge, but instead absolution received a formidable promise of imminent and terrible punishment. The consciousness of the local monks is too excited, on the one hand, by a painful desire for book knowledge, on the other hand, by the constantly terrifying memory of the devil and hell, and this often makes them literally see with their own eyes something that they read or hear about. Adelm considers himself already in hell and in desperation decides to take his own life.

Wilhelm is trying to inspect the manuscripts and books on the Venantius table in the scriptorium. But first Jorge, then Benzius, under various pretexts, distract him. Wilhelm asks Malachi to put someone at the table on guard, and at night, together with Adson, he returns here through the discovered underground passage, which the librarian uses after he locks the doors of the Temple from the inside in the evening. Among the papers of Venantius, they find a parchment with incomprehensible extracts and signs of cryptography, but there is no book on the table that Wilhelm saw here during the day. Someone with a careless sound betrays his presence in the scriptorium. Wilhelm rushes in pursuit and suddenly a book that fell from the fugitive falls into the light of a lantern, but the unknown person manages to grab it before Wilhelm and hide.

At night, the library is stronger than locks and prohibitions guarded by fear. Many monks believe that terrible creatures and the souls of dead librarians roam among the books in the darkness. Wilhelm is skeptical of such superstitions and does not miss the opportunity to study the vault, where Adson experiences the effects of illusion-creating distorting mirrors and a lamp impregnated with a vision-inducing compound. The labyrinth turns out to be more difficult than Wilhelm thought, and only by chance do they manage to find a way out. From the alarmed abbot, they learn about the disappearance of Berengar.

The dead assistant librarian is found only a day later in a bathhouse located next to the monastery hospital. The herbalist and healer Severin draws Wilhelm's attention that there are traces of some substance on Berengar's fingers. The herbalist says that he saw the same at Venantius, when the corpse was washed from the blood. In addition, Berengar's tongue turned black - apparently, the monk was poisoned before he drowned in the water. Severin says that once upon a time he kept an extremely poisonous potion, the properties of which he himself did not know, and then it disappeared under strange circumstances. The poison was known to Malachi, the abbot and Berengar.

Meanwhile, embassies are coming to the monastery. Inquisitor Bernard Guy arrives with the papal delegation. Wilhelm does not hide his dislike for him personally and his methods. Bernard announces that from now on he himself will be investigating incidents in the monastery, which, in his opinion, smell strongly of the devil.

Wilhelm and Adson infiltrate the library again to plan the maze. It turns out that the storage rooms are marked with letters, from which, if you pass in a certain order, catch words and names of countries are made up. The "limit of Africa" ​​is also discovered - a camouflaged and tightly closed room, but they do not find a way to enter it. Bernard Guy arrested and accused of witchcraft an assistant doctor and a village girl, whom he brings at night to appease his patron's lust for the remains of the monastery meals; On the eve, Adson also met her and could not resist the temptation. Now the fate of the girl is decided - as a witch she will go to the fire.

The fraternal discussion between the Franciscans and the representatives of the pope turns into a vulgar fight, during which Severin informs Wilhelm, who has remained aloof from the battle, that he has found a strange book in his laboratory. Their conversation is heard by the blind Jorge, but Bencius also guesses that Severin has discovered something left from Berengar. The dispute, which was resumed after a general reconciliation, is interrupted by the news that the herbalist was found dead in the hospital and the killer has already been captured.

The herbalist's skull was smashed in by a metal celestial globe that stood on the laboratory table. Wilhelm searches Severin's fingers for traces of the same substance that Berengar and Venantius have, but the herbalist's hands are covered with leather gloves used when working with dangerous drugs. At the scene of the crime, the cellar Remigius is caught, who tries in vain to justify himself and declares that he came to the hospital when Severin was already dead. Benzius tells Wilhelm that he ran in here one of the first, then followed the incoming and is sure: Malachi was already here, waiting in a niche behind the canopy, and then imperceptibly mixed with other monks. Wilhelm is convinced that no one could take the big book out of here secretly and, if the killer is Malachi, it must still be in the laboratory. Wilhelm and Adson embark on a search, but overlook the fact that sometimes ancient manuscripts were intertwined several in one volume. As a result, the book remains unnoticed by them among others that belonged to Severin, and ends up with the more perceptive Bentius.

Bernard Guy conducts a trial of the cellar and, having convicted him of belonging once to one of the heretical movements, forces him to accept the blame for the murders in the abbey. The inquisitor is not interested in who actually killed the monks, but he seeks to prove that the former heretic, now declared a murderer, shared the views of the spiritual Franciscans. This allows you to disrupt the meeting, which, apparently, was the purpose for which he was sent here by the pope.

To Wilhelm's demand to hand over the book, Benzius replies that, without even starting to read, he is more faithful to Malachi, from whom he received an offer to take the vacant position of an assistant librarian. A few hours later, during a church service, Malachi dies in convulsions, his tongue is black and on his fingers the marks already familiar to Wilhelm.

The abbot announces to William that the Franciscan has not lived up to his expectations and the next morning he must leave the monastery with Adson. Wilhelm objects that he has known for a long time about the sodomy monks, the settling of accounts between which the abbot considered the cause of the crimes. However, this is not the true reason: those who are aware of the existence in the library of the "limit of Africa" ​​are dying. The abbot cannot hide the fact that William's words led him to some kind of conjecture, but he insists all the more firmly on the departure of the Englishman; now he intends to take matters into his own hands and under his own responsibility.

But Wilhelm is not going to retreat, because he came close to the decision. At a random prompt from Adson, he manages to read in the cryptography of Venantius the key that opens the "limit of Africa." On the sixth night of their stay at the abbey, they enter the secret room of the library. Blind Jorge is waiting for them inside.

Wilhelm expected to meet him here. The very omissions of the monks, entries in the library catalog and some facts allowed him to find out that Jorge was once a librarian, and feeling that he was going blind, first taught his first successor, then Malachi. Neither one nor the other could work without his help and did not step a step without asking him. The abbot was also dependent on him, because he got his place with his help. For forty years the blind man has been the sovereign master of the monastery. And he believed that some of the library's manuscripts should forever remain hidden from anyone's eyes. When, through the fault of Berengar, one of them - perhaps the most important - left these walls, Jorge made every effort to bring her back. This book is the second part of Aristotle's Poetics, which is considered lost and is dedicated to laughter and the ridiculous in art, rhetoric, and the skill of persuasion. In order to keep its existence a secret, Jorge commits a crime without hesitation, for he is convinced that if laughter is sanctified by the authority of Aristotle, the entire established medieval hierarchy of values ​​will collapse, and the culture nurtured in monasteries remote from the world, the culture of the chosen and initiated, will swept away by urban, grassroots, areal.

Jorge admits that he understood from the very beginning that sooner or later Wilhelm would discover the truth, and he watched the Englishman approach it step by step. He hands Wilhelm a book, for the desire to see which five people have already paid with their lives, and offers to read it. But the Franciscan says that he figured out this diabolical trick of his, and restores the course of events. Many years ago, having heard someone in the scriptorium showing interest in the "limit of Africa", the still sighted Jorge steals poison from Severin, but does not immediately let him into action. But when Berengar, out of boasting before Adelmo, once behaved unrestrainedly, the already blind old man goes upstairs and soaks the pages of the book with poison. Adelm, who agreed to a shameful sin in order to touch the secret, did not use the information obtained at such a price, but, seized with mortal horror after confession from Jorge, tells Venantius about everything. Venantius reaches the book, but he has to wet his fingers on his tongue to separate the soft parchment sheets. He dies before he can get out of the Temple. Berengar finds the body and, fearing that the investigation will inevitably reveal what was between him and Adelmo, he transfers the corpse to a barrel of blood. However, he, too, became interested in the book, which he snatched in the scriptorium almost out of Wilhelm's hands. He brings her to the hospital, where he can read at night without fear of being seen by anyone. And when the poison begins to act, he rushes into the pool in the vain hope that the water will extinguish the flame that devours him from the inside. So the book gets to Severin. The sent Jorge Malachi kills the herbalist, but he himself dies, wishing to know what such a forbidden thing is contained in the object, because of which he was made a murderer. The last in this row is the abbot. After a conversation with Wilhelm, he demanded an explanation from Jorge, moreover: he demanded to open the "limit of Africa" ​​and put an end to the secrecy established in the library by the blind man and his predecessors. Now he is suffocating in the stone sack of yet another underground passage to the library, where Jorge locked him up and then broke the mechanisms that controlled the doors.

“So the dead died in vain,” says Wilhelm: now the book has been found, and he managed to protect himself from the poison of Jorge. But in fulfillment of his plan, the elder is ready to accept death himself. Jorge tears up the book and eats the poisoned pages, and when Wilhelm tries to stop him, he runs, unerringly navigating the library from memory. The lamp in the hands of the pursuers still gives them some advantage. However, the overtaken blind man manages to take away the lamp and throw it aside. Spilled oil starts a fire;

Wilhelm and Adson rush to fetch water, but return too late. The efforts of all the brethren raised in alarm lead to nothing; the fire breaks out and spreads from Khramina first to the church, then to the rest of the buildings.

Before the eyes of Adson, the richest monastery turns into ashes. The abbey burns for three days. By the end of the third day, the monks, having collected what little they managed to save, leave the smoking ruins as a place cursed by God.

M. V. Butov

(Il Pendolo di Foucault)

Roman (1988)

The plot of this novel by a famous Italian writer, philologist and literary historian falls on the beginning of the seventies of the XX century, a time when youth riots were still raging in Italy. However, the "political choice" of the narrator, a student of the Casaubon University of Milan, becomes, in his own words, philology:

"I have come to this as a man who boldly picks up the texts of speeches about the truth, preparing to edit them." He strikes up a friendship with the scientific editor of the Garamon publishing house Belbo and his colleague Diotallevi, which does not interfere with the age difference; they are united by an interest in the mysteries of the human mind and in the Middle Ages.

Casaubon writes a dissertation on the Templars; Before the reader's eyes passes the history of this chivalric brotherhood, its emergence, participation in the crusades, the circumstances of the trial, which ended in the execution of the leaders of the order and its dissolution.

Further, the novel enters the realm of hypotheses - Casaubon and his friends are trying to trace the posthumous fate of the Order of the Knights of the Temple. The starting point for their efforts is the appearance at the publishing house of a retired colonel, confident that he has discovered the encrypted Plan of the knights of the order, the plan of a secret conspiracy, a plan for revenge, designed to last for centuries. A day later, the colonel disappears without a trace; he is presumed to have been killed; this incident itself, or the unpleasant aftertaste left from it, separates Casaubon from his friends. The separation drags on for several years: after graduating from the university and defending his diploma, he leaves for Brazil as a teacher of Italian.

The immediate reason for leaving is his love for a local native of Amparo, a beautiful half-breed, imbued with the ideas of Marx and the pathos of a rational explanation of the world. However, the very magical atmosphere of the country and the unusual encounters that fate throws up to him with inexplicable persistence force Casaubon to make a reverse evolution almost imperceptibly for himself: the advantages of rational interpretations seem to him less and less obvious. He again tries to study the history of ancient cults and hermetic teachings, introducing the skeptical Amparo to his studies; he is attracted to the land of sorcerers - Baia, in the same degree as the lecture on the Rosicrucians read by an Italian compatriot, by all indications - one of those charlatans, the number of which he has yet to guess. His efforts to penetrate the nature of the mysterious are bearing fruit, but for him they turn out to be bitter: during the magical rite, in which they were invited as a sign of special disposition, Amparo falls into a trance against his own will and, waking up, cannot forgive this either. yourself, not him. After spending another year in Brazil after that, Casaubon returns.

In Milan, he meets Belbo again and through him receives an invitation to collaborate with the Garamon publishing house. At first, it is about compiling a scientific encyclopedia of metals, but soon the area of ​​​​his interests expands significantly, again capturing the sphere of the mysterious and esoteric; he admits to himself that it is becoming more and more difficult for him to separate the world of magic from the world of science: people about whom he was told at school that they carried the light of mathematics and physics into the jungle of superstition, as it turns out, made their discoveries, "based on on the one hand, on the laboratory, and on the other, on Kabbalah. The so-called "Hermes" project, the brainchild of Mr. Garamond, the head of the publishing house, contributes a lot to this; Casaubon himself, Belbo, and Diotallevi are connected to its implementation. Its essence lies in the fact that "by announcing a series of publications on the occult, magic, etc., to attract both serious authors and fanatics, crazy, ready to pay money for the publication of their creations; whose relationship with "Garamon" is kept in the strictest confidence; it is intended for the publication of books at the expense of the authors, which in practice comes down to the merciless "milking" of their wallets. Among the occultists, "Garamon" counts on a rich catch and therefore urges Belbo and his friends not neglect anyone.

However, publications intended for "Garamon" still must meet certain requirements; on the recommendation of Casaubon, a certain Mr. Aglie, who he knows from Brazil, is invited as a scientific consultant for the project, either an adventurer, or a descendant of a noble family, perhaps a count, but in any case a rich man, with a delicate taste and undoubtedly deep knowledge in the field of magic and the occult sciences; he talks about the most ancient magical rituals as if he himself were present at them; in fact, sometimes he directly alludes to it. At the same time, he is not at all a snob, he does not shy away from obvious charlatans and psychos, and he is sure that even in the most useless text one can find "a spark, if not of truth, then at least of an unusual deception, and in fact often these extremes are in contact." Hoping to divert a stream of tares with his help, directing it to enrich their master, and perhaps find in it a few grains of truth for themselves, the heroes suppressed by the authority of the "Mr. Count" find themselves forced to wallow in this stream, not daring to reject anything: in any chaff there may be a grain, invisible and undetectable by either logic, or intuition, or common sense, or experience. Here are the words of the poor fellow-alchemist, overheard by Casaubon during another, this time not distant, shamanic, but utterly close to their native homes, where they get at the invitation of Aglie: "I tried everything: blood, hair, the soul of Saturn, marcasite, garlic, Martian saffron, iron shavings and slags, lead litharge, antimony - all in vain. I worked to extract oil and water from silver; I fired silver with specially prepared salt and without it, as well as with vodka, and I extracted caustic oils from it, that's all. I used milk, wine, rennet, sperm of stars that fell to the earth, celandine, placenta; I mixed mercury with metals, turning them into crystals; I directed my search even to ashes ... Finally ...

- What - finally?

- Nothing in the world requires more caution than the truth. Discovering it is like drawing blood straight from the heart ... "

Truth is capable of turning or destroying the world, because it has no defense against it. But the truth has not yet been discovered; that is why nothing should be neglected - it is better to try again everything that has ever been the subject of the efforts and hopes of any of the initiates. Let it be unjustified; let it be erroneous (and what then were they dedicated to?) - it doesn’t matter. "Each mistake can turn out to be a fleeting bearer of the truth," says Aglie. "Real esotericism is not afraid of contradictions."

And this whirlpool of erroneous truths and errors fraught with truth again pushes friends in search of the Plan of the Knights Templar; the mysterious document left by the disappeared colonel is studied by them again and again, and historical interpretations are sought for each of its points: this was allegedly carried out by the Rosicrucians, these are the Paulicians, the Jesuits, Bacon, the Assassins had a hand here ... If the Plan really exists, it should explain everything;

under this motto the history of the world is being rewritten, and gradually the thought "we have found the Plan according to which the world moves" is replaced by the thought "the world moves according to our Plan".

Summer passes; Diotallevi returns from vacation already seriously ill, Belbo is even more enthusiastic about the Plan, good luck in working on which compensates for his defeats in real life, and Casaubon is preparing to become a father: his new girlfriend Leah is due to give birth soon. Their efforts, meanwhile, are nearing completion: they understand that the place of the last meeting of the participants in the Plan should be the Paris Museum in the abbey church of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, the Vault of Arts and Crafts, where the Foucault Pendulum is located, which at a strictly defined moment will indicate to them point on the map - the entrance to the domain of the King of the World, the center of telluric currents, the Navel of the Earth, Umbilicus Mundi. They gradually assure themselves that they know both the day and the hour, it remains to find a map, but then Diotallevi finds himself in the hospital with the most disappointing diagnosis, Casaubon leaves with Leah and the baby for the mountains, and Belbo, driven by jealousy for Aglie, who became his happy rival in his personal life, decides to share with him their knowledge of the Plan, keeping silent about the absence of both the map and the certainty that all this decoding is not the product of a common raging imagination.

Leah, meanwhile, proves to Casaubon that those fragmentary notes of the late XNUMXth century, which they took for an outline of the Plan, are most likely the calculations of the owner of the flower shop, Diotallevi at death; his cells refuse to obey him and build his body according to their own plan, whose name is cancer; Belbo is in the hands of Aglie and a pack of his associates, who first found a way to blackmail him, and then lured him to Paris and forced him, under pain of death, to share with them the last secret - the map. Casaubon rushes in search of him, but manages to catch only the finale: in the Vault of Arts and Crafts, a distraught crowd of alchemists, hermetists, satanists and other gnostics led by Aglie, here already, however, called Count Saint-Germain, desperate to get recognition from Belbo in the location of the map , executes him by strangling him with a rope tied to the Foucault Pendulum; at the same time, his beloved also dies. Casaubon flees; the next day there is no trace of yesterday's incident in the museum, but Casaubon has no doubt that now it will be his turn, especially since, when leaving Paris, he learns of the death of Diotallevi. One was killed by people who believed in their Plan, the other by cells who believed in the possibility of creating their own and acting on it; Casaubon, not wanting to endanger his beloved and the child, locks himself in Belbo's house, leafing through other people's papers and waiting for who and how will come to kill him.

V. V. Prorokova

(Cien anos de soledad)

Roman (1967)

The founders of the Buendia family, José Arcadio and Ursula, were cousins. Relatives were afraid that they would give birth to a child with a pig tail. Ursula knows about the dangers of incestuous marriage, and Jose Arcadio does not want to take into account such nonsense. Over the course of a year and a half of marriage, Ursula manages to maintain her innocence, the nights of the newlyweds are filled with a painful and cruel struggle that replaces love joys. During the cockfight, José Arcadio's rooster defeats Prudencio Aguilar's rooster, and he, annoyed, mocks his rival, questioning his manhood, since Ursula is still a virgin. Outraged, José Arcadio goes home for a spear and kills Prudencio, and then, brandishing the same spear, forces Ursula to fulfill his marital duties. But from now on, they have no rest from the bloodied ghost of Aguilar. Deciding to move to a new place of residence, José Arcadio, as if making a sacrifice, kills all his roosters, buries a spear in the yard and leaves the village with his wife and the villagers.

Twenty-two brave men overcome an impregnable mountain range in search of the sea and, after two years of fruitless wanderings, they establish the village of Macondo on the banks of the river - Jose Arcadio had a prophetic indication of this in a dream. And now, in a large clearing, two dozen huts made of clay and bamboo grow.

Jose Arcadio burns a passion for knowing the world - more than anything else, he is attracted by various wonderful things that the gypsies who appear once a year deliver to the village: magnet bars, a magnifying glass, navigation instruments; from their leader, Melquíades, he also learns the secrets of alchemy, exhausts himself with long vigils and the feverish work of an inflamed imagination. Having lost interest in another extravagant undertaking, he returns to a measured working life, equips the village together with his neighbors, demarcates the land, paves the roads. Life in Macondo is patriarchal, respectable, happy, there is not even a cemetery here, because no one dies. Ursula starts a profitable production of animals and birds from candy. But with the appearance in the house of Buendia, who knows where Rebeca came from, who becomes their adopted daughter, an epidemic of insomnia begins in Macondo. The inhabitants of the village diligently redo all their affairs and begin to toil with painful idleness. And then another misfortune hits Macondo - an epidemic of forgetfulness. Everyone lives in a reality that constantly eludes them, forgetting the names of objects. They decide to hang signs on them, but they fear that after time they will not be able to remember the purpose of the objects.

José Arcadio intends to build a memory machine, but the gypsy wanderer, the magical scientist Melquiades, comes to the rescue with his healing potion. According to his prophecy, Macondo will disappear from the face of the earth, and in its place a sparkling city will grow with large houses made of transparent glass, but there will be no trace of the Buendia family in it. Jose Arcadio does not want to believe it: Buendia will always be. Melquíades introduces José Arcadio to another wonderful invention, which is destined to play a fatal role in his destiny. The most audacious undertaking of José Arcadio is to capture God with the help of daguerreotype in order to scientifically prove the existence of the Almighty or disprove it. Eventually Buendía goes mad and ends his days chained to a large chestnut tree in his backyard.

In the first-born José Arcadio, named the same as his father, his aggressive sexuality was embodied. He wastes years of his life on countless adventures. The second son, Aureliano, absent-minded and lethargic, is mastering jewelry making. In the meantime, the village is growing, turning into a provincial town, acquiring a corregidor, a priest, an institution of Katarino - the first breach in the wall of "good morality" of the Makondos. Aureliano's imagination is stunned by the beauty of the daughter of Corregidor Remedios. And Rebeca and another daughter of Ursula Amaranta fall in love with an Italian piano master, Pietro Crespi. There are violent quarrels, jealousy boils, but in the end, Rebeca prefers the "supermale" Jose Arcadio, who, ironically, is overtaken by a quiet family life under the heel of his wife and a bullet fired by an unknown person, most likely the same wife. Rebeca decides to go into seclusion, burying herself alive in the house. Out of cowardice, selfishness and fear, Amaranta refuses love, in her declining years she begins to weave a shroud for herself and fades away, having finished it. When Redemios dies from childbirth, Aureliano, oppressed by disappointed hopes, remains in a passive, dreary state. However, the cynical machinations of his father-corregidor with ballots during the elections and the arbitrariness of the military in his hometown force him to leave to fight on the side of the liberals, although politics seems to him something abstract. The war forges his character, but devastates his soul, since, in essence, the struggle for national interests has long turned into a struggle for power.

The grandson of Ursula Arcadio, a school teacher appointed during the war years as the civil and military ruler of Macondo, behaves like an autocratic owner, becoming a local tyrant, and at the next change of power in the town he is shot by conservatives.

Aureliano Buendia becomes the supreme commander of the revolutionary forces, but gradually realizes that he is fighting only out of pride and decides to end the war in order to free himself. On the day of the signing of the truce, he tries to commit suicide, but fails. Then he returns to the ancestral home, renounces his lifelong pension and lives apart from his family and, shutting himself up in splendid solitude, is engaged in the manufacture of goldfish with emerald eyes.

Civilization comes to Macondo: the railway, electricity, cinema, telephone, and at the same time an avalanche of foreigners falls, establishing a banana company on these fertile lands. And now the once heavenly corner has been turned into a haunted place, a cross between a fair, a rooming house and a brothel. Seeing the disastrous changes, Colonel Aureliano Buendia, who for many years deliberately fenced himself off from the surrounding reality, feels a dull rage and regret that he did not bring the war to a decisive end. His seventeen sons by seventeen different women, the eldest of whom was under thirty-five, were killed on the same day. Doomed to remain in the desert of loneliness, he dies near the mighty old chestnut tree growing in the courtyard of the house.

Ursula watches with concern the folly of her descendants, War, fighting cocks, bad women and crazy ideas - these are the four disasters that caused the decline of the Brndía family, she thinks and laments: the great-grandchildren Aureliano Segundo and José Arcadio Segundo collected all family vices without inheriting a single family virtues. The beauty of the great-granddaughter Remedios the Beautiful spreads the destructive breath of death around, but here the girl, strange, alien to all conventions, incapable of love and not knowing this feeling, obeying free attraction, ascends on freshly washed and hung out to dry sheets, picked up by the wind. The dashing reveler Aureliano Segundo marries the aristocrat Fernanda del Carpio, but spends a lot of time away from home, with his mistress Petra Cotes. Jose Arcadio Segundo breeds fighting cocks, prefers the company of French hetaerae. The turning point in him comes when he narrowly escapes death in the shooting of striking banana company workers. Driven by fear, he hides in the abandoned room of Melquiades, where he suddenly finds peace and plunges into the study of the sorcerer's parchments. In his eyes, the brother sees a repetition of the irreparable fate of his great-grandfather. And over Macondo it begins to rain, and it pours for four years, eleven months and two days. After the rain, lethargic, slow people cannot resist the insatiable voracity of oblivion.

Ursula's last years are overshadowed by the struggle with Fernanda, a hard-hearted hypocrite who has made lies and hypocrisy the basis of family life. She brings up her son as an idler, imprisons her daughter Meme, who has sinned with the artisan, in a monastery. Macondo, from which the banana company has squeezed all the juices, is reaching the limit of launch. José Arcadio, the son of Fernanda, returns to this dead town, covered with dust and exhausted by heat, after the death of his mother, and finds the illegitimate nephew Aureliano Babilonia in the devastated family nest. Maintaining a languid dignity and aristocratic manner, he devotes his time to lascivious games, and Aureliano, in the room of Melquiades, is immersed in the translation of encrypted verses of old parchments and makes progress in the study of Sanskrit.

Coming from Europe, where she received her education, Amaranta Ursula is obsessed with the dream of reviving Macondo. Smart and energetic, she tries to breathe life into the local human society, pursued by misfortunes, but to no avail. Reckless, destructive, all-consuming passion connects Aureliano with his aunt. A young couple is expecting a child, Amaranta Ursula hopes that he is destined to revive the family and cleanse it of fatal vices and a call to loneliness. The baby, the only Buendia born in a century, is conceived in love, but he is born with a pig's tail, and Amaranta Ursula dies of bleeding. The last of the Buendia family is destined to be eaten by the red ants that infest the house. With ever-increasing gusts of wind, Aureliano reads the story of the Buendia family in the parchments of Melquiades, learning that he was not destined to leave the room, because according to the prophecy, the city will be swept off the face of the earth by a hurricane and erased from the memory of people at the very moment when he finishes deciphering the parchments.

L. M. Burmistrova

(El coronel no tiene quien le escriba)

Tale (1968)

The action takes place in Colombia in 1956, when a fierce struggle between political factions took place in the country and an atmosphere of violence and terror reigned.

On the outskirts of a small provincial town, an old married couple who have fallen into poverty live in a house with peeling walls and covered with palm leaves. The Colonel is seventy-five years old, "a hard-wired, dry man with eyes full of life."

On a rainy October morning, the colonel feels as bad as ever: faintness, weakness, pain in the stomach, "as if the insides were gnawed by wild animals." And my wife had an asthma attack last night. The ringing of the bell reminds you that there is a funeral in the town today. They bury a poor musician, the same age as their son Agustin. The colonel puts on a black cloth suit, which he wore only in exceptional cases after his marriage, patent leather boots are the only ones that remained intact. Look, dressed up, the wife grumbles, as if something unusual had happened. Of course, unusual, retorts the colonel, for so many years the first person died a natural death.

The colonel goes to the house of the deceased to express his condolences to his mother, and then, along with the others, escorts the coffin to the cemetery. Don Sabas, the godfather of his dead son, offers the Colonel to take shelter from the rain under his umbrella. Kum is one of the former associates of the colonel, the only leader of the party who escaped political persecution and continues to live in the town. A half-dressed alcalde from the balcony of the municipality demands that the funeral procession turn into another street, it is forbidden to approach the barracks, they are under a state of siege.

Returning from the cemetery, the colonel, overcoming malaise, takes care of the rooster, which was left from his son - a lover of cockfights. Nine months ago, Agustin was killed for distributing leaflets, riddled with bullets during a cockfight. What to feed the rooster, the old man puzzles, because he and his wife themselves have nothing to eat. But we must hold out until January, when the fighting begins. The rooster is not only the memory of the deceased son, but also the hope for the possibility of a solid win.

On Friday, as usual, the colonel goes to the port to meet the mail boat. He has been doing this regularly for fifteen years, each time experiencing excitement, oppressive, like fear. And again, he has no correspondence. The doctor who received the mail gives him fresh newspapers for a while, but it is difficult to subtract anything between the lines left by the censors.

The cracked bronze of the bells resounds again, but now they are censorship bells. Father Ángel, who receives an annotated index in the mail, chimes the congregation about the moral level of films playing at the local cinema, and then spies on the parishioners.

Visiting sick old people, the doctor hands the colonel leaflets - illegal reports of recent events, printed on a mimeograph, the Colonel goes to the tailor shop where his son worked, to pass the leaflets to Agustin's friends. This place is his only refuge. Since his party comrades have been killed or expelled from the city, he has felt an oppressive loneliness. And on sleepless nights, he is overwhelmed by memories of the civil war that ended fifty-six years ago, in which his youth passed.

There is nothing to eat in the house. After the death of their son, the old people sold the sewing machine and lived on the money they received for it, but there were no buyers for the broken wall clock and the painting. So that the neighbors do not guess about their plight, the wife cooks stones in a pot. Most of all, in these circumstances, the colonel is concerned about the rooster. You can't let down Agustín's friends who save money to bet on a rooster.

Another Friday comes, and again there is nothing in the mail for the colonel. Reading the newspapers offered by the doctor causes irritation: since censorship was introduced, they write only about Europe, it is impossible to find out what is happening in one's own country.

The Colonel feels betrayed. Nineteen years ago, Congress passed the Veterans' Pension Act. Then he, a participant in the civil war, began a process that was supposed to prove that this law applies to him. The process lasted eight years. It took another six years for the colonel to be included in the list of veterans. This was reported in the last letter he received, And since then - no news.

The wife insists that the colonel change his lawyer. What a joy it would be to have money put in their coffins like Indians. The lawyer persuades the client not to lose hope, bureaucratic red tape usually drags on for years. In addition, during this time, seven presidents have changed and each has changed the cabinet of ministers at least ten times, each minister has changed his officials at least a hundred times. He can still be considered lucky, because he received his rank at the age of twenty; age, but his older fighting friends died without waiting for their issue to be resolved. But the colonel takes the power of attorney. He intends to apply again, even if it means re-collecting all the documents and waiting another hundred years. In old paper, he finds a two-year-old newspaper clipping about a law firm that promised active assistance in obtaining pensions for war veterans, and writes a letter there: maybe the issue will be resolved before the mortgage on the house expires, and before that, two more years.

November is a difficult month for both old people, their illnesses are getting worse. The colonel is supported by the hope that a letter is about to arrive. The wife demands to get rid of the rooster, but the old man stubbornly stands his ground: by all means, we must wait for the start of the fighting. Wishing to help, the son's comrades take care of feeding the rooster. Sometimes the colonel's wife pours corn from him in order to cook at least a little porridge for herself and her husband.

One Friday, the colonel, who came to meet the mail boat, waits out the rain in Don Sabas's office. Kum insistently advises to sell the rooster, you can get nine hundred pesos for it. The idea of ​​money that would help to hold out for another three years does not leave the colonel. This opportunity is also seized by his wife, who tried to borrow money from Father Angel for wedding rings and received a turn from the gate. For several days, the colonel mentally prepares for a conversation with Don Sabas. Selling a rooster seems blasphemous to him, it's like selling the memory of his son or himself. And yet he is forced to go to the godfather, but he now talks only about four hundred pesos. Don Sabas is a lover of profiting from other people's good, notes the doctor, who learned about the upcoming deal, because he informed the mayor on the opponents of the regime, and then bought up for nothing the property of his party comrades, who were expelled from the city. The Colonel decides not to sell the rooster.

In the billiard parlor where he is watching the game of roulette, there is a police raid, and he has leaflets received from Agustin's friends in his pocket. The colonel for the first time finds himself face to face with the man who killed his son, but, having shown self-control, gets out of the cordon.

On dank December nights, the colonel is warmed by memories of his combat youth. He still hopes to receive a letter with the nearest boat. Supports him and the fact that training fights have already begun and his rooster has no equal. It remains to endure forty-five days, the colonel convinces his wife who has fallen into despair, and to her question what they will eat all this time, he resolutely answers: "Shit."

L. M. Burmistrova

(El recurso del metodo)

Novel (1971-1973, publ. 1974)

The title of the novel echoes the title of a famous treatise by the French philosopher of the XNUMXth century. Rene Descartes "Discourse on Method". Carpentier, as it were, carries out the reverse interpretation of Descartes' concept, pursuing the idea of ​​the incompatibility of Latin American reality with rational logic, common sense.

The action begins in 1913, before the First World War, and ends in 1927, when the First World Conference against the colonial policy of imperialism takes place in Brussels.

The head of the Nation - the president of one of the Latin American republics - spends his time carefree in Paris: no important business, audiences, receptions, you can relax and have fun.

He loves France, a cultured and civilized country, where even the inscriptions in the subway cars sound like an Alexandrian verse.

The president is an educated person, he is very well-read and, on occasion, is not averse to flaunting a catchy quote, understands painting, appreciates the art of opera, likes to surround himself with an intellectual elite, and is not a stranger to patronage.

In Paris, he prefers to indulge in various pleasures, to enjoy life. A drinker and a frequent visitor to fashionable Parisian brothels, in his homeland, in his palace chambers, he is a model of abstinence, severely condemning the growth in the number of brothels and drinking establishments. His wife, Doña Ermenechilda, died three years ago.

In Paris, the father is accompanied by his beloved daughter Ophelia, a lovely Creole, quick-tempered and stubborn, headstrong and frivolous. She is busy collecting antique cameos, music boxes and racehorses. Her brother Ariel is the ambassador to the United States.

Another son of the president, Radames, having failed at the exams at the West Point Military Academy, became interested in car racing and died in an accident, and the youngest, Mark Antony, a worthless and exalted dandy obsessed with genealogy, wanders around Europe.

A pleasant pastime is interrupted by the appearance of the excited ambassador Cholo Mendoza with the news that General Ataulfo ​​Galvan has mutinied, almost the entire north of the country is in the hands of the rebels, and the government troops do not have enough weapons.

The Head of the Nation is furious: he found this officer in a provincial garrison, took him under his wing, brought him to the people, made him Minister of War, and now the traitor tried to take advantage of his absence to take away power, presenting himself as the defender of the Constitution, which since the era of the war for All rulers wanted to spit independence.

The President is urgently leaving for New York, hoping to purchase the necessary weapons, and for this to give up banana plantations on the Pacific coast at a reasonable price to the United Fruit company in North America.

It should have been done a long time ago, but all sorts of professors and other intellectuals resisted, denouncing the expansion of Yankee imperialism, and what can you do if this is a fatal inevitability, conditioned both geographically and historically. There are no problems with the deal: the company does not lose anything in any course of events, the prudent Galvan, even before the start of the armed uprising against the government, made a statement to the press that the capital, land and concessions of the North Americans would remain intact.

Returning to the country, the Head of the Nation begins to restore order with an iron fist.

He is angered by a widely circulated manifesto declaring that he seized power through a military coup, established himself in office through rigged elections, and extended his powers on the basis of an unauthorized revision of the Constitution.

According to the opposition, the person who could restore constitutional order and democracy is Luis Leoncio Martinez. this is something the Head of the Nation cannot understand in any way: why their choice fell on a university professor of philosophy, a purely armchair scientist who combined an addiction to free thought with an attraction to theosophy, a militant vegetarian and an admirer of Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin.

Troops are sent against students who have taken refuge in the university and are protesting against the government. The Head of the Nation personally leads a campaign against the rebellious General Galvan, gains the upper hand and executes him.

We have to carry out a bloody massacre in Nueva Cordoba, where thousands of opponents of the regime have united around Martinez. The president is forced to hurry up with this, under pressure from the US ambassador, who hints at his country's intention to intervene and put an end to all anarchist and socialist elements.

The Head of the Nation is wounded to the very heart by the black ingratitude of those for whom he worked day and night. Since the people do not believe in his honesty, disinterestedness and patriotism, he intends to leave his post and entrust his duties to the head of the Senate until the next election, but this issue should be put to a referendum, let the people decide. In an atmosphere of terror and general fear, the results of the vote testify to a striking unanimity.

Arthritis begins to bother the Head of the Nation, and he goes for treatment first to the USA, and then to his beloved France.

Paris again, where you can submit to the familiar rhythm of a carefree life.

However, the president immediately understands that the attitude towards him has changed. Newspapers reported on the cruel repressions he had committed, he was branded a tyrant. We must try to fix the issue.

The French press is easy to bribe, and now it publishes a series of laudatory articles about his country and his government. But still the reputation cannot be restored. He feels burning indignation at people who humiliated and insulted him by slamming the doors of their house on him. Very opportunely, in his opinion, is the shot that sounded in Sarajevo, against such a background, the events in his country will quickly be forgotten.

And again a telegram arrives from the homeland - General Walter Hoffmann, who headed the Council of Ministers, raised an uprising.

The Head of the Nation is in a hurry to return to the country.

But this time he does not just act according to the usual rules - to pursue, seize, shoot, but in accordance with the moment he tries to form public opinion, in his public speeches, as usual distinguished by ornate speech turns, linguistic pomposity, he calls Hoffmann, who has German roots , the personification of Prussian barbarism, which is spreading across Europe. "We are mestizos, and we are proud of it!" - constantly repeats the Head of the Nation.

Finally, the rebels are driven back to the region of rotten bogs, where Hoffman finds his death.

Official propaganda proclaims the winner the Peacemaker and Benefactor of the Fatherland.

The European war raised prices for bananas, sugar, coffee, gutta-percha. Never before has the state known such well-being and prosperity. The provincial town turns into a full-fledged capital.

For the celebration of the centenary of independence, the Head of the Nation considered it necessary to present the country with the National Capitol, built according to the American model. However, life is becoming more expensive, poverty is deepening and secret opposition is gaining strength. The assassination attempt on the Head of the Nation causes another wave of terror and persecution, but it is not possible to cope with the resistance forces. The police have to deal with a very mobile, knowledgeable, enterprising and insidious enemy.

According to the flowing information, it turns out that at the head of the instigators is the Student, who came to the fore during past unrest at the university, popular rumor presents him as a defender of the poor, an enemy of the rich, a scourge of the covetous, a patriot who revives the spirit of the nation suppressed by capitalism. The police were on their toes looking for such a legendary figure.

Finally, the Student is captured, and the Head of the Nation wants to personally meet the one about whom so much is said.

He is somewhat disappointed: in front of him is a thin, frail, pale-faced young man, but strength of character and determination are visible in his eyes. The President is complacent: how naive these young people are, and if they plant socialism, then in forty-eight hours they will see North American marines on the streets. However, one can even envy high impulses, in his youth he also thought about such things.

The Head of the Nation orders the prisoner to be released from the palace without hindrance.

The end of the war in Europe is perceived by the Head of the Nation as a real disaster, an era of prosperity is being replaced by an economic recession, and the strike struggle is expanding.

When a popular uprising breaks out, the Head of the Nation is smuggled out of the city in an ambulance and transported abroad with the assistance of the US Consul.

The biggest shock for the overthrown dictator is that his secretary and confidant, Dr. Peralta, ended up in the camp of the enemy.

The ex-president spends his days in the attic of a Parisian house, the rightful mistress of which is Ophelia, a rich madcap who has gone into bohemia.

He perceives himself as having fallen out of the life around him, he is burdened by idleness, his health is weakening. Thanks to the efforts of the faithful butler Elmira, his modest dwelling has been turned into a corner of his homeland: his favorite hammock is hanging, folk songs recorded on gramophone records are heard, national dishes are being prepared on a stove converted into a Creole hearth.

When melancholy attacks, Ofelia loves to run to her father, and Cholo Mendoza often visits here. During his diplomatic service, the former ambassador managed to make a fortune through fraud and theft, and the ex-president has a very solid Swiss bank account. With vengeful satisfaction, the ex-president follows the activities of his successor, Dr. Luis Leoncio Martinez, who is unable to resolve a single issue, and the discontent of those who elevated him to power is growing. "A military coup is coming soon," the ex-president gloats, "it won't be a surprise." But his vitality is fading away, and now the old dictator finds peace in the tomb in the Montparnasse cemetery.

A. M. Burmistrova

(Vor Sonnenuntergang)

Drama (1931)

The action takes place after the First World War in a large German city. In the mansion of seventy-year-old Matthias Clausen, a well-groomed gentleman, a secret commerce adviser, his anniversary is celebrated. A festive atmosphere reigns in the house, many guests have arrived. The councilor is rightfully respected by the entire city. He is the owner of a huge enterprise, where his son-in-law Erich Klarmot, the husband of his daughter Otilie, serves as director. Klarmot gives the impression of an uncouth, provincial, but businesslike person. In addition to the thirty-seven-year-old Otilia, the adviser has three more children: Wolfgang, professor of philology; Bettina, a girl of thirty-six, slightly lopsided; and also a son, Egmont, twenty years old. He is actively involved in sports, slim and handsome. At first glance, family relationships may seem very worthy. Everyone loves and reveres the Privy Councillor. Bettina takes special care of him every hour - she promised to do this to her mother before her con-guilt three years ago. Matthias Clausen has only recently recovered from this loss, but everyone understands that at any moment a new attack can happen to him. That is why the family doctor of the Clausen family, the Steinitz sanitary adviser, carefully monitors the health and mental well-being of his patient and friend.

For some time now, the Clausen family has shown signs of discontent and bewilderment. Rumor has it that the councilor took a liking to Inken Peters, an eighteen-year-old girl who lives on the country estate of Matthias Clausen and is the niece of his gardener Ebish. She lives in Broich with her uncle and mother, Frau Peters, the gardener's sister. Her father committed suicide several years ago in prison during an investigation initiated against him. He was accused of the fact that, moving to another place of service, he deliberately set fire to all his property in order to illegally receive an insurance premium. Wanting to protect the honor of the family, he laid hands on himself. The investigation, having examined all the circumstances of the case, fully proved his innocence. Inken's mother, sparing her daughter's feelings, keeps her in the dark about the cause of her father's death. However, shortly after meeting Matthias Clausen, Incken receives an anonymous letter (belonging to the hand of Wolfgang's wife) that opens her eyes to this event. Following the letter, Inken begins to receive postcards of clearly offensive content. Almost at the same time, the manager of the estate, Counselor of Justice Hanefeldt, comes to her mother and, on behalf of the children of Mattias, offers Frau Peters forty thousand marks in private, so that she and her brother and daughter move to another Clausen estate located in Poland, and Inken said she received an inheritance. Frau Petere, however, is sure that her daughter will not agree and will never understand her.

Frau Peters persuades her daughter not to communicate with the adviser, but from the conversation he understands that the girl's feeling for Mattias is very strong. Inken wants to be his wife.

A few months after the adviser's birthday in his own house, the Kdauzens gather for a monthly (resumed for the first time since the death of Mattias' wife) family breakfast. While the councilor is in his office talking to Inken, Matthias' brother-in-law Klarmot forces his servant. Winter, remove the ninth device from the table, intended for the girl. When Mattias and Inken go to the table, the adviser sees that someone dared to contradict his order. His indignation knows no bounds. In the heat of his displeasure, the adviser does not notice that Inken is running away. A little later, he tries to catch up with her, but to no avail. The family breakfast ends with the fact that, after heated arguments, Matthias drives all his offspring, who dared to believe that he is their property, out of the house.

They leave indignantly. Annoyance grows in them at the adviser because he gives Inken family jewels, bought in - Switzerland a castle on the lake and is now rebuilding and updating it for the "daughter of a convict". Klarmot, deprived of all authority in the father-in-law's enterprise, incites the family to initiate a case in court for custody of the adviser as an old man who has gone out of his mind.

For several weeks, Inken lives in the adviser's house. They do not feel that black clouds are gathering over them. The adviser writes a letter to Geiger, a friend of his youth, and asks him to come. Geiger, however, arrives too late. The case in court has already begun, and while it lasts, the adviser is considered a person of civil incompetence. Not one of his orders is carried out, he has no power even over himself. He is appointed guardian of the councilor of justice Hanefeldt, the one who played with his son Wolfgang as a child, and then served as the manager of the Clausen estate. The whole Clausen family comes to the house. Only the youngest son of the adviser did not sign the petition to initiate proceedings, not wanting to humiliate his father. The rest, encouraged by Klarmot, still do not realize the possible consequences of their act,

Matthias asks them to immediately put him in the coffin, because what they have done means the end of existence for him. He renounces his offspring, his marriage, cuts to shreds the portrait of his wife, painted at the time when she was his bride. Geiger and Steinitz escort the adviser's relatives out the door.

After this scene, Clausen runs away from home at night and drives to his estate in Broich. Everything was mixed up in his head. He hopes to find Inken in Frau Peters's apartment, to be comforted by her company. He appears at Inken's mother at night, in a thunderstorm, all wet and splashed with mud. In him, despite his elegant clothes, one can hardly recognize the once powerful adviser Clausen. Frau Peters and Ebisch try to calm him down, but to no avail. He keeps saying that his life is over. They still manage to take him to the bedroom, where he falls asleep. Ebish calls the pastor, consults with him what to do, calls the city, Clausen's house. It turns out that everyone is looking for an adviser. Klarmoth is furious that his victim has eluded him.

A car pulls up to the house. In it - Inken and Geiger, as well as the personal servant of Matthias Winter. They have been looking for an adviser for a long time and are now terribly surprised that they found him here. They rush to put the adviser in the car and immediately want to take him to a safe place - to Switzerland, to his castle. However, Clausen assures that now even Inken herself is not able to bring him back to life. While Inken, hearing the beeps of the cars of the children who came for the adviser who want to lock him in the hospital, goes towards them with a revolver to prevent them from entering the house, Mattias drinks poison and dies in a matter of seconds in Winter's arms.

Hanefeldt enters the house and again begins to talk about his duty and that, despite such a regrettable outcome, he had the purest and best intentions.

E. V. Semina

(Das Leben des Grafen Federigo Confalonieri)

Historical and biographical novel (1910)

The young Count Federigo Confalonieri is the recognized idol of Milan's secular youth. His words are listened to, he is imitated in dress and habits, and his dexterity in fencing, dancing and riding is universally admired. The count is smart, insightful, ambitious, he is characterized by an imperious posture and proud grace of movements, and the brilliant gaze of his "unique" dark blue eyes does not leave any woman indifferent.

Recently, the count has been seized by a feeling of dissatisfaction and anxiety. He is especially aware of this at the ball, which was honored by the presence of the Viceroy of Italy, Eugene de Beauharnais, the stepson of Napoleon I. Frenchman imposed on them as sovereign. The Italians, "the noblest of the civilized nations," are experiencing foreign violence and oppression. He, federigo, has not yet done anything worthy of respect, has not done anything for his native Lombardy, Milan. Confalonieri decides not to accept any court positions and devote himself entirely to self-education and the service of the nation. He insists that his modest beauty wife Teresa leave her court position with the princess.

At the age of thirty, the count leads a party that aims to achieve the creation of an independent nation-state. By this time Napoleon has fallen. While the Milanese were crushing the remnants of Napoleonic power, the allies managed to divide Italy among themselves. Lombardy and Venice become Austrian provinces ruled by Emperor Francis I.

Confalonieri's efforts are unsuccessful. He does not forgive himself for not being able to correctly assess the situation in time. In addition, rumors reach him that he is reputed to be the instigator of a popular anti-French revolt, the victim of which fell the Minister of Finance. Federigo distributes an article where he refutes such speculation and at the same time calls himself a man who has never been a slave to any government and never will be. Gradually, the count incurs the wrath of Franz.

Confalonieri leaves for London, where he gets acquainted with the English political system. His charm, lively mind and restrained manners conquered everyone and gave him access wherever enlightenment and freedom reigned. The name Confalonieri has already come to mean something in the liberal circles of Europe.

In Milan, among his supporters were almost everyone who was distinguished by intelligence and noble aspirations. Federigo and other patriots develop education and industry in Italy: they open public schools, publish a magazine - the famous "Concigliatore", organize steamship traffic on the Po River, introduce gas lighting in the streets.

In 1820-1821. Anti-Austrian uprisings break out in parts of Italy. Federigo is aware of his responsibility for a cause for which the lives of young people are endangered. But he cannot lead the leadership of the uprising, as the first severe nervous breakdown happens to him. After the defeat of the speeches, some of the participants fled, many were arrested and were under investigation. In Milan, they believe that the emperor decided only to intimidate the rebels, no one expects harsh sentences. According to Federigo, he and his comrades have not yet committed anything illegal, "their hands touched the sword, but did not raise it." Federigo is ready to answer for his ideas and intentions.

More arrests are expected in the capital. Federigo advises his friends to leave the country, while he himself, despite the police searches in the house, the persuasion of his wife, arrogantly persists. He does not realize that he is especially dangerous to the government as a herald of the idea of ​​national liberation. On the last night before the arrest, the wife of their friend, an Austrian field marshal, secretly comes to Federigo And Teresa to immediately take both of them abroad in her carriage. The "stubborn will" of the count resisted here too, he postpones his departure until the morning. But the police, led by the commissioner, arrive earlier.

In Confalonieri prison, the most depressing thing is that one of his friends, the Marquis Pallavicino, has already testified against him. Federigo did not expect betrayal. During interrogations, he carries himself independently and with restraint, denying everything that could bring danger to himself or others.

Federigo for the first time begins to reflect on the suffering that he caused his beloved wife. He was the unwitting cause of the tragic death of their young child. The count understands how difficult it was for Teresa to bear her husband's dominance, jealousy and indifference. For many women, Federigo showed his inclination and sympathy, and only from Teresa moved away and paid cold gratitude for her unobtrusive devotion. Now, in prison, letters from his wife secretly received in linen packages become a joy and consolation for him. Federigo is sure that they are still destined to be together, and then he will devote himself with all his heart to her happiness.

During interrogations, the judges try to get a confession from Confalonieri, to expose him of treason. This is what the emperor wants, entrusting the investigation to the most experienced and ambitious judge Salvotti.

After a three-year process, the Supreme Court approves the death sentence of Confalonieri, it remains only to send the verdict for the signature of the sovereign. Salvotti advises the count to show humility and ask for mercy, this can soften the "just wrath" of the monarch. Federigo writes a petition with a single request - to order his execution with a sword. The emperor refuses - the rebel has no rights, including the type of execution.

The count is seized by the fear of dying without seeing his wife, without repenting of his guilt before her. He goes against his rules, turning to Salvotgi with a request to allow him a last date. The stern judge experiences the "captivating power" of Federigo's voice and look. He also breaks the rules, informing the count that Teresa, together with her brother and father Federigo, went to Vienna to the emperor with a request for mercy.

The Austrian monarch replaces Federigo's execution with life imprisonment. Other patriots are doomed to less harsh conditions. Franz did not want to make martyrs and heroes of Italy out of his enemies, it was more profitable for him to show mercy.

The condemned are sent to the remote fortress of Spielberg in Moravia. After a farewell rendezvous with Teresa and Father Federigo, he faints.

On the way to the fortress in Vienna, Confalonieri had the unexpected honor of meeting Prince Metternich, whom he had met earlier in society. The powerful minister expected certain confessions from Federigo, testimonies against other conspirators. But in the earl's polite speeches there is a categorical intransigence, although he is aware that by doing so he is depriving himself of his freedom. He would have received a pardon from the emperor if he had been willing to pay for it with his honor.

Federigo is the oldest and most famous among the prisoners. He shares a cell with a young Frenchman, Andrian, who is part of the Italian movement. He idolizes Federigo and learns from him to cultivate in himself the "virtues of a mature husband", to dominate himself, to neglect adversity. By tapping on the walls, and most importantly, thanks to the jailers who sympathize with him, Federigo establishes contact with his comrades. Among them are a member of the military conspiracy Silvio Moretti, the writer Silvio Pellico, the Carbonari Piero Maroncelli. Federigo organizes the release of a prison magazine for which friends compose dramas and write music.

By order of the emperor, a priest is sent to the prison, who must find out the innermost thoughts of the prisoners. When federigo decides to go to him for communion, this is preceded by a great hidden work of his soul. Until now, he has always been convinced not only of the rightness, but even of the necessity of his actions. He still believes that Italy needs a complete renewal, but is no longer sure that he chose the right means. Was he right to risk the lives of many people? Federigo realized the cruelty of his attitude towards loved ones. He imagined how his and Teresa's life would have turned out if he "gave himself the trouble to see her beautiful heart." When the priest immediately demands from the count to remember his political delusions, to please the emperor, Federigo refuses to take communion. He is sad, and not because this will cause even greater hostility of the sovereign, but because his beloved Teresa will be upset when the news of his godlessness reaches her in a false presentation.

After the departure of the priest, the conditions of the prisoners become much more stringent, it is even forbidden to read, federigo proposes to obtain permission for physical labor, for example, to work on the ground. It is important to preserve in oneself the habit of useful activity, which makes a "god-like being" out of a person. Everyone enthusiastically supports this idea, although they do not believe that the emperor will meet them halfway.

At this time, the wife and friends are preparing an escape for Federigo. Together with the count, one of the jailers and Andrian must flee. The time for the escape has already been set, and Federigo feels more and more internal resistance. He cannot leave his comrades who remain in prison and indulge in happiness with Teresa. Federigo refuses to escape. Andrian understands the reason for the refusal, he sees in this one of the manifestations of the greatness of Federigo's soul, but the jailer does not hide his contempt.

News arrives of the emperor's "favorable" permission to work for the prisoners. They are instructed to pluck the lint from the linen according to strictly established standards. This is perceived as a mockery, many resist. Federigo calls on his comrades to voluntarily agree to the inevitable evil and thereby, as it were, rise above him. The Marquis of Pallavicino declares that from now on he renounces the Confalonieri. He overthrows the idol of his youth, listing all the humiliations of the count before the Austrian tyrant, starting with the acceptance of a pardon. Pallavicino asks to be transferred to another prison. federigo understands him. Of course, he could have remained in the memory of young fighters as a martyr and hero if he had died "with proud words on his lips." Instead, "his Enslaved Hands" knit woolen yarn. In the soul of Federigo, protest and hope flare up, he will still be released and will fight! His experiences end in a heart attack.

Gradually release Federigo's comrades to freedom. After unsuccessful attempts to get permission to move closer to Spielberg, Teresa dies. Federigo finds out about this after a year and a half. It becomes clear to him that hope and joy will no longer come to life in him. As if in a dream, he recalls his plans to “make mankind happy,” when he began by rebelling against the emperor, whom, perhaps, “God himself put in this place.”

A new political prisoner is brought into the next cell. He expresses his respect to Federigo, says that all noble people in Italy Remember Confalonieri as the first who put forward the ideals of unity and liberation of the country and suffered for them. The young man does not accept Federigo's regrets that his actions have made many people unhappy: great things are achieved only by sacrifices. In Federigo's reasoning, he notices a kind of "senile wisdom", the wisdom of long suffering.

Emperor Franz dies, and the new monarch replaces imprisonment for Federigo and his associates with deportation to America. While Coifalonieri cannot appear in their homeland. After eleven years of confinement in Spielberg, Federigo meets with his family. They do not immediately recognize the former Federigo in the haggard man. The "proud posture and regal courtesy" do not immediately return to the count, only already deprived of their former freedom.

In America, Federigo becomes the center of attention, he is received in famous houses. But the businesslike vanity and pursuit of profit in this country repel him. Federigo leaves for Europe, Visits his friends. Everywhere Austrian spies follow him as a dangerous state criminal. And in his soul and body, life energy barely flickers. With friends in Paris, he meets a young Irish woman, Sophia, and marries her. After the end of the amnesty, he settles with her in Milan, in his father's house. He shuns society, speaks reluctantly about politics, and if circumstances force him, he unequivocally calls himself an Austrian subject, Federigo is aware that he “lives without living,” and this is painful for him. But at times a desire flares up in him to "stoke the fading flame", to participate in the struggle, to help the youth ideologically. During one of these outbreaks, on the way from Switzerland through the Alps to Milan, in a hurry to return, driven by the desire to act, he dies of a heart attack.

All the high society of Milan came to the funeral. The police were hiding in the crowd. At parting, Carlo d'Adda, connected with Federigo by family and spiritual ties, rallied around him young people with patriotic ideals. The young orator declared that the noble and immortal heart of the Confalonieri had ignited the whole of Italy with the fire of retribution.

A. V. Dyakonova

(Der Untertan)

Roman (1914)

The central character of the novel, Diederich Gesling, was born into a German middle-bourgeois family, the owner of a paper mill in the city of Netzig. As a child, he was often sick, he was afraid of everything and everyone, especially his father. His mother, Frau Gesling, also lives in fear of angering her husband. The father accuses his wife of morally crippling his son, developing deceit and daydreaming in him. In the gymnasium, Diderich tries not to stand out in any way, but at home he dominates his younger sisters Emmy and Magda, forcing them to write dictations every day. After the gymnasium, Diederich, by the decision of his father, leaves for Berlin to continue his studies at the university at the Faculty of Chemistry.

In Berlin, a young man feels very lonely, the big city frightens him. Only four months later he dares to go to Mr. Geppel, the owner of a pulp mill, with whom his father has business relations. There he meets Agnes, the daughter of a manufacturer. But Diderich's romantic passion is shattered by the very first obstacle. His rival, student Malman, renting a room from Geppel, confidently seeks the girl's attention. The impudent Malman not only makes gifts to Agnes, but also takes money from Diderich. The young and still timid Diederich does not dare to compete with Malman and no longer appears in Geppel's house.

One day, going into a pharmacy, Diederich meets his school friend Gottlieb there, who lures him into the student corporation Novoteutonia, where the cult of beer and false chivalry flourishes, where all sorts of simple reactionary nationalist ideas are in use. Diederich is proud to be a part of this, in his opinion, "school of courage and idealism." Having received a letter from home with a message about his father's serious illness, he immediately returns to Netzig. He is shocked by the death of his father, but at the same time he is intoxicated with a sense of "crazy" freedom. The share of Diderich's inheritance is small, but with the skillful management of the factory, one can live well. However, the young man returns to Berlin again, explaining to his mother that he still needs to go to the army for one year. In the army, Diderich learns the hardships of drill and rough treatment, but at the same time he also experiences the joy of self-abasement, which reminds him of the spirit of the New Eutonia. However, after several months of service, he fakes a leg injury and receives an exemption from drill.

Back in Berlin, Diederich revels in talk of German greatness. In February 1892, he witnesses a demonstration of the unemployed and shows delight when he first sees the young Kaiser Wilhelm prancing through the streets of the city and demonstrating the power of power. Intoxicated with loyal feelings, Gosling rushes to him, but on the run he falls right into a puddle, causing the Kaiser to laugh cheerfully.

The meeting of Diderich and Agnes, after many months of separation, revives his attraction to her with renewed vigor. Their romantic connection develops into physical intimacy. Diederich reflects on a possible marriage. But his constant hesitations and fears are connected with the fact that things are not going well at Mr. Geppel's factory, that Agnes, in his opinion, is trying too hard to make him fall in love with herself. He sees a plot between father and daughter, and he moves to another apartment so that no one will find him there. However, two weeks later, his father Agnes, who had found him, knocked on Diderich's door and had a frank conversation with him. Diederich coldly explains that he has no moral right in front of his future children to marry a girl who, even before the wedding, lost her innocence.

Returning to Netzig, on the train, Goesling meets a young lady named Gusta Daimchen, but when he learns that she is already engaged to Wolfgang Buck, the youngest son of the head of the city government, he is somewhat upset. Gesling, who received his diploma, is now often called a "doctor", and he is determined to win a place in the sun, "to crush the competition under him." To do this, he immediately takes a number of steps: he begins to change the order at the factory, tightens discipline, and imports new equipment. In addition, he hastily pays visits to the most influential people in the city: Mr. Buk, a liberal by conviction, a participant in the revolutionary events of 1848, a burgomaster, whose main principle is the cult of power. The conversations of Mr. Yadasson from the prosecutor's office, who considers Buk and his son-in-law Lauer to be seditious, are at first perceived by Gosling with caution, but then he draws him into his orbit, mainly with the help of sayings calling for the monarch's autocracy.

There is a lively discussion in the city of a case when a guard killed a young worker with a shot from a rifle. Goesling, Jadasson and Pastor Zillich condemn all attempts by the workers to change anything and demand that all the reins of government be handed over to the bourgeoisie. Lauer objects to them, arguing that the bourgeoisie cannot be the ruling caste, because it cannot even boast of the purity of the race - in princely families, including German ones, there is an admixture of Jewish blood everywhere. He hints that the Kaiser's family is no exception to the rule either. Enraged Gosling, instigated by Yadasson, appeals to the prosecutor's office with a complaint against Lauer for his "seditious speeches." Gesling is called to the court session as the main witness for the prosecution. The speeches of the lawyer Wolfgang Buk, the prosecutor Jadasson, the chairman, the investigator and other witnesses alternately change the chances of the prosecution and the defense. Gesling has to get out and play around - after all, it is not known who will have the final say. By the end of the process, Geslimg is convinced that those with more dexterity and power win. And he, quickly orienting himself, turns his final speech into a rally speech, calling for the execution of any will of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The court sentences Lauer to six months in prison. Gesling, on the recommendation of the Regirung President von Vulkov himself, is admitted to the Honorary Veterin of the city's veterans.

Gesling's second victory takes place on the "personal front" - he marries Gusta Deimchen and receives one and a half million marks as a dowry. During their honeymoon in Zurich, Diederich learns from the newspapers that Wilhelm II is going to Rome to visit the King of Italy. Gosling rushes to the same place with his young wife and, not missing a single day, is on duty for hours on the streets of Rome, waiting for the Kaiser's crew. Seeing the monarch, he shouts until he is hoarse: "Long live the Kaiser!" He has become so familiar to the police and journalists that they already perceive him as an official of the Kaiser's bodyguard, ready to protect the monarch with his body. And then one day a picture appears in an Italian newspaper, capturing the Kaiser and Goesling in one frame. Happiness and pride overwhelm Goesling, and he, returning to Netzig, hastily organizes the "Kaiser Party". In order to achieve political leadership, and at the same time strengthen his financial and entrepreneurial position, he enters into deals with all the influential people of the city. With the leader of the socialists, Fischer, he agrees that the socialists will support such an expensive idea of ​​​​Gesling to create a monument to Wilhelm I, the grandfather of the modern Kaiser, in Netzig. In return, the Kaiser's party promises to support Fischer's candidacy in the Reichstag elections. When Gesling encounters obstacles, he is sure that the "cunning" old man Book is setting them up. And Gosling stops at nothing to sweep Buk out of his way: he uses blackmail, incitement and the crowd's love for scandals. He accuses Book and his friends of swindling public money.

The name of Diederich Gesling appears more and more often in newspapers, honor and wealth elevate him in the eyes of the townspeople, he is elected chairman of the committee for the construction of a monument to the Kaiser. On the day of the opening of the monument, Dr. Gesling delivers an exalted speech about the German Nation and its chosenness. But suddenly a terrible thunderstorm begins with heavy rain and strong gusts of wind. A real flood forces the speaker to hide under the podium from which he has just spoken. After sitting there, he decides to return home, on the way he enters Buk's house and finds out that he is dying: the shocks of life in recent months have completely undermined his health. Gosling quietly makes his way into the room where the dying old man is surrounded by his relatives, and imperceptibly presses himself against the wall. Buck looks around for the last time and, seeing Gesling, jerks his head in fright. Relatives are thrilled, and one of them exclaims: "He saw something! He saw the devil!" Diederich Gesling immediately disappears imperceptibly.

Ya. B. Nikitin

(Caspar Hauser oder Die Tragheit des Herzens)

Roman (1908)

The protagonist of the novel "Kaspar Hauser" had a prototype - a real-life person, about whom they wrote and talked a lot throughout Europe. He appeared suddenly in 1828 in Nuremberg, this young stranger of sixteen or seventeen years old, whose past was shrouded in mystery and whose short life was soon forcibly interrupted.

The novel begins with a description of events in Nuremberg in the summer of 1828. Residents of the city learn that a young man of seventeen years of age is kept in custody in the fortress tower, who cannot tell anything about himself, since he speaks no better than a two-year-old child, accepts only bread and water from the guards and walks with great difficulty. On a piece of paper, he was able to write his name: Kaspar Hauser. Some suggest that this is a caveman, others - that he is just an underdeveloped peasant. However, the appearance of the young man - velvety skin, white hands, wavy light brown hair - contradicts these assumptions. A letter was found with a stranger, from which it is clear that in 1815 the boy was thrown into a poor house, where for many years he was deprived of communication with people. In the summer of 1828 he was taken out of hiding and, having shown the way to the city, they left him alone in the forest.

The mayor of the city, Mr. Binder, suggests that the young man is a victim of a crime. Interest in the foundling is growing, crowds of people come to see him. Of particular interest to him is the teacher Daumer, who sits with him for hours and, gradually accustoming Kaspar to understand human language, learns something about his past. But the young man still cannot answer the questions about who his parents are and who kept him in the dungeon. Teacher Daumer, summarizing all his observations, publishes an article in print, emphasizing the purity of Kaspar's soul and heart and making an assumption about his noble origin. The conclusions made by Daumer alarmed some members of the district administration, and the magistrate of the city of Nuremberg, headed by Baron von Tucher, decides to turn to the President of the Court of Appeal, State Councilor Feuerbach, who lives in the city of Ansbach, for advice and help. At the insistence of Feuerbach, Daumer is appointed Kaspar's guardian, who continues to open to Kaspar the world of things, colors, sounds, the world of words. The teacher does not get tired of repeating that Kaspar is a real miracle and that his human nature is sinless.

One day, a note is thrown into the teacher's house with a warning against possible troubles. Daumer reports this to the police, the police to the Court of Appeal. Instructions come from the district administration to the Nuremberg magistrate to strengthen supervision over Kaspar, since the latter may well be hiding something. The more Kaspar learns about the real world, the more he dreams. One day, Kaspar tells Daumer that he often sees in a dream some beautiful woman, a palace and other things that worry him very much, and when he remembers them in reality, he becomes sad. He constantly thinks about this woman and is sure that she is his mother. Daumer tries to convince Kaspar that this is just a dream, that is, something unreal and has nothing to do with reality. Kaspar does not believe the teacher for the first time, and this makes his sadness even more intensified.

Daumer and Binder write a letter to Feuerbach, where they talk about the dreams of the young man and about his feelings. In response, Feuerbach advises Kaspar to take up horseback riding and to be outdoors more often. At the next meeting, Feuerbach gives the young man a beautiful notebook, in which he begins to keep a diary. Public attention to Kaspar does not weaken, he is often invited to visit noble families. One day, Daumer, who was accompanying Caspar, meets an important foreigner named Stanhope, who manages to instill doubt in the soul of the guardian regarding his ward. Daumer after this conversation begins to closely monitor Kaspar, trying to convict him of insincerity or lies. Kaspar's categorical refusal to read his diary entries is especially unpleasant for the guardian. Kaspar does not leave the feeling of anxiety, he is in deep thought. One day, walking in the garden near the house, he sees a stranger with a face covered with a cloth. The stranger approaches Kaspar and stabs him in the head. The criminal who wounded Kaspar is not found by the police.

Advisor Feuerbach, having put together all the facts known to him, writes a memorandum to the king, where he claims that Kaspar Hauser is the offspring of some noble family and that his child was removed from the parents' palace so that someone else would be established in the rights of the inheritance. In this straightforward revelation, Feuerbach points directly to a specific dynasty and to some other details. In the answer sent from the king's office, Feuerbach is ordered to remain silent until the circumstances are fully clarified. Daumer, frightened by the assassination attempt on Kaspar, seeks permission to change the young man's residence.

Behold becomes Kaspar's guardian. Eccentric and overly energetic, she tries to seduce the young man. When the frightened Kaspar evades her caresses, she accuses him of tactless behavior towards her daughter. Exhausted Kaspar dreams of leaving this house. Mr. von Tucher, assessing the situation and taking pity on Kaspar, agrees to become his next guardian. Silence and boredom reign in Tuher's house, the guardian, being a strict and untalkative person, rarely communicates with Kaspar. Kaspar is sad, his soul is looking for a more sincere affection, he is again tormented by bad forebodings.

One day a young man receives a letter, and with it a gift in the form of a ring with a diamond. The author of the letter, Lord Henry Stanhope, soon arrives in the city in person and visits Caspar. Stanhope is surprised by Caspar's hospitality and willingness to have long and frank conversations with him. Caspar is glad that Stanhope promises to take him with him and show the world. He also promises to take Kaspar to a distant country to his mother. Now they often see each other, walk together, talk. Stanhope petitions the magistrate for custody of Caspar. In response, he is asked to provide evidence of his wealth. The city authorities are constantly watching him, Feuerbach orders to make inquiries about him. The bright but not perfect past of the lord becomes known: he was an intermediary in dark deeds, an experienced catcher of human souls. Unable to secure custody, Stanhope leaves, promising Kaspar to return. He had already managed to instill hope in the young man's soul for his future greatness.

After some time, Stanhope arrives in Ansbach and skillfully wins over both the city society and Feuerbach. He receives a letter instructing him to destroy some document, after making a copy of it. Stanhope begins to worry when a certain police lieutenant, Kinkel, offers his services to him and acts as if he knows everything about Stanhope's secret mission. Lord manages to convince Feuerbach to move Kaspar from Nuremberg to Ansbach. The young man lives in the house of the teacher Kvant. He still meets with Stanhope, but it is not always easy and pleasant for him to be with him: sometimes in his presence Caspar feels some kind of fear. The feeling of danger increases with him both when Kinkel appears, and during the moralizing of the aggressive Quant, Feuerbach, who has not lost interest in Kaspar, publishes a brochure about him, where he directly speaks of the criminal nature of Kaspar's story. He plans to organize a secret trip in order to find the culprit of this crime. Kinkel, playing a double game, skillfully wins over the adviser and receives an order to accompany him on this trip.

Caspar now often visits the house of Frau von Imhof, a good friend of Feuerbach. After some time, he meets Clara Kannawurf there, a young, very beautiful woman with a dramatic fate. In Kinkel's absence, Kaspar must be watched over by a new overseer. The soldier performs his functions quite tactfully, imbued with sympathy for the young man. This is facilitated by the fact that he read Feuerbach's pamphlet. When Kaspar asks him to find Countess Stephanie somewhere in another principality and give her a letter, the soldier agrees without hesitation. Meanwhile, news arrives in Ansbach about Feuerbach's sudden death. The adviser's daughter is sure that her father was poisoned and that this is directly related to his investigation. Stanhope, too, will never return to Caspar again: he committed suicide somewhere in a foreign land. Attempts by Clara von Kannawurf to somehow cheer up Kaspar are unsuccessful. Feeling that she is falling in love with a young man and that happiness with him is impossible, she leaves.

Some time later, an unfamiliar gentleman approaches Caspar at the courthouse and tells him that he was sent by his mother, and calls him "my prince". The stranger says that tomorrow he will be waiting for the youth in the palace garden with a carriage and will show him a sign from his mother proving that he is indeed the messenger of the countess. A dream full of worries and symbols that Kaspar sees at night cannot shake his decision. At the appointed time, he comes to the garden, where they show him the bag, saying that there is a sign from his mother. While Kaspar is untying this bag, he is stabbed in the chest. The mortally wounded Kaspar lives for several more days, but it is not possible to save him.

Ya. V. Nikitin

(Budderibroolss. Verfall einer Familie)

Roman (1901)

In 1835, the Buddenbrock family, highly respected in the small German trading town of Marienkirche, moved to a new house on Mengstrasse, recently acquired by the head of the Johann Buddenbrock company. The family consists of old Johann Buddenbrook, his wife, their son Johann, daughter-in-law Elizabeth and grandchildren: ten-year-old Thomas, eight-year-old Anthony - Tony - and seven-year-old Christian. Living with them is Tony Clotilde, the same age, scion of an indigent family line, and governess Ida Jungman, who has served with them for so long that she is considered almost a member of the family.

But the family tries not to mention the first-born of Johann Buddenbrock Sr., Gorthold, who lives on Breitenstrasse: he made a misalliance by marrying a shopkeeper. However, Gorthold himself has by no means forgotten about his relatives and demands his share of the purchase price of the house. Johann Buddenbrook Jr. is oppressed by enmity with his brother, but, as a businessman, he understands that if Gortkhodd is paid what is required, the company will lose hundreds of thousands of marks, and therefore advises his father not to give money. He readily agrees.

Two and a half years later, joy comes to the Buddenbrooks: Elizabeth's daughter Clara is born. The happy father solemnly records this event in a gold-edged notebook, begun by his grandfather and containing a lengthy genealogy of the Buddenbrook family and personal notes of the next head of the family.

Three and a half years later, old Madame Buddenbrook dies. After that, her husband retires, handing over the management of the company to his son. And soon he also dies ... Having met Gorthold at his father's coffin, Johann firmly refuses his inheritance: in front of the duty that the title of head of the company imposes on him, all other feelings must fall silent. But when Gorthold liquidates his shop and retires, he and his three daughters are happily accepted into the bosom of the family.

In the same year, Tom enters his father's business. Tony, confident in the power of the Buddenbrooks and, accordingly, in her own impunity, often upsets her parents with her pranks, and therefore she is sent to the boarding house Zazemi Weichbrodt.

Toni is eighteen years old when Herr Grünlich, a businessman from Hamburg who has completely charmed her parents, proposes to her. Tony does not like him, but neither his parents nor he himself accept her refusal and insist on marriage. In the end, the girl is sent to Travemünde, to the sea: let her come to her senses, reflect and make the best decision. It was decided to settle her in the house of the old pilot Schwarzkopf.

The pilot's son Morgen often hangs out with Tony. A trusting intimacy is born between them, and soon the young people confess their love to each other. However, upon returning home, Tony accidentally stumbles upon a family notebook with a golden edge, reads ... and suddenly realizes that she, Antonia Buddenbrook, is a link in a single chain and from birth is called upon to contribute to the exaltation of her family. Grabbing the pen impulsively. Tony writes another line in his notebook - about his own engagement to Mr. Grünlich.

Toni is not the only one who goes against the dictates of her heart: Tom is also forced to leave his beloved, a flower shop saleswoman.

The family life of the Grunlichs is not going very well: Grunlich pays almost no attention to his wife, tries to limit her expenses ... And four years later it turns out that he is bankrupt: this could have happened earlier if he had not managed to get Tony with her dowry and create the impression that works with his father-in-law's firm, Johann Buddenbrock refuses to help his son-in-law; he dissolves Tony's marriage and takes her along with her daughter Erica to live with him.

In 1855 Johann Buddenbrock dies. Leadership in the company actually passes to Thomas, although at his suggestion, his uncle Gorthold fictitiously occupies the leading position. Oh, Tom is a serious young man who knows how to keep up appearances and has a business sense! But Christian, although he spent eight years in foreign lands, studying office work, does not at all show labor zeal and instead of obligatory sitting in the office of the family company, he spends time in the club and the theater.

Meanwhile, Clara turns nineteen; she is so serious and God-fearing that it is difficult to marry her except for a person of a spiritual rank, therefore Elizabeth Buddenbrook agrees without hesitation to her daughter's marriage to pastor Tiburtius. Tom, to whom, after the death of Gorthold, the title of head of the family and the position of head of the company passes, also agrees, but with one condition: if his mother allows him to marry Gerda Arnoldsen, Tony's friend from the boarding school, he loves her, and, no less important, his future father-in-law is a millionaire ...

Both engagements are celebrated in a close family circle: in addition to the relatives of the Buddenbrooks, including the daughters of Gorthold - three old maids from Breitenstrasse and Clotilde, only Tiburtius, the Arnoldsen family and an old friend of the house, Zazemi Weichbrodt, are present. Tony introduces everyone to the history of the Buddenbrook family, reading out the family notebook ... Two weddings will take place soon.

After that, silence reigns in the house on Mengshtrasse: Clara and her husband will henceforth live in his homeland, in Riga; Tony, having entrusted Erik to the care of Zazemi Weichbrodt, leaves to visit his girlfriend in Munich. Clotilde decides to settle down on her own and moves to a cheap boarding house. Tom and Gerda live separately. Christian, who is becoming more and more idle and therefore more and more quarreling with his brother, eventually leaves the company and enters as a partner in a company in Hamburg.

Here Toni returns, but Alois Permaneder, whom she met in Munich, soon arrives after her. His manners leave much to be desired, but, as Tony says to his eternal attorney Ida Jungman, he has a good heart, and most importantly, only a second marriage can make up for the failure with the first and remove the shameful stain from family history.

But the second marriage does not make Tony happy. Permaneder lives modestly, and even more so it is not necessary to count on the fact that in Munich they will show respect to the nee Buddenbrook. Her second child is born dead, and even grief cannot bring the spouses together. And once the aristocratic Tony finds her husband when he, drunk, tries to kiss the maid! The next day, Antonia returns to her mother and begins the fuss about a divorce. After that, she can only drag out the bleak existence of a divorced wife again.

However, joy also comes to the family - Thomas has a son, the future heir to the company, named after his grandfather Johann, abbreviated as Hanno. Of course, Ida Jungman undertakes to nurse him. And after a while, Tom becomes a senator, defeating his old rival in trade Herman Hagenstrem, a man without roots and not honoring traditions, in the elections. The new senator builds himself a new magnificent house - a real symbol of the power of the Buddenbrooks.

And then Clara dies of tuberculosis of the brain. Fulfilling her last request, Elisabeth gives Tiburtius her daughter's hereditary share. When Tom finds out that such a large amount of money left the company's capital without his consent, he becomes furious. His faith in his own happiness has been dealt a heavy blow.

In 1867 twenty-year-old Erika Grünlich marries Mr. Hugo Weinschenk, director of an insurance company. Tony is happy. Although the name of her daughter, and not her own, is entered in the family notebook next to the name of the director, one might think that Tony is the newlywed - she takes such pleasure in arranging the young people's apartment and receiving guests.

Meanwhile, Tom is in deep depression. The idea that all success is over, that he is a finished man at forty-two, based more on inner conviction than on external facts, completely deprives him of energy. Tom tries to catch his luck again and embarks on a risky scam, but, alas, it fails. The firm "Johann Buddenbrock" is gradually sinking to a penny turnover, and there is no hope for a change for the better. The long-awaited heir, Ganno, despite all the efforts of his father, does not show any interest in the trading business; this sickly boy, like his mother, is fond of music. Once Ganno falls into the hands of an old family notebook. The boy finds a genealogical tree there and almost automatically draws a line below his name across the entire page. And when his father asks him what it means, Ganno babbles: "I thought that there would be nothing further..."

Erica has a daughter, Elizabeth. But the family life of the Veinshenkovs is not destined to last long: the director, who, however, did nothing that most of his colleagues do, is accused of an offense, sentenced to imprisonment and immediately taken into custody.

A year later, old Elizabeth Buddenbrook dies. Immediately after her death, Christian, who never managed to settle down in any firm, idle and constantly complaining about his health, declares his intention to marry Alina Pufogel, a person of easy virtue from Hamburg. Tom strongly forbids him to do so.

The big house on the Mengstrasse is no longer needed by anyone, and it is being sold. And Hermann Hagenström buys the house, whose business, in contrast to the business of Johann Buddenbrock, is getting better and better. Thomas feels that he, with his constant doubts and fatigue, can no longer return the family firm to its former glory, and he hopes that his son will do it. But alas! Ganno still shows only submissiveness and indifference. Disagreements with the son, deterioration in health, suspicion of infidelity of the wife - all this leads to a decline in strength, both moral and physical. Thomas anticipates his death.

In early 1873, Weinshenk was released ahead of schedule. Without even appearing to his wife's relatives, he leaves, informing Erica of his decision not to join his family until he can provide her with a decent existence. No one will hear from him again.

And in January 1875, Thomas Buddenbrook dies. His last will is that the company "Johann Buddenbrock", which has a hundred-year history, should be finished within one year. The liquidation is carried out so hastily and clumsily that only crumbs are soon left of the Buddenbrooks' fortune. Gerda is forced to sell the magnificent senator's house and move into a country villa. In addition, she counts on Ida Jungman, and she leaves for relatives.

Departs from the city and Christians - finally, he can marry Alina Pufogel. And although Tony Buddenbrook does not recognize Alina as his relative, nothing can prevent the latter from soon placing her husband in a closed hospital and extracting all the benefits from a legal marriage, leading the same way of life.

Now the Hagenströms occupy the first place in Marienkirche society, and this deeply hurts Toni Buddenbrock. However, she believes that over time, Ganno will return their former greatness to their surnames.

Ganno is only fifteen years old when he dies of typhus...

Six months after his death, Gerda leaves for Amsterdam to her father, and with her the remnants of the capital of the Buddenbrooks and their prestige finally leave the city. But Toni and her daughter, Clotilde, the three ladies of Buddenbrook from Breitenstrasse and Zazemi Weichbrodt will still get together, read the family notebook and hope ... stubbornly hope for the best.

K. A. Stroeva

(Der Zauberberg)

Roman (1913-1924)

The action takes place at the beginning of the XNUMXth century (in the years immediately preceding the outbreak of the First World War) in Switzerland, in a tuberculosis sanatorium located near Davos. The title of the novel evokes associations with Mount Gerselberg (Sinful or Magic Mountain), where, according to legend, the Minnesinger Tannhäuser spent seven years as a prisoner of the goddess Venus.

The hero of the novel, a young German named Hans Castorp, comes from Hamburg to the Berghof sanatorium to visit his cousin Joachim Zimsen, who is undergoing treatment there. Hans Castorp intends to spend no more than three weeks in the sanatorium, but by the end of the scheduled period he feels unwell, accompanied by a fever. As a result of a medical examination, signs of tuberculosis are found in him, and at the insistence of the chief physician Behrens, Hans Castorp remains in the sanatorium for a longer period. From the very moment of his arrival, Hans Castorp discovers that time in the mountains does not flow at all like on the plain, and therefore it is almost impossible to determine how many days, weeks, months have passed between these or those described events and how long the action of the whole novel covers. At the very end of the novel, however, it is said that Hans Castorp spent a total of seven years in the sanatorium, but even this figure can be regarded as a certain artistic convention.

Strictly speaking, the plot and events that occur in the novel are completely unimportant for understanding its meaning. They are just an excuse to contrast the different life positions of the characters and give the author the opportunity to speak through their mouths on many issues that concern him: life, death and love, illness and health, progress and conservatism, the fate of human civilization on the threshold of the XNUMXth century. In the novel, several dozen characters pass in succession - mostly patients, doctors and attendants of the sanatorium: someone recovers and leaves the Berghof, someone dies, but new ones constantly come in their place.

Among those with whom Gane Castorp met in the first days of his stay in the sanatorium, a special place is occupied by Mr. Lodovico Settembrini - a descendant of the Carbonari, a freemason, a humanist, a staunch supporter of progress. At the same time, like a true Italian, he passionately hates Austria-Hungary. His unusual, sometimes paradoxical ideas, expressed moreover in a bright, often caustic form, have a huge impact on the mind of a young man who begins to revere Mr. Sethembrini as his mentor.

An important role in the life story of Hans Castorp was played by his love for the Russian patient of the sanatorium, Madame Claudia Chauchat - a love that, due to the strict upbringing he received in a Calvinist family, he initially resists with all his might. Many months pass before Hans Castorp speaks to his beloved - this happens during the carnival on the eve of Lent and Claudia's departure from the sanatorium.

During the time spent in the sanatorium, Hans Castorp became seriously interested in many philosophical and natural science ideas. He attends lectures on psychoanalysis, seriously studies medical literature, he is occupied with questions of life and death, he studies modern music, using the latest technological achievement for his own purposes - recording, etc. In fact, he no longer thinks of his life on the plain, forgets that there is a job waiting for him, practically breaks ties with his few relatives and begins to consider life in a sanatorium as the only possible form of existence.

With his cousin Joachim, the situation is just the opposite. He has long and persistently prepared himself for a military career, and therefore considers every extra month spent in the mountains as an unfortunate obstacle to the realization of his life dream. At some point, he could not stand it and, ignoring the warnings of doctors, left the sanatorium, entered the military service and received an officer rank. However, very little time passes, and his illness worsens, so that he is forced to return to the mountains, but this time the treatment does not help him, and he soon dies.

Shortly before this, a new character enters the circle of acquaintances of Hans Castorp - the Jesuit Nafta, the eternal and unchanging opponent of Mr. Settembrini. Nafta idealizes the medieval past of Europe, condemns the very concept of progress and all modern bourgeois civilization embodied in this concept. Hans Castorp finds himself in some confusion - listening to the long debates of Settembrini and Nafta, he agrees with one or the other, then he finds contradictions in both, so he no longer knows which side is the truth. However, the influence of Settembrini on Hans Castorp is so great, and the innate distrust of the Jesuits is so high that he is entirely on the side of the first.

Meanwhile, Madame Shosha returns to the sanatorium for some time, but not alone, but accompanied by her new acquaintance, the wealthy Dutchman Peperkorn. Almost all the inhabitants of the sanatorium "Berggoff" fall under the magnetic influence of this undeniably strong, mysterious, albeit somewhat tongue-tied personality, and Hans Castorp feels some kinship with him, because they are united by love for the same woman. And this life ends tragically. One day, the terminally ill Pepercorn arranges a walk to the waterfall, entertains his companions in every possible way, in the evening he and Hans Castorp drink brotherhood and switch to "you", despite the difference in age, and at night Pepercorn takes poison and dies, Soon Madame Shosha leaves the sanatorium - on this time, apparently, forever.

From a certain moment in the souls of the inhabitants of the sanatorium "Berggof" some kind of anxiety begins to be felt. This coincides with the arrival of a new patient, Danish Ellie Brand, who has some supernatural abilities, in particular, the ability to read thoughts from a distance and summon spirits. Patients are addicted to spiritualism, arrange seances, in which Hans Castorp is also involved, despite stinging ridicule and warnings from his mentor Settembrini. It is after such sessions, and perhaps as a result of their former measured course of time in the sanatorium, that it turns out to be disturbed. Patients quarrel, now and then there are conflicts on the most insignificant occasion.

During one of the disputes with Nafta, Settembrini declares that he is corrupting youth with his ideas. A verbal skirmish leads to mutual insults, and then to a duel. Settembrini refuses to shoot, and then Nafta puts a bullet in her head.

And then the thunder of world war broke out. The inhabitants of the sanatorium begin to disperse to their homes. Hans Castorp also leaves for the plain, admonished by Mr. Settembrini to fight where those close to him by blood, although Mr. Settembrini himself seems to support a completely different side in this war.

In the final scene, Hans Castorp is depicted as running, crawling, falling together with young people like him in soldier's overcoats who fell into the meat grinder of the world war. The author deliberately does not say anything about the final fate of his hero - the story about him is over, and his life was of interest to the author not in itself, but only as a background for the story. However, as noted in the last paragraph, Hans Castorp's hopes of survival are small.

B. M. Volkhonsky

(Joseph und seine Bruder)

Tetralogy (1933-1943)

The work is based on biblical tales about the Israelites. Isaac and Rebekah had two twin sons, Esau and Jacob. The hairy Esau was the first to be born, but Jacob had no hair on his body, he was considered the youngest and was his mother's favorite. When Isaac, weakening and almost blind from old age, called his eldest son to him and ordered to prepare a dish of game, so that a meal would precede the father’s blessing, Rebekah went on a forgery: having tied the exposed parts of Jacob’s body with goatskins, she sent him to her father under the guise of an older brother . Thus Jacob received the blessing that was meant for Esau.

After that, Jacob was forced to flee. Esau's son Eliphaz pursued him, and Jacob had to beg his nephew for his life. He spared his uncle, but took all his luggage from him. Jacob, who spent the night in the cold, had a divine vision.

After a journey of seventeen days, Jacob arrived in Haran, where he lived with the family of Laban, his maternal uncle. He immediately fell in love with his youngest daughter Rachel, but Laban entered into a written Agreement with him, according to which Rachel would become his wife no earlier than after seven years of service with her father. For seven years, Jacob faithfully served Laban - he was not only a skilled cattle breeder, but also managed to find a source in the arid land of Laban, thanks to which he was able to set up lush gardens. But Laban also had an older daughter, Leah, and her father believed that she should be married off first. However, Jacob flatly refused the ugly Leah.

After seven years they played a wedding. Under cover of night, having wrapped Leah in Rachel's wedding veil, Laban let her into Jacob's bedroom, and he did not notice anything. The next morning, discovering the forgery, Jacob was furious, but Laban expressed his readiness to give him the younger one, provided that Jacob would remain in the house for another seven years. Then Jacob put forward his condition - to divide the flocks.

So the years went by, and every year Leah brought Jacob a son, but Rachel could not get pregnant. Jacob took her maid Vallah as his concubine, and she had two sons, but Rachel was still barren. At this time, Leah also stopped giving birth, advising Jacob to take her maid, Zelfa, as a concubine. She also brought him two sons. Only in the thirteenth year of marriage did Rachel finally become pregnant. In severe pain she gave birth to Joseph, who immediately became his father's favorite.

Soon Jacob began to notice that the brothers of his wives looked askance at him, jealous of his fat flocks. He heard a rumor that they were plotting to kill him, and Jacob decided to leave with the whole family and rich belongings. The wives immediately set about packing, and Rachel secretly took clay gods from her father's sanctuary.

This gave rise to a chase. However, having overtaken Jacob and made a real search in his camp, Laban did not find what he was looking for, since the cunning Rachel managed to hide the clay figurines in a pile of straw, on which she lay down, saying she was sick. Then Ladan took an oath from Jacob that he would not offend his daughters and grandchildren, and left.

Esau marched towards Jacob's caravan with a force of four hundred horsemen. At one point the meeting was friendly. Esau invited Jacob to live together, but he refused. Taking the cattle donated by Jacob, Esau returned to his place, and his brother continued on his way.

Jacob pitched his tents not far from the city of Shekem and agreed with the elders on payment for a wedge of land. Jacob lived for four years with his family near the walls of Shekem, when the prince's son Shechem laid eyes on his only daughter, thirteen-year-old Dina. The old prince came to woo. Jacob called the ten elder sons to the council, and they set a condition: Shechem must be circumcised. A week later, he came to say that the condition had been met, but the brothers announced that the ceremony was not performed according to the rules. Shechem left with a curse, and four days later Dinah was kidnapped. Soon, the people of Shechem came to Jacob, offering to pay a ransom for Dinah, but the brothers demanded that all men be circumcised, and on the day appointed by the brothers. When all the men of the city came to their senses after the ceremony, Dina's brothers attacked Shekem and freed their sister,

Jacob fell into a rage at the act of his sons and ordered to go away from the place of bloodshed. Dina was pregnant; by decision of the men, the baby was thrown as soon as he was born.

Rachel was also pregnant at this time. The birth began on the way and was so difficult that the mother died, having only time to look at the boy born into the world. She decided to call him Benoni, which means "Son of Death." The father chose the name Benjamin for his son. Rachel was buried by the road; Jacob was very sad.

He reached Migdal Eger, where Leah's son Reuben sinned with his father's concubine Valla. Jacob, who learned about his act from Joseph, cursed his firstborn. Reuben hated his brother forever. Meanwhile, Isaac died, and Jacob barely made it to his father's funeral.

Until the age of seventeen, Joseph grazed cattle with his brothers and studied science with the elder servant of Jacob, Eliezer. He was both handsomer and smarter than his older brothers; was friends with the younger one, Benoni, and took care of him. The older brothers did not like Joseph, seeing that his father singles him out.

Once Jacob gave Joseph his mother's wedding veil, and he began to brag about it without restraint, causing irritation and anger of his older brothers. Then, while working in the field, he told the brothers a dream: his sheaf is in the center, and around are sheaves of brothers, and everyone bows to him. A few days later, he dreamed that the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing to him. This dream made the brothers so furious that Jacob was forced to punish Joseph. However, the indignant older sons decided to leave with their cattle for the Shekem valleys.

Soon Jacob decided to make peace with his sons and sent Joseph to visit them. Secretly from his father, Joseph took Rachel's veil with him in order to still show off in front of his brothers. Seeing him in a veil sparkling with sequins, they fell into such a rage that they almost tore him to pieces. Joseph miraculously survived. To top it off, the brothers tied him up and threw him to the bottom of a dry well. They themselves hastened to leave so as not to hear the heart-rending cries of Joseph.

Three days later, Ishmaelite merchants who were passing by rescued Joseph. Later they met the brothers. Those, presenting Joseph as their slave, said that they threw him into the well for unworthy behavior, and agreed to sell him at a reasonable price. The deal went through.

The brothers nevertheless decided to notify their father that he would never see their favorite again, and sent two messengers to him, giving them Rachel's veil smeared with sheep's blood and tattered.

Having received material confirmation of the death of Joseph, the old man Jacob fell into such grief that he did not even want to see his sons who appeared to him a few days later. They hoped to finally win their father's favor, but they incurred even greater disfavor, although the father did not know about their true role in the disappearance of Joseph,

And Joseph went with a trading caravan and with his learning and eloquence so endeared himself to the owner that he promised to arrange him in Egypt in a noble house.

Egypt made a strong impression on Joseph. In Oise (Thebes), he was sold to the house of the noble nobleman Petepra, the bearer of the royal fan. Thanks to natural ingenuity, Joseph, despite all the intrigues of the servants, quickly advanced to the assistant manager, and when the old manager died, he became his successor.

Joseph served in Petepra's house for seven years, when the mistress of the house was inflamed with passion for him. In order to bewitch Joseph, the hostess resorted to various tricks for three years, not even trying to hide her passion. However, Joseph considered himself not entitled to succumb to temptation. Then Mut-em-enet seized the moment when all the households left for the city for the holiday, and lured Joseph, who had returned early, to her bedroom. When he rejected her harassment, she shouted to the whole house that Joseph wanted to take her by force. The piece of his dress that remained in her hand served as evidence.

Joseph did not make excuses to the owner and ended up in the dungeon of the pharaoh, where he spent three years. The head of the dungeon, Mai-Sakhme, immediately took a liking to him and appointed him as a guard.

Once, two high-ranking prisoners were brought to the dungeon - the chief cupbearer and the chief baker of the pharaoh. They were accused of high treason, but the verdict has not yet been passed. Joseph was assigned to them. Three days before the announcement of the verdict, both had dreams and asked Joseph to interpret them. He considered that the baker's dream speaks of an imminent execution, and the cupbearer's dream speaks of the highest pardon. And so it happened, and, saying goodbye, Joseph asked the butler, on occasion, to put in a good word for him before the pharaoh. He promised, but, as Joseph expected, he immediately forgot about his promise.

Soon the old pharaoh died and the young Amenhotep IV ascended the throne. Once he had a dream about seven fat and seven skinny cows, and then about seven full and seven empty ears. The whole court struggled in vain to solve the dream, until the head butler remembered his former overseer.

Joseph was called to the pharaoh, and he explained that seven productive and seven famine years were ahead of Egypt, and it was necessary to immediately begin to create grain reserves in the country. Pharaoh liked Joseph's reasoning so much that he immediately appointed him minister of food and agriculture.

Joseph was very successful in his new field, carried out a reform of agriculture and promoted the development of irrigation. He married an Egyptian woman who bore him two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Pharaoh continued to favor his minister, and he now lived in a large beautiful house with many servants. He made his former jailer and great friend Mai-Sahme the manager.

For several years, the harvests in Egypt were indeed unprecedented, and then a drought came. By that time, Joseph had managed to create large reserves of grain in the country, and now Egypt became the breadwinner of all neighboring lands, from where caravans for food constantly arrived. The treasury grew rich, and the authority and power of the state were strengthened.

At the direction of Joseph, all those arriving in the country were registered, recording not only the place of permanent residence, but also the names of their grandfather and father. Joseph was waiting for the brothers and finally one day from the list delivered to him he learned that they had come to Egypt. It was the second year of the drought. Jacob himself sent his sons to Egypt, no matter how disgusted he was. All the sons had already started families by that time, so that now the tribe of Israel numbered more than seventy people and everyone had to be fed. The old man left only Benjamin with him, since after the death of Joseph he especially valued the youngest son of Rachel.

When Jacob's ten sons were brought before the Egyptian chief minister, he concealed his identity and subjected them to severe interrogation, pretending to suspect them of espionage. Despite all the assurances of the brothers, he left one hostage, and sent the rest on their way back, ordering them to return with Benjamin. Together with the manager, Joseph came up with another trick - he ordered to put the money that the brothers paid for the goods into bags of grain. Finding this at the first halt, the brothers were amazed. Their first impulse was to return the money, but then they decided that this was a sign from above, and began to pray, remembering their sins.

Jacob at first reproached his sons, but when, eventually, the supplies purchased in Egypt were exhausted and it became clear that he would have to set off again, Jacob changed his anger to mercy and let his sons go, this time with Benjamin.

Now Joseph received the brothers at his place, said that he had removed suspicions from them, and treated them to dinner. He seated Benjamin next to him and during the meal he constantly talked with him, inquiring about the family and revealing knowledge of such details that no one except Benjamin and Joseph could know. Then the younger brother for the first time had a suspicion that the missing Joseph was in front of him. Joseph himself decided not to open himself yet, but decided to return the brothers halfway.

He ordered that a fortune-telling bowl be placed in Benjamin's bag, which he showed to the guest during dinner. When the caravan was returned in disgrace, the brothers again Appeared before the angry Joseph. He demanded to leave Benjamin with him, to which Judas, the fourth of the brothers in seniority, decided to propitiate Joseph and, repenting of his sins, admitted that many years ago they had beaten him to a pulp and sold their brother Joseph into slavery. Reuben, who did not participate in that bargain, and Benjamin, who was also not involved in the crime, were horrified by this news.

Then Joseph identified himself and hugged the brothers in turn, showing that he had forgiven them. He promised to resettle the entire race of Israel in the land of Goshen, on the outskirts of the Egyptian possessions, where the countless flocks of Jacob can be fed on rich pastures. Pharaoh approved of this plan, since he sincerely rejoiced at the happiness of his friend.

On the way back, the brothers could not decide how to tell old Jacob the happy news. But not far from their destination, they met the daughter of one of the brothers, who was instructed to prepare her grandfather for the good news. The girl went to the village, on the go composing a song about the resurrection of Joseph. Hearing the singing, Jacob was angry at first, but the brothers unanimously confirmed the truth of the girl’s words, and then he decided to immediately set off on his journey to see his beloved son before his death.

Having crossed the Egyptian border, Jacob set up camp and sent his son Judah after Joseph. When Joseph's chariot appeared in the distance, the old man got up and went to meet him. There was no end to the joy.

Pharaoh appointed Joseph's brothers as overseers of the royal cattle. So Jacob and his family settled in the land of Gosen, and Joseph continued to manage state affairs.

- Feeling that he was dying, Jacob sent for Joseph. He, along with his sons, appeared before the old man. Jacob blessed the young men, accidentally confusing which of them was the eldest, so that the birthright was again violated.

Soon Jacob called all his sons to him. He blessed some of them, and cursed some, surprising the audience a lot. The rights of the elder were given to Judas. Jacob was buried in the ancestral cave, and after the funeral, the sons of Leah, Zelfa and Valla asked Benjamin to put in a good word for them in front of Joseph. Benjamin asked his brother not to be angry with them, Joseph just laughed, and together they returned to Egypt.

S. B. Volodina

The life of the German composer Adrian Leverkühn as told by his friend

(Doktor Faustus. Das Leben des deutschen Tonsetzers Adrian Leverkuhn, erzahlt von einem Freunde)

Roman (1947)

The story is told from the perspective of Serenus Zeitblom, Ph.D. Born in 1883, he graduated from the gymnasium of the town of Kaisersashern, then the university, became a teacher of classical languages ​​and started a family.

Adrian Leverkühn is two years younger. He spends his early childhood on his parents' estate, not far from Kaisersäschern. The whole way of life of the family, in which there are two more children, embodies integrity and a strong commitment to tradition.

In Adrian, abilities for the sciences show up early, and he is sent to the gymnasium. In the city, he lives in the house of his uncle, who runs a musical instrument shop. Despite brilliant academic achievements, the boy has a somewhat arrogant and secretive disposition and loves loneliness beyond his years.

At the age of fourteen, Adrian first discovers an interest in music and, on the advice of his uncle, begins to take lessons from the musician Wendel Kretschmar. He, despite a strong stutter, reads fascinating public lectures on the theory and history of music and instills in young people a delicate musical taste.

After graduating from high school, Adrian Leverkühn studies theology at the University of Halle, where Zeitblom also moves. There are many interesting people among the professors: for example, the teacher of the psychology of religion, Schlepfus, expounds to his students a theory about the real presence of magic and demonism in human life. Watching Adrian in the company of his peers, Zeitblom becomes more and more convinced of the originality of his nature.

Leverkühn continues to keep in touch with Kretschmar and, when he is invited to the conservatory in Leipzig, moves too. He becomes disillusioned with theology and is now studying philosophy, but he himself is increasingly drawn to music. However, Krechmar believes that the atmosphere of such an educational institution as a conservatory can be fatal for his talent.

On the day of arrival in Leipzig, Adrian is taken to a brothel instead of a tavern. A girl with almond-shaped eyes approaches a young man who is alien to debauchery and tries to stroke his cheek; he rushes away. More often than not, the image does not leave him, but a year passes before the young man decides to find her. He has to follow her to Bratislava, but when Adrian finally finds the girl, she warns him that she has syphilis; nevertheless he insists on intimacy. Returning to Leipzig, Adrian resumes his studies, but soon finds himself forced to see a doctor. Without finishing the treatment, the doctor suddenly dies. An attempt to find another doctor also ends unsuccessfully: the doctor is arrested. More young man decides not to be treated.

He composes passionately. His most significant creation of that period is a cycle of songs based on poems by the romantic poet Brentano. In Leipzig, Leverkün meets the poet and translator Schildknap, whom he persuades to compose an opera libretto based on Shakespeare's play Love's Labour's Lost.

In 1910, Kretschmar received the post of chief conductor of the Lübeck Theater, and Leverkün moved to Munich, where he rented a room from the widow of a senator named Rodde and her two adult daughters, Ines and Clarissa. Evening parties are regularly held in the house, and among Leverkün's new acquaintances there are many artistic audiences, in particular, the talented young violinist Rudolf Schwerdtfeger. He persistently seeks Adrian's friendship and even asks to write a violin concerto for him. Soon Schildknap also moved to Munich.

Finding no peace anywhere, Leverkün leaves for Italy together with Schildknap. They spend the hot summer in the mountain village of Palestrina. There he is visited by the Zeitblom spouses. Adrian works extensively on opera, and Zeitblom finds his music extremely surprising and innovative.

Here an episode takes place with Leverkühn, a detailed description of which is found much later in his music notebook by Serenus Zeitblom. The devil himself appears to him and announces his involvement in Adrian's secret illness and tireless attention to his fate. Satan reads to Leverkün an outstanding role in the culture of the nation, the role of a herald of a new era, which he called "the era of the newest barbarism." The devil declares that, having consciously contracted a bad disease, Adrian made a deal with the forces of evil, since then the countdown has been going on for him, and in twenty-four years Satan will call him to him. But there is one condition: Leverkühn must give up forever? love.

In the autumn of 1912, friends return from Italy, and Adrian rents a room on the Schweigestiel estate, not far from Munich, which he notices even earlier, during his country walks: this place surprisingly resembles his parents' farm. Munich friends and acquaintances begin to visit him here.

Having finished the opera, Leverkün again takes a great interest in composing vocal pieces. Due to their innovation, they do not meet with the recognition of the general public, but they are performed in many German philharmonic societies and bring fame to the author. In 1914 he wrote the symphony "Wonders of the Universe". The outbreak of the world war does not affect Leverkün in any way, he continues to live in the Schweigestiel house and still works hard.

Inesa Rodde Meanwhile, she marries a professor by the name of Institoris, although she burns with unspoken love for Schwerdtfeger, which she herself admits to the author. Soon she enters into a relationship with the violinist, tormented, however, by the consciousness of the inevitability of a break. Her sister Clarissa also leaves her home in order to devote herself undividedly to the stage, and the aging senator Rodde moves to Pfeifering and settles not far from Leverkün, who at that time is already taking on the oratorio "Apocalypse". He conceives with his demonic music to show humanity the line to which it Approaches.

In the spring of 1922, Clarissa Rodde returns to her mother in Pfeiferiig. Having experienced a creative collapse and the collapse of hopes for personal happiness, she ends her life by drinking poison.

Leverkühn finally heeds Schwerdtfeger's requests and dedicates a concert to him, which is a resounding success. Its re-performance takes place in Zurich, where Adrian and Rudolph meet the stage designer Marie Godet. A few months later, she arrives in Munich, and a few days later the violinist asks Leverkün to woo him. He reluctantly agrees and admits that he himself is a little in love. Two days later, everyone already knows about the engagement of Rudolf to Marie. The wedding is to take place in Paris, where the violinist has a new contract. But on the way from the farewell concert in Munich, he meets death at the hands of Inese Rodde, who, in a fit of jealousy, shoots him right on the tram.

A year after the tragedy, the Apocalypse is finally performed publicly. The concert is a sensational success, but the author, due to great mental depression, is not present at it. The composer continues to write marvelous chamber pieces, at the same time he has a plan for the cantata "Lament of Doctor Faustus".

In the summer of 1928, a younger nephew, five-year-old Nepomuk Schneidewein, was brought to visit Leverkühn in Pfeifering. Adrian is attached with all his heart to a charming and meek kid, whose closeness is perhaps the brightest streak in his life. But two months later, the boy falls ill with meningitis and dies in agony in a matter of days. The doctors are powerless.

The next two years become years of intense creative activity for Leverkün: he writes his cantata. In May 1930 he invites friends and acquaintances to listen to his new work. About thirty guests gather, and then he makes a confession, in which he admits that everything he has created over the past twenty-four years is the work of Satan. His involuntary attempts to violate the devil's prohibition on love (friendship with a young violinist, intention to marry, and even love for an innocent child) lead to the death of everyone to whom his affection is directed, which is why he considers himself not only a sinner, but also a murderer. Shocked, many leave.

Leverkün starts to play his creation on the piano, but suddenly falls to the floor, and when he comes to his senses, signs of madness begin to appear. After three months of treatment in the clinic, the mother is allowed to take him home, and she takes care of him until the end of his days, as if he were a small child. When in 1935 Zeitblom comes to congratulate his friend on his fiftieth birthday, he does not recognize him, and five years later the brilliant composer dies.

The narrative is interspersed with the author's digressions about contemporary Germany, full of drama discussions about the tragic fate of the "monstrous state", about the inevitable collapse of the nation that decided to place itself above the world; the author curses the authorities that destroyed their own people under the slogans of their prosperity.

S. B. Volodina

(Der Stepenwolf)

Roman (1927)

The novel is Harry Haller's notes, found in the room where he lived, and published by the nephew of the owner of the house in which he rented a room. The preface to these notes was also written on behalf of the hostess' nephew. It describes the way of life of Haller, gives his psychological portrait. He lived very quietly and closed, looked like a stranger among people, wild and timid at the same time, in a word, seemed to be a creature from another world and called himself the Steppe Wolf, lost in the wilds of civilization and philistinism. At first, the narrator is wary of him, even hostile, because he feels in Haller a very unusual person, sharply different from everyone around him. Over time, wariness is replaced by sympathy, based on great sympathy for this suffering person, who failed to reveal all the wealth of his forces in a world where everything is based on the suppression of the will of the individual.

Galler is a scribe by nature, far from practical interests. He does not work anywhere, stays up in bed, often gets up almost at noon and spends time among books. The overwhelming majority of them are the works of writers of all times and peoples from Goethe to Dostoevsky. Sometimes he paints with watercolors, but he always somehow stays in his own world, not wanting to have anything to do with the surrounding bourgeoisie, who successfully survived the First World War. Like Haller himself, the narrator also calls him the Steppenwolf, wandering "in the cities, in the herd life - no other image can more accurately draw this man, his timid loneliness, his savagery, his anxiety, his homesickness and his homelessness." The hero feels two natures in himself - a man and a wolf, but unlike other people who pacified the beast in themselves and were accustomed to obey, "the man and the wolf did not get along in him and certainly did not help each other, but were always in mortal enmity, and one only harassed the other, and when two sworn enemies converge in one soul and in one blood, life is no good.”

Harry Haller tries to find a common language with people, but fails, communicating even with intellectuals like themselves, who turn out to be just like everyone else, respectable townsfolk. Having met a familiar professor on the street and being his guest, he cannot stand the spirit of intellectual philistinism, which pervades the whole situation, starting with a sleek portrait of Goethe, "capable of decorating any philistine house," and ending with the owner's loyal arguments about the Kaiser. The enraged hero wanders around the city at night and understands that this episode was for him "farewell to the petty-bourgeois, moral, scientific world, full of victory for the steppe wolf" in his mind. He wants to leave this world, but he is afraid of death. He accidentally wanders into the Black Eagle restaurant, where he meets a girl named Hermina. They begin something like a romance, although it is rather a relationship of two lonely souls. Hermine, as a more practical person, helps Harry to adapt to life, introducing him to night cafes and restaurants, jazz and her friends. All this helps the hero to understand even more clearly his dependence on the "philistine, deceitful nature": he stands for reason and humanity, protests against the cruelty of war, but during the war he did not allow himself to be shot, but managed to adapt to the situation, found a compromise, he is an opponent power and exploitation, but in the bank he has many shares of industrial enterprises, on the interest from which he lives without a twinge of conscience.

Reflecting on the role of classical music, Haller sees in his reverent attitude towards it "the fate of the entire German intelligentsia": instead of knowing life, the German intellectual submits to the "hegemony of music", dreams of a language without words, "capable of expressing the inexpressible", longs to go into a world of marvelous and blissful sounds and moods that "never become reality", and as a result - "the German mind missed most of its true tasks ... intelligent people, everyone completely did not know reality, were alien to it and hostile, and therefore in our German reality, in our history, in our politics, in our public opinion, the role of the intellect has been so miserable." Reality is determined by the generals and industrialists, who consider the intellectuals "unnecessary, divorced from reality, an irresponsible company of witty talkers." In these reflections of the hero and the author, apparently, lies the answer to many "cursed" questions of German reality and, in particular, to the question of why one of the most cultured nations in the world unleashed two world wars that almost destroyed humanity.

At the end of the novel, the hero goes to a masquerade ball, where he plunges into the element of eroticism and jazz. In search of Hermina, disguised as a young man and defeating women with "lesbian magic", Harry finds himself in the basement of a restaurant - "hell", where devil musicians play. The atmosphere of the masquerade reminds the hero of Walpurgis Night in Goethe's Faust (masks of devils, wizards, the time of day is midnight) and Hoffmann's fairy tale visions, already perceived as a parody of Hoffmann, where good and evil, sin and virtue are indistinguishable: "... the intoxicating dance of masks has become gradually the petals tempted me with their fragrance like some crazy, fantastic paradise <...> snakes seductively looked at me from the green shade of foliage, a lotus flower hovered over a black quagmire, firebirds on the branches beckoned me ... "The hero fleeing from the world The German romantic tradition demonstrates a split or multiplication of personality: in it a philosopher and a dreamer, a music lover gets along with a murderer. This takes place in the "magic theater" ("entrance only for madmen"), where Galler gets with the help of Hermine's friend Pablo, a saxophonist, a connoisseur of narcotic herbs. Fantasy and reality merge. Haller kills Hermine - either a harlot or his muse, meets the great Mozart, who reveals to him the meaning of life - she should not be taken too seriously: "You must live and must learn to laugh ... you must learn to listen to the damned radio music of life ... and laugh at it bustle."

Humor is necessary in this world - it should keep from despair, help to keep reason and faith in a person. Then Mozart turns into Pablo, and he convinces the hero that life is identical to the game, the rules of which must be strictly observed. The hero consoles himself with the fact that someday he will be able to play again.

A. P. Shishkin

(Das Glasperlenspiel)

Roman (1943)

The action takes place in the distant future. The infallible Master of the Game and the hero of Castalia Joseph Knecht, having reached the limits of formal and content perfection in the game of the spirit, feels dissatisfaction, and then disappointment and leaves Castalia for the harsh world beyond to serve a concrete and imperfect person. The Castalian Order, of which the hero is the Master, is a society of keepers of truth. Members of the Order renounce family, property, participation in politics, so that no selfish interests can influence the process of the mysterious "glass game", which they indulge in - "playing with all the meanings and values ​​​​of culture" as an expression of truth. Members of the Order live in Castalia, an amazing country over which time has no power. The name of the country comes from the mythical Kastalsky key on Mount Parnassus, near the waters of which the god Apollo dances with nine muses, personifying the arts.

The novel was written on behalf of a Castalian historian from the distant future and consists of three unequal parts: an introductory treatise on the history of Castalia and the Glass Bead Game, a biography of the protagonist and the works of Knecht himself - poems and three biographies. The prehistory of Castalia is presented as a sharp critique of XNUMXth-century society. and its degenerate culture. This culture is characterized as "feuilletonistic" (from the German word "feuilleton", which means "an entertaining newspaper article"). Its essence is newspaper reading - "feuilletons" as a particularly popular type of publications, produced by millions. They do not contain deep thoughts, attempts to understand complex problems, on the contrary, their content is "entertaining nonsense", which is in incredible demand. The authors of such tinsel were not only newspaper clickers, among them were poets and often professors of higher educational institutions with a glorious name - the more famous the name was and the more stupid the topic, the greater was the demand. The favorite material of such articles was anecdotes from the lives of famous people under headings like: "Friedrich Nietzsche and ladies' fashion in the seventies of the nineteenth century", "Favorite dishes of the composer Rossini" or "The role of lap dogs in the life of famous courtesans". Sometimes a famous chemist or pianist was asked about certain political events, and a popular actor or ballerina was asked about the advantages or disadvantages of a single lifestyle or the cause of financial crises. At the same time, the smartest of the feuilletonists themselves made fun of their work, permeated with the spirit of irony.

Most uninitiated readers took everything at face value. Others, after hard work, spent their leisure time guessing crossword puzzles, bending over squares and crosses from empty cells. However, the chronicler admits that those who played these children's riddle games or read feuilletons cannot be called naive people, carried away by senseless childishness. They lived in perpetual fear in the midst of political and economic upheaval, and they had a strong need to close their eyes and escape reality into the harmless world of cheap sensationalism and childish riddles, because "the church did not give them comfort and spirit - advice." People who endlessly read feuilletons, listened to reports and guessed crossword puzzles, did not have the time and strength to overcome fear, sort out problems, understand what was happening around them, and get rid of "feuilleton" hypnosis, they lived "convulsively and did not believe in the future ". The historian of Castalia, behind whom the author also stands, comes to the conclusion that such a civilization has exhausted itself and is on the verge of collapse.

In this situation, when many thinking people were confused, the best representatives of the intellectual elite united to preserve the traditions of spirituality and created a state within a state - Castalia, where the elite indulge in the game of glass beads. Castalia becomes a kind of abode of contemplative spirituality, existing with the consent of a technocratic society permeated with the spirit of profit and consumerism. Competitions in the game of glass beads are broadcast on the radio throughout the country, in Castalia itself, whose landscapes resemble Southern Germany, time has stopped - they ride horses there. Its main purpose is pedagogical: the education of intellectuals, free from the spirit of conjuncture and bourgeois practicality. In a sense, Castalia is an opposition to the state of Plato, where the power belongs to the scientists who rule the world. In Castalia, on the contrary, scientists and philosophers are free and independent of any authority, but this is achieved at the cost of detachment from reality. Castalia does not have strong roots in life, and therefore its fate depends too much on those who have real power in society - on generals who may consider that the abode of wisdom is an unnecessary luxury for a country preparing, for example, for war.

The Castalians belong to the Order of the Servants of the Spirit and are completely cut off from the practice of life. The Order is built according to the medieval principle - twelve Masters, Supreme, Educational and other Colleges. To replenish their ranks, Castalians throughout the country select talented boys and train them in their schools, develop their abilities in music, philosophy, mathematics, teach them to think and enjoy the games of the spirit. Then the young men go to universities, and then devote themselves to the sciences and arts, teaching or glass beads. The game of beads, or the game of glass beads, is a kind of synthesis of religion, philosophy and art. Once upon a time, a certain Perrault from the city of Calva used in his music lessons a device invented by him with glass beads. Then it was improved - a unique language was created based on various combinations of beads, with the help of which you can endlessly compare different meanings and categories. These studies are fruitless, their result is not the creation of something new, only the variation and reinterpretation of known combinations and motives in order to achieve harmony, balance and perfection,

Around 2200, Josef Knecht becomes Master, having gone all the way that the Castalians go. His name means "servant" and he is ready to serve truth and harmony in Castalia. However, the hero only temporarily finds harmony in the play of glass beads, because he feels the contradictions of the Castalian reality more and more sharply, intuitively tries to avoid the Castalian limitations. He is far from scientists like Tegularius - a lone genius, fenced off from the world in his passion for sophistication and formal virtuosity.

Staying outside Castalia in the Benedictine monastery of Mariafels and meeting with Father Jacob have a great influence on Knecht. He thinks about the ways of history, about the relationship between the history of the state and the history of culture, and understands what is the true place of Castalia in the real world: while the Castalians play their games, a society from which they move further and further away may consider Castalia a useless luxury. The task, Knecht believes, is to educate the young not behind the walls of libraries, but in the "world" with its harsh laws. He leaves Castalia and becomes tutor to his friend Designori's son. Bathing with him in a mountain lake, the hero dies in icy water - this is how the legend says, according to the chronicler leading the story. It is not known whether Knecht would have succeeded on his path, one thing is clear - one cannot hide from life in the world of ideas and books.

The same idea is confirmed by three biographies that conclude the book and give the key to understanding the work. The hero of the first, the Servant, the bearer of the spirituality of a primitive tribe in the midst of obscurantism, does not humble himself and sacrifices himself so that the spark of truth does not go out. The second, the early Christian hermit Joseph Famulus (Latin for "servant"), is disappointed in his role as a comforter of sinners, but, having met an older confessor, he still continues to serve with him. The third hero - Dasa ("servant") does not sacrifice himself and does not continue his service, but runs into the forest to the old yogi, i.e. goes to his Castalia. It was from this path that the hero of Hesse, Joseph Knecht, found the strength to refuse, although it cost the mind his life.

A. P. Shishkin

(Berlin - Alexanderplatz. Die Geschichte vom Franz Biberkopf)

Roman (1929)

Franz Biberkopf, a former cement worker and loader, has just been released from a Berlin prison in Tegel, where he spent four years for the murder of his girlfriend. Franz is standing on a busy street, surrounded by bustling crowds and sparkling shop windows. This strong and broad-shouldered man, a little over thirty years old, feels lonely and defenseless, and it seems to him that the "punishment" is just beginning. Anguish and fear take possession of Franz, he hides in the entrance of a house. There he is discovered by a stranger, a Jew with a large red beard, and brings Franz to his warm room. A recent prisoner is listened to and encouraged by benevolent people.

Biberkopf calms down and feels a surge of strength. He is again on the street, among free people, and can manage his own life. At first he only sleeps, eats and drinks beer, and on the third day he goes to the married sister of his murdered mistress and, without meeting resistance, takes possession of her. After that, Franz feels the same - irresistible and strong. Once a pretty daughter of a locksmith fell in love with him, a dissolute guy made a prostitute out of her and eventually beat her to death. And now Franz swears to the whole world and to himself that from now on he will become a "decent man."

Biberkopf begins his new life with a job search, and he has already found a girlfriend for himself. One fine morning, Franz stands in the center of Berlin, on the corner of Alexanderplatz - "Alexa" and sells fascist newspapers. He has nothing against the Jews, but stands "for order." Franz comes to the pub at lunchtime and puts his swastika band in his pocket as a precaution. But the regulars of the pub, young workers and the unemployed, already know and condemn him. Franz justifies himself, he participated in the First World War, in the eighteenth year he fled from the front. Then there was a revolution in Germany, then inflation, ten years have passed since then, and life still does not please. The workers cite Russia as an example, where the proletarians are united by a common goal. But Franz is not a supporter of proletarian solidarity, he has "his own shirt closer to his body", he wants to live in peace.

Franz soon gets tired of selling newspapers, and he peddles random goods, down to shoelaces, taking the long-time unemployed Lüders as a companion. One day a pleasant incident happens to Franz. In one house, while offering shoelaces to a pretty lady, Franz asks for a cup of coffee. The lady turns out to be a widow and shows a clear interest in a hefty man with cheerful "bull's eyes" and blond hair. The meeting ends to mutual satisfaction and promises a meaningful continuation.

This is where Franz has to go through the first shock in a new life, which "sets the leg", prepares deceit and betrayal. Friend Lüders, whom he trusted, comes to the widow, introducing himself as Franz's messenger, takes away her cash, insults her and brings her to a faint. Now the road to the house and heart of the widow is closed for Franz.

Franz again has a fit of confusion and fear, it seems to him that he is falling to the bottom of the abyss, it would be better if they didn’t let him out of Tegel. When Lüders comes to explain himself to him, Franz barely restrains his violent desire to kill the offender. But still, he copes with his feelings and convinces himself that he stands firmly on his feet and cannot be taken with "bare hands".

Franz decisively changes housing and work and disappears from the field of view of his friends, leaving them convinced that he is "crazy", because Franz is a "hero", he has been doing hard physical labor all his life, and when he tries to work with his head, she "surrenders" .

Franz begins to realize that his plan to become a decent person, for all its apparent simplicity, is fraught with some kind of mistake. He goes to consult his Jewish acquaintances, and they persuade him to try to live honestly again. However, Franz decides that he will not live “in their language”, he tried, but it didn’t work out, he doesn’t want to work anymore - “the snow will catch fire”, and then he won’t hit a finger,

For several weeks, Franz drank - out of grief, out of disgust for the whole world. He drinks everything he had, but he doesn’t even want to think about what will happen next. Try to become a decent person when there are only scoundrels and scoundrels around.

Finally, Franz crawls out of his hole and again sells newspapers on "Alex". A friend introduces him to a company of thugs, supposedly "fruit merchants". With one of them, the skinny Reinhold, Franz converges quite closely and renders him, at first involuntarily, and then consciously, some "services". Reinhold quickly gets bored with his mistresses, he is "forced" to change them every two weeks, "selling" the girl Franz, who is bored with him, along with the "dowry". One of the "women" "takes root" so well with Franz that he does not want to exchange it for the next one. Franz decides to "educate" Reinhold, to teach him how to live like a decent person, which causes hidden hatred in him.

A gang of bandits, engaged in large-scale robberies under the guise of fruit trade, invites Franz to work with them with "first-class" goods for a "brilliant" income. Franz has some kind of vague suspicion, he guesses that these people need to be "keep your eyes open", but still agrees. When he is placed at the warehouse gate to guard the loot, it dawns on him that he has fallen into a trap. While he is thinking about how to "get away" from the "damned punks", he is pushed into the car - he has to run away from his pursuers. On the way, Reinhold decides to settle accounts with the "fat-faced" Bieberkopf, who refuses to accept girls from him and pretends to be "decent", and pushes him out of the car at full speed.

Franz survives by losing his arm. Now he lives with Herbert and Eva, his friends from the old days, who cured him in a good clinic. Herbert calls himself a "broker" and does not need money, Eva has rich admirers. Franz's friends know a lot about the gang from which he suffered, but they know nothing about Reinhold's role. Hearing about Franz's futile attempts to live "honestly", they understand why, after prison, he did not come to them for help. Now Franz doesn't care where his friends' money comes from, he wants to get well.

And for the third time, Franz appears on the streets of Berlin, on the "Alex". He seemed to have become a different person, he sees fraud and deceit everywhere. He doesn't care how he makes a living, as long as he doesn't have to work. Franz sells stolen goods, just in case he even has "fake" documents. He looks like a venerable "sausage burgher", on holidays he wears an "iron cross" on his chest, and it is clear to everyone where he lost his arm.

Eva finds a girlfriend for Franz - an underage girl, a prostitute. Franz is very happy and lives soul to soul with his Mizzi, he may well quit his "job", as the baby has a permanent admirer with big money. Franz himself often acts as a husband in the same company with a fan. He believes that "pimps did not ask for it," this is how life treated him, so he is not ashamed. He no longer wants to hear about honest work, his hand has been "chopped off".

Franz can't wait to meet Reinhold, he doesn't know why - maybe he will demand a new hand from him. Soon he again finds himself in a gang and, of his own free will, becomes a raider, receiving his share, although he does not need money. Herbert and Eva cannot understand him, and the devoted Mizzi is very worried about him.

Wishing to show off his girlfriend to Reinhold, Franz introduces him to Mizzi, and for this it is a good opportunity to get even with the self-confident one-armed blockhead. Having lured Mizzi for a walk in the forest, Reinhold tries to master her, but encounters serious resistance from the girl who adores Franz. Then, in blind hatred and envy for Franz, he kills the resisting Mizzi and buries the corpse.

When Franz finds out about the murder of Mizzi, he feels like a "washed-out" person who will not be helped by anything, they will still "crush, break." During the round-up in the pub on "Alex" his nerves fail, he starts a shootout with the police. Franz is imprisoned, and Reinhold manages to direct the police's suspicion of him as the killer.

Franz is finally broken and ends up in a prison psychiatric hospital, where he is silent and refuses food. Assuming that the prisoner is feigning insanity, he is given compulsory treatment. But Franz is still fading away, and the doctors back away from him. When the death that Franz imagines in his delusional dreams is indeed very close, the stubborn patient flares up with a desire to live. The pimp and murderer dies, and another person comes to life in a hospital bed, who blames not fate, not life, but himself for all the troubles.

At the trial, Franz testifies and proves his alibi. Reinhold is betrayed by a friend from the gang, but Franz does not say anything about him, except what he considers necessary, he did not even say a word about the circumstances of the loss of his arm. Franz believes that he himself is to blame, there was no need to contact Reinhold. Franz even feels some affection for the defendant, who was sentenced to ten years in prison. Reinhold is surprised - Bieberkopf behaves "strangely decently", apparently, he still has "not all at home".

Franz is free, he works as a shift watchman at a factory. There he is not alone, as he used to be at Alexanderplatz, all around him are people, workers, the battle is in full swing. Franz knows that this is "his battle", he himself is among the fighters, and with him - thousands and thousands of others.

A. V. Dyakonova

Roman (1913)

The wealthy of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities gather for an unprecedented concert in the number of world-famous celebrities participating in it in honor of the opening of the newly built palace.

Engineer Mac Allan and his wife Maud occupy the box of their friend Hobby, the builder of the palace, Allan, already known as the inventor of diamond steel, came here for a ten-minute conversation with the most powerful and wealthy man, magnate and banker Lloyd. The engineer from Buffalo is indifferent to music, and his charming and modest wife enjoys the concert.

Hobby, a talented and extravagant architect known throughout New York, introduces Allan to Lloyd. The face of the banker resembles the muzzle of a bulldog, eaten away by disgusting lichen, it frightens people. But stocky and strong, like a boxer, Aldan, with healthy nerves, calmly looks at Lloyd and makes a good impression on him. The banker introduces Allan to his daughter, the beautiful Ethel.

Lloyd heard about the project being developed by Allan, considers it grandiose, but quite feasible and is ready to support. Ethel, trying not to show too much interest in the engineer, declares herself his ally.

The meeting with Lloyd decides the fate of Allan and opens "a new era in the relationship between the Old and New Worlds." When Allan shares his ideas with Maud, she has the idea that her husband's creation is no less majestic than the symphonies she listened to at the concert.

Rumors are circulating in New York of some extraordinary million-dollar enterprise that Allan is preparing with the support of Lloyd. But everything is still kept secret. Allan conducts preparatory work, negotiating with agents, engineers and scientists. Finally, in one of the most prestigious hotels, a thirty-six-story skyscraper on Broadway, the famous conference opens. This is a convention of financial tycoons that Lloyd is convening on "a matter of paramount importance."

The millionaires sitting in the hall understand that they are facing a giant battle of capital for the right to participate in the project, which Lloyd called "the greatest and most daring project of all time."

Looking around the audience with a calm look of clear, bright eyes, hiding the excitement that gripped him, Allan announces that in fifteen years he undertakes to build an underwater tunnel that will connect the two continents, Europe and America. Trains will cover a distance of five thousand kilometers in twenty-four hours.

The brains of thirty of the most influential "slave owners" invited by Lloyd began to stir. Allan's case promises everyone a huge profit in the future, they must decide to invest their money. Lloyd's already signed up for twenty-five million. At the same time, the rich know that Allan is just a tool in the hands of an omnipotent banker. Millionaires like Allan, they know that as a boy he worked as a horseman in an adit, survived after a collapse, having lost his father and brother there. A wealthy family helped him study, and in twenty years he soared high. And on this day, people endowed with wealth, power, courage, believed in Allan.

The next morning, newspapers in all languages ​​inform the world of the establishment of the Atlantic Tunnel Syndicate. The recruitment of one hundred thousand workers is announced for the American station, the head of which is Hobby. He is the first to know the pace of Allan's work, "America's hellish pace", seven days a week, sometimes twenty hours a day.

Allan's orders are carried out by factories in many countries. Forests are being cut down in Sweden, Russia, Hungary and Canada. The business created by Allan covers the whole world.

The building of the syndicate is besieged by journalists. The press makes big money from the tunnel. The hostile press, bribed by interested parties, advocates a transatlantic steamship service, the friendly press announces amazing prospects.

The lightning-fast Tunnel City, McCity, has it all. The barracks are being replaced by workers' settlements with schools, churches, sports grounds. There are bakeries, slaughterhouses, post office, telegraph, department store. In the distance is the crematorium, where urns with English, German, Russian and Chinese names are already appearing.

Allan calls on the whole world to sign up for tunnel actions. The finances of the syndicate are managed by a certain Wolfe, a former director of Lloyd's Bank. This is an outstanding financier who has risen from the bottom of the Hungarian Jewish suburbs. Allan needs the shares to be bought not only by the rich, but also by the people, whose property should become the tunnel. Gradually, the money of the "little people" flowed like a river. The tunnel "swallows" and "drinks" money on both sides of the ocean.

At all five stations on the American and European continents, drilling machines cut through the stone many kilometers deep. The place where the drilling machine works is called "hell" by the workers, many are deafened by the noise. Every day there are wounded, and sometimes dead. Hundreds flee from "hell", but new ones always come to their place. Under the old methods of work, it would have taken ninety years to complete the tunnel. But Allan "rushes through the stone", he fights furiously in seconds, forcing the workers to double their pace. All are infected by his energy.

Maud suffers that her husband does not have time for her and her little daughter. She already feels inner emptiness and loneliness. And then she comes up with the idea of ​​working in McCity. Maud becomes the caretaker of a home for convalescent women and children. She is helped by the daughters of the best families in New York. She is attentive and friendly with everyone, sincerely sympathizes with the grief of others, everyone loves and respects her.

Now she sees her husband more often, thinner, with an absent look, absorbed only in the tunnel. Unlike him, Hobby, who visits their house every day, after his twelve-hour work rests and has fun. Allan dearly loves his wife and daughter, but he understands that it is better for someone like him not to have a family.

Wulf makes money for the tunnel. Dollars from America and Europe flock to him, and he immediately puts them into circulation around the globe. The financial genius has a weakness - love for beautiful girls, whom he generously pays. Wulf admires Allan and hates him, jealous of his power over people.

In the seventh year of construction, a terrible catastrophe occurs in the American adit. A huge explosion destroys and damages tens of kilometers of adit. The few who escaped the collapse and fire run, wander and crawl, overcoming long distances, to the exit, choking on smoke. Rescue trains with selfless engineers manage to take out only a small part of the exhausted people. Upstairs they are met by women distraught with fear and grief. The crowd goes on a rampage, calling for revenge on Allan and the entire leadership. Enraged women, ready to defeat and kill, rush to the houses of engineers. In such a situation, Allan alone could have prevented the catastrophe. But at that time he is driving in a car from New York, telegraphing his wife from the road a categorical ban on leaving the house.

Maud can't figure it out, she wants to help the workers' wives, she's worried about Hobby in the tunnel. Together with her daughter, she hurries to McCity and finds herself in front of a furious crowd of women. Both die under a hail of stones thrown at them.

The workers' anger subsided after Allan's arrival. Now he has the same grief as theirs.

Alldan with doctors and engineers are looking for and taking out the last survivors from the smoky adit, including the half-dead Hobby, who looks like an ancient old man. Subsequently, Hobby can no longer return to his work.

The disaster swallowed up about three thousand lives. Experts suggest that it is caused by gases that flared up when the stone exploded.

The workers, supported by their European comrades, are on strike. Allan counts hundreds of thousands of people. The fired act threateningly until they learn that McCity's leadership is provided with machine gun guards. Allan had planned everything in advance.

The adits are maintained by engineers and volunteers, but the Tunnel City seems to have died out. Allan leaves for Paris, experiences his grief, visiting places where he has been with Maud.

At this time, a new catastrophe broke out over the syndicate - financial, even more destructive. Wulf, who has long hatched a plan to rise above Allan, "jumps over his head." He is preparing to annex the tunnel for a huge amount of money for ten years, and for this he is desperately speculating, violating the agreement. He is defeated.

Allan demands that he return seven million dollars to the syndicate and does not make any concessions. Tracked down by Allan's detectives, Wulf throws himself under the wheels of a train.

Allan is haunted by the image of Wulf, deathly pale and helpless, also destroyed by the tunnel. Now there are no funds to restore the tunnel. The death of Wulf scared the whole world, the syndicate reeled. Big banks, industrialists and ordinary people have invested billions in the tunnel. Syndicate shares are sold for next to nothing. The workers of many countries are on strike.

At the cost of large material sacrifices, Lloyd manages to save the syndicate. Announced interest payments. A crowd of thousands stormed the building. There is a fire. The syndicate declares its insolvency. Allan's life is in danger. He was forgiven for the death of people, but society does not forgive the loss of money.

Allan has been hiding for several months. Ethel offers to help him. Since the day of Maud's death, she has repeatedly tried to express her sympathy to Allan, to offer help, but every time she comes across his indifference.

Allan returns to New York and puts himself in the hands of justice, the Society demands a sacrifice, and it receives it. Allan is sentenced to six years in prison.

Months later, Allan is acquitted by the Supreme Court. He leaves prison with poor health, looking for loneliness. Allan settles in a deserted Mac City, next to a dead tunnel. With great difficulty, Ethel searches for him, but realizes that he does not need him. A woman in love does not back down and achieves her goal with the help of her father.

Allan turns to the government for help, but it is unable to finance his project. Banks are also refusing, they are watching Lloyd's actions. And Allan is forced to turn to Lloyd. At a meeting with him, he understands that the old man will do nothing for him without his daughter, but he will do everything for his daughter.

On the day of her wedding to Allan, Ethel sets up a massive pension fund for the tunnel workers. Three years later, their son is born. Life with Ethel is not a burden to Allan, although he lives only in the tunnel.

By the end of the tunnel's construction, its shares are already expensive. People's money is returned. There are more than a million inhabitants in McCity, and many safety devices are installed in the adits. At any moment, Allan is ready to slow down the pace of work. He turned gray, they call him "old gray Mac." The creator of the tunnel becomes his slave.

Finally the tunnel is complete. In a press article, Allan reports that the prices for using the tunnel are publicly available, cheaper than air and sea ships. "The tunnel belongs to the people, the merchants, the settlers."

In the twenty-sixth year of construction, Allan launches the first train to Europe. He leaves at midnight American time and at exactly midnight should arrive in Biscay, on the European coast. The first and only passenger is "capital" - Lloyd. Ethel and her son accompany them.

The whole world is intensely watching the movement of the train on television, the speed of which exceeds the world records of airplanes.

The last fifty kilometers of the train is driven by what is sometimes called the "Odyssey of modern technology" - Allan. The transatlantic train arrives in Europe with a minimum delay of only twelve minutes.

A. V. Dyakonova

(Die Junger Jesu)

Roman (1949)

The events of the novel date back to 1946 and unfold in Würzburg am Main, destroyed by American aircraft after the SS command, ignoring the will of the powerless population, rejected the American demand to surrender the city without a fight and signed a defense order. Few people have housing. People mostly huddle in the cellars of the ruins.

Johanna, a twenty-one-year-old orphan girl, lives in a three-square-meter abandoned goat shed by the river. Her mother died a long time ago, and her father, an avid Nazi, whose convictions Johanna never shared, hanged himself before the arrival of the American army, leaving a letter to his daughter in which he once again cursed her for the lack of any patriotism in her. One evening by the river, she meets an American soldier, Steve. Young people fall in love with each other at first sight. A little later, seeing that Johanna has nothing to heat her shed with, Steve builds a stove for her, which indescribably touches the girl.

These days, she, herself. not his own with joy and amazement, for the first time in the last five years he meets his childhood friend Ruth Fardingame. After the death of the girl's parents, bludgeoned in the square, her. taken to Auschwitz, and then, together with two other Jewish women, to Warsaw, to a brothel for German soldiers. On the night before the liberation of Warsaw, the house was destroyed by a bomb, and most of its inhabitants died. Others laid hands on themselves. Neither happened to Ruth, but she looked as if she were dead. A year after the end of the war, she finally managed to get to her hometown, although she did not know why she was going there, because the one who ordered the murder of her parents told her that her younger brother, seven-year-old David, was also killed.

Davidje actually survived. He is already twelve years old and belongs to a society called the Disciples of Jesus. Its members make sure that the surplus they take from speculators and just wealthy people falls into the hands of the poorest citizens. There are eleven people in the society. Each of them took the name of one of the apostles of Jesus Christ. The twelfth boy, the son of the magistrate, left society in anger because he did not want to be called Judas Iscariot.

Johanna calls David, informing him that Ruth has returned, while his friend, nicknamed already, who was present at the same time, runs to warn about the return of the girl of her former fiancé Martin, now a young doctor. Martin invites Ruth, who has nowhere to live, to live with him. Now he lives in a wooden lodge where masons once kept their tools. The man who killed Ruth's parents is called Zwischenzahl. During the war, as a member of the Nazi Party, he was the head of the quarter, and now he has become a fairly large speculator, his house is outside the zone of destruction. One evening, in the absence of a speculator, the "Disciples of Jesus" climb into his house, transport all his supplies to their church basement, which also serves as their headquarters, and compile a complete list of all goods seized from Zwischenzahl, who is pinned to the gate of the American administration building. At night, the speculator is arrested.

Everyone in the city knows about the fate of Ruth, and many do not understand why she returned. For Martin, the presence of a girl in his house threatens with trouble at work, up to and including dismissal. Particularly brazen attacks on Ruth allow themselves members of the Nazi youth detachment led by the former SS non-commissioned officer Christian Scharf.

After two months of living in her hometown, Ruth begins to show interest in life. She resumes her painting studies. Among her works are landscapes, drawings on the themes of a concentration camp and a brothel. Martin wants to leave a place in the hospital, marry her and move to the suburbs, to Spessart, where no one will care about them and Ruth. The girl, however, is categorically against the wedding. She loves Martin and that's why she can't imagine getting close to him after all she's had to endure from men.

It is not easy for her friend Johanna to build her relationship with Steve: too much separates their peoples. However, love wins. During their next meeting, when the girl learns about Steve's upcoming departure to America the next day and realizes that she may never see her beloved again, she surrenders to the impulse of her feelings. Later, she is happy to learn that she is expecting a child. The correspondence of young people is full of love and tenderness. Steve is in America waiting for the ban that prevents Americans from marrying German women to be lifted in order to return to Germany for his bride and take her to him.

Christian Scharf's henchmen are developing plans for several sabotage raids into the city and setting fire to Martin's gatehouse. However, they fail to carry them out because of the intervention of some person who is aware of their intentions and each time prevents them from being carried out. Not knowing that this person is Peter, the head of the "Disciples", and, mistakenly taking their comrade Oscar, who openly speaks about the madness and destructiveness of their goals - the restoration of Nazi Germany, as a traitor, they drown him in the river, disguising the crime as an accident . Peter, who did not see the crime itself, but knows that Scharf and Zeke committed it, declares them to the Americans. The Nazis are arrested, but a few months later, without proving their guilt, the German investigating authorities release them. They, having realized by that time that Peter is a traitor in their ranks, set up a death trap for him on the roof. Peter, however, manages not to please her. He informs Scharf and Zeke that he wrote several copies of the letter about how the attempt was made to deal with him, and gave them to safe hands. If something happens to him, this letter will go to the investigating authorities and the perpetrators will be tried.

The Nazis leave Peter alone. Now they have more important goals: their detachment is expanding, and, seeing how relations between America and Russia are deteriorating, how the Germans are impoverished, they are preparing for a decisive blow.

A little later, a court session takes place regarding the activities of the "Disciples of Jesus" society. No one knows who is in it, but the guys have already managed to annoy too many people and many testify against them. The captain of the American administration sympathizes with these champions of justice and wants to use the court to establish a fund for the poor. Subsequently, however, his idea fails.

Zwishentzal, who is involved in this case, is released, not even taking into account the fact that he killed Ruth's parents, to which there are two witnesses who, from the very end of the war, want to testify. They are brushed aside. Then Ruth kills her enemy in cold blood and ends up in the dock. At the trial, the issue of the moral side and impartiality of the legal system of post-war Germany is raised. The jury refuses to pass judgment on Ruth, thereby recognizing the girl as innocent.

The "disciples of Jesus" make a final raid on the new warehouse of Zwischenzahl and go all together to the American captain who has attacked their trail. The captain takes their word that they will never do their "noble" business again, and lets them go home. The boys are dissolving their society. By that time, it had replenished with two more members, including one girl.

Johanna dies in childbirth. Ruth marries Martin, takes her friend's newborn daughter to her and leaves with her husband for Spessart. Soon, Steve arrives for the child, who has already obtained documents allowing him to adopt a daughter, and takes him to America. Ruth, having managed to become attached to the child, weeps in despair on her husband's shoulder. Martin soothes her, kisses her, which before, after her return, she never allowed him. Now, Martin's dream seems less out of reach: Ruth meeting him in front of their house with her own child in her arms.

E. B. Semina

Novel (1920-1922, publ. 1925)

The action takes place in the first half of the XNUMXth century. in the German Duchy of Württemberg. Isaac Simon Aandauer, the court banker of Duke Ebergard-Ludwig and his mistress Countess von Wurben, a rich and very influential person, has long been eyeing Joseph Suess Oppenheimer, who works as a financier at various German courts and has earned a reputation as an intelligent person. Landauer is impressed by the business acumen of Suess, confident assertiveness and enterprise, even if of a somewhat adventurous nature. However, the old man does not like the underlined dapperness of the young colleague, his claims to aristocracy, his passion for ostentatious luxury. Suess is from a new generation of businessmen, and Landauer's adherence to the old Testament Jewish habits, his unpresentable appearance - these eternal lapserdak, yarmulke, and sidelocks seem ridiculous to him. What do you need money for if you do not turn it into honor, luxury, houses, rich outfits, horses, women. And the old banker experiences triumph when he enters in this form into the office of any sovereign and the emperor himself, who need his advice and services. A young colleague does not know the subtlest pleasure of concealing power, of possessing it and not putting it on public display. It was Landauer who introduced Suess to Prince Karl-Alexander of Württemberg, the ruler of Serbia and the Imperial Field Marshal, but now he is at a loss as to why the usually prudent Suess takes control of his financial affairs, wasting time and money, because the prince is a naked man, and even in politically - a complete zero. But Suess's inner instinct tells him to bet on this particular figure, he has an inexplicable confidence that the case promises benefits.

Eberghard-Ludwig finally decides to resign Countess von Wurten, their relationship lasted about thirty years and became a completely definite fact of German and European politics. The countess all these years unceremoniously interfered in the affairs of government and was distinguished by exorbitant greed, which earned her universal hatred. Courtiers and members of parliament, ministers of various European courts, the Prussian king himself exhorted the duke to break with her, to reconcile with Johann Elisabeth, to give the country and himself a second heir. But even though the disgraced countess rages, her future is completely insured - thanks to the efforts of Landauer, finances are in better condition than those of any sovereign prince.

Karl-Alexander treats Süss in a friendly way, but it happens that he makes fun of him rudely. The meeting with Uncle Suess, Rabbi Gabriel, a Kabbalist, a prophet, makes a huge impression on the prince. He predicts that Karl-Alexander will become the owner of the princely crown, but the prophecy seems incredible, because his cousin and his eldest son are alive.

Rabbi Gabriel brings Süss's daughter, fourteen-year-old Noemi, to Württemberg and settles with her in a secluded small house in Girsau. There were many women on the path of Süss, but only one left a nagging mark on his soul. In that Dutch town, he recognized a real feeling, but his beloved soon died, giving him a daughter.

Charles Alexander is married to Princess Maria Augusta, who shows favor to the pleasant and gallant Jew of the court. Karl-Alexander converts to the Catholic faith, which causes shock in Württemberg - a stronghold of Protestantism. And soon the prediction of Rabbi Gabriel comes true, he becomes the ruler of the duchy. He considers the power he has inherited as a source of satisfaction for his own selfish thoughts. Suess, when necessary, knows how to show servility and obsequiousness, he is quick on the tongue, distinguished by sharpness of mind. The duke's financial adviser, his first confidant, he skillfully inflates the ambition of his master, indulges his whims and lusts. He readily yields to the voluptuary duke the daughter of the Girsau prelate Weissenze Magdalen-Sibilla, although he knows that the girl is madly in love with him. And in vain she perceives what happened so tragically - from now on, a wide road opens before the stupid provincial. Suess obtains funds for the maintenance of the court, the army, princely undertakings and entertainment, holds in his hands the threads of state and private interests. More and more new taxes are introduced, there is a shameless trade in positions and titles, the country is suffocating from endless requisitions and duties.

Suess makes a dazzling career, but his father was a comedian, his mother was a singer, but his grandfather is a pious, respected by all cantor. Now Suess by all means wants to get the nobility. The fullness of power concentrated in his hands no longer satisfies him, he wants to officially take the place of the first minister. Of course, if he had been baptized, everything would have been settled in one day. But for him it is a matter of honor to receive the highest post in the duchy, while remaining a Jew. In addition, he intends to marry a Portuguese lady, a very wealthy widow, who made it a condition for him to receive the nobility. But there are obstacles on the way to this.

Ascension to wealth and power is accompanied by hatred and disgust. "Under the former duke, a whore ruled the country," people say, "but under the current duke, a Jew rules." Anger, ignorance, superstition create the ground for an outbreak of persecution of the Jews. The reason is the trial of Ezekiel Zeligman, falsely accused of infanticide. Isaac Landauer and then a deputation of the Jewish community ask Suess to help so that innocent blood is not shed. Suess, on the other hand, prefers not to interfere, to maintain strict neutrality, which causes their disapproval. Ungrateful, Süss thinks of fellow believers, because he everywhere and everywhere sought indulgences for them, besides, he already made a sacrifice by not renouncing Jewry. But he really wants to justify himself in the eyes of his daughter, who has reached the evil, painful rumors about her father, and he begs the duke for assistance. Karl-Alexander asks not to bother him, he is already known throughout the empire as a Jewish henchman, but nevertheless, on his instructions, the defendant is released. Suess boasts of how they will exalt and praise him in the Jewish world, but then he learns from his mother that his father was not the comedian Issachar Suess at all, but Georg-Ebergard von Heidersdorf, a baron and field marshal. He is by birth a Christian and a nobleman, though illegitimate.

Intrigues are twisted at the court, a plan is being developed for subordinating Württemberg to Catholic influence. The enemies of Suess are activated, intending to start a criminal case against him on charges of fraudulent scams, but there is no evidence. An absurd slander, prompted by impotent envy and rabid malice, Karl-Alexander is indignant. While Süss is away, Weissensee, dreaming of besieging the presumptuous Jew, brings the duke to Giersau, promising a pleasant surprise. He shows the house where Suess hides her beautiful daughter from prying eyes. Trying to avoid the duke's voluptuous harassment, Noemi throws herself from the roof and crashes. Her death is a terrible blow for Suess, he is plotting a subtle revenge for the duke. When he tries to organize an absolutist conspiracy, Suess betrays him, and, unable to survive the collapse of hopes and far-reaching plans, the duke dies from a blow. But Suess does not experience the expected satisfaction, his scores with the duke, the skillfully erected building of revenge and triumph - all lies and delusions. He invites the leaders of the conspiracy to arrest him in order to avoid persecution and possible retribution themselves. And now the former companions, until recently respectful and obsequious, zealously defend themselves, presenting the matter in such a way that there was only one criminal and oppressor, the instigator of all turmoil, the cause of all troubles, the inspirer of all evil.

Süss spends almost a year in custody while the investigation into his case drags on. He becomes gray-haired, hunched over, like an old rabbi. Transformed by personal grief, he comes to the denial of action, during the time of suffering he learned the wisdom of contemplation, the importance of moral perfection. The honest and fair lawyer Johann-Daniel Harprehg, despite all his hostility towards Suess, reports to the Duke-Regent Karl-Rudolf of Neuenstadt that it was important for the commission of inquiry to condemn not a swindler, but a Jew. It would be better for a Jew to be illegally hanged than legally to remain alive and continue to disturb the country, the duke believes. To the joyful cries and hooting of the crowd, Suess in an iron cage is pulled up to the gallows.

A. M. Burmistrova

(Die Geschwister Orregman)

Roman (1933)

In November 1932, Gustav Oppermann turns fifty. He is the senior owner of a furniture manufacturing company, has a solid checking account in the bank and a beautiful mansion in Berlin, built and furnished to his own taste. Work does not fascinate him much, he appreciates his worthy, meaningful leisure more. A passionate bibliophile, Gustav writes about people and books of the XNUMXth century, and he is very pleased with the opportunity to conclude an agreement with a publishing house for Lessing's biography. He is healthy, complacent, full of energy, lives with taste and pleasure.

For his birthday, Gustav gathers relatives, close friends, good acquaintances. Brother Martin gives him a family heirloom - a portrait of their grandfather, the founder of the company, Emmanuel Opperman, who formerly adorned the office in the main office of the Trading House. Sibylla Rauch arrives with congratulations, their romance has been going on for ten years, but Gustav prefers not to impose chains of legality on this connection. Sibylla is twenty years younger than he, under his influence she began to write and now earns her literary work. Newspapers willingly publish her lyrical sketches and short stories. And yet for Gustav, despite long-term affection and tender relationships, Sibylla always remains on the periphery of his existence. In his soul lies a deeper feeling for Anna, two years of acquaintance with whom are full of quarrels and worries. Anna is energetic and active, she has an independent disposition and a strong character. She lives in Stuttgart, works as a secretary in the board of power plants. Their meetings are now rare, however, as are the letters they exchange. Gustav's guests, people with wealth and position, who are well settled in life, are absorbed in their own rather narrow interests and attach little importance to what is happening in the country. Fascism seems to them only crude demagoguery, encouraged by militarists and feudal lords who speculate on the dark instincts of the petty bourgeois.

However, reality now and then rudely breaks into their rather closed little world. Martin, who actually manages the affairs of the company, is worried about relations with an old competitor, Heinrich Wels, who is now head of the district department of the National Socialist Party. If the Oppermans produce standard factory-made furniture at low prices, then in the workshops of Wels, products are made by hand, artisanal, and lose because of their high cost. The successes of the Oppermanns hit Wels's ambition much more than his greed. More than once he has started talking about a possible merger of both firms, or at least closer cooperation, and Martin's instinct tells him that in the current situation of crisis and growing anti-Semitism, this would be a saving option, but he still drags on a decision, believing that as yet there is no need to go to this agreement. In the end, it is possible to turn the Jewish firm of the Oppermanns into a joint-stock company with a neutral, unsuspicious name "German Furniture".

Jacques Lavendel, the husband of the Oppermans' younger sister Clara, expresses regret that Martin missed the chance, failed to negotiate with Wels. Martin is annoyed by his manner of calling unpleasant things by their proper names, but we must pay tribute, the brother-in-law is an excellent businessman, a man with a large fortune, cunning and resourceful. It is possible, of course, to transfer the furniture firm of the Oppermans to his Name, because in his time he prudently obtained American Citizenship.

Another brother of Gustav - doctor Edgar Opperman - heads the city clinic, he loves everything connected with his profession of a surgeon to self-forgetfulness, and hates administration. Newspapers attack him, he allegedly uses the poor, free patients for his dangerous experiments, but the professor is trying in every possible way to protect himself from vile reality. "I am a German doctor, a German scientist, there is no German medicine or Jewish medicine, there is science, and nothing else!" - he repeats to the Privy Councilor Lorenz, the chief physician of all city clinics.

Christmas is coming. Professor Arthur Mülheim, the firm's legal adviser, suggests that Gustav send his money abroad. He refuses: he loves Germany and considers it dishonorable to withdraw his capital from it. Gustav is sure that the vast majority of Germans are on the side of truth and reason, no matter how the Nazis pour money and promises, they will not be able to fool even a third of the population. How will the Fuhrer end up, he discusses in a friendly circle, a tout in a fair booth or an insurance agent?

The seizure of power by the Nazis stuns the Oppermans with its imaginary surprise. In their opinion, Hitler - a parrot, helplessly babbling on someone else's prompt, is entirely in the hands of big business. The German people will see through the noisy demagogy, will not fall into a state of barbarism, Gustav believes. He disapproves of the relatives' hectic activity in creating a joint-stock company, considering their arguments to be the arguments of "confused businessmen with their eternal penny skepticism." He himself is very flattered by the proposal to sign an appeal against the growing barbarism and savagery of public life. Mulheim sees this move as an inadmissible naivety that will cost dearly.

The seventeen-year-old son of Martin Berthold has a conflict with the new teacher Vogelsang. Until now, the director of the gymnasium, François, a friend of Gustav, has managed to protect his educational institution from politics, but the ardent Nazi who has appeared within its walls is gradually establishing his own rules here, and the soft, intelligent director can only watch cautiously as nationalism advancing on a wide front quickly envelops his head in fog. pupils. The cause of the conflict is the report prepared by Berthold on Arminius Herman. How can one criticize, debunk one of the greatest feats of the people, Vogelsang is indignant, regarding this as an anti-German, anti-patriotic act. Francois does not dare to stand up for a smart young man against a rabid fool, his teacher. Berthold does not find understanding among his relatives. They believe that the whole story is not worth a damn, and advise making the required apology. Not wanting to compromise his principles, Berthold takes a large amount of sleeping pills and dies.

A wave of racist persecution is spreading, but the medical world still does not dare to offend Professor Edgar Opperman, because he is world famous. And yet he keeps telling Lorenz that he will drop everything himself, without waiting to be thrown out. The country is sick, his Privy Councilor assures him, but it is not an acute but a chronic disease.

Martin, having broken himself, is forced to accept the outrageous terms of the agreement with Wels, but still he manages to achieve a certain business success, for which he paid so dearly.

After the Reichstag fire, Mülheim insists that Gustav immediately go abroad. His friend, the novelist Friedrich-Wilhelm Gutvetter, is confused by this: how can one not be present at a stunningly interesting spectacle - the sudden captivity of a civilized country by barbarians.

Gustav lives in Switzerland. He seeks to communicate with his compatriots, wanting to better understand what is happening in Germany, terrible reports are published in the newspapers here. From Klaus Frischlin, who headed the art department of the firm, he learns that his Berlin mansion has been confiscated by the Nazis, and some of his friends are in concentration camps. Gutvetter gained fame as a "great true German poet", the Nazis recognized him as their own. In high-sounding style he describes the image of the "New Man", asserting his primordial wild instincts. Anna, who has come to Gustav's for a vacation, behaves as if nothing special is happening in Germany. According to the manufacturer Weinberg, one can get along with the Nazis, the coup had a good effect on the country's economy. The lawyer Bilfinger gives Gustav documents for review, from which he learns about the monstrous terror, under the new regime lies are confessed as the highest political principle, tortures and murders occur, lawlessness reigns.

At Lavendel's house on the shores of Lake Lugano, the entire Opperman family celebrates Passover. You can count them lucky. Only a few managed to escape, the rest were simply not released, and if anyone was given the opportunity to leave, then their property was seized. Martin, who happened to get acquainted with the Nazi dungeons, is going to open a store in London, Edgar is going to organize his laboratory in Paris. His daughter Ruth and favorite assistant Jacobi left for Tel Aviv. Lavendel intends to go on a trip, visit America, Russia, Palestine and see for himself what is being done and where. He is in the most advantageous position - he has his own house here, he has citizenship, and now they do not have their own shelter, when the passports expire, they are unlikely to renew them. Fascism is hated by the Oppermans not only because it knocked the ground out from under their feet, put them outside the law, but also because it violated the "system of things", displaced all ideas about good and evil, morality and duty.

Gustav does not want to stand aside, he unsuccessfully tries to find contacts with the underground, and then returns to his homeland under someone else's passport, intending to tell the Germans about the vile things happening in the country, try to open their eyes, awaken their dormant feelings. Soon he is arrested. In the concentration camp, he is exhausted by the backbreaking work of laying the highway, he is tormented by annoyance: he was a fool that he returned. No one benefits from this.

Upon learning of what happened, Mulheim and Lavendel take all measures to free him. When Sibylla arrives at the camp, she finds an exhausted, thin, dirty old man there. Gustav is transported across the border to the Czech Republic, placed in a sanatorium, where he dies two months later. Reporting this in a letter to Gustav's nephew Heinrich Lavendel, Frischlin expresses admiration for the deed of his uncle, who, neglecting danger, showed his readiness to stand up for a just and useful cause.

A. M. Burmistrova

(Der Ptolemeer. Berliner novelle)

Tale (1947, published 1949)

The story is told in the first person. The author and narrator, who owns the Lotus Beauty Institute, draws a picture of Berlin during the occupation, in the cold winter of 1947, with a few strokes: the population suffers from hunger, the surviving furniture is used for kindling, trade has stopped, no one pays taxes, life has stopped. The Institute of Beauty is gradually falling into decay: employees have nothing to pay, the premises are not heated. The owner remains completely alone in it, but this does not depress him at all. on the contrary, he is even glad that he got rid of annoying visitors who bother him with complaints of frostbitten limbs and varicose ulcers. He acquires a machine gun, regardless of the risk associated with such an acquisition, and shoots all suspicious persons from the window of his Institute. The corpses of those killed, as the narrator notes, are no different from those who froze or laid hands on themselves. Rare passers-by are also not embarrassed by the sight of the dead: "a toothache or inflammation of the periosteum could still arouse their sympathy, but not a bump covered with snow - maybe it's just a sofa cushion or a dead rat." The narrator is not tormented by doubts of a moral and ethical nature, because in the modern era, when "moral fluids" are gradually dying out in a person, the attitude towards death has radically changed: "In a world where such monstrous things happened and which rested on such monstrous principles, as recent research, it is high time to stop the idle chatter about life and happiness. Matter was radiance, the Divine was silence, and what was placed in between was nothing."

At night, the Infinite addresses the narrator: “You think that Kepler and Galileo are the greatest luminaries, and they are just old aunts. As aunts are consumed by knitting stockings, so these are obsessed with the idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Surely both the other were restless, extraverted types. And now look how this hypothesis collapses! Now everything revolves around everything, and when everything revolves around everything, nothing revolves except around itself. The Storyteller listens to the words of the Infinite, but most often he is in dialogue with himself. Excursions into history, geography, atomic physics and paleontology are replaced by professional discussions about the merits of all kinds of cosmetics.

Explaining why he gave his Institute the name "Lotus", the narrator refers to the myth of the Lotus Eaters. Admirers of the beautiful and those who crave oblivion feed on the fruits of the lotus, because they do not need other food, they have the power to hope and forget. In a world where all values ​​have become relative, where the attempt of conceptual thinking to see the universal interconnection of phenomena is doomed to failure from the outset, only art is able to withstand a total spiritual crisis, because it creates an autonomous sphere of absolute reality. Creativity has a sacred meaning and takes on the character of a mythical-cult ritual, through which the artist "liberates" the essence of a thing, taking it beyond the limits of the finite. The isolated I of the artist creates monologue art, which "rests on oblivion, and is the music of oblivion." The "ideological content" of his Institute, he declares the following principle: "to arise, to be present only in the act of manifestation and disappear again."

The narrator furiously attacks the mythologized idea of ​​life, which is characteristic of the consciousness of the layman, who cowardly puts up with any circumstances and motivates his humility by the fact that the notorious "life" does not take into account the interests and aspirations of an individual, subordinating him to his "eternal goals". The narrator pronounces the harsh sentence of "life": "This is the spittoon into which everyone spit - cows, and worms, and whores, this is life, which they all devoured with skin and hair, its impenetrable dullness, its lower physiological expressions like digestion, like sperm, like reflexes - and now they have seasoned it all with eternal goals. In the course of these reasoning, the narrator, in an inexplicable way for himself, suddenly feels that he loves this fierce winter, which kills all living things: "let this snow lie forever, and there would be no end to the frost, for spring stood before me, like some kind of burden, in it there was something destructive, she unceremoniously touched that autistic reality that I only had a presentiment, but which, unfortunately, has left us forever. However, the narrator hastens to add the following: he is not afraid of spring because of the fear that the snow will melt and numerous corpses of people whom he shot will be found near the Institute. For him, these corpses are something ephemeral: "In an era when only a mass means anything, the idea of ​​​​a separate dead body smacked of romance."

The narrator is proud that he does not come into conflict with the spirit of the time in which his being flows or, rather, stands motionless. He accepts everything as it is, and only contemplates the stages of the spiritual history of the West, although he himself remains, as it were, outside of time and space, declaring these latter "phantoms of European thought." He conveys his impressions in the form of free associations: “Morning has come, the rooster crowed, he crowed three times, resolutely crying out for betrayal, but there was no longer one who could be betrayed, just like the one who betrayed. Everything fell asleep, the prophet and prophecy; on Dew lay on the Mount of Olives, the palm trees rustled in an imperceptible breeze - and then a dove flew up. The Holy Spirit, his wings cut the air almost silently, and the clouds accepted him, he did not return back - Dogma was finished. The narrator has in mind the dogma about man, about homo sapiens. He explains that there is no longer any talk of a decline in which a person is, or even a race, a continent, a certain social structure and a historically established system, no, everything that happens is only the result of global shifts, due to which all creation as a whole is deprived of a future: the end of the Quaternary period comes (the Quaternary period (quarter) corresponds to the last period of geological history, which continues to this day. - V.R.). However, the narrator does not dramatize this situation facing humanity as a species, he prophetically proclaims that "the reptile that we call history" will not immediately and suddenly "curl into a ring", that new "historical" epochs await us, but the next picture world will most likely be "an attempt to link together mythical reality, paleontology and the analysis of brain activity."

In the life of society, the narrator foresees two main trends: unbridled hedonism and prolongation of life at any cost with the help of fantastically advanced medical technology. The narrator is sure that the era of capitalism and "synthetic life" has just begun. The approaching age will take humanity into such a grip, will put people in front of such a choice that it will be impossible to avoid it: "The coming century will allow the existence of only two types, two constitutions, two reactive forms: those who act and want to rise even higher, and those who silently await change and transformation - criminals and monks, there will be nothing else."

Despite the rather gloomy prospects that await humanity in the near future, the narrator is sure that his Lotus Beauty Institute will still flourish, because his services are always needed, even if people are replaced by robots. The narrator does not consider himself to be either an optimist or a pessimist. Concluding his prophetic-confessional essay, he says about himself: "I spin the disk, and it spins me myself, I am a Ptolemaic. I do not groan like Jeremiah, I do not groan like Paul:" I hate, I do" (see Rom. 7:15. - V. R.) - I am what I will be, I do what appears to me. I do not know about any "abandonment" (meaning the expression M Heidegger. - V. R.), which modern philosophers talk about, I am not abandoned, my birth defined me. I have no "fear of life", of course, I do not hang my wife and child on myself, along with a summer house and a snow-white with a tie, I wear bandages that are invisible to the eye, but at the same time I am wearing a suit of impeccable cut, on the outside - a count, inside - a pariah, low, tenacious, invulnerable. <...> Everything is as it should be, and the end is good. "

V. V. Rynkevich

(Jeder stirbt fur sich allein)

Roman (1947)

Germany, Berlin, World War II.

On the day of the surrender of France, the postman brings the news to the house of cabinetmaker Otto Kwangel that their son died a heroic death for the Fuhrer. This terrible blow awakens in the soul of Anna, Otto's wife, hatred for Nazism, which has been ripening for a long time. Otto and Anna Kwangel are ordinary people, they never got into politics and until recently considered Hitler the savior of the country. But it's hard for any honest person not to see what's going on around. Why did their neighbor, the drunkard Persicke, suddenly become a more respectable member of society than the elderly Frau Rosenthal, the wife of a once respected merchant? Only because she is Jewish and he has two SS sons. Why is it that in the factory where Kwangel works as a foreman, good workers are fired, and armless bums go up the hill? Because the latter are members of the Nazi Party, yelling "Heil Hitler!" in meetings, and the former have "the wrong mindset." Why is everyone spying on each other, why did all the scum that used to hide in dark corners crawl out to the surface? For example, Emil Borkhausen, who never did anything in his life, and his wife openly took men to her place to feed five children. Now Borkhausen is knocking at the Gestapo on trifles on whoever they have to, because there is something behind everyone, everyone is shaking with fear and is happy to pay off. He tries to catch Kwangel by surprise, but quickly realizes that this man is hard as a rock, just look at his face - "like a bird of prey."

Kwangel goes to the factory where Trudel Bauman, his son's fiancée, works to inform her of her fiancé's death, and Trudel confesses to being a member of the Resistance group. Crying Trudel asks: "Father, can you really live as before when they killed your Otto?" Kwangel never sympathized with the Nazis, was not a member of their party, citing a lack of funds. His main quality is honesty, he was always strict with himself and therefore demanded a lot from others. He had long been convinced that "the Nazis have neither shame nor conscience, which means that he is not going along with them." But now he comes to the conclusion that this is not enough - you can’t do nothing when there is oppression, violence and suffering around.

Indeed, under their very noses, in their house, things unthinkable a few years ago are happening, Frau Rosenthal is being robbed not just by thieves, but by thieves led by the SS and the police. The old woman sits first at the Quangels, then she is rescued by the retired adviser Frome, who lives in the same house. For some time she hides from him, but then she still goes up to her apartment. A young SS man, Baldur Perzike, summons a police commissar with an assistant. They try to find out where Frau Rosenthal hid some money, the old woman cannot stand the torment and throws herself out of the window, and Baldur Persicke receives her gramophone and a suitcase with linen as a reward.

Kvangel decides to fight fascism alone, on his own - to write postcards with appeals against the Fuhrer, against the war. At first it seems to Anna Kvangel that this is too small, but both understand that they can pay with their heads. And now the first postcard has been written, it does not contain any political slogans, in simple words it talks about the evil that the war unleashed by Hitler brings to people. Otto safely throws a postcard into the entrance, it is found by an actor, a former favorite of Goebbels, now disgraced, terribly frightened and carries it to a friend, a lawyer. Both feel nothing but fear and indignation at the "scribbler", who only "brings others into trouble", and the postcard immediately ends up in the Gestapo. Thus begins an unequal war between two ordinary people and the huge apparatus of Nazi Germany and the "invisibility" case entrusted to Commissar Esherich, an old-school forensic specialist who looks somewhat down on his newly minted Gestapo bosses. After examining the first postcard, he does only one thing - sticks a flag into the map of Berlin, indicating the place where the postcard was found.

Six months later, Escherich glances at a map with forty-four flags - of the forty-eight postcards written by the Quangel by that time, only four did not get into the Gestapo, and even then it is unlikely that they passed from hand to hand, as Otto dreamed. Most likely, they were simply destroyed without even reading to the end. The commissar is in no hurry, he knows that he has chosen the surest tactic - patient waiting. The texts of the postcards do not give any threads, but nevertheless the commissar concludes that the invisible woman is a widower or a lonely person, a worker, literate, but not used to writing. That's all. This case suddenly assumes great importance for the Commissioner. By all means, he wants to see a person who has entered into a deliberately unequal struggle.

Finally, the police detain a man in the clinic, accused of having planted a postcard. This is Enno Kluge, a nonentity, a coward, a loafer, whom his wife had long ago driven out of the house. All his life he lives at the expense of women and runs from work. Together with their friend Borkhausen, they tried to rob Frau Rosenthal, but they drank too much cognac. But they got away with it, because the Perzike brothers continued the robbery.

Enno falls into the hands of Escherich, who immediately understands that he cannot have anything to do with either the postcards themselves or their author, but nevertheless forces him to sign a protocol stating that a certain person gave him a postcard, and lets him go. Enno eludes the spy sent for him and finds shelter with the owner of the pet store Hete Geberle, whose husband died in a concentration camp. But Escherich now has no choice but to look for Kluge - after all, he has already reported to his superiors that a thread leading to the invisible has been discovered. He finds it with the help of Borkhausen. He tries to get money from both the commissioner and the widow Geberle, warning her that Enno is in danger. Frau Geberle is ready to pay for the salvation of a man whom she herself considers a liar, a worthless quitter, and sends him to her friend, who shelters everyone who is being persecuted by the Nazis. Borkhausen's son tracks down Enno, and he again falls into the clutches of Escherich, who now needs to get rid of him, since at the first interrogation it turns out that the commissioner deceived his superiors. Escherich forces Enno Kluge to commit suicide and asks to transfer the case to another investigator, for which he ends up in the cellars of the Gestapo.

Fate sends two warnings to Otto Kwangel, once he is on the verge of death, but this unbending man does not want to stop. In the end, he makes a mistake, losing the postcard in the shop where he works. He is arrested by Commissioner Escherich, who has returned to his duties again, because his successor in the case of "invisibility" has not achieved any success. Escherich is internally broken, he still trembles at the very memory of what he had to endure in the basements of the Gestapo. During interrogation, Kvangel does not refuse anything and holds on with the courage and dignity of a person doing a just cause. He is shocked that only an insignificant part of the postcards did not get into the Gestapo, but he does not consider that he was defeated, and says that if he found himself at liberty, he would start fighting again, "only in a completely different way." Kwangel throws a reproach in the commissar's face that he "works for a bloodsucker" out of self-interest, and Escherich lowers his eyes under his stern gaze. On the same day, the drunken Gestapo descend into Kwangel's cell, mock him, and force Escherich to beat glasses on the old man's head with them. At night, the commissar sits in his office and thinks that he is "sick of delivering booty to these scoundrels," that, if it were possible, he would also begin to fight. But he knows that he does not have the hardness of Kwangel and he has no way out. Commissioner Escherich shoots himself.

Anna Kvangel was also arrested, and, because of the name she accidentally dropped during a cruel interrogation, Trudel Khezergel (the former bride of her son) with her husband, and even Anna's brother. Trudel has not participated in the Resistance for a long time, she and her husband left Berlin and tried to live for each other and for the unborn child, but every word they say during interrogations turns against them. In the dungeon, Trudel's husband dies from beatings, and she herself commits suicide by jumping into a flight of stairs. After the comedy of the trial, in which even the defender opposes the defendants and which sentences both Kwangel to death, long weeks of waiting on death row drag on. Counselor From gives Otto and Anna an ampoule of potassium cyanide, but Anna does not want an easy death, she only thinks that she should be worthy of her husband, and lives in the hope of meeting him before execution. She feels free and happy. On the day of his execution, Otto remains calm and courageous to the end. He does not have time to crush the vial of poison with his teeth. The last sound he hears in life is the screech of a guillotine axe. Anna Kvangel, by the grace of fate, dies during the bombing of Berlin, never knowing that her husband is no longer alive.

I. A. Moskvina-Tarkhanova

(Der Hauptmann von Kopenick)

German fairy tale in three acts

(EIN DEUTSCHES MARCHEN IN DREI AKTEN)

(1930)

Captain von Schlettow tries on a new uniform ordered from the atelier of a military tailor, a Jew Adolf Wormser, in Potsdam. This is a very famous officer's studio at the beginning of the century, Wormser is the royal court supplier.

Despite the assurances of the cutter Wabshke that the uniform fits the captain like a glove, von Schlettov's "skin" feels some kind of inconvenience, something subtly "haunting". Examining himself from all sides in the mirror, he notices that at the back, on the buttocks, the buttons are spaced wider than it should be according to the charter. With the help of a centimeter, Wormser himself makes the necessary measurements and admits that the buttons are sewn half a centimeter wider than the statutory norms. The captain pulls the cutter laughing at such trifles, explaining to him that the soldier is checked precisely on trifles, this has the deepest meaning. Wormser supports von Schlettow - Germany can conquer the world by fulfilling the drill charter and honoring the classics. Buttons will be immediately re-sewn in accordance with the regulations.

Wilhelm Voigt, a former shoemaker, then a criminal who spent many years in a penitentiary, is trying to find a job. Without a passport, he is not accepted anywhere, and he comes to the police station. Foigg humbly talks about his problems and asks for the documents necessary for employment. The police officer explains to a clueless visitor with such a dubious past that he must first become a decent, working person. It dawns on Voigt that he will apparently have to carry his criminal record with him, "like a nose on his face."

On Sunday morning, after spending the night at the station, Voigt sits in the Berlin cafe "National" with his former cellmate, nicknamed Kalle, and drinks coffee for the last pennies. Kalle invites him to become a member of a gang of thieves and earn decent money, but Foigg categorically refuses, he still hopes to find an honest income.

Captain von Schlettow plays billiards in a cafe. He is without a uniform, as officers are forbidden to visit haunted places. The captain admits to his partner, Dr. Jellinek, that he feels like a completely different person in civilian clothes, "something like a half portion without mustard." He adheres to the commandment, adopted from the late father-general - an officer's rank imposes a high responsibility to society. The captain informs the doctor that he has ordered a new uniform for himself, which looks like "a black stallion that has just been scrubbed."

In a cafe, a drunken guards grenadier makes a scandal. Insulted for the honor of his uniform, von Schlettov, as a captain, demands that the grenadier leave the cafe. He refuses to obey the "lousy shtafirka" - a civilian who calls himself the captain, and hits him in the face. Von Schlettow rushes at the grenadier, a fight breaks out, then both are taken away by a policeman. The sympathy of the assembled crowd is clearly on the side of the grenadier, and not the civilian. As a witness to this scene, Voigt perfectly understands its meaning.

After a scandal in a public place, von Schlettow is forced to resign. He no longer needs a new uniform with perfectly sewn buttons.

The uniform is acquired by Dr. Obermuller, who works in the city government. He was awarded the rank of reserve lieutenant, he must participate in military exercises, which is very important for his civilian career.

A new shoe factory announces hiring, and Foigg comes to the hiring department with a great recommendation from the director of the prison, where he made boots for the military. Voigt is denied again - he has no passport, no service record, no army spirit. leaving, Voigt ironically remarks that he did not expect to end up in the barracks instead of the factory.

Voigt and Kalle spend the night in a rooming house, where, before their eyes, the police arrest a frail boy who escaped from the barracks as a deserter. Desperate in trying to start an honest life, Voigt conceives a daring plan - to sneak through the window into the police station at night, find and burn the folder with his "case", pick up some kind of "real" passport and flee abroad with it. Kalle is ready to help Voigt, intending to seize the cash register with money.

Both are caught in the act and sent back to the penitentiary. This time, Voigt spends ten years there.

The last day of Voigt's imprisonment arrives. The director of the prison conducts with the prisoners the traditional "lesson of patriotism" - combat exercises with the aim of teaching the "essence and discipline" of the Prussian army. The director is pleased with Voigt's brilliant knowledge and is sure that it will definitely come in handy in his later life.

After his release from prison, Voigt lives with his sister's family, which he did not dare to do ten years ago, so as not to cause her trouble. But now he is fifty-seven years old and no longer has the strength to spend the night where he has to. Sister Hoprecht's husband serves in the army and hopes to be promoted to vice sergeant major. Hoprecht refuses to help Voigt expedite the receipt of a passport, everything must go in order, legally and without violations. He is confident both in his long-awaited promotion and in the arrangement of Voigt's affairs, "that's why we are in Prussia."

Dr. Obermüller, burgomaster of the town of Köpenick near Berlin, has been summoned to the imperial maneuvers. He orders a new uniform for himself, and the old one returns it to its creator, the cutter Wabshka, as an advance on payment for a new one. Wabschke is ironic that he can still come in handy for a masquerade.

In a chic restaurant in Potsdam, a magnificent celebration takes place on the occasion of the imperial maneuvers. It was arranged by a respected military tailor in the city, Wormser, who now has the rank of adviser to commerce. His daughter dances in an officer's uniform - the same one from von Schlettov. Causing general delight and tenderness, she declares that she is ready to establish a ladies' regiment and start a war. Wormser's mood is overshadowed by his son Willy, who in six years has only risen to the rank of corporal and is clearly not fit for an officer. Trying to please one officer, Willy knocks over the champagne and pours his sister's uniform. Now the uniform is being sold to a junk shop.

Voigt twice applies for documents, but does not have time to receive them in due time, as participants in military maneuvers are accommodated in the police. Voigt receives an order to move out within forty-eight hours.

Hoprecht returns from training without his long-promised promotion. He is annoyed and understands that he was treated unfairly, but Foigga reacts to indignant remarks "like a pastor" - sooner or later everyone will get "his own". "They don't promote you, they send me out" - this is how the tired Voigt defines this "own". But Hoprecht is sure that a healthy spirit reigns in his beloved Prussia. He urges Voigt to be patient, to obey, to follow order, to adapt. Voigt loves his homeland, like Hoprecht, but he knows that lawlessness is being done to him. He is not allowed to live in his own country, he does not even see it, "there are only police stations around."

Voigt declares to Hoprecht that he does not want to leave life miserable, he wants to "show off". Hoprecht is convinced that Voigt is a dangerous person for society,

In the junk shop, Voigt buys the same uniform, changes into it in the station toilet and arrives at the Köpenick station. There he stops an armed street patrol led by a corporal, brings him to the town hall and orders the burgomaster and treasurer to be arrested. To the stunned Obermüller, the "captain" declares that he has an order from His Majesty the Emperor. Both obey almost without objection, accustomed that "an order is an order", the "captain" apparently has "absolute powers". Voigt sends them under the protection of the magistrate's watchman to Berlin, and he himself takes the cashier - "for revision". Voigt did not know the main thing - there were no passports in the magistrate.

In the morning, Voigt wakes up in a beer cellar and hears the drivers, drivers and waiters discussing the incident, the hero of which was himself. Everyone admires the lightning-fast operation and the "captain from Koepenik", who, in addition, turned out to be "phony". Gloomy and indifferent, in his old suit, Voigt reads the special editions of the newspapers, with admiration telling about the trick of the "impudent joker", Voigt hears the announcement about him being read aloud, with the signs of the "Captain from Köpenick" - bony, lopsided, sickly, legs "wheel".

Forty detainees have already visited the Berlin detective department, but there is clearly no "captain" among them. The detectives are inclined to close this case altogether, especially since the secret reports say that His Majesty laughed and was flattered to learn about what happened: it is now clear to everyone that "German discipline is a great force."

At this moment, Voigt is introduced, who decided to confess everything himself, hoping that this will be credited to him and that after another term he will not be denied documents. He needs "at least once in his life to get a passport" to start a real life. Voigt tells where the uniform is hidden, which is soon delivered.

Convinced that they are really in front of a "dashing" "captain from Koepenik", the head of the investigative department condescendingly and benevolently wonders how he came up with the idea to turn the whole thing under the guise of a captain. Foig ingenuously replies that he, like everyone else, knows that the military is allowed to do anything. He put on a uniform, "gave himself an order" and carried it out.

At the request of the chief, Foigg again puts on his uniform and cap, and everyone involuntarily stands at attention. Carelessly putting his hand to the visor, Voigt gives the command "At ease!". To the general laughter, he makes a serious request - to give him a mirror, he has never seen himself in a uniform. After drinking a glass of red wine kindly offered to him to strengthen his strength, Voigt looks at himself in a large mirror. Gradually, he is overcome by uncontrollable laughter, in which one word is heard: "Impossible!"

A. V. Dyakonova

(Des Teufels General)

Drama (1946)

Aviation General Harras receives guests at Otto's restaurant. This is the only restaurant in Berlin where private banquets can be held during wartime with Göring's special permission. Accordingly, in one of the halls, the latest listening device for the Gestapo was installed.

The general arrives at the restaurant from the Imperial Chancellery from an official reception, which he calls "the Fuhrer's beer gatherings." But Otto has French champagne, appetizers from Norway, game from Poland, cheese from Holland and other "victory fruits" from occupied countries. Of course, there is no caviar from Moscow.

Harras became a legendary pilot in the First World War, but he cannot be more than forty-five years old, his open young face is attractive. Among his guests were the cultural writer Schmidt-Lausitz, the major aircraft manufacturer von Morungen, as well as friends and relatives. The general celebrates the fiftieth victory in the air battle of his friend and student, Colonel Eilers. This modest officer, embarrassed by the general attention, he hurries to raise a glass to the general's health. Only one cultural leader inadvertently drains a glass under "Heil Hitler". Eilers has received a short vacation, and his wife Anna, daughter of von Morungen, dreams of taking him home as soon as possible.

The second daughter of Morungen, Manirchen, a self-confident and cheeky person, assures that she does not aspire to marriage. To do this, you need to get a bunch of papers - about an impeccable Aryan pedigree, sexual potency, etc. Using the vocabulary of the Union of German Girls, she authoritatively talks about the problems of race and gender, flirts.

Four pilots from Eilers' squadron arrive, awarded the Grand Iron Cross. They arrived from the Eastern Front, where Leningrad was bombed. The pilots admit that the Russians will still "set pepper", but they have no doubts about the final victory of Germany.

Three actresses appear, with one of whom, Olivia Guys, Harras maintains a long-term acquaintance. She brings Diddo's niece, young and beautiful, with her. Olivia introduces Harras to Diddo, "for whom he is a kind of "perfect model" - a "monument of antiquity", as the general, admiring the girl, clarifies.

Meanwhile, the adjutant tells the general secret information about the "troubles" of the German army near Moscow. The general considers the war with Russia to be Hitler's mistake; he tried in vain to stop the march to the East through Goering.

Such dangerous conversations are carried on in the absence of the culture-leiter, whom the general calls a secret agent of the Gestapo, and where Schmidt-Lausitz directs culture is a "cesspool."

Alone with Morungen, Harras talks about the accidents that happen to planes just coming off the assembly line. The general is frank with the industrialist, considering him his friend. He doubts the existence of underground organizations at aircraft factories capable of such daring sabotage. The general even admits that the sabotage may be the work of the Gestapo, who is preparing a trap for him - Harras is personally responsible for controlling aircraft.

Harras believes that he, too sharp-tongued and frank in likes and dislikes, will not be touched by the Gestapo yet, he is needed as a professional. The meaning of his life has always been flying. War is the element of the general, but he does not like to kill. He admits to Morungen that he might feel better if he bombed the Imperial Chancellery rather than the Kremlin or Buckingham Palace. In general, he had a great life: "girls - plenty", "wine - at least fill up", "flights - as much as you like." It seems to Morungen that Harras seems to be summing up.

The general notices that the young pilot Hartman is silent and gloomy, he manages to call him to frankness: Hartman's fiancée Manirchen said that she was breaking off her engagement with him because he could not get a certificate of race purity. The pilot is now waiting for death on the battlefield. After a long and sincere conversation with him, Harras hopes that he managed to convince the pilot of the value of his own life.

Olivia asks the General to help rescue Professor Bergman, a Jewish surgeon with magical hands who has just been temporarily released from a concentration camp. The general already has experience in such matters, he can provide the professor with his sports plane, ready to fly to Switzerland. He will be led by the professor's wife - a purebred Aryan, a pilot.

Soon a sharp conversation takes place between Harras and Schmidt-Lauzitz in front of everyone, in which the cultural leader shows the strongest hatred of the Jews, and the general - contempt for such "pigs" like him. The Culturlater leaves, and the General, with a sigh of relief, continues the banquet.

Harras receives an important report - the holidays for the pilots are canceled, they are urgently sent to the front. Eilers gives the order for the morning gathering, he is ready to carry out the orders of the Fuhrer unconditionally. Eilers believes in himself, in Germany and in victory, he has no doubt that everything is done in the name of the future world.

A few days later Harras is seized by the Gestapo and kept for two weeks. According to newspaper reports, which friends do not believe, he is on the Eastern Front.

On the day Harras returns home, Schmidt-Lausitz comes to him and dictates the conditions for his rehabilitation for the Gestapo. The general must establish the causes and take measures to suppress acts of sabotage in the manufacture of combat vehicles. He is suspected of assisting "elements hostile to the state." Kulturlater sets a ten-day deadline for Harras and says that he himself would not hesitate even ten minutes to neutralize such a person as a general. Harras answers him in the same way and realizes that he received only a "respite".

Diddo, worried about his fate, comes to Harras, and a declaration of love takes place between them. The general warns that his life is now worthless, "the raid has begun." He is still able to defend himself - for Diddo, their happiness.

Olivia informs the shocked general that Bergman and his wife have accepted the poison as "the only way to freedom". Olivia thanks Harras on behalf of the couple. Harras understands that everyone has "his own Jew for conscience", but this will not pay off.

Morungen and Manirchen arrive. The industrialist, who framed the general in the case of an aircraft accident, offers him the only way to salvation - to join the party and transfer military aviation into the hands of Himmler, the SS. Harras does not want salvation at this cost.

They bring newspapers - a special bulletin with a mourning frame: Eilers died in a crash when a plane crashed over an airfield, the Fuhrer gave the order to arrange a funeral at the state level.

Manirchen talks to Harras face to face. She considers him one of the few "real men" and does not want him to ruin himself. Morungen's daughter confesses her love to him and offers to fight for power and influence in the country with her help. Harras refuses in a form that is insulting to Manirchen. He had already figured out that she was a Gestapo agent.

Comes December 6, 1941 - the last day of the term allotted to Harras. He sits in the technical office of the military airfield with the e-engineer Overbruch, whom he has known for many years. Eilers once said that Overbruch could be trusted with "the whole fortune without a receipt." Both are preparing a report for the commission of inquiry. Overbruch signs a report that does not indicate the causes of the accidents - they have not been established. Two suspected workers are brought in who refuse to answer the general's questions. He takes pity on these people who are about to be interrogated by the Gestapo.

Harras looks at the engineer searchingly and says that he cannot take the last chance. He has nothing to say to the Gestapo, and from him, already unnecessary and dangerous, they are probably waiting for a "gentleman's" departure from life - the revolver was left to him. But the general intends to use the weapon against the enemy.

Harras asks Overbruch to believe in his decency and tell the truth. The engineer believes the general: the truth is that he himself and other people, unknown and nameless, who have a common goal and a common enemy, are fighting for the defeat of Germany in this war. Those who serve as a "weapon of the enemy", a weapon with which he can defeat, also have to die. Thus died Eilers, a friend of Overbruch. Members of the resistance movement are not stopped by the death of the one they love, just as their own death does not stop them.

Overbruch wants to save the general, believing that he can bring help to the movement. He invites him to flee to Switzerland.

Harras refuses - for him, who has become the "general of the devil", it is already too late to join the fight against him. But Overbruch, behind whom there is a just cause, must hold out. Harras signs the report - it's better for the engineer, and quickly leaves.

Overbruch rushes to the window and sees Harras getting into the test car, taking off and climbing. Then the engine noise suddenly stops.

Schmidt-Lausitz informs the Führer's headquarters that General Harras, doing his duty, died while testing a combat vehicle. State funerals.

A. V. Dyakonova

(Im Westen nicht Neues)

Roman (1929)

The height of the First World War. Germany is already at war against France, Russia, England and America, Paul Bäumer, on behalf of whom the story is being told, introduces his brother-soldiers. Schoolchildren, peasants, fishermen, artisans of different ages gathered here.

The company has lost almost half of its composition and is resting nine kilometers from the front line after meeting with English guns - "meat grinders".

Due to losses during the shelling, they get double portions of food and smoke. The soldiers sleep off, eat their fill, smoke and play cards. Müller, Kropp and Paul go to their wounded classmate. The four of them ended up in one company, persuaded by the "heartfelt voice" of the class teacher Kontarik. Josef Bem did not want to go to war, but, fearing "to cut off all paths for himself," he also signed up as a volunteer.

He was one of the first to be killed. From the wounds he received in the eyes, he could not find shelter, lost his bearings and was shot. And in a letter to Kropp, their former mentor Kontarik conveys his regards, calling them "iron guys". This is how thousands of kontariki fool the youth.

Another classmate, Kimmerich, is found in a field hospital with an amputated leg. Franz Kimmerich's mother asked Paul to look after him, "because he is just a child." But how to do it on the front line? One look at Franz is enough to understand that he is hopeless. While Franz was unconscious, his watch was stolen, his favorite watch he had received as a gift. True, there were excellent English boots made of leather to the knees, which he no longer needed. He dies in front of his comrades. Depressed, they return to the barracks with Franz's boots. On the way, Kropp has a tantrum.

In the barracks replenishment of recruits. The dead are replaced by the living. One of the recruits says that they were fed one swede. The getter Katchinsky (aka Kat) feeds the boy with beans and meat. Kropp offers his own version of the war: let the generals fight themselves, and the victor will declare his country the winner. And so others are fighting for them, who did not start the war and who do not need it at all.

A company with replenishment is sent to sapper work on the front line. An experienced Kat teaches recruits how to recognize shots and explosions and bury them. Listening to the "vague rumble of the front", he assumes that at night "they will be given a light."

Paul reflects on the behavior of the soldiers on the front line, how they are all instinctively connected to the ground, which you want to press down when the shells whistle. She appears to the soldier as "a silent, reliable intercessor, with a groan and a cry, he confides his fear and his pain to her, and she accepts them ... in those moments when he clings to her, squeezing her long and tightly in his arms, when the fear of death is under fire makes him burrow deep into her face and all his body, she is his only Friend, brother, his mother.

As Kat had foreseen, shelling of the highest density. Claps of chemical shells. Gongs and metal rattles proclaim:

"Gas, Gas!" All hope for the tightness of the mask. "Soft jellyfish" fills all funnels. We have to get up, but there is shelling.

The children count how many of them are left in the class. Seven killed, one in a lunatic asylum, four wounded - eight comes out. Respite. They attach a wax lid over the candle and throw lice into it, and during this activity they think about what everyone would do if it were not for the war. Their main torturer at the exercises, Himmelshtos, a former postman, arrives in the unit. Everyone has a grudge against him, but they have not yet decided how to take revenge on him.

An offensive is being prepared. Coffins smelling of tar are stacked in two tiers near the school. Dead rats have bred in the trenches, and there is no way to cope with them. Because of the shelling, it is impossible to deliver food to the soldiers. The recruit is having a seizure. He is eager to jump out of the dugout. Attack of the French - and they are pushed back to the reserve line. Counterattack - and the guys return with trophies in the form of canned food and booze. Continuous mutual shelling. The dead are placed in a large funnel, where they lie already at three milkings. All "weakened and stupefied." Himmelstos hides in a trench. Paul makes her go on the attack.

From a company of 150 people, only 32 remained. They are taken to the rear further than usual. The nightmares of the front are smoothed out with irony ... They say about the deceased that he "squinted his ass." In the same tone and about something else. It saves you from confusion.

Paul is summoned to the office and given a leave certificate and travel documents. He anxiously examines from the carriage window "the frontier posts of his youth." Here is his house. The mother is sick. In their family, it is not customary to express feelings, and her words "my dear boy" speak volumes. The father wants to show his son in uniform to his friends, but Paul does not want to talk about the war with anyone. He seeks solitude in quiet corners of restaurants with a glass of beer or in his room, where everything is familiar to the smallest detail. The German teacher invites him to the pub. There, familiar patriotic teachers bravo talk about how to "beat the Frenchman." They treat him to beer and cigars, and at the same time they make plans to seize Belgium, the coal regions of France and large chunks of Russia. Paul goes to the barracks, where they were drilled two years ago. His classmate Mittelshted, who was sent here after the infirmary, reports the news:

Kontarik is taken to the militia. A career military drills a class mentor according to his own scheme.

Paul goes to Kimmerich's mother and tells her about her son's instantaneous death from a wound to the heart. His story is so convincing that she believes.

And again the barracks, where they were drilled. Nearby is a large camp of Russian prisoners of war. Paul stands at the post at the Russian camp. He reflects, looking at these people with "childish faces and beards of the apostles", about who turned ordinary people into enemies and murderers. He breaks the cigarettes and passes them in half through the net to the Russians. Every day they bury the dead and sing memorial services.

Paul is sent to his unit, where he meets old friends. For a week they are driven around the parade ground. Issue a new form on the occasion of the arrival of the Kaiser. The Kaiser does not impress the soldiers. Disputes flare up again about who starts wars and why they are needed. Take the French hard worker, why would he attack us! It's all made up by the authorities.

There are rumors that they will be sent to Russia, but they are sent to the very thick, to the front line. The guys go to investigate. Night, rockets, shooting. Paul is lost and does not know which way their trenches are. Paul waits out the day in a funnel - in water and mud - pretending to be dead. He has lost his pistol and is preparing a knife in case of hand-to-hand combat. A lost French soldier falls into his funnel. Paul rushes at him with a knife ... With the onset of night, Paul returns to his trenches. He is shocked - for the first time he killed a man who, in essence, did nothing to him.

Soldiers are sent to guard a food warehouse. Six people from their squad survived: Kath, Albert, Müller, Tjaden, Leer, Deterling are all here. They find the safest concrete basement in the village. Mattresses and even a bed made of mahogany with a canopy of blue silk with lace and feather beds are dragged from the houses of the runaway residents. A soldier's ass is sometimes not averse to soak up the soft. Paul and Kat go on reconnaissance in the village. She's under heavy artillery fire. They find two piglets frolicking in the barn. A big meal is being prepared. The village is on fire from shelling, and the warehouse is dilapidated. Now you can drag anything from it. This is used by both security guards and passing drivers. Feast in Time of Plague.

A month later, Shrovetide ended and they were again taken to the front line. The marching column is fired upon. Albert and Paul end up in the Cologne monastery infirmary. The wounded are constantly brought in and the dead are taken away. Albert's leg is amputated all the way to the top. Paul after recovery is back at the forefront. The situation is hopeless. American, British and French regiments are advancing on the warring Germans.

Muller is killed by a flare. Kata, wounded in the shin, is carried out by Paul on his back from the shelling, but during the dashes, Kata is wounded in the neck by a shrapnel and he dies. Paul is the last of his classmates to go to war. Everyone is talking about an imminent truce.

Paul was killed in October 1918. Then it was quiet and the military reports were brief: "No change on the Western Front."

A. N. Kuzin

(Drei kamaraden)

Roman (1938)

Germany after World War I. Economic crisis. The crippled destinies of people and their souls. As one of the heroes of the novel says, "we live in an era of despair."

Three school and then front-line comrades - Robert Lokman, Gottfried Lenz, Otto Kester - work in a car repair shop. Robert is thirty. Birthday is always a little sad and draws on memories. Before Robert are pictures from his recent past: childhood, school, in 1916, he, eighteen years old, was drafted, soldiers' barracks, Kester's injury, the painful death of fellow soldiers from gas asphyxiation, from severe wounds. Then 1919 putsch. Kester and Lenz were arrested. Hunger. Inflation. After the war, Kester was a student for some time, then a pilot, a race car driver, and finally bought an auto repair shop. Lenz and Lokman became his partners. Earnings are small, but you can live if "the past did not suddenly arise and goggle dead eyes." For oblivion there is vodka.

Kester and Lenz solemnly greet Robert. Lenz gives the command to "get up" and lays out gifts - six bottles of old rum miraculously obtained somewhere. But the holiday - later, now - work.

Friends bought an old rattletrap at an auction, which looked very funny, equipped it with the most powerful engine of a racing car, called it "Karl" - the ghost of the highway. They work until dusk and, having rolled out a repaired Cadillac, decide to take the Karl to the suburbs to celebrate their birthday. Their entertainment is fooling the owners of expensive and luxurious cars, which they let ahead, and then jokingly overtake. Having stopped along the way, friends are going to order dinner, and then a Buick, which they overtook, pulls up. It turned out to be a passenger - Patricia Holman. Together, they arrange a fun feast.

After a wild celebration, Robert returns to his lair - furnished rooms. People live here, brought here by fate for various reasons. The Hasse spouses quarrel all the time over money, Georg Blok is stubbornly preparing to go to college, although the money accumulated while working at the mine has long run out and he is starving, Count Orlov is holding the past by the throat - Robert saw how he turned pale one day at the noise of a winding cars - under this noise in Russia, his father was shot. But they all help each other as much as they can: with advice, good attitude, money ... Near the boarding house there is a cemetery and not far from the cafe "International". Robert worked there for some time as a pianist.

Robert makes an appointment with Patricia - Pat, as her friends dubbed her. He is waiting for her in a cafe, sipping cognac. The cafe is crowded, and they decide to go to a bar. Robert tries to imagine who she is and how she lives. The owner of the bar, Fred, greets them, and Robert begins to feel more confident. There is only Valentin Gauser in the hall, an acquaintance. Robert on the front: he received an inheritance and is now drinking it away. He is happy to be alive. His motto is: no matter how much you celebrate, everything is not enough. Robert explains that this is the only person who made his little happiness out of a big misfortune. He doesn't get along well with Pat. In the end, the rum does its job, loosens the tongue. Robert escorts her home and notices on the way back that he is drunk. What did he say? Annoyed at himself for such a mistake, he returns to Fred and pours for real - from chagrin.

The next day, on the advice of Lenz, "the grand master of love affairs," Robert sends Pat a bouquet of roses - without a single word as an apology. Pat occupies Robert's thoughts more and more, makes him think about life. He remembers what they were like when they returned from the war. "Young and faithless, like miners from a collapsed mine. We wanted to fight against everything that determined our past - against lies and selfishness, self-interest and heartlessness, we became hardened and did not trust anyone except our closest comrades, did not believe in anything , except for such forces that never deceived us, like heaven, tobacco, trees, bread and earth, but what came of it? Everything collapsed, falsified and forgotten... The time of great human and courageous dreams has passed. New meeting. Robert and Pat decide to drive around the city. Pat has never driven a car, and on a quiet street, Robert puts her behind the wheel. She learns to start, turn, stop, they feel such closeness, "as if they told each other the story of their whole lives." Then they go to a bar. They meet Lenz there and together they go to the amusement park, where a new carousel and roller coaster are installed. Lenz is waiting for them, and now they are in the pavilion, where they throw plastic rings on hooks. For friends, it's child's play. In the army, during a respite, they spent months killing time by throwing their hats on all sorts of hooks. They win everything from an alarm clock to a baby stroller. The second owner of the attraction repeats everything. The third announces that it is closing. Friends throw rings on wine bottles and load everyone into a stroller. Fans follow them in droves. They cheerfully distribute all the prizes, leaving themselves wine and a frying pan for the workshop.

Robert's comrades accept Pat into their community. They take care of Robert's feelings, because love is the only thing standing in this world, "everything else is crap."

Kester signed up Carl for the races, and for the past week, friends have been checking every screw until late at night, preparing Carl for the start. Theo advises to beware of his "Nutcracker", and Lenz assures that "Karl" will give him pepper. This rattletrap is declared in the class of sports cars. The mechanics mock the wreck. Lenz is furious and ready to fight, but Robert calms him down. Cars rush along the track. Everyone gathered - here and Pat. "Karl" left the start penultimate. Now he is the third. Lenz drops the stopwatch. Crack of motors. Pat is delighted - Kester is already the second! Before the finish line, Theo has something wrong with the engine, and Kester, the master of cornering, is only two meters ahead of him. Victory! Friends are about to party, but the bartender Alphonse invites them to his place for a free meal, and they consider it an honor. At dinner, Pat is too much of a success, and Robert suggests she disappear unnoticed. They sit for a long time on a cemetery bench shrouded in mist. Then they go to Robert, Pat is glad of the warmth in his room. She sleeps with her head resting on his arm. He begins to understand that he is loved. He knows how to "really be friends with men," but he has no idea why such a woman could fall in love with him.

There is no work, and friends decide to buy a taxi at the auction and earn extra money on it in turn. The first one has to go on a flight to Robert. After a fight and a treat with vodka, the competitors become colleagues, and he is accepted into the ranks of taxi drivers, among which half are random people. One of them, Gustav, becomes his friend.

It's his first time in Pat's apartment. This is the former property of her family. Now Pat is only a renter of two rooms, where everything is tastefully arranged and reminds of past prosperity. Pat treats him to rum and talks about his life. About hunger, about a year spent in the hospital. There are no relatives left, no money, and she is going to work as a record seller. Robert is upset and somewhat confused: he does not want her to depend on someone. But what can he do ... Maybe his landlady, Frau Zadevski, is right, who, seeing Pat one day, said that she needed another man - solid and secure. Sad if this turns out to be true...

Robert profitably sells the refurbished Cadillac to the successful businessman Blumenthal. Having received the check, he flies like a swallow to the workshop. Friends are dumbfounded by such commercial success. Rarely does it fall to their lot. After a successful deal, Robert takes a two-week vacation, and he and Pat go to the sea. On the way they stop in the forest and lie on the grass. Pat counts the calls of the cuckoo and counts a hundred years. That's how long she'd like to live. Kester warned the hostess of the hotel Fraulein Müller, with whom he lived a year after the war, of their arrival. They settle down and go to the sea. Robert, after an hour of swimming, lies on the sand and reminisces about how at the front, during a short rest, the soldiers just basked on the sand without ammunition and weapons in the summer of 1917. Many of them were soon killed. In the evening, a walk in a Citroen. Pat suddenly feels weak and asks to go home. The next day, Pat began to bleed. Robert calls Kester and the friends find Dr. Jaffe, who was treating Pat. Crazy race on the highway, at night, in places in continuous fog. The doctor stays for a few days. In two weeks, she can already return home.

Jaffe acquaints Robert with Pat's medical history and insists on re-treatment in a sanatorium. He takes it with him on rounds and shows the sick. Many are recovering. Just don't show Pat your concern. So that Pat does not get bored, Robert brings her a wonderful thoroughbred puppy - this is a gift from Gustav.

There are no taxi passengers at all, and Gustav drags Robert to the races. Robert miraculously wins. Beginners are lucky, and this is very handy! "Karl" is being prepared for new races, they are going to run it in the mountains. An accident is happening right in front of their eyes. They deliver the wounded to the hospital and arrange to repair the crippled car. We have to beat off the order from the four brothers, who also saw the accident. The eldest of them was already in jail for murder. A fierce fight, but the brothers are defeated. In the workshop, they immediately begin repairs - they need money so much.

It's getting colder and it's raining continuously. Jaffe calls Robert and asks to immediately send Pat to the mountains. In the sanatorium, he agreed with his friend about everything, and they are waiting for her there. The mountains have blue skies, snow and sun. There are many former patients on the train, they go again. So they come back from here. They stayed together for a week.

And at home there is a new problem. The owner of the car, which they hardly recaptured from the brothers, went bankrupt, and the car with all the property was put under the hammer. The car is not insured, so they won't get anything from the insurance company. The workshop will have to be sold. They have no other choice but to auction all the property.

Robert has dinner at the "Internationale" and meets all his acquaintances there. Lilly, a reluctant prostitute whose wedding they had recently celebrated with pomp, had her husband demand a divorce after he squandered all her money, outraged by her past, hitherto supposedly unknown to him. Robert calls the sanitarium and learns that Pat is on bed rest. He gets drunk out of frustration. Kester puts him behind the wheel of the "Karl" and makes him drive out of town at breakneck speed. Fearing that he will break, he resists, but Kester insists. The wind and speed knock out the hops, and the tension passes.

The city is excited. On the streets of demonstrators, skirmishes. Lenz left for the rally in the morning. Robert and Otto, worried, go looking for him. They get to a rally of fascist youths. After listening to a speaker a little, who "hailed" promises "on people's heads", friends understand that these people - petty employees, officials, accountants, workers are fascinated by the fact that someone thinks about them, cares about them, taking words for deeds . "They don't need politics, they need something instead of religion." This is what the fascists are doing.

Friends find Lenz in the crowd, take him away from the police and the thugs. Everyone goes to the car. Suddenly, four guys appear, one of them shoots Lenz. Kester unsuccessfully tries to catch up with them.

Lenz died, who went through the war and knew how to laugh so well ... Kester swears to take revenge on the killer. Alphonse joins the search for the bastard.

In a suburban cafe, Robert sees the killer. However, he slipped away before the friends decided what to do. Kester leaves to look for the killer. Robert does not take with him - because of Pat. However, Alphonse was the first to track down the bastard and finished him off. Robert finds Otto Kester and reports that retribution has taken place. Together they go to the boarding house, where Pat's telegram is waiting for them: "Robbie, come soon ..."

There is little money, and they decide to go to "Karl", it is not just a car, but a true friend. Once again, he saves them. In the sanatorium, the doctor talks about miraculous recovery in the most hopeless cases. Kester is silent. They've been through too much together to try to console each other. Down in the village they are having lunch. Pat leaves the sanatorium for the first time in recent years, she is glad of her freedom and friends. They ride outside the village to the crest of the first rise and admire the sunset from there. Pat knows he won't see it again, but he hides it from his friends, just as they do from her. It snows at night, and Kester has to go home. Pat asks to say hello to Gottfried Lenz, they did not have the courage to tell her about the death of a friend. The money came from Kester. Robert realizes that Kester has sold the Carl. He is in despair. Lenz is dead, Karl is sold, and Pat?

And Pat can no longer listen to the doctors and asks Robert to let her do what she wants. She has only one desire - to be happy in the remaining time.

March, and landslides began in the mountains. Patients do not sleep, are nervous and listen to the rumble in the mountains. Pat is getting weaker day by day, she can no longer get up. She died at the last hour of the night. It's hard and painful. She squeezed his hand, but did not recognize it. A new day is dawning and she is no more...

A. N. Kuzin

(Dreigroschenoper)

(In collaboration with E. Hauptmann and K. Weil)

(1928)

Prologue. London. Soho. Fair. The street singer sings the ballad of Mackey's Knife: "The shark's teeth are wedges / They all stick out for show. / But Mackey only has a knife, / Yes, even that is hidden from view. / If the shark sheds blood, / All the water around is red. / Wears Mackey knife gloves, / Not a spot on the gloves. / Over the Thames in the lanes / People die for a penny. / Plague and smallpox have nothing to do with it - / Mackey knife walks there. / If in the evening on the Strand / You find a dead body, / It means that he is walking somewhere nearby / Mackey-knife with a light step. / Meyer Shmul disappeared somewhere. / He was a rich old man, / Makki spends Shmul's money, / There is no evidence against Makki.

A man separates from a group of laughing prostitutes and hurriedly crosses the square. This is the Mackey Knife!

Action first. The Beggar's Friend is Jonathan Jeremy Peacham's establishment. Mr. Peacham is concerned that it is becoming increasingly difficult to make money on compassion for the unfortunate. People become stale, and the company suffers losses. It is necessary to improve the work of equipping the beggars in order to arouse at least a drop of pity by the sight of mutilations and rags, pitiful legends and slogans like "Giving is sweeter than taking." Peacham reveals the essence of his activity in his teachings to the novice beggar. Mrs Peacham announces that their daughter Polly has a new boyfriend. Mr. Peacham is horrified to recognize him as the bandit Makhit, nicknamed Macky the Knife.

In the slums of Soho. The daughter of the king of beggars, Polly, marries the king of bandits, Makhit. Simple and good-natured bandits Jacob Hook, Matthias Moneta, Walter Weeping Willow, Robert Pila and others arrange a wedding atmosphere in an abandoned stable, using stolen dishes, furniture and food. Mack is pleased with the wedding, although he sometimes has to point out to his comrades the imperfection of their manners. The young beauty Polly performs the song "Pirate Jenny": "I'm here washing glasses, making beds, / And you don't know who I am. / But when there is a forty-gun three-masted brig at the pier, / Oh, how I will laugh at this moment! / And all of you will not be happy then, / It will not be up to you all to drink, gentlemen!

The most honored guest appears - Captain Brown, aka Panther Brown, head of the London criminal police, and in the past fellow soldier of Makhit. Together they fought in India and Afghanistan and now remain friends. Working each in their field, they carry out mutually beneficial cooperation. In two voices they sing a soldier's song: "From Gibraltar to Peshawar / Cannon pillows for us. / If a new, yellow-lilac, / Black-colored race comes across, / Then we will make a cutlet out of it. Tram-tam!"

Peacham's establishment. Polly's song "When I Was an Innocent Girl" makes it clear to her parents that her girlhood is already over. Peacham complains that without Polly, the business of the company will fall into decay, as the poor brethren love this girl. The way out is to get the police on Mackheath. This is easy to do, because always on Thursdays, faithful to his habits, Makhit can be found with prostitutes. The Peacham family performs the zong, which is the First Threepenny Finale: "A man has a holy right, / After all, the life of the earth is short. / And eat bread and rejoice, right, / Every person has the right. / But is it heard that someone once / Realized their rights? Alas! / Of course, everyone is glad to realize them, / Yes, the circumstances are not like that! / Here is the truth - who could object - / Evil is man, and the world, and God!

The second action. Polly informs Makhit that he has been denounced to the police, and Brown is forced to order his arrest. Makhit entrusts his young wife with the affairs of the gang, while he intends to run away.

Polly successfully demonstrates her ability to command to the bandits.

Foreshadowing the events, Mr. and Mrs. Peacham perform in the Sideshow "The Ballad of the Call of the Flesh": "The titans of thought and giants of the spirit / A slut leads to death."

It was a Thursday, and out of habit, Mack went to Tarnbridge, in spite of everything, to the prostitutes. With them, he has an almost family conversation about the climate, about the quality of underwear. Jenny's old friend Malina performs "The Pimp's Ballad" with him. Meanwhile, she had already betrayed him to the police, seduced by Peacham's money. Here are the police agents. Makhit is taken away.

Jail at the Old Bailey. Your life is pleasant, if you are rich. This truth, which is true even in prison, Mackie learned from childhood. his conditions of detention are not the worst. The prisoner is visited at once by two beauties. This is Polly and Lucy Brown, the daughter of his friend Captain Brown. Mackheath seduced her a little before he married Polly. They sing duet of jealous women. Mackey is forced to give preference to Lucy - she will help him escape. Lucy complies with his request. Makhit leaves the prison and goes to ... prostitutes.

The second three-penny final: "You teach us to live honestly and strictly, / Not to steal, not to lie and not to sin. / First, let us eat a little, / And only then teach us to live honestly. belly, / It’s time for you to remember once and for all: / First bread, and then morality! / Here, gentlemen, the whole truth without embellishment: / Only crimes feed us.

The third action. Today is coronation day, and Peacham is getting his impoverished staff ready for the hard work. Prostitutes show up to demand money for betraying Makhit. Peacham refuses them: after all, Mack is no longer in prison. In the hearts of Jenny Malina throws: "Mackheath is the last gentleman in this world! Having escaped from prison, he first came to console me, and now he went with the same to Sookie Todry!" So she betrays her old friend for the second time, now completely disinterestedly. Panther Brown appears. He tries to keep the beggars out of the feast. The beggars sing: "You can't live with your head. / You can only feed a louse with your head!" Peacham demonstrates his power: if he gives the order, then so many beggars will come out into the street that the holiday will be completely ruined. Frightened Brown promises not to touch the beggars, moreover, he promises to immediately arrest his friend Mack.

Lucy Brown and Polly Peachum once again discuss who owns Mac. They talk like society ladies, sometimes like business competitors, sometimes like girls-girlfriends, while Mack, meanwhile, is already back in prison.

Yes, Mack is in jail, and he should be hanged today. Finally, he, too, is fed up with deathly anguish. His accomplices must get a thousand pounds in half an hour to save him. They probably don't want to be in too much of a hurry. No, I don't want to at all. Brown appears, and the last conversation of friends results in the last cash settlement.

Mac ascends the scaffold. He asks everyone for forgiveness: "Oath-breakers, wells, / Tramps, capable of killing, / Walkers, parasites, pimps, / I ask you to forgive me everyone!"

Suddenly, Peachum comes to the forefront: "The world is arranged in such a way that Mack should be executed. And no friends will help him. But in our booth everything will be arranged much better. Especially for you, dear audience, we have invited the royal herald, who will now announce the mercy of the queen" .

Third threepenny final. The royal messenger appears:

"Makeheath is pardoned in honor of the queen's coronation. At the same time he receives the title of hereditary nobleman and should henceforth be called" sir ". In addition, he receives the castle of Marimar and a life annuity of ten thousand pounds."

Where danger is great, help is near. Is it worth it to lament the injustice that is so cold and lifeless within itself? Do not forget about this and be more tolerant of evil.

L. B. Shamshin

(Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder)

Chronicle from the Thirty Years' War (1939)

1. Spring 1624. The army of the Swedish king gathers soldiers for a campaign against Poland. The sergeant major and the recruiter recognize only war as the founder of social order and civilization. Where there is no war, what kind of morality is there: everyone wanders where he wants, says what he wants, eats what he wants - no order, no rations, no accounting!

Two guys are wheeling in the van of Matushka Courage, the waiter of the Second Finnish Regiment. This is what she sings: "Hey, commander, give a sign to stop, / Take care of your soldiers! / You'll have time to fight, let them first / The infantry will change their boots. / And feed the lice under the roar of guns, / And live, and turn into dust - / It's more pleasant people, if people / At least in new boots. / Hey, Christians, the ice is melting, / The dead are sleeping in the darkness of the grave. / Get up! It's time for everyone to go camping, / Who lives and breathes on earth!"

She is a Bavarian by birth, and her real name is Anna Fierling, and she received the nickname Courage because she never left her van with goods under bombs or bullets. Her children - sons and mute daughter Katrin - are real children of war: everyone has their own surname, and their fathers - soldiers of different armies who fought under the banners of different faiths - have all been killed or disappeared somewhere.

The recruiter is interested in her adult sons, but Courage does not want them to become soldiers: he feeds on the war, but he does not want to pay dues to the war! She begins to guess and, in order to scare the children, arranges for each of them to receive a piece of paper with a black cross - the mark of death. And the fraud becomes an ominous prophecy. Now the recruiter deftly takes away the eldest son Eilif, while mother Courage is bargaining with the sergeant major. And there's nothing to be done: you have to keep up with your regiment. Her two remaining children are harnessed to the wagon.

2. In 1625-1626. Mother Courage travels around Poland in the wagon train of the Swedish army. So she brought a capon to the commander's cook and skillfully bargained with him. At this time, the commander in his tent receives her son, the brave man Eilif, who performed a heroic deed: he fearlessly recaptured several bulls from the superior forces of the peasants. Eilif sings about what the soldiers say to their wives, Mother Courage sings another verse - about what the wives say to the soldiers. The soldiers talk about their bravery and luck, their wives about how little deeds and rewards mean for those who are doomed to death. Mother and son are happy to meet unexpectedly.

3. Three more years of war have passed. The peaceful picture of the bivouac of the Finnish regiment, battered in battles, is disturbed by the sudden offensive of the imperial troops. Mother Courage is in captivity, but she manages to replace the Lutheran regimental banner over her van with a Catholic one. The regimental priest who finds himself here manages to change the pastor's dress for the clothes of an assistant canteen. However, the imperial soldiers hunt down and capture Courage's youngest son, the simpleton Schweitzerkas. They demand that he hand over the regimental treasury entrusted to him. Honest Schweitzerkas cannot do this and must be shot. To save him, you have to pay two hundred guilders - all that mother Courage can get for her wagon. It is necessary to bargain: is it possible to save the life of a son for 120 or 150 guilders? It is forbidden. She agrees to give everything, but it's too late. The soldiers bring the body of her son, and mother Courage must now say that she does not know him, but she must at least keep her wagon.

4. Song of the Great Surrender: "Someone tried to move the mountains, / Remove a star from the sky, catch the smoke with his hand. / But such people were soon convinced, / That these efforts were not for them. / And the starling sings: / Get over a year, / It is necessary walk in a row with everyone, / We must wait, / It is better to remain silent!"

5. Two years have passed. War captures all new spaces. Knowing no rest, mother Courage with her van passes through Poland, Moravia, Bavaria, Italy and again Bavaria. 1631 Tilly's victory at Magdeburg costs Mother Courage four officer's shirts, which her compassionate daughter tears into bandages for the wounded.

6. Near the city of Ingolstadt in Bavaria, Courage is present at the funeral of the commander-in-chief of the imperial troops, Tilly. The regimental priest, her assistant, complains that in this position his abilities are wasted. Marauding soldiers attack the mute Katherine and severely smash her face. 1632

7. Mother Courage at the pinnacle of business success: a van full of new goods, a bunch of silver thalers around her neck. "Still, you won't convince me that war is shit." It destroys the weak, but it is not easy for them even in peacetime. But she feeds hers properly.

8. In the same year, the Swedish king Gustavus Adolf dies at the Battle of Lützen. Peace has been declared, and this is a serious problem. The world threatens mother Courage with ruin. Eilif, the brave son of mother Courage, continues to rob and kill peasants, in peacetime these exploits were considered unnecessary. A soldier dies like a robber, and how much did he differ from him? Meanwhile, the world turned out to be very fragile. Mother Courage harnesses herself to her wagon again. Together with a new assistant, the commander's former cook, who contrived to replace the too soft-hearted regimental priest.

9. The great war for the faith has been going on for sixteen years now. Germany lost a good half of its inhabitants. Lands that were once prosperous are now starving. Wolves roam the burnt cities. In the autumn of 1634 we meet Courage in Germany, in the Pine Mountains, away from the military road along which the Swedish troops are moving. Things are going badly, you have to beg. Hoping to beg for something, the cook and mother Courage sing a song about Socrates, Julius Caesar and other great men who did not benefit from their brilliant mind.

A cook with virtues is not rich. He offers to save himself by leaving Katrin to her fate. Mother Courage leaves him for her daughter.

10. "How good it is to sit warm, / When the winter has come!" - sing in a peasant's house. Mother Courage and Catherine stop and listen. Then they continue on their way.

11. January 1936 Imperial troops threaten the Protestant city of Halle, the end of the war is still far away. Mother Courage went to the city to take valuables from the hungry townspeople in exchange for food. Meanwhile, the besiegers make their way through the darkness of the night to massacre the city. Katrin cannot stand this: she climbs onto the roof and beats the drum with all her might until the besieged hear her. Imperial soldiers kill Catherine. Women and children are saved.

12. Mother Courage sings a lullaby over her dead daughter. So the war took all her children. And the soldiers pass by. "Hey, take me with you!" Mother Courage is pulling her wagon. "A war of variable luck / A hundred years will hold out completely, / Although an ordinary person / Does not see joy in war: / He eats shit, he is poorly dressed, / He is ridiculous to his executioners. / But he hopes for a miracle, / Until the campaign is completed. / Hey, Christians, the ice is melting, / The dead are sleeping in the darkness of the grave. / Get up! It's time for everyone to go camping, / Who lives and breathes on earth!"

A. B. Shamshin

(Der gute Mensch von Sezuan)

(In collaboration with R. Berlau and M. Steffin)

Parabolic play (1941)

The main city of Sichuan province, which summarizes all places on the globe and any time in which a person exploits a person - this is the place and time of the play.

Prologue. For two thousand years now, the cry has not stopped: it cannot go on like this! No one in this world is able to be kind! And the worried gods decided: the world can remain as it is, if there are enough people capable of living a life worthy of a person. And to test this, the three most prominent gods descend to earth. Perhaps the water carrier Wang, who was the first to meet them and treat them with water (by the way, he is the only one in Sichuan who knows that they are gods), is a worthy person? But his mug, the gods noticed, had a double bottom. A good water carrier is a scammer! The simplest test of the first virtue - hospitality - upsets them: in none of the rich houses: neither at Mr. Fo's, nor at Mr. Chen's, nor at the widow Su's - Wang can find accommodation for them. There is only one thing left: to turn to the prostitute Shen De, after all, she cannot refuse anyone. And the gods spend the night with the only kind person, and in the morning, saying goodbye, they leave Shen De an order to remain as kind, as well as a good payment for the night: after all, how to be kind when everything is so expensive!

I. The gods left Shen De a thousand silver dollars, and she bought herself a small tobacco shop with them. But how many people in need of help are close to those who are lucky: the former owner of the shop and the former owners of Shen De - husband and wife, her lame brother and pregnant daughter-in-law, nephew and niece, old grandfather and boy - and everyone needs a roof over their heads and food. "Save the little boat / Immediately goes to the bottom. / After all, there are too many drowning / Greedily grabbed the sides."

And here the carpenter demands a hundred silver dollars, which the former mistress did not pay him for the shelves, and the landlady needs recommendations and a guarantee for the not very respectable Shen De. "My cousin will vouch for me," she says. "And he will pay for the shelves."

II. And the next morning, Shoi Da, Shen De's cousin, appears in the tobacco shop. Resolutely chasing away unlucky relatives, skillfully forcing the carpenter to take only twenty silver dollars, Prudently making friends with the policeman, he settles the affairs of his too-kind cousin.

III. And in the evening in the city park, Shen De meets an unemployed pilot Song. A pilot without a plane, a postal pilot without mail. What is he to do in the world, even if he read all the books about flying in a Beijing school, even if he knows how to land an airplane on the ground, as if it were his own ass? He is like a crane with a broken wing, and there is nothing for him to do on earth. The rope is ready, and there are as many trees in the park as you like. But Shen De does not let him hang himself. To live without hope is to do evil. Hopeless is the song of a water-carrier who sells water in the rain: "Thunder rumbles, and the rain pours, / Well, I sell water, / But water is not sold / And it is not drunk in any. / I shout: "Buy water!" / But no one buys. / In my pocket for this water / Nothing gets in! / Buy water, dogs!

Yi Shen De buys a mug of water for her beloved Yang Song.

IV. Returning after a night spent with his beloved, Shen De sees the morning city for the first time, cheerful and giving fun. The people of this day are kind. Old men, carpet merchants from the shop opposite, lend dear Shen De two hundred silver dollars - there will be enough to pay off the landlady for six months. Nothing is difficult for a person who loves and hopes. And when Sun's mother Mrs. Yang says that for a huge amount of five hundred silver dollars, her son was promised a place, she gladly gives her the money received from the old people. But where to get another three hundred? There is only one way out - to turn to Shoi Da. Yes, he is too cruel and cunning. But a pilot must fly!

Sideshow. Shen De enters, holding the mask and costume of Shoi Da, and sings "The Song of the Helplessness of Gods and Good People":

"The good people in our country / Can't remain kind. / To get to the cup with a spoon, / Cruelty is needed. / The kind are helpless, and the gods are powerless. / Why don't the gods say there, on the ether, / That time is given to all kind and good / An opportunity to live in a good, kind world?"

V. smart and prudent Shoy Da, whose eyes are not blinded by love, sees the deception. Yang Sun is not afraid of cruelty and meanness: let the place promised to him be someone else's, and the pilot who will be fired from him has a large family, let Shen De part with the shop, except for which she has nothing, and the old people will lose their two hundred dollars and lose their housing , just to get your way. Such a one cannot be trusted, and Shoy Da seeks support in a rich barber who is ready to marry Shen De. But the mind is powerless where love is at work, and Shen De leaves with Sun: "I want to leave with the one I love, / I don't want to think about whether it's good. / I don't want to know if he loves me. / I want to leave with the one I love."

VI. A small cheap restaurant in the suburbs is preparing for the wedding of Yang Song and Shen De. Bride in wedding dress, groom in tuxedo. But the ceremony still does not begin, and the bonza looks at his watch - the groom and his mother are waiting for Shoi Da, who should bring three hundred silver dollars. Yang Song sings "Song of Saint Never's Day": "On this day, evil is taken by the throat, / On this day, all the poor are lucky, / Both the master and the laborer / March together to the tavern / On Saint Never's day / The skinny one drinks at the fat one's house / We can no longer wait. / That's why we must give, / To people of hard work, / St. Never's Day, / St. Never's Day, / A day when we will rest.

"He will never come again," Ms. Yang says. Three are sitting and two of them are looking at the door.

VII. Shen De's meager possessions are on a cart near the tobacco shop - the shop had to be sold in order to repay the debt to the old people. The barber Shu Fu is ready to help: he will give his barracks for the poor, whom Shen De helps (you can’t keep goods there anyway - it’s too damp), and write out a check. And Shen De is happy: she felt in herself a future son - a pilot, "a new conqueror / Inaccessible mountains and unknown regions!"

But how to protect him from the cruelty of this world? She sees the carpenter's little son, who is looking for food in the garbage can, and swears that she will not rest until she saves her son, at least him alone. It's time to be your cousin again.

Mr. Shoi Da announces to the audience that his cousin will not leave them without help in the future, but from now on, the distribution of food without reciprocal services stops, and in the houses of Mr. Shu Fu there will be one who agrees to work for Shen De.

VIII. The tobacco factory that Shoi Da set up in the barracks is staffed by men, women and children. The overseer - and cruel - here is Yang Sun: he is not at all sad about the change of fate and shows that he is ready for anything for the interests of the company. But where is Shen De? Where is the good man? Where is the one who many months ago on a rainy day in a moment of joy bought a mug of water from a water carrier? Where is she and her unborn child that she told the water carrier about? And Sun would also like to know this: if his ex-fiancee was pregnant, then he, as the father of the child, can apply for the position of the owner. And here, by the way, in the knot of her dress. Has not the cruel cousin killed the unfortunate woman? The police come to the house. Mr. Shoi Da is facing trial.

IX. In the courtroom, Shen De's friends (Wai's water carrier, old couple, grandfather and niece) and Shoi Da's partners (Mr. Shu Fu and the landlady) are waiting for the hearing to begin. At the sight of the judges entering the hall, Shoi Da faints - these are the gods. The gods are by no means omniscient: under the mask and costume of Shoi Da, they do not recognize Shen De. And only when, unable to withstand the accusations of the good and the intercession of the evil, Shoi Da takes off his mask and tears off his clothes, the gods see with horror that their mission has failed: their good man and the evil and callous Shoi Da are one person. It is not possible in this world to be kind to others and at the same time to yourself, you cannot save others and not destroy yourself, you cannot make everyone happy and yourself with everyone together! But the gods have no time to understand such complexities. Is it possible to refuse the commandments? No never! Recognize that the world must be changed? How? By whom? No, everything is okay. And they reassure people: "Shen De did not die, she was only hidden. A good person remains among you." And to Shen De's desperate cry: "But I need a cousin," they hastily answer: "But not too often!" And while Shen De stretches out his hands to them in despair, they, smiling and nodding, disappear above.

Epilogue. The final monologue of the actor in front of the audience: “O my respectable audience! The end is not important. What's the matter? We're not looking for benefits, / So, there must be some sure way out? / You can't think of a way out for money - what! Another hero? And if the world is different? / Or maybe other gods are needed here? gods? "

T. A. Voznesenskaya

Roman (1931)

Together with the hero of the novel, Jacob Fabian, we live a short period of time - maybe a few weeks or even less. During this period, the hero basically suffers losses - he loses his job, loses a close friend, his beloved leaves him. Finally, he loses life itself. The novel is somewhat reminiscent of the paintings of the Impressionists. From the volatile, as it were, optional dialogues and not too consistent heterogeneous events, a picture of life suddenly emerges, taken by surprise and captured with extraordinary force, sharpness and volume. This is a story about how the heart does not withstand the oppressive contradiction of time. About the price of unostentatious resistance to circumstances at the level of an individual.

The action takes place at the very beginning of the thirties in Berlin. Europe is in big change. "The teachers are gone. Class schedules are gone. The old continent can't advance to the next class. The next class doesn't exist."

This is how the protagonist designates his time. At the same time, with ruthless honesty, he assigns himself the role of a contemplator. "Other people have a profession, they move forward, they get married, they have children for their wives, and they believe that it all makes sense. And he is forced, and of his own free will, to stand at the door, watch and fall into despair from time to time."

The main drama of Fabian is that he is too extraordinary, deep and moral personality to be satisfied with vulgar philistine goals and values. He is endowed with a vulnerable, sympathetic soul, an independent mind and an acute "ridiculous need for participation" in what is happening. However, all these qualities turn out to be unnecessary, unclaimed. Fabian belongs to the lost generation. From school, he went to the front of the First World War, and from there he returned with a bitter experience of early deaths and a sick heart. Then he studied, wrote a dissertation on philosophy. The desire for "complicity" drove him to the capital, which he characterizes as a distraught stone bag. His mother and father stayed in the small quiet town where he spent his childhood. They struggle to make ends meet, subsist on a tiny grocer's shop, where every now and then you have to discount simple goods. So the hero has to rely only on himself.

When we meet Fabian, he is thirty-two, renting a room in a boarding house and working in the advertising department of a cigarette factory. Prior to that, he worked in a bank. Now he writes meaningless rhymes for advertisements all day long, and kills his evenings over a glass of beer or wine. His drinking companions are either cheerful cynical newspapermen, or some girls of dubious behavior. But Fabian's life goes along two channels, as it were. Outwardly, it is absent-minded, empty of content and full of criminal frivolity. However, behind this is intense inner work, deep and precise reflections about time and about yourself. Fabian is one of those who understand the essence of the crisis experienced by society and, with impotent bitterness, foresees close catastrophic changes. He cannot forget that many cripples with mutilated bodies and faces are scattered across the country. He remembers flamethrower attacks. Damn this war, he repeats to himself. And asks the question: "Are we going to come to this again?"

Fabian suffers, as a strong and talented person can suffer, striving to save people from impending doom and not finding the opportunity to do so. Nowhere does Fabian talk about these experiences, on the contrary, he is characterized by a caustic ironic self-esteem, he speaks about everything mockingly and outwardly accepts life as it is. But the reader is still allowed to look into the depths of his soul and feel her unbearable pain.

Public apathy and disbelief in the government's ability to improve the economic situation are growing in Berlin. An oppressive fear of inflation and unemployment hangs over the country. The two polar camps - communists and fascists - are loudly trying to prove their case. However, the hero of the novel is far from both. A characteristic episode is when Fabian, together with his friend Stefan Labude, at night on the bridge finds a shootout of two such unfortunate politicians. First, friends discover a wounded communist who is being treated. After a few meters they come across a National Socialist - also wounded. Both fighters are sent to the hospital in the same taxi. In the clinic, a tired doctor notices that nine saviors of the fatherland have already been delivered that night, "It seems that they want to reduce the number of unemployed by shooting each other."

Stephane Labudet is Fabian's only friend. They have a common destiny, although Labudet is the son of rich parents and does not need money. He is close to Fabian with his fine mental organization, sincerity and disinterestedness. Unlike Fabian, Labudet is ambitious and eager to achieve public recognition. He reproaches his friend that he lives, as it were, in a waiting room, refuses to take action and does not have a firm goal. Fabian objects to him: "I know the goal, but, alas, you can’t call it a goal either. I would like to help people become decent and reasonable."

Labudet suffers one setback after another. He receives a terrible blow when he learns that the bride, pretending to be a tender and passionate lover, is cheating on him in cold blood. Throwing himself into politics, he also experiences complete disappointment. His last hope is his cherished work on Lessing, to which he devoted five years and which is now waiting for a university review. In the meantime, Labudet is trying to find solace in bohemian unassuming companies and booze.

In one of these companies, Fabian meets Cornelia. She says that recently in the city and came to train at the film studio. Fabian goes to see her off and finds himself coming to his own house. By a miraculous coincidence, Cornelia, it turns out, also settled here. They spend the night together. They are related by the mocking ease of perception of the present and the lack of great hopes for the future. They live one day, and the fuller and sharper their mutual feeling. For the first time, Fabian suddenly seriously thinks about the possibility for himself of simple worldly happiness.

However, reality is pushing even these modest plans. Arriving at the service, Fabian finds out that he was fired due to redundancy. He is handed two hundred and seventy marks of settlement. One hundred of them are taken by Cornelia - she urgently needs a new hat and jumper, as she was invited to a screen test for a new film. Another hundred Fabian pays the landlady a month in advance. He himself goes to the labor exchange, replenishing the dull ranks of the same unemployed. He is asked idiotic questions, driven from one department to another, but leaves little hope of help. Just these days, his mother comes to visit him. Fabian does not tell her about the dismissal, so as not to upset, and his mother wakes him up early in the morning and hurries him to work, Fabian wanders aimlessly through the streets all day, instead of spending time with his mother, who is leaving the same evening back.

The hero is again trying to find a job. But he is not endowed with aggressive tenacity and the ability to fill his own worth. “I could stand on Potsdamerplatz,” he jokes mirthlessly, “having a sign on my stomach that says something like this: “At the moment this young man does nothing, but test him and you will see that he does everything ...”

Returning after wandering around the editors to the boarding house, he finds a letter from Cornelia. She writes that she was taken on the role and the producer rented a separate apartment for her. "What could I do? Let him have fun with me, it just happened. Only by wallowing in the mud, you can get out of the mud."

Fabian is thrown back to an unwanted and damned freedom for him now. He meets with Cornelia in a cafe, but understands that something irreparable has happened. Their conversation is bitter and painful. It is easier for him to forget himself with some unfamiliar girl - drowning out longing.

Returning late at night to the boarding house, he learns that the police were interested in him. His friend Labudet is dead. He shot himself in the temple right during a nightly feast, from a revolver that was once taken away from a Nazi on a bridge, Fabian Labude left a letter in which he said that his work on Lessing had received a devastating review and this next collapse was unbearable for his ambition. "In short: this life is not for me ... I became a comic figure, I failed the exams in two main subjects - love and profession ... "

Fabian spends the rest of the night at the bedside of his dead friend. He looks into his changed face and turns to him the most secret words, unable to come to terms with this senseless death. Later it turns out that Labudet was the victim of a cruel joke. He received the news of the hacked work that had finished him off from a mediocre assistant, but the professor found the work outstanding ...

A friend left Fabian two thousand marks. Fabian gives a thousand to Cornelia at their last meeting: "Take half. I will be calmer."

He himself gets on the train and goes to his native city, to his mother and father. Maybe he will find peace here? However, the province is no less depressing. The possibilities for the use of forces here are even more miserable and limited than in the capital, and the way of life is suffocating and conservative. "Here Germany did not rush about in the heat. Here she had a low temperature," Fabian "sank more and more into the haze of longing." His mother advises him to adapt and somehow find a purpose in life. Man is a slave to habit, she says pointedly. Maybe she's right?

And yet the hero refuses so far from a measured philistine existence. His last decision is to leave for the time being somewhere in nature, gather his thoughts, and only then decide on his life task. Courage and inner honesty do not change Fabian for a minute. He understands that he can no longer stand near the events. He walks the streets, mindlessly looks at the shop windows and realizes that "life, in spite of everything, is one of the most interesting things to do." Moments later, as he crosses the bridge, he sees a small boy balancing on the railing ahead. Fabian quickens his pace, runs. The boy, unable to resist, falls into the water. Without hesitation, Fabian takes off his jacket and rushes into the river to save the child. The boy, crying loudly, swims to the shore. Fabian is drowning.

He couldn't swim.

V. A. Sagalova

Roman (1981)

The novel has three storylines:

1st - a narrative that is conducted on behalf of the angel Ahasuerus, whose name means "Beloved of God";

2nd - a story about the life path of Paulus von Eizen, a younger contemporary of Martin Luther;

3rd - Correspondence between Prof. Siegfried Byfuss, Director of the Institute for Scientific Atheism in East Berlin (GDR) and Prof. Jochanaan Leuchtentrager of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The immortal spirits Ahasuerus and Lucifer, created by God on the first day, are cast down from heaven for refusing to bow to Adam, who was created before their eyes from dust and the four elements. Their paths diverge, because Ahasuerus, unlike Lucifer, who longs for the complete destruction of everything created, hopes that the world can be changed. From now on, he is doomed to wander the earth until the Last Judgment.

Ahasuerus is trying to convince Rabbi Yeshua, who believes that he is the Son of God, who has won the love and favor of the Father, that God, the Creator of the Universe, is not the God of love. If Yeshua is truly the Son of God, then he must change this world full of cruelty and injustice. But Yeshua refuses to fight with God and establish his Kingdom on earth: he is convinced that love is stronger than the sword, he is ready to become a victim, doomed to the slaughter, and take on the sins of the world.

Ahasuerus knows everything that awaits Yeshua: the betrayal of Judas, judgment, crucifixion, death and resurrection, after which he will ascend to God. But this, as Ahasuerus knows for certain, will not change anything in a world so unwisely arranged. Ahasuerus meets Lucifer, who, playing on the greed of Judas Iscariot, inspires him with the idea of ​​betraying his teacher, if he himself wants Judas to betray him. Ahasuerus reproaches Yeshua for passivity and predicts that after his death his teaching will be perverted and cruelty and injustice will be done in the name of love. The last time Ahasuerus persuades Yeshua to become the leader and king of Israel, when he carries the cross to Golgotha ​​and wants to rest at the gates of Ahasuerus's house. Ahasuerus hides the fiery sword of God under his clothes, he is ready to raise it for the sake of the sufferer and scatter his enemies, but he wants to drink the cup that the Father gave him to the end. Ahasuerus, enraged by his stubbornness, drives Yeshua away, and he curses him, saying that from now on he, Ahasuerus, will have to wait for the return of the Son of Man.

Lucifer convinces Ahasuerus to go to Yeshua and ask him what he has achieved by taking on the sins of the world, for the world has not become better after his martyrdom. Ahasuerus violates the heavenly rest of the Son of Man and calls him to account, but he still claims that the truth is in God, although Ahasuerus sees that his faith in the wisdom and justice of the Father is shaken.

Ahasuerus and Yeshua go in search of God. They wander in the vastness of Sheol and meet an ancient old man who writes the writings of the Book of Life on the sand, and the wind immediately blows them away. This old man is God. He has long been disappointed in his Creation: it lives according to its own laws and there is no way to change anything in this terrible world, which has become unrecognizable even for him, his Creator. The Son of Man is indignant that the Father sent him to the cross, knowing in advance that it would be in vain. The Son of Man goes to war against the sacred foundations, and Armageddon begins, the last battle on earth. The Son of Man is followed by four horsemen, who are called Fire, War, Famine and Death, followed by the hordes of Gog and Magog and the angels of the abyss, cast down from heaven on the sixth day of Creation together with Lucifer and Ahasuerus, and in front of them strides a beast with seven heads and ten horns, whose name is Antichrist.

Lucifer and Ahasuerus watch the preparations for battle. Stars fall from the sky, opening the wells of the abyss, the whole earth is on fire, people hide in caves and mountain gorges, but even there death overtakes them. The Son of Man crosses the heavens with his host, rising ever higher in search of a new Jerusalem built of jasper and pure gold, but it is nowhere to be found. When his host begins to murmur. The Son of Man announces that God was defeated and fled, and from now on He, the Son of Man, has become God and will create a new heaven and a new earth, a kingdom of love and justice, where man will not be an enemy to man. But everyone laughs at the naive words of the Son of Man: the four horsemen, Gogi and Magog, and all the seven heads of the Antichrist. The hellish laughter of Lucifer is heard, and the same old man who wrote the Book of Life appears. The Son of Man tries to kill him with a sword, but the elder tells him that the Son is the likeness of the Father and is inseparable from Him. The elder becomes so huge that everything that exists can fit in his right hand, and pronounces His Name, the secret name of God. Before the eyes of Ahasuerus, who watches this scene, everything disappears: among the surrounding emptiness - only the figure of Rebbe Yeshua, frail and emaciated. Ahasuerus hears distant laughter: this is all that remains of Lucifer, the Lord of the Abyss and the great fighter for order. Ahasuerus and Yeshu "fall into the abyss, which is both space and time, and there is neither top nor bottom in it, only streams of particles - not yet separated light and darkness. Ahasuerus and the Son of Man merge in love and become one, and since God is one with his Son, then Ahasuerus becomes one with Him: "one being, one great thought, one dream."

Studiosus Paulus von Eizen, on his way to Wittenberg to study with Luther and Melanchthon, meets a certain Hans Leuchtentrager at an inn (the meaning of the German surname Leuchtentrager is identical to the meaning of the name Lucifer: light-bearer, light-bearer), who becomes his constant companion and valuable adviser throughout Eizen's entire life. Thanks to the help of Hans, who knows all the secrets of magic and sorcery; lazy and dim-witted but ambitious, Eizen successfully passes his exams, gains Luther's trust and support, and becomes a pastor. He makes a career without thinking about why Hans takes care of her and what goals he pursues. On the life path of Eizen, the mysterious figure of the Wandering Jew, or Ahasuerus, rises more than once, who invariably leaves the greedy and voluptuous Eizen, a fierce anti-Semite, for whom the Christian religion is just a way to deal with his opponents and achieve a strong position in society.

Eizen arranges a dispute between Christians and Jews and invites the Wandering Jew, Ahasuerus, to testify that Jesus was the true Messiah and the Son of God. So Eizen hopes to convert the Jews to the true faith and become famous throughout Germany. But Ahasuerus only mocks the stupidity and religious bigotry of Eizen, for which he subjected him to severe torture. Ahasuerus, beaten with gauntlets, dies, and Eitzen hopes that he has finally got rid of the annoying Jew. Many years pass, but Ahasuerus, as youthful and mocking as he was at the first meeting, again appears before the aged Eizen. Together with Leuchtentrager, who no longer hides that he is Lucifer, the Lord of the Underworld, Ahasuerus, takes the soul of Eizen, reading to him the words of the prophet Ezekiel, denouncing bad shepherds.

Hebrew University professor Jochanan Leuchtentrager enters into correspondence with Siegfried Vaifus and informs him that he personally knows Ahasuerus, a contemporary of Rabbi Yeshua, or Jesus Christ. The militant atheist Bayfus, who stands on the positions of dialectical materialism, tries to prove to Leuchtentrager that this cannot be, but at the end of the correspondence, unexpectedly for himself, he is so fascinated by the mystery of Ahasuerus that the "competent authorities" of the GDR, who monitor the correspondence of two professors, eventually recommend Baifus do not answer letters from Israel: they are worried that Leuchtentrager is going to come to the GDR with his friend Ahasuerus and thus convince the Marxist Bayfus of the real existence of the Eternal Jew. Nevertheless, no one manages to prevent their arrival in the GDR. On December 31, 1981, they visit Baifus at the Institute of Scientific Atheism, after which he invites them to his home, where his family and many friends are preparing for the celebration of the New Year.

Bayfus locks himself with Ahasuerus and Leuchtentrager in his office and, as his wife later tells, he argues with them for a long time and heatedly about something. After midnight, a large hole with charred edges is found in the wall of Byfus's office, but neither he nor his Israeli colleagues are in the room. During the investigation, it turns out that Israeli citizens A. Ahasfer and I. Leuchtentrager did not receive visas, and checkpoints did not register their entry and exit. Later it became known that on the night of December 31, 1980 to January 1, 1981, from the watch tower at the border crossing on Friedrichstrasse, the duty officers observed three unknown persons who were moving through the air. A fiery tail trailed behind two, and they carried the third under their arms. The border violators flew over the border of the GDR, after which they gained altitude and disappeared from sight. But the "competent authorities" found out about this much later, since the duty officers were accused of drinking alcohol while on duty and they were serving their sentences.

V. V. Rynkevich

(Die Ermittlung)

Oratorio in eleven songs (1965)

In accordance with the original idea of ​​the author, who wanted to create a modern "Divine Comedy", the composition of the play, which uses materials from the Frankfurt trial of Nazi criminals in 1963-1965, repeats the structure of the 1st and 2nd parts of Dante's epic: in each " song" - three episodes, and there are thirty-three of them, like in Dante. The eighteen defendants in the play represent the real persons who appeared before the court in 1963 and appear under their real names, and nine nameless witnesses (two of them are on the side of the camp administration, and the rest are former prisoners) summarize the experience and experience of hundreds of people.

The 1st witness, who served as the head of the station to which the echelons with people arrived, claims that he knew nothing about the mass destruction of people and did not think about what fate awaits the prisoners, doomed to slave labor, which brought huge profits to the branches of the enterprises of Krupp, Siemens and I. G. Farben.

The 2nd witness, who was responsible for the departure of the trains, says that he did not know who was being transported in the cars, since he was strictly forbidden to look into them.

The third witness, a former prisoner, tells how they were unloaded from the wagons, built, beaten with sticks, 3 people in a row, separating men from women with children, and doctors - Frank, Schatz, Lucas and Capesius, who are now sitting on the dock, together with other officers, determined which of the new arrivals was able-bodied. The sick and the elderly were sent to the gas station. The percentage of able-bodied people was usually a third of the echelon. The defendants claim that they tried to refuse to participate in the selections, but the higher authorities explained to them that "the camp is the same front and any evasion from service will be punished as desertion."

The 8th witness claims that from April 1942 to December 1943 valuables worth 132 million marks were confiscated from prisoners. These valuables went to the Reichsbank and the Imperial Ministry of Industry.

Eyewitnesses from former prisoners speak of the conditions in which they lived: the barracks, designed for five hundred people, often accommodated twice as many; six people lay on each bunk, and everyone had to turn to the other side at once, and there was only one blanket; rarely drowned in barracks; each prisoner was given one bowl: for washing, eating and as a night dish; the daily diet contained no more than 1300 calories, while for hard work a person needs at least 4800 calories. As a result, people became so weak that they became dumb and did not even remember their last name. Only those who could immediately get a job in some internal camp position could survive: as a specialist or in an auxiliary work team.

An eyewitness, a former prisoner who worked in the political department of the camp under Boger, speaks of the brutal torture and murder that took place before her eyes. She compiled lists of the dead and knew that out of every hundred newly arrived prisoners, after a week, no more than forty were still alive. Boger, sitting in the dock, denies that he used torture during interrogations, but when he is convicted of lying, he refers to the order and the impossibility of otherwise obtaining a confession from criminals and enemies of the state. The defendant is convinced that corporal punishment should be introduced even now in order to prevent the coarsening of morals, as well as for the education of minors.

A former prisoner who spent several months in Unit XNUMX, where medical experiments were carried out, tells how young girls were irradiated with an X-ray machine's ovaries, after which the gonads were removed and the test subjects died. In addition, experiments were carried out on artificial insemination: in the seventh month of pregnancy, women had an abortion, and the child, if he remained alive, was killed and opened.

Former prisoners tell the court about the defendant Stark. In those years, Unterscharführer Stark was twenty years old and he was preparing for the matriculation exams. Witnesses testify that Stark took part in mass executions and killed women and children with his own hands. However, the defender draws the attention of the court to Stark's young age, to his high spiritual demands (he had discussions with the prisoners about Goethe's humanism), and also to the fact that after the war, having got into normal conditions, Stark studied agriculture, was a referent for economic consultations and Until his arrest, he taught at an agricultural school. Defendant Stark explains to the court that from early childhood he was accustomed to believing in the infallibility of the law and acting according to the order: "We were taught to think, others did it for us."

An eyewitness to the shootings, a former medical student who worked in a team that removed corpses, tells how thousands of people met their death in the courtyard of the eleventh block, near the "black wall". During mass executions, the camp commandant, his adjutant and the head of the political department with employees were usually present. All the defendants deny their participation in the executions.

One of the witnesses accuses paramedic Claire of killing prisoners by injecting phenol into the heart. The defendant at first denies that he personally killed people, but under pressure from the evidence, he confesses everything. It turns out that about thirty thousand people became victims of phenol injections. One of the defendants, a former camp doctor, admits to the court that he used human meat for his research, since the soldiers of the guard ate beef and horse meat, which was supplied for bacteriological experiments.

The witness, who was a prisoner's doctor and worked in the Sonderkommando that maintained the crematoria, tells the court how a preparation of hydrocyanic acid, Zyklon-B gas, was used to massacre prisoners. In the Sonderkommando, subordinate to Dr. Mengele, eight hundred and sixty prisoners worked, who after a certain time were destroyed and recruited new staff. The newcomers, selected for destruction, were brought into the locker room, which accommodated about two thousand people, explaining to them that a bath and disinfection awaited them. Then they were driven into an adjacent room, which was not even disguised as a shower room, and from above, through special holes in the ceiling, gas was thrown out, which in a bound state looked like a granular mass. The gas quickly evaporated, and in five minutes everyone was dying of suffocation. Then the ventilation was turned on, the gas was pumped out of the room, the corpses were dragged to the freight elevators and lifted up to the furnaces. The witness claims that more than three million people were killed in the camp and that each of the six thousand employees of the camp administration was aware of the mass extermination of people.

Defendant Mulka, adjutant of the camp commandant, declares to the court that only towards the end of his service in the camp did he learn about the extermination actions. On behalf of all the defendants, he states: they were convinced that all this was being done to achieve "some secret military goal", and only obeyed orders. Addressing the court, he says that during the war they did their duty, despite the fact that they had a hard time and they were close to despair. And now, when the German nation "has once again occupied a leading position by its own labor," it would be wiser to take up "other matters, and not reproaches, which it is high time to forget after a long time ago."

V. V. Rynkevich

(Billard um halbzehn)

Roman (1959)

September 6, 1958 On this day, one of the main characters of the novel, the architect Heinrich Femel, turns eighty years old. Anniversaries are a good occasion to appreciate the life you have lived. More than fifty years ago, he appeared in this city, almost at the last moment submitted his project for the construction of the abbey of St. Anthony for the competition and - an unknown stranger - defeated the rest of the applicants. From the very first steps in an unfamiliar city, Heinrich Femel has a good idea of ​​\uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbthe future life: marrying a girl from some noble family, many children - five, six, seven, - many grandchildren, "five seven, six seven, seven seven"; he sees himself at the head of the family, sees birthdays, weddings, silver weddings, christenings, great-grandchildren ... Life deceives the expectations of Heinrich Femel. Those who gather for his eightieth birthday can be literally counted on the fingers of one hand. This is the old man himself, his son Robert Femel, grandchildren - Joseph and Ruth, and the secretary of Robert Leonora invited by Heinrich, the second son, Otto, became a stranger to his family in his youth, joining those who took the "communion of the buffalo" (as in the novel it is indicated belonging to the circles of German society, infected with the ideas of aggression, violence, chauvinism, ready to drown the world in blood), went to fight and died.

Heinrich Femel's wife is kept in a "sanatorium", a privileged asylum for the mentally ill. Not accepting the existing reality, Johanna allows herself very bold statements about the powerful of this world, and in order to save her, she has to be kept locked up. (Although Heinrich Femel, having ceased to dissemble in front of himself, confesses that he agrees and has always agreed with the thoughts and statements of his wife, but did not have the courage to openly declare this.)

Robert Femel, still a high school student, takes an oath not to take the "buffalo communion" and does not change her. In his youth, he, along with a group of peers, enters the fight against fascism (the personification of fascism for them is the physical education teacher Ben Wex, for the attempt on which one of the teenagers, Ferdy Progulski, pays with his life) and is forced, severely beaten with barbed wire scourges, to flee the country . A few years later, the amnestied Robert returns to Germany to his parents, his wife Edith and Joseph, who was born without him. He serves in the army, but his service turns into revenge for the dead friends. Robert is a demolition man, he "provides a sector of fire" and without regret destroys architectural monuments, including the Abbey of St. Anthony built by his father, which he blew up unnecessarily three days before the end of the war. (“I would give two hundred abbeys to bring back Edith, Otto, or a strange boy…” Heinrich Femel echoes him.) Robert's wife, Edith, dies in a bombing. After the war, Robert heads the "office of static calculations", only three architects work for him, to whom Leonora sends out a few orders. He condemns himself to voluntary seclusion: on the red card that Robert gave Leonora long ago, it says: "I am always glad to see my mother, father, daughter, son and Mr. Shrella, but I do not accept anyone else." In the morning, from half past nine to eleven, Robert plays billiards at the Prince Heinrich Hotel in the company of the hotel fight, Hugo. Hugo is pure in soul and disinterested, not subject to temptations. He belongs to the "lambs", like the deceased Edith, like her brother Shrella.

Shrella is a childhood friend of Robert Femel. Like Robert, he was forced to leave Germany on pain of death and is only returning now to see Robert and his nephews.

September 1958, XNUMX becomes a turning point for both Heinrich Femel and his son. On this day, realizing the falsity of following the logic of his own far-fetched image, he breaks with the habit that has long weighed on him to visit the Kroner cafe every day, refuses to accept a gift from the fascist Graetz , the owner of a butcher's shop, and symbolically raises a knife over the anniversary cake sent from the cafe in the form of the abbey of St. Anthony.

Robert Femel on this day demonstrates to his former classmate, Netglinger, an adherent of the "buffalos", that the past is not forgotten and not forgiven. On the same day, he adopts the "lamb" Hugo, takes responsibility for him.

And for Josef Femel, grandson of Heinrich and son of Robert, a young architect, this day becomes decisive. Seeing his father's marks on the ruins of the walls of the abbey of St. Anthony, a clear handwriting, familiar to him from childhood, inexorably indicating that the abbey was blown up by his father, Joseph is in a crisis and eventually refuses an honorable and profitable order, from leading the restoration work in the abbey.

Johanna Femel, who is released from the hospital on the occasion of a family celebration, also takes a decisive step - she shoots from a long-prepared pistol at the minister, Mr. M. (who has "a muzzle like a buffalo"), shoots as the future killer of her grandson.

Summed up the past life. And for those gathered in the workshop of the old architect (here, in addition to the owner, Robert with his newfound son Hugo, Shrella, Joseph with his bride, Ruth and Leonora) a new day begins, September 7th.

V. S. Kulagina-Yartseva

(Ansichten eines clowns)

Novel. (1963)

The place of action is Bonn, the time of action approximately coincides with the date of the creation of the novel. The story itself is a long monologue by Hans Schnier, a comic actor or, simply, a clown.

Hans is twenty-seven years old, and he recently experienced the most severe blow of fate - she left him to marry Züpfner, "this Catholic", Marie, his first and only love. The deplorable situation of Hans is aggravated by the fact that after the departure of Marie, he began to drink, which is why he began to work carelessly, and this immediately affected his earnings. In addition, the day before, in Bochum, portraying Charlie Chaplin, he slipped and injured his knee. The money received for this performance was barely enough for him to get home.

The apartment is ready for the arrival of Hans, his friend Monika Silvs took care of this, warned by a telegram. Hans struggles to get home. His apartment, a gift from his grandfather (the Schniers are coal magnates), is on the fifth floor, where everything is painted in rusty red tones: doors, wallpaper, wall cabinets. Monica cleaned the apartment, stocked the refrigerator with groceries, placed flowers and a lit candle in the dining room, and a bottle of cognac, cigarettes, and ground coffee on the kitchen table. Hans drinks half a glass of cognac and pours the other half on his swollen knee. One of Hans's pressing concerns is to get money, he only has one stamp left. Having sat down and laid his sore leg more comfortably, Hans is going to call his friends and relatives, having previously written out all the necessary numbers from his notebook. He sorts the names into two columns: those from whom he can borrow money, and those to whom he will turn for money only as a last resort. Between them, in a beautiful frame, the name of Monica Silva - the only girl who, as it sometimes seems to Hans, could replace Marie for him. But now, suffering without Marie, he cannot afford to satisfy his "lust" (as it is called in Marie's religious books) for one woman with another, Hans dials the number of his parents' house and asks Mrs. Schnier to the phone. Before his mother picks up the phone, Hans has time to remember his not very happy childhood in a rich house, the constant hypocrisy and hypocrisy of his mother. At one time, Mrs. Schnier fully shared the views of the National Socialists and, “in order to expel the Judaizing Yankees from our sacred German land,” sent her sixteen-year-old daughter Henrietta to serve in the anti-aircraft troops, where she died. Now Hans's mother, in keeping with the spirit of the times, leads the "Joint Committee for the Reconciliation of Racial Contradictions." The conversation with the mother obviously fails. In addition, she already knows about the unsuccessful performance of Hans in Bochum, about which she informs him, not without gloating.

A little further Hans in one of the telephone conversations will say: "I am a clown and I collect moments." Indeed, the whole narrative consists of memories, often just instantaneous ones. But the most detailed, dearest memories of Hans are connected with Marie. He was twenty-one and she was nineteen when he "simply came into her room one evening to do to her what husband and wife do." Marie did not drive him away, but after that night she left for Cologne. Hans followed her. Their life together began, not easy, because Hans was just starting his professional career. For Marie, a devout Catholic, her union with Hans, not sanctified by the church (Hans, the son of Protestant parents who sent him to a Catholic school, following the post-war fashion of reconciliation of all faiths, an unbeliever), was always sinful, and in the end the members of the Catholic circle, which she visited with the knowledge of Hans and often accompanied by him, convinced her to leave her clown and marry Heribert Züpfner, an example of Catholic virtues. Hans is driven to despair by the thought that Züpfner "may or dare to watch Marie dress, as she screw the cap on a tube of pasta." She will have to lead her (and Züpfner's) children through the streets naked, he thinks, because they have discussed at length more than once how they will dress their future children.

Now Hans calls his brother Leo, who has chosen a spiritual career for himself. He is unable to speak to his brother, as at that moment the theology students are having lunch. Hans tries to find out something about Marie by calling the members of her Catholic circle, but they only advise him to courageously endure the blow of fate, invariably ending the conversation with the fact that Marie was not his legal wife. This is Hans's agent, the Zohnerer. He is rude and rude, but sincerely feels sorry for Hans and promises to take him up again if he stops drinking and spends three months in training. Hanging up, Hans realizes that this is the first person of the evening with whom he would willingly talk more.

The doorbell rings. Hans is visited by his father, Alfons Schnier, CEO of the Schnier coal concern. Father and son are embarrassed, they have little experience of communication. Father wants to help Hans, but in his own way. He consulted with Gennenholm (of course, always the best, Hans thinks, Gennenholm is the best theater critic in the Federal Republic), and he advises Hans to go to study pantomime with one of the best teachers, completely leaving the old manner of performances. The father is ready to finance these classes. Hans refuses, explaining that it is too late for him to study, he only needs to work. "So you don't need money?" the father asks with some relief in his voice. But it turns out that they are needed. Hans only has one stamp lying around in his trouser pocket. Upon learning that his son's training requires about a thousand marks about a month, the father is shocked. According to his ideas, his son could get by with two hundred marks, he is even ready to give three hundred a month. In the end, the conversation turns to another plane, and Hans fails to talk about money again. Seeing off his father, Hans, to remind him of money, begins to juggle with his only coin, but this does not work. After the departure of his father, Hans calls Bela Brozen, his mistress-actress, and asks, if possible, to inspire his father with the idea that he, Hans, is in dire need of money. He puts down the pipe with the feeling that “nothing will ever drip from this source”, and in a fit of anger he throws the brand out of the window. At the same moment he regrets this and is ready to go down to look for her on the pavement, but he is afraid to miss the call or the arrival of Leo. Memories again pile on Hans, now genuine, now fictitious. Unexpectedly for himself, he calls Monica Silva. He asks her to come and at the same time is afraid that she will agree, but Monica is waiting for guests. In addition, she leaves for two weeks for a seminar. And then promises to come. Hans hears her breathing in the tube. (“Oh God, even the breath of a woman…”) Hans again remembers his nomadic life with Marie and imagines her now, not believing that she can not think about him at all and not remember him. Then he goes to the bedroom to make up. Since his arrival, he did not go there, afraid to see something of Marie's things. But she left nothing, not even a torn button, and Hans can't decide if that's good or bad.

He decides to go out into the street to sing: to sit on the steps of the Bonn railway station as he is, without makeup, only with a whitewashed face, "and sing akathists, playing along with the guitar." Put a hat next to it, it would be nice to throw in a few pfennigs or maybe a cigarette. His father could get him a license as a street singer, Hans continues to dream, and then he can sit quietly on the steps and wait for the arrival of the Roman train (Marie and Züpfner are now in Rome). And if Marie can walk past without hugging him, there is still suicide. The knee hurts less and Hans picks up the guitar and starts preparing for his new role. Leo calls: he can't come, because he has to return by a certain date, and it's too late.

Hans pulls on bright green trousers and a blue shirt, looks in the mirror - brilliant! The white is too thick and cracked, the dark hair looks like a wig. Hans imagines how relatives and friends will throw coins into his hat. On the way to the train station, Hans realizes that it's a carnival. Well, it's even better for him, it's easiest for a professional to hide among amateurs. He puts a pillow on the step, sits down on it, puts a cigarette in his hat - on the side, as if someone had thrown it, and begins to sing. Suddenly, the first coin falls into the hat - ten pfennigs. Hans fixes his nearly dropped cigarette and continues to sing.

V. S. Kulagina-Yartseva

(Gruppenbild mit dame)

Roman (1971)

Leni Pfeiffer, née Gruiten, is German. She is forty-eight years old, she is still beautiful - and in her youth she was a true beauty: blonde, with a beautiful stately figure. Does not work, lives almost in poverty; she will probably be evicted from the apartment, or rather, from the house that once belonged to her and which she frivolously lost during the years of inflation (now it is 1970, Germany is already well-fed and rich). Leni is a strange woman; the author, on whose behalf the story is going on, knows for certain that she is an "unrecognized genius of sensuality", but at the same time he found out that Leni was close to a man twenty-five times in her life, no more, although many men still lust for her . Likes to dance, often dances half-naked or completely naked (in the bathroom); plays the piano and has "achieved some mastery" - in any case, she plays two of Schubert's etudes superbly. From food, he loves the freshest buns most of all, he smokes no more than eight cigarettes a day. And here's what else the author managed to find out: the neighbors consider Leni a whore, because, obviously, she is incomprehensible to them. And one more thing: she almost daily sees the Virgin Mary on the TV screen, "each time being surprised that the Virgin Mary is also blonde and also not so young." They look at each other and smile... Leni is a widow, her husband died at the front. She has a twenty-five-year-old son, he is now in prison.

Apparently, having found out all this, the author set out to understand Leni, to learn as much as possible about her, and not from her - she is too silent and withdrawn - but from her acquaintances, friends and even enemies. So he began to paint this portrait of dozens of people, including those who do not know Leni at all, but can tell about people who were once important to her.

One of the two close friends of the heroine, Margaret, is now in the hospital, dying from some terrible venereal disease. (The author claims that she is much less sensual than Leni, but simply could not refuse intimacy to any man.) From her we learn, for example, that Leni treated both her son and his father, the only man, with saliva and the laying on of hands, whom she truly loved. Margaret gives the first information about the person who had the strongest influence on Leni, when she, as a teenager, lived and studied at the monastery. This is a nun, Sister Rachel Gunzburg, an absolutely enchanting creature. She took a course at three of the best universities in Germany, was a doctor of biology and endocrinology; she was arrested many times during the First World War - for pacifism; adopted Christianity for thirty years (in 1922) ... And imagine, this highly learned woman did not have the right to teach, she served as a cleaner at the toilets in a monastery boarding school and, against all the rules of decency, taught girls to judge their health by feces and urine. She saw through them and truly taught them about life. Leni visited her and years later, when Sister Rachel was isolated from the world, she was locked in the monastery basement.

Why? For what? Yes, because the general background of the group portrait is a flag with a swastika. After all, Leni was only eleven years old when the Nazis came to power, and the entire development of the heroine passed under the sign of the swastika, like all the events around her. So, from the very beginning of their rule, the Nazis declared the Catholic Church the second enemy of Germany after the Jews, and Sister Rachel was both a Catholic and a Jewess. Therefore, the authorities of the order removed her from teaching and hid her under the apron of a cleaner, and then behind the basement door: she was saved from death. But after the death of sister Rachel, as if refuting the "brown" reality of Germany, the reality of war, arrests, executions, denunciations, roses grow by themselves on the nun's grave. And bloom against all odds. The body is buried in another place - roses bloom there too. She is cremated - roses grow where there is no land, where there is only one stone, and bloom ...

Yes, strange miracles accompany Leni Pfeiffer... A small miracle happens to the author himself when he comes to Rome to learn more about Sister Rachel. In the main residence of the order, he meets a charming and highly learned nun, she tells him the story of roses - and soon leaves the monastery to become the author's girlfriend. So here it is. But alas, for Leni herself, miracles, even bright ones, always have a bad end - but more on that later, first we ask ourselves: who, besides Rachel, nurtured this strange woman? Father, Hubert Gruyten - there is also his portrait. A simple worker "made it into the people", founded a construction company and began to grow rich rapidly, building fortifications for the Nazis. It is not very clear why he made money - all the same, he "threw them in piles, bundles," as another witness says. In 1943, he did something completely incomprehensible: he founded a fictitious company, with fictitious turnover and employees. When the case was revealed, he was almost executed - he was sentenced to life imprisonment with confiscation of property. (An interesting detail: they exposed him because the lists of Russian worker prisoners of war included the names of Raskolnikov, Chichikov, Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy ...) True, Gruyten embarked on this escalade after the death of his son Heinrich, who served in the occupying army in Denmark. Heinrich was shot along with his cousin Erhard: the young men tried to sell a cannon to some Dane; it was a protest - they sold for five marks.

And Leni ... She lost her brother, whom she admired, and her fiancé - she loved Erhard. Maybe because of this double loss, her life went upside down. Maybe that's why she suddenly married a completely insignificant person (he died three days after the wedding; the author nevertheless gives a very detailed portrait of him).

In addition to all the misfortunes, after the condemnation of her father, Leni ceased to be a rich heiress, and she was sent to serve her labor service.

Again, a small miracle: thanks to some high patronage, she ended up not in a military enterprise, but in gardening - weaving wreaths; a lot of wreaths were required in those years. Leni turned out to be a talented weaver, and gardening owner Pelzer couldn't get enough of her. And besides the toga, he fell in love with her - like most of her familiar men.

And there, in gardening, they brought to work a prisoner of war, lieutenant of the Red Army, Boris Lvovich Koltovsky. Leni fell in love with him at first sight, and of course he could not resist the young blond beauty. If the authorities had found out about this affair, both would have been executed, but thanks to another miracle, no one denounced the lovers.

The author made great efforts to find out how a Russian officer escaped the concentration camp "with a mortality rate of 1:1" and was transferred to a camp "with an extremely low mortality rate of 1:5,8"? And besides, he was not sent from this camp, like everyone else, to put out burning houses or dismantle the rubble after the bombing, but sent him to weave wreaths ... It turned out that Boris's father, a diplomat and intelligence officer, serving before the war in Germany, made acquaintance with a certain a person "who had tremendous influence before, after, and during the war. When Boris was taken prisoner, his father managed to inform a friend about this, and he, in the most difficult way, found Boris among hundreds of thousands of prisoners, transferred him - not immediately, step by step - to a "good" camp and attached him to light work.

Perhaps because of the contact with the "face" Koltovsky Sr. was recalled from his residency in Germany and shot. Yes, such is the refrain of this story: shot, killed, imprisoned, shot...

... They could love each other only during the day - Boris was taken to the camp for the night - and only during air raids, when it was supposed to hide in a bomb shelter. Then Leni and Boris went to the neighboring cemetery, to a large crypt, and there, under the roar of bombs and the whistle of fragments, they conceived a son. (At night, at home, says Margaret, Leni grumbled: “Why don’t they fly during the day? When will they fly again in the middle of the day?”)

This dangerous relationship continued until the end of the war, and Leni showed cunning and resourcefulness unusual for her: first she found a fictitious father for her unborn child, then she managed to register the child as Koltovsky; Boris himself prepared a German soldier's book - for the moment when the Nazis leave and the Americans appear. They came in March, and for four months Leni and Boris lived in a normal house, together, and together they cherished the child and sang songs to him.

Boris did not want to admit that he was Russian, and he was right: soon the Russians were "loaded into wagons and sent to their homeland, to Stalin, the father of all peoples." But already in June, he was arrested by an American patrol, and Boris was sent - as a German soldier - to the mines in Lorraine. Leni traveled all over the north of Germany on a bicycle and finally found him in November - in a cemetery: there was a disaster in the mine, and Boris died.

In essence, this is the end of Leni Pfeiffer's story; as we know, her life goes on, but this life seems to be determined by those long-standing months spent next to Boris. Even the fact that they are trying to evict her from the apartment is connected to this to some extent. And the fact that her son, who was born on the day of the monstrous many hours of bombing, ended up in prison for fraud, also correlates with Leni's love for Boris, although not in a completely clear way. Yes, life goes on. One day, Mehmed, a Turkish scavenger, begged Leni for love on his knees, and she gave up - apparently because she couldn't stand it when a man was on his knees. Now she is expecting a child again, and she does not care that Mehmed has a wife and children in Turkey.

"We must continue to try to ride in an earthly carriage harnessed by heavenly horses" - these are the last words heard from her by the author.

V. S. Kulagina-Yartseva

(Buridans Esel)

Roman (1968)

Karl Erp, head of the district library in Berlin - the capital of the GDR, a forty-year-old family man with an emerging paunch, wakes up in his room with a smile on his face. Reading a book at breakfast, he thinks of Fraulein Brodeur. After graduating from library school, she, along with another student, undergoes a six-month practice in his library.

On the eve of the meeting, the team decided on which of the two trainees to leave in the library after passing the final exams. The director of the school recommended Broder, she is a Berliner, one of those who will wither away without Berlin. The issue was resolved in favor of the girl, everyone recognized that her knowledge was vast and her moral character was impeccable. But after the meeting, colleague Hasler unofficially expressed the opinion of many employees that the fraulein may not have enough cordiality, she is too straightforward, he himself is afraid that in her presence "not to chill the soul."

Reflecting on the appearance of his subordinate, Earp recalls her posture, pleasant restraint, and finds something "removing" in her facial features. Then he sees the smiling lips of the girl, hears her soft intonations, which sometimes confuse the interlocutor. It becomes irresistible when "naturalness breaks through artificial coldness."

While Earp thinks about the intern while eating his wife's tasty and healthy breakfast, Elizabeth takes care of the kids. Elizabeth asks her husband if he will return home in time, and is satisfied with the negative answer. She studied her husband well and has no doubt that she will later learn about everything in detail. She is not afraid of stories with women, he always talks about everything himself. Elizabeth is sure that her husband did not deceive her, did not violate marital fidelity. She tries to suppress the anxiety or jealousy that sometimes arises.

The family lives in a well-maintained house with a garden, which Elisabeth received from her parents, who moved to West Berlin. Earp loves the house and is proud of the lawn he does himself.

Earp's working day is unbearably long. He has to inform the intern Krach about the decision in favor of Fraulein Brodeur. Earp tries to console a disgruntled Crutch by revealing to him the prospects for library activities in the countryside and scolding Berlin. The conversation ends with a vicious remark from the bypassed trainee - Earp himself for some reason does not leave to work in the village. Earp is embarrassed, it is painful for him to have enemies, he is used to being popular with both women and men.

In the evening, Earp goes to visit his ill intern and, under a plausible pretext, to tell her good news, Fraulein Brodeur lives in an old, run-down house with many noisy and crowded tenants. Here she was born and lived with her parents, now deceased.

Earp climbs the dirty stairs and stands for a long time in front of the maid of honor's door to calm his excitement. From the very morning he had been looking forward to this moment, and now he was afraid that one look from her would "kill all hope." This does not happen, and since both were indefatigable talkers, their meeting lasted six hours.

Earp returns home at half past three in the night. Elizabeth silently accepts his apology and then listens to the details. Carl has no secrets from his wife, he feels the need for "honesty". The husband describes the house and Brodeur's tiny room: the kitchen is on the landing, the toilet is on another floor, one for all tenants. He can hardly remember what they talked about: problems of librarianship, literature, the psychology of readers, sleep patterns, mint tea, the Bundeswehr ... Earp describes in detail the girl's peculiar habit: she constantly strokes her eyebrows when she listens .;

What follows is a conclusion about the dangers of sleepless nights and the benefits of cozy home evenings with wife and children. Elizabeth must understand that this Brodeur is the most intelligent and most tiresome of all girls.

Elizabeth is an unusually silent woman, her life and interests belong entirely to the family. Karl always felt that he could not unravel the soul of his wife, and he does not strive for this, he only allows himself to bliss under the "warm rays of her love." That night, Elizabeth realizes that her husband has fallen in love, which she tells him to his face. She immediately notices some changes in him that are noticeable only to her, and vaguely feels ready for adultery.

Carl disappoints Fraulein Brodeur as a man and boss by not living up to her ideas of him. She always expects more from people than they can give. Brodeur has read all of Earp's library articles published in the press and has long respected him as a professional. And he comes to her with a bottle, the same as all men, arrogant and, apparently, with one desire - to sleep with her.

In the morning, Earp writes the girl letter No. 1 - an evil, "propaganda" letter from a party member (Erp is a member of the SED) to a non-party woman, who should know that socialist morality does not require a vow of chastity. Brodeur finds an unstamped and unstamped letter in his mailbox and realizes what is happening to it.

One evening, while Earp is sitting at Brodeur's, Hasler's colleague comes to his house and stays talking with Elizabeth, almost until he returns in the morning. A colleague is concerned about the issue of moral standards, since Krach has already started gossip in the library. Hasler learns a lot from Elizabeth and feels that her accommodation and submissiveness is the foundation on which many families are held.

This time, a decisive conversation takes place between the spouses. Carl is trying to shift his blame onto his wife's shoulders: he married her, not loving, because she wanted it. After such a false statement, Elizabeth decides to divorce, although Karl does not insist on it at all. The behavior of his wife is again a mystery to him.

Library staff discuss among themselves the director's affair with a subordinate. Krach intends to complain "to the authorities." One employee, a great erudite, calls Earp "Buridan's donkey", described in the Middle Ages. That donkey died after much deliberation about which of the two identical fragrant haystacks he should prefer.

Karl spends Christmas night with the maid of honor, this is the first real night of their love. The next day, he moves in with her with two suitcases.

The first joint day is filled with discoveries for both. Brodeur discovers that "giant love" turns into a "dwarf" fear for his reputation. Carl learns that the neighbors call his beloved "sparrow", and that she is used to solving everything on her own.

Hasler is waiting for Earp to make a strong announcement about starting a new family. But he is silent, and then Hasler himself formulates the conditions - an immediate divorce with the transfer of one of the two to another library.

In the squalid environment of the home, Broder Earp really suffers. All night long noises of neighbors are heard, mice and rats are busy in the attic, from four o'clock in the morning the walls are shaking from the roar of the printing house, it is unusual to sleep on an inflatable mattress. Insomnia torments him, he is exhausted from self-pity. "Sparrow" occupies the washstand in the icy kitchen for a long time, then prepares unstrained coffee and eats foul-smelling sausage for breakfast instead of marmalade. leaving for work, she leaves the bed unmade until the evening - for "airing" - how can he return to such a room?

Karl constantly attacks his beloved, while she only defends herself, defends herself from the remnants (as it seems to her) of male lust for power. But she is not annoyed, because she suffers only from him, and he suffers from both her and the environment. She invites him to go to work in the country together, but he knows how "she" is attached to Berlin.

Gradually, Brodeur is seized by the fear that difficulties are beyond the power of Carl's love.

Earp visits his terminally ill father in the village, a former teacher in those parts. He shares with him a change in his personal life and sees that his father is on the side of Elizabeth. The old man remarks to his son that he does not like the word "duty" and persistently talks about happiness, and only those who are able to refuse it have happiness.

Time passes, and Earp has not filed for divorce. In the meantime, things are going well with his career. At the next meeting in the library, he admits that he "lives with a colleague Brodeur" and intends to divorce his wife. The principal thinks it's unfair if Brodeur has to leave the library because she was promised a position. He takes the blame on himself and says he will leave on his own. His decision is accepted - a shock to Earp, he secretly hoped that his sacrifice would not be accepted. He comes to the "sparrow" with a tragic face and the expectation of gratitude for the sacrifice made.

At this time, Earp's friend from the ministry reports that he is officially offered to take a post in the same ministry in Berlin. Thus, all conflicts are finally resolved by the socialist state. But Earp is not particularly happy, because now all his decisions are devoid of a heroic halo. He reluctantly accepts the offer.

Brodeur does not know anything, she takes her final exams at the school, after which she asks to be sent to work in the village. When she returns home and tells Earp about her decision, he is not horrified, does not ask her to take back the decision and does not assure that he is ready to go anywhere with her, especially to his beloved province. He immediately accuses the "sparrow" of arbitrariness and takes the form of an offended lover whom the woman wants to leave. Earp does not inform Brodeur of his new assignment in Berlin and allows her to go into self-imposed exile. He is left with a "bleeding heart" - from which the stone of responsibility has fallen.

Earp returns to the family. As before, he tells Elizabeth about everything himself, "honestly", "without evasions" and "mercy" to himself, the "Golden Chain of Love" turned into "shackles" and "traps", he had to go for a violent break.

Elizabeth takes him back to the family where fourteen years of their life together have passed. Elizabeth tells herself she's doing this for the kids. During these months without a husband, she is already gaining her place in public life, having mastered a new profession for herself.

Elizabeth goes to bed with the door locked. What is this changed woman thinking? Nobody can know this.

A. V. Dyakonova

(Deutschstunde)

Roman (1968)

Ziggy Jepsen, a juvenile prisoner in Hamburg, receives a German penalty for failing to submit an essay on "Joys of Duty Done". Jozwig himself, the beloved guard, escorts the young man to the punishment cell, where he will have to "unlock the fireproof cupboard of memories and push through the dormant past." He sees his father, Jene Ole Jepsen, a Rugbul policeman with a blank, dry face. Ziggy returns to that April morning in 1943, when his father, in his unchanged cape, rides a bicycle to Bleekenwarf, where his old acquaintance, the artist Max Ludwig Nansen, lives, to hand in an order received from Berlin forbidding him to paint. Max is eight years older, shorter and more mobile than Jens. In rain and rain, he is dressed in a gray-blue raincoat and hat. Upon learning that the policeman was instructed to monitor the implementation of the order, the artist remarks: "These half-witted people do not understand that it is impossible to forbid painting ... They do not know that invisible paintings exist!" Ziggy recalls how, as a ten-year-old boy, he witnessed dirty tricks and dirty tricks, "simple and intricate intrigues and intrigues, which gave rise to the suspicion of a policeman" against the artist, and decides to describe this in penal notebooks, adding, at the request of the teacher, the joys that get in the line of duty .

Here Ziggy, together with her sister Hilke and her fiancé Addy, collects seagull eggs on the coast of the North Sea and, caught in a thunderstorm, finds himself in a wooden cabin of the artist, from where he watches the colors of the water and sky, the "movement of fantastic fleets". On a sheet of paper, he sees seagulls, and each has "the long, sleepy face of a Rugbul policeman." At home, the boy will be punished: his father, with the tacit consent of his sickly mother, beats him with a stick for staying with the artist. A new seizure order comes in for the paintings the artist has painted in the last two years, and a policeman delivers a letter to Nansen's house on Dr. Busbeck's sixtieth birthday. Small, fragile, Theo Busbeck was the first to notice and support the expressionist painter for many years. Now, before his eyes, Jens is compiling a list of confiscated paintings, warning: "Beware, Max!" Nansen's soul turns back from the policeman's reasoning about duty, and he promises to continue to paint pictures full of light "invisible pictures" ...

At this point, the memory is interrupted by the knock of the guard, and a young psychologist, Wolfgang Mackenroth, appears in the cell. He is going to write his thesis "Art and crime, their relationship, presented on the experience of Ziggy E.". Hoping for the help of the convict, Makenroth promises to speak out in his defense, achieve his release and call that extremely rare feeling of fear, which, in his opinion, was the cause of past deeds, "Jepsen's phobia." Ziggy feels that among the one hundred and twenty psychologists who turned the colony into a scientific arena, this is the only one who could be trusted. Sitting at his chipped table, Ziggy is immersed in the sensations of a distant summer morning when he was awakened by his older brother Klaas, who secretly made his way to the house after he, a deserter who shot twice in the hand, was placed at the denunciation of his father in a Hamburg prison hospital. He is shivering with pain and fear. Ziggy hides his brother in an old mill, where he hides his collection of pictures of horsemen, keys and locks. The brothers understand that the parents will do their duty and give Klaas to people in black leather coats who are looking for a fugitive. In the last hope of salvation, Claes asks to be taken to an artist who loved a talented young man, depicted on his Canvases, demonstrating his "naive tenderness".

Continuing to watch the artist, the policeman takes away from him a folder with sheets of blank paper, suspecting that these are "invisible paintings".

Three and a half months have passed since Ziggy Jepsen began to work on an essay about the joys of duty. Psychologists are trying to determine his condition, and the director, leafing through the covered notebooks. Recognizes that such conscientious work deserves a satisfactory assessment and Ziggy can return to the General system. But Ziggy does not consider his confession finished and seeks permission to stay in the punishment cell in order to show in more detail not only the joys, but also the sacrifices of duty. From Mackenroth, he manages to learn along with cigarettes an essay about Max Nansen, who, according to the psychologist, had the strongest influence on Ziggy. Ziggy recalls how one evening, through the Fuzzy blackout on the studio window, his father is looking at the artist, who, with short, sharp strokes of the brush, touches the image of a man in a scarlet robe and someone else filled with fear. The boy guesses that fear has the face of his brother Klaas. Caught at work, the artist decides to do something incompatible with his hated duty, tears his picture into sparkling shreds, this is the embodiment of fear, and gives it to the policeman as material evidence of spiritual independence. Jene recognizes the exclusivity of his act, for "there are others - the majority - they are subject to the general Order."

The policeman suspects that his son is hiding with the artist, and this forces Klaas to change cover again. The next day, during an English air raid, Ziggy discovers the seriously wounded Klaas in a peat quarry and is forced to accompany him home, where his father immediately informs the Hamburg prison about what happened. "He will be cured in order to pronounce the verdict," the artist says, looking at his indifferent parents. But his hour is coming ... Ziggy is a witness to the arrest of the artist, how he tried to save at least the last work full of fear, "The Cloudmaker". Nansen does not know how to hide the canvas more reliably, and then, in the darkness of the workshop, a boy comes to his aid. He lifts his pullover, the artist wraps the painting around him, lowers the pullover and

… ???…

the gleam of fire that devours the pictures, and he hides them in a new hiding place. There he hides the "Dancing on the Waves", which the father demands to destroy, because there is a half-naked Khilke depicted. The artist understands Ziggy's condition, but is forced to forbid him to visit the studio. The father, from whom the boy protects the paintings, threatens to put his son in jail and sets the police on his trail. Ziggy manages to deceive his pursuers, but not for long, and he, sleepy, helpless, is arrested in Klaas's apartment.

Now, meeting his twenty-first birthday on September 25, 1954, his coming of age in a colony for the difficult to educate, Ziggy Jepsen comes to the conclusion that he, like many teenagers, is paying for the deeds of his fathers. "None of you," he turns to psychologists, "will raise a hand to prescribe the necessary course of treatment for a Rugbyul policeman, he is allowed to be a maniac and maniacally fulfill his damned duty."

So the German lesson ends, the notebooks are put aside, but Ziggy is in no hurry to leave the colony, although the director announces his release. What awaits him, forever associated with the Rugbul plains, besieged by memories and familiar faces? Will he crash or win - who knows ...

V. N. Terekhina

(Die Blechtrommel)

Roman (1959)

The action takes place in the XNUMXth century. in the Danzig region. The story is told from the point of view of Oskar Macerath, a patient of a special medical institution, a man whose growth stopped at the age of three and who never parted with a tin drum, telling him all the secrets, describing with his help everything that he sees around. An orderly named Bruno Münsterberg brings him a pack of blank paper, and he begins a biography of himself and his family.

First of all, the hero describes his maternal grandmother, Anna Bronski, a peasant woman who one day in October 1899 rescued the hero's grandfather, Josef Koljaiczek, from the gendarmes by hiding him under her numerous wide skirts. Under these skirts on that memorable day, says the hero, his mother Agnes was conceived. On the same night, Anna and Josef got married, and the grandmother's brother Vincent took the newlyweds to the central city of the province: Kolyaychek was hiding from the authorities as an arsonist. There he took a job as a raft driver under the name of Josef Wrank, who drowned some time ago, and lived like this until 1913, when the police hit his trail. That year he had to ferry the raft from Kyiv, where he sailed in tow of the Radauna.

In the same tug was the new owner of Dyckerhof, a former foreman at the sawmill where Kolyaichek worked, who recognized him and gave him up to the police. But Kolyaychek did not want to surrender to the police and, upon arrival at his native port, jumped into the water in the hope of reaching the neighboring pier, where a ship called Columbus was just being launched. However, on the way to the Columbus, he had to dive under a too long raft, where he found his death. Since his body was not found, there were rumors that he nevertheless managed to escape and he sailed to America, where he became a millionaire, having become rich in the timber trade, shares of match factories and fire insurance.

A year later, my grandmother married the older brother of her late husband, Gregor Kolyachek. Since he drank everything he earned at the powder mill, my grandmother had to open a grocery store. In 1917, Gregor died of influenza, and twenty-year-old Jan Bronski, the son of his grandmother's brother Vincent, who was going to serve at the main post office in Danzig, settled in his room. She and her cousin Agnee were very sympathetic to each other, but they never got married, and in 1923 Agnes married Alfred Macerath, whom she met in a hospital for the wounded, where she worked as a nurse. However, the tender relationship between Jan and Agnes did not stop - Oskar repeatedly emphasizes that he tends to consider Jan rather than Macerat his father, Jan himself soon married a Kashubian girl Hedwig, with whom he had a son Stefan and a daughter Marga. After the conclusion of a peace treaty, when the area around the mouth of the Vistula was proclaimed the Free City of Danzig, within which Poland received a free port, Jan went to serve in the Polish post office and received Polish citizenship. The couple of Macerats, after the wedding, bought out the shop of colonial goods ruined by debtors and engaged in trade.

Soon Oscar was born. Endowed with a sharp perception that was not childish, he forever remembered the words of his father: "Someday a shop will go to him" and the words of his mother: "When little Oscar is three years old, he will receive a tin drum from us." His first impression was of a moth beating against burning light bulbs. He seemed to be drumming, and the hero called him "Oscar's mentor."

The idea of ​​getting a shop aroused a feeling of protest in the hero, and his mother liked the proposal; immediately realizing that he was destined to remain misunderstood by his own parents all his life, he forever lost the desire to live, and only the promise of a drum reconciled him with reality. First of all, the hero did not want to grow up and, taking advantage of the oversight of Macerate, who forgot to close the cellar lid, fell down the stairs leading down on his third birthday. In the future, this saved him from going to the doctors. On the same day, it turned out that he was able to cut and break glass with his voice. This was Oscar's only chance to save the drum. When Matzerath tried to take the drum, which had been pierced to holes, from him, he smashed the glass of the grandfather clock with a cry. When, in early September 1928, on his fourth birthday, they tried to replace the drum with other toys, he crushed all the lamps in the chandelier.

Oscar was six years old, and his mother tried to send him to the Pestalozzi school, although from the point of view of those around him he still did not really know how to speak and was very undeveloped. At first, the teacher, Fraulein Spollenhauer, liked the boy because he successfully drummed the song that she asked to sing, but then she decided to put the drum in the closet. On the first attempt to pull out the drum, Oskar only scratched her glasses, on the second - with his voice he broke all the window panes, and when she tried to hit him on the hands with a stick, he broke her glasses, scratching her face to blood. Thus ended schooling for Oscar, but he wanted to learn to read by all means. However, none of the adults cared about the underdeveloped freak, and only the childless mother's friend Gretchen Shefler agreed to teach him to read and write. The choice of books in her house was very limited, so they read Goethe's "Elective Affinity" and the weighty volume "Rasputin and Women". Teaching was easy for the boy, but he had to hide his progress from adults, which was very difficult and insulting for him. From three or four years, while the teaching continued, he learned that "in this world, each Rasputin is opposed by his own Goethe." But he was especially pleased with the excitement that his mother and Gretchen experienced from reading a book about Rasputin.

At first, Oscar's world was limited to the attic, from which all the nearby yards were visible, but once the kids fed him "soup" of crushed bricks, live frogs and urine, after which he began to prefer long walks, most often hand in hand with his mother. On Thursdays, Mother took Oskar with her to the city, where they invariably visited Sigismund Markus's toy store to buy another drum. Then the mother left Oskar with Marcus, and she herself went to cheap furnished rooms, which Jan Bronski specially rented for meetings with her. Once the boy ran away from the store to try his voice at the City Theater, and when he returned, he found Markus on his knees in front of his mother: he persuaded her to run away with him to London, but she refused - because of Bronski. Alluding to the coming to power of the Nazis, Markus, among other things, said that he was baptized. However, this did not help him - during one of the pogroms, in order not to fall into the hands of the rioters, he had to commit suicide.

In 1934, the boy was taken to the circus, where he met a midget named Bebra. Anticipating torchlight processions and parades in front of the stands, he uttered prophetic words: "Try to always sit among those who are in the stands, and never stand in front of them ... Little people like you and me will find a place even on the most crowded stage. And if not on it , then certainly under it, but for nothing - in front of it. Oscar forever remembered the testament of an older friend, and when one day in August 1935, Matzerath, who joined the Nazi party, went to some kind of demonstration, Oscar, hiding under the stands, spoiled the whole procession, knocking down the orchestra of stormtroopers to waltzes and other dance rhythms with a drum.

In the winter of 1936/37, Oskar played the tempter: hiding in front of some expensive store, he cut a small hole in the window with his voice so that the buyer looking at it could take the thing he liked. So Jan Bronski became the owner of an expensive ruby ​​necklace, which he presented to his beloved Agnes.

With a drum, Oscar verified the truth of religion: having given the drum into the hands of the plaster baby Christ in the temple, he waited a long time for him to start playing, but the miracle did not happen. When he was caught at the scene of the crime by the vicar Rasceia, he never managed to break the church windows,

Shortly after visiting the church, on Good Friday, the Macerati family, together with Jan, went for a walk along the seashore, where they witnessed how a man was catching eels on a horse's head. This made such an impression on Oscar's mother that she was at first in shock for a long time, and then began to devour fish in huge quantities. It all ended with the fact that my mother died in the city hospital from "jaundice and fish intoxication." At the cemetery, Alexander Shefler and the musician Mein rudely escorted the Jew Markus, who had come to say goodbye to the deceased. An important detail: at the cemetery gates, the local crazy Leo the Fool shook hands with Markus as a token of condolence. Later, at another funeral, he would refuse to shake hands with the musician Maine, who joined the stormtrooper squad; out of chagrin, he will kill four of his cats, for which he will be sentenced to a fine and expelled from the ranks of the SA for the inhuman treatment of animals, although for the sake of atonement he will become especially zealous during the “kristallnacht”, when they set fire to the synagogue and destroyed the Jewish shops. As a result, the toy dealer will leave the world, taking all the toys with him, and only a musician named Maine will remain, who "plays the trumpet wonderfully."

On the day when Leo the Fool refused to shake hands with the stormtrooper, Oscar's friend Herbert Truczynski was buried. For a long time he worked as a waiter in a port tavern, but quit there and got a job as a caretaker in a museum - to guard a gallion figure from a Florentine galleas, which, according to legend, brought misfortune. Oscar served Herbert as a kind of talisman, but one day, when Oscar was not allowed into the museum, Herbert died a terrible death. Thrilled by this memory, Oskar beats the drum especially hard, and Bruno, the orderly, asks him to drum more quietly.

E. B. Tueva

(Der geteilte Himmel)

Roman (1963)

The action takes place in 1960-1961. in the GDR. The main character, Rita Seidel, a student who worked during the holidays at a car building plant, is in the hospital after she almost fell under the wagons maneuvering on the tracks. It is later revealed that it was a suicide attempt. In the hospital room, and then in the sanatorium, she remembers her life and what led her to such a decision.

Rita's childhood passed in a small village, which ended up on the territory of the GDR after the war. To help her mother, she went early to work in a local insurance office and, getting used to the gray life of a small village, she was already desperate to see anything new, unusual in life. But here comes the chemist Manfred Herfurt to their village - to relax before the dissertation is sewn up. A romance begins between young people. Manfred lives in a small industrial town and works in a chemical plant. He writes letters to the girl and visits her on Sundays. They are going to get married. Unexpectedly, Erwin Schwarzenbach, an assistant professor at the Pedagogical Institute, arrives in the village, recruiting students. He persuades Rita to fill out the paperwork too, and she moves to the city where Manfred lives. She lives in his house.

Manfred does not like that Rita is planning some kind of independent life - he is more jealous of the institute, but even more so of the car building plant, where she decides to work before entering in order to gain life experience.

Meanwhile, Rita settles into the factory; she is carried away by the process of socialist competition, which is proposed by one of the workers, Rolf Meternagel. She soon learns that he once worked as a foreman at the same factory, but the foreman gave him fake orders to sign, and as a result of an audit that revealed serious financial irregularities, Meternagegy was removed from his post. But he firmly believes in socialist ideals and that only through hard and disinterested work can one catch up with and overtake the FRG. Rita is very sympathetic to this man.

Gradually, from conversations with Manfred, she finds out that her lover, on the contrary, is alien to socialist ideals. Somehow, irritated by a conversation with parents whom he does not respect and even hates, Manfred tells Rita about his childhood during the war years. After the war, the boys of their generation "saw with their own eyes what adults had done in a short time." They were encouraged to live in a new way, but Manfred was constantly tormented by the question: "With whom? With the same people?" After this conversation, Rita for the first time has a feeling that their relationship is in danger.

All this is happening against the backdrop of economic difficulties and the growing confrontation with the FRG. It becomes known that the director of the plant where Rita works has not returned from a business trip to West Berlin. He stated that he "knew for a long time that their case was hopeless." The young, energetic engineer Ernst Wendland becomes the director. Anxiety reigns in the Herfurt family: Manfred's father serves as a commercial director at the railroad car building and is afraid that some shortcomings will be revealed as a result of the check. Manfred's mother, with a purely feminine intuition, feels that the changes at the factory mean the strengthening of the positions of socialism, and, always hating the new system, she writes off with her sister living in West Berlin.

Wendland arranges a meeting at which he calls on the workers to work conscientiously. Rita is excited: she believes that the call of the director and the socialist idea can lead to the fulfillment of the plan, but Manfred is skeptical about her story: “Do you really think that things will go better after the meeting? What if raw materials appear? <…> Incapable leaders will be able ? <...> Will the workers think about great transformations, and not about their own pocket?" He is afraid that the bride's passion for social life may separate them.

Lying on a sanatorium bed, Rita relives happy moments with Manfred again and again: here they are running a new car, here they are participating in a carnival in a town with a "view of West Germany" ...

During the carnival, they meet Wendland and Rudi Schwabe, an activist of the German Youth Union. It turns out that Manfred has long-standing scores with them - ^ Jealousy is superimposed on the ideological differences between Manfred and Wendland: the latter unambiguously courts Rita. In addition, Wendland and Rita share common interests.

At the plant, Meternagegy takes upon himself the obligation to increase the output rate - to insert into the cars not eight, but ten windows per shift. Members of the brigade are skeptical of his ideas. Many believe that he just wants to become a master again or "suck up to the director's brother-in-law." Rita learns that Wendland was married to Meternagel's eldest daughter, but she cheated on him, they divorced, and now Wendland is raising his son alone.

At the plant's fifteenth anniversary party, Wendland openly courts Rita. Jealousy flares up in Manfred with renewed vigor. He enters into a skirmish with Wendland. From their seemingly meaningless phrases, it becomes clear that Manfred does not believe in disinterested, socialist labor. Brought up in the family of an opportunist, he "is sure that you need to take on a protective coloration so that you are not found and destroyed." In addition, Manfred is tormented by the question of why science is being introduced into life faster in the West than in the GDR. But Wendland, whom he openly asks about this, gets off with general phrases ...

Rita goes to college. And although studying is easy for her, she finds it difficult to experience a new environment, meeting new people. She is especially outraged by demagogues like Mangold, who now and then strives to accuse everyone of political myopia and betrayal of socialist ideals, thereby achieving selfish goals. In order to somehow dispel her gloomy state, Manfred introduces his friend Martin Jung, whom he helps to make a machine under the ridiculous name "Jenny the Spinner" for a synthetic fiber factory. But on Christmas Day, visiting his professor, his supervisor, Manfred learns that their "Jenny the spinner with an advanced gas suction device" has been rejected in favor of a less mature project prepared in the plant itself. Subsequently, it turns out that a certain Brown, who defected to the West, is to blame for everything (it is hinted that he deliberately engaged in sabotage and sabotage), but things cannot be fixed: Manfred is sure that "he is not needed." At this moment, he makes the final decision, and Rita understands this. But in her eyes, he reads the answer: "Never in my life (Gatim disagree."

And there are more and more defectors (until 1961, the border with West Berlin was open). the parents of one of Rita's classmates, Sigrid, leave for the West. She hides this for a long time, but in the end she is forced to tell everything. It turns out that Rita knew about everything, but was silent. There is a personal matter. Mangold leads to expulsion from the institute, but Rita is not oppressed by this, but by the fear that demagogy can destroy socialist ideals, and then "the Herfurts (read: philistines) will overwhelm the world." Rita wants to communicate with Vendand, Meternagel, Schwarzenbach - with people whose life principles are close to her. Fortunately for her, at the group meeting, Schwarzenbach puts everything in its place. “It would be better,” he says, “that a person like Sigrid feel that the party exists for her, no matter what trouble happens to her.” Subsequently, Rita learns from Manfred that at one time he also believed in ideals, but the demagogy of the chards dispelled them, turning him into a skeptic ...

But socialist ideals triumph despite the skeptics. One day in April, Wendland invites Rita and Manfred to take part in testing a new, lightweight car, and while riding a train made up of such cars, they learn that the Soviet Union launched a man into space. Rita sincerely rejoices at the message, but Manfred does not share her joy. On the same day, Manfred learns that his father has been demoted and is now working as an accountant. The news hurts him.

Manfred goes into his grievances, and in their house, with the light hand of Frau Herfurt, everything sounds and sounds "the free voice of the free world." The last straw that overflowed Manfred's patience is Rita's trip with Wendland outside the city, which he becomes an accidental witness. And one evening, Frau Herfurt, terribly pleased with something, hands Rita a letter from Manfred: “Finally, he came to his senses and stayed there ...” Manfred writes: “I live in anticipation of the day when you will be with me again,” - but Rita perceives his departure as a break. It would be easier for her if he went to another woman.

In an attempt to persuade her husband to follow the example of his son, Frau Gerfurt dies of a heart attack, but Manfred does not even come to say goodbye to her.

Finally, Manfred is invited to his place: he has found a job and can now provide for the life of the family. They meet in West Berlin, but nothing attracts Rita in this foreign city. “In the end it all comes down to food, drink, clothes and sleep,” she later told Schwarzenbach. “I asked myself the question: why do they eat? What do they do in their fabulously luxurious apartments? Where do they drive in such wide cars? And oh What do people in this city think before going to sleep? A girl cannot betray her ideals and work only for money. And in Manfred's act, she sees not strength, but weakness, not a protest, but a desire to escape from temporary, as it seems to her, difficulties. The phrase hurts her painfully: "Thank God, they cannot split the sky!" Horrified by his commercialism, she returns to the GDR, where the Meternagel team has dramatically increased productivity, now inserting fourteen windows per shift instead of the previous eight. Meternagel himself finally undermined Health at work. When Rita comes to visit him, his wife, exhausted by her half-destitute existence, says that he is saving up money, wanting to return three thousand marks, which amounted to a shortage due to his fault.

E. B. Tueva

(Die neuen Leiden des jungen W.)

Tale (1972)

The story begins with several obituary notices about the death from electric shock of seventeen-year-old Edgar Wibo. This is followed by a dialogue between the mother and father of the deceased young man. The two separated when their son was only five years old. Since then, his father has never seen him, except on one occasion when his son came incognito. From the dialogue it turns out that for the time being, Edgar did very well at the school of vocational education, and then suddenly, not getting along with the master educator, he left everything and ran away from home. He left the small provincial town of Mittenberg for Berlin and there, after chatting idle for a while, finally got a job as a house painter in a repair and construction team. He settled in a dilapidated house, intended for demolition. He did not give his mother news about himself, but only sent monologues recorded on tape to his friend Willy.

Edgar's father, who wants to know more about him because his mother's explanations do not satisfy him, asks those who have ever been friends with his son, or worked together, or just happened to ever meet. So he finds a tape. And he learns about the life and problems of his son after his death. For example, that Edgar is proud, and emphasizes this more than once, that he originates from the French Huguenots, that he is left-handed, whom they tried to make right-handed for a long time, but unsuccessfully, that he loves modern music, especially jazz, that he prefers all trousers jeans, and in the field of literature he puts the novels "Robinson Crusoe", "The Sorrows of Young Berger" and "The Catcher in the Rye" above all else.

Edgar Vibo, like Holden Caulfield from Salinger's novel "The Catcher in the Rye", is very vulnerable, it is difficult for him to find a common language with the people around him, he hates falsehood. The case brings him closer to the children from the kindergarten, which is located near his crumbling house. Having made friends with these children, Edgar discovers the abilities of an educator in himself. Handing each child a brush, he teaches them how to paint, and together they create a kind of artistic canvas on the walls of the kindergarten. Edgar considers himself an artist, but, unfortunately, no one understands this, all his paintings seem to people to be daubs. Well, as for the “sufferings” of the young Edgar Vibo, they begin when he meets the teacher of these children. Regardless of her real name, he christened her Charlotte (Shirley for short), after the heroine of Goethe's novel, which is dear to him to such an extent that he literally does not part with him for a minute. Moreover, on the tape, which he sends to Friend Willy, Edgar often quotes Goethe, describing his feelings for Shirley, without naming the source, and mentally imagines how his friend’s eyes pop out of his forehead from such a high-flown syllable and surprise. He quotes lines from the novel and in conversation with Shirley.

The story repeats the situation described in Goethe's novel. Shirley, who is four years older than Edgar, is waiting for her fiance, whose name is Dieter, who is about to return from the army. Finally, he is demobilized, enters the university in order to study German studies there, and marries Shirley. However, judging by some of Edgar's casual remarks, Edgar is not so much interested in philology as in the possibility of making a career for himself through social work. He's boring, too old, and Shirley's love for him seems to be fading. Edgar visited them twice. Once he pulled a young married couple into nature to shoot from an air gun. Dieter, however, did not enjoy this walk very much. He, apparently, began to be jealous of Shirley to Edgar. However, in a fit of anger, the next time he let them go alone in a motorboat. The weather was cloudy, then it started to rain, Shirley and Edgar got wet, cold, and at some point, huddled together to keep warm, they could not resist the temptation. This meeting was their last.

It is to this period of the life of the protagonist that the beginning of his work in the repair and construction team belongs. Since he is not an ordinary young man and is sometimes prickly, grinding in on the work team goes with a creak. It is especially difficult for him to get along with the harsh foreman. There is a conflict. The situation is saved by the elderly master Zaremba, more sensitive, wiser than the impulsive foreman. Zaremba understands that Edgar is not some helipad who wants to get money without doing anything, but a serious young man with character. And the elderly worker convinces his colleagues about this. However, just at this time, Edgar had another problem. The abandoned house in which he lived was finally decided to be demolished. So, it was necessary to go somewhere. But where? Not in Mittenberg. This was what he feared the most. Provincial towns are especially hard on the psyche of young men like Edgar. Meanwhile, time was running out. Willy's friend gave Edgar's address to his mother, and she was about to come to visit him. The resolution of the problem came unexpectedly. Working in a team, Edgar drew attention to the imperfection of the existing spray guns for spraying paint and wanted to make his colleagues happy with the invention of a more advanced apparatus. But only the device connected something wrong. Testing the device, he closed the current on himself ...

Ya. V. Nikitin

(Kristin Lavransdatter)

Historical novel (1920-1922)

The action of the trilogy covers the period from 1310 to 1349, when the plague that devastated Europe reached Norway.

Kristin's father came from a Swedish family known as Lagman's Sons. For three generations this family had lived in Norway, but sometimes they were reminded that they were strangers here. At the age of eighteen, Lavrans, son of Bjergylf, married Ragnfrid, daughter of Ivar. Ragnfrid was three years older than her husband and had a sullen disposition. Three of their sons died in infancy, and when they settled on the Joryungord estate, only Christine, a seven-year-old girl with golden hair and light gray eyes, remained alive. Then two more daughters were born - Ulfhild and Ramborg. Lavrans and Ragnfrid were reluctant to communicate with their neighbors and even saw their relatives no more often than decency required. However, Lavrans was loved in the district: he was a man of courage and at the same time peaceful, he never offended his tenants and treated his servants well. The couple were distinguished by great piety and raised their children in the spirit of piety. Kristin became very attached to the monk Edwin - a truly holy man. Lavrans doted on Christine, and the girl also gave a clear preference to her father, not noticing that she was causing grief to her mother. Ragnfrid's consolation was Ulvhild, whom everyone considered the most beautiful of the sisters. Ramborg's parents were rather indifferent. When the ulvhild entered the fourth year, a misfortune happened - the baby was crippled by a fallen log. Fru Aeschild was invited to take care of her. She was a woman from a royal family, but people shunned her - she had a reputation as a sorceress and homemaker. This did not stop Ragnfrid: the mother agreed to everything in order to save Ulfhild, and Fru Aeschild's decoctions really eased the child's suffering. One day Mrs Aeschild said that Kristin's beauty would make a perfect match for her nephew Erlend, the son of Nikulaus of Hysaby. But there will be no marriage between them, because Christine Erlend is no match.

Ulfhild remained a cripple for the rest of her life, but Kristin got prettier and prettier. When she came of age, her parents betrothed her to Simon Darre, a young man from a respectable, prosperous family. Simon quickly won the favor of all the household members, and Kristin also got used to him. It was going to a happy wedding, but then the unexpected happened. Kristin has been friends with her foster brother Arne since childhood, the son of the tenant Gurd. She was aware that Arne loved her, but in her youth she did not attach any importance to this. Arne could get out and people only in the city: Before leaving, he asked Christine to go out into the forest in the evening to say goodbye, and the girl could not refuse him. When she returned home, she was waylaid by Bentein-priest, who decided that it was possible not to stand on ceremony with a girl who was running away from her father's house on a date. Kristin managed to fight off the scoundrel, and the wounded Bentein began to tell nasty things about her in the presence of Arne. When the fight started, Bentein was the first to draw his knife. Dead Arne was brought home, and his mother publicly accused Christine of the death of her Son. None of the relatives doubted that the girl retained her honor, but Christine was so shocked that the family council decided to postpone the "marriage for a year.

Lavrans sent his daughter to a monastery in Oslo. There Kristin met Erlend, the son of Nikulaus. He was already twenty-eight years old, but he looked unusually young - Christine had never seen such handsome men. In turn, Erlend was fascinated by the lovely girl. They passionately fell in love with each other. Kristin did not immediately find out about the past of her chosen one: at the age of eighteen, Erlend met a married woman and had two children with her. He was outlawed, many of his relatives turned away from him, and he had to pray for a long time for sin. Taking advantage of Christine's inexperience, Erlend took possession of her, and then they met many times in the house of the harlot Brynhild. It was in this vile place that Simon Darre lay in wait for them. The girl angrily refused the betrothal, and Erlend swore an oath to marry her. Feeling sorry for Christine, Simon hid the details of the breakup, but Aavrans still became indignant. He did not want to hear about Erlend, but Ragnfrid managed to gradually soften her husband. The mother guessed that Christine had lost her virginity - Lavrans, without knowing it, doomed his daughter to shame. Erlend decided to take Christine away, but his mistress Elina tracked them down. Having made an unsuccessful attempt to poison Christine, she wounded Erlend, and then stabbed herself. Fru Aeschild and Erlend's servant ulv helped to hide Christine's participation in this matter, but the girl was firmly convinced that the Lord would punish her.

Troubles rained down one after another: before the betrothal to Erlend, the unfortunate ulvhild died, and then the holy monk Edwin quietly faded away from old age. Meanwhile, Simon got married - it seemed that he wanted to prove to everyone, and above all to himself, that he did not regret the former bride at all. Shortly before the wedding, Christine realized that she was pregnant. Unfortunately, Lavrans decided to throw a lavish celebration, and Kristin knew that this would be the subject of evil talk. People were condescending to the love pleasures of youth, but it was considered the greatest shame to desecrate the bride. Despite the nausea, Kristin adequately endured the prescribed ceremony, but her father understood everything, and this was a cruel blow for him. At the same time, Lavrans suddenly realized that he had not given his wife true happiness - he married so early that intimacy seemed to him a shameful and sinful thing, and Ragnfrid blamed herself for this. They lived in harmony, and he never offended her even with a word, but they missed something very important in their lives.

Erlend took his young wife to Hysaby. Christine was tormented by fear for the child: she constantly prayed that God would not punish the child for the sins of the parents. But Erlend could not hide his annoyance: he was the most noble person in the district, and it was not proper for him to sin with his own bride. For the rest of her life, Christine harbored a deep resentment towards her husband, who did not support her in difficult times. The birth was unusually difficult, but tiny Nikulaus - Nokkwe, as his mother called him - was born healthy and strong. With this news, Erlend went skiing to Joryungord, and Lavrans for the first time felt good feelings for his son-in-law. Kristin, taking little Nokkwe with her, made a thanksgiving pilgrimage: during her prayer, she saw St. Edwin - she took it as a sign of forgiveness.

Erlend's large and rich estate was completely neglected. Christine was a worthy daughter of Lavrans: work was in full swing in her hands, she gradually got rid of negligent servants, and the rest took up their minds. She made Ulva, who was related to Erlend, the manager - he had to go into the service due to the fact that he was an illegitimate son. the ulva was a great helper, but sometimes he behaved too familiarly, which caused gossip in the district. However, Kristin had no time to delve into these trifles: household chores fell upon her, and she gave birth almost continuously - after Nokkve, Björgylf and Geute were born, and then the twins Ivar and Sküle. At the insistence of his wife, Erlend took into the house children from Elina - Orm and Margret. Kristin became very attached to her stepson, but she could not bring herself to love her stepdaughter - she was too much like her mother. Because of Margrethe, the couple often quarreled. However, most of all Kristin resented Erlend's frivolity: it seemed to her that he did not think at all about the future of his sons and was almost jealous of them for her. Children were often sick - Christine nursed them, using the knowledge received from Fru Aeschild. Then a purple rash began in the area, and everyone in the house fell ill, including Christine herself. When she woke up, Orme had already been buried.

Meanwhile, Simon Darre was widowed. With his wife, he was not too happy, because he could not forget Christine. Her younger sister Ramborg was fifteen years old, and Simon wooed her. Lavrans, who always appreciated Simon, willingly agreed to this marriage. Pregnant Kristin arrived at the wedding with her husband and children. Lavrans did not have long to live: before his death, he forgave his beloved daughter and bequeathed to her his pectoral cross. She named her sixth son after his father. In January 1332, Ragnfrid also died.

Joryungord went to Kristin, and she instructed Simon to manage the estate. By that time, her seventh son, Myunan, was born.

Discontent has been growing in the country for a long time. Even the peace-loving Lavrans believed that in former times people lived much better. The young King Magnus, son of Queen Ingebjerg, paid more attention to Sweden than to Norway. Many thought that another son of Ingebjerg, the young Haakon, should have been put on the throne. Kristin never delved into these men's conversations - she had enough worries with the house and children. She knew that rural work burdened Erlend - a born warrior and knight. It seemed natural to her that noble relatives found a worthy occupation for him - he received a parish in control. Suddenly, Erlend was seized and taken to court in Nidaros - for Kristin it turned out to be a bolt from the blue. Her husband was accused of plotting against King Magnus and sentenced to death. No one wanted to take care of Erlend, partly out of fear, but more out of contempt. Erlend himself blabbed about everything to a dissolute woman, from whom he took it into his head to seek solace after another quarrel with Christine: he quickly got tired of this Fra Syunniva, and the wounded woman denounced him. When a terrible threat loomed over Erlend, Kristin seemed to be petrified with grief. Seeing this, Simon Darre went to the relatives of Erlend, and they yielded to his prayers - thanks to their intercession, King Magnus gave Erlend life. The Husaby estate was confiscated in favor of the treasury, and the couple had to settle in Yoryugord. Soon, Erlend helped Simon out of trouble when he was almost killed in a random fight. And Kristin managed to cure Andres, the only son of Simon and Ramborg. It seemed that both families now became friends so tightly that nothing could separate them. But Erlend and Simon quarreled - the reason was Kristin, although she herself did not know about it. Christine was annoyed with her husband: even after imprisonment and dishonor, he did not lose his former arrogance and frivolity. In these parts, old Lavrans was well remembered, and therefore his son-in-law and daughter were strictly judged.

Once a relative of the ulv told Kristin that Erlend had most of all dispossessed his sons - they will never be able to occupy a high position in society, although they are far superior to other young men in beauty and abilities. And Kristin could not stand it: during one of the quarrels, she reminded her husband about Syunniwa. Erlend left Joruyagord and settled in a small house in the mountains. Christine saw how her grown sons suffered, but she could not break her pride. But then a terrible misfortune happened - a trifling wound brought Simon Darre to the grave. Before his death, he ordered to call Christine: he wanted to say that he had loved only her all his life - instead, he asked her to reconcile with Erlend. Christine promised. As soon as she and Erlend saw each other, their love flared up again. Returning home, Christine realized that she was pregnant. In deep anguish, she waited for her husband, and he hoped that she would come to the mountains. And Kristin named the newborn son Erlend, although the paternal name was supposed to be given only after death. The baby was so weak that he lasted only a few days. There has long been a vicious talk in the district about what is happening in Joryungord. All this broke out when the ulva decided to part with his unloved wife, and her relatives, with the support of the local priest, accused Christine of fornication. The sons rushed to protect their mother - they were taken into custody. But the teenager Lavrans managed to slip away and galloped after his father. Erlend rushed to the rescue: there was a skirmish in which he was mortally wounded. He remained true to himself - he died, refusing to take the last communion from the hands of the one who slandered his wife.

Only after losing her husband, Christine realized how dear he was to her. The troubles did not end there - soon she lost her little Myunan. Adult sons no longer needed her support. She could not help the blinded Bjerpolf in any way - the monastery was expecting a handsome, intelligent young man, and Nokkve announced to his mother that he would not part with his brother. Both eldest sons were tonsured in Tuetra. The twins and Lavrans set off to seek their fortune in foreign lands. The most economic of all the children of Erlend and Kristin, Geute, remained in Joryungord. He was very similar to the old Lavrans and enjoyed universal love. Even the kidnapping of the bride got away with him: people admired his valor, and in the end he managed to agree with Yufrid's relatives. The young woman showed respect to her mother-in-law, but she managed the household in her own way. Kristin felt more and more like a stranger in her own home. And then she decided to make a pilgrimage. She again dreamed of St. Edwin - this meant that he approved of her intention.

When the pestilence began, Christine lived in a convent. People seemed to be mad with grief and despair. One day, the novice sisters learned that at night the men were going to sacrifice a little boy whose mother had died to a pagan monster. Christine snatched the child from the hands of the angry people, and they shouted that they would believe in her piety if she was not afraid to bury the body of the deceased. And Kristin entered the plague-stricken house - only her kinsman Ulf accompanied her. But when they carried the unfortunate woman to the cemetery, a crowd with a priest at the head was already moving towards them - among the weeping pilgrims, Christine also recognized those who were ready to commit sacrilege. During the funeral, blood gushed from her mouth, and she realized that it was the plague. In her deathbed delirium, Christine saw father, mother, husband, sons. More often than others, those whom she had lost appeared to her: little Erlend, little Myunan, Nokkve with Bjergylf - it became known that all the monks of Tuetra had died. Sometimes she came to her senses and recognized Ulva, the nuns, the priest - she was surrounded by loving, reverent faces. She gave her father's cross and wedding ring to Ulva as a memento of the soul of the unfortunate woman whom she had saved for eternal life.

E. D. Murashkintseva

(Ved foten av Babels tarn)

Roman (1956)

Norway, 50s Ten years have passed since the end of the Second World War, which dramatically changed the fate of many Norwegians. The heroes of the novel - economist Jergen Bremer, artist Andreas Dühring, journalist Jens Tofte and translator Klaus Tangen - participated in the Resistance movement, "fought for something great and noble", risked their lives, matured and hardened in the fight against fascism, The war ended, and four comrades , young and full of faith in their own strength, set about implementing their cherished plans.

It seemed that they, the winners, who had gone through the harsh school of the underground, from now on could do everything. Why now, ten years later, is their soul so restless, where did the feeling of dissatisfaction come from, where did the former optimism disappear, are they really the new "lost generation"? Klaus Tangen is sure that their fate is even more hopeless than that of the previous generation - those who returned after the First World War were able to leave their mark on culture and history, they suffered, but they acted and knew how to make themselves listen.

“And us?” Klaus exclaims in desperation. “Who among us believes that we could play even the slightest role, even if we were geniuses and achieve universal recognition for our talents? We know in advance that no one will attach the slightest importance to the fact that let's say no one even bothers to turn their heads to look at what we claim to see. Out of the game in advance and finally - that's what we are, that's what today's intellectual is."

Life cruelly intervened in the plans of four friends, forcing them to retreat, change their destiny, and compromise.

Andreas Dühring is a talented artist, but his first exhibition, which brought together the most cherished paintings, did not bring recognition to the artist. But the public quickly appreciated his sharp look as a portrait painter: he was easily given an external resemblance, and the ability of a young artist to slightly embellish a model in order to flatter the vanity of a wealthy customer ensured Dühring continued success with influential moneybags, especially with their wives. A successful career as a fashionable portrait painter, however, does not bring happiness to Andreas Dühring, he understands that he is selling his talent, betraying his vocation.

The fate of Klaus Tangen was even more severe. Starting as an apprentice with a bricklayer, he successfully graduated from the institute after the war, but left his career as an engineer and decided to become a writer, as he believed that art would give him greater freedom for creativity and self-expression. Klaus dreamed of writing a realistic novel about the life of Norwegian workers - a topic close and understandable to him, but instead, carried away by modern trends, he created a modernist book about fear, which remained misunderstood by critics and readers. Of the entire circulation, only one copy was sold. An unsuccessful debut makes Klaus Tangen forget about his writing career and take up translations of other people's novels. Klaus, like Andreas, also sells his talent, but he does it less successfully: translations barely allow him to make ends meet. Klaus feels driven into a dead end, he recognizes his guilt towards his wife, because he and Anna cannot even afford to have children.

The fate of Jens Tofte is outwardly more prosperous: having met and fallen in love with the pretty student of the theater studio Ella, he, it would seem, finds happiness and peace. And let him have to leave the academy and give up his career as an artist - he does this for the sake of love! Jens managed to convince himself that he did not have enough talent, and earnings in the newspaper allow him to support his wife, and, in principle, he likes work. Jens Tofte did not change his convictions, remained faithful to his friends and wife. But betrayal lay in wait for him: Ella, who never counted marital fidelity among her virtues, finally decides on a final break. Loyalty to Jens Tofte actually turned out to be a betrayal of himself, he, like his friends, also finds himself in a dead end in life.

The fate of the eldest of the four friends, Jergen Bremer, is most successful. During the occupation, he led their underground group, was arrested, went through torture by the Gestapo, but did not betray anyone. After the war, Jergen Bremer became a prominent economist and defended his dissertation. He has a beautiful apartment, a beautiful wife, experienced in all the subtleties of social life, a four-year-old daughter.

Yergen, as a well-known supporter of a planned economy, is constantly approached for advice and consultations by "ministers, directors and other bigwigs." They readily support Bremer's plan for the reorganization of the Norwegian shoe industry, which promises huge economic benefits and, therefore, increases their prestige. And now Bremer's plan is officially called the "Sulberg plan" by the name of the minister supporting him, who, however, does not understand anything about it. The implementation of the plan promises Jergen Bremer a new rise in his career. Why, then, is his soul so restless? Why does he suddenly decide to leave his wife, giving her complete freedom? Friends note with alarm that Yergen, despite his success, has not changed for the better: if during the difficult years of the war he never lost his presence of mind, now, having "gained recognition", he "could not even boast of a good mood." What burdens his soul so much that he even decides to turn to a psychoanalyst for help?

The progressive economic reform conceived by Jergen Bremer has a flaw - it does not take into account the interests of the people. Fascinated by economic benefits, Jergen Bremer considers himself entitled to intervene in the lives of workers in order to organize their life "on the basis of order and profitability." The inhumanity of the reform causes indignation among Yergen's friends. "... What your executioners did to you during the War, and what you and your committee are now going to do to these workers, is basically the same thing," says Andreas Dühring. But Yergen does not seem to hear, for him people have become only a part of the animal world, something like a flock of herrings, which only the chosen ones, the leaders, should take care of.

But although Jergen Bremer is trying to lull his conscience, assuring himself and those around him that "nothing matters", he still understands: the circle is closed, he betrayed himself, not yielding under torture, he now surrendered voluntarily, having learned, in fact, fascist ideology, against which he fought in his youth. Jergen Bremer had the courage to assess the danger of his own undertaking. He makes his own death sentence.

The death of a comrade made friends think about their own fate. Andreas Dühring persuades Jens Tofte to take a course in psychoanalysis. And although at first Andreas is driven by the desire to take revenge on Johan Ottesen, the doctor whom he blames for the death of Jergen Bremer, sessions in the clinic allow friends to understand themselves. Even the fact that Andreas, hoping to play a cruel joke on the doctor, forces Jens to pass off other people's dreams as his own, leads to unexpected results: Ottesen advises Jens Tofte to take up painting again, because, having abandoned the career of an artist, Jens took the first step on the wrong path.

The doctor gradually brings Andreas Dühring to the idea that a return to the folk roots that nourish true art will help the artist regain his lost individuality. Andreas is not only a talented painter, he really has golden hands, he loves tinkering, carpentry, turning craft into art.

There are changes in the life of Klaus Tangen. Klaus' wife, Anna, gradually tells her husband the way to achieve his cherished goal: the creation of a novel in the Gorky tradition. Klaus decides to give up translations and return to the craft of a mason, which provides good earnings - this will allow him to save up money, so that he can then start his favorite job.

In a moment of despair, an unfamiliar woman comes to the aid of Andreas Dühring. This meeting changes everything in his life. A disillusioned cynic, he suddenly discovers in himself the ability and need to love, sacrifice, live. Helga's husband, Eric Faye, is also a member of the Resistance, but the war took away his hope for happiness: torture in the Gestapo dungeons turned him into a cripple. Eric is doomed and knows it, he is going through his forced loneliness hard, but he endures suffering. Fate took away his hope for the future, but he managed to remain true to the ideals of his youth, to preserve what his more successful comrades almost lost. As a testament to the living, his dying words sound:

"The truly great in human life is always simple. To see and accomplish it, you need only strength, courage and a willingness to sacrifice oneself."

It is these qualities that the heroes of the book need in order to continue building the "Tower of Babel" - a symbol of the creative labor of people.

O. N. Myaeots

Roman (1954)

Thirty-seven-year-old Mattis, from the point of view of others, a feeble-minded fool, lives on the shore of a forest lake with his forty-year-old sister Hege. Recently, the relationship between them is not going well. Tired of having to think daily about how to feed herself and her brother, from morning to evening busy knitting sweaters (the only source of funds), cleaning the house, cooking, Hege began to annoy Mattis's fantasies, which, as it seems to her, come from inactivity. Mattis has what's on his mind, on his tongue. And today they are sitting on the porch of their dilapidated house. Hege, as always, knits, and Mattis looks dreamily somewhere into the forest. Suddenly, he happily tells his sister that he sees her gray hair - it's so interesting! Hege couldn't hold back her withering gaze: another would have wondered where she got those gray hairs from!

In the evening, a miracle happens to Mattis: he witnesses how a woodcock makes an evening pull over their house. This has never happened before! Watching the bird, the hero thinks that now everything will be fine, the difficult time of misunderstanding between him and his sister is over. Excited, Mattis bursts into Hege's room to share his joy, asks her to go outside - to look at his woodcock, but runs into a wall of incomprehension.

At night, Mattis has a wonderful dream: he has become a handsome, strong, courageous guy. The sleeves crackle with muscle as he flexes his arm. His head is full of those words that girls love to hear so much. The birds call him into the forest - and from there a beautiful girl comes out to him, his girl - she was born from the evening cravings. In a dream, the hero becomes the owner of three treasures, which he so strives for: mind, strength, love.

But morning comes, and with it reality invades Mattis's life: Hege with her constant grumbling that Mattis should go to work. How can he work, because the thoughts surging after the thrust will interfere with him! A woodcock is pulling over their house - that's what he should be thinking about now! And they haven't hired him for a long time - everyone in the district knows that the Fool cannot work. But Hege is relentless - she knows what is important in life. Mattis walks from manor to manor - everywhere the owners lower their eyes when they see him. In one unfamiliar estate, he is hired to weed turnips, but very soon they also realize that he is the Fool. Now he said goodbye to this estate forever.

Mattis thinks about the woodcock all the time. He pulls over their house in the morning and in the evening, when people are sleeping. But he, Mattis, can sit on the porch at this time. They are with the woodcock together. Mattis goes to the forest, deciphers the woodcock's letters (footprints at the bottom of the puddle), writes answers to him. They are with woodcock together! Finally someone understands! Harmony with nature is what Mattis strives for. The hero has wisdom unknown to an ordinary, "normal" person. He understands the soul of nature, finds long-awaited peace in communication with her.

The woodcock is killed by a fellow hunter, to whom Mattis, in a fit of spiritual openness, himself told about cravings. When Mattis picks up the shot bird from the ground, she looks at him - so it seems to him - then the bird's eyes were covered with a film. Mattis buries the bird under a large rock. Now she lies there, but this last look will always disturb him, reminding him that his happiness has been destroyed by evil people who do not understand the wise language of nature.

The hero is also looking for simple human love. After all, it is so important - that someone chose you in life. But who will choose the Fool? And Mattis has so much unspent tenderness. Once he met two girls on the lake: Anna and Inger. The girls are not local, so they don't know yet that he is the Fool. They may be aware of this, but they feel the kindness, insecurity of Mattis, his reverent, careful attitude towards them - and it was precisely this attitude of the guys that they longed for in the depths of their souls. Mattis is trying his best to behave as expected - after all, this is his first real meeting with girls. He offers to take a boat ride. He knows that rowing is the only thing he can do well. He directs the boat to the shore where the grocery store stands - now everyone can see that Mattis is excellent with oars and that he, like a real guy, rides with the girls on a boat! This incident lives long in the memory of Mattis, giving him pleasure.

Mattis is very afraid that Hege will leave him. He sees: his sister has changed lately, has become irritable, indifferent to him. She forbids looking into her eyes, which means something. Increasingly, he repeats the phrase: "Just don't leave me!"

Hege suggests that Mattis take care of the move. He handles the boat well - let him be on duty on the lake, in case someone needs to cross to the other side. Mattis is very grateful to his sister for this proposal: moving is the only job that will not interfere with his thoughts and dreams. The hero realizes that hardly anyone will use his services, but immediately plunges into this game. He likes to say that word, "carrier." It's not so easy to be a carrier - you have to keep up both here and there. And who knows how to steer a boat straighter than he? It is a pity that the trail from the boat does not rest on the water, if only it could be seen for several days!

During a thunderstorm, which Mattis is terrified of, misfortune occurs: one of the two dry aspens standing in front of the house in which the heroes live falls, cut off by lightning. Everyone in the area knows that these aspens are called Hege i Mattis. Now one of the aspens has fallen. But whose? Mattis is full of heavy forebodings, it seems to him that Hege's aspen has fallen. He is very afraid of losing his sister, shares his anxiety with her, but she does not want to hear such nonsense.

An outsider appears in the family of Mattis and Hege - the lumberjack Yorgen. Mattis himself ferried him to his shore, Jörgen became his only passenger during his work as a carrier. Now the lumberjack lives in the attic of their house, the money he pays for the room allows Hega to keep the house in order, feed himself and his brother. Gradually, Mattis begins to notice changes in Hega: she becomes even more indifferent to him, but she blossoms with each appearance of Jörgen. Mattis is sure: they will leave him, now nobody needs him for sure. He wants to return Hege, leads her into the forest, to their cherished hummock (once they sat side by side here and had long conversations about a variety of things), talks about his fears. But Hege, indifferent in her happiness to someone else's pain, does not want to know about Mattis's experiences, she accuses him of selfishness. How does he not understand, because now she has a reliable support in life, and now she and Yorgen will be able to provide the family with a comfortable existence!

Mattis's anxiety grows when Jörgen forbids him from transporting and takes him into the forest with him. He wants to teach Mattis how to fell wood - you can always make a living doing it. For what? Do they want to leave him? And by what right does Jörgen interfere in his life?

Once, during a break in work, Jörgen tells Mattis about poisonous mushrooms - fly agarics: in the old days they cooked soup for those they wanted to kill. Driven to despair, Mattis plucks one of the fly agarics growing nearby and eats a large piece. Jörgen is frightened, but soon becomes convinced that nothing is happening to Mattis, and mocks him: he should have eaten a whole mushroom, or even more than one.

Returning home, Mattis sees fly agarics everywhere. They seemed to surround the house with a poisonous ring. But they weren't there before, were they? Mattis asks his sister about this, but she indifferently replies that it has always been like this.

And so Mattis comes up with a plan. He will wait for good weather and go to the lake. Swimming to a deep place, he will punch a hole in the holey bottom of the boat, it will quickly fill with water. And Mattis, who cannot swim, will hold the oars under his arms. Let nature itself decide whether he should die or live with Hege and Jörgen.

Mattis is waiting for good weather. At night, he listens to the "good" wind rustling outside the walls of the house, and peace descends on him. He does not want to go to the lake, but the decision has been made, he will not retreat.

And then the wind stopped. Last night Mattis heard it, but now he will not go, he never said that he would do it at night. After all, the only passenger during the work of the carrier. Now the lumberjack lives in the attic of their house, the money he pays for the room allows Hega to keep the house in order, feed himself and his brother. Gradually, Mattis begins to notice changes in Hege: she becomes even more indifferent to him, but she blossoms with every appearance of Jörgen, Mattis is sure: they will leave him, now nobody needs him for sure. He wants to return Hege, leads her into the forest, to their cherished hummock (once they sat side by side here and had long conversations about a variety of things), talks about his fears. But Hege, indifferent in her happiness to someone else's pain, does not want to know about Mattis's experiences, she accuses him of selfishness. How does he not understand, because now she has a reliable support in life, and now she and Yorgen will be able to provide the family with a comfortable existence!

Mattis's anxiety grows when Jörgen forbids him from transporting and takes him into the forest with him. He wants to teach Mattis how to fell wood - you can always make a living doing it. For what? Do they want to leave him? And by what right does Jörgen interfere in his life?

Once, during a break in work, Jörgen tells Mattis about poisonous mushrooms - fly agarics: in the old days they cooked soup for those they wanted to kill. Driven to despair, Mattis plucks one of the fly agarics growing nearby and eats a large piece. Jörgen is frightened, but soon becomes convinced that nothing is happening to Mattis, and mocks him: he should have eaten a whole mushroom, or even more than one.

Returning home, Mattis sees fly agarics everywhere. They seemed to surround the house with a poisonous ring. But they weren't there before, were they? Mattis asks his sister about this, but she indifferently replies that it has always been like this.

And so Mattis comes up with a plan. He will wait for good weather and go to the lake. Swimming to a deep place, he will punch a hole in the holey bottom of the boat, it will quickly fill with water. And Mattis, who cannot swim, will hold the oars under his arms. Let nature itself decide whether he should die or live with Hege and Jörgen.

Mattis is waiting for good weather. At night, he listens to the "good" wind rustling outside the walls of the house, and peace descends on him. He does not want to go to the lake, but the decision has been made, he will not retreat.

And then the wind stopped. Last night Mattis heard it, but now he will not go, he never said that he would do it at night. After all, early in the morning the wind can start again. But in the morning, Mattis hears Hege say: "It's so quiet today..." It's time to put the plan into action.

The farther Mattis sailed, the wider the native coast became, which opened up to him from his place. Everything he saw was dear to him. Temptations overcame him, teasing him with clear air and golden trees. Sometimes he thought: there is no need to look there - and lowered his eyes. He had to restrain himself so that he had the strength to carry out the plan.

And now the rotten board in the bottom is knocked out, the boat is quickly filled with water. He hung on the oars, he flounders in the water, gradually moving in the right direction - towards the shore. But suddenly the wind starts - after all, it started again that day! And now the water has come into agitation, as if she wants him to choke, to let go of the oars.

"Mattis!" - Turning around, he shouted in hopeless despair. On a deserted lake, his cry sounded like the cry of an unknown bird ...

V. K. Mäeots

Trilogy (1955-1957)

Norway at the beginning of the XNUMXth century The hero - Wilfred Sagen, the Little Lord, grows up in the hypocritical atmosphere of a wealthy bourgeois family. The extraordinary nature of a fourteen-year-old boy is disgusted by the pretense of his mother (his father is not alive) and other relatives, their desire to protect him from real life. The hero does not allow anyone into his inner world. However, trying to assert himself, Wilfred uses the same weapon as those around him that he despise - pretense. "He had another life <…>, not at all like the one they pictured for themselves."

Waking up in the morning after a reception hosted by his mother the day before, Wilfred feels irritated, everything makes him sick: the room itself, its smells, the thought of going to school. Taking advantage of his mother's influence, he asks her permission to skip school and go to Bygdö: he hopes to find plants under the melted snow that are missing in the herbarium. When the mother briefly leaves the room, he unlocks the secretary and steals a crown and a half from her purse. Then he ascribes on the expense sheet in neat handwriting to the mother the amount that he has just appropriated. Of course, he is not going to Byugde. The purpose of his journey is one of the districts of the city with a bad reputation. Driving through these places in a tram, Wilfred feels the already familiar sweet chill in his body. In the gateway of one of the houses, using money and his ability to influence others, he finds one-day friends, in whose company he robs a tobacco shop. Of course, the hero does this only out of a desire to experience strong sensations, to feel power over people: he throws money from the cash register to the boys as a handout. Before leaving the shop, the Little Lord gives the old shopkeeper a hard blow. He, stunned, falls. Now Wilfred has another secret, a bad deed that he alone knows about - it's worth living for! In a state of blissful peace, the hero decides to bring joy to his mother - he writes a letter of thanks to her in the handwriting of the school director for raising her son.

The second, secret life of Wilfred day by day captures the hero more and more: the world in which he lives must be full of experiences, even if artificially created. Sometimes to cheer yourself up. The Little Lord visits a classmate Andreas, a boy from a poor family. Having thoroughly enjoyed the "boredom" reigning in this family, its beggarly life, the humiliation of Andreas, he returns to his rich house, rejoicing that his life is so different from the life of a school friend. This thought puts him in a wonderful mood.

That spring, Wilfred's last children's ball took place - here he had to pretend, sparing no effort. Being among peers, Wilfred saw only one way to protect his loneliness - to feel like a stranger among them. During the ball, another significant event occurs in Wilfred's secret life. At dinner, the hero goes out onto the terrace and suddenly sees Aunt Christina crying. Embarrassed, she approaches the boy, pats him on the shoulder. By chance, for one second, the teenager's hand touches the aunt's chest. He is suddenly engulfed in heat. Before he realized what he was doing, Wilfred put his arms around Christina's neck and pressed his lips to hers. She immediately pushed him away, but not angrily, but as if regretting the impossible ...

After the incident at the ball, all the thoughts of the hero tend to Aunt Christina, who embodies the secret of adulthood, unknown to Wilfred.

The mother briefly leaves the room, he unlocks the secretary and steals a crown and a half from her purse. Then he ascribes on the expense sheet in neat handwriting to the mother the amount that he has just appropriated. Of course, he is not going to Byugde. The purpose of his journey is one of the districts of the city with a bad reputation. Driving through these places in a tram, Wilfred feels the already familiar sweet chill in his body. In the gateway of one of the houses, using money and his ability to influence others, he finds one-day friends, in whose company he robs a tobacco shop. Of course, the hero does this only out of a desire to experience strong sensations, to feel power over people: he throws money from the cash register to the boys as a handout. Before leaving the shop, the Little Lord gives the old shopkeeper a hard blow. He, stunned, falls. Now Wilfred has another secret, a bad deed that he alone knows about - it's worth living for! In a state of blissful peace, the hero decides to bring joy to his mother - he writes a letter of thanks to her in the handwriting of the school director for raising her son.

The second, secret life of Wilfred day by day captures the hero more and more: the world in which he lives must be full of experiences, even if artificially created. Sometimes to cheer yourself up. The Little Lord visits a classmate Andreas, a boy from a poor family. Having thoroughly enjoyed the "boredom" reigning in this family, its beggarly life, the humiliation of Andreas, he returns to his rich house, rejoicing that his life is so different from the life of a school friend. This thought puts him in a wonderful mood.

That spring, Wilfred's last children's ball took place - here he had to pretend, sparing no effort. Being among peers, Wilfred saw only one way to protect his loneliness - to feel like a stranger among them. During the ball, another significant event occurs in Wilfred's secret life. At dinner, the hero goes out onto the terrace and suddenly sees Aunt Christina crying. Embarrassed, she approaches the boy, pats him on the shoulder. By chance, for one second, the teenager's hand touches the aunt's chest. He is suddenly engulfed in heat. Before he realized what he was doing, Wilfred put his arms around Christina's neck and pressed his lips to hers. She immediately pushed him away, but not angrily, but as if regretting the impossible ...

After the incident at the ball, all the thoughts of the hero tend to Aunt Christina, who embodies the secret of adulthood, unknown to Wilfred.

The teenager is looking for a meeting with her - and such an opportunity presents itself: she and her mother are resting in Skovlya in the summer, Christina also comes to visit them. In Skovlya, Wilfred's childhood romance begins with Erna, his age. After the arrival of Aunt Christina, this sublime relationship begins to weigh on the Little Lord. Once in the forest, he meets Aunt Christina, and "now their legs, their lips have merged not in the previous clumsy impulse: what was devoid of flesh suddenly gained flesh <...>, everything swam before their eyes, and they fell on tough grass." But fate wanted Wilfred to remain a virgin this time too. Only later, already in the city, Christina herself will come to him, and the Little Lord will experience what he so passionately aspired to.

Left alone in a scrapbook with his thoughts and feelings, a teenager painfully searches for answers to those questions that life constantly puts before him. Once, while swimming, the children suddenly discovered that Tom, the gardener's son, was missing. The company of teenagers is seized by the most terrible forebodings, everyone is depressed. Erna begs Wilfred to do "something". And Wilfred, concentrating with an inhuman effort of will, suddenly "sees" (this happened to him before) where Tom could be. He finds Tom drowned in a deserted place - the boy was swimming away from the company, because he did not have bathing shorts. Wilfred carries Tom's body ashore, performs artificial respiration to the point of exhaustion. But why doesn't he want someone to be there right now to help him? What if he can't do it alone? Would he really prefer that Tom die, rather than resort to someone else's help?.. Cursed questions haunt, torment Wilfred,

Some time later, in winter, the same presentiment as in the case of Tom suddenly forces Wilfred to return to Skovlya. He goes to the house of Fru Frisaksen, a destitute, lonely "weird" woman, who, as Wilfred accidentally found out, was at one time his father's mistress and who has a son by his father, six years older than the Little Lord. In the house, he finds the corpse of Fru Frisaksen - she died, and no one knows about it. The boy falls ill: he loses the gift of speech (although his relatives suspect that Wilfred is pretending). There is a doctor, an Austrian, who undertakes to heal him. After recovering and returning home, the teenager again plunges into the atmosphere of lies and hypocrisy that reigns in his mother's house.

Wilfred began to be noticed drunk, he is increasingly looking for oblivion in visiting taverns, restaurants, beer cellars.

Once, in a variety show restaurant, two people sat down with him and made him pay for the drink. Wilfred obeyed, they demanded more, a drunken conversation ensued. Two told a story that once happened to them: some barchuk - exactly like him - incited local boys to rob a tobacco shop, and then killed an old Jew, the owner of the shop. Only now does Wilfred find out that the owner of the shop has died. A certain girl appears with a wound in the corner of her mouth - he had seen similar ones in pictures in a brochure on venereal diseases. Invites Wilfred to take a walk with her... He woke up from a terrible pain in his arm - it was broken - covered in blood, naked, somewhere in the forest. From behind the branches of the trees there was a muffled giggle of children, a male voice - they were watching him. Trying to hide from people, he runs, not knowing where. Falls on the rails - the weight of the train wheels will probably bring relief. But there is no train, and the crowd of pursuers is already nearby. Wilfred runs to the sea, jumps from the pier into the water. But the pursuers untie the boats. One of them confidently says: "Now he can not leave."

Norway during the First World War. The time of the impoverishment of many and the fantastic enrichment of those who, hypocritically shedding tears for the dead, successfully speculate on the stock exchange. The hero has matured, now lives separately from his mother, in the artist's studio (in recent years, the artist's talent has awakened in him). The struggle between light and dark principles, between sympathy for people and indifference to them continues in Wilfred's soul.

The financial situation of the hero is getting worse day by day - he still does not know how to "make money", does not want to be like his former classmate Andreas, who has now become a successful businessman. And he has to spend a lot, especially on Sedina, a girl with a flawed past, for whom he has a sincere feeling - however, it seems, without reciprocity. Wilfred has to give up the workshop. He and Sedina live in some kind of shack in the mountains, and from time to time Wilfred skis into the city at night, like a thief, gets into his mother's house when everyone is asleep and fills his backpack with food. Once, returning from another grocery outing, Wilfred saw Selina on a bench right opposite the entrance.

The lower part of her body was exposed, and blood was running down her legs. Nearby lay a lump, stained with blood and mucus: Sedina had a miscarriage. A tragic accident, or did she arrange everything herself and not have time to finish before Wilfred returned? This terrible question torments the hero.

Aunt Charlotte, my father's sister, died. In the crematorium, watching relatives, Wilfred is once again convinced that they have not been a family for a long time, everyone exists on his own. Uncle Rene leaves for Paris, with whom happy childhood memories are connected - it was he who introduced the boy to art. Standing on the pier, Wilfred feels that he loves this man very much, now something very important and expensive will leave his life ...

Wilfred plunges into the life of one of the underground "clubs", or rather, gambling and brothels in Denmark. He got here by chance "but - he rode with friends on a yacht, and in Copenhagen, on suspicion of smuggling, everyone was arrested by the police. Wilfred avoided this fate thanks to Adele, one of the organizers of the North Pole club: she "smells a good lover a mile away." However, Wilfred himself is not averse to playing this role: Adele is a beautiful, tall, strong woman, he is attracted by her blatant obscenity.He liked this life, because "the light left his soul and no longer wanted to light up."

Once, when Wilfred was first lucky in a card game, the club was raided by the police. In the general turmoil, Wilfred manages to stuff money into his pockets. In the "salon" Wilfred finds a baby abandoned by one of the prostitutes and takes him with him. He hides part of the money in the pantry. For a long time he, posing as a Dane looking for an apartment, lives in the family of the famous writer Børge Viid, is fond of translations, writing stories. Børge Weed highly appreciates Wilfred's literary successes, publishes them by mutual agreement under his own name, and they share the money in half. A terrible incident happens to Wilfred: one day, while walking with a boy, he suddenly decides to get rid of him, throwing him off a cliff - what does he care about other people's problems! But suddenly surging childhood memories stop the hero. Wilfred is tracked down by one of the club's prostitutes, who says that they want to kill him for stealing money. The boy's mother died. Overwhelmed by an inexplicable desire to "revenge" the Weed family "for good", Wilfred admits to the people who sheltered him that he is not a Dane and not the father of a child, leaves the boy in this family and leaves - betraying has become his habit. Having taken the money from the cache of the club's pantry, he is ambushed - he was followed by former "comrades-in-arms" in the club. Running away from his pursuers, the hero hides in the conservatory, where Miriam Stein, a girl who has been in love with him since childhood, is giving a concert. With the help of Börge Weed, she transports Wilfred to his homeland.

Returning home, Wilfred tries to understand himself, to explain his existence. Seeing no point in his life, the hero decides to commit suicide. Kneeling in the bushes near the railway, he is waiting for a passing train, and suddenly realizes that he has no right to "cut off the beating of his heart" - this is what Wilfred's father once did - he must live to the end.

The Second World War. The persecution of the Jews began in Norway. A group of refugees, including Miriam, makes their way through the snow-covered forest to the Swedish border - there, in the promised land, nothing will threaten them. In the short moments of rest, Miriam recalls episodes from a past, carefree life. Together with these episodes comes the memory of Wilfred. She met him a quarter of a century ago, once saved him in Copenhagen. Then, in Paris, he gave her the happiest days; he chose many in his life, she - only him ... Suddenly, a group of refugees runs into an ambush of the border police. Miriam and several other refugees manage to cross the border, while the rest fall into the power of the police. Their commander is a tall, slender, handsome man of about forty - usually such handsome men turn out to be the most cruel. They are led somewhere for a very long time, then suddenly a strange thing happens: they find themselves near the border clearing, and the handsome man orders them to run. Then he quickly walks away from the border, takes out overalls and a sweater hidden in one of the woodpile, and changes clothes. The man's right hand is lifeless, a prosthesis. All this is seen by a woman who lives nearby. She, the former maid of the Sagens, recognizes the man who saved the Jews as Wilfred.

But there is another Wilfred - a friend of the German officer Moritz von Wackenitz. They are very similar to each other: cynics, both want something different from life than others. In long conversations between Wilfred and Moritz, the topic of betrayal often arises: Moritz is interested in how Wilfred should feel - because in the eyes of people he is a traitor. Moritz knows nothing about the second, secret life of Wilfred, and the hero himself does not attach much importance to it. Yes, he had to save people, but it's "in the nature of things" when we save someone. Similarly, a few years ago in Paris, Wilfred saved a boy on a carousel - and lost his arm.

The closer the end of the war, the more ambiguous Wilfred's position becomes. There is talk that he secretly does some good deeds, but in general he behaves "ambiguously", and in such times this is already treason. The hero himself seems to want to return to the sources of light, but with merciless clarity he realizes that it is already too late, that he is running towards a catastrophe.

And disaster occurs. After the suicide of Moritz, Wilfred realizes that everything will soon be over for him too. Tom, the man whom Wilfred once saved, also tells him about this. Tom hates Wilfred: he is sure that he saved him only to show himself a hero. Tom's son throws stones at Wilfred. They are chasing him again - just like thirty years ago. But now he is "free from hope." Again Miriam comes to help him, she alone understands him, knows that it was he who saved the Jews then. But Wilfred is convinced:

fellow citizens drunk with victory will not want to understand him. He hears the sound of their feet, they are already coming here. Life is over - he pulls the trigger of the revolver. And he no longer hears how one of the pursuers who burst into the room says: "Now he can't leave."

V. K. Mäeots

A novel-chronicle of the late 1902th - early 1903th centuries (XNUMX-XNUMX)

The time of the novel is 1797-1812, fifteen years after the failed uprising of Tadeusz Kosciuszko and the third (1795) partition of Poland between Prussia, Austria and Russia. In the center of the story is the young Rafal Olbromsky, the son of a poor old gentry. At Shrovetide in his father's house, he accidentally meets Mrs. Helena. Then the holidays end, and he returns to Sandomierz, where he studies at the Austrian gymnasium. There, with his friend and relative Krzysztof Tsedro, it occurs to him to ride along the river into the ice drift. They miraculously survive, and Rafal is expelled from the gymnasium. He lives in his father's estate in Tarniny, his father is angry with him. But as soon as the possibility of reconciliation comes, Rafal commits another offense - he secretly meets with Helena. After a date, he is attacked by wolves, he survives, but loses his horse. Heden is taken either to Warsaw or to Paris, and Rafad is expelled from home. He goes to his older brother Peter, whom his father has long cursed. Peter, a participant in the Kostyushko uprising, slowly dies from his wounds. The conflict with his father arose on political grounds; Peter left home when his father wanted to flog him.

His former comrade-in-arms, and now a wealthy landowner, Prince Gintult, comes to visit Peter. After arguing with him about politics, Peter cannot stand the tension and dies. Soon after the funeral, Rafal receives an invitation from the prince to settle with him as a courtier. It is not easy for Rafal to develop relations with the arrogant Princess Elzbieta, Gintult's sister; painfully wounded by the reprisals of the soldiers over Mikhtsik, Peter's serf, to whom he wanted to give freedom. Confident that he received this freedom, Mikhtsik refuses to perform corvée, for which he is accused of incitement to rebellion.

Prince Gintult leaves out of boredom for the Venetian Republic to the court of the fall, where he is caught by hostilities between Napoleonic France and the rest of Europe. Polish legions are fighting on the side of France: the Poles hope that France will help their homeland regain independence. In Paris, Gintult met many famous Poles, including General Dombrowski and Prince Sulkowski, Napoleon's aide-de-camp. It turns out that instead of liberating Poland, the Napoleonic army is planning a campaign in Egypt.

Meanwhile, Rafal, after graduating from the lyceum, gets the right to enter the academy and enrolls in a philosophy class. Living in Krakow with little supervision, he behaves frivolously, playing cards. In the end, he gets tired of studying, and he returns home. There he is met, contrary to expectations, cordially, and he plunges into agricultural work, trying to forget his love for Helena.

Having managed to visit Egypt, Palestine and Greece during this time, Prince Gintult ends up in Mantua, hoping to get home soon, but the fighting in the very heart of Europe stops him, and he is forced to join the Polish legion with the rank of gunner. Soon he becomes adjutant to General Borton, commander of artillery, and then he is sent to the headquarters of General Yakubovsky. However, Mantua, which the Poles so valiantly defended, still has to be surrendered. Under the terms of surrender, the garrison receives the right to free exit, and only Polish soldiers, most of them from Austrian lands, are subject to extradition to the Austrian command, and officers to imprisonment in the fortress.

Only in the autumn of 1802 did the prince finally return to his homeland. Upon learning of this, Rafal writes to him, and Gintult invites him to be his secretary. Rafal moves to Warsaw. The prince leads a secluded life, and Rafal is burdened by this, as well as a miserable provincial costume. Having met on the street a former comrade in the class of philosophy Yarzhimsky, he gladly begins to spend his life in the company of "golden youth" who have forgotten the ideals of Polish patriotism.

Soon it turns out that Prince Gintult is a freemason, and thanks to him Rafal is accepted into the Polish-German society "At the Golden Lamp". Once there is a joint meeting of the male and female lodges, where Rafal meets Helena. She now bears the surname de Wit and is the wife of the master of the lodge. It turns out that she does not love her husband and still yearns for Rafal.

Rafal offers to run away, and he and Helena settle in a peasant hut high in the mountains. But their happiness suddenly comes to an end: having spent the night somehow in a mountain cave, they become victims of robbers. Helena is raped in front of Rafal, and she, unable to bear the shame, throws herself into the abyss. Lost, a young man wanders through the mountains. hoping to meet people and stumbles upon a detachment of Lorraine cuirassiers, who take him for a robber and throw him into the dungeon.

He leaves from there only at the beginning of September 1804 only due to the fact that the soldiers found his documents in the hut where Rafal lived. When asked where the woman with whom he, according to the owner, lived, the young man declares that this is a prostitute from Krakow, whom he drove away.

Rafal heads to Krakow and, on the way, goes to a tavern, where he eats lunch, for which he has nothing to pay for. His friend from the Sandomierz gymnasium Krzysztof Tsedro rescues him, who stopped by the tavern to change horses. Tsedro invites a friend to his estate Stoklosy. He himself lives in Vienna, where he is looking for connections in order to achieve chamberlains. In Stoklosy, Rafal meets Sksepan Nekanda Trepka, a ruined gentry who lives on the estate as a manager. Here reigns the spirit of enlightenment and Polish patriotism, the rejection of Prussian rule. Inspired by the story of a former soldier who accidentally enters the estate about Napoleon (the Poles still firmly believe that after the defeat of Prussia and Austria, he will liberate Poland), Rafald and Krzysztof go to war. Neither the persuasion of old Tsedro, nor the execution of three young men for trying to cross over "to the Poles" stop them...

Once in Myslovitsy, where the French detachment is stationed, they get a road trip to Sevezh, the commandant of which is Captain Yarzhimsky. He invites them to stay, promising officer ranks soon, but young people want to rise to the rank of officers from the rank and file, so they join the militias in the Krakow cavalry.

Here the paths of Rafal and Tsedro diverge: Tsedro remains in Krakow, and Rafal enrolls in Dzevanovsky's selected cavalry regiment and goes north, occupied by Prussian and Russian troops. He participates in the battle of Tczew, in the capture of Gdansk. The victory over the Russian troops near Friedland on June 14, 1807 leads to the conclusion of the Treaty of Tilsit, according to which the Grand Duchy (Duchy) of Warsaw is created on part of the Polish lands, and Galicia and the southern regions of Poland remain with Austria.

Tsedro, who participated only in minor skirmishes, faces a dilemma: either to return to peaceful rural labor, or to remain in Kalisz as a peacetime officer and live life. Then he, together with the sergeant-major Gaikos, transferred to the lancers in order to remain in the Napoleonic army, and took part in the Spanish campaign of Bonaparte. On November 23, 1808, for the victory near Tudela, Tsedro received an officer's rank, and near Kalatayud he was shell-shocked. Wounded, he listens to Napoleon's manifesto, abolishing the rights of feudal lords and church privileges, as well as the "holy" inquisition. The young man understands that he fought not in vain. Suddenly, an emperor passes by his stretcher, who speaks to him. Having uttered with the last of his strength "Vive la Pologne!", Tsedro loses consciousness. After recovery, he returns to his regiment.

In 1809, a new campaign begins - between France and Austria. April 19 Rafal takes part in the battle of Rashin. However, despite the victory, the Poles retreat: the Saxons abandoned their allied obligations. The wounded Rafal ends up in the infirmary, arranged in the Gintulta palace. The prince has changed beyond recognition; his Friend de Wit died fighting on the side of the enemy. Rafał learns from Gintulta that, under an agreement between France and Austria, Warsaw has been surrendered to the Austrians.

After such a betrayal, confusion sets in in the camp of the generals. General Zaionchek offers to leave the Principality of Warsaw and go to Saxony to join the emperor, hoping to return later. Dombrovsky proposes to attack the Austrians before they crossed the Vistula and build a bridge, to seize the whole of Galicia, to raise the people... Everyone accepts this plan.

Polish troops cross the Wisda and go to Galicia. After the failed defense of Sandomierz, Gintult falls into the hands of the Austrians, but is rescued by Mihtsik, a servant of Peter Olbromsky. Gintult and Rafal prevent artillery from destroying the church of St. James to stop the advance of the Austrians, and they have to flee. So Rafal becomes a traitor, excluded from the regimental lists, and forced to hide in his father's estate. The wounded Gintult and the soldier Mikhtsik are also there.

However, the Austrian cavalry approaches the Tarnins, and Rafal and Mihtsik are again forced to flee. Rafal returns to his regiment to his former position, and only thanks to a quick change of events does he manage to avoid trial, demotion or other repressions. The Polish army again acts - this time to the south. Passing through his uncle's estate, Rafal finds the estate burnt down, and Pan Nardzewski hacked to death. Rafal becomes a full-fledged heir to his uncle's property, gradually rebuilds the house, sows bread ...

1812 is coming. Krzysztof Tsedro comes to visit Rafad, who talks about the "great war" - he is going to participate in Napoleon's campaign against Russia. In mid-August, the corps under the command of General Poniatowski went to join the Napoleonic army. Cedro and Rafal see the emperor with their own eyes. They are full of heroic hopes.

E. B. Tueva

(slawa i chwala)

Epic novel (1956-1962)

Summer 1914 A beautiful young landowner Evelina Royskaya lives in her Ukrainian estate Molintsy. She has two sons: Yuzek, seventeen years old, a sweet, serious boy, and unbridled Valerek, fourteen years old. Her husband studied agriculture from English agronomic journals and tried to instill English ways of farming on the Ukrainian estate. Evelina's sister, Mikhasya, also lives on the estate. Already elderly, she married some dubious doctor. After the birth of her daughter Olya, her husband left her, and she settled in Molintsy as a host. Olya is an energetic, mature girl beyond her years. Among the inhabitants of the manor, Juzek's educator is Kazimierz Spychala, the son of a railway worker. He studied in Heidelberg, was Pilsudski's like-minded member of the Polish Socialist Party. Together with Yuzek, to whom he is trying to instill his views, he is staying in Odessa with an old friend of Evelina Royskaya, Paulina Schiller. Paulina's husband is the director of a sugar factory. They have two children: daughter Elzbieta, a famous singer, and son Edgar. He composes music, and music lovers of Ukraine, Poland, Germany appreciate his works. The spirit of service to art reigns in the Schillers' house.

Evelina Royskaya, having visited her son in Odessa, decides to send her niece Olya to visit the Schillers. She knows about the mutual sympathy of Olya and Kazimierz. Olya is accompanied to Odessa by eighteen-year-old Yanush Myshinsky, the son of the nearest neighbor of the Royskys according to the story. The young man has just graduated from the gymnasium in Zhytomyr and is going to enter Kyiv University.

Upon arrival in Odessa, Janusz and Olya meet Yuzek's friends, Ariadna and Volodya Tarlo, the children of the Odessa police chief. Janusz falls in love at first sight with the spectacular Ariadne, who recites Blok's verses in a singsong voice. Ariadne herself is carried away by the brilliant officer Valerian Nevolin.

Until now, Janusz has been very lonely. The mother died, and the father gave all his love and fortune to Janusz's elder sister, Princess Bilinskaya, a beautiful secular lady. The count himself lives with Janusz in the neglected Mankovka estate. Janusz is not friends with Yuzek; he loves Valerek, simple and kind, but extravagant. Acquaintance with Edgar, a brilliantly erudite man, passionate about art, opens up a whole new world for Janusz.

The Schillers' house is full of novels: Yuzek is infatuated with Elzbieta, Janusz, in love, wanders around the house, Olya and Kazimierz love each other. But now the mobilization has been announced. Kazimierz, as an Austrian subject, must leave immediately. He explains with Olya, and she promises to wait for him. Kazimierz swears that he will not deceive the girl. This is how peaceful life ends.

By the autumn of 1917, Kazimierz was in Kyiv, but he could not stay there, as he was engaged in underground work. He goes to the Roysky estate to hide and heal. During these years Yuzek visited the front, Valerek served in the army in Odessa. The estate turns out to be an unreliable refuge: the peasants are going to smash it. Kazimierz hurries to the Myshinsky neighbors to warn them about the peasant revolt. Old Count Myshinsky is paralyzed, Janusz's sister, Princess Bilinsky, is visiting the estate with her infant son: her estate is burned down, her husband is killed. She barely escaped, taking the family jewels with her. Kazimierz decides to stay with the Myshinskys to help them leave, and the Royskys leave the estate without him. The young man stays with the Myshinskys not only out of compassion: he falls in love with Marysya Bilinsky at first sight. In the morning, the peasants are already going to set fire to the estate, but the Myshinskys are saved by Volodya Tarlo, who accidentally finds himself among the rebellious peasants. Back in 1914, he became interested in revolutionary ideas and gradually became a professional revolutionary.

The Myshinskys and Kazimierz flee to Odessa. The old count dies on the way, and Marysia with her brother and Kazimierz get there.

Janusz stops at the Schillers. Later, the Royskys come to Odessa, also to the Schillers. Yuzek rushes into the army, Edgar is completely absorbed in music and art, Janusz is captured by difficult experiences because of his love for Ariadne, and she helps her revolutionary brother.

Olya is deeply offended by Kazimierz's betrayal. The fat owner of the confectionery Frantisek Golombek falls in love with her. On the advice of her mother and aunt, Olya marries him.

Elzbieta Schiller, who until recently sang at the Mariinsky Theater, also makes her way to Odessa. On the way, she meets the banker Rubinstein, who is also going to Odessa. Elzbieta wants to leave for Constantinople, and from there to get to London: she dreams of singing at Covent Garden. Besides, Rubinstein has money in London. Ariadne leaves with Elzbieta and Rubinstein. They call Janusz with them, but he stays. Juzek loves Elżbieta and takes her departure hard. Upon learning that the Third Polish Corps was being formed near Vinnitsa, Yuzek joined it. Volodya calls Janusz to help the Russian revolution, but he believes that Poland has its own tasks, and together with Yuzek goes to serve in the Third Polish Corps. In one of the first battles, Yuzek is killed.

Bilinskaya moves to Warsaw. Golombek and his wife, and Royskaya also gather there: she has an estate called Empty Lonki near Warsaw.

Two or three years pass. Janusz also ends up in Warsaw, where his sister Princess Bilinsky lives. He enters the Faculty of Law, but indulges more in reflection on the meaning of life than in practical activities. His sister, in order to provide for him, buys him a small Komorov estate near Warsaw. Kazimierz Heard of making a career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He still loves Maria Bilinskaya, but cannot marry her: Maria lives with her mother-in-law, the old princess Bilinskaya, and she is resolutely against such a misalliance.

The Golombeks prosper, but this does not bring happiness to Olya - she does not love her husband, indulges in dreams of Spyhala and plays music in her free time. She has children one after another: the sons of Antonia and Andrzej, the daughter of Helena.

Edgar also moves to Warsaw. He, as before, writes music, teaches at the conservatory. His personal life does not add up: since Odessa, he likes Maria Bilinskaya, but she seems inaccessible to him. He loves her from afar. The only person close to him, Elzbieta's sister, is far away - on tour in America, where she performs with constant success.

After leaving law school, Janusz quits his studies and joins the army again. He fights on the Soviet-Polish front, then graduates from the Higher School of Economics, but still does not find a place in life. Edgar calls him an eternal student. He continues to love Ariadne, but knows almost nothing about her new life. He knows that Ariadne is in Paris: she draws sketches of fashionable dresses, has achieved recognition and money. After long preparations, Janusz goes to Paris to see her.

Ariadne leads a bohemian life, she has become a completely different person and does not remind Janusz of the girl he was in love with for so long. Ariadne is unhappy: the officer Valerian Nevolin, with whom she fled from Odessa and whom she loved, married another, and Ariadne wants to go to a monastery. In Paris, Janusz runs into another acquaintance from Odessa - Ganya Volskaya. This is the daughter of a janitor in the Schillers' house, who took singing lessons from Elzbieta. Over the years, Tanya has become a famous cabaret singer and has been married several times. Janusz meets her as the wife of an American millionaire. She comes to Paris to perform at some opera house. She is haunted by Elzbieta's success. But Ganin's voice does not draw on the opera. To be able to perform, she buys her own theater.

In Paris, Janusz accidentally runs into Janek Veviursky, the son of Stanisław, an old lackey in the home of Princess Bilinsky. Janek is a communist who ended up in Paris after the suppression of a mining uprising in Silesia. Janek recounts his life in detail, and Janusz is filled with sympathy for his ideals; he begins to understand that it is necessary to live for people.

The old princess Bilinskaya is dying. But Maria still cannot marry Kazimierz Spyhala: the will is drawn up in such a way that, having married, Maria loses custody of her minor son. She cannot allow this, as she has no state of her own.

In the next few years, Janusz leads the life of a modest rentier. One day, Zosya Zgozhelskaya, the daughter of the former owner of the estate, comes to him. Her father died a few years ago, the money has depreciated, and she can do nothing but run the household. In order not to die of hunger, Zosya asks to be taken to the estate as a housekeeper. But Janusz has nothing to offer her, and she leaves with nothing.

Janek Wiewurski returns from Paris to Warsaw and enters the factory. Thanks to his skill, he quickly becomes a master, but the owners of the plant, Gube and Zloty, do not approve of his communist views; soon he is arrested for revolutionary activities and sentenced to eight years in prison.

After living in Komorow, Janusz leaves for Heidelberg, where Ganya Volskaya calls him in memory of the mutual sympathy that broke out between them in Paris. In Heidelberg, Janusz realizes that Ganya's infatuation is a mistake, and leaves for Krakow, where he searches for Zosia Zgorzelskaya and marries her. But Zosya dies from childbirth, and seven months later, her little daughter dies of a heart defect. Janusz takes these deaths hard. He is seized by an obsessive desire to travel to those places where he was happy, and he goes to Krakow, to Odessa. As a result of these wanderings, Janusz understands that there is no return to the past and that one must live on.

Janusz's sister, Maria Bilinsky, travels to Spain in 1936 to settle hereditary affairs with her sister-in-law, and asks Janusz to accompany her. Janusz is carrying with him a letter from the Polish communists to the Spanish comrades. Having handed over the letter, he remains in Spain as a correspondent.

A close friend of Janusz, Edgar, by the spring of 1937, was in Rome, where he came to treat tuberculosis of the throat. He has almost no money, his works are not performed, he has to earn a living by teaching at a music school. In the park, Edgar accidentally meets Janusz and Ariadne. All these years, Ariadne lived in Rome, in a monastery, and now she decided to leave it. Janusz is ready to help her, but Ariadne's life ends under the wheels of a car. In the spring of 1938, Edgar dies.

A new generation is growing up: Alec, the son of Maria Bilinsky, Anthony and Andrzej, the sons of Olya Golombek, their friends Hubert Gube, Bronek Zloty. Their life is just beginning, but the Second World War comes to Poland. Maria Bilinskaya takes Alek and leaves Poland. Kazimierz Slyahala ends up in the Empty Lonki, the estate of his former mistress Evelina Rojska. Olya also comes here with Andrzej and henbane. Her eldest son Anthony is in the army. Frantisek they lost during the flight from Warsaw.

The war does not bypass the Janusz estate. After the battle that broke out near Komorow, a wounded man is brought to the estate - this is the dying Janek Vevyursky. During the German offensive on Warsaw, he and his comrades escaped from prison and organized a small detachment of retreating soldiers to resist the Nazis. He dies in front of Janusz.

By the autumn of 1942, life was somehow getting better in occupied Warsaw. Olya, Kazimierz Heard, Andrzej and Helena live in Bilinskaya's house. Andrzej's mother is jealous of Spychala, blaming her for the disappearance of her father. Olya's eldest son Antek is a teacher in a partisan detachment. Andrzej goes to visit him. On the way, he meets his uncle Vladek Golombek, a staunch Marxist sent to Poland for underground work. All night they talk about Marxism.

Arriving to his brother, Andrzej finds himself in a house where partisans discuss their affairs. Unexpectedly, Valery Roisky arrives, who has been collaborating with the Germans from the very beginning of the war. The partisans decide to kill Roisky. Andrzej volunteers to carry out the sentence. While he is sitting in ambush, waiting for Roisky, the Germans suddenly arrive and kill everyone who was in the house.

In Warsaw, Andrzej hides Lilek, a friend of the deceased Janek, a communist who works in an underground printing house. His sister Helena is in love with Bronek Zloty, who lives in the ghetto with his parents. During the uprising in the ghetto, Bronek dies. The Germans organize a raid on the printing house, and Lilek dies. Their friend Hubert Gube gathers a detachment of scouts to prepare for an uprising against the invaders.

Helena becomes a liaison between the partisans and the Warsaw underground. For the purpose of conspiracy, she comes to Janusz in Komorov. Her arrival has a beneficial effect on the mood of Janusz. And the meeting with the partisans, whom he helped to communicate with the British pilots, awakens him to a new life. Janusz returns from the partisans with the feeling that he used to sleep, but now he has woken up. Now another life begins. He perceives Helena as a symbol of this life. Janusz recalls his long-standing meeting with Volodya, Ariadna's brother, during which he gave him Lenin's pamphlet. Janushe did not read it then, and now it seems to him the most important thing in the world to read this pamphlet. He rushes to the house, where the Germans are waiting for him. Housekeeper Jadwiga tries to stop him, but Janusz is killed by a fascist bullet.

On August 1, 1944, an uprising begins in Warsaw. In the very first days, Andrzej and his sister Helena die; Hubert is wounded.

After the war, Olya learns that her husband Frantisek Golombek is alive and in Rio de Janeiro. In a letter, she informs him of the death of all the children. Unable to bear such grief, Frantisek commits suicide.

Kazimierz Spyhala leaves for England after the war. And Alek Bilinsky, Janusz's nephew, returns to Warsaw to start building a new Poland.

G. B. Grigorieva

Roman (1959-1960)

In the future - the "cosmic future" of mankind, very far from us - these farewell words will be heard: "Kelvin, you are flying. All the best!" Psychologist Kelvin, at an incredible distance from the Earth, is landing from a spaceship to a planetary station - this is a huge silver whale hovering over the surface of the planet Solaris. The station seems empty, it is strangely littered, no one meets Kelvin, and the first person who sees a psychologist is scared almost to death. The man's name is Snaut, he is Gibaryan's deputy head of the station. He wheezes in disgust, "I don't know you, I don't know. What do you want?" - although the station was notified of the arrival of Kelvin. And then, coming to his senses, he says that Gibaryan, a friend and colleague of Kelvin, committed suicide and that the newcomer should not do anything and should not attack if he sees someone else but him, Snaut, and the third crew member, the physicist Sartorius.

To the question: "Who can I see?!" - Snout, in fact, does not answer. And very soon Kelvin meets in the corridor a huge naked black woman, "monstrous Aphrodite" with huge breasts and an elephant's bottom. She can't be at the station, it's like a hallucination. Moreover, when a newcomer comes to Sartorius, the physicist does not let him into his cabin - he stands, shielding the door with his back, and there you can hear the running and laughter of a child, then they start pulling on the door, and Sartorius shouts in a frantic falsetto: "I'll be right back! No need! No need!!" And the culmination of delirium - Kelvin enters the refrigerator to see the body of Gibaryan, and finds next to the dead man the same black woman - alive and warm, despite the icy cold. Another striking detail: her bare feet are not worn or deformed by walking, their skin is thin, like a baby's.

Kelvin decided that he was crazy, but he is a psychologist and knows how to make sure of this. He arranges a test for himself and summarizes: "I have not lost my mind. The last hope has disappeared."

At night, he wakes up and sees next to him Hari, his wife, who died ten years ago, who killed herself because of him, Kelvin. Alive, in flesh and blood, and completely calm - as if they parted yesterday. She is wearing a dress he remembers, an ordinary dress, but for some reason without a zipper on the back, and her feet, like that black woman's, are infantile. She seems to take everything for granted and is happy with everything, and wants only one thing: not for an hour, not for a minute, not to part with Kelvin. But he needs to leave in order to sort out the situation somehow. He tries to tie Hari - it turns out that she is not strong in a human way ... Kelvin is horrified. He lures his wife's phantom into a single-seat rocket and sends her into planetary orbit. It would seem that this nonsense is over, but Snout warns Kelvin that in two or three hours the "guest" will return, and finally tells what, in his opinion, is happening. The persistent "guests" are sent to people by the Ocean of the planet Solaris.

This ocean has occupied the minds of scientists for more than a hundred years. It does not consist of water, but of protoplasm, moving in a strange and monstrous way, swelling up and creating gigantic - meaningless in appearance - structures, in the depths of which time changes its course. They were dubbed "gorodrevs", "dolguns", "mimoids", "symmetriads", but no one knew why and why they were created. This living Ocean seems to have a single function: it maintains the planet's optimal orbit around the binary Sun. And now, after a research impact with hard radiation, he began to send phantoms to people, extracting their appearance from the depths of the human subconscious. Kelvin is still lucky: he is "gifted" a woman he once loved, and others are sent their secret erotic desires, not even realized. "Such situations ... - says Snaut, - which you can only think about, and then in a moment of intoxication, falling, madness ... And the word becomes flesh." That's what Snout thinks. He also says that the "guest" most often appears while a person is sleeping and his consciousness is turned off. At this time, the areas of the brain responsible for memory are more accessible to the unknown rays of the Ocean.

The scientists could leave the station, but Kelvin wants to stay. He thinks: "Perhaps we will not learn anything about the Ocean, but maybe about ourselves ..." The next night, Hari appears again, and, as in the old days, they become lovers. And in the morning, Calvin sees that in the cabin are two "exactly identical white dresses with red buttons" - both cut at the seam. This shock is followed by another: Hari accidentally remains locked up and with superhuman strength, injuring himself, breaks down the door. A shocked Kelvin sees how her mutilated hands heal almost instantly. Hari herself is also horrified, because she feels like an ordinary, normal person ...

Trying to understand how Hari is “arranged”, Kelvin takes her blood for analysis, but under an electron microscope it is clear that the red bodies are not composed of atoms, but, as it were, of nothing - apparently, of neutrinos. However, "neutrino molecules" cannot exist outside of some special field... The physicist Sartorius accepts this hypothesis and undertakes to build a neutrino molecule annihilator to destroy the "guests". But Calvin, it turns out, does not want this. He has already recovered from the shock and loves his newfound wife - whoever she may be. For her part, Hari begins to understand the situation, all its tragedy. At night, while Kelvin is sleeping, she turns on the tape recorder left by Gibaryan for Kelvin, listens to Gibaryan's story about the "guests" and, having learned the truth, tries to commit suicide.

Drinking liquid oxygen. Kelvin sees her agony, excruciating hematemesis, but… The ocean's radiation restores neutrino flesh in a matter of minutes. Hari revived in despair - now she knows that she is torturing Kelvin, "And that an instrument of torture could wish well and love, I could not imagine this," she screams. Kelvin in response says that he loves her, namely her, and not that earthly woman who killed herself out of love for him. This is true, and he is completely at a loss: after all, he will return to Earth, and the beloved woman can exist only here, in the mysterious field of radiation of the Ocean. He cannot decide on anything, but agrees to Sartorius's proposal to record the currents of his brain and transmit them in the form of an X-ray beam to the Ocean. Perhaps, after reading this message, the liquid monster will stop sending its phantoms to people ... The beam hits the plasma, and as if nothing happens, only Kelvin begins to have painful dreams, in which they seem to be studying him, either disassembling it into atoms, then compiling it again . "The horror experienced in them cannot be compared with anything in the world," he says. So several weeks pass, Hari and Kelvin become attached to each other more and more, and meanwhile Sartorius conducts some terrible experiments, trying to get rid of the "guests". Snaut says about him: "Our Faust, on the contrary <...> is looking for a remedy for immortality." Finally, one night, Hari gives Kelvin a sleeping pill and disappears. Sartorius, secretly from Kelvin, nevertheless created a phantom annihilator, and Hari, out of great love for Kelvin, decided to die - as once, a long time ago ... She went into oblivion, left forever, because the invasion of "guests" was over.

Kelvin in grief. He dreams of taking revenge on the thinking protoplasm, burning it to the ground, but Snout manages to calm his comrade. He says that the Ocean did not want anything bad, on the contrary, he sought to give people gifts, to give them the most precious thing, that which is most deeply hidden in memory. The ocean could not know what the true meaning of this memory is... Kelvin accepts this thought and calms down - as if. And in the last scene, he sits on the shore of the Ocean, feeling his "gigantic presence, powerful, inexorable silence," and forgives him everything: "I knew nothing, but still believed that the time of cruel miracles had not yet ended."

V. S. Kulagina-Yartseva

(Dzennild Gwiazdowe)

Short stories (1954-1982)

Iyon the Quiet - "famous explorer, captain of a long galactic voyage, meteor and comet hunter, tireless explorer who discovered eighty thousand three worlds, honorary doctor of the Universities of the Two Bears, member of the Society for the Guardianship of Minor Planets and many other societies, cavalier of the milky and nebula orders" - the author of eighty-seven volumes of diaries (with maps of all travels and applications).

The space travels of Iyon the Pacific are full of incredible adventures. So, in the seventh journey, he falls into a time loop and multiplies before our eyes, meeting with himself Monday, Thursday, Sunday, Friday, last year and others - from the past and the future. The situation is saved by two little boys (which Tikhy was so long ago!) - they fix the power regulator and repair the steering wheel, and peace reigns again in the rocket. On the fourteenth journey, Tikhoy has to justify before the General Assembly of the United Planets the deeds of the inhabitants of Zimya (this is the name of the planet Earth there). He fails to present in a favorable light the achievements of terrestrial science, in particular atomic explosions. Some of the delegates generally doubt the rationality of the inhabitants of the Earth, and some even deny the possibility of the existence of life on the planet. The question arises about the entrance fee of earthlings, which should amount to a billion tons of platinum. At the end of the meeting, an alien from Tarrakania, who is very sympathetic to the inhabitants of the Earth, trying to demonstrate how well the representative of earthlings Iyon Tikhy has been worked out by evolution, begins to peck him on the top of his head with his huge sucker ... And Tikhy wakes up in horror. The fourteenth journey leads the Quiet One to Enteropia. Getting ready to fly. Tichiy is studying an article about this planet in a volume of the Space Encyclopedia. He learns that the dominant race on it are "Ardrites, rational beings, multi-transparent, symmetrical, unpaired processes." Among the animals, curdles and octopuses are especially noted. After reading the article, Tikhy remains in the dark about what "estimated" and what "sepules" are. At the suggestion of the head of the repair shop, Iyon Tikhiy risks putting his brain "with a battery of jokes for five years" on a rocket. Indeed, at first Quiet listens with pleasure, then something happens to the brain: telling jokes, he swallows the very salt, begins to speak in syllables, and the whole trouble is that it is impossible to shut him up - the switch has broken.

The Quiet One arrives on Enteropia. A spaceport employee, transparent as crystal, an Ardrite, looking at him, turns green ("Ardrites express feelings by changing color; green corresponds to our smile") and, after asking the necessary questions ("Are you a vertebrate? Double-breathing?), directs the newcomer to the "reserve workshop", where the technician takes some measurements and says a mysterious phrase in parting: "If something happens to you during the smog, you can be completely calm ... we will immediately deliver the reserve." Quiet does not quite understand what is at stake, but does not ask questions - many years of wandering taught him restraint.

Once in the city, Tichiy enjoys a rare view, which is the central quarters at dusk. Ardriths do not know artificial lighting, because they themselves glow. Buildings sparkle and flare up with residents returning home, parishioners radiate in ecstasy in churches, children shimmer in rainbow colors on stairwells. In the conversations of passers-by, Tikhy hears the familiar word "sepulki" and finally tries to figure out what it can mean. But he does not ask which of the Ardrites where one can buy a sepulka, the question each time causes bewilderment in them ("How can you take her without a wife?"), embarrassment and anger, which is immediately expressed by their color. Giving up the idea of ​​learning anything about the Sepules, Quiet is going to hunt Kurds. The conductor gives him instructions. They are clearly necessary, since the animal in the process of evolution has adapted to meteorite precipitation, having built up an impenetrable shell, and therefore "they hunt the chickens from the inside." To do this, you need to smear yourself with a special paste and "season" yourself with mushroom sauce, onions and peppers, sit down and wait (grabbing the bomb with both hands) until the curdle swallows the bait. Once inside the kurdle, the hunter adjusts the clock mechanism of the bomb and, using the cleansing action of the paste, moves away as quickly as possible "in the opposite direction from where he came from." When leaving the kurdle, you should try to fall on both hands and feet so as not to hurt yourself. The hunt is going well, the kurdle takes the bait, but in the entrails of the beast Quiet finds another hunter - ardrit, who is already setting the clockwork. Everyone is trying to cede the right to hunt to another, wasting precious time. The hospitality of the host wins, and both hunters soon leave the curly. A monstrous explosion is heard - Iyon Tikhiy receives another hunting trophy - they promise to make a scarecrow and send him to Earth by a cargo rocket.

For several days Tichiy is busy with a cultural program - museums, exhibitions, visits, official receptions, speeches. One morning he wakes up from a terrible roar. It turns out that this is smeg, a seasonal meteorite hail that falls on the planet every ten months. No shelter can provide protection from smeg, but there is no reason to worry, since everyone has a reserve. Regarding the reserve, Tikhoy fails to find out anything, but it soon becomes clear what it is. On his way to an evening performance at the theater, he witnesses a direct meteorite hit on the theater building. Immediately a large cistern rolls in, from which some kind of tar-like mess flows out, the Ardrite repairmen begin to pump air into it through the pipes, the bubble grows at dizzying speed and in a minute becomes an exact copy of a theater building, only still quite soft, swaying with gusts of wind. After another five minutes, the building solidifies and the audience fills it. Sitting down in a place, Quiet notices that it is still warm, but this is the only evidence of a recent catastrophe. In the course of the play, the heroes are brought sepulks in a huge box, but this time Iyon the Quiet is not destined to find out what it is. He feels the impact and faints. When Quiet comes to his senses, there are already completely different heroes on the stage and there is no talk of sepules. An ardritka sitting next to him explains that he was killed by a meteorite, but a reserve was brought from the astronautical agency. Quiet immediately returns to the hotel and carefully examines himself to make sure of his own identity. At first glance, everything is in order, but the shirt is worn inside out, the buttons are fastened haphazardly, and there are scraps of packaging in the pockets. Tichy's research is interrupted by a phone call: Professor Zazul, a prominent Ardritian scientist, wants to meet with him. Quiet goes to the professor, who lives in the suburbs. On the way, he catches up with an elderly ardrit, carrying in front of him "something like a covered cart." They continue on their way together. Approaching the fence. Quiet sees clouds of smoke in the place of the professor's house. His companion explains that the meteorite fell a quarter of an hour ago, and the houseblowers will arrive now - they are not in too much of a hurry outside the city. He himself asks Quiet to open the gate for him and begins to lift the lid of the cart. Through a hole in the packaging of a large bundle, Quiet sees a living eye. A creaky old voice is heard, inviting Tikhoy to wait in the arbor. But he rushes headlong to the spaceport and leaves Enteropia, cherishing the hope in his soul that Professor Zazul is not offended by him.

V. S. Kulagina-Yartseva

(Histoire contemporary)

Tetralogy (1897-1901)

The abbe Lantaigne, rector of the theological seminary in the city of ***, wrote a letter to the monsignor cardinal-archbishop, in which he bitterly complained about the abbe Guitrel, a teacher of spiritual eloquence. Through the aforesaid Guitrel, a disgrace to the good name of a clergyman, Madame Worms-Clavelin, the wife of the prefect, acquired vestments that had been kept for three hundred years in the sacristy of the church of Luzan, and put them on the upholstery of furniture, from which it is clear that the teacher of eloquence is not distinguished either by the severity of morals or stamina beliefs. Meanwhile, Abbé Lantenu learned that this unworthy shepherd was going to lay claim to the episcopal rank and the see of Tourcoing, which was empty at that moment. Needless to say, the rector of the seminary - an ascetic, ascetic, theologian and the best preacher of the diocese - would not refuse to take on his shoulders the burden of heavy episcopal duties. Moreover, it is difficult to find a more worthy candidate, because if the Abbé Lantaigne is capable of harming his neighbor, then only to increase the glory of the Lord.

The abbe Guitrel did indeed constantly see the prefect of Worms-Clavelin and his wife, whose main sin was that they were Jews and Freemasons. Friendly relations with a representative of the clergy flattered the Jewish official. The abbot, with all his humility, was on his mind and knew the price of his deference. She was not so great - the episcopal dignity.

There was a party in the city that openly called the Abbé Lantena a shepherd worthy of occupying the empty pulpit of Tourcoing. Since the city of *** had the honor of giving Tourcoing a bishop, the faithful were willing to part with the rector for the benefit of the diocese and the Christian homeland. The problem was only the stubborn General Cartier de Chalmot, who did not want to write to the Minister of Cults, with whom he was on good terms, and put in a good word for the applicant. The general agreed that Abbé Lantaigne was an excellent shepherd and, had he been a military man, he would have made an excellent soldier, but the old warrior had never asked anything from the government and was not going to ask now. So the poor abbot, deprived, like all fanatics, of the ability to live, had no choice but to indulge in pious reflections and pour out bile and vinegar in conversations with M. Bergeret, a teacher in the philological faculty. They understood each other very well, for although M. Bergeret did not believe in God, he was an intelligent man and disappointed in life. Having been deceived in his ambitious hopes, having tied the knot with a real vixen, failing to become pleasant to his fellow citizens, he found pleasure in the fact that little by little he tried to become unpleasant to them.

The Abbé Guitrel, the obedient and respectful child of His Holiness the Pope, lost no time and unobtrusively brought to the attention of the Prefect of Worms-Clavelin that his rival Abbé Lantaigne was disrespectful not only to his spiritual superiors, but even to the Prefect himself, whom he could not forgive neither belonging to Freemasons, nor Jewish origin. Of course, he repented of what he had done, which, however, did not prevent him from considering the following wise moves and promising himself that as soon as he acquired the title of prince of the church, he would become irreconcilable with secular power, freemasons, the principles of free thought, republic and revolution.

The struggle around the Tourcoing pulpit was serious. Eighteen applicants sought episcopal vestments; the president and the papal nuncio had their own candidates, the bishop of the city *** had his own. Abbé Lantenu managed to enlist the support of General Cartier de Chalmo, who is highly respected in Paris. So Abbé Guitrel, with only the Jewish prefect behind him, fell behind in this race.

M. Bergeret was not happy. He had no honorary titles and was unpopular in the city. Of course, as a true scholar, our philologist despised honors, but still he felt that it was much more beautiful to despise them when you had them. Mr. Bergeret dreamed of living in Paris, meeting the metropolitan scientific elite, arguing with them, publishing in the same journals and surpassing everyone, because he realized that he was smart. But he was unrecognized, poor, his life was poisoned by his wife, who believed that her husband was a brain and a nonentity, whose presence next to her she was forced to endure. Bergeret was engaged in the Aeneid, but had never been to Italy, devoted his life to philology, but had no money for books, and shared his office, already small and uncomfortable, with his wife's willow mannequin, on which she tried on skirts of her own work.

Dejected by the ugliness of his life, M. Bergeret indulged in sweet dreams of a villa on the shores of a blue lake, of a white terrace where he could immerse himself in serene conversation with his chosen colleagues and students, among myrtles flowing with a divine aroma. But on the first day of the new year, fate dealt a crushing blow to the modest Latinist. Returning home, he found his wife with his favorite student, Mr. Ru. The unambiguity of their posture meant that M. Bergeret grew horns. At the first moment, the newly minted cuckold felt that he was ready to kill the wicked adulterers at the scene of the crime. But considerations of a religious and moral order supplanted instinctive bloodthirstiness, and disgust filled the flames of his anger with a powerful wave. M. Bergeret silently left the room. From that moment on, Madame Bergeret was plunged into the abyss of hell that opened up under the roof of her house.

A deceived husband will not kill an unfaithful spouse. He just shut up. He deprived Mme. Bergeret of the pleasure of seeing her faithful rage, demand explanations, emanate bile... excluded the fallen spouse from his outer and inner world. Just abolished. Silent evidence of the coup that had taken place was the new maid brought to the house by Mr. Bergeret: a village cowgirl who knew how to cook only stew with bacon, understood only the common dialect, drank vodka and even alcohol. The new maid entered the house like death. The unfortunate Madame Bergeret could not bear silence and solitude. The apartment seemed to her a crypt, and she fled from it to the salons of city gossips, where she sighed heavily and complained about her tyrant husband. In the end, the local society was established in the opinion that Madame Bergeret was a poor thing, and her husband was a despot and a debauchee, keeping his family starving for the sake of satisfying his dubious whims. But at home, deathly silence, a cold bed and an idiot servant waited for her ...

And Madame Bergeret could not stand it: she bowed her proud head of the representative of the glorious Pouilly family and went to her husband to make peace. But M. Bergeret was silent. Then, driven to despair, Madame Bergeret announced that she was taking her youngest daughter with her and leaving home. Hearing these words, M. Bergeret realized that by his wise calculation and perseverance he had achieved the desired freedom. He didn't answer, just tilted his head in agreement.

Madame Bergeret, as she said, did exactly that - she left the family hearth. And she would have left a good memory in the city, if on the eve of her departure she had not compromised herself with a rash act. Arriving on a farewell visit to Mrs. Lacarelle, she found herself alone in the living room with the owner of the house, who enjoyed the fame of a merry fellow, warriors and an inveterate kisser in the city. To maintain his reputation at the proper level, he kissed all the women, girls and girls he met, but he did it innocently, because he was a moral person. That is how M. Lacarelle kissed Mme. Rergere, who took the kiss for a declaration of love and passionately answered it. Just at that moment Madame Lacarelle entered the drawing-room.

M. Bergeret did not know sadness, for he was finally free. He was engrossed in arranging a new apartment to his liking. The terrifying cowgirl maid was paid, and the virtuous Madame Bornish took her place. It was she who brought to the house of the Latinist a being who became his best friend. One morning, Mrs. Bornish laid a puppy of indeterminate breed at the feet of her master. While M. Bergeret climbed onto a chair to get a book from the top shelf, the dog settled comfortably in the chair. M. Bergeret fell from his rickety chair, and the dog, despising the peace and comfort of the chair, rushed to save him from terrible danger and, as a consolation, lick his nose. So the Latinist acquired a true friend. To crown it all, M. Bergeret received the coveted position of ordinary professor. Joy was marred only by the cries of the crowd under his windows, which, knowing that the professor of Roman law sympathized with a Jew convicted by a military tribunal, demanded the blood of a venerable Latinist. But he was soon freed from provincial ignorance and fanaticism, for he received a course not just anywhere, but at the Sorbonne.

While the events described above were developing in the Bergeret family, Abbé Guitrel did not waste time. He took a lively part in the fate of the chapel of Our Lady of Belfi, which, according to the abbot, was miraculous, and won the respect and favor of the Duke and Duchess de Brece. Thus, a seminary teacher became necessary for Ernst Bonmont, son of the Baroness de Bonmont, who with all his heart aspired to be accepted into the house of de Brece, but his Jewish origin prevented this. The persistent young man made a deal with the cunning abbot: a bishopric in exchange for the de Brece family.

So the clever abbot Guitrel became Monsignor Guitrel, Bishop of Tourcoing. But the most striking thing is that he kept his word, given to himself at the very beginning of the struggle for episcopal vestments, and blessed the congregations of his diocese to resist the authorities, who refused to pay the exorbitant taxes imposed on them by the government.

M. Bergeret settled in Paris with his sister Zoe and daughter Pauline. He received a chair at the Sorbonne, his article in defense of Dreyfus was published in Le Figaro, among the honest people of his quarter he earned the glory of a man who broke away from his brethren and did not follow the defenders of the saber and sprinkler. M. Bergeret hated falsifiers, which, it seemed to him, is permissible for a philologist. For this innocent weakness, the newspaper of the Rights immediately declared him a German Jew and an enemy of the fatherland. M. Bergeret took this insult philosophically, for he knew that these miserable people had no future. With all his being, this modest and honest man longed for change. He dreamed of a new society in which everyone would receive the full price for their work. But, like a true sage, Mr. Bergeret understood that he would not be able to see the kingdom of the future, since all changes in the social order, as in the structure of nature, occur slowly and almost imperceptibly. Therefore, a person must work on creating the future the way carpet weavers work on tapestries - without looking. And his only tool is the word and thought, unarmed and naked.

E. E. Gushchina

(L'lle des Pingoums)

Parody Historical Chronicle (1908)

In the preface, the author states that the sole purpose of his life is to write the history of penguins. To do this, he studied many sources, and above all the chronicle of the greatest penguin chronicler John Talpa. Like other countries, Penguinia has gone through several eras: ancient times, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, new and modern centuries. And its history began from the moment when the holy old man Mael, transferred by the machinations of the devil to the island of Alcoy, christened Arctic birds from the pawfoot family, mistaking them for people because of deafness and almost complete blindness. The news of the baptism of penguins caused extreme surprise in paradise. The most prominent theologians and theologians disagreed: some suggested granting the penguins an immortal soul, others advised immediately sending them to hell.

But the Lord God commanded Saint Mael to correct his mistake - to turn penguins into people. Having done this, the elder dragged the island to the Breton shores. The devil was put to shame.

Through the efforts of the saint, the inhabitants of the island received clothes, but this did not at all contribute to the rooting of morality. Then the penguins began to kill each other because of the land, thereby asserting property rights, which meant undeniable progress. Then a census was taken and the first States General were convened, which decided to save the noble penguins from taxes, laying them on the mob.

Already in ancient times, Penguinia found a patron saint - Orberosa. Together with her roommate Kraken, she saved the country from a fierce dragon. It happened in the following way. The mighty Kraken, putting a helmet with horns on his head, robbed his fellow tribesmen at night and kidnapped their children. A sign appeared to Saint Mael that only an immaculate maiden and a fearless knight could save the penguins. Upon learning of this, the beautiful Orberosa volunteered to perform a feat, referring to her virginal purity. Kraken built a wooden frame and sheathed it with leather. Five boys were taught to climb into this structure, move it and burn the tow so that flames burst out of the mouth. In front of the admiring penguins, Orberosa led the dragon on a leash like a submissive dog. Then the Kraken appeared with a sparkling sword and ripped open the belly of the monster, from which the children who had disappeared before jumped out. In gratitude for this heroic deed, the penguins pledged to pay an annual tribute to the Kraken. Wishing to inspire the people with beneficent fear, he adorned himself with the crest of a dragon. The loving Orberosa consoled the shepherds and the oxen for a long time, and then she dedicated her life to the Lord. After her death, she was canonized, and Kraken became the ancestor of the first royal dynasty - the Draconids. Among them were many remarkable rulers: for example, Brian the Pious gained fame for cunning and courage in war, and Bosco the Magnanimous was so concerned about the fate of the throne that he killed all his relatives. The magnificent Queen Kryusha became famous for her generosity - however, according to John Talpa, she did not always know how to subdue her desires with arguments of reason. The end of the medieval period was marked by a century-long war between penguins and dolphins.

The art of this era deserves every attention. Unfortunately, penguin painting can only be judged by the primitives of other peoples, since the penguins began to admire the creations of their early artists only after they completely destroyed them. From the literature of the XV century. a precious monument has come down to us - a story about a descent into the underworld, composed by the monk Marbod, an ardent admirer of Virgil. When the whole country was still stagnant in the darkness of ignorance and barbarism, a certain Gilles Loizelier studied the natural and human sciences with unquenchable ardor, hoping for their inevitable revival, which would soften morals and establish the principle of freedom of conscience. These good times came, but the consequences were not quite as penguin Erasmus imagined: Catholics and Protestants engaged in mutual extermination, and skepticism spread among philosophers. The age of reason ended with the collapse of the old regime: the king was beheaded, and Penguinia was proclaimed a republic. Overwhelmed by unrest and exhausted by wars, she bore in her own womb her murderer, General Trinco. This great commander conquered half the world, and then lost it, bringing the immortal glory of Penguinia.

Then came the triumph of democracy - an Assembly was elected, completely controlled by the financial oligarchy. Penguinia was suffocating under the weight of spending on a huge army and navy. Many hoped that with the development of civilization, wars would stop. Wanting to prove this claim, Professor Obnubil visited New Atlantis and discovered that the richest republic had massacred half of the inhabitants of Third Zealand in order to force the rest to buy umbrellas and suspenders from her. Then the sage bitterly told himself that the only way to improve the world is to blow up the entire planet with dynamite.

The republican system in Penguinia has given rise to many abuses. The financiers have become the true scourge of the country because of their impudence and greed. Small merchants could not feed themselves, and the nobles increasingly recalled their former privileges. The dissatisfied looked hopefully at Prince Cruchot, the last of the Draconids, who ate the bitter bread of exile in Delphinia. The soul of the conspiracy was the monk Agarik, who attracted to his side Father Cornemuse, who got rich in the production of Saint Orberosa liquor. The royalists decided to use one of its defenders, Chatillon, to overthrow the regime. But the dracophile cause was undermined by internal divisions. Despite the capture of the Chamber of Deputies, the coup ended in failure.

Chatillon was allowed to flee to Delphinia, but the distillery was confiscated from Cornemuse.

Shortly thereafter, Penguinia was shocked by the theft of eighty thousand hay bales stored up for the cavalry. The Jewish officer Piro was accused of allegedly selling miraculous penguin hay to treacherous dolphins. Despite the complete lack of evidence, Pyro was convicted and put in a cage. The penguins were filled with unanimous hatred for him, but there was a renegade named Colomban, who spoke in defense of the despicable thief. At first, Colomban could not leave the house without being stoned. Gradually, the number of pyrotists began to increase and reached several thousand. Then Colomban was seized and sentenced to capital punishment. The angry mob threw him into the river, and he swam out with great difficulty. In the end, Piro was freed: his innocence was proved by the efforts of the judicial adviser Chospier.

The newest centuries began with a terrible war. The romance between the wife of Minister Ceres and Prime Minister Vizier had disastrous consequences: having decided on everything to destroy his enemy, Ceres ordered articles from devoted people that set out the warlike views of the head of government. This caused the sharpest responses abroad. The exchange fraud of the Minister of Finance completed the job:

on the day the Vizier's ministry fell, a neighboring hostile empire recalled its envoy and hurled eight million soldiers against Penguinia. The world was drowned in torrents of blood. Half a century later, Lady Ceres died surrounded by universal respect. She bequeathed all her property to the society of Saint Orberosa. The apogee of the penguin civilization has come: progress was expressed in deadly inventions, in vile speculation and disgusting luxury.

Future times and history without end. Fifteen million people worked in the gigantic city. People lacked oxygen and natural food. The number of lunatics and suicides grew. Anarchists completely destroyed the capital with explosions. The province fell into disrepair. Centuries seemed to have sunk into eternity: hunters again killed wild animals and dressed in their skins. Civilization was going through its new circle, and fifteen million people were again working in the gigantic city.

E. D. Murashkintseva

(La Revolte des anges)

Roman (1914)

The great Alexandre Bussard d'Eparvieu, vice-president of the State Council under the July government, left to his heirs a three-story mansion and a rich library. Rene d'Eparvieu, a worthy grandson of the famous grandfather, filled up the precious collection as much as he could. In 1895 he appointed Julien Sariette curator of the library, at the same time making him tutor to his eldest son Maurice. M. Sariette developed a quivering but jealous love for the library. Anyone who took with him the most insignificant little book tore the soul of the archivist. He was ready to endure any insult and even dishonor, if only to keep priceless volumes intact. And thanks to his zeal, the library d'Eparvieu for sixteen years has not lost a single leaflet.

But on September 9, 1912, fate dealt the curator a terrible blow: on the table lay a shapeless heap of books taken from the shelves by someone's blasphemous hand. A mysterious force has been rampaging in the sanctuary for several months. Mr Sariette lost sleep and appetite while trying to track down the intruders. Obviously, these were Freemasons - a family friend, Abbe Patuille, claimed that it was they, together with the Jews, who were plotting the complete destruction of the Christian world. The unfortunate archivist was afraid of the treacherous sons of Hiram, but his love for the library turned out to be stronger, and he decided to ambush the criminals. At night, a mysterious robber hit him on the head with a thick tome, and from that day things got even worse - the books began to disappear with frightening speed. Finally they found themselves in the wing where the young d'Eparvieu lived.

Maurice could not be suspected of an excessive craving for knowledge. From an early age he managed to avoid any mental effort, and the Abbé Patuille said that this young man received the benefits of a Christian upbringing from above. Keeping the gallant traditions of his nation, Maurice meekly endured the frank debauchery of the maids and the tearful adoration of society ladies. But a mysterious force intervened in the most indelicate way in his life: when he indulged in an innocent passion in the arms of the charming Gilberte des Aubel, a ghostly shadow of a naked man appeared in the room. The stranger introduced himself as Maurice's guardian angel and said that in heaven his name was Abdiel, and "in the world" - Arkady. He came to say goodbye, because he had lost his beru, having studied the treasures of human thought in the library d'Eparvie. In vain Maurice begged the angel to disincarnate and become a pure spirit again. Arkady firmly decided to join his brothers in declaring war on the heavenly tyrant Ialdabaoth, whom people mistakenly consider the only god, while he is just a vain and ignorant demiurge.

The rebellious angel got a job in a printing house. He was impatient to begin the realization of the great plan, and he began to look for his comrades. Some of them could not resist worldly temptations: for example, the archangel Mirar, who became the musician Theophile Belé, fell in love with the cafeteria singer Bushogta and turned into a contemptible pacifist. On the contrary, the archangel Ituriid, known as the Russian nihilist Zita, inflamed with even greater hatred for the kingdom of heaven, torn apart by class contradictions. Cherub Istar, passionately loving mankind, began to manufacture elegant portable bombs with the aim of erecting a bright hail of joy and happiness on the ruins of the vile old world. The participants in the conspiracy usually gathered at Theophilus, and Bouchotta gave them tea with undisguised disgust. In moments of despondency and grief, Arkady visited with Zita the gardener Nectarius. This still strong, ruddy old man was the closest associate of Lucifer and willingly told the young about the first uprising of the angels. When he held a flute in his hands, birds flocked to him and wild animals ran to him. Zita and Arkady listened to divine music, and it seemed to them that they immediately listen to the muses, and to all nature, and to man.

Maurice d'Eparves, having lost his guardian angel, lost his former gaiety, and even carnal pleasures ceased to please him. Parents were alarmed, and Abbe Patuille declared that the boy was going through a spiritual crisis. Indeed, Maurice placed an advertisement in the newspaper, urging Arkady to return, but the angel, absorbed in the revolutionary struggle, did not respond. Fortune tellers and soothsayers were also powerless to help Maurice. Then the young man began to bypass the doss-houses and taverns, where all sorts of rabble gathered, mainly nihilists and anarchists. During these wanderings, Maurice made a pleasant acquaintance with a singer named Bouchotta, where he met his beloved angel. Since Arkady categorically refused to fulfill his heavenly duties, Maurice decided to return his lost friend to the true path and, for a start, took him to a restaurant to eat oysters. Upon learning of his son's suspicious acquaintances, Rene d'Eparvieu kicked the unworthy offspring out of the house. Maurice had to move to a bachelor's apartment. Through his carelessness, the volume of Lucretius with Voltaire's notes ended up in the hands of the greedy and cunning antiquary Guinardon.

Arcadius took up residence with Maurice, to whom Gilberte continued to visit. On the memorable night of his departure, the angel made an indelible impression on her. Arkady, having become a man, adopted human habits - in other words, he desired his neighbor's wife. Offended by such treachery, Maurice broke with Gilberte and challenged Arcadius to a duel, although the angel tried to explain to him that he had retained heavenly invulnerability. As a result, Maurice was wounded in the arm, and Arkady and Gilberte surrounded him with touching care. All three regained their lost innocence, and Arkady completely forgot about the old tyrant in heaven, but then Zita appeared with the news that the rebellious angels were ready to fall on the purple palace of Ialdabaoth.

The Chairman of the Council of Ministers dreamed of uncovering some terrible conspiracy to please the people, full of love for a firm government. Fallen angels were kept secretly under surveillance. Having drunk heavily at the next meeting, Arkady, Istar and Maurice got into a skirmish with the police. Istar threw his famous bomb, which shook the ground, extinguished gas lamps and destroyed several houses. The next day all the papers were shouting about the unheard-of crime of anarchists, freemasons and syndicalists. Soon Maurice d'Eparvieu and the singer Bouchotte were arrested. Paris froze in painful bewilderment. Everyone knew that young Maurice had broken with his liberal father because of his royalist convictions. Undoubtedly, they tried to compromise the courageous young man. The Abbé Patouille vouched for him as for himself. People in the know said that this was the revenge of the Jews, because Maurice was a recognized anti-Semite. Catholic youth staged a protest demonstration. The victim of the slander was immediately released, and René d'Eparvieu personally took his son home. Maurice's triumphant return was somewhat overshadowed by a sad incident: M. Sariette, having strangled Guinardon in a fit of rage, fell into violent insanity and began to throw books out of the window, and tore the volume of Lucretius with Voltaire's notes into small pieces.

The rebellious angels considered everything that had happened a signal for the beginning of the uprising. Nectarios, Istar, Zita and Arcadius left for the ethereal region to ask the great archangel to lead the battle. Over the steep banks of the Ganges they found the one they were looking for. The beautiful face of Satan was filled with sadness, for the wisest of angels saw beyond his followers. He promised to give an answer in the morning. At night he dreamed that the fortress of Ialdabaoth had fallen. A rebellious army burst into the thrice holy city, and the fearless Michael lowered his fiery sword at the feet of the victor. Then Satan proclaimed himself God, and the Almighty was cast into hell. The new lord of heaven began to revel in praise and worship, while the proud unbroken Ialdabaoth languished in fiery hell. The face of the exile lit up with the light of wisdom, and his huge shadow enveloped the planet in a gentle twilight of love. Lucifer woke up in a cold sweat. Calling on faithful companions, he announced that the defeated god would turn into Satan, and the victorious Satan would become a god. You need to destroy Yaldabaoth in your own hearts, overcoming ignorance and fear.

E. D. Murashkintseva

(Jean-Christophe)

Epic novel (1904-1912)

In a small German town on the banks of the Rhine, a child is born in the Kraft family of musicians. The first, still unclear perception of the surrounding world, the warmth of mother's hands, the gentle sound of the voice, the feeling of light, darkness, thousands of different sounds ... The ringing of spring drops, the hum of bells, the singing of birds - everything delights little Christoph. He hears music everywhere, because for a true musician "everything is music - you just need to hear it." Unbeknownst to himself, the boy, playing, comes up with his own melodies. Christoph's grandfather writes and edits his compositions. And now the music book "Joys of Childhood" with a dedication to His Highness the Duke is already ready. So at the age of seven, Christophe becomes a court musician and begins to earn his first money for performances.

Not everything is going smoothly in Christoph's life. The father drinks away most of the family money. The mother is forced to earn extra money as a cook in rich houses. There are three children in the family, Christoph is the eldest. He already managed to face injustice when he realized that they are poor, and the rich despise and laugh at their ignorance and bad manners. At the age of eleven, in order to help his relatives, the boy begins to play second violin in the orchestra, where his father and grandfather play, gives lessons to spoiled rich girls, continues to perform at ducal concerts, He has no friends, at home he sees very little warmth and sympathy, and therefore gradually turns into a closed proud teenager who does not want to become "a little burgher, an honest German." The boy's only consolation is conversations with his grandfather and uncle Gottfried, a traveling merchant who sometimes visits his sister, Christoph's mother. It was the grandfather who first noticed Christophe's musical gift and supported him, and the uncle revealed to the boy the truth that "music should be modest and Truthful" and express "real, not fake feelings." But the grandfather is dying, and the uncle rarely visits them, and Christophe is terribly lonely.

The family is on the brink of poverty. The father drinks away the last of his savings. In desperation, Christophe and his mother are forced to ask the duke to give the money earned by his father to his son. However, these funds soon run out: the eternally drunk father behaves disgustingly even during concerts, and the duke refuses him a place. Christoph writes custom-made music for official palace festivities. "The very source of his life and joy is poisoned." But deep down he hopes for victory, dreams of a great future, of happiness, friendship and love.

So far, his dreams have not come true. Having met Otto Diener, it seems to Christoph that he has finally found a friend. But the good manners and caution of Otto are alien to the freedom-loving, unbridled Christoph, and they part. The first youthful feeling also brings Christophe disappointment: he falls in love with a girl from a noble family, but he is immediately pointed out the difference in their position. Another blow - Christophe's father dies. The family is forced to move to a more modest dwelling. In a new place, Christophe meets Sabina, a young owner of a haberdashery shop, and love develops between them. The unexpected death of Sabina leaves a deep wound in the young man's soul. He meets her seamstress Ada, but she cheats on him with his younger brother. Christoph is alone again.

He stands at a crossroads. The words of old uncle Gottfried - "The main thing is not to get tired of wishing and living" - help Christoph to spread his wings and seem to throw off "yesterday's already dead shell in which he was suffocating - his former soul." From now on, he belongs only to himself, "finally he is not the prey of life, but the owner of it!". New, unknown forces wake up in the young man. All his previous writings are "warm water, caricature-ridiculous nonsense." He is not only dissatisfied with himself, he hears false notes in the works of the pillars of music. His favorite German songs and songs become for him "a flood of vulgar tenderness, vulgar excitement, vulgar sadness, vulgar poetry ...". Christoph does not hide the feelings that overwhelm him and publicly declares them. He writes new music, strives to "express living passions, create living images", putting "wild and tart sensuality" into his works. "With the magnificent audacity of youth," he believes that "everything must be done anew and redone." But - a complete failure. People are not ready to accept his new, innovative music. Christoph writes articles for a local magazine, where he criticizes everyone and everything, both composers and musicians. In this way he makes many enemies for himself: the duke expels him from the service; the families where he gives lessons refuse him; the whole city turns away from him.

Christoph is suffocating in the stuffy atmosphere of a provincial burgher town. He meets a young French actress, and her Gallic liveliness, musicality and sense of humor make him think of going to France, to Paris. Christoph cannot decide to leave his mother, but the case decides for him. At a village festival, he quarrels with soldiers, the quarrel ends in a general fight, three soldiers are wounded. Christophe is forced to flee to France: in Germany, a criminal case is initiated against him.

Paris meets Christophe unfriendly. Dirty, bustling city, so unlike the polished, orderly German cities. Friends from Germany turned away from the musician. With difficulty, he manages to find work - private lessons, processing of works by famous composers for a music publishing house. Gradually, Christophe notices that French society is no better than German. Everything is rotten through and through. Politics is the subject of speculation by cunning and arrogant adventurers. The leaders of various parties, including the socialist one, skilfully cover up their low, selfish interests with loud phrases. The press is deceitful and corrupt. Not works of art are created, but goods are fabricated to please the perverted tastes of the jaded bourgeois. Sick, cut off from the people, from real life, art is slowly dying.

As in his homeland, in Paris, Jean-Christophe does more than just watch. His lively, active nature makes him interfere in everything, openly express his indignation. He sees through the falsity and mediocrity surrounding him. Christoph is in poverty, starving, seriously ill, but does not give up. Not caring about whether his music will be heard or not, he enthusiastically works, creates a symphonic picture "David" on a biblical story, but the audience boos it.

After his illness, Christoph suddenly feels renewed. He begins to understand the unique charm of Paris, feels an irresistible need to find a Frenchman "whom he could love for the sake of his love for France."

Christophe's friend becomes Olivier Janin, a young poet who has long admired Christophe's music and himself from afar. Friends rent an apartment together. Tremulous and painful Olivier "was directly created for Christophe." "They enriched each other. Everyone contributed - these were the moral treasures of their peoples." Under the influence of Olivier, "the indestructible granite block of France" suddenly opens up before Christophe. The house in which friends live, as if in miniature, represents the various social strata of society. Despite the roof that unites everyone, the residents shun each other due to moral and religious prejudices. Christophe, with his music, unshakable optimism and sincere participation, breaks through the wall of alienation, and people so unlike each other draw closer and begin to help each other.

Thanks to the efforts of Olivier, glory suddenly comes to Christophe. The press praises him, he becomes a fashionable composer, secular society opens its doors to him. Christophe willingly goes to dinner parties "to replenish the supplies that life supplies him - a collection of human glances and gestures, shades of voice, in a word, material - forms, sounds, colors - necessary for the artist for his palette." At one of these dinners, his friend Olivier falls in love with the young Jacqueline Aange. Christophe is so preoccupied with the arrangement of his friend's happiness that he personally intercedes for the lovers before Jacqueline's father, although he understands that, having married, Olivier will no longer belong entirely to him.

Indeed, Olivier is moving away from Christophe. The newlyweds leave for the province, where Olivier teaches at the college. He is absorbed in family happiness, he is not up to Christophe. Jacqueline receives a large inheritance, and the couple return to Paris. They have a son, but the former mutual understanding is gone. Jacqueline gradually turns into an empty society lady, throwing money right and left. She has a lover, for whom she eventually leaves her husband and child. Olivier withdraws into his grief. He is still friendly with Christophe, but is unable to live with him under the same roof as before. Having transferred the boy to be raised by their mutual friend, Olivier rents an apartment not far from his son and Christophe.

Christoph meets revolutionary workers. He does not think, "he is with them or against them." He likes to meet and argue with these people. "And in the heat of a dispute, it happened that Christophe, seized with passion, turned out to be a much greater revolutionary than the rest." He is outraged by any injustice, "passions turn his head." On the first of May, he goes with his new friends to a demonstration and drags Olivier, who has not yet recovered from his illness, with him. The crowd divides friends. Christoph rushes into a fight with the police and, defending himself, pierces one of them with his own saber. Intoxicated by the battle, he "sings a revolutionary song at the top of his lungs." Olivier, trampled by the crowd, dies.

Christoph is forced to flee to Switzerland. He expects Olivier to come to him, but instead receives a letter with the news of the tragic death of a friend. Shocked, almost insane, "like a wounded animal," he gets to the town where one of the admirers of his talent, Dr. Brown, lives. Christophe locks himself in the room provided to him, wishing only one thing - "to be buried with a friend." Music becomes unbearable for him.

Gradually, Christoph comes back to life: he plays the piano, and then begins to write music. Through the efforts of Brown, he finds students and gives lessons. Love blossoms between him and the doctor's wife Anna. Both Christophe and Anna, a deeply religious woman, are having a hard time with their passion and betrayal of their friend and husband. Unable to cut this knot, the lovers try to commit suicide. After a failed suicide attempt, Anna falls seriously ill and Christophe flees the city. He takes refuge in the mountains on a secluded farm, where he experiences a severe mental crisis. He longs to create, but cannot, which makes him feel on the verge of insanity. Coming out of this ordeal ten years older, Christophe feels at peace. He "departed from himself and drew near to God."

Christoph wins. His work is being recognized. He creates new works, "weaves of unknown harmonies, strings of dizzying chords." Only a few have access to the latest daring creations of Christophe, he owes his fame to earlier works. The feeling that no one understands him adds to Christoph's loneliness.

Christophe meets with Grazia. Once, being a very young girl, Grazia took music lessons from Christophe and fell in love with him. The calm, bright love of Grazia awakens a reciprocal feeling in Christophe's soul. They become friends and dream of getting married. The son of Grazia is jealous of his mother for the musician and tries with all his might to interfere with their happiness. The spoiled, sickly boy feigns nervous fits and coughing spells, and in the end does become seriously ill and dies. Following him, Grazia dies, considering herself the culprit of the death of her son.

Having lost his beloved, Christophe feels the thread that connects him to this life break. And yet it was at this time that he created his most profound works, including tragic ballads based on Spanish folk songs, including "a gloomy love funeral song, like ominous flashes of flame." Also, Christophe wants to have time to connect the daughter of the departed lover with his son Olivier, in which for Christophe it was as if a dead friend had been resurrected. Young people fell in love, and Christoph is trying to arrange their wedding. He has been unwell for a long time, but hides it, not wanting to overshadow a joyful day for the newlyweds.

Christophe's strength is waning. Lonely, dying Christoph lies in his room and hears an invisible orchestra playing the anthem of life. He remembers his departed friends, lovers, mother, and prepares to reunite with them. "The gates are opening... This is the chord I've been looking for!.. But is this the end? What open spaces ahead... We will continue tomorrow..."

E. V. Morozova

(Colas Breugnon)

Tale (1918)

"The smoking room is alive ..." - Kola shouts to his friends who have come to see if he died of the plague. But no, Cola Brugnon, “an old sparrow, of Burgundian blood, vast in spirit and belly, no longer young, half a century old, but strong,” is not going to leave the land he loves so much and still revels in life, even finds it “more juicy than before." Cola is a carpenter, he has a house, a grumpy wife, four sons, a beloved daughter and adored granddaughter Glody. Armed with a chisel and a chisel, he stands in front of a workbench and makes furniture, decorating it with intricate patterns. True artist. Cola hates dullness and vulgarity, each of his products is a real work of art. Having done a good job, Brugnon willingly pays tribute to the old Burgundy and delicious food. Cola enjoys every day he lives, he lives in harmony with himself and also tries to live with the whole world. But alas! the latter is just not always possible. Recently, the good King Henry IV died in France, his son Louis is still small, and the country is ruled by the dowager queen-regent Maria Medici, along with her Italian favorites. The enmity between Catholics and Huguenots, which had subsided under Henry, flares up with renewed vigor. "Let everyone live for himself in our France and do not interfere with the lives of others!" Cola says. He agrees with all the gods and is ready to drink a barrel of good wine with both a Catholic and a Huguenot. Politics is a game for princes, but peasants need land. The peasants make the land fertile, grow bread, take care of the vineyards, and then drink good wine.

Spring is coming, and old Brunyon's heart aches again - he can't forget his youthful love, the red-haired beauty Selina. He was not the only one who was in love with this hard-working and sharp-tongued girl, nicknamed Lasochka. Then Cola even had to measure his strength with his best friend, but in vain: the lively Lasochka went to the fat miller. After many, many years, Kola goes to look at his Lasochka. And although she is already an old woman, in the eyes of Brunyon she is beautiful, as before. Only now does Cola find out that Lasochka loved him more than anyone else in the world, but she was only stubborn, so she married another. But you can’t bring back the past ... But will Cola “pout at life like an old fool, because this and that is not so? Everything is fine as it is. What I don’t have, well, to hell with it!”

In the summer, in the town of Clamcy, near which Cola lives, an epidemic of plague breaks out. Brugnon sends his family to the village, and he remains to eat, drink and have fun with his friends, confident that the plague will bypass his house. But one day he discovers signs of a terrible disease. Fearing that his house will be burned down, like all houses where the plague has visited, Cola, having taken his favorite books, moves to a hut in his vineyard. Cola's love of life, the healing power of the earth defeat the disease, Cola is recovering. "Smoking room lives..."

In the village at that time, Brugnion's wife fell ill with the plague, and then her beloved granddaughter Glody. What only Kola did not do to save the girl, he even wore it in the forest - so that the old woman would bewitch. Death retreated from the child, but took Brugnon's wife to him. Having buried his wife and put his granddaughter on his feet, Kola returns home - to the ashes. As soon as the plague began, the foremen left the city, handing it over to the rogues, who were hungry for someone else's good, And under the pretext that it was necessary to burn the houses where the plague had been, the bandits began to host in the city and its environs. Kol's house was empty, and they started from it: they completely plundered everything, and then they burned the house, and the workshop, and all his works that were there. There was nothing left for Brunion. But he does not lose heart - otherwise he would not be Brunion! Cola resolutely goes to Clamsey - it's time to put things in order in the city. On the way, he meets his apprentice, who, risking his life, saved one of Brugnon's works, the figure of Magdalene, from the burning workshop. And the master understands: not everything is lost, because the best of his works remains - the soul of an apprentice boy, to whom he managed to inspire the same love for beauty as his own.

Brugnon raises the inhabitants of Clamcy to fight the robbers. When they make another raid on the wine cellars, the armed citizens, led by Cola, give them a fitting rebuff, and most of the robbers die under the burning ruins. And then the royal justice arrived, just in time. But Kol's opinion is: "Help yourself, and the king will help."

Autumn is coming. Left homeless, Brunyon spends the night with one friend, then with another - a joint struggle with a robbery gang rallied the townspeople. But life is getting better, everyone has their own worries, and Kola has to live with his daughter, who has long been calling him to her. But he wants to have his own corner, and he begins to slowly restore his house - he himself picks a stone in a quarry, he lays walls himself, not disdaining, of course, the help of his neighbors. But one day, having stumbled, he falls from the scaffolding, breaks his leg and is bedridden - "caught by the paw." And now the "old bastard" Cola falls into complete submission to his daughter Martina. And - imperceptibly rules everything in the house.

And at Martina's Baptism, the whole Cola family gathers - the hostess herself, four sons of Brugnon, and numerous grandchildren. And although Cod has neither a stake nor a yard left, he is still rich - he sits at the head of the table, on his head there is a crown - a cake shape, he drinks and is happy. Because "every Frenchman was born a king. Here I am the master, and here is my home."

E. V. Morozova

(l'ame enchantee)

Epic novel (1922-1933)

According to the writer's intention, the novel is "something more than a literary work. It is a living creature, a story about the spiritual world of one woman," covering forty years of her life - from carefree youth to courageous death.

From the first pages of the novel, we see a "strong, fresh girl, filled with the juices of life", strong, blond, with a stubborn convex forehead, who has not yet experienced anything in life and is constantly immersed in her dreams. The position in society and the state of her father allow Annette Riviere to live a free, prosperous life. She studies at the Sorbonne, is smart, independent, self-confident.

From the papers of her recently deceased father, Annette learns that she has a half-sister Silvia, the illegitimate daughter of Raul Riviera and the flower girl Delphine. She finds Sylvia and sincerely becomes attached to her. Sylvie, a grisette, a typical child of working-class Paris, does not fully meet her sister's high moral standards. She is not averse to deceiving Annette, and when she notices that her sister likes a young Italian aristocrat, she beats him off from her without any embarrassment. And yet the common blood unites these two, so unlike women. "They were like two hemispheres of one soul." With any trials prepared for them by fate, they do not lose sight of each other and are always ready to help one another.

Annette proposes to a young lawyer, Roger Brissot. His family is ready to add the possessions of a rich heiress to their lands. Roger is sure that "the true purpose of a woman is at the hearth, her vocation is motherhood." But Annette, “who herself has her own world, who is also the whole world herself,” does not want to become a shadow of her husband and live only in his interests. She asks Roger for freedom for herself and her soul, but runs into a wall of misunderstanding. Annette cannot come to terms with the mediocrity of her chosen one. Truthful in everything, she finds the strength to break off the engagement. But she pities the rejected lover. Unable to control herself, she gives herself to him.

Annette's soul was healed of passion, but a new life is ripening under her heart - she is pregnant. The sister invites her to tell everything to the former groom and oblige him to marry her in order to avoid shame and give the child a father. But Annette is not afraid of human rumors and is ready to become both a father and a mother for the baby. Throughout her pregnancy, she is immersed in dreams and dreams of a sweet life together with a child.

Annette has a son. Reality looks much harsher than dreams. Secular society, friends, girlfriends, who admired her so much before, turned away from her. Unexpectedly for Annette herself, this hurts her painfully. She is not going to put up with the "outcast position." Here little Mark falls ill. Before the child had time to recover, a new misfortune fell upon Annette: she was ruined, the house in Paris and the estate in Burgundy were put under the hammer. The mother and son are forced to move into a small apartment in the house where Sylvia lives. For a meager fee, Annette gives private lessons, running from morning to evening around the city from end to end, while the baby is under the supervision of her sister and her seamstresses. However, Annette likes such a life. She seemed to wake up from a dream, "began to find pleasure in overcoming difficulties, was ready for anything, brave and believed in herself."

Annette meets former university friend Julien Davi. The clumsy, timid Julien reaches out to the strong, strong-willed Annette. She, in turn, responds to the undivided devotion of this sweet man. The young woman does not hide anything from her past life and talks about her illegitimate child. Julien recognizes Annette's directness and nobility, but Catholic and bourgeois prejudices are strong in his soul. Annette does not blame him for this, but resolutely breaks with him.

Annette meets a young doctor, Philip Villars. At first glance, Villard recognizes a kindred spirit in Annette. Her extraordinary mind and stormy temperament delight him. Passion flares up between them, they become lovers. Annette wants to be needed by her beloved, to become his wife and girlfriend, equal to him in everything. But Philip, in his boundless selfishness, sees in Annette only his thing, his slave. He does not mind linking their lives, but at the moment he is engrossed in the controversy that has unfolded around his article on birth control, and is in no hurry to make a decision. Trying to free herself from "the humiliating slavery to which love has doomed her," Annette flees Paris and takes refuge with her sister. When she returns, she refuses to meet with Philip. Three months later, the exhausted Annette is healed of her love fever. "At the end of the night of torment, she gave birth to a new soul."

The first world war begins. Annette, the "obsessed gambler", greets her: "War, peace - all this is life, all this is her game." She is flustered, breathing easily. But the excitement of the first months of the war passes, and Annette's eyes open. She is "on no one's side", all those who suffer, both their own and others, are worthy of her maternal pity.

In search of work, Annette is forced to send her son to a lyceum, and she herself leaves for the province, where she finds a job as a teacher in a college. Here she meets Germain Chavannes, a young bourgeois who returned from the war poisoned by gases. Germain has a friend, the German artist Franz, who is now in a POW camp. Before his death, Germain dreams of receiving at least news from a friend. Touched by the tender friendship of young people, Annette organizes correspondence between them, then arranges for Franz to escape from the camp and transport him to Switzerland, where the dying Germain awaits him. Unbeknownst to herself, Annette becomes attached to the weak-willed, selfish Franz. Franz, shocked by the death of a friend, becomes attached to Annette and literally cannot take a step without her. Having made a painful choice for herself, Annette gives up personal happiness in favor of her son and leaves for Paris.

In Paris, she learns that the man who helped her arrange Franz's escape has been arrested and faces the death penalty. Annette is ready to confess everything and take the blame on herself in order to save him. Friends miraculously manage to avert trouble from her by presenting her act as love folly.

This is what Annette's adventure looks like to everyone, but not to her son. Mark, who is going through a period of youthful formation, feels lonely, abandoned by his mother, but is secretly proud of her, her courage. For a long time he avoided the Questionnaire, was ashamed of her violent manifestations of feelings, her frankness and directness. Now, when he realized what a noble and pure heart his mother has, he longs to talk heart to heart with her. Annette gives Mark freedom of choice by revealing to the young man that his father is the famous lawyer, brilliant speaker and politician Roger Brissot. But Mark, having visited the rally where his father speaks, is disappointed: the speaker's words about "immortal principles, the crusades, the sacrificial altar" are saturated with falsehood. Mark is ashamed of his father and the crowd applauding him. Returning home, he says to Anketa: "You are my father and mother."

Annette is horrified that her dear boy's turn to go to the front is about to come. Mark, like his mother, sees all the abomination of war and despises the false patriots and their sanctimonious heroism. He is ready to say "no" to the war and refuse to go to the front, "Unhappy!<...> We were promised liberation, but a heinous war was imposed, which threw us into the abyss of suffering and death, disgusting and useless! "- shouts Mark. Annette is not able to deceive his trust, she supports him.

The First World War is over. Mark never made it to the front. He studies at the Sorbonne. He is already ashamed to take money and food from his mother, he wants to earn money himself. Together with his friends, the young man is trying to understand what is happening in post-war Europe and choose his position in relation to what is happening.

Annette is already over forty, she has reached the age when they enjoy every day they live: “The world is what it is. Looking with a smile at how her boy is rushing about, she is sure that, despite the bumps and blows pouring on him from all sides, he will "never lay down his arms", will not slide down, will not change the principles of goodness and justice that she laid down she is in him, his mother.

Annette is trying to find at least some work, not disdaining the hardest. The case leads her to the editorial office of the newspaper, which is owned by Timon. This aggressive, rude, tenacious person, before whom the entire editorial staff trembles, notices Annette and makes her his personal secretary. He likes this smart, calm, brisk-tongued woman of "good Gallic sourdough". He trusts her, shares his secrets, consults with her. Annette does not approve of him, but accepts, "as one accepts a spectacle." She believes that "as long as a person remains inwardly truthful and free, not everything is lost for him," even if he is mired in fraud and crime. Thanks to Timon, Annette gets behind the scenes of politics and becomes convinced that "sovereigns, parliaments, ministers ... are nothing more than puppets with gramophone records: they exist for the gallery." There are others behind them. "The main ringers - Deeds and Money". And Timon swims in this sea like a shark with unstoppable energy. Annette directs this energy in the right direction. Her everything. young Soviet Russia is more attractive, and at the suggestion of Annette, Timon counteracts the economic blockade of the USSR. Timon's former partners, sensing where the wind is blowing from, try to remove Annette first, and then Timon himself. The last they succeed - Timon dies.

Mark is seriously ill. His health is undermined by overwork, lack of sleep and malnutrition. Throwing everything, Annette saves her son. Her. Mark's neighbor, a Russian girl, Asya, helps. Through the efforts of both women, Mark is on the mend. Love breaks out between Mark and Asya. Annette accepts Asya as her own daughter. Asya opens her soul to her: in her homeland she had to endure the death of a child, the horrors of civil war, hunger, deprivation. Under the wise maternal gaze of Annette, the girl seems to thaw, blossom.

Asya and Mark have a son. However, their feeling gives a crack: the active, freedom-loving Asya cannot sit within four walls and is torn to freedom. She is more and more interested in the changes that are taking place. in her homeland, Russia. Mark is rushing about in search of work, in search of his goal in life. A break occurs between the spouses, and Asya leaves home. Annette does not blame her daughter-in-law, does not break off relations with her. She feels sorry for both children. She takes her grandson to her place and hopes that someday his prodigal parents will accidentally or deliberately collide at her house and reconcile. She sees that in young, ardent hearts love is glimmering under a layer of ashes.

Annette was right: Asya and Mark are together again. After so many trials that have fallen to their lot, they feel like not only spouses, but also like-minded people. Mark makes a firm decision to "devote himself to a great cause and prepare for great social battles." They organize people in support of the Soviet Union, against the emerging fascism, open a small printing house where they print translations of Marx, Lenin, appeals and pamphlets written by Mark. Annette does not try to pacify the vigorous jumps of her two foals. "With her help, Mark's book publishing house turns into one of the centers of anti-fascist emigrants.

Mark's activity becomes too visible, and he is in danger. Annette decides to go on vacation with the whole family to Switzerland. There, mother and son, more than ever, feel the kinship of souls, complete unity, they are infinitely happy and enjoy each other's company. Leaving little Vanya in the care of friends, Annette, Mark and Asya go to Italy. However, even there, Mark is already known as a fighter for social justice and an anti-fascist, and the police are watching them. The Italian followers of the Duce also do not leave Mark unattended. In Florence, on the day of departure to his homeland, Mark dies, saving a teenage boy from the enraged Nazis. Annette's pain is immeasurable, but she has the strength and courage to take the body of her son and her daughter-in-law, distraught with grief, to France.

After the death of her son, it seems to Annette that "she has nothing left." Her beloved son was her "second self", she put all the best into him. Repeating to herself: “My beloved son is dead, but he is not dead. He is always with me…”, Annette gradually awakens to life. She decides to continue the work of her son and thus preserve the living memory of Mark. "It's not me, it's him walking ... In my body, he, dead, will go further than he would have come alive." Annette speaks at anti-fascist rallies, works in various public organizations of international assistance. And soon, in the eyes of the people, mother and son Riviere merge into one.

However, Annette's strength is no longer the same, her "tired heart" begins to fail. Doctors forbid her to engage in active activities. Asya marries and leaves for America, leaving Vanya in the care of her grandmother. Annette devotes herself to the house and her "chicks": her seriously ill sister, her grandson, young Georges, the daughter of her old friend Julien Davi, the young man Silvio, whose life was saved by Mark. Annette knows what dangers and suffering await those she loves, but she is calm: "If we know that the matter is just, that it should be so, we therefore know that it will be so."

Flying over Rome and scattering anti-fascist leaflets, Silvio dies. Annette realizes that all her children are "destined to accept death in flames with delight,<…> The flame that illuminated it without burning it destroyed the walls and spread like fire into the souls of others. <...> The enchanted soul and the brood of her chicks, like a phoenix, were born for the fire. So glory to the fire, if from their ashes, like from the ashes of a phoenix, a new, more worthy humanity is reborn!" Rejoicing that she joins the voluntary sacrifice of her children, Annette welcomes death. "The cycle of the Enchanted Soul is completed. She was a link in a ladder thrown across the void, at one of the turns. And when the foot ruthlessly rests on it, the step does not give up, along the body, curved like a semicircle of a bow, the Teacher crosses the abyss. All the pain of her life was an angle of deviation in the way that Fate goes forward.

E. B. Morozova

(Le soulier de satin)

Drama (1924)

The action takes place at the end of the XNUMXth or beginning of the XNUMXth century. on four continents, wherever Spain has any possessions or where she is trying to conquer something else, as well as on the sea, that is, the gigantic stage of this voluminous, five hundred pages, play is the whole world, the whole universe. It consists of four "days", that is, of four actions. The drama "The Satin Slipper" was created obviously with an eye on the tradition of Christian mysteries, where stories about saints, martyrs, angels were transferred to the stage. Here, too, there are saints and angels among the characters, and the play is as monumental as the mysteries often were.

All the action of the play is preceded by a scene that performs the function of a prologue. In the middle of the desert ocean, at an equal distance from Europe and America, a fragment of a shipwreck floats with a Spanish missionary monk, a member of the Jesuit order, crucified on a stump from a mast. Jesuit utters a dying monologue, where first. thanks God for all his sufferings, and then asks him to provide an opportunity for his brother Rodrigo de Manacor to experience a great passion, so that he, having gone through all the trials, will eventually come to God.

Apparently, the Almighty condescended to the request of the Jesuit, since by the time the main action of the play began, Rodrigo and Dona Pruesa, the second main character, had long been in love with each other. She is the first of the two to appear on stage. Appears with her stern husband, the royal judge Don Pelago. Don Pelago was a friend of her father, and when he died, he married a girl who remained in Madrid without any support. There is no love between them, and therefore dona Pruesa easily falls in love with Rodrigo, whom she saved from death in the past by leaving him after a shipwreck. However, being a woman of high morals, brought up in the strict rules of the Catholic religion, she strongly resists her desire to cheat on her husband. In order not to succumb to temptation at some point, she leaves her satin slipper in the hands of the sculptural image of the Virgin Mary, so that if she were to point her feet in the direction of vice, her leg would immediately limp. However, despite this peculiar vow, she still tries to reunite with Rodrigo and goes to the latter's family castle, where he heals the wounds received in battle. But beforehand, she notifies Don Pelago of her intention and therefore, once in the castle, she meets not Rodrigo, but her husband. He comes to the castle not to punish her, but in order, knowing her proud nature, to invite her to voluntarily undergo a test: go to Africa and take command of Mogador, a fortress that plays the role of a Spanish outpost on the border with the Mauritanian possessions. This appointment has already been agreed with the king. Don Pelago says goodbye to Pruesa, as it later turns out, forever.

Meanwhile, in Mogador there is already one commandant, Don Escamillo, a man who has long been in love with Pruesa, who has repeatedly offered her to leave her husband and go there, to Africa, to the realm of the fiery element, which is very kind to his rebellious nature. The purpose of Pruesa's appointment to help him is to have her control him, since Don Escamillo has long and not without reason been suspected of having treasonous plans and is even going to convert to Islam. Therefore, the mission of Pruesa is to protect the Spanish possessions from the attacks of the Moors and to keep this potential renegade from treason, and herself from sinful desires.

Thus, Pruesa's passion is directed to a good direction. The same thing happens with Rodrigo de Manacor. Appearing on stage for the first time, he, in a dialogue with a Chinese who performs the functions of a servant under him, says that in order to satisfy his passion for Dona Pruesa, he is ready to crush all obstacles. But since, due to the contradictory behavior of Pruesa, circumstances develop in such a way that his passion still remains unsatisfied, he directs all his Energy to conquer new lands for Spain. And Pruesa is now turning into a "guiding star" for him. Spain at that time was inclined to consider itself the center of the Christian world and extremely successfully carried out its policy of conquest, Striving to take possession of the entire planet, and such superhuman tasks could not fail to tempt absolute-obsessed conquistadors like Rodrigo. The material interests of Spain, expressed in her colonial practices, coincided with her spiritual and ideological interests. Hence the attempt to spread the Christian religion to the whole world as well. Rodrigo personifies in Claudel's eyes the idea of ​​converting the entire Planet to Catholicism. But in order to take possession of the souls of people, it is not enough to subdue them by force of arms. In order for the idea of ​​Christianity to triumph, for the spirit to become stronger than military force, it is necessary, after going through trials, to simplify. This is exactly what happens to Rodrigo. And Pruesa becomes the instrument of its simplification and at the same time its improvement. The king, having learned that turmoil is brewing in the recently conquered America, appoints Rodrigo viceroy of the Spanish overseas territories. Rodrigo shows his obstinate disposition: he demands that Pruesa be returned from Africa. Then he resigns himself, but before going to America, he makes an attempt to see Pruesa, sails to Mogador. However, Pruesa orders him to travel alone. And Rodrigo obeys, despite the pangs of jealousy, realizing that in order to earn the love of Pruesa, he needs to transform his passion into something spiritual. Their mystical marriage must take place in heaven. Unsatisfied human love becomes a means of knowing divine love. Rodrigo begins to understand that true love should not isolate a person from the world, but, on the contrary, should open the gates of the Universe wide before him. Thanks to Pruesa, he gradually realizes his responsibility and the meaning of his mission. Giving up hope of ever possessing the woman he loves physically, he becomes closer to her spiritually.

The action is transferred to Naples, then to Prague, more and more new characters appear, dramatic scenes alternate with buffoonery. Meanwhile, Don Pelago dies, and Pruesa has to marry Escamillo, and at the very moment when the latter's apostasy becomes an accomplished fact, when he secretly converts to Islam, taking the name Oshali. Pruesa was trying to resist his harassment, but he manages to convince and beg her, because, as a true Christian, she must think not only about saving her own soul, but also about saving the soul of her neighbor, in this case the soul of Escamillo. Moreover, the renegade requires her to completely forget Rodrigo, to refuse even a spiritual connection with him. After much hesitation, Pruesa agrees to make this sacrifice as well.

And just at that moment, Rodrigo receives a letter from Pruesa, which a young woman ten years ago, in a moment of despair, entrusted to the sea and in which she asked him for help. Rodrigo equips the ship and sails from America to Africa, anchors in front of Mogador. Escamillo, frightened, thinks that the Spaniards went to war with him, and sends his wife to Rodrigo's ship. He would be ready now to abandon Pruesa, if only the attackers would spare the city. However, having herself gone the path of giving up everything for the sake of spiritual values, Pruesa wants to get such an absolute refusal from Rodrigo. Thus, Rodrigo again, for the umpteenth time, is put to the test. Pruesa encourages him to give up everything fleeting in order to get everything eternal. And Rodrigo again resigns himself to fate - he agrees with the arguments of Pruesa. He releases Pruesa, says goodbye to her now forever, and she entrusts his care to his daughter Maria, who was born to her from Escamillo, but who, however, looks like Rodrigo.

Thus, the simplification of Rodrigo took place. Now he is relinquishing his role as a conqueror. And falls into disfavor with the king. After all, he left America without permission and is not going to return there. Another ten years pass. Doña Pruesa is dead. Rodrigo lost one leg in Japan. Now he sails on an old, inferior ship, making and selling images of saints. Pruesa's daughter hatches plans for the liberation of the Spaniards captured by Arab pirates and held in Africa, and her fiancé John of Austria is sent by the king to fight against the Turks. The king uses rumors that the Invincible Armada allegedly did not die at all, but, on the contrary, defeated the English fleet in order to play a prank on Rodrigo, who is hated by him because of his independent behavior. He even appoints him viceroy of England, as if this country had suddenly become a colony of Spain. And Rodrigo falls for the bait, begins to dream of how he will "expand the world" and establish cosmic harmony in it. However, the king eventually puts the jokes aside and gives Rodrigo into slavery to the first soldier who comes across, and he, in turn, gives way to his junk nun for free. At the end of the play, Rodrigo's behavior, as well as his speeches, become simply ridiculous from the point of view of ordinary common sense. The former conquistador becomes like a jester. Through all these oddities, it is discovered that he is losing contact with the human world. But at the same time, this means that, freeing himself from the stereotypes of human logic, turning essentially into a holy fool, Rodrigo becomes a man of God. He is funny, but he is peaceful. Thus, in the struggle for his soul of earthly forces and heavenly forces, heaven wins. As conceived by Claudel, Rodrigo's fate is an allegory of human fate, developing in accordance with the logic of divine providence, inaccessible to reason.

B. V. Semina

(Cyrano de Bergerac)

Heroic Comedy (1897)

In the theater - a premiere, in the title role - a mediocre actor Montfleury. But the poet and breter, the Gascon Cyrano de Bergerac, forbade this "the most empty of jesters" to appear on stage, and as soon as Cyrano's formidable voice is heard in the back, the actor cowardly runs away from the stage. In compensation for the disrupted performance, Cyrano generously gives his last money to the director of the theater. Wanting to teach Cyrano a lesson, a few dandy nobles start playing tricks on Cyrano. The object of ridicule is the nose of the Gascon - Cyrano, not shining with beauty, is the owner of a huge nose. But Cyrano responds to their pitiful witticisms with a brilliant monologue about noses, then slaps one impudent man and challenges another to a duel. Like a true poet, he fights, at the same time reciting a poem about his duel, and in front of admiring spectators he hits the enemy "at the end of the package."

The public disperses. Cyrano is sad - he is in love with his cousin, the witty beauty Roxana, but, knowing how ugly he is, Cyrano does not even think about reciprocity. Roxana's chaperone suddenly appears. She conveys to Cyrano the desire of her mistress to meet him tomorrow. Crazy hope flares up in Cyrano's heart. He makes an appointment at the confectionery of Ragno's muses fan.

The eternally drunk poet Linier runs in and reports that "on the way to the house" a hundred hired killers lie in wait for him. Drawing his sword, Cyrano goes to see him off.

Cyrano comes to Ragno, a confectioner who loves poets. Ragno asks him about yesterday's battle: all of Paris only talks about the valor of Cyrano, who fought with a whole gang of assassins and dispersed them. But Cyrano is not inclined to talk about himself: in anticipation of Roxana, he writes her a letter - a declaration of love.

Roxanne arrives. She tells her cousin that she fell in love with the handsome Christian de Neuvillet. Shocked, Cyrano timidly tries to hint that her chosen one may turn out to be "sillier than a ram", but Roxana does not believe him. Christian was assigned to the regiment of the Gascon Guards, where Cyrano serves. “I was terribly scared yesterday with stories about how cruel your Gascon squad is to newcomers ...” she says, and asks Cyrano to become Christian's patron. Cyrano agrees.

Guards are gathering; they demand Cyrano's account of yesterday's battle. Cyrano starts, but some handsome newcomer constantly inserts the word "nose" into his story, which is forbidden to pronounce in the regiment. The guardsmen, knowing Cyrano's fiery temper, whisper: "He'll cut him to pieces!"

Cyrano demands to be left alone. As everyone exits, he hugs a surprised Christian. Upon learning that Cyrano is Roxanne's cousin, Christian begs to forgive him for all the "noses" and confesses that he loves his cousin. Cyrano reports that Christian's feelings resonated in the girl's heart and she is waiting for a letter from him. Roxana's request frightens Christian: he is one of those "whose speeches are not able" in girls "to excite love, touch their dreams." Cyrano invites Christian to become his mind and for a start gives him a letter written by him to Roxana, but not yet signed, Christian agrees and puts his name. The guardsmen who entered, expecting to see minced meat from Christian, are incredibly surprised to find the opponents talking peacefully. Deciding that "the demon has become more humble than a lamb", one of them says the word "nose" and immediately receives a slap from Cyrano.

With Cyrano's letters, Christian wins the love of the capricious Roxanne. She gives him a date night. Standing under the balcony, Christian babbles something unintelligible, and Roxanne is ready to leave. Cyrano comes to the aid of the handsome man in love. Hidden among the foliage, he whispers intoxicating words of love, loudly repeated by Christian. Bewitched by Cyrano's poems, Roxana agrees to give her lover a kiss.

Roxanne's love is also sought by the powerful Comte de Guiche, commander of the regiment where Cyrano and Christian serve. De Guiche sends a Capuchin to Roxanne with a letter asking her to see her before leaving for the war. Roxanne, reading the letter, changes its content and convinces the monk that it contains an order to marry her to Christian de Neuvillet. While the holy father is performing the marriage ceremony, Cyrano, wearing a mask, plays a madman to detain de Guiche. Finally, the procedure is completed, and the tired Cyrano discards the no longer needed mask. Convinced that he was deceived, the enraged de Guiche orders Cyrano and Christian to immediately go to the barracks: at dawn the regiment sets out on a campaign. "They are quite far from their wedding night! .." he adds mockingly, looking at Christian, who has embraced Roxana.

Advanced. The regiment of Gascon guards is surrounded on all sides by the enemy. The soldiers are starving. Cyrano does his best to keep them cheerful. He himself, without the knowledge of Christian, makes his way through enemy posts every morning to send another letter to Roxana: Christian promised to write to her every day ...

Unexpectedly, Roxana arrives at the camp; the words "I'm going to a friend of the heart!" served as her password, and the enemy let her carriage through. Embracing the astonished Christian, Roxana admits that his "wonderful letters" transformed her, and if at first "in her frivolity" she fell in love with him for his beauty, now she is "carried away" by "invisible beauty": "I would remain true to my love, if only, with a wave of some sorceress's wand, all your beauty has disappeared!.." Christian is horrified: Roxanne's confession means that she loves not him, but Cyrano. Christian reveals everything to Cyrano and is about to confess to Roxana of his deceit. Before Cyrano again flashes the ghost of happiness. But an enemy bullet strikes Christian, and he dies in Roxanne's arms, without having time to tell her anything. On his chest, Roxana finds a farewell letter written on Christian's behalf by a desperate Cyrano. Roxana's grief is boundless, and the noble Cyrano decides to keep Christian's secret.

Ten years have passed. Roxana lives in a convent and wears mourning. Once a week, always at the same time, Cyrano visits her - tells her the latest news. The poet is poor, he made many enemies for himself, and then one day "a terrible log suddenly fell from the window and smashed the head of Cyrano, who happened to be passing there." The misfortune happens on the day Cyrano usually visits Roxanne.

Roxana is surprised - Cyrano is late for the first time. Finally, the deathly pale de Bergerac appears. After listening to his cousin's playful reproaches, he asks her to let him read Christian's farewell letter. Forgetting himself, he begins to read it aloud. Roxana looks at Cyrano in amazement: it's completely dark outside... Then she finally understands what role Cyrano has been voluntarily playing for ten years now... "So why did you suddenly decide to break the secret of your seal today?" she asks in desperation. Cyrano takes off his hat: his head is tied. "On Saturday, the sixteenth day of September, the poet de Bergerac is killed by the hand of a villain," he says in a mocking tone. "Oh, God! I have loved one all my life, and now I am losing this dear creature for the second time!" - Roxana exclaims, wringing her hands. Cyrano, drawing his sword, begins to strike at invisible enemies - lies, meanness, slander and dies with a sword in his hand.

E. V. Morozova

(Faux-Monnayeurs)

Roman (1926)

Location - Paris and the Swiss village of Saas-Fee. The time is deliberately not specified. In the center of the story are three families - Profitandier, Molyneux and Azais-Vedel. They are closely associated with the old music teacher Laleruz, as well as two writers - Count Robert de Passavant and Edouard. The latter keeps a diary, where he enters his observations and analyzes them from the point of view of the future novel, already called "The Counterfeiters". In addition, the voice of the author himself invades the text, commenting on the actions of his characters.

Seventeen-year-old Bernard Profitandier leaves home after learning of his illicit parentage. He is convinced that he always hated the man he considered his father. However, the magistrate Profitandie loves Bernard much more than his own sons - the lawyer Charles and the schoolboy Kalou. Both lack the unbridled strength of character that distinguishes Bernard.

Olivier Molyneux also admires the determination of a friend. Gentle Olivier needs spiritual support: he is deeply attached to Bernard and is looking forward to the return of his uncle Edward from England - the only person in the family with whom you can talk heart to heart. On the eve of Olivier, he became an unwitting witness to a terrible scene: at night a woman sobbed under the door - apparently, it was the mistress of his older brother Vincent.

Vincent entered into an affair with Laura Duvier in a tuberculosis sanatorium, when both of them believed that they did not have long to live. Laura is pregnant, but does not want to return to her husband. Vincent can't support her because he's lost all his money on cards. He was attracted to the game by the Comte de Passavant, who has his own secret reasons. Robert gives Vincent the opportunity to recoup and gives him his own mistress - Lady Lillian Griffith. Vincent is smart, handsome, but completely devoid of social gloss, and Lillian gladly takes on his upbringing. In return, Robert asks for a small favor: Vincent should set him up with his younger brother Olivier.

On the train, Edouard looks with annoyance at Passavant's recently published book - as brilliant and false as Robert himself. Eduard rereads the letter in which Laura pleads for help, and then enters in his diary thoughts about the novel: in the age of cinema, action should be abandoned.

The long-awaited meeting with his uncle does not bring joy to Olivier: both behave constrainedly and cannot express their overflowing happiness. Eduard's lost baggage check is picked up by Bernard. The suitcase contains a diary with entries from a year ago. Edward then caught the youngest of the Molyneux brothers, Georges, by the hand stealing. The nephews study at the boarding school of pastor Azais. - grandfather of Laura, Rachel, Sarah and Armand Wedel. Laura endlessly returns to the past - to the days when she and Eduard wrote their names on the windowsill. Raschel actually abandoned her personal life and pulls the entire household. Young Sarah frankly tries to seduce Olivier - it is not for nothing that the cynical Armand calls his sister a prostitute. Something is wrong in a devout Protestant family, which is why Laura should marry an honest, albeit close-minded, Duvier - after all, Edward himself is not able to make her happy. Old Azais praises Georges very much: cute kids have organized something like a secret society, where only the worthy are accepted - the yellow ribbon in the buttonhole serves as a distinction. Edward has no doubt that the cunning boy deftly tricked the pastor. It is just as painful to watch La Perouse. The former music teacher is deeply unhappy: he has almost no students left, his once beloved wife causes irritation, his only son has died. The old man broke off relations with him because of his affair with a Russian musician. They went to Poland, but never got married. Grandson Boris does not suspect the existence of his grandfather. This boy is Laleruz's dearest being.

Comparing Olivier's story with Edward's diary, Bernard guesses that Laura was sobbing under Vincent's door. The letter contains the address of the hotel, and Bernard immediately goes there. Circumstances favor the young adventurer: both Laura and Eduard like his impudent self-confidence. Bernard receives the post of secretary under Edward. Together with Laura, they go to Saas-Fee: according to La Perouse, Boris spends his holidays here. Meanwhile, Olivier meets Passavant, who invites him to become the editor of the Argonauts magazine. In a letter from Switzerland, Bernard tells Olivier about meeting his uncle, confesses his love for Laura and explains the purpose of their arrival: for some reason, Eduard needed a thirteen-year-old boy who is under the care of a Polish female doctor and is very friendly with her daughter Armor. Boris suffers from some kind of nervous illness. The author notes that Bernard did not foresee what a storm of low feelings his letter would cause in the soul of a friend. Olivier feels cruel jealousy. At night he is visited by demons, In the morning he goes to the Comte de Passavan.

Eduard enters the doctor's observation in his diary: Sofronitskaya is sure that Boris is hiding some shameful secret. Eduard, unexpectedly for himself, tells his friends the idea of ​​the novel "The Counterfeiters". Bernard advises to start the book with a counterfeit coin that was slipped to him in a shop. Sofronitskaya shows Boris' "talisman": it is a piece of paper with the words "Gas. Telephone. One hundred thousand rubles." It turns out that at the age of nine, a school friend introduced him to a bad habit - naive children called it "magic". It seems to Edward that the doctor's wife has unscrewed all the wheels of the boy's mental mechanism. Boris cannot live without chimeras - perhaps staying at the Azaisa boarding house will do him good. A letter comes from Olivier, where he tells in enthusiastic tones about a trip to Italy in the company of Robert. The author notes with concern that Eduard is making a clear mistake - after all, he knows how poisoned the atmosphere in the house of the Azais - Vedels. It looks like Edward lies to himself, and the devil whispers his advice. It is a pity that, by the whim of fate, Bernard took the place intended for Olivier. Edward loves his nephew, and Passavan will spoil this fragile youth. But Bernard, under the influence of love for Laura, is clearly changing for the better.

Returning to Paris, Eduard introduces Boris to his grandfather. Molyneux Sr. tells Edward about his troubles: he started a small affair on the side, and his wife, apparently, found love letters. Olivier's friendship with Bernard also worries him: the investigator Profitandie is investigating a den of debauchery where schoolchildren are lured, and nothing good can be expected from Bernard, because he is illegitimate.

Eduard arranges for Bernard to be a teacher at the Azais boarding house. Old man La Perouse also moves there to be closer to Boris. The boy was immediately disliked by the liveliest of the students, Leon Geridanisol, the nephew of Victor Struvila, who was once expelled from the boarding school, and is now selling counterfeit coins. Gehry's company includes Georges Molyneux and several other schoolchildren - all of them were regulars of that very "den of debauchery" that the prosecutor Molyneux spoke about to Edouard. After a police raid, the boys have to remove the yellow ribbons from their buttonholes, but Leon is already ready to offer them an interesting new business. Polina Molyneux shares her suspicions with her brother: money began to disappear in the house, and recently letters from her mistress to her husband disappeared - Polina herself found them a long time ago, and it never occurred to her to be jealous, but it would be extremely unpleasant if Georges finds out about this. Her younger son is extremely worried about her - after all, Vincent is already an adult, and Olivier can rely on Edward's love. Meanwhile, Olivier suffers: he needs Bernard and Edouard, and he is forced to deal with Pass-savan. At a banquet about the release of "Argonauts", a deadly drunk Olivier makes a scandal, and the next morning he tries to commit suicide. Edward saves him, and harmony reigns in their relationship. Passavan convinces himself that he overestimated the beauty and abilities of Olivier - the rogue Struvilu will do much better with the duties of the editor of the magazine.

Investigator Profitandie unexpectedly visits Edward and asks him to warn prosecutor Molyneux in a kindred way: his son Georges was involved in a scandalous story with prostitutes, and now he has become involved in a scam with counterfeit coins. After painful hesitation, Profitandier starts talking about Bernard - Edouard is convinced that this strong, self-confident man is most eager to return his son's love. And Bernard passes the bachelor's exam with brilliance. He so wants to share his joy that he can hardly suppress the desire to go to his father. An angel appears to him in the Luxembourg Gardens. Bernard follows him first to the church, then to a meeting of members of different parties, then to the big boulevards filled with an idle indifferent crowd, and finally to the poor quarters where diseases, hunger, shame, crime, prostitution reign. After listening to Bernard's story about the night fight with the angel, Edward informs him about the visit of Profitandier Sr.

Meanwhile, disaster is brewing at the boarding house. Children poison old La Perouse, and a company led by Gehry steals a revolver from him. Struvilu has his sights set on these schoolchildren: counterfeit coins are being scavenged, and Georges Molyneux has got hold of his father's love letters. Sofronitskaya informs Boris about the death of Armor - from now on the whole world seems to the boy a desert. At Struvil's instigation, Leon throws a piece of paper on his desk with the words "Gas. Telephone. One hundred thousand rubles." Boris, who has already forgotten about his "magic", cannot resist the temptation. Deeply contemptuous of himself, he agrees to be tested for the title of "strong man" and shoots himself during the lesson - only Leon knew that the revolver was loaded. On the last pages of the diary, Edward describes the consequences of this suicide - the dissolution of the Azais boarding house and the deep shock of Georges, who was forever cured of his admiration for Geridanizol. Olivier informs Edward that Bernard has returned to his father. Investigator Profitandier invites the Molyneux family to dinner. Eduard wants to get to know little Kalu better.

E. D. Murashkintseva

(A la recherche du temps perdu)

Cycle of novels (1913-1927)

Time slips away into the brief moment between sleep and awakening. For a few seconds, the narrator Marcel seems to have turned into what he read about the day before. The mind struggles to locate the bedroom. Could it be that this is grandfather's house in Combray, and Marcel fell asleep without waiting for his mother to come to say goodbye to him? Or is it Madame de Saint-Au's estate in Tansonville? So Marcel slept too long after a day's walk: the eleventh hour - everyone had supper! Then habit comes into its own and with skillful slowness begins to fill the habitable space. But the memory has already awakened: this night Marcelune will fall asleep - he will remember Combray, Balbec, Paris, Doncieres and Venice.

In Combray, little Marseille was sent to bed right after supper, And mother came in for a minute to kiss him goodnight. But when the guests came, my mother did not go up to the bedroom. Usually Charles Swann, the son of a grandfather's friend, came to see them. Marcel's relatives had no idea that the "young" Swann was leading a brilliant social life, because his father was just a stockbroker. The inhabitants of that time did not differ too much from the Hindus in their views: everyone had to rotate in their own circle, and the transition to a higher caste was even considered indecent. It was only by chance that Marseille's grandmother learned about Swann's aristocratic acquaintances from a boarding house friend, the Marquise de Villeparisi, with whom she did not want to maintain friendly relations because of her firm belief in the good inviolability of castes.

After an unsuccessful marriage to a woman from bad society, Swann visited Combray less and less, but each of his visits was torment for the boy, for his mother's farewell kiss had to be taken with him from the dining room to the bedroom. The greatest event in Marcel's life came when he was sent to bed even earlier than usual. He did not have time to say goodbye to his mother and tried to call her with a note sent through the cook Francoise, but this maneuver failed. Deciding to achieve a kiss at all costs, Marcel waited for Swann to leave and went out in his nightgown to the stairs. This was an unheard-of violation of the established order, but the father, who was irritated by "sentiment", suddenly understood the state of his son. Mom spent the whole night in the sobbing Marcel's room. When the boy calmed down a little, she began to read to him a novel by George Sand, lovingly chosen for his grandson by his grandmother. This victory turned out to be bitter: mother seemed to have renounced her beneficial firmness.

For a long time, Marcel, waking up at night, recalled the past in fragments: he saw only the scenery of his going to bed - the stairs, which were so hard to climb, and the bedroom with a glass door into the corridor, from where his mother appeared. In fact, the rest of Combray died for him, because no matter how the desire to resurrect the past increases, it always escapes. But when Marcel tasted the biscuit soaked in linden tea, the flowers in the garden suddenly floated out of the cup, the hawthorn in the park of Swann, the water lilies of Vivona, the good inhabitants of Combray and the bell tower of the church of St. Hilary.

Marcel was treated to this biscuit by Aunt Léonie when the family spent their Easter and summer holidays in Combray. Auntie told herself that she was terminally ill: after the death of her husband, she did not get up from the bed that stood by the window. Her favorite pastime was to follow passers-by and discuss the events of local life with the cook Françoise, a woman of the kindest soul, who at the same time knew how to calmly turn a chicken's neck and survive an objectionable dishwasher out of the house.

Marseille loved summer walks around Combray. The family had two favorite routes: one was called "the direction to Mezeglise" (or "to Swann", since the road passed by his estate), and the second - "the direction of the Guermantes", descendants of the famous Genevieve of Brabant. Childhood impressions remained in the soul forever: many times Marcel was convinced that only those people and those objects that he encountered in Combray truly pleased him. The direction to Mezeglise with its lilacs, hawthorn and cornflowers, the direction to Guermantes with the river, water lilies and buttercups created an eternal image of the country of fabulous bliss. Undoubtedly, this was the cause of many mistakes and disappointments: sometimes Marcel dreamed of meeting someone just because this person reminded him of a flowering hawthorn bush in the park of Svan.

Marcel's whole later life was connected with what he learned or saw in Combray. Communication with the engineer Legrandin gave the boy the first concept of snobbery: this pleasant, amiable man did not want to greet Marseille's relatives in public, since he became related to aristocrats. The music teacher Vinteuil stopped visiting the house so as not to meet Swann, whom he despised for marrying a cocotte. Vinteuil doted on his only daughter. When a friend came to this somewhat masculine-looking girl, Combray was openly talked about their strange relationship. Vinteuil suffered unspeakably - perhaps the bad reputation of his daughter brought him to the grave ahead of time. In the autumn of that year, when Aunt Leonie finally died, Marcel witnessed a disgusting scene in Montjuvin: Mademoiselle Vengeil's friend spat on a photograph of the deceased musician. The year was marked by another important event:

Françoise, at first angry with the "heartlessness" of Marseille's relatives, agreed to go to their service.

Of all the schoolmates, Marcel gave preference to Blok, who was welcomed cordially in the house, despite the obvious pretentiousness of manners. True, grandfather chuckled at his grandson's sympathy for the Jews. Blok recommended Marcel to read Bergott, and this writer made such an impression on the boy that his cherished dream was to get to know him. When Swann said that Bergott was friendly with his daughter, Marcel's heart sank - only an extraordinary girl could deserve such happiness. At the first meeting in the Tansonville park, Gilberte looked at Marcel with an unseeing look - obviously, this was a completely inaccessible creature. The boy's relatives paid attention only to the fact that Madame Swann, in the absence of her husband, shamelessly receives the Baron de Charlus.

But Marseille experienced the greatest shock in the church of Combray on the day when the Duchess de Guermantes deigned to attend the service. Outwardly, this lady with a big nose and blue eyes almost did not differ from other women, but she was surrounded by a mythical halo - one of the legendary Guermantes appeared before Marseille. Passionately in love with the duchess, the boy pondered how to win her favor. It was then that dreams of a literary career were born.

Only many years after his separation from Combray, Marcel found out about Swann's love. Odette de Crecy was the only woman in the Verdurin salon, where only the "faithful" were accepted - those who considered Dr. Cotard the beacon of wisdom and admired the pianist's playing, who was currently patronized by Madame Verdurin. The artist, nicknamed "Maestro Bish", was supposed to be pitied for his rough and vulgar style of writing. Swann was considered an inveterate heartthrob, but Odette was not at all to his taste. However, he was pleased to think that she was in love with him. Odette introduced him to the "clan" of the Verdurins, and gradually he got used to seeing her every day. Once he thought it looked like a painting by Botticelli, and with the sounds of Vinteuil's sonata, real passion flared up. Having abandoned his previous studies (in particular, an essay on Vermeer), Swann ceased to be in the world - now Odette absorbed all his thoughts. The first intimacy came after he straightened the orchid on her bodice - from that moment they had the expression "orchid". The tuning fork of their love was the marvelous musical phrase of Vinteuil, which, according to Swann, could not have belonged to the "old fool" from Combray. Swann soon became madly jealous of Odette. The Comte de Forcheville, who was in love with her, mentioned Swann's aristocratic acquaintances, and this overwhelmed the patience of Madame Verdurin, who always suspected that Swann was ready to "pull" out of her salon. After his "disgrace" Swann lost the opportunity to see Odette at the Verdurins. He was more jealous of all men and calmed down only when she was in the company of the Baron de Charlus. Hearing Vinteuil's sonata again, Swann could hardly restrain a cry of pain: he could not return to that wonderful time when Odette loved him madly. The obsession passed gradually. The beautiful face of the Marquise de Govozho, nee Legrandin, reminded Swann of the saving Combray, and he suddenly saw Odette as she is - not like a Botticelli painting. How could it happen that he wasted several years of his life on a woman who, in fact, he did not even like?

Marseille would never have gone to Balbec if Swann had not praised the "Persian" style church there. And in Paris, Swann became the "father of Gilberte" for the boy. Françoise took her pet for a walk to the Champs Elysees, where a girl's "flock" played, led by Gilberte. Marcel was accepted into the company, and he fell in love with Gilberte even more. He was fascinated by the beauty of Mrs. Swann, and the rumors about her aroused curiosity. Once this woman was called Odette de Crecy.

Marcel remembered the first family dinner with the Marquis de Norpois for a long time. It was this rich aristocrat who persuaded his parents to let the boy go to the theater. The marquis approved of Marseille's intention to devote himself to literature, but criticized his first drafts, and called Bergotte a "flutist" for his excessive passion for the beauties of style. The visit to the theater turned out to be a huge disappointment. It seemed to Marcel that the great Berma added nothing to the perfection of the Phaedra - only later did he appreciate the noble restraint of her game.

Dr. Kotar was close to the Svans - he introduced his young patient to them. From the caustic remarks of the Marquis de Norpois, it is clear to Marcel that the current Swann is strikingly different from the former, who delicately kept silent about his high society connections, not wanting to embarrass his bourgeois neighbors. Now Swann turned into "Odette's husband" and boasted at all crossroads of his wife's success. Apparently, he made another attempt to conquer the aristocratic Faubourg Saint-Germain for the sake of Odette, once excluded from polite society. But Swann's most cherished dream was to introduce his wife and daughter into the salon of the Duchess de Guermantes.

At the Svans, Marcel finally saw Bergot. The great old man of his childhood dreams appeared in the form of a squat man with a crustacean nose. Marcel was so shocked that he almost fell out of love with Bergotte's books - they fell in his eyes along with the value of the Beautiful and the value of life. Only with time Marcel realized how difficult it is to recognize genius (or even just talent) and what a huge role public opinion plays here: for example, Marcel's parents at first did not heed the advice of Dr. and a stupid person is a great clinician. When Bergott praised Marcel's abilities, his mother and father were immediately imbued with respect for the insight of the old writer, although they had previously given unconditional preference to the judgments of the Marquis de Norpois,

Love for Gilberte brought Marseille continuous suffering. At some point, the girl began to be clearly burdened by his company, and he undertook a roundabout maneuver in order to re-awaken interest in himself - he began to visit Svans only in those hours when she was not at home. Odette played him a sonata by Vinteuil, and in this divine music he guessed the secret of love - an incomprehensible and unrequited feeling. Unable to stand it, Marcel decided to see Gilberte again, but she appeared accompanied by a "young man" - much later it turned out that it was a girl, Marcel, tormented by jealousy, managed to convince himself that he had fallen out of love with Gilberte. He himself had already gained experience in communicating with women thanks to Blok, who took him to a "fun house". One of the prostitutes was distinguished by a pronounced Jewish appearance: the hostess immediately christened her Rachel, and Marcel gave her the nickname "Rachel, you have been given to me" - for an amazing tractability even for a brothel.

Two years later Marcel came with his grandmother to Balbec. He was already completely indifferent to Gilberte and felt as if he had been cured of a serious illness. There was nothing "Persian" in the church, and he experienced the collapse of another illusion. But at the Grand Hotel, many surprises awaited him. The Normandy coast was a favorite vacation spot for aristocrats: the grandmother met the Marquise de Villeparisi here and, after long hesitation, introduced her grandson to her. Thus. Marcel was admitted to the "higher spheres" and soon met the great-nephew of the Marquise - Robert de Saint-Loup. The young and handsome officer at first unpleasantly struck Marcel with his arrogance. Then it turned out that he had a gentle and trusting soul - Marcel was once again convinced how deceptive the first impression can be. Young people swore to each other in eternal friendship. Most of all, Robert valued the joys of intellectual communication: there was not a drop of snobbery in him, although he belonged to the Guermantes family. He was unspeakably tormented by separation from his mistress. He spent all the money on his Parisian actress, and she told him to leave for a while - he annoyed her so much. Meanwhile, Robert enjoyed great success with women: however, he himself said that in this respect he was far from his uncle, Baron Palamede de Charlus, with whom Marcel was yet to meet. At first, the young man mistook the baron for a thief or a madman, for he looked at him with a very strange, piercing and at the same time elusive look. De Charlus showed great interest in Marseille and honored even his grandmother, who was preoccupied with only one thing - the poor health and sickness of her grandson.

Never before had Marcel felt such tenderness for his grandmother. Only once did she disappoint him: Saint-Au offered to take a photo for memory, and Marcel noted with irritation the vain desire of the old woman to look better. Many years later, he will realize that his grandmother already had a premonition of her death. A person is not given to know even the closest people.

On the beach, Marseille saw a company of dazzlingly young girls who looked like a flock of cheerful seagulls. One of them jumped over the frightened old banker with a running start. At first, Marcel almost did not distinguish between them: they all seemed to him beautiful, bold, cruel. A plump-cheeked girl in a bicycle cap pulled down over her eyebrows suddenly looked askance at him - did she somehow single him out from the vast universe? He began to wonder what they were doing. Judging by their behavior, they were spoiled girls, which inspired hope for intimacy - you just had to decide which one to choose. At the Grand Hotel, Marcel heard a name that struck him - Albertina Simone. That was the name of one of Gilberte Swan's school friends.

Saint-Loup and Marcel frequented the trendy restaurant in Rivbel.

Once they saw the artist Elstir in the hall, about whom Swan was talking. Elstir was already famous, although the real glory came to him later. He invited Marcel to his place, and with great reluctance he yielded to his grandmother's requests to pay a debt of courtesy, for his thoughts were hushed up by Albertina Simone. It turned out that the artist knows the girls from the beach company very well - they were all from very decent and wealthy families. Marseille, struck by this news, almost lost interest in them. Another discovery awaited him: in the studio he saw a portrait of Odette de Crecy and immediately remembered Swann's stories - Elstir was a frequent guest of the Verdurin salon, where he was called "Maestro Bish", the Artist easily admitted this and added that he wasted several years in the world life.

Elstir arranged a "reception with tea?", and Marcel finally met Albertina Simone. He was disappointed, for he hardly recognized the cheerful, full-cheeked girl in the bicycle cap. Albertine looked too much like other young beauties. But Marcel was even more struck by the shy, delicate Andre, whom he considered the most impudent and decisive of the whole "flock" - after all, it was she who scared the old man half to death on the beach.

Marcel liked both girls. For some time he hesitated between them, not knowing which was dearer to him, but one day Albertina threw him a note with a declaration of love, and this decided the matter. He even imagined that he had obtained consent to intimacy, but his very first attempt ended in failure: Marcel, who had lost his head, came to his senses when Albertine began to violently pull the bell cord. The stunned girl told him later that none of the boys she knew had ever allowed themselves anything like that.

Summer is over, and the sad time of departure has come. Albertine was among the first to leave. And in the memory of Marcel forever remained a flock of young girls on a sandy strip of beach.

Marcel's family Moved to the wing of the Guermantes Mansion. Childhood dreams seemed to come to life, but never before had the border between the Faubourg Saint-Germain and the rest of the world seemed so insurmountable to a young man. Marcel tried to attract the attention of the Duchess, lying in wait for her every exit from the house. Françoise also showed great interest in the "lower ones," as she called the owners of the house, and often talked about them with her neighbor, the waistcoat Jupien. In Paris, Marcel came to the conclusion that snobbery is an essential feature of human nature: at all times people yearn to get closer to "the powers that be", and sometimes this desire turns into a mania.

Marcel's dreams came true when he received an invitation from the Marquise de Villeparisis. The magic circle of the Germantes opened before him. In anticipation of this important event, Marseille decided to visit Robert de Saint-Loup, whose regiment was quartered in Donsieres.

Saint-Loup was still consumed by his passion for his actress. This woman moved in intellectual circles: under her influence, Robert became a fierce defender of Dreyfus, while other officers mostly accused the "traitor".

For Marseille, his stay in Donsieres proved beneficial. Exhausted by his unrequited love for the Duchess de Guermantes, he found a card of "Aunt Oriana" on Robert's desk and began to beg his friend to put in a good word for him. Robert agreed without further ado - however, the nephew's ardent recommendation did not make any impression on the duchess. And Marcel experienced one of the greatest shocks of his life when Robert finally introduced his mistress to him. It was Rachel, "Rachel, you have been given to me," whom Marcel did not even consider a person. In the brothel she gave herself for only twenty francs, and now Saint-Loup threw her thousands for the right to be tormented and deceived. Like Swann, Saint-Loup was unable to understand the true nature of Rachel and suffered severely because of a woman who stood far below him both in development and in position in society.

At the reception at the Marquise de Villeparisi, the main topic of conversation was the Dreyfus affair, which split the country into two camps. Marcel saw in him another confirmation of the fluidity and variability of human nature. Mrs. Swann turned into an ardent anti-Dreyfusard when she realized that this was the best way to get into the Faubourg Saint-Germain. And Robert de Saint-Loup announced to Marcel that he did not want to get acquainted with Odette, since this slut is trying to pass off her Jewish husband as a nationalist. But the most original approach was demonstrated by Baron de Charlus: since no Jew can become a Frenchman, Dreyfus cannot be accused of treason - he just violated the laws of hospitality. Marcel noted with interest that the servants were imbued with the views of their masters: thus, his own butler was a mountain behind Dreyfus, while Guermantes' butler was anti-Dreyfusard.

Upon returning home, Marcel found out that his grandmother was very ill. Bergott recommended consulting a well-known neuropathologist, who convinced his relatives that the grandmother's illness was caused by self-hypnosis. Mom very opportunely remembered Aunt Leonia, and grandmother was ordered to walk more. On the Champs Elysees, she had a slight blow - it seemed to Marcel that she was fighting off an invisible angel. She was correctly diagnosed by Professor E. - it was a hopeless stage of uremia.

Grandmother was dying painfully: convulsed, suffocated, suffered from unbearable pain. They gave her morphine and oxygen, made cauterization, put leeches and brought her to the point that she tried to jump out of the window. Marcel suffered from his impotence, while life went on: relatives were talking about the weather, Françoise took measurements for a mourning dress in advance, and Saint-Loup chose this moment to send an angry letter to his friend, clearly inspired by Rachel. Only Bergott, who himself was seriously ill, spent long hours in the house, trying to console Marcel. The dead face of the grandmother, as if transformed by the chisel of the sculptor-death, struck Marcel - it was young, like a girl's.

The Duke of Guermantes expressed condolences to Marseille's family, and soon the young man received a long-awaited invitation to the house of his idols. Meanwhile, Robert de Saint-Loup finally broke with Rachel and made peace with a friend. Albertine re-entered Marcel's life, much changed and matured after Balbec. From now on, one could hope for bodily intimacy, which brought Marcel untold pleasure - he seemed to be freed from all his anxieties.

Undoubtedly, the Guermantes were a very special breed of people, and now Marcel could take a closer look at them, highlighting the features inherent in each. The duke constantly cheated on his wife: in fact, he loved only one type of female beauty and was in an eternal search for an ideal. The duchess was famous for her wit and arrogance. But the most mysterious of all was the duke's brother, the Baron de Charlus. Already at a reception at the Marquise de Villeparisi, he invited the young man to his place, but this was opposed by the extremely alarmed mistress of the house. At the request of Saint-Loup, Marcel nevertheless went to the baron, who suddenly attacked him, accusing him of deceit and neglect. Enraged, Marcel, not daring to raise his hand against a man older than himself, grabbed a top hat lying on a chair and began to tear it, and then trampled it under his feet. De Charlus suddenly calmed down, and the incident was over.

Two months later, Marseille received an invitation from the Princess of Guermantes and at first thought it was a cruel joke - the salon of the beautiful princess was the pinnacle of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Marcel tried to question the duke, but he brushed off his request, not wanting to get into an awkward position. At the Duke's, Marcel met Swann, who looked quite ill. To an invitation to go to Italy, he replied that he would not live to see the summer. The duke, who was going to a costume ball, was extremely annoyed by Swann's "tactlessness" - at the moment he was only worried that the duchess was wearing red shoes with a black dress.

Marcel revealed the secret to de Charlus, becoming an unwitting witness to a love pantomime. At the sight of Jupien, the arrogant aristocrat suddenly wagged his back and began to make eyes, and the waistcoat pulled himself up valiantly and reached out to the baron, like an orchid to a bumblebee that suddenly swooped in. Both instantly recognized each other, although they had never met before. The veil fell from Marcel's eyes: all the oddities of de Charlus were immediately explained. It is no coincidence that the baron liked to compare himself with the caliph from Arab fairy tales, who walked around Baghdad in the clothes of a street vendor: the inhabitant of Sodom lives in a world where the most fantastic connections become a reality - a homosexual is able to leave the duchess for the sake of an inveterate swindler.

Marcel met Professor E. at Princess Hermant-Bavaria. Having learned about the death of his grandmother, he was delighted - his diagnosis was correct. Marseille followed with interest the maneuvers of the Baron de Charlus, who zealously courted women, but followed with a penetrating glance all handsome young men. The guests enthusiastically discussed the news of the day: the prince, known for his anti-Semitism, immediately drew Swann into the garden with the obvious intention of giving up the house. Marseille was struck by the cowardice of high society ladies; the Duchess de Guermantes felt sorry for "dear Charles", but was afraid even to say hello to him. And the duke blamed Swann for ingratitude: his friend should not have become a Dreyfusard. The rumors turned out to be exaggerated; the prince preferred to defend Dreyfus alone with Swann, for he did not dare to do so openly. When Svan reappeared. Marcel guessed imminent death on his face, eaten away by illness.

Relations with Albertina entered a new stage - Marcel began to suspect that she was leading some other life hidden from him. He decided to resort to an already tested technique and part with the girl for a while. Madame Verdurin had so strengthened her position in society that she could afford to rent for the summer the castle of the Marquise de Govozho (La Raspellier), located next to Balbec. Marcel came here in pursuit of memories, and the memory overtook him: when he bent to tie his shoelaces, he became ill from an attack of suffocation, and suddenly a grandmother appeared in front of him, whom he had almost forgotten about. Grandmother was always his savior and support, and he dared to lecture her in Donciere! The ill-fated card tormented his soul, and he realized that he would give everything in the world, just to return his beloved creature. But he saw real grief when his aged mother came to him: she was very much like her grandmother and read only her favorite books.

Albertine appeared in Balbec, but Marseille avoided her at first. He began to visit the Wednesdays at the Verdurins to listen to the music of Vinteuil. The old pianist died and was replaced by the handsome violinist Charles Morel. Baron de Charlus, in love with Morel, descended to the salon of the Verdurins, who at first treated him condescendingly, because they did not suspect his high position in society. When the baron noticed that the best of their guests would not have been allowed further than the hallway of his brother the duke, Dr. Cotard told the "faithful" that Madame Verdurin was a well-to-do woman, and compared with her, the Princess de Guermantes was just a erratic erratic. Madame Verdurin harbored a grudge against the baron, but until Time endured his antics.

Marcel began to meet with Albertine again, and jealousy flared up with its former strength - it seemed to him that the girl was flirting with both Morel and Saint-Loup. However, the thought of Gomorrah did not cross his mind until he saw Albertine and André dancing with their breasts pressed against each other. True, Albertine indignantly rejected the very possibility of such a connection, but Marcel felt that he was living in an atmosphere of widespread vice - for example, Blok's cousin lived with the actress, shocking the entire Balbec with her scandalous summing up.

Gradually, Marcel came to the conclusion that he should break with his beloved. Mom did not approve of this connection, and Françoise, who despised Albertine for her poverty, insisted that the young master would not end up in trouble with this girl. Marseille was only waiting for an excuse, but the unforeseen happened; when he mentioned his desire to listen to Vinteuil's last things, Albertine said that she knew the composer's daughter and her friend well - she considers these girls to be her "big sisters", because she learned a lot from them. Shaken, Marseille seemed to see in reality a long-forgotten scene in Montjuvin: the memory dozed in him like a formidable avenger - it was retribution for the fact that he could not save his grandmother. From now on, the image of Albertia will be associated for him not with the waves of the sea, but with spitting at the photograph of Vinteuil. Imagining his beloved in the arms of a lesbian, he burst into tears of impotent rage and announced to his frightened mother that he needed to marry Albertine. When the girl agreed to live with him, he kissed her as chastely as he kissed his mother in Combray.

Marcel, tormented by passion and jealousy, imprisoned Albertine in his apartment. When the jealousy subsided, he realized that he no longer loved his girlfriend. In his opinion, she had become very ugly and in any case could not reveal anything new to him. When jealousy flared up again, love turned into torment. Before Marcel it seemed that Gomorrah was in Balbec, but in Paris he became convinced that Gomorrah had spread all over the world. One day Albertine, without opening her eyes, tenderly called to André, and all Marcel's suspicions were revived. Only the sleeping girl aroused the former delight in him - he admired her as the canvases of Elstir, but at the same time he was tormented by the fact that she was slipping into the realm of dreams. Physical intimacy did not bring satisfaction, for Marcel longed to possess a soul that could not be given into his hands. In essence, this one. communication became a burden: constant supervision required his presence, and he could not fulfill his old dream - to go to Venice. But Albertine's kiss had the same healing power as my mother's kiss at Combray.

Marcel was convinced that the girl constantly lies to him - sometimes even for no reason. For example, she said that she had seen Bergotte on the same day that the old writer died. Bergott had been ill for a long time, almost did not leave the house and received only his closest friends. Once he came across an article about Vermeer's painting "View of Delft" with a description of the amazing yellow wall. Bergott adored Vermeer, but he did not remember this detail. He went to the exhibition, fixed his eyes on the yellow spot, and then the first blow overtook him. The old man did get to the couch, and then slid down to the floor - when he was lifted up, he was dead.

At the Guermantes mansion, Marseille often met the Baron de Charlus and Morel, who went to have tea with Jupien. The violinist fell in love with the waistcoat's niece, and the baron encouraged this relationship - it seemed to him that the married Morel would be more dependent on his generosity. Wanting to introduce the favorite into high society, de Charlus arranged a reception at the Verdurins - the violinist was supposed to play Vinteuil's septet, saved from oblivion by his daughter's friend, who did a titanic work, sorting out the squiggles of the late composer. Marcel listened to the septet in mute reverence: thanks to Vinteuil, he discovered unknown worlds for himself - only art is capable of such insights.

De Charlus behaved like a host, and his noble guests paid no attention to Madame Verdurin - only the Queen of Naples treated her kindly out of respect for her relative. Marcel knew that the Verdurins had turned Morel against the baron, but he did not dare to intervene. There was an ugly scene: Morel publicly accused his patron of trying to seduce him, and de Charlus froze in amazement in the "pose of a frightened nymph." However, the Queen of Naples quickly put in place the upstarts who dared to offend one of the Guermantes. And Marcel returned home, full of anger towards Albertine: now he understood why the girl so asked to let her go to the Verdurins - in this salon she could meet Mademoiselle Vinteuil and her friend without interference.

Marcel's constant reproaches led Albertine to refuse to kiss him goodnight three times. Then she suddenly relented and tenderly said goodbye to her lover. Marcel fell asleep peacefully, for he had made a final decision - tomorrow he would go to Venice and get rid of Albertine forever. The next morning, Françoise, with undisguised pleasure, announced to her host that Mademoiselle had packed her bags and left.

Man does not know himself. Françoise's words caused Marcel such unbearable pain that he decided to return Albertine by any means. He learned that she was living with her aunt in Touraine. He sent her a falsely indifferent letter, at the same time asking Saint-Loup to influence her family. Albertine was extremely dissatisfied with Robert's rude interference. An exchange of letters began, and Marseille could not stand it first - he sent a desperate telegram with a plea to come immediately. A telegram was immediately brought to him from Touraine: his aunt reported that Albertine had died by falling from her horse and hitting a tree.

Marcel's torment did not stop: Albertine was to be broken not only in Touraine, but also in his heart, and it was necessary to forget not one, but countless Albertines. He went to Balbec and instructed the maître d' Aime to find out how Albertine behaved while living with her aunt. His worst suspicions were confirmed: according to Aimé, Albertina repeatedly started lesbian relationships. Marcel began to interrogate Andre: at first the girl denied everything, but then she admitted that Albertine had been cheating on Marcel both with Morel and with herself. During the next meeting with Andre, Marcel happily felt the first signs of recovery. Gradually, the memory of Albertine became fragmentary and ceased to hurt. External events also contributed to this. Marseille's first article was published in Le Figaro. At the Guermantes he met Gilberte Swann, now Mademoiselle de Forcheville. After the death of her husband, Odette married her old admirer. Gilberte became one of the richest heirs, and in the Faubourg Saint-Germain they suddenly noticed how well she was brought up and what a lovely woman she promises to become. Poor Swann did not live to see the fulfillment of his cherished dream: his wife and daughter were now taken in by the Guermantes - however, Gilberte got rid of both her Jewish surname and her father's Jewish friends.

But a full recovery came in Venice, where Marseille was taken by his mother. The beauty of this city had a life-giving power: it was an impression similar to Combray, only much more vivid. Only once did the dead love wake up: Marseille was brought a telegram in which Albertine informed him of her upcoming wedding. He managed to convince himself that he didn't want to think about her anymore, even if by some miracle she was still alive. Before leaving, it turned out that Gilberte had sent the telegram: in her artsy painting, the capital "Ж" looked like a Gothic "A". Gilberte married Robert de Saint-Loup, about whom it was said that he had set foot on the path of family vice. Marcel did not want to believe this, but was soon forced to admit the obvious. Morel became Robert's lover, which greatly angered Jupien, who remained faithful to the baron. At one time, Saint-Loup told Marcel that he would marry his Balbec girlfriend if she had a good fortune. Only now did the meaning of these words become clear: Robert belonged to Sodom, and Albertine to Gomorrah.

The young couple settled in Tansonville - the former estate of Swan. Marcel came to the places so memorable to him in order to console the unfortunate Gilberte. Robert advertised his connections with women, wanting to hide his real inclinations and imitating this uncle, Baron de Charlus. Everything has changed in Combray. Legrandin, now related to the Guermantes, usurped the title of Comte de Mezeglise. Vivona seemed narrow and ugly to Marcel - was it really this walk that gave him such pleasure? And Gilberte unexpectedly admitted that she fell in love with Marcel at first sight, but he pushed her away with his stern appearance. Marcel suddenly realized that the true Gilbert and the true Albertine were ready to surrender to him at the first meeting - he himself spoiled everything, he "missed" them, failing to understand, and then frightened them with his exactingness.

Marcel visits Tansonville again and takes long walks with Madame de Saint-Loup, and then lies down to take a nap until supper. One day, in a brief moment of awakening from a dream, it seems to him that Albertine, long dead, lies nearby. Love is gone forever, but the memory of the body was stronger.

Marcel is reading the Diary of the Goncourts, and his attention is drawn to the entry about the evening at the Verdurins. Under the pen of the Goncourts, they appear not as vulgar bourgeois, but as romantic aesthetes: their friend was the most intelligent and highly educated doctor Kotar, and they lovingly called the great Elstir "Maestro Bish". Marcel cannot hide his astonishment, for it was these two who drove poor Swann to despair with their vulgar judgments. Yes, and he himself knew the Verdurins much better than the Goncourts, but did not notice any advantages in their salon. Does this mean a lack of observation? He wants to visit this "amazing clan" once again. At the same time, he experiences painful doubts about his literary talent.

Exacerbation of asthma forces Marcel to leave society. He is treated in a sanatorium and returns to Paris in 1916, at the height of the war. In the Faubourg Saint-Germain no one remembers the Dreyfus affair anymore - it all happened in "prehistoric" times. Madame Verdurin has greatly strengthened her position in society. The short-sighted Blok, who was not threatened by mobilization, turned into an ardent nationalist, and Robert de Saint-Loup, who despised ostentatious patriotism, died in the very first months of the war. Marcel receives another letter from Gilberte: she previously admitted that she fled to Tansonville out of fear of bombing, but now she claims that she wanted to defend her castle with weapons in her hands. According to her, the Germans lost more than a hundred thousand people in the battle of Mesegliese.

The Baron de Charlus issued an open challenge to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, defending Germany from adjustments, and the patriots immediately remembered that his mother was the Duchess of Bavaria. Madame Verdurin declared publicly that he was either an Austrian or a Prussian, and that his relative, the Queen of Naples, was an undoubted spy. The Baron remains true to his perverted habits, and Marcel witnesses a masochistic orgy in a hotel he bought in the name of Jupien's former vest. Under the roar of falling German bombs, de Charlus prophesies to Paris the fate of Pompeii and Herculaneum, destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius. Marcel recalls the death of the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah.

Marcel once again leaves for a sanatorium and returns to Paris after the end of the war. He was not forgotten in the world: he receives two invitations - from the Princess Guermantes and the actress Berma. Like all aristocratic Paris, he chooses the salon of the princess. Berma is left alone in an empty living room: even her daughter and son-in-law secretly leave home, turning to her happy and mediocre rival, Rachel, for protection. Marcel is convinced that time is the great destroyer. Heading towards the princess, he sees the completely decrepit Baron de Charlus: having survived an apoplexy, he minces with great difficulty - Jupien leads him like a small child.

The title of Princess Guermantes now belongs to Madame Verdurin. Having become a widow, she married the prince's cousin, and after his death - for the prince himself, who lost both his wife and his fortune. She managed to climb to the very top of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and the “clan” is again gathering in her salon - but her “faithful” herd is much larger. Marcel realizes that he, too, has changed. Young people treat him with emphatic deference, and the Duchess de Guermantes calls him "an old friend." Arrogant Oriana hosts actresses and humiliates herself in front of Rachel, whom she once bullied. Marcel feels like he's been to a costume ball. How dramatically the Faubourg Saint-Germain has changed! Everything here is mixed up, as in a kaleidoscope, and only a few stand unshakable: for example, the Duke of Guermantes, at his eighty-three years old, still hunts for women, and Odette became his last mistress, who seems to have “frozen” her beauty and looks younger than her own daughter. When a fat lady greets Marcel, he hardly recognizes Gilberte in her.

Marseille is going through a period of disillusionment - hopes to create something significant in literature have died. But as soon as he stumbles on the uneven slabs of the yard, longing and anxiety disappear without a trace. He strains his memory, and he remembers the Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice, where there were exactly the same uneven slabs. Combray and Venice have the ability to bring happiness, but it is pointless to return there in search of lost time. The dead past comes to life at the sight of Mademoiselle de Saint-Loup. In this girl, the daughter of Gilberte and Robert, two directions seem to be connected: Mezeglise - according to her grandfather, Guermant - according to her father. The first leads to Combray, and the second to Balbec, where Marcel would never have gone if Swann had not told him about the "Persian" church. And then he would not have met Saint-Loup and would not have ended up in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. And Albertina? After all, it was Swann who instilled in Marcel a love for Vinteuil's music. If Marcel had not mentioned the name of the composer in a conversation with Albertine, he would never have known that she was friends with his lesbian daughter. And then there would be no imprisonment, which ended with the flight and death of the beloved.

Realizing the essence of the planned work, Marcel is horrified: will he have enough time? Now he blesses his illness, although each walk to the Champs Elysees may be his last, as happened with his grandmother. How much energy was wasted on a scattered life in the world! And everything was decided on that unforgettable night when my mother renounced - it was then that the decline of will and health began. In the mansion of the Prince of Guermantes, Marseille clearly hears the steps of the parents escorting the guest to the gate, and the rattling of the bell, which announces that Swann has finally left. Now mom will go up the stairs - this is the only reference point in boundless Time.

E. D. Murashkintseva

Roman (1916)

"War has been declared!" First World War.

"Our company is in reserve." "Our age? We are all of different ages. Our regiment is a reserve one; it was successively replenished with reinforcements - either personnel units, or militias." "Where are we from? From different areas. We came from everywhere." "What were we doing? Yes, whatever you want. Who were we in the now marked times, when we still had some place in life, when we had not yet buried our fate in these holes, where rain and buckshot watered us? Mostly farmers and workers." "There are no freelancers among us." "Teachers are usually non-commissioned officers or orderlies", "a lawyer is a colonel's secretary; a rentier is a corporal in charge of food in a non-combatant company." "Yes, it's true, we're different." "And yet we are similar to each other." "Bound by a common irreparable fate, reduced to one level, involved, against our will, in this adventure, we are becoming more and more like each other."

"In war you always wait." "Now we are waiting for soup. Then we will wait for letters." "Letters!" "Some have already settled down to write." "It is during these hours that people in the trenches become again, in the best sense of the word, what they once were."

"What else is the news? The new order threatens severe punishment for looting and already contains a list of those responsible." "A wandering vintner is passing by, pushing a wheelbarrow with a barrel sticking out of it; he has sold a few liters to the sentries."

The weather is terrible. The wind knocks down, the water floods the earth. "The barn that was given to us in the parking lot is almost impossible to live in, damn it!" "One half of it is flooded, there are rats swimming, and people are huddled together on the other half." "And now you stand like a pillar in this pitch darkness, spreading your arms so as not to stumble on something, you stand and tremble and howl from the cold." "Sit down? Impossible. Too dirty: the ground and stone slabs are covered with mud, and the straw bedding is trampled by shoes and completely damp." "There is only one thing left: to stretch out on the straw, wrap your head with a handkerchief or towel to hide from the assertive stink of rotting straw, and fall asleep."

"In the morning" "the sergeant vigilantly watches", "so that everyone leaves the shed", "so that no one shirks from work." "Under continuous rain, along the washed out road, the second squad is already moving, assembled and sent to work by the non-commissioned officer."

"War is a mortal danger for everyone, there are no untouchables." "On the edge of the village" "they shot a soldier of the XNUMXth regiment" - "he decided to evade, did not want to go into the trenches."

"Poterlo - comes from Suchet". "Our people drove the Germans out of this village, he wants to see the places where he lived happily in those days when he was still a free man." "But all these places are constantly shelled by the enemy." "Why are the Germans bombarding Suchet? Unknown." "In this village there is no one and nothing left" except "hillocks, on which grave crosses turn black, driven here and there into the wall of fogs, they resemble the milestones of the Way of the Cross depicted in churches."

"On a dirty wasteland, overgrown with burnt grass, the dead lie." "They are brought here at night, clearing the trenches or the plain. They are waiting - many of them for a long time - when they will be transferred to the cemetery, to the rear." "Letters fly over the corpses; they fell out of pockets or pouches when the dead were laid on the ground." "A disgusting stench is carried by the wind over these dead." "Hunched people appear in the fog", "These are porters, loaded with a new corpse." "Everything smells of universal destruction." "We are leaving". In these ghostly places we are the only living beings.

"Although it is still winter, the first good morning announces to us that soon spring will come again." "Yes, the dark days will pass. The war will also end, what is there! The war will probably end at this beautiful time of the year; it already illuminates us and caresses us with its breaths." "True, tomorrow they will drive us into the trenches." "A dull cry of indignation is heard: -" They want to finish us off!

"We are in an open field, among boundless mists." "Instead of a road - a puddle." "We're moving on." "Suddenly there, in the desert places where we are going, a star flares up and blooms: it is a rocket." "There is some kind of fleeting light ahead: a flash, a roar. This is a projectile." "He fell" "into our lines." "It's the enemy shooting." "Shooting rapid fire." "There's a devilish noise all around us." "A storm of dull blows, hoarse, furious cries, piercing animal cries rages over the earth, completely covered with wisps of smoke; we dug ourselves up to the very neck; the earth rushes and sways from the whirlwind of shells."

"... But a piece of green cotton wool, spreading in all directions, is swaying and melting over the firing zone." "The prisoners of the trench turn their heads and look at this ugly object." "It's probably suffocating gases." "The meanest thing!"

“The fiery and iron whirlwind does not subside: shrapnel bursts with a whistle; large high-explosive shells rumble.

"Clear the trench! March!" "We are leaving this patch of battlefield where rifle salvos are again shooting, wounding and killing the dead." "We are being driven into rear cover." "The rumble of world destruction subsides."

And again - "Let's go!" "Forward!"

"We're going beyond our wire fences." "All along the line, from left to right, the sky is throwing shells, and the earth - explosions. A terrifying veil separates us from the world, separates us from the past, from the future." "The breath of death pushes us, lifts us, shakes us." "Eyes blink, watery, blind." "A flaming avalanche lies ahead." “They are shouting behind us, urging us on: “Forward, damn it!” “The whole regiment is following us!” We do not turn around, but, electrified by this news, “we advance even more confidently.” “And suddenly we feel: it’s all over.” “More there is no resistance", "the Germans took refuge in holes, and we grab them like rats, or kill them."

"We are moving further in a certain direction. Probably, this movement is conceived somewhere out there, by the authorities." "We are walking on soft bodies; some are still moving, groaning and slowly moving, bleeding. Corpses, heaped up and down, like beams, crush the wounded, strangle, take away their lives." "The battle subsides imperceptibly" ...

"Poor countless battle workers!" "German soldiers" - "only unfortunate, vilely fooled poor people ..." "Your enemies" - "businessmen and traders", "financiers, large and small businessmen who have locked themselves in their banks and houses, live in war and prosper peacefully during the war years ". "And those who say: 'Peoples hate each other!', 'War has always been, so it will always be!' They pervert the great moral principle: how many crimes they elevated to virtue, calling it national!" "They are your enemies, no matter where they were born, no matter what their name is, no matter what language they lie in." "Look for them everywhere! Get to know them well and remember them once and for all!"

"The cloud is darkening and is approaching the disfigured, tormented fields." "The earth gleams sadly; shadows move and are reflected in the pale stagnant water that flooded the trenches." "Soldiers begin to comprehend the infinite simplicity of being."

“And while we are about to overtake the others to fight again, the black stormy sky is quietly opening up.

E. V. Morozova

Roman (1920)

She is almost fifty, he is half that, their relationship has been going on for seven years. She calls him Angel. He is going to get married: his mother has found a bride for him - young Edme.

Leonie Walson, known as Lea de Louval, ends her prosperous career as a wealthy courtesan. She hides her age - only sometimes she languidly admits that in her later life she can afford some whims. Women of the same age admire her iron health, and younger women, whom the fashion of 1912 awarded with a stooped back and protruding belly, look jealously at her high bust. But most of all, both of them envy a young handsome lover.

Once upon a time, Angel was just Fred for Leah - the son of her friend Charlotte Pelu. Charming, like a cherub, the baby knew all the joys of a dissolute childhood. As befits a true prostitute, his mother entrusted him to the servants, and then passed him to college. After experiencing his last love affair, Madame Pelu discovered that the boy had become incredibly thin and learned to use foul language desperately.

She took him home, and he immediately demanded horses, cars, jewelry, a decent monthly allowance - in a word, complete freedom. Lea often looks into Neuilly: in twenty years of acquaintance, she and Charlotte spent so many dull evenings together that they could no longer do without each other. Angel led a wild life, he developed shortness of breath, he constantly coughs and complains of migraines. Charlotte looked at the white, ruddy Lea with quiet hatred - the contrast with her son wasting away before her eyes was too striking. Taking pity on the "ugly boy," Lea took Angel out into the countryside. For one summer spent in Normandy, he was fat and strong: Lea stuffed him with strawberries and cream, forced him to do gymnastics, took him on long walks - at night he fell asleep peacefully, resting his head on her chest. Then Leah was sure that in the autumn she would let Angel "free". It sometimes seemed to her that she was sleeping with a Negro or a Chinese - positively, she and Angel spoke different languages. Returning to Paris, Lea breathed a sigh of relief - the fleeting connection was finally over. But the very next evening, the young man broke into the mansion on the Rue Bugeaud, and in a moment they were lying in Lea's large soft bed.

Seven years have passed since that night. The envious sighs of her aging friends do not bother Leah. In the end, she does not keep Angel on a leash - he can leave at any moment. Of course, he is divinely beautiful, but at the same time greedy, selfish, prudent. In essence, he is just a gigolo: he has been living with her for seven years and calmly listens to insulting hints. Lea convinces herself that she will easily find a replacement for him, and she is skeptical about the news of the upcoming wedding: giving a young girl to Angel to be torn to pieces - what a reckless thought! Edma is only eighteen years old, she is charming and timid. As for the Angel, he is confident in his own irresistibility: Edme should bless fate for unheard of happiness.

Another visit to Neuilly turns into a nightmare: Charlotte was visited by another "girlfriend" - the ugly old Lily with her young lover Guido. When looking at this couple, Lea feels nauseous. Returning home, she tries to sort out her feelings: she has a chill, but there is no temperature. A month ago, Angel got married - which means that this is the pain of loss. Now he and Edme are in Italy and are probably making love. Lea is too proud of her endurance to stoop to suffering. She immediately leaves Paris, leaving no address to anyone, and in a short note addressed to Charlotte, she transparently hints that the new novel was the reason for her departure.

The angel returns to Neuilly with his young wife. In his mother's house, everything seems ugly to him in comparison with the refined furnishings of Lea. Edme annoys him with his submissiveness. Charlotte, evil by nature, does not miss the opportunity to prick her daughter-in-law more painfully. Angel is weary of a new life and constantly remembers his mistress - with whom, damn it, did she leave? Once he goes out for a walk, and his feet themselves carry him along the familiar path to the Rue Bugeaud. But the concierge knows nothing about Leah.

In the restaurant, Angel meets Viscount Desmond, a friend of the former wild days. Suddenly making up his mind, he goes to the Morrio Hotel, where Desmon rents a room. Edme meekly endures her husband's flight. Desmon finds life beautiful, because the Angel pays him much more generously than in his youth. After midnight, the Angel always leaves - these walks invariably end at the mansion Lea: The windows on the second floor gape dead black. But one day a light flashes there. The servants bring suitcases into the house. The angel clutches his heart with his hand. Perhaps this is happiness? Now you can caress poor Edme.

Laying things out of her suitcases, Leah struggles with growing and incomprehensible longing. Six months passed: she lost weight, rested, had fun with casual acquaintances and parted with them without any regret. They were all aged men, and Leah could not stand a withered body: she was not created to end her life in the arms of an old man - for thirty years she has owned shining youths and fragile teenagers. These suckers owe her health and beauty - she not only taught them love, but surrounded them with truly maternal care. Didn't she save the Angel? But there will be no second time, although the "ugly boy" is rumored to have run away from home,

Charlotte Pelu pays Leah a visit, wishing to tell the good news: the Angel has returned to his wife. The poor boy needed to go crazy, because from the age of eighteen he did not have the opportunity to enjoy the bachelor life. Edme showed herself from the best side - not a word of reproach, not a single complaint! Cute children reconciled in their bedroom. Lea gives Charlotte an evil look, mentally wishing she twisted her leg. Unfortunately, this snake is remarkably cautious.

Lea reflects on inevitable old age. Probably something to do. Some of the friends have succeeded by opening a bar-restaurant and a cabaret night. But Lea realizes that she does not like to work: her counter has always been a bed - it is a pity that no new clients are expected. Suddenly, in the silence of the night, a bell rings, and Lea instinctively grabs the powder box. This is an Angel. With tears, he falls to the chest of his "Nunun". In the morning, Lea looks tenderly at her sleeping lover. He left his stupid beautiful wife and returned to her - now forever. She is considering where to make a nest. They both need rest.

The angel is not sleeping. Looking at Aea from under his eyelashes, he tries to understand where the great happiness he experienced the day before has gone. At breakfast, he looks sadly at his mistress, and Leah flushes, instantly catching pity. She finds the courage to help the unfortunate baby again, because it is so difficult for him to hurt her. In the courtyard, the Angel stops hesitantly. Leah throws up her hands in delight - he's back! The old woman in the mirror repeats her gesture, and the young man on the street raises his head to the spring sky and begins to eagerly inhale the air - like a prisoner set free.

E. L. Murashkintseva

(Les Thibault)

Roman chronicle (1922-1940)

Early XNUMXth century Tender friendship binds two classmates - Jacques Thibaut and Daniel de Fontanin. The discovery by one of the teachers of correspondence between boys leads to tragedy. Offended in the best feelings by his school mentors, who rudely took possession of his cherished "gray notebook" and vilely interpreted friendship with Daniel, Jacques decides to run away from home with a friend. In Marseille, they try in vain to board a ship, then decide to walk to Toulon, but are detained and sent home. Daniel's departure shocked his little sister Jenny, and she becomes seriously ill. Jérôme de Fontanin, the father of Daniel and Jenny, left the family and rarely appears there. Madame de Fontanin, a smart woman, full of nobility and selflessness, is forced to constantly lie to her children, explaining the absence of a father. Jenny's recovery and Daniel's return brought happiness back to the house.

Things are different in the Thibault family. Jacques hates and fears his father - an old despot, selfish and cruel. The father treats the youngest son like a criminal. The successes of the eldest son Antoine - a medical student - flatter his ambition. He decides to send Jacques to Krui, the boys' penal colony he founded. Antoine is outraged by his father's cruelty, but he fails to persuade him to reverse his decision.

Several months pass. Antoine worries about the fate of Jacques. Unbeknownst to his father, he travels to Krui and investigates in a penal colony. With external well-being, everything that he sees there, and first of all Jacques himself, causes in him a vague feeling of anxiety. This rebel has become too educated, obedient, indifferent. During the walk, Antoine tries to win the trust of his younger brother, and although Jacques is silent at first, but later, sobbing, tells everything - about complete loneliness, about constant surveillance, about absolute idleness, from which he becomes dumb and degenerates. He doesn't complain about anything and doesn't blame anyone. But Antoine begins to understand that the unfortunate child lives in constant fear. Now Jacques does not even seek to escape, much less return home: here at least he is free from his family. The only thing he wants is to be left in the state of indifference into which he has fallen. Returning to Paris, Antoine violently explains with his father, demands the abolition of punishment. Mr. Thibault remains implacable. Abbot Vekar, confessor of the elder Thibaut, achieves the release of Jacques, only by threatening the old man with the torments of hell.

Jacques settles with his older brother, who has already received a medical degree, In a small apartment on the ground floor of his father's house. He rekindles a relationship with Daniel. Antoine, believing that the ban on friendship imposed by their father is unfair and ridiculous, he himself accompanies him to the Fontanins. Jenny does not like Jacques - unconditionally and at first sight. She cannot forgive him for the wrong he did them. Jealous of her brother, she almost rejoices that Jacques is so unattractive.

A few more months pass. Jacques enters the Ecole Normal. Daniel paints, edits an art magazine and enjoys the joys of life.

Antoine is called to the bed of a girl crushed by a van. Acting quickly and decisively, he operates on her at home, on the dining table. The relentless struggle he wages with death for this child is universally admired. Neighbor Rachel, who helped him during the operation, becomes his mistress. Thanks to her, Antoine is freed from inner constraint, becomes himself.

At the dacha, in Maisons-Laffite, Jenny gradually, almost against her will, changes her mind about Jacques. She sees how Jacques kisses her shadow, thereby confessing his love. Jenny is confused, she cannot understand her feelings, she denies her love for Jacques.

Rachel leaves Antoine and goes to Africa, to her former lover Hirsch, a vicious, dangerous man who has mystical power over her.

Several years pass. Antoine is a famous successful doctor. He has a huge practice - his reception day is filled to capacity.

Antoine visits his sick father. From the very beginning of the disease, he has no doubts about its lethal outcome. He is attracted to his father's pupil Zhiz, whom he and Jacques used to consider their sister. Antoine tries to talk to her, but she refuses to talk. Gis loves Jacques. After his disappearance three years ago, she alone did not believe in his death. Antoine thinks a lot about his profession, about life and death, about the meaning of being. At the same time, he does not deny himself the joys and pleasures of life.

Mr. Thibaut suspects the truth, but, reassured by Antoine, he plays the scene of a didactic death. Antoine receives a letter addressed to his younger brother. The fact that Jacques is alive does not surprise Antoine too much. He wants to find him and bring him to his dying father. Antoine reads the short story "Sister", written by Jacques and published in a Swiss magazine, attacks the trail of his younger brother. Jacques, after three years of wandering and ordeal, lives in Switzerland. He is engaged in journalism, writes stories.

Antoine finds his brother in Lausanne. Jacques violently rebels against his older brother's intrusion into his new life. Nevertheless, he agrees to go home with him.

Mr. Thibault is aware that his days are numbered. Antoine and Jacques arrive in Paris, but the father is already unconscious. His death shocks Antoine. As he sorts through the papers of the deceased, he wistfully realizes that, despite his majestic appearance, he was an unfortunate man and that although this man was his father, he did not know him at all. Zhiz comes to Jacques, but during the conversation he realizes that the bonds that bind them are broken forever and irrevocably.

Summer 1914 Jacques is back in Switzerland. He lives surrounded by revolutionary emigration, carries out a number of secret assignments of socialist organizations. The report of the terrorist act in Sarajevo causes alarm in Jacques and his associates. Arriving in Paris, Jacques discusses current political events with Antoine, trying to get him involved in the fight against the impending war. But politics is far from Antoine's interests. He doubts the seriousness of the threat and refuses to participate in the fight. Jerome de Fontanin, entangled in dark machinations, tries to shoot himself in a hotel. At the bedside of the dying Jacques meets Jenny and Daniel. Jenny tries to sort out her feelings. She again has hope for happiness with Jacques. Daniel leaves for the front. Jacques explains to Jenny, and the young people indulge in the love that has seized them.

War has been declared, Jacques believes that something else can be done to stop it. He writes anti-war leaflets, he is going to scatter them from the plane over the front line. Jacques does not have time to fulfill his plan. When approaching the positions, the aircraft crashed in the air. The seriously wounded Jacques is mistaken for a spy, and as the French troops withdraw, he is shot dead by a French gendarme.

1918 Antoine Thibault, poisoned at the front with mustard gas, is treated in a military hospital. On leaving, he spends a few days at Maisons-Laffitte, where Jenny, Danielle, Madame de Fontanin and Gis now live. The war made Daniel an invalid. Jenny is raising a son whose father was Jacques. Zhiz transferred all her feelings for Jacques to his child and Jenny. Antoine is thrilled to discover the features of his dead brother in the face and character of little Jean-Paul. He already knows that he will never recover, that he is doomed, so he considers the child of Jacques and Jenny as the last hope for prolonging the family. Antoine keeps a diary, where he daily enters the clinical records of his illness, collects literature on the treatment of poisoned gases. He wants to be useful to people even after death. On the verge of death, Antoine finally understands his younger brother, soberly and without illusions evaluates his life. He thinks a lot about Jacques' little son. The last words of Antoine Thibaut's diary: "Much easier than they think. Jean-Paul."

A. I. Khoreva

(Siegfried et Ie Limousin)

Roman (1922)

The story is told from the perspective of the narrator, whose name is Jean. In January 1922, he looks through German newspapers to find at least one kind word about France, and suddenly stumbles upon an article signed with the initials "Z.F.K." during the war. To Jean's astonishment, in subsequent opuses the impudent plagiarist managed to borrow something from Forestier's unpublished legacy.

The riddle seems unsolvable, but then fate itself sends Jean Count von Celten. Jean once loved Zelten as much as he loved Germany. Now this country does not exist for him, but sometimes he feels the bitterness of loss. At one time, Zelten came up with a funny game, offering to share disputed territories in the highest moments of friendship and love. As a result, Zelten gave his friend the whole of Alsace, but Jean held firm and tore off only one insignificant district from France at a moment when Zelten looked especially like a naive, good-natured German. At the meeting, Zelten admits that he fought for four years in order to return his gift. A deep scar is visible on his arm - before, Jean had never seen a healed mark from a French bullet. Celten remained alive - perhaps some grain of love for Germany is still capable of being revived.

After listening to Jean's story about the mysterious plagiarist, Zedten promises to find out everything and soon reports from Munich that 3. F. K. may be none other than Forestier. At the very beginning of the war, a naked soldier in a feverish delirium was picked up on the battlefield - he had to be re-taught to eat, drink and speak German. He was given the name Siegfried von Kleist, after Germany's greatest hero and most profound of her poets.

Jean travels to Bavaria with a fake Canadian passport. When he gets off the train, his heart becomes heavy - here, even from the wind and sun, it reeks of Germany. In this country, the eyebrows of the apostles are furrowed, and the virgins have knotty hands and pendulous breasts. In the eyes ripples from artificial empty advertising. The Siegfried Villa is just as monstrous and unnatural - its decrepitude is hidden by whitewashing. The Germans reproach the French for their addiction to rouge, while they themselves make up their buildings. A person who has stepped out into a dark garden has all the undeniable signs of a German inhabitant - spectacles in a fake tortoiseshell frame, a gold tooth, a pointed beard. But Jean immediately recognizes Forestier - what a sad transformation!

Jean settles in a room whose windows overlook the villa. Before meeting up with a friend, he rides a tram to Munich and roams the city with a sense of superiority, as befits a winner. Once he was his own person here, but the past cannot be returned: only Ida Eilert remained from the former happy days - at one time, Jean loved her three sisters. Ida brings news: everyone here is afraid of a conspiracy headed by Zelten. Jean believes that there is nothing to be afraid of: Zelten always dated important events to June 2, his birthday, and the plan for this year has already been drawn up - Zelten decided to heal his teeth and start a book about East and West.

An old acquaintance, Prince Heinrich, the Heir to the Saxe-Altdorf throne, was introduced to the house of Siegfried Jean and was born on the same day as the German emperor and studied with him: the boys always quarreled in English lessons and made peace in French lessons. The prince is far superior in nobility to his miserable cousin - just compare their wives and children. The ardent and brave offspring of Prince Henry made up an entire air flotilla - now they are all killed or mutilated.

Jean watches from the windows how Siegfried dresses: Forestier always loved white linen, and now he is wearing a purple sweatshirt and pink underpants - the same ones were under the uniforms of the wounded Prussians. This cannot be endured: Forestier must be kidnapped from the keepers of the gold of the Rhine - this alloy of German naivete, pomp and meekness. Ida brings a circular from the German headquarters about the training of soldiers who have lost their memory: they were supposed to be nursed by a busty blonde with rosy cheeks - the ideal of German beauty. A woman comes out of Forestier's house, corresponding to all the parameters of the circular. In her hands is a bunch of roses, and Forestier looks after her like a sleepwalker.

On the recommendation of Prince Heinrich, Jean infiltrates Siegfried as a French teacher. At home, he notices the same depressing changes as in clothes: Forestier's apartment used to be filled with delicious knick-knacks, and now ponderous sayings of German sages are hung everywhere. The lesson begins with the simplest phrases, and in parting, Siegfried asks to send him samples of French compositions. The first of them, Jean gives the name "Solignac" and describes in detail the chapel, the cathedral, the cemetery, the stream, the gentle rustle of the poplars of Limousin - the province where both friends were born.

Celten introduces Jean to Kleist's nurse. However, fifteen years ago, Jean had already seen Eva von Schwanhofer in her father's house - a tearful novelist, a favorite of German housewives. And Celten tells Eve about his first meeting with Jean: until the age of eighteen he suffered from bone tuberculosis, grew up among the elders and imagined all people decrepit, but at the carnival in Munich, an eighteen-year-old face with snow-white teeth and sparkling eyes suddenly appeared before him - since then this the Frenchman became for him the embodiment of youth and the joy of life.

After the second lesson, Jean has a dream that he has turned into a German, and Kleist has become a Frenchman: darkness and heaviness thicken around Jean the German, while the Frenchman Kleist acquires an airy lightness before his eyes. Then Eve comes to Jean, who made the necessary searches: in vain, Jean covered himself with a Canadian passport - in fact, he is a native of Limousin. Eve demands to leave Kleist alone: ​​she will not allow him to return to hated France. In response, Jean says that he has no malice towards despicable Germany: the archangels, having granted France victory, have taken away her right to hate. Let German girls pray for sons who would take revenge on France, but French students studying German are called to a great mission - to enlighten the vanquished.

Genevieve Prat, Forestier's former lover, arrives in Munich. The three of them go to Berlin, where they are overtaken by Eva. The struggle for Kleist continues: Eva tries to cause hatred for the French with a tendentious selection of newspaper clippings, and Jean in his next essay reminds the Friend of the greatest Limousin poet Bertrand de Born. At the celebrations in honor of Goethe, Jean recalls Moliere's January jubilee: if the former resemble a dreary seance, the latter was a sparkling celebration of life. The abomination of Berlin inspires Kleist with disgust, and the whole company moves to Sassnitz - it is there that the hospital is located, where a German was made from Forestier. Jean is watching Eva and Genevieve: the monumental German beauty cannot be compared with the graceful and natural Frenchwoman. Genevieve has the gift of genuine compassion - she heals people's sorrows with her mere presence. Kleist rushes between two women, not understanding his anguish. In fact, he must choose a country.

A serene rest is interrupted by turbulent events: a revolution took place in Munich, and Count von Zelten declared himself a dictator. Having rented a car, the company goes to Bavaria: they are allowed to pass freely, because citizen 3. F.K. has received an invitation to enter the new government. In Munich, it turns out that Zelten seized power on his birthday. Jean, by misunderstanding, ends up in prison: he is released four days later, when Zelten abdicates the throne. The former dictator announces publicly that Kleist is not a German at all. Shocked, Siegfried takes refuge in the Schwanhofer villa. Messages from different countries are read to him, and he tries to guess his unknown homeland. The last blow for him is the death of the fragile Genevieve, who sacrificed her health and life in order to open his eyes. At night, Jean and Siegfried board the train. Lost in a heavy sleep, Kleist mumbles something in German, but Jean answers him only in French. Time is running fast - native France is already waking up outside the windows. Now Jean will slap his friend on the shoulder and show him a thirty-year-old photograph signed with his real name.

E. D. Murashkintseva

(La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu)

Drama (1935)

The plot is a free interpretation of the ancient Greek myth. The Trojan prince Paris has already kidnapped Helen of Sparta, but the war has not yet begun. King Priam and Hector are still alive, Andromache and the prophetic Cassandra did not become slaves, the young Polyxena did not die under the sacrificial knife, Hecuba does not sob over the ruins of Troy, mourning the dead children and her husband. There will be no Trojan war, because the great Hector, having won a complete victory over the barbarians, returns to his native city with one thought - the gates of war must be closed forever.

Andromache assures Cassandra that there will be no war, for Troy is beautiful and Hector is wise. But Cassandra has her own reasons - the stupidity of people and nature make war inevitable. The Trojans will perish because of the ridiculous belief that the world belongs to them. While Andromache indulges in naive hopes, fate opens her eyes and stretches - his steps are already very close, but no one wants to hear them! To the joyful exclamation of Andromache, greeting her husband, Cassandra replies that this is fate, and tells her brother the terrible news - he will soon have a son. Hector admits to Andromache that he used to love war - but in the last battle, bending over the corpse of the enemy, he suddenly recognized himself in him and was horrified. Troy will not fight the Greeks for Helen - Paris must return her in the name of peace. After questioning Paris, Hector comes to the conclusion that nothing irreparable happened: Elena was abducted while swimming in the sea, therefore, Paris did not dishonor the Greek land and the marital home - only Elena's body was vilified, but the Greeks have the ability to turn any unpleasant into a poetic legend fact for them. However, Paris refuses to return Helen, referring to public opinion - all of Troy is in love with this beautiful woman. The decrepit old men climb the fortress wall in order to have a look at it at least with one eye. Hector is convinced of the truth of these words very soon: gray-haired Priam shames the young Trojan warriors who have forgotten how to appreciate beauty, the poet Demokos calls for laying down hymns in her honor, the learned Geometer exclaims that only thanks to Helen the Trojan landscape has found perfection and completeness. Only women stand for peace with a mountain: Hecuba tries to appeal to healthy patriotism (loving blondes is indecent!), Andromache extols the joys of hunting - let men practice valor by killing deer and eagles. Trying to break the resistance of fellow countrymen and relatives, Hector promises to persuade Elena - of course she will agree to leave in order to save Troy. The beginning of the conversation gives Hector hope. It turns out that the Spartan queen is only able to see something bright and memorable: for example, she never managed to see her husband Menelaus, but Paris looked great against the sky and looked like a marble statue - however, recently Elena began to see him worse. But this does not at all mean that she agrees to leave, since she does not manage to see her return to Menelaus.

Hector draws a colorful picture: he himself will be on a white stallion, the Trojan warriors will be in purple tunics, the Greek ambassador will be in a silver helmet with a crimson plume. Does Elena not see this bright afternoon and the dark blue sea? And does she see the glow of the conflagration over Troy? Bloody battle? A mutilated corpse drawn by a chariot? Isn't that Paris? The queen nods: she cannot see the face, but she recognizes the diamond ring. Does she see Andromache mourning Hector? Elena hesitates to answer, and an enraged Hector vows to kill her if she does not leave - let everything around become completely dim, but it will be peace. In the meantime, messengers with bad news rush to Hector one after another: the priests do not want to close the gates of war, since the insides of sacrificial animals forbid it, and the people are worried, because the Greek ships raised the flag at the stern - thus Troy suffered a terrible insult! Hector bitterly tells his sister that behind every victory he wins there is a defeat: he subjugated Paris, Priam, and Helen to his will - and the world still slips away. After his departure, Elena confesses to Cassandra that she did not dare to say earlier: she clearly saw a bright red spot on the neck of Hector's son. At the request of Elena, Cassandra summons the World: he is still handsome, but it is terrible to look at him - he is so pale and sick!

At the gates of war, everything is ready for the closing ceremony - only Priam and Hector are waiting. Elena flirts with the young prince Troilus: she sees him so well that she promises a kiss. And Demokos calls on fellow citizens to prepare for new battles: Troy had the great honor of fighting not with some pitiful barbarians, but with trendsetters - the Greeks. From now on, the place in the history of the city is guaranteed, because the war is like Elena - both of them are beautiful. Unfortunately, Troy takes this responsible role lightly - even in the national anthem only the peaceful joys of the farmers are sung. In turn, the Geometer claims that the Trojans neglect epithets and never learn to insult their enemies. Refuting this statement, Hecuba fiercely stigmatizes both ideologists, and compares the war with an ugly and fetid monkey backside. The dispute is interrupted with the appearance of the king and Hector, who has already brought the priests to their senses. But Demokos prepared a surprise: Buziris, an expert on international law, authoritatively declares that the Trojans are obliged to declare war themselves, because the Greeks positioned their fleet facing the city, and hung out flags on the stern. In addition, the violent Ajax burst into Troy: he threatens to kill Paris, but this insult can be considered a trifle compared to the other two. Hector, resorting to the previous method, offers Busiris to choose between a stone bag and a generous payment for his labors, and as a result, the wise jurist changes his interpretation: the flag on the stern is a tribute to the seafarers for the farmers, and building with the face is a sign of spiritual friendliness. Hector, having won another victory, proclaims that the honor of Troy has been saved. Addressing the fallen on the battlefield with a speech, he calls for help - the gates of war are slowly closing, and little Polyxena admires the strength of the dead. A messenger appears with the news that the Greek ambassador Ulysses has gone ashore. Demokos plugs his ears in disgust - the terrible music of the Greeks offends the ears of the Trojans! Hector orders to receive Ulysses with royal honors, and at that moment a tipsy Ajax appears. Trying to piss off Hector, he scolds him with his last words and then punches him in the face. Hector bears it stoically, but Demokos raises a terrible cry - and now Hector slaps him in the face. The delighted Ajax immediately imbues Hector with friendly feelings and promises to settle all misunderstandings - of course, on the condition that the Trojans give Elena back.

Ulysses begins negotiations with the same demand. To his great amazement, Hector agrees to return Elena and assures that Paris has not even touched her with a finger. Ulysses ironically congratulates Troy: in Europe there was a different opinion about the Trojans, but now everyone will know that the sons of Priam are worthless as men. There is no limit to the indignation of the people, and one of the Trojan sailors paints in colors what Paris and Helen did on the ship. At this moment, the messenger Irida descends from the sky in order to announce the will of the gods to the Trojans and Greeks. Aphrodite orders not to separate Helen from Paris, otherwise there will be war. Pallas orders to separate them immediately, otherwise there will be war. And the lord of Olympus, Zeus, demands to separate them without separating them: Ulysses and Hector must, remaining face to face, resolve this dilemma - otherwise there will be war. Hector honestly admits that he has no chance in a verbal duel. Ulysses replies that he does not want to fight for Helen - but what does the war itself want? Apparently, Greece and Troy are chosen by fate for a deadly fight - however, Ulysses, being curious by nature, is ready to go against fate. He agrees to take Elena, but the way to the ship is very long - who knows what will happen in these few minutes? Ulysses leaves, and then Ajax, drunk to pieces, appears: not listening to any exhortations, he tries to kiss Andromache, who he likes much more than Helen. Hector is already brandishing his spear, but the Greek is still retreating - and then Demokos bursts in with a cry that the Trojans have been betrayed. For just one moment, exposure betrays Hector. He kills Demokos, but he manages to shout that he has become a victim of violent Ajax. Nothing can stop the angry crowd, and the gates of war slowly open - behind them Elena kisses Troilus. Cassandra announces that the Trojan poet is dead - henceforth the word belongs to the Greek poet.

E. D. Murashkintseva

(climates)

Roman (1928)

The first part of the novel - "Odile" - was written on behalf of Philippe Marsin and addressed to Isabella de Chaverny. Philip wants to truthfully and humbly tell her his whole life, because their friendship "outgrew the time of flattering confessions alone."

Philippe was born in the Gandyumas estate in 1886. The Marsin family occupies a very prominent position in the district - thanks to the energy of Philippe's father, a tiny paper mill turned into a large factory. Marsena take the world for a decent earthly paradise; neither Philippe's parents, nor Uncle Pierre and his wife (who have an only daughter Rene, two years younger than Philippe) tolerate frankness; it is believed that generally accepted feelings are always sincere, and this is more a consequence of spiritual purity than hypocrisy.

Already in childhood, Philip manifests a thirst for self-sacrifice in the name of love, and at the same time, in his imagination, the ideal of a woman is formed, which he calls the Amazon. In the lyceum, he is still faithful to the image of his Queen, now acquiring the features of Homer's Helen. However, in conversations with peers about women and about love, he appears as a cynic. The reason for this is a friend of his relatives, Denise Aubry; Philip, boyishly in love with her, once involuntarily overheard how she agreed with her lover about a date ... From that moment on, Philip abandons romance and develops an unmistakable seduction tactic, which invariably turns out to be successful. Denise becomes his mistress, but Philip soon becomes disillusioned with her; and while Denise becomes more and more attached to him, Philip conquers, one after another, without loving, the young women whom he meets in the salon of his aunt Cora, Baroness de Chouin. But deep down, he still idolizes the ideal image of Helen of Sparta.

Having been ill in the winter of 1909 with bronchitis, Philip, on the advice of a doctor, goes south to Italy. On the first day of his stay in Florence, he notices a girl of unearthly, angelic beauty in a hotel. At a reception in a Florentine house, Philip meets her. Her name is Odile Male, she is also French and travels with her mother. From the very first minute, young people treat each other with unconstrained gullibility. They spend every day together. Odile has a happy quality that the Marsin family lacks - she has a taste for life. She opens a new world for Philip - a world of colors and sounds.

Betrothed in Florence, upon returning to Paris, the young people become husband and wife, despite the fact that the Marsin family disapproves of the frivolous, "odd" Male. During their honeymoon in England, Philip and Odile are unusually happy. But upon arrival in Paris, the dissimilarity of their characters is revealed: Philip spends all day working on the affairs of the Gandyumas factory and loves to spend evenings at home, together with his wife, while Odile prefers theaters, night cabarets, and fair festivities. Odile does not like Philip's serious friends; he is jealous of OdiliyuK her male friends; it comes to the point that the only person who is equally pleasant to both of them is only Odile's friend Misa, Philip suffers, but only Misa and his cousin Rene know about this.

When Misa gets married and leaves, Odile gets even closer to her friends. Philip's jealousy grows. He torments himself and his wife, stubbornly trying to catch her with a non-existent lover. Catching her on contradictions, he demands an exact answer to questions about where she was and what she did, for example, between two and three o'clock in the afternoon. He considers the answer “I don’t remember” or “It doesn’t matter” a lie, sincerely not understanding how much such interrogations offend Odile. One day, Odile, citing a headache, goes to the village for a few days. Philip arrives there without warning, confident that now his suspicions will be confirmed - and is convinced that he was mistaken. Then Odile admits that she wanted to be alone, because she was tired of him. Subsequently, Philip learns that Odile never cheated on him ... until Francois de Crozan appeared.

They met at a dinner at the Baroness de Schorn. Philippe François is disgusting, but women, as one, find him charming. With pain, Philip watches the development of the relationship between Odile and Francois; he carefully analyzes his wife’s words and sees how love shines through in her every phrase ... Odile needs to go to the sea to improve her health, and with amazing perseverance she begs to be let go not to Normandy, as always, but to Brittany. Philip agrees, confident that Francois is in Toulon - he serves in the navy. After her departure, he learns that Francois has been temporarily transferred to Brest, and his wife's persistence becomes clear to him. A week later, Philip meets with Misa, who becomes his mistress and tells him about the connection between Francois and Odile. When Odile returns from Brittany, Philip gives her the words of Mise. Odile denies everything and breaks off relations with her friend.

After that, the spouses leave for Gandyumas. A secluded life in the bosom of nature brings them together, but not for long - immediately upon returning to Paris, the shadow of Francois again overshadows their relationship. Philip feels that he is losing Odile, but is unable to part with her - he loves her too much. She herself starts talking about divorce.

They disperse. Philippe is grieving for the loss, but does not share his grief with anyone except cousin Rene; he returns to the youthful demeanor of a cynical debauchee. From acquaintances, he learns that Odile has become the wife of Francois, but their family life is not going quite smoothly. And one day the news comes that Odile committed suicide. Philip begins to have a nervous fever with delirium, and having recovered, he withdraws into himself, abandons his affairs - or is completely absorbed in his grief.

This continued until the First World War.

The second part - "Isabella" - was written on behalf of Isabella after the death of Philip: she wants to capture her love for him for herself - just as Philip captured his love for Odile on paper in order to explain himself to Isabella.

As a child, Isabella felt unhappy: her father did not pay attention to her, and her mother believed that her daughter should be tempered for life's battles and therefore brought up very strictly. The girl grew up timid, unsociable, insecure. In 1914, with the outbreak of war, Isabella went to work as a nurse. The hospital where she ends up is in charge of Rene Marsena. The girls immediately became friends.

One of the wounded, Jean de Chaverny, becomes Isabella's husband. Their marriage lasts only four days - Jean returned to the front and was soon killed.

After the war, Rene arranges Isabella in the same laboratory where she works herself. From Rene, in love with her cousin, the girl constantly hears about Philip, and when she meets him at Madame de Chouin, he immediately inspires her confidence. Isabella, Philippe and Rene begin to go out together several times a week. But then Philip began to invite only Isabella ... Gradually, friendship develops into a more tender and deeper feeling. Isabella leaves her job in order to avoid awkwardness in her relationship with Rene and devote herself entirely to love for Philip. Having decided to marry Isabella, Philip writes a letter to her (this is the first part of the book), and Isabella tries to become what Philip wanted to see Odile.

Isabella is very happy at first, but Philip sadly begins to note that his calm and methodical wife is not like the Amazon. The roles have changed: now Philip, like Odile once, is drawn to fair festivities, and Isabella, like Philip once, seeks to spend the evening at home, together with her husband, and is just as jealous of Philip for his friends of the opposite sex as she once was. then he was jealous of Odile. Isabella persuades her husband to spend Christmas in St. Moritz - just the two of them, but at the last moment Philippe invites the Villiers to join them.

During this trip, Philippe becomes very close to Solange Villiers - a woman in whom the power of life is in full swing, a woman who, with all her ardent soul, strives for "adventure". In Paris, they do not break off relations. Isabella soon has no doubt that they are lovers - she notes with pain how Philip and Solange influence each other: Solange reads Philip's favorite books, and Philip suddenly fell in love with nature, like Solange. Isabella suffers.

Solange leaves for his estate in Morocco, while Philippe goes on a business trip to America (Isabella cannot accompany him due to her pregnancy). Returning, Philip spends almost all the time with his wife. Isabella is happy, but the thought that the reason for this is Solange's absence in Paris somewhat overshadows her happiness. Philip is jealous; she once turned out to be the object of his jealousy - maybe if she began to flirt, she would be able to return her husband's love ... but she deliberately refuses this. All her thoughts are only about the happiness of Philip and their newborn son Alain.

And Solange throws Philip - she begins the next novel. Philip hardly hides his torment. In order not to see Solange, he moves to Gandyumas with his wife and son. There he calms down and seems to fall in love with Isabella again. Spouses find harmony. This is the happiest time of their life together. alas, it was short-lived.

Having caught a cold, Philip falls ill with bronchopneumonia. Isabella takes care of him. She holds Philip's hand in his last hour.

“It seems to me that if I could save you, I would know how to give you happiness,” Isabella finishes her manuscript. “But our destinies and our will almost always act out of place.”

K. A. Stroeva

(Therese Desqueyroux)

Roman (1927)

Teresa Desqueiro leaves the courtroom. She was accused of trying to poison her husband, but through the efforts of her relatives, the case was stopped "due to the lack of corpus delicti." Family honor saved. Teresa has to return home to Argeluz, where her husband is waiting for her, who saved her with his false testimony. Thérèse is afraid of prying eyes, but luckily it gets dark early at this time of the year and her face is hard to see, Thérèse is accompanied by her father Laroque and lawyer Dureau. Teresa thinks of her maternal grandmother, whom she has never seen and knows only that she has left home. Neither her daguerreotypes nor photographs have survived. "Imagination told Teresa that she, too, could disappear like this, go into oblivion, and later her daughter, little Marie, would not find in the family album the image of the one who gave birth to her." Teresa says that she is going to stay with her husband for a few days, and when he gets better, she will return to her father. The father objects: Teresa and her husband should be inseparable, they should observe decorum, everything should be as before. "You will do whatever your husband tells you to do. I think I'm being very clear," says Laroque. Teresa decides that salvation for her is to open her whole soul to her husband, hiding nothing. This thought brings her relief. She recalls the words of her childhood friend Anne de la Trave.

Pious Anna said to the judicious mocker Teresa: “You can’t even imagine what a feeling of liberation you experience when you confess everything in spirit and receive absolution - everything old will be erased and you can live in a new way.” Teresa remembers her childhood friendship with Anna. They met in the summer at Argelouse; in the winter, Teresa studied at the Lyceum, and Anna at the monastery boarding school. Argeluz is located ten kilometers from the small town of Saint-Clair, in the Landes. Bernard Desqueiroux inherited from his father a house in Argelouse, which stood next to the Laroque house. The whole region thought that Bernard should marry Teresa, for their possessions seemed to have been created in order to unite, and the prudent Bernard, who studied at the Faculty of Law in Paris and rarely appeared in Argelous, agreed with the general opinion. After the death of Bernard's father, his mother remarried, and Anna de la Trave was his half-sister. She seemed to him a little girl who did not deserve any attention. Teresa did not particularly occupy his thoughts either. But at the age of twenty-six, after traveling to Italy, Holland and Spain, Bernard Desqueiros married Teresa Laroque, the richest and most intelligent girl in the whole region.

When Teresa thinks about why she married Bernard, she recalls the childish joy that, through this marriage, she will become Anna's daughter-in-law. In addition, she was not indifferent that Bernard had an estate of two thousand hectares. But, of course, this is not the only thing. Perhaps she sought refuge in marriage first of all, sought to join the family clan, "settle down", enter a respectable little world, save herself from some unknown danger. Having married, Teresa experienced disappointment. Bernard's lust evoked no reciprocal desire in her. During their honeymoon, Teresa received a letter from Anna, where she wrote that young Jean Azevedo, who was ill with consumption, settled next to them in Vilmiège, so she stopped cycling in that direction - consumptives inspire horror in her. Then Teresa received three more letters from Anna. Anna wrote that she met Jean Azevedo and fell in love with him without memory, but her family separated the lovers. Anna suffered and hoped that Teresa would help her convince her relatives who wanted to marry her to the young Deguilem at all costs. Anna sent Teresa a photo of Jean. Teresa did not finish reading Anna's letter, full of ardent outpourings. She thought: "So, Anna has tasted the happiness of love ... But what about me? What about me? Why not me?" Teresa in her hearts grabbed a pin and pierced Jean, depicted in the photograph, through the heart. Bernard, like his parents, hoped that Teresa would reason with Anna: Azevedo - Jews, it was not enough for Anna to marry a Jew! In addition, many in their family suffer from consumption. Teresa argued with Bernard, but he did not listen to her objections, convinced that she was arguing only out of a sense of contradiction. Teresa had a desire to teach Anna a lesson, who believed in the possibility of happiness, to prove to her that happiness does not exist on earth. When Bernard and Thérèse returned from their honeymoon and settled in Saint-Clair, Thérèse acted as an intermediary between the de la Traves and Anne. Teresa advised Bernard's parents to be gentler with Anna, to invite her to travel with them, while Teresa would do something. Anna has lost weight, haggard. Teresa persuaded her to go with her parents, but Anna did not want to leave Jean. Although they did not see each other, for Anna was forbidden to go outside the garden, the mere thought that he was close, nearby, gave her strength.

However, Teresa was persistent, and finally Anna gave in. This was facilitated by the news of the imminent arrival of the Deguilems - Anna did not want to see the young Deguilem, whom everyone predicted for her husband. Teresa did not feel sorry for Anna. Her own pregnancy, too, was not a joy to her. "She wanted to believe in God and beg him so that this unknown creature, which she still carries in her womb, would never be born." Teresa promised after the departure of Anna and the de la Traves to find some means of influencing Jean Azevedo, she was drawn to sleep, to peace, and she was in no hurry to fulfill the promise. In mid-October, Jean had to leave, and Bernard began to hurry Teresa.

Bernard began to show the first signs of suspiciousness. He was haunted by a fear of death, surprising for such a big man. He complained about his heart, about his nerves. Teresa believed that Bernard was ridiculous, because the life of people like them is completely useless and surprisingly similar to death. When Teresa mentioned this to Bernard, he only shrugged his shoulders. She annoyed him with her paradoxes. Teresa did not hate Bernard. At times he was disgusting to her, but it never occurred to her that another man would have seemed nicer to her. After all, Bernard wasn't so bad. She could not stand the images of extraordinary personalities created in novels, which are never found in life. She considered Bernard above her environment exactly until she met Jean Azevedo.

They met by chance. Teresa, on her walk, came to the abandoned hunting lodge where she and Anna had once had lunch and where Anna later made appointments with Jean Azevedo. There Teresa met Jean, who, recognizing her, immediately spoke to her about Anna. His eyes and burning look were beautiful. Teresa spoke to him haughtily, accusing him of "bringing confusion and discord into a respectable family." In response, Jean sincerely laughed: "So you imagine that I want to marry Anna?" Teresa was amazed: it turns out that Jean was not in love with Anna at all. He said that he could not resist the charm of such a pretty girl, but he never behaved dishonestly and did not go too far. Regarding Anna's suffering, he said that these sufferings are the best that she can expect from fate, that she will remember these moments of sublime passion all her further dull life. Teresa liked to talk with Jean Azevedo, she liked to listen to his reasoning. Teresa was not in love with him, she just met a person for the first time, for whom the spiritual side of life was most important. Concerning Anna, Teresa devised a plan, which Jean carried out: he wrote her a letter, in which, in very mild terms, he deprived her of all hope.

Bernard did not believe Teresa's story, it seemed to him incredible that Jean Azevedo did not dream of marrying Anna de la Trave. Teresa saw Jean five or six times. He described Paris to her, his comradely circle, where one law reigned - to become oneself. At the end of October, Jean left, making an appointment with Teresa a year later. On the third day after his departure, Anna returned, she wanted to see Jean at all costs, believing that she could win him over again. When Teresa told her that Jean had left, Anna did not believe it until she saw it with her own eyes. When Teresa had a daughter, Teresa did little with her, but Anna adored little Marie and gave her all her time.

One day, a forest fire broke out near Mano. Everyone became worried, and Bernard mistakenly took a double dose of medicine. Exasperated by the heat, Teresa saw this, but did not stop her husband, and when he later forgot whether he had taken the drops or not, and drank another dose, she again remained silent. At night, Bernard was tormented by vomiting, Dr. Pedme was wondering what it could be. Teresa thought that there was no evidence that it was because of the drops. She even became curious: are the drops really to blame? With a fake prescription, Teresa bought the drops and dripped them into her husband's glass. When the pharmacist showed the doctor the prescription, the doctor filed a complaint with the court. Teresa said that a few days ago she met a stranger on the road who asked her to buy prescription medicine at the pharmacy: he allegedly could not do this himself, as he owed the pharmacist. Then this man came and took his drops. Father begged Teresa to come up with something more plausible, but she stubbornly repeated the same thing. She was saved by the lie of Bernard, who confirmed that his wife had told him about the meeting with the stranger.

Teresa thinks about what she will say to Bernard when they meet. The only thing that would solve all the problems, he still will not do: if he opened his arms to her, without asking anything! If only she could lay down on his chest and cry, feeling her living warmth! Teresa decides to tell Bernard that she is ready to disappear, but when they arrive and she utters these words, Bernard is indignant: how dare she have an opinion? She should only obey, only carry out his orders. Bernard describes to Teresa their new way of life: from now on, Teresa is forbidden to walk around the house, food will be brought to her in her bedroom. On Sundays he and Bernard would go to Saint-Clair so that everyone could see them together. Marie, with her mother Bernard and Anna, will leave for the south, and in a few months, when public opinion will consider that peace and harmony reign in the Desqueiro family, Anna will marry the young Deguilem. After her marriage, Bernard will settle in Saint-Clair, and Teresa, under the pretext of neurasthenia, will remain in Argelouse. Teresa is horrified at the thought that she will have to live in Argelouse without a break until her death. When, according to Bernard, an atmosphere of sympathy for Teresa develops in Saint-Clair, he relieves her of the obligation to go to mass and leaves Argeluz.

Teresa is left alone. She dreams of running away to Paris and living there, not depending on anyone. A letter arrives from Bernard, where he promises to come with Anna and Deguilem. The young people got engaged, but before the official engagement, Deguilem wants to see Teresa for sure. Bernard hopes that Teresa will behave with dignity and will not interfere with the successful implementation of the plan of the de la Trave family. When the whole company arrives in Argeluz, Teresa is not interested in her daughter. She is so full of herself that she despises Anna, who does not value her individuality and will forget all her high impulses "at the very first squeak of a baby, which this dwarf will reward her with without even taking off his business card." Teresa is sick. Bernard promises her that after Anna's marriage she will be free. He will take her to Paris on the pretext of poor health, and he will return to his homeland and send her her share of the income from collecting resin. Teresa has an even, calm relationship with Bernard.

When they arrive in Paris in the spring, Bernard asks Thérèse in a cafe why she tried to poison him. It is difficult for her to explain this to him, especially since she herself does not fully understand it. She says that she did not want to play the role of a respectable lady, to utter hackneyed phrases. Besides the Teresa that Bernard knows, there is another Teresa, and she is just as real. For a moment Teresa thinks that if Bernard said to her: "I forgive you. Come with me," she would get up and follow him, but Bernard leaves, and soon this fleeting feeling surprises Teresa. Teresa is in no hurry to leave the cafe, she is not bored or sad. She is in no hurry to see Jean Azevedo. Having carefully touched up her lips, she goes out into the street and goes where her eyes look.

O. E. Grinberg

(Le noeud de viperes)

Roman (1952)

On a wealthy estate, Calez is slowly dying of angina pectoris by his sixty-eight-year-old owner, a recently successful lawyer. His family is looking forward to his end. He himself writes about this in a diary letter, which he addresses to his wife and in which he sums up his life.

As a child, he imagines himself a "gloomy fellow", in whom there was not what is called the "freshness of youth." However, he was proud and proud. And therefore, not possessing charm, he worked hard to achieve the title of the first student wherever he had to study. The mother, who raised him alone, doted on her Louis. His relationship with the rest of humanity was more complicated.

Proud and at the same time vulnerable, he acted like this: "I deliberately hurried to dislike, fearing that it would come out by itself."

And so, when he was twenty-three, a young girl from a wealthy bourgeois family fell in love with him. And he loved her. The hero was shocked by the fact that "it can please, captivate, excite a girl's heart." "You once saved me from hell ..." - he confesses to his wife in his diary. And then came five decades of "great silence...".

The hero tries to understand how he turned from the happiest lover into a vicious old man with a ball of snakes in his heart. To himself, he is also merciless in his diary.

The newlyweds loved in the evening, lying in bed, to "whisper" about how the day went, or to reminisce ... And in one of these moments of special spiritual intimacy, his wife, his dear Izya, admitted that she already had a fiancé, Rudolph. But, having learned that her two brothers had died of consumption, under the pressure of the family, he refused the wedding. And her parents were terribly afraid that rumors would spread about the illness in the family and Izya would not be married at all. Without noticing the state of Louis, she continues to make her completely innocent confessions. It turns out that Rudolph was "handsome, charming, liked by women." And at the husband from these confessions "the heart was torn from flour…".

So, everything was a lie and a deceit, it means that he was not loved, as he imagined, but he simply turned up under the arm at the right moment.

His wife, without knowing it, plunged him "into hell."

However, alienation did not turn into hatred immediately. One case confirmed the complete indifference of his wife to him. Louis was a wonderful lawyer. And once in court he acted as a defender in the case of the Vilnave family. The wife took the blame for the attempt on the snake's life, which was actually committed by the son. She did this not only for the sake of her son, but also because it was the child of her beloved husband, and it was he who asked her to take the blame. Such love and such selflessness could not but shock the hero. He did a great defense. In connection with this case, all the newspapers wrote about him, his portraits were placed on the front pages - and only at home no one congratulated him, no one asked about anything ...

Thus, alienation gradually arises in the family more and more. In his diary, he calls himself a lover of money, believing that he inherited this trait from his mother, a peasant woman. It seemed to him that only with the help of a wallet could he manage the family. “Gold attracts you, but it protects me,” he writes in his diary, mentally sorting through the options for dividing the inheritance and reveling in the imaginary reaction of his children and wife. His wife is afraid of him, the children are afraid and hate him.

The hero reproaches his wife for the fact that she completely went into caring for the children, then for the grandchildren, excluding him from life, not trying to understand him. For her and the children, he is only a source of well-being. The wife considers herself a believer - she and her children sacredly observe all religious holidays, go to church. But when her husband deliberately provokes her into religious disputes, it turns out how superficial this faith is, how little it corresponds to the real life of his wife and children. Neither in herself nor in her children is there true Christian love and humility, it all comes down to taking care of money.

The hero is trying to find contact with the children, but only one - the youngest of the daughters Marie "with her childish caress" touches his heart. But she dies because of the ignorance of the doctor. The hero takes this loss hard. He always remembers the warmth, and this helps him survive among the wolf pack, as his own family seems to him. And the hero recalls one more attachment - to Luke, his nephew, whom he adopted because his mother, his wife's sister, died. He fell in love with the boy because he was "so different" from him. Sincere, open, cheerful and spontaneous, he was completely devoid of the love of money that oppresses the hero in himself and his children, he alone did not look at him, "like a scarecrow." But Luke dies in the war.

Abbé Hardouin lives in the Louis family - he understands the soul of the hero, speaks simple words that shock him, accustomed to the callousness of his family. These words: "You are kind." And they turn him away from an unjust act and make him see himself as another person.

The hero, in order to somehow drown out the pain, to take revenge on his wife, indulged in "everything serious", not looking for love, but taking revenge on her for deceit. He also had a long romance, from which a son was born, but that woman left for Paris, unable to bear the despotism of the hero.

All this worries the children, who do not know how he will dispose of the inheritance. And one evening they gather in the garden and discuss how to make it so that they declare their father crazy. The hero is furious. Here's a real tangle of snakes. His own children are capable of such perfidy! And he decides to go to Paris in the morning to transfer all his huge fortune to his illegitimate son. Before leaving, he had a conversation with his wife, which was destined to be the last. From it, the hero is surprised to understand that his wife suffered because of him and, perhaps, even loved. "I did not dare to put a single child with me to bed at night - I was waiting for you to come ..." Hope dawned. But he still leaves for Paris. There he accidentally sees his son Hubert and son-in-law Alfred, who tracked him down and came to prevent him from carrying out his plan. He belatedly learns of his wife's death and only manages to attend her funeral. She never had time to explain herself, she would never read his diary. "Now nothing can be rebuilt <...> she died without knowing that I was not only a monster and an executioner, but that another person lived in me."

There is a difficult explanation with the children - son Hubert and daughter Genevieve. The hero explains that he feels all the time, "like a seriously ill old man against a whole pack of young wolves ...". They are justified by the fact that their behavior was "legitimate self-defense".

And everything that was good in him suddenly forced him to make a decision - to give the children all the multimillion-dollar inheritance, stipulating an annuity for his illegitimate son.

"I pulled out of my soul what I thought I was deeply attached to ... However, I experienced only relief, a purely physical feeling of relief: it was easier for me to breathe."

Reflecting on this, the hero exclaims: "All my life I have been a prisoner of passions that did not really control me! Think of waking up at sixty-eight! To be reborn before death!"

And yet he will know joy and peace with his granddaughter Yanina, from whom the unlucky, empty, but beloved husband Fili escaped and who, together with her daughter, finds shelter with her grandfather, , like fluff, hair, to her cheeks, peace visited him. Remembering Marie, Luc, Abbé Hardouin, he took faith in his heart, realized that his family was just "a caricature of the Christian life." He defeated his tangle of snakes.

The novel ends with two letters: Hubert to Genevieve, in which he reports on the death of his father and about the strange notes left by his father, the inner meaning of which he did not understand, and Yanina to Hubert, in which she asks permission to read her grandfather's diary, which actually goes back to life.

It seems that she was the only one from the family who understood the proud, restless soul of her grandfather: “I consider him right in front of us, because where our treasures were, our heart was there - we thought only about the inheritance that we were afraid to lose <...> All the strength of the soul we were striving for the possession of material wealth, while grandfather <...> Will you understand me if I say that his heart was not where his treasures were <...> He was the most faithful of us ... "

T. V. Gromova

(Les chemins de la Mer)

Roman (1939)

We find the wealthy Revolu family at a critical moment in their lives. Madame Revolu, her sons Denis and Julien, her daughter Rosie learn terrible news - their father, the owner of the largest notary office in the city - Oscar Revolu - is ruined. He kept a mistress-dancer Regina Lorati. But it was not ruin that pushed him to suicide, but Regina's infidelity.

For every member of the family, this is a disaster. For Rosie, it's a failed wedding. For Julien - the rejection of high-society amusements. For their mother, Lucienne Revolu, the loss of money is tantamount to the loss of everything in the world. And only the youngest - Denis, noting to himself how little he and everyone else thinks about his father's death, finds something positive in it - he is very attached to his sister Rosie and is glad that her wedding will be upset, he does not believe her fiancé.

At this tragic hour for the Revolu family, Leoni Costado, the mother of Rosy's fiancé Robert and two more sons, the poet Pierre and the reveler and womanizer Gaston, who "took away" the dancer, appears in the house. She knew that Lucienne's dowry was intact, and she came to snatch her four hundred thousand francs, which she gave to Oscar Revol, so that he would put them into circulation. She explained her act by saying that "this is the money of my sons." Money for her is sacred, for their sake it is not a sin to "finish off" an old friend. To the reproaches of her sons for cruelty, she gives them a rebuke: “You, if you please, despise money, but you yourself live without denying yourself anything; it would never occur to you to think about what it cost your grandfathers to save money<…> This money should be sacred to you..."

Money is sacred in this world - this is understood by her rebellious sons. However, Pierre, the youngest, resists this. “I hate money because I am completely in their power <…> After all, we live in a world where the essence of everything is money <…> to rebel against them means to rebel against our whole world, against its way of life.”

The senior clerk of the notary's office, devoted to Oscar Revolu, Landen helped the ruined family put things in order and managed to leave behind them the estate - Leonyan, in which they all move to live. While sorting through the papers of the late chief, he stumbles upon his notebook. In it he finds notes about himself:

“How disgusting is the closeness of this person who entered my life during my school years <…> This is a garbage pit near which I had to work, love, enjoy, suffer, which I did not choose, which chose me…” Revolu understands that Landen will destroy his. “The frantic pace of my life, the transformation of my office into a real factory is his work <…> If it weren’t for him, the instinct of self-preservation would already have begun to speak in me, the years would have already muffled the voice of desire. Because of the reptile, everything in my life turned upside down. Only I alone know that his true calling, unknown to himself, is to commit crimes.

Landin, whose appearance caused involuntary disgust, leaves at the invitation of a notary's office in Paris, succeeds, makes shameful connections and becomes a victim of a murderer.

But back to the Revolution family. The only one who did not succumb to despondency was Rosie - Rosetta. She is full of life, strength, and she does not give up. Rosie gets a job as a saleswoman in a bookstore. Now she gets up early in the morning and takes the tram to work. She meets Robert again. He again finds himself in the role of the groom. But not for long. Rosette is full of happiness and does not notice what Robert sees. And he sees a thin girl with dull hair, worn-out shoes and a simple dress. It cannot be said that he loved Rosetta Revolu's money, but he loved the image of a girl created by this money. And Rosetta, living according to the same laws, suffering, recognizes that he is right. The breakup devastates her soul. But gradually she comes out of her state. Robert's farewell letter, in which he sincerely repents of his weakness and calls himself a miserable creature, led her "to some kind of cordial closeness to the Almighty." Prayer becomes her comfort. In the end, she leaves her home with hope, because in her soul was the light of faith.

Julien, after the ruin of his father, cannot accept another life. He lies in bed all day, allowing his mother to take care of him.

Madame Revolu dies of cancer, not daring to have an operation, mainly because of the money. Money is more valuable than life. Her friend-enemy Madame Leoni Costado dies, Julien dies.

Denis fails his Abitur exam and seeks solace in the lines of Racine so adored by his friend Pierre Costado:

"A terrible misfortune happened. But I swear, / I look into his face - I am not afraid of him ..." In fact, he surrenders. He cannot survive in this life. And he agrees that Cavelier - a longtime neighbor - invested money in their estate in exchange for Denis's marriage to his beloved daughter, plump Irene. "She or the other... Is it all the same?" - so Dany decided and entered his dungeon, no matter how his sister resisted this.

Pierre Costado - the youngest in the Costado family, having received his share of the inheritance, travels. He writes the poem "Atis and Cybele", dreams and seeks his own path in life. He is tormented by contradictions - on the one hand, he hates money and despises their power. But on the other hand, he cannot part with them, since they give comfort, independence, the opportunity to engage in poetry. He is in Paris. This is where his momentous meeting with Aanden takes place on the eve of the murder of the clerk. All the abomination of Landen's life is revealed to him. He became a suspect in the murder. He rushes about in despair and finds comfort in the arms of a prostitute. But once he was sincerely and purely in love with Rosie. "He could not endure a life full of those very pleasures that became more necessary to him than bread and wine..."

The story ends darkly.

"The life of most people is a dead road and does not lead anywhere. But others know from childhood that they are going to an unknown sea. And they feel the breath of the wind, marveling at its bitterness, and the taste of salt on their lips, but they still do not see the goal until they will not overcome the last dune, and then an endless, seething expanse will spread before them and sand and sea foam will hit them in the face. And what remains for them? To rush into the abyss or return back ... "

T. V. Gromova

(Sous le soleil de Satan)

Roman (1926)

Germaine Malorti, nicknamed Mouchette, the sixteen-year-old daughter of a Campagne brewer, once, entering the dining room with a full pail of fresh milk, felt unwell; Her parents knew right away that she was pregnant. The stubborn girl does not want to say who the father of the unborn child is, but her father realized that it could only be the Marquis de Cadignan - a local red tape, who was already in his fifth decade. Papa Malorti goes to the marquis with a proposal to "settle the matter amicably", but the marquis confuses him with his composure, and the confused brewer begins to doubt the correctness of his guess, especially since the marquis, having learned that Muschetta is engaged to Ravo's son, tries to shift "the blame " on him. Malorty resorts to the last resort: he says that his daughter has revealed herself to him, and, seeing the distrust of the marquis, swears it. Saying that the "deceitful toadstool" fools them both, each in his own way, the marquis sends the brewer out.

Malorty wants revenge; returning home, he shouts that he will drag the marquis to court: after all, Mushetta is a minor. Muschetta assures that the Marquis has nothing to do with it, but the father, in a temper, says that he told the Marquis that Muschetta had told him everything, and he was forced to confess everything. Muschetta is in despair: she loves the marquis and is afraid of losing his respect, and now he considers her a perjurer, because she promised him to be silent. She leaves the house at night. Arriving at the Marquis, Muschetta says that he will not return home, but the Marquis does not want to leave her with him and is afraid of publicity. He gently reproaches Muschetta for telling her father everything, and is very surprised to hear that in fact she kept the secret of their love. The Marquis explains that he is a beggar, that he cannot keep Muschetta with him, and offers her a third of the money that will remain with him after the sale of the mill and the payment of debts. Mouchetta angrily refuses: she ran through the darkness of the night, challenging the whole world, not in order to find another dork, another well-meaning dad. Disappointment in her lover and contempt for him are great, but she still asks the marquis to take her away - no matter where. The Marquis suggests waiting until Muscetta has a baby and then decide what to do, but Muscetta assures him that she is not pregnant at all and her father just laughed at the Marquis. She even goes so far as to tell the marquis that she has another lover - the deputy Gale, the sworn enemy of the marquis, with him she will not be denied anything. The Marquis does not believe her, but she, in order to anger him, insists on her own. The marquis rushes to her and seizes her by force. Beside himself with anger and humiliation, Muschetta grabs a gun and shoots at the Marquis almost point-blank, after which he jumps out the window and disappears.

Soon she really becomes the mistress of the deputy Gale. Appearing to him in the absence of his wife, she announces that she is pregnant. Gale is a doctor, he is not so easy to deceive: he believes that Muschetta is either wrong or pregnant not from him, and in no case agrees to help Muschetta get rid of the child - after all, this is a violation of the law. Muschetta asks Gale not to drive her away - she is uncomfortable. But then Gale notices that the laundry door is open and the window in the kitchen too - it looks like his wife, whom he is very afraid of, has unexpectedly returned. In a fit of frankness, Muschetta tells Gala that she is pregnant by the Marquis de Cadignan and confesses that she killed him. Seeing that Muschetta is on the verge of insanity, Gale chooses not to believe her, because she has no proof. The shot was fired from such close range that no one doubted that the Marquis had committed suicide. The consciousness of her own impotence causes an attack of violent insanity in Muschetta: she begins to howl like a beast. Gale calls for help. His wife, who arrived in time, helps him deal with Mushetta, who allegedly came on behalf of her father. She is sent to a psychiatric hospital, from where she leaves a month later, "having given birth to a dead child there and completely cured of her illness."

Bishop Papuen sends to Abbé Menu-Segre a recently ordained graduate of the seminary of Donissan - a broad-shouldered fellow, simple-hearted, ill-mannered, not very smart and not very educated. His piety and diligence do not atone for his clumsiness and inability to connect two words. He himself believes that he is not capable of performing the duties of a parish priest, and is going to petition for him to be recalled to Tourcoing. He devoutly believes, sits over books all night long, sleeps two hours a day, and gradually his mind develops, sermons become more eloquent, and parishioners begin to respect him and listen to his teachings with attention.

The rector of the Auburden district, who took over the holding of penitential meetings, asks Menu-Segre for permission to involve Donissan in the confession of the penitents. Donissan zealously fulfills his duty, but he does not know joy, he doubts himself and his abilities all the time. Secretly from everyone, he is engaged in self-flagellation, whipping himself with a chain with all his might. One day, Donissan sets out on foot to Etalle, which is three leagues away, to help the local priest confess the believers. He loses his way and wants to go back to Campagne, but he cannot find the way back either. Unexpectedly, he meets a stranger who is heading to Shalendra and offers to go part of the way together. The stranger says that he is a horse dealer and knows these places well, therefore, despite the fact that the night is moonless and there is darkness all around, even gouge out his eyes, he will easily find his way. He speaks very affectionately with Donissan, who is already exhausted from a long walk. Staggering from fatigue, the priest grabs his companion, feeling support in him. Suddenly Donissan realizes that the horse dealer is Satan himself, but he does not give up, he resists his power with all his might, and Satan retreats. Satan says that he was sent to test Donissan. But Donissan objects: "The Lord sends me a test <...> In this year, the Lord sent me a strength that you cannot overcome." And at the same moment his companion blurs, the outlines of his body become vague - and the priest sees his double in front of him. Despite all his efforts, Donissan cannot distinguish himself from his double, but still retains a somewhat sense of his integrity. He is not afraid of his double, who suddenly turns into a horse dealer again. Donissan rushes at him - but all around is only emptiness and darkness. Donissan loses consciousness. He is brought to life by a cab driver from Saint-Preux. He says that, together with the horse-dealer, he carried him away from the road. Hearing that the horse dealer is a real person, Donissan still cannot understand what happened to him, "whether he is possessed by demons or madness, whether he became a plaything of his own imagination or evil spirits," but it does not matter, as long as he grace will come.

Before dawn, Donissan is already on the way to Campani. Not far from the castle of the Marquis de Cadignan, he meets Mouchette, who often wanders there, and wants to take her away from there. He has the gift to read in souls: he sees the secret of Mushetta. Donissan takes pity on Mushetta, considering her innocent of the murder, for she was an instrument in the hands of the Devil. Donissan gently admonishes her. Returning to Kamlanh, Donissan tells Menu-Segre about his meeting with the hawker-Satan and about his gift to read in people's souls. Menu-Segre accuses him of pride. Muschetta returns home on the verge of another bout of insanity. She invokes Satan. He appears, and she understands that the time has come to kill herself. She steals a razor from her father and cuts her own throat. Dying, she asks to be carried to the church, and Donissan, despite the protests of the broadsword Malorti, takes her there. Donissan is placed in the Vaubekur hospital, and then sent to the Tortefonten desert, where he spends five years, after which he is assigned to a small parish in the village of Lumbre.

Many years pass. Everyone reveres Donissan as a saint, and the owner of the farm, Plui Avre, whose only son fell ill, comes to Donissan, asking him to save the boy. When Donissan, together with Sabiru, a priest of the parish of Lusarne, to which Plui belongs, come to Avra, the boy is already dead. Donissan wants to resurrect the child, it seems to him that this should work, but he does not know. God or the Devil inspired this thought in him. The resurrection attempt fails.

The parish priest from Lusarne, together with a young doctor from Chavranches, decide to make a pilgrimage to Lumbre. Donissan is not at home, a visitor is already waiting for him - the famous writer Antoine Saint-Marin. This empty and bilious old man, the idol of the reading public, calls himself the last of the Hellenes. Moved primarily by curiosity, he wants to look at the Lumbrian saint, whose fame has reached Paris. The dwelling of Donissan strikes with its ascetic simplicity. Dried splashes of blood are visible on the wall in Donissan's room - the result of his self-torture. St. Marin is shocked, but he controls himself and passionately argues with the Lusarne priest. Without waiting for Donissan at his house, all three go to church, but he is not there either. They are seized with anxiety: Donissan is already old and suffers from angina pectoris. They are looking for Donissan and finally decide to go along the Verney road to Royu, where there is a cross. Saint-Marin remains in the church and, when everyone leaves, he feels how peace gradually reigns in his soul. Suddenly, the thought occurs to him to look into the confessional: he opens the door and sees Donissan there, who died of a heart attack. "Leaning against the back wall of the confessional ... resting his stiff feet against a thin plank ... the pitiful skeleton of the Lumbrian saint, numb in exaggerated immobility, looks as if a person wanted to jump to his feet, having seen something completely amazing, - and so he froze."

O. E. Grinberg

One-act tragedy (1925-1926)

The action takes place in the living room of the country villa of Orpheus and Eurydice, reminiscent of an illusionist's salon; despite the April sky and bright lighting, it becomes obvious to the audience that the room is in the grip of a mysterious spell, so that even the usual objects in it look suspicious. In the middle of the room is a pen with a white horse.

Orpheus stands at the table and works with the spiritual alphabet. Eurydice stoically waits for her husband to finish communicating with the spirits through the horse, which answers Orpheus's questions with knocks that help him learn the truth. He abandoned writing poems and glorifying the sun god in order to obtain some poetic crystals contained in the sayings of a white horse, and thanks to this he became famous throughout Greece in his time.

Eurydice reminds Orpheus of Aglaonis, the leader of the Bacchantes (Eurydice herself belonged to their number before marriage), who also tends to engage in spiritualism, Orpheus has an extreme dislike for Aglaonis, who drinks, confuses married women and prevents young girls from getting married. Aglaonis opposed Eurydice to leave the circle of Bacchantes and become the wife of Orpheus. She promised someday to take revenge on him for taking Eurydice away from her. This is not the first time that Eurydice begs Orpheus to return to his former way of life, which he led until the moment when he accidentally met a horse and made himself more comfortable in his house.

Orpheus does not agree with Eurydice and, as proof of the importance of his studies, cites one phrase recently dictated to him by a horse: "Madame Eurydice will return from hell," which he considers the height of poetic perfection and intends to submit to a poetry competition. Orpheus is convinced that this phrase will have the effect of an exploding bomb. He is not afraid of the rivalry of Aglaonisa, who also takes part in a poetry competition and hates Orpheus, and therefore is capable of any vile trick against him. During a conversation with Eurydice, Orpheus becomes extremely irritable and hits the table with his fist, to which Eurydice remarks that anger is not a reason to destroy everything around. Orpheus replies to his wife that he himself does not react in any way to the fact that she regularly breaks window panes, although he knows very well that she does this so that Ortebiz, the glazier, comes to her. Eurydice asks her husband not to be so jealous, to which he breaks one of the glasses with his own hands, in a similar way, as if proving that he is far from jealousy and without a shadow of a doubt gives Eurydice the opportunity to meet Ortebiz one more time, after which he leaves to apply for the competition.

Left alone with Eurydice, Ortebizus, who came to her at the call of Orpheus, expresses his regret at such an unrestrained behavior of her husband and reports that he brought Eurydice, as agreed, a poisoned piece of sugar for the horse, whose presence in the house radically changed the nature of relations between Eurydice and Orpheus. Sugar passed through Ortebiz Aglaonis, in addition to poison for the horse, she also sent an envelope in which Eurydice should put a message addressed to her ex-girlfriend. Eurydice does not dare to feed the poisoned lump of sugar to the horse herself and asks Ortebiz to do this, but the horse refuses to eat from his hands. Eurydice, meanwhile, sees Orpheus returning through the window, Ortebiz throws sugar on the table and stands on a chair in front of the window, pretending to measure the frame.

Orpheus, as it turns out, returned home because he forgot his birth certificate: he takes out a chair from under Ortebiz and, standing on it, looks for the document he needs on the top shelf of the bookcase. Ortebiz at this time, without any support, hangs in the air. Having found evidence, Orpheus again puts a chair under the feet of Ortebiz and, as if nothing had happened, leaves the house. After his departure, the amazed Eurydice asks Ortebiz to explain what happened to her and demands from him that he reveal his true nature to her. She declares that she no longer believes him, and goes to her room, after which she puts a letter prepared for her in Aglaonisa's envelope, licks the edge of the envelope to seal it, but the glue turns out to be poisonous, and Eurydice, sensing the approach of death, calls Ortebiz and asks him to find and bring Orpheus in order to have time to see her husband before his death.

After the departure of Ortebiz, Death appears on the scene in a pink ball gown with two of his assistants, Azrael and Raphael. Both assistants are dressed in surgical gowns, masks and rubber gloves. Death, like them, also puts on a dressing gown and gloves over a ball gown. At her direction, Raphael takes sugar from the table and tries to feed it to the horse, but nothing comes of it. Death brings the matter to an end, and the horse, having moved to another world, disappears; Eurydice also disappears, transferred by Death and her assistants to another world through a mirror. Orpheus, who returned home with Ortebiz, no longer finds Eurydice alive. He is ready for anything, just to return his beloved wife from the realm of shadows. Ortebiz helps him, pointing out that Death left rubber gloves on the table and will fulfill any wish of the one who returns them to her. Orpheus puts on gloves and enters the other world through a mirror.

While Eurydice and Orpheus are not at home, the postman knocks on the door, and since no one opens it, he slips a letter under the door. Soon a happy Orpheus comes out of the mirror and thanks Ortebiz for the advice he has given. Following him, Eurydice appears from there. The horse's prediction - "Madame Eurydice will return from hell" - will come true, but on one condition: Orpheus does not have the right to turn around and look at Eurydice. In this circumstance, Eurydice also sees a positive side: Orpheus will never see her grow old. All three sit down to eat. At dinner, an argument breaks out between Eurydice and Orpheus. Orpheus wants to leave the table, but stumbles and looks back at his wife; Eurydice disappears. Orpheus cannot understand the irreparability of his loss. Looking around, he notices on the floor by the door an anonymous letter, brought in his absence by the postman. The letter says that under the influence of Aglaonisa, the jury of the competition saw an indecent word in the abbreviation of Orpheus's phrase sent to the competition, and now a good half of all the women of the city, raised by Aglaonisa, are heading to Orpheus' house, demanding his death and preparing to tear him to pieces. The drumming of the approaching Bacchantes is heard: Aglaonisa has waited for the hour of vengeance. Women throw stones at the window, the window breaks. Orpheus hangs from the balcony in the hope of reasoning with the warriors. In the next moment, the head of Orpheus, already severed from the body, flies into the room. Eurydice appears from the mirror and leads the invisible body of Orpheus into the mirror.

The commissioner of police and the court clerk enter the living room. They demand to explain what happened here and where the body of the victim is. Ortebiz informs them that the body of the murdered man was torn to pieces and not a trace was left of him. The commissioner claims that the Bacchantes saw Orpheus on the balcony, he was covered in blood and called for help. According to them, they would have helped him, but before their very eyes he fell dead from the balcony, and they could not prevent the tragedy. The servants of the law inform Ortebiz that now the whole city is agitated by a mysterious crime, everyone is dressed in mourning for Orpheus and asks for some bust of the poet to glorify him. Ortebiz points to the commissioner at the head of Orpheus and assures him that this is the bust of Orpheus by the hand of an unknown sculptor. The commissioner and court clerk ask Ortebiz who he is and where he lives. The head of Orpheus is responsible for him, and Ortebiz disappears in the mirror after Eurydice, who calls him. Surprised by the disappearance of the interrogated commissioner and court secretary leave.

The scenery rises, Eurydice and Orpheus enter the stage through the mirror; they are led by Ortebiz. They are going to sit down at the table and finally have dinner, but first they say a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord, who has identified the house, their hearth as the only paradise for them and opened the gates of this paradise to them; because the Lord sent them Ortebiz, their guardian angel, because he saved Eurydice, who killed the devil in the form of a horse in the name of love, and saved Orpheus, because Orpheus idolizes poetry, and poetry is God.

B. V. Semina

(La machine infemale)

Play (1932)

The action of the play, the plot of which is based on the motives of the myth of Edile, takes place in ancient Greece. The queen of Thebes, Jocasta, in order to prevent the oracles' prediction from coming true, which says that her son, when he grows up, will kill his own father, the ruler of Thebes, King Laius, seventeen years ago ordered a servant to injure the feet of her youngest son, tie him up and leave him alone in the mountains on certain death. A certain shepherd found the baby and took it to the king and queen of Corinth, who did not have children, but passionately dreamed of them. They lovingly raised him, calling him Oedipus. Turning into a young man, Oedipus learned from one of the Delphic oracles that he was destined to kill his father and marry his own mother. Unaware that he is the adopted son of the rulers of Corinth, Oedipus leaves them and leaves the city. On the way he meets a horse escort. One of the horses touches Oedipus. A quarrel breaks out between him and the inept rider. The rider swings at Oedipus, he wants to repel the blow, but, having missed, he hits not the rider, but his old master. The old man dies from the blow. Oedipus does not even suspect that his father, King Lai, the ruler of Thebes, is killed.

Jocasta, an inconsolable widow, bitterly mourns her deceased husband. A few days later, rumors reach her that the ghost of King Lai almost daily at dawn appears to the soldiers on guard duty at the fortress wall of the city, talks incoherently with them and asks to warn his wife about something incredibly important. One night, Jocasta comes to the wall in the hope that her arrival will coincide with the appearance of a ghost, and while the ghost is not visible, she tries to check if the guards are deceiving her. Throughout the scene of their conversation, the invisible ghost reappears against the wall, calling in vain to his wife and begging her to pay attention to him. Only after the departure of the queen and her adviser Tiresias, the soldiers manage to see the ghost of the king against the background of the wall, who only manages to ask him to tell the queen to beware of the young man who is currently on the outskirts of the city. Having spoken the last words, the ghost disappears, never to appear again in the world of the living.

At this very time, not far from Thebes, Edil encounters the Sphinx, whom he was looking for everywhere, but, having come across him closely, he does not immediately recognize him, since the monster appears before him in the guise of a young girl. By that time, the Sphinx was already tired of guessing riddles and killing all those who could not solve them, so he tells Oedipus the answer to his next question and gives the young man the opportunity to emerge from the competition as a winner. The defeat of the Sphinx gives Oedipus the opportunity to marry Jocasta, for the queen promised that she would marry someone who could deal with the Sphinx and become the ruler of Thebes, which Oedipus had long sought. Oedipus is happy and, without thanking the Sphinx for his kindness, pleased with himself, runs away towards the city. The Sphinx is outraged by Edil's ingratitude, he is ready to send Anubis, a deity with a human body and a jackal's head, after him, and order him to tear Oedipus to pieces. Anubis, however, advises the Sphinx not to rush to retribution and tells him about the joke that the gods planned to play with the unsuspecting Oedipus: he will have to marry his own mother, give birth to two sons and two daughters with her, and three of the children must will die a violent death. The Sphinx is pleased with this prospect and agrees to wait in order to fully enjoy the picture of Oedipus grief in the future.

The wedding day of Oedipus and Jocasta is drawing to a close. The newlyweds retire to Jocasta's bedroom. The queen asks her husband to pay tribute to the traditions and meet with the blind elder Tiresias, the spiritual mentor of Jocasta. Tiresias is extremely pessimistic about the marriage of the queen and the too young, and besides, as he believes, the poor tramp Oedipus. Upon learning that Oedipus is the offspring of the kings of Corinth, Tiresias changes his attitude towards the newlywed and his opinion about the queen's marriage in general.

Having met in the bedroom of Jocasta, the newlyweds almost immediately plunge into a heavy sleep, to the limit of people weary of daytime worries. Each of them dreams of horrors - Oedipus associated with the Sphinx, and Jocasta with the incest predicted to her. Waking up and seeing old scars on Oedipus' legs, the astonished Jocasta begins to ask him about their nature and, to her relief, learns that he received them, according to the stories of his parents, during his childhood during a forest walk. Unable to contain her excitement, Jocasta makes a semi-confession to her husband, telling him about how allegedly one of her maids seventeen years ago carried her baby son with pierced feet to the mountains and left him alone.

The next seventeen years, that is, the years of the married life of Oedipus and Jokasgah, flew by like one happy moment. The Theban royal spouses had four children, nothing overshadowed their existence. But after an illusory happiness, a catastrophe broke out. Heaven brought down a plague on the city so that the king would taste true grief and realize that he was just a toy in the hands of ruthless gods. Oedipus learns that his father, the king of Corinth, has died of old age. This news partly even pleases Oedipus, because it gives him hope that he managed to avoid the fate predicted to him by the oracle. Oedipus' mother, Merope, is still alive, but her advanced age, according to Oedipus, serves as a reliable defense against the realization of the second part of the prediction. However, the messenger who brought the news of the death of the king informs Oedipus that he is the adopted son of the deceased. Many years ago, a shepherd, that was the father of a messenger, found the baby Edil in the mountains and took him to the palace.

Oedipus did not kill the king of Corinth, but he recalls that once he nevertheless caused the death of one person who met him at the intersection of roads leading from Dedfi and from Davlia. At that very moment, Jocasta realizes that it was Oedipus who killed Laius, his real father, and realizes that the prediction has come true in full. In sacred horror, she leaves Oedipus, who is talking with the messenger, Tiresias and Creon, brother of Jocasta, and commits suicide by hanging herself on her own scarf. Oedipus, remembering the confession of Jocasta seventeen years ago, is convinced that he is the son of Laius and the maid Jocasta. Noticing the disappearance of his wife, he goes after her, but returns in horror and reports the death of his wife. His eyes gradually open, he understands that Jocasta is both a son and a husband at the same time, and the plague that has befallen Thebes is a punishment for the city because the greatest sinner has found refuge in it. The plague is called upon to inflame the atmosphere so that a thunderstorm finally breaks out, which came from the depths of centuries. Oedipus goes up to his chambers in desperation.

After a while, the cry of Antigone, one of the daughters of Oedipus, is heard from there. She calls all those present upstairs: Antigone found the corpse of her mother, and next to him - her father, who gouged out his eyes with Jocasta's golden brooch. Everything around is covered in blood. Creon cannot comprehend why Aedil did this: he believes that it would be better to follow the example of Jocasta. Tiresias is inclined to believe that this is due to the pride of Edil: he was the happiest of mortals, but now he prefers to become the most unfortunate of them.

On the stage appears the ghost of Jocasta, dressed in all white. Only the blinded Oedipus and the almost blind Tiresias are able to see him. Now Jocasta appears before Oedipus only as his mother. She consoles her son and, from now on, protecting him from all dangers, takes him away after her. Together with Oedipus, Antigone also leaves, not wanting to part with her father. All three leave the palace and go away from the city.

E. V. Semina

(Voyage au bout de la nuit)

Roman (1932)

A young Frenchman, medical student Ferdinand Bardamu, under the influence of propaganda, volunteers for the army. For him, a life begins full of hardships, horror and exhausting transitions through Flanders, on the territory of which French troops take part in the First World War. One day, Bardam is sent on a reconnaissance mission. By this time, he had already managed to reach such a degree of nervous and physical exhaustion that he dreams of only one thing: to surrender. While on a sortie, he meets another French soldier, Léon Robinson, whose desires match those of Bardamu. However, they fail to surrender, and they each disperse in their own direction.

Soon Bardamu is injured, and he is sent to Paris for treatment. There he meets the American Lola, dressed in a uniform and arrived in Paris to "save France" to the best of her weak strength. Her duties include the regular sampling of apple fritters for Parisian hospitals. Lola spends all day harassing Bardam with talk about the soul and patriotism. When he confesses to her that he is afraid to go to war and he has a nervous breakdown, she leaves him, and Bardamu ends up in a hospital for crazy soldiers. A little later, he begins dating Musine, a violinist of a special, not too strict morality, who awakens strong feelings in him, but more than once cheats on him with richer clients, in particular with rich foreigners. Soon, Musine prefers that their paths with Bardamu completely disperse.

Bardamyu has no cash, and he goes to one jeweler, for whom he worked in the back room before the war, to ask for money. He does this together with his former friend Voirez, who also once worked for this jeweler. From him, young people receive pennies, which they would not have enough for one day. Then, at the suggestion of Vuarez, both go to the mother of the deceased fellow soldier Vuarez, who is a wealthy woman and from time to time lends Vuarez money. In the courtyard of her house, young people meet the same Leon Robinson. Robinson informs them that the woman they came to has committed suicide in the morning. This fact upsets him no less than Bardam, since he is her godson and also wanted to ask for a certain amount.

A few months later, Bardamu, who received an exemption from military service, boards a steamer and sails to the shores of Africa, where he hopes to get back on his feet in one of the French colonies. This crossing nearly cost him his life. Passengers, for unknown reasons, turn Bardamu into an outcast on the ship and, three days before the end of the voyage, they intend to throw the young man overboard. Only the miracle and eloquence of Bardamyu help him stay alive.

During a stop in the colony of Bambola-Bragamansa at night, Ferdinand Bardamu, taking advantage of the fact that his pursuers need a break, disappears from the ship. He takes a job with the Sranodan of Little Congo. His duties include living in the woods, ten days' journey from Fort Gono, the town where the company's office is located, and exchanging the rubber mined by the Negroes for rags and trinkets with which the company supplied his predecessor and for which savages are so greedy. Upon reaching their destination, Bardamu meets with his predecessor, who again turns out to be Leon Robinson. Robinson takes with him all the most valuable, most of the money, and leaves in an unknown direction, not intending to return to Fort Gono and give an account to his superiors in his economic activities. Bardamu, left with nothing, driven almost to madness by greedy insects and the loud nocturnal howls of the beast living in the forest around his hut, decides to follow Robinson and move in the same direction in which his acquaintance disappeared. Bardamu is crippled by malaria, and the Negro escorts are forced to deliver him to the nearest settlement, which turns out to be the capital of the Spanish colony, on a stretcher. There he gets to a priest who sells Bardam to the captain of the galley "Infanta Sosalia" as a rower. The ship is sailing for America. In the United States, Bardamu escapes from the galley and tries to find his place in this country. First he works as a flea counter in a quarantine hospital, then goes without a job and without a penny in his pocket, then he turns to his former mistress, Lola, for help. She gives him a hundred dollars and escorts him out the door. Bardamyu gets a job at a Ford factory, but soon gives up this occupation, having met Molly in a brothel, an affectionate and devoted girl who helps him financially and wants to marry him someday. God works in mysterious ways; it is not surprising that in America, too, Ferdinand accidentally meets with Leon Robinson, who arrived in the country in the same way as Bardamus, but slightly ahead of the latter. Robinson works as a janitor.

After staying in America for about two years, Bardamu goes back to France and resumes his medical studies, passes exams, while continuing to earn extra money. After five or six years of academic suffering, Ferdinan still receives a diploma and the right to conduct medical practice. He opens his doctor's office on the outskirts of Paris, in Garenne-Dranier. He has no claims, no ambitions, but only a desire to breathe a little more freely. The public in Garenne-Dranje (the name of the area speaks for itself) belongs to the lower strata of society, declassed elements. Here people never live in abundance and do not try to hide the rudeness and unbridledness of their morals. Bardamu, as the most unpretentious and conscientious doctor in the quarter, often does not receive a single sous for his services and gives advice for free, not wanting to rob the poor. True, there are also frankly criminal personalities among them, such as, for example, the husband and wife of Prokiss, who at first want to put Prokiss's elderly mother in a hospital for the mentally ill old people, and when she gives a decisive rebuff to their plans, they plot to kill her. This function, which no longer surprises readers, is entrusted to the Prokiss couple from nowhere who has come from Robinson for a fee of ten thousand francs.

An attempt to send the old woman to the next world ends dramatically for Robinson himself: a shot from a gun during the installation of a trap for mother Prokiss falls into the eyes of Robinson himself, which makes him blind for several months. The old woman and Robinson of the Prokiss wife, away from sin, so that the neighbors would not find out about anything, are sent to Toulouse, where the old woman opens her own business: she shows tourists a church crypt with half-decayed mummies on display in it and has a good income from this. Robinson, on the other hand, makes acquaintance with Madelon, a twenty-year-old black-eyed girl who, despite his blindness, plans to become his wife soon. She reads newspapers to him, walks with him, feeds him and takes care of him.

Bardamu comes to Toulouse to visit his friend. Things are going well for him, he already feels better, his eyesight gradually begins to return to him, he receives a few percent of the profit from the crypt. On the day of Bardamu's departure for Paris, a misfortune happens to the old woman Prokiss: having stumbled on the stairs leading to the crypt, she falls down and dies from a bruise. Ferdinand suspects that this could not have happened without the participation of Robinson, and, not wanting to get involved in this matter, he hurries back to Paris. In Paris, Bardamu, under the patronage of one of his colleagues, Sukhodrokov, gets a job as an assistant to the chief physician in a psychiatric hospital. The head physician by the name of Bariton has a little daughter, who is distinguished by a certain strangeness of character. Her father wants her to start learning English, and Bardamya asks her to teach. The girl does not get along with English, but her father, who is present at all lessons, is imbued with a passionate love for the language, literature and history of England, which radically changes his view of the world and his life aspirations. He sends his daughter to some distant relative, and he himself leaves for an indefinite time in England, then in the Scandinavian countries, leaving Bardamya as his deputy. Soon, Robinson appears at the gates of the hospital, who this time ran away from his bride and her mother. Madelon dragged Robinson down the aisle, threatening, if he did not marry her, to inform the police that the death of the old woman Prokiss did not occur without the participation of Robinson. Appearing to Bardam, he begs his friend to shelter him in his hospital as a lunatic. Madelon immediately follows her fiancé to Paris, gets a job and spends all her free time at the gates of the hospital park in the hope of seeing Leon. Bardamyu, wanting to protect Robinson from meeting with Maddon, speaks rudely to her and even slaps her. Regretting his intemperance, he invites Robinson and Madelon, as well as the masseuse Sophia, his close friend, for a walk for the sake of reconciliation. Reconciliation, however, does not work out, and on the way back to the hospital in a taxi, Madelon, who fails to get Robinson's consent to return to Toulouse and marry her, shoots him point-blank with a pistol, and then, opening the taxi door, gets out out of it and, rolling down a steep slope straight through the mud, disappears into the darkness of the field. Robinson dies from his stomach wounds.

E. V. Semina

(La semaine Sainte)

Roman (1958)

The action takes place from March 19 to March 26, 1815 in France, during the last week before Easter, called the Passion Week in the Catholic calendar. The novel is based on historical events related to the return of Napoleon Bonaparte to Paris, who fled from the island of Elba, where he was in exile. The main character of this multifaceted epic novel is the young artist Theodore Géricault. In 1811, his father, Georges Géricault, with the consent of his son, who hated war, hired a recruit instead of him to serve in Napoleon's army. And for several years Theodore calmly painted. However, in 1815 he was suddenly assigned to the gray musketeers of King Louis XVIII and thus included in the dramatic events that swept France.

In the barracks of the royal troops on the outskirts of Paris, early in the morning, an order was received to arrive in the capital on the Champ de Mars, where the king wants to hold a review in the afternoon. What decision will the king make - to defend the Louvre and Paris according to the developed plan, or to leave the capital, since Bonaparte approaches the city very quickly and almost unhindered? Everyone is discussing the news of the betrayal of the "faithful" Marshal Ney, who was sent by the king to block Bonaparte's road to Paris and who went over to the side of the emperor. Theodore Gericault asks himself one more question - what will happen to him personally if the generals continue to cheat on the king, and the royal troops with baggage and weapons join Napoleon's army? Maybe give up everything, sit out in his father's huge house, take up painting again? .. However, after a short rest in his Parisian house, despite fatigue, doubts, rain and sleet, Theodore still arrives on time on his beloved horse Trico to the gathering place .

Meanwhile, time passes, but the king does not appear. Rumors about betrayals, about the flight of aristocrats, about Bonaparte, who is on the outskirts of Paris, about the indecision of the king excite the minds of the French. The military is not told anything, but they suddenly see the king's carriage. At high speed, she moves away from the Louvre. So the monarch is running away, but where, in what direction? Then suddenly the carriage stops, the king orders the troops to return to the barracks, and he returns to the Louvre. There is a revival in the city, in some quarters Cafe regulars are already drinking to Napoleon's health. Walking around the city in the form of a royal musketeer is dangerous, but not sleeping on a night like this ?! Theodore walks into a cafe and almost provokes a fight with his uniform. Fortunately, his old acquaintance Dieudonné, who happened to be there, recognizes Theodore and settles everything. Dieudonné returns to the emperor, but he has not forgotten Theodore, whom he has known since childhood and whom he served as a model for one of the paintings. Wandering around Paris, Gericault meets other acquaintances. There is the same confusion in his head as in the whole city. Thoughts follow each other. Thoughts about the past, present and future of the motherland alternate with thoughts 6 of painting. What is better for France - the king, Bonaparte or the Republic? Why doesn't he, the painter Théodore Géricault, immediately run to his studio? After all, all that he saw during the day and sees now is a bright light in the Louvre, where the ambassador of Spain is being received, and blackness, nights - everything just asks for a canvas. Now he could work no worse than his beloved Caravaggio.

However, his legs do not carry him home, but to his fellow musketeers, who, together with other troops, leave Paris and, following the king and his escort who have already left in the middle of the night, retreat to the north of the country. But exactly where, along what route - no one knows, even the king's nephew, the Duke of Berry, who stayed for a short while with his beloved Virginie, who gave birth to his son the other day. The king appointed Marshal Maison commander-in-chief, but even he cannot organize anything - the generals do as they see fit. It is not known where the headquarters is located, but it is known that on the evening of March 19, its entire staff appeared in the office, demanded a salary and disappeared. Before the royal troops had time to move away from Paris, some of them had already turned back: in Saint-Denis, General Exelmans, who had gone over to the side of Bonaparte, lured them away. On March 20, in bad weather and impassable mud, the units devoted to the king reached the city of Beauvais, from where the king and his retinue had just left. But where? To Calais and then to England? One can only guess. And what is destined for them - will a battle be given here, or will the retreat continue? The inhabitants of Beauvais fear the return of Bonaparte. After all, then recruiting fees will begin again, a bloody tribute to the war, and their city is already almost completely destroyed. Yes, and production will suffer, who then will need their textiles?

In Beauvais, Gericault stopped for the night at the house of the widow-grocer Durand. Her daughter, sixteen-year-old Denise, told Theodore that a year ago they had lodged a young officer, Alphonse de Pra, who read his poems to her and wonderfully described Italy. Theodore later learned that it was Lamartine. And on the same night, at dawn, the city's sub-prefect was informed that Emperor Bonaparte had solemnly installed himself in the Louvre in Paris. In Beauvais, the military leaders and the princes who arrived there in the morning cannot hide their confusion: the troops have not yet fully pulled up to the city, and General Ekselmans, who went to catch up with them, may be about to impose a battle. This means that it is necessary, not sparing public money, to buy horses, reach the port of Dieppe as soon as possible and sail for England, even without direct instructions from the king, who still does not make himself felt.

Géricault is among those sent for the horses. Conversation with the owner of the herd is not easy, but the musketeers still manage, thanks to their assertiveness, to buy the best horses. Among the horses, one stands out, of black suit with a white spot on the hind leg. With such "white-legs" one must be careful, they are very skittish. Gericault gives this handsome horse to Friend Marc-Antoine, who lost his beloved horse on the way to Beauvais. But the gift turns out to be fatal: two days later, the horse, frightened by an unexpected shot, carried the new owner, who was unable to free his leg from the stirrup. The rider in a serious condition is left in the care of a poor peasant family, and his further fate remains unclear.

At the entrance to the city of Pua, Theodore had to stop by the forge to shoe his Leotard. He stays overnight at the blacksmith Muller, to whom two men came - the old man Joubert and the young driver Bernard. Müller is married to Sophie, to whom Bernard and the blacksmith's assistant Firmin have tender feelings. At dinner, Theodore's keen eye caught signs of the drama that was being played out in this house. Firmin hates Bernard, feeling that Sophie is secretly infatuated with this regular visitor to the blacksmith. Firmen patiently waits for the right moment to deal with the opponent. At midnight, Firmin enters Theodore's room and invites him to follow Bernard and Joubert with him to a secret gathering of conspirators. Firmin hopes that the royal musketeer Géricault, having heard the anti-royal speeches of the conspirators, will report on Bernard, and thus he will be freed from his hated rival. About twenty people gathered in a clearing near the cemetery. They excitedly discuss the causes of the plight of the people, blame it primarily on the aristocrats and the king, scold Bonaparte for endless wars and ruin. How many people, so many opinions. It seems to Theodore, who hid behind a tree, that he is in the theater and is watching some unfamiliar drama. It turns out that the price of bread can excite and even disturb someone, some paybooks cause curses among the workers, and these same workers talk with hope about some kind of "workers' unions". Some of them argue that the people should no longer trust anyone, others argue that Bonaparte can be what the people make him, if the people give him the right direction, and unite himself. Gericault feels that something is changing in him. This wave of human passions captivates him and brings him purely physical pain. He got here by accident, but now he will always be on the side of these people, about whom he knew practically nothing before. And when Firmen insistently asks Theodore to return to the city and tell everything to the royal authorities, who will arrest the rebels, Theodore in a rage throws Firmen away and hits him in the face.

News of Excelmans' cavalry drives princes and counts across the English Channel, but Theodore Gericault does not even think about emigration. In Pua, the word "motherland" was enriched for him with a new meaning, now he could not part with France, leave the needy and suffering people. But the king is in a hurry to leave France: firstly, one must not fall into the hands of Bonaparte, and secondly, even relatives who dream of taking possession of his crown are now dangerous. Louis XVIII wants to outwit them all - after some time to return with allies and protect himself from all applicants. In the meantime, rumors are spreading among the king's soldiers that at Lille the guards might link up with the foreign armies stationed on the frontier. So, the Duke of Orleans, who two days ago assured the army that the king would never turn to foreigners for help and would not call them to French soil, was lying.

The army is in revolt. For some generals this problem arises with the same acuteness. For example, Marshal MacDonald openly declares to the king that he will not cross the border. The moment of choice has come: loyalty to the king or loyalty to the motherland. And the king himself, without having reached the port on the English Channel, decided to quickly cross the Franco-Belgian border in Meneno. In the squares of French cities, instead of "Long live the king!" everywhere they shout "Long live the emperor!", and on Good Friday they go to the cathedral for the liturgy. But Theodore is not up to religious rites: he has not yet found an answer for himself, which side to take. It is already clear that he is not on the side of the king, who has stained himself with the shame of treason. But why is Bonaparte better? After all, he once said that he did not want to be the emperor of the mob. He does not care that the people are dying of hunger, and the army and countless police keep him in fear. Or perhaps the young orator who called on the royalists and republicans to rally against the tyrant-emperor was right? All of this is yet to be sorted out. And now Theodore Gericault, who has already been at the limits of the possible, at this hour of Easter matins just wants to live, paint, peer into the faces of people, love them. He wants to become a real painter of the world that surrounds him.

Ya. V. Nikitin

(La famille Boussardel)

Roman (1946)

The novel is a family chronicle with a sequel. The events described in the novel take place in Paris in the 1815th century. and begin with the fact that in XNUMX, having served in the French National Guard, Florent Bussardel, the son of a prominent customs official who had recently died, returned to the bosom of the family. He enters the service in the office of a stockbroker, where he quickly masters, so that his business goes up. He has two daughters: nine-year-old Adeline and five-year-old Julie. Soon two more twin sons are born - Ferdinand and Louis. During childbirth, his wife Lydia dies, and Florent is left alone with four children in her arms. At home and with the children, he is helped by Ramelo, a fifty-year-old neighbor who later becomes almost a member of the family, and Batistina, a village girl taken by Lydia to help during the war years.

Adeline grows up and goes to school for noble maidens. Julie takes care of the brothers. One day, while playing Indians with them, she starts a small fire in the apartment. Batistina, not understanding who is to blame, brutally beats the twins. Subconsciously, she cannot forgive them in any way for the death of their mother, to whom she was very attached. She is fired.

Companion Florent Bussardel, stealing on military supplies, is imprisoned, and Bussardel redeems his share in the office and becomes the sole owner of it.

In 1826, the question of Adeline's marriage arises. Her father finds a match for her in the person of Felix Mignon, the son of one of the shareholders of a company that resells land in Paris. Adeline scares away the young man with her hypocritical speeches, and he falls passionately in love with the lively and charming Julie, who is not yet sixteen. Florent Bussardel agrees to marry his youngest daughter, and Adeline remains an old maid, explaining this to those that the twins need someone who would replace their mother and take care of them.

Meanwhile, the office of the stockbroker Bussardel becomes one of the first in Paris, his affairs are in full swing and it becomes necessary to buy an estate where the broker could invite friends to hunt. In 1832, Bussardel acquires the Granci estate, where the whole family leaves during the raging cholera in Paris that same year. Ferdinand Bussardel, by that time turned into a temperamental sixteen-year-old boy, seduces the young dishwasher Clemence Blondeau in Grancy. This is his first experience in the field of love, and it costs the girl dearly: due to the operation to terminate the pregnancy, she subsequently becomes unable to have children and dies of cancer even in her youth. From his connection with Clemence, Ferdinand endures only the first acquaintance with this kind of pleasure and the desire to know them again. He spends all his youth in the Latin Quarter in the company of grisettes, unlike his confidante Louis, a chaste and timid young man. By the age of twenty, a change takes place in Ferdinand. Bored with his monotonous pleasures, he decides to marry in order to acquire the status of a serious married person and become a worthy successor to his father. On the advice of his relatives, his choice falls on Teodorina Bizieu, the daughter of the owner of a spinning factory, originally from Savoy. Four months after the family council, Teodorina becomes the wife of Ferdinand and so far the only lady Bussardel. Louis will soon marry. The day after his wedding, Ramelo dies, she is buried in the Bussardele family crypt, where her beloved Lydia still rested alone. Before she dies, she cannot forgive them in any way for the death of their mother, to whom she was very attached. She is fired.

Companion Florent Bussardel, stealing on military supplies, is imprisoned, and Bussardel redeems his share in the office and becomes the sole owner of it.

In 1826, the question of Adeline's marriage arises. Her father finds a match for her in the person of Felix Mignon, the son of one of the shareholders of a company that resells land in Paris. Adeline scares away the young man with her hypocritical speeches, and he falls passionately in love with the lively and charming Julie, who is not yet sixteen. Florent Bussardel agrees to marry his youngest daughter, and Adeline remains an old maid, explaining this to those that the twins need someone who would replace their mother and take care of them.

Meanwhile, the office of the stockbroker Bussardel becomes one of the first in Paris, his affairs are in full swing and it becomes necessary to buy an estate where the broker could invite friends to hunt. In 1832, Bussardel acquires the Granci estate, where the whole family leaves during the raging cholera in Paris that same year. Ferdinand Bussardel, by that time turned into a temperamental sixteen-year-old boy, seduces the young dishwasher Clemence Blondeau in Grancy. This is his first experience in the field of love, and it costs the girl dearly: due to the operation to terminate the pregnancy, she subsequently becomes unable to have children and dies of cancer even in her youth. From his connection with Clemence, Ferdinand endures only the first acquaintance with this kind of pleasure and the desire to know them again. He spends all his youth in the Latin Quarter in the company of grisettes, unlike his confidante Louis, a chaste and timid young man. By the age of twenty, a change takes place in Ferdinand. Bored with his monotonous pleasures, he decides to marry in order to acquire the status of a serious married person and become a worthy successor to his father. On the advice of his relatives, his choice falls on Teodorina Bizieu, the daughter of the owner of a spinning factory, originally from Savoy. Four months after the family council, Teodorina becomes the wife of Ferdinand and so far the only lady Bussardel. Louis will soon marry. The day after his wedding, Ramelo dies, she is buried in the Bussardele family crypt, where her beloved Lydia still rested alone. Before her death, she forgives Florent Bussardel for the fact that when the birth of twins threatened Lydia with death, Bussardel preferred that the children remain alive, and not their mother.

Florent Bussardel acquired Villette's mansion for his son, and now Ferdinand lives there with his wife, who, having married, immediately becomes a mother and soon gives hope that the child will not be the only one. Her first son, Victorin, given to the village for a year to be nursed, along with his foster brother, falls ill with croup, from which the latter dies.

Florent Bussardel, not yet sharing his plans with anyone, is buying up the land of the village of Monceau, now attached to Paris by permission of the king. As a result, a year and a half after the start of his activity, Bussardel becomes the owner of all the sites that he looked at, and only then decides to open up to his sons, who fully approved of him.

In 1845, during the uprising in Paris, Ferdinand and Louis serve in the National Guard. The whole family: Florent Bussardel, Teodorina with three sons and a daughter, as well as Laura, wife of Louis, with children - go to the "Terrace", one of the plots in the village of Monceau, where Bussardel ordered to equip a peasant house for temporary residence of his family. After the establishment of the Republic, the family returns to Paris, where Ferdinand and Louis, who survived the skirmishes, are already waiting for them.

Years pass, filled in the family of Ferdinand Bussardel with worries about Victorin, who gives parents a lot of anxiety because of his character. His two brothers and three sisters have much better inclinations. The second son in the family, Edgar, is silent and sensible, in poor health and very similar to his mother. The youngest, Amory, is the spitting image of a father, already in his youth, he shows extraordinary abilities in drawing. In 1854 Florent Bussardel went to the estate of his old friend Albare for the summer. At the end of the summer, Ferdinand goes there, along with Victorin and Amaury. Victorin is unusually noisy and restless, but is still distinguished by stupidity, laziness and an evil character. Ferdinand tries to apply a new system of education to his son and provides this difficult teenager with the most pleasant living conditions, as if he were an exemplary boy, but Victorin is even more unrestrained, and his father has no choice but to place his son in a special educational institution in Javel for difficult-to-educate teenagers, where he remains until his marriage under the tutelage of a strict overseer.

Old Florent dies suddenly, without having time to tell Ferdinand about the secret of his birth and about his mother, Lydia. The plots acquired by the old man are rapidly growing in price, grandiose construction begins on them, the condition of the Boussardels increases every day. In Monceau, near the park, Bussardelli and themselves are building luxurious mansions.

At twenty-two and a half years old, having spent almost twice in each class, Victorin receives a school-leaving certificate, and his parents marry him to Amélie, daughter of the Count and Countess Clapier. The honeymoon journey begins on the Mediterranean coast in the city of Gier, where Edgar, Victorin's brother, is being treated for chest disease, and there, at the mutual desire of the newlyweds, it ends. Amelie, having made friends with Edgar, tells him about her life and the circumstances of her marriage: she was brought up in a monastery for a long time, and when the time came for her parents to take her away from there, they expressed their desire that Amelie become a nun, because because of the unsuccessful deals of her brother, the family was left without a significant part of the state and did not have the opportunity to give a proper dowry for her daughter. However, after the scandal that broke out because of the violence of the parents over the daughter, which many of their acquaintances learned about, Clapiers were forced to take their daughter from the monastery and find a party for her, but not give a dowry. That is why Amélie agreed to marry Victorin; she would go for anyone, if only to escape from the hypocritical and oppressive tutelage of the family. The first child is born to Amelie only a few years after marriage, and then after a long treatment, which became necessary because of Victorin's rough treatment of her in the very first days after their wedding. Amelie's relationship with her father-in-law is very warm. Soon, despite her young age, Amelie becomes a real "mother" of the entire Bussardel family. In 1870, when riots begin in Paris, she takes all the offspring of Ferdinand and Louis Bussardel to Grancy, where she makes every effort so that her relatives do not know the need for anything. Teodorina dies in the same year. After returning to Paris, Amelie has a third child. As a nurse, she takes Aglaia, the wife of Dubos, Victorin's servant, who, with her exceptional devotion, wins Amélie's affection. However, after Victorin gets Aglaya to become his mistress and Amelie finds out about it, she is fired and kicked out of the house. Amelie, whose dignity is deeply hurt, decides to divorce her husband, because after the death of her aunt, who left her a significant inheritance, she may not be financially dependent on Victorin. For starters, she leaves for Grancy. Only the active intervention of Ferdinand makes it possible to avoid a divorce and the inevitable scandal and shame associated with it for the whole family.

After some time, Victorin's aunt, Adeline, Ferdinand's older sister, falls ill. To Amelie, who is courting her, she tells a secret about her husband. Adedina claims that Victorin is not the son of Ferdinand, since the child of Theodorina and Ferdinand died in infancy from croup, and Victorin is none other than the son of the nurse, with whom she replaced the offspring of the Bussardels out of fear. Amelie goes to the suburbs and finds confirmation of Adeline's words there, but does not tell anyone about this, not wanting to harm her children. Adeline, who begins to spread rumors further, is placed by Amelie in an expensive institution for the mentally ill, where a few years later she dies of old age. Amelie understands the reasons for the behavior and appearance of her husband, so uncharacteristic of the Bussardels. From now on, her main occupation is to ensure that Victorin does not dishonor his family name too much outside the house. She again sends Dubos' wife to Paris, and when she enters a respectable age, she entrusts her with the search for compliant maids for her husband. After the death of Ferdinand Bussardel, Amelie takes over the reins of the family and takes care of him with warmth and love, which attract the entire younger generation to her and contribute to the prosperity of the family. By that time, both Louis and Julie Bussardel had gone to the grave. A little later, Amelie marries her sons to their "cousins", thus grafting her offspring to the main family tree trunk. In 1902, she already had four grandchildren. Victorin dies during her next visit to a brothel, and Aglaya helps Amelie hide this shameful fact from her loved ones. The crypt of the Bussardelles is replenished with another deceased, and the family, greatly expanded, continues to flourish in prosperity and universal respect,

E. V. Semina

(Tegge des faomnies)

Tale (1939)

The book is written in the first person. Exupery is more dedicated to one of his fellow pilots - Henri Guillaume.

Man reveals himself in the struggle with obstacles. The pilot is like a farmer who tills the land, and in so doing wrests some of nature's secrets from nature. The work of the pilot is just as fruitful. The first flight over Argentina was unforgettable: the lights flickered below, and each of them spoke about the miracle of human consciousness - about dreams, hopes, love.

Exupery began working on the Toulouse-Dakar line in 1926. Experienced pilots were somewhat aloof, but in their abrupt stories a fairy-tale world of mountain ranges with traps, dips and whirlwinds arose. The "oldies" skillfully maintained the admiration, which only increased when one of them did not return from the flight. And then the turn of Exupery came: at night he went to the airfield in an old bus and, like many of his comrades, felt how a ruler was born in him - a man responsible for Spanish and African mail. The officials sitting nearby talked about illnesses, money, petty household chores - these people voluntarily imprisoned themselves in the prison of petty-bourgeois well-being, and a musician, poet or astronomer will never wake up in their hardened souls. Another thing is the pilot, who will have to enter into an argument with a thunderstorm, mountains and the ocean - no one regretted his choice, although for many this bus became the last earthly shelter.

Of his comrades, Exupery singles out, first of all, Mermoz - one of the founders of the French airline Casablanca - Dakar and the discoverer of the South American line. Mermoz "led reconnaissance" for others and, having mastered the Andes, handed over this site to Guillaume, and he himself took up the domestication of the night. He conquered the sands, mountains and sea, which, in turn, swallowed him more than once - but he always got out of captivity. And now, after twelve years of work, during the next voyage across the South Atlantic, he briefly announced that he was turning off the right rear engine. All radio stations from Paris to Buenos Aires were on a dreary watch, but there was no more news from Mermoz. After resting at the bottom of the ocean, he completed his life's work.

Nobody will replace the dead. And pilots experience the greatest happiness when the one who has already been mentally buried is suddenly resurrected. This happened to Guillaume, who disappeared during a voyage over the Andes. For five days, his comrades unsuccessfully searched for him, and there was no longer any doubt that he had died - either in a fall or from the cold. But Guillaume performed the miracle of his own salvation by passing through the snow and ice. He said later that he endured what no animal could endure - there is nothing nobler than these words, showing the measure of the greatness of man, determining his true place in nature.

The pilot thinks in terms of the universe and rereads history in a new way. Civilization is just fragile gilding. People forget that under their feet there is no deep layer of earth. An insignificant pond, surrounded by houses and trees, is subject to the action of the ebb and flow. Under a thin layer of grass and flowers, amazing transformations take place - only thanks to the plane they can sometimes be seen. Another magical property of an airplane is that it takes the pilot to the heart of the miraculous. With Exupery it happened in Argentina. He landed in some field, not suspecting that he would end up in a fairy house and meet two young fairies who were friends with wild herbs and snakes. These savage princesses lived in harmony with the universe. What happened to them? The transition from girlhood to the state of a married woman is fraught with fatal mistakes - perhaps some fool has already taken the princess into slavery.

In the desert, such meetings are impossible - here the pilots become prisoners of the sands. The presence of the rebels made the Sahara even more hostile. Exupery knew the burden of the desert from the very first flight; when his plane crashed near a small fort in West Africa, the old sergeant received the pilots as heaven's messengers - he cried when he heard their voices.

But in the same way, the recalcitrant Arabs of the desert were shocked when they visited France unfamiliar to them. If rain suddenly falls in the Sahara, a great migration begins - whole tribes go three hundred leagues in search of grass. And in Savoy, precious moisture gushed, as if from a leaky cistern. And the old leaders said later that the French god is much more generous to the French than the god of the Arabs to the Arabs. Many barbarians have wavered in their faith and almost submitted to strangers, but among them there are still those who suddenly rebel to regain their former greatness - a fallen warrior who has become a shepherd cannot forget how his heart beat at the night fire. Exupery recalls a conversation with one of these nomads - this man did not defend freedom (everyone is free in the desert) and not wealth (there are none in the desert), but his hidden world. The Arabs themselves were admired by the French captain Bonnafus, who made bold raids on nomad camps. His existence graced the sands, for there is no greater joy than the slaying of such a glorious enemy. When Bonnafus left for France, the desert seemed to have lost one of its poles. But the Arabs continued to believe that he would return for his lost sense of valor - if this happened, the recalcitrant tribes would receive news on the first night. Then the warriors silently lead the camels to the well, prepare a supply of barley and check the gates, and then set out on a campaign, driven by a strange feeling of hatred-love.

Even a slave can gain a sense of dignity if he has not lost his memory. The Arabs called all slaves the name Bark, but one of them remembered that his name was Mohammed and he was a cattle driver in Marrakesh. In the end, Exupery managed to buy him out. At first, Bark didn't know what to do with his newfound freedom. The old negro was awakened by the smile of a child - he felt his importance on earth, having spent almost all the money on gifts for children. His guide thought he was crazy with joy. And he was simply possessed by the need to become a man among people.

Now there are no more recalcitrant tribes. The sands have lost their secret. But the experience will never be forgotten. Once Exupery managed to approach the very heart of the desert - this happened about 1935, when his plane crashed into the ground near the borders of Libya. Together with the mechanic Prevost, he spent three endless days among the sands. Sahara almost killed them: they suffered from thirst and loneliness, their minds were exhausted under the weight of mirages. The almost half-dead pilot told himself that he did not regret anything: he got the best share, for he left the city with its bookkeepers and returned to the peasant truth. It was not danger that attracted him - he loved and loves life.

The pilots were saved by a Bedouin, who seemed to them an almighty deity. But the truth is difficult to understand, even when you come into contact with it. At the moment of supreme despair, a person finds peace of mind - probably, Bonnafus and Guillaume knew him. Anyone can wake up from mental hibernation - for this you need a case, favorable soil or an imperious command of religion. On the Madrid front, Exupery met a sergeant who was once a small accountant in Barcelona - time called him, and he joined the army, feeling his calling in this. There is truth in the hatred of war, but do not be quick to judge those who fight, for the truth of a man is what makes him a man. In a world that has become a desert, a person longs to find comrades - those with whom he is connected by a common goal. You can become happy only by realizing your own, albeit modest, role. In third-class carriages, Exupery had a chance to see Polish workers being evicted from France. A whole nation was returning to their sorrows and poverty. These people were like ugly clods of clay - so compressed their life. But the face of the sleeping child was beautiful:

he looked like a fairy-tale prince, like a baby Mozart, doomed to follow his parents through the same forging press. These people did not suffer at all: Exupery suffered for them, realizing that Mozart might have been killed in everyone. Only the Spirit turns clay into man.

E. D. Murashkintseva

(Le Petit Prince)

Tale (1943)

At the age of six, the boy read about how a boa constrictor swallows its prey, and drew a snake that swallowed an elephant. It was a drawing of a boa constrictor on the outside, but the adults claimed it was a hat. Adults always need to explain everything, so the boy made another drawing - a boa constrictor from the inside. Then the adults advised the boy to give up this nonsense - according to them, he should have done more geography, history, arithmetic and spelling. So the boy abandoned a brilliant career as an artist. He had to choose another profession: he grew up and became a pilot, but as before, he showed his first drawing to those adults who seemed to him smarter and more intelligent than the rest, and everyone answered that it was a hat. It was impossible to talk heart to heart with them - about boas, jungles and stars. And the pilot lived alone until he met the Little Prince.

It happened in the Sahara. Something broke in the plane's engine: the pilot had to fix it or die, because there was only a week of water left. At dawn, the pilot was awakened by a thin voice - a tiny baby with golden hair, unknown how he got into the desert, asked him to draw a lamb for him. The astonished pilot did not dare to refuse, especially since his new friend was the only one who managed to make out in the first drawing a boa constrictor that had swallowed an elephant. Gradually it turned out that the Little Prince Came from a planet called "asteroid B-612" - of course, the number is only necessary for boring adults who love numbers.

The whole planet was the size of a house, and the Little Prince had to take care of it: every day he cleaned three volcanoes - two active and one extinct, and also weeded out the sprouts of baobabs. The pilot did not immediately understand what danger the baobabs posed, but then he guessed and, in order to warn all the children, he drew a planet where a lazy person lived, who did not weed out three bushes in time. But the Little Prince always put his planet in order. But his life was sad and lonely, so he loved to watch the sunset - especially when he was sad. He did this several times a day, simply by moving his chair to follow the sun.

Everything changed when a wonderful flower appeared on his planet, it was a beauty with thorns - proud, touchy and ingenuous. The little prince fell in love with her, but she seemed to him capricious, cruel and arrogant - he was then too young and did not understand how this flower lit up his life. And so the Little Prince cleaned his volcanoes for the last time, tore out the sprouts of baobabs, and then said goodbye to his flower, which only at the moment of farewell admitted that he loved him.

He went on a journey and visited six neighboring asteroids. The king lived on the first one: he so wanted to have subjects that he offered the Little Prince to become a minister, and the kid thought that adults were very strange people. On the second planet lived an ambitious man, on the third - a drunkard, on the fourth - a businessman, and on the fifth - a flashlight. All the adults seemed extremely strange to the Little Prince, and only Lantern liked him: this man remained faithful to the agreement to light in the evenings and extinguish the lanterns in the mornings, although his planet was so reduced that day and night changed every minute. Don't be so small here. The little prince would have stayed with the Lamplighter, because he really wanted to make friends with someone - besides, on this planet you could admire the sunset one thousand four hundred and forty times a day!

On the sixth planet lived a geographer. And since he was a geographer, he was supposed to ask travelers about the countries where they came from in order to write down their stories in books. The little prince wanted to tell about his flower, but the geographer explained that only mountains and oceans are written in books, because they are eternal and unchanging, and flowers do not live long. Only then did the Little Prince realize that his beauty would soon disappear, and he left her alone, without protection and help! But the insult has not yet passed, and the Little Prince went on, but he thought only of his abandoned flower.

The seventh was the Earth - a very difficult planet! Suffice it to say that there are one hundred and eleven kings, seven thousand geographers, nine hundred thousand businessmen, seven and a half million drunkards, three hundred and eleven million ambitious people - a total of about two billion adults. But the Little Prince made friends only with the snake, the Fox and the pilot. The snake promised to help him when he bitterly regrets his planet. And Fox taught him to be friends. Everyone can tame someone and become his friend, but you always need to be responsible for those whom you have tamed. And the Fox also said that only the heart is vigilant - you cannot see the most important thing with your eyes. Then the Little Prince decided to return to his rose, because he was responsible for it. He went to the desert - to the very place where he fell. So they met the pilot. The pilot drew him a lamb in a box and even a muzzle for a lamb, although he used to think that he could only draw boas - inside and out. The little prince was happy, but the pilot felt sad - he realized that he was also tamed. Then the Little Prince found a yellow snake, whose bite kills in half a minute: she helped him, as promised. The snake can return everyone to where he came from - she returns people to the earth, and she returned the Little Prince to the stars. The kid told the pilot that it would only look like death, so there is no need to be sad - let the pilot remember him, looking at the night sky. And when the Little Prince laughs, it will seem to the pilot that all the stars are laughing like five hundred million bells.

The pilot repaired his plane, and his comrades rejoiced at his return. Since then six years have passed: little by little he was comforted and fell in love with looking at the stars. But he is always excited: he forgot to draw a muzzle strap, and the lamb could eat the rose. Then it seems to him that all the bells are crying. After all, if the rose is no longer in the world, everything will be different, but no adult will ever understand how important this is.

E. D. Murashkintseva

(Les fruits d'or)

Roman (1963)

At one of the exhibitions, in small talk, the talk about a new, recently published novel accidentally comes up. At first, no one or almost no one knows about him, but suddenly interest awakens in him. Critics consider it their duty to admire the "Golden Fruits" as the purest example of high art - a thing closed in itself, excellently polished, the pinnacle of modern literature. A laudatory article by a certain Brule has been written. No one dares to object, even the rebels are silent. Yielding to the wave that has overwhelmed everyone, the novel is read even by those who never have enough time for modern writers.

Someone authoritative, to whom the weakest "poor ignoramuses", wandering in the night, bogged down, appeal with a plea to express their own opinion, dares to note that for all the undeniable merits of the novel, there are some shortcomings in it, for example, in language. In his opinion, there is a lot of confusion in him, he is clumsy, even sometimes heavy, but the classics, when they were innovators, also seemed confused and awkward. In general, the book is modern and perfectly reflects the spirit of the time, and this distinguishes real works of art.

Someone else, not succumbing to the general epidemic of delight, does not express his skepticism aloud, but puts on a contemptuous, slightly annoyed look. His like-minded person only dares to admit alone with him that she also does not see merit in the book: in her opinion, it is difficult, cold and seems like a fake.

Other connoisseurs see the value of the "Golden Fruits" in the fact that the book is true, it has amazing accuracy, it is more real than life itself. They strive to unravel how it was made, savor individual fragments, like juicy pieces of some exotic fruit, compare this work with Watteau, with Fragonard, with ripples of water in the moonlight.

The most exalted beat in ecstasy, as if pierced by an electric current, others convince that the book is false, it doesn’t happen in life, others climb to them with explanations. Women compare themselves with the heroine, suck on the scenes of the novel and try them on.

Someone tries to analyze one of the scenes of the novel out of context, it seems far from reality, devoid of meaning. About the scene itself, it is only known that the young man threw a shawl over the girl's shoulders. The doubters ask the staunch supporters of the book to explain some details to them, but the "convinced" recoil from them as from heretics. They attack the lone Jean Laborie, who is especially diligent in keeping silent. A terrible suspicion hangs over him. He begins, haltingly, to make excuses, to reassure the others, let everyone know that he is an empty vessel, ready to accept whatever they want to fill it with. Who does not agree - pretends to be blind, deaf. But there is one who does not want to succumb: it seems to her that the "Golden Fruits" is the boredom of death, and if there are any advantages in the book, then she asks to prove them with a book in her hands. Those who think like her straighten their shoulders and smile gratefully at her. Maybe they have long seen the merits of the work themselves, but decided that because of such smallness it is impossible to call the book a masterpiece, and then they will laugh at the rest, at the unspoiled, content with "liquid gruel for the toothless", they will treat them like children.

However, a fleeting flash is immediately extinguished. All eyes turn to two venerable critics. In one, a powerful mind rages like a hurricane, thoughts in his eyes feverishly flaring wandering lights. The other is like a wineskin, filled with something valuable, which he shares only with the elect. They decide to put this weak-minded, this troublemaker in her place and explain the merits of the work in abstruse terms that confuse listeners even more. And those who for a moment hoped to go out to the "sunny expanses" again find themselves being driven into the "endless expanse of the icy tundra."

Only one of the whole crowd comprehends the truth, notices the conspiratorial look that the two exchange, before the triple lock is locked from the rest and express their judgment. Now everyone slavishly worships them, he is lonely, "who has comprehended the truth", is still looking for a like-minded person, and when he finally finds them, those two look at them as mentally retarded, who cannot understand the subtleties, laugh at them and are surprised that they are still discussing the "Golden Fruits" for so long.

Critics soon appear, such as one Monod, who calls the "Golden Fruits" "zero"; Mettetagy goes even further and vehemently opposes Breuillet. A certain Martha finds the novel funny, considers it a comedy. Any epithets are suitable for the "Golden Fruits", it has everything in the world, some say, this is a real, real world. There are those who were before the Golden Fruits, and those who are after. We are the “Golden Fruits” generation, as we will be called, others pick up. The limit has been reached. However, voices are heard more and more clearly, calling the novel cheap, vulgar, an empty place. Faithful supporters assure that the writer made some shortcomings on purpose. They object that if the author had deliberately decided to introduce elements of vulgarity into the novel, he would have thickened the colors, made them juicier, turned them into a literary device, and hiding flaws under the word "on purpose" is ridiculous and unjustified. Some people find this argument confusing.

However, the crowd of benevolent critics, thirsting for truth, asks with a book in their hands to prove its beauty. He makes a weak attempt, but his words, falling off his tongue, "fall like sluggish leaves", he cannot find a single example to confirm his laudatory reviews and retreats in disgrace. The characters themselves are surprised how they happen to be present all the time at the incredible changes in their attitude towards the book, but this already seems quite familiar. All these unreasonable sudden hobbies are like mass hallucinations. Until quite recently, no one dared to object to the merits of the Golden Fruits, but it soon turns out that they are being talked about less and less, then they generally forget that such a novel ever existed, and only descendants in a few years will be able to say for sure whether it is whether this book is true literature or not.

E. V. Semina

(Les Conquerants)

Roman (1928)

June 25, 1925 The narrator boards an English steamer for Hong Kong. On the map, this island resembles a cork that has settled in the Pearl River Delta, along the banks of which the gray spot of Canton has spread. China is engulfed in revolution: grandiose demonstrations are being prepared in Beijing and Shanghai, a mass enlistment of volunteers is underway in the southern provinces, in all cities the British hastily take refuge in the territory of foreign concessions, the Cantonese army has received a large amount of ammunition and food from Russia. A radiogram has just been posted: a general strike has been declared in Canton.

June 29. Stop in Saigon. The narrator learns the latest news from Canton. People are full of enthusiasm: they are intoxicated by the very consciousness that it is possible to fight successfully with England. The struggle is led by the Kuomintang created by Sun Yat-sen and envoys of the International, most of them Russians. Chief among them is Borodin. The Propaganda Commissariat is headed by Garin. He managed to awaken in the Chinese individualism that was completely alien to them before. They became fanatics because they felt like they were the creators of their own lives - one must see these ragged rice pickers when they practice gun techniques surrounded by a respectful crowd. Borodin and Garin perfectly complement each other. The first acts with the unyielding determination of a Bolshevik, while the second perceives the revolution as a kind of cleansing action. In a certain sense, Garin can be called an adventurer, but he brings great benefits: it was thanks to his efforts that the cadet school in Vamloa was promoted. However, the internal situation is alarming. The most powerful man in Canton is Chen Dai, who is called the Chinese Gandhi. Apparently, he is going to openly oppose Garin and Borodin, accusing them of complicity in terror. Indeed, the leader of the terrorists Gon allows himself too much - he kills even those who support the Kuomintang with money. This boy grew up in poverty - hence his fierce hatred of all the rich.

5'th of July. A general strike has been declared in Hong Kong. The main street of the city is silent and deserted. Chinese merchants see the narrator off with a heavy, hateful look. Meeting with a delegate from the Kuomintang. The bad news is that the Cantonese government is still wavering. Borodin and Garin are backed by the police and trade unions, while Chen Dal has nothing but authority - in a country like China, this is an enormous force. Garin is trying to force a decree to close the Canton port for all ships that stop in Hong Kong.

The narrator travels to Canton with Klein, one of the employees of the propaganda commissariat. While the deadly tired German is dozing, the narrator looks through a Hong Kong security memorandum dedicated to his friend Pierre Garin, known here as Garin. Some information is accurate, others are erroneous, but all of them force the narrator to remember the past. Pierre was born in 1894. The son of a Swiss and a Russian Jewess. Fluent in German, French, Russian and English. He graduated from the Faculty of Philology, from where he took out only book admiration for great personalities. He moved in the circle of anarchists, although he deeply despised them for their desire to find some kind of "truth". Because of the ridiculous bravado, he became involved in the case of illegal abortions: he was sentenced to six months probation - in the courtroom he experienced a humiliating feeling of impotence and became even more entrenched in the thought of the absurdity of the social order. In Zurich, he met with Russian emigre revolutionaries, but he did not take them seriously - it is easy to imagine his despair in 1917, when he realized that he had missed his chance. He arrived in Canton a year later - and by no means in the direction of the International. A call was sent to him by one of his friends. Saying goodbye to the narrator in Marseilles, Pierre said that he had only one goal - to achieve power in any form. In the government of Sun Yat-sen, the propaganda commissariat eked out a miserable existence, but with the advent of Garin it turned into a powerful instrument of the revolution. Money was obtained through illegal extortions from opium dealers, owners of gambling houses and brothels. At present, Garin's main task is to achieve the adoption of a decree that will destroy Hong Kong. The last lines of the memorandum are underlined in red pencil: Garin is seriously ill - he will soon have to leave the tropics. The narrator does not believe this.

Canton. A long-awaited meeting with a friend. Pierre looks completely ill, but he is reluctant to talk about his health: yes, the local climate is killing him, but it’s unthinkable to leave now - first you need to break the back of Hong Kong. All Garin's thoughts are occupied by Chen Dai. This amiable old man has an obsession, almost a mania - he worships justice as a deity, and considers it his duty to protect it. Unfortunately, Chen Dai is an untouchable figure. His life has already become a legend, and the Chinese need to be treated with respect. There is only one hope left - Chen Dai hates Gong.

Events are moving fast. The narrator is present during the conversation between Chen Dai and Garin. The old man dismisses all arguments about revolutionary necessity: he does not want to see how his compatriots are turned into guinea pigs - China is too great a country to be an arena for experiments.

The city is invaded by the troops of General Tan, bribed by the British. Garin and Klein instantly round up the unemployed to build barricades. The commander of the cadet school, Chiang Kai-shek, succeeds in putting Tang's soldiers to flight. The fat man Nikolaev, a former employee of the tsarist secret police, is taking care of the prisoners.

Another murder of a Chinese banker, a supporter of the Kuomintang. Chen Dai demands Gong's arrest. Garin is also alarmed by the self-will of the terrorists - it would be much better to create a Cheka, but for now it will have to wait. At night, Garin becomes ill and is taken to the hospital. The Cantonese government appoints Borodin head of the Land Forces and Aviation Directorate - henceforth the entire army is in the hands of the International.

The news of the death of Chen Dai - the old man died from a stab in the chest. Nobody believes in suicide. The Propaganda Commissariat is urgently preparing posters proclaiming that Chen Dai, revered by everyone, fell victim to the British imperialists. Garin is preparing a speech he is going to give at the funeral. Borodin gives the order to liquidate Gon, who has fulfilled his mission. The terrorists in response capture and kill four people - among them was Klein. Garina trembles at the sight of corpses. The hostages were tortured - you can't even close their eyes, because the eyelids were cut off with a razor.

August 18th. Garin is on the verge of a major decision. He had a quarrel with Borodin - as the narrator believes, because of the execution of Gon. Pierre discovered too late that Communism was a form of Freemasonry: in the name of party discipline, Borodin would sacrifice any of his supporters. In essence, he does not need capable people - he prefers obedient ones, Nikolaev confidentially informs the narrator that Garin should have left - and not only because of illness. His time has passed. Borodin is right: there is no place in communism for those who strive above all to be themselves. The narrator is not sure about this: the communists are making a mistake by discarding the conquering revolutionaries who gave them China.

Before leaving, Garin learns that two agents of the propaganda commissariat with potassium cyanide have been detained near the military well. Nikolaev is in no hurry to interrogate them - it seems that the death of ten thousand people is necessary for the revolution. Having shot one of the arrested, Garin seeks a confession from the second - indeed, there were three scouts. Soon the courier brings a report that the third agent is arrested with eight hundred grams of cyanide. The water in the well will not be poisoned. Like seven years ago, the narrator says goodbye to his friend. Both of them know Dr. Mirov's opinion: Garin won't even get to Ceylon.

E. D. Murashkintseva

(La Voie Royale)

Roman (1930)

The action takes place in Southeast Asia (Thailand, South Vietnam and Cambodia) a few years after the First World War. A young Frenchman, Claude Vannek, goes to Siam (the official name of Thailand until 1939 - E. M.) in search of ancient Khmer bas-reliefs. In Europe, there is a demand for Asian curiosities, and Claude hopes to get rich. On the ship, he meets Perken - this German or Dane belongs to the number of Europeans who are ready to put their lives on the line for the sake of glory and power. He has extensive experience in dealing with the natives - according to rumors, he even managed to subdue one of the local tribes. Claude is irresistibly drawn to Perken, for he guesses in him a kindred soul - both are eager to fill their existence with meaning. Claude realizes that he needs a reliable companion: many dangers await white people in the Siamese jungle, and the most. the worst of them is to fall into the hands of unconquered savages. Claude reveals his plan to Perken: to go along the former Royal Road, which once connected Angkor (a grandiose complex of temples and palaces built in the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries - E.M.) with the Menam River Delta and Bangkok. There are dead cities and dilapidated temples: almost all of them have already been plundered, but the thieves were not interested in stones.

Perken agrees to take part in the expedition: he suddenly needed money and, in addition, he wants to know about the fate of his disappeared friend - traces of Grabo were lost in those places where the Thai tribe of mine lives. having agreed to meet in Phnom Penh, Perken goes ashore in Singapore, and Claude sails further, to Saigon, where the branch of the French Institute is located, which sent him on a business trip allegedly for archaeological research. Claude receives requisition coupons, which gives him the right to hire carters with wagons. However, the young archaeologist is warned that all found bas-reliefs must remain in place - from now on they are only allowed to be described. In Bangkok, a representative of the French colonial administration advises Claude not to mess with such a dangerous type as Perken: this adventurer tried to buy machine guns in Europe. At the meeting, Perken explains that his cherished goal is to protect his tribes from the invasion of Europeans.

Stepping on the Royal Road, caod and Perken find themselves in the face of eternity. The jungle embodies an irresistible nature, capable of crushing an insignificant insect - a person at any second. The white people slowly move forward, accompanied by a fight between Xa, the carters, the guide, and a Cambodian named Svay, who was assigned to them by the French commissioner, who took their undertaking extremely negatively. At first, the search does not give any results - among the many ruins, there are no slabs with interesting carvings. Claude is already beginning to despair, but then luck smiles at the travelers - they find a bas-relief depicting two dancers. According to the young archaeologist, more than five hundred thousand francs can be obtained for these stones. Perken is stunned: he went to Europe for money, while he should have looked in the jungle - each such plate costs ten machine guns and two hundred rifles. With incredible difficulty, Claude and Perken manage to cut bas-reliefs from the wall of the temple - the forest once again proves its power to them. At night, Piles and the guide leave, and after them the carters disappear. It soon becomes clear that it is impossible to find new ones, since Svay managed to warn the inhabitants of all nearby villages. Only Xa remains with Claude and Perken - fortunately, this Siamese knows how to drive a wagon. Claude is shocked by the betrayal of the French commissioner: it is quite obvious that the bas-reliefs will have to be abandoned, otherwise they will be confiscated. Then Perken suggests getting to Bangkok through the lands of the unconquered - having two thermoses with alcohol and beads, you can take a chance. In a small mountain village, travelers find a guide from the Stiengs - one of my tribes. The native claims that a white man lives among them, and Perken has no doubt that this is Grabo. This is a man of rare courage, possessing a kind of primitive grandeur. Like Perken, he craves possession - and especially power over women. Grabo always despised death and was ready to go to the most terrible torment to prove his strength to himself - so, once he let himself be bitten by a scorpion. The Stiengs certainly appreciated these qualities: if his friend is alive, he is the leader of the herd.

The jungle looks more and more hostile and dangerous. On the way to the main village of Stiengs, travelers begin to worry: the guide does not always warn them of poisoned live arrows and thorns - only Perken's experience allows them to avoid traps. Perhaps these are the intrigues of other leaders, but it is possible that Grabo has run wild among the stiengs and is trying to protect his freedom. The terrible truth is revealed only on the spot: the stiengi, having blinded and castrated Grabo, turned him into a miserable slave - almost into an animal. Both whites are threatened with the same fate: the young archaeologist is ready to put a bullet in his forehead, but Perken rejects this cowardly way out and goes to negotiations, fully aware of what awaits him in case of failure. Stumbling from the exertion, he hits a combat arrow stuck in the ground with his knee. He manages to accomplish the impossible: the stiengs agree to let them out of the village, in order to then exchange Grabo for one hundred earthenware jugs, which will be delivered to the agreed place. The contract is sealed with an oath on rice vodka. Only after that Perken lubricates his swollen knee with iodine. He develops a violent fever.

Five days later, travelers reach the Siamese settlement. A visiting English doctor leaves no hope for Perken: with purulent arthritis, the wounded man will live no more than two weeks - an amputation could save him, but he will not have time to get to the city. Perken sends a report to Bangkok that wild stiengs have mutilated a white man. The authorities immediately send a punitive detachment. Perken is taken to the place of exchange on a cart - he is no longer able to move independently. Claude rides with him, as if enchanted by the breath of death. Following the release of Grabo, the hunt for the stiengs begins - they are pursued like animals, and in desperation they rush to the villages of the mountain tribes, who recognized Perken as their leader. But now the white man is so weak that he cannot inspire respect for himself: the Siamese do not want to listen to him and accuse him of causing violent attacks by the stiengs. In vain Perken calls to fight with civilization that has come close: if the highlanders let the military column pass, the railway will follow. In the views of the natives, Perken clearly guesses indifference - for them he is already dead. As the drug addict warned, Perken's agony is terrible. Before the very end, nothing human remains in his face - he wheezes that there is no death, for only he alone is destined to die. Claude burns with the desire to give his friend at least a fraction of brotherly sympathy, but when he hugs Perken, he looks at him as if he were a creature from another world.

E. L. Murashkintseva

Roman (1937)

The protagonist Roland Rami returns to civilian life after several months of service in Morocco, where he took part in hostilities. In Paris, through the mediation of one of his army comrades, Rami becomes part of a small group of young people who meet in the Montmartre region, who practice the art of living without tiring themselves. Like the other members of this group, Rami does not work eight hours a day at any enterprise and can manage his own time. The next six months, not especially, however, striving for this, Rami rotates in this society of free swindlers.

Roland Rami is an amateur mathematician, so he spends several hours every day doing endless calculations that do not bring him a single sou. In addition, he sometimes writes articles for scientific journals. Once upon a time, he had a break with his family, and the only relative with whom Rami still has a relationship is his uncle. He served in the colony for a long time, has a fair amount of capital and monthly, in order to avoid starvation of his nephew, lends him a certain amount of money.

After six months of his stay in Paris, Roland Rami approaches a group of communists who, with great zeal, are trying to convince him to join the party and actively support the cause of the revolution. The leader of the group is a certain Aglares; his life, according to the stories of the poet Saxel, an acquaintance of Rami, is thoroughly riddled with secrets and unusual incidents. Aglares wears long hair, a wide-brimmed hat, and a pince-nez that is attached to his right ear with a thick red cord. In general, he looks like an antediluvian photographer, and only a red tie around his neck indicates his modernist manners. Aglares gathered a certain number of students around him and, having enlisted their support, brings under the revolutionary struggle as a whole the idea of ​​the predominance of a certain "irrational", "unconscious" beginning in the world, checking the correctness of the actions taken, including by himself, with the help of occultism.

Through an ever tighter group of "swindlers" Rami meets Odile, to whom he soon begins to experience something like friendly affection. Odile is in the group in the position of a friend of Louis Tesson, a man with an uneven character, about whom everyone speaks with a certain cautious admiration. This is a rough, bony type; once before Odile had even hated him.

At the request of Odile Rami, he writes an article on the objectivity of mathematics. The article turns out to be extremely favorably received among Aglares. Aglares is delighted that he has finally met the man who he believes has discovered the infrapsychic nature of mathematics. From now on, he is even more actively trying to draw Rami into revolutionary activities.

After some time, Rami and Saxel visit the revolutionary occult sect of Mr. Muyard, where one of Rami's acquaintances, a certain F., invites them, and where F.'s sister, Eliza, a medium girl, evokes the spirit of Lenin, who had already died by that time, who allegedly gives through her posthumous instructions to all adherents of his revolutionary theory. Saxel is captivated by the charms of Elisa and diligently tries to convince the group of Aglares to join the sect of Muyard. Saxel's enthusiasm, however, does not find support.

On the very evening when the issue of joining the sect is being discussed in detail at a meeting of the group, Oscar, the leader of the Montmartre company, kills Tesson, Odile's lover, who is his brother. The culprit of the crime is arrested on the same day, and together with him, several more acquaintances common to him and Roland get into the police. Rami himself manages to avoid arrest only thanks to a timely warning from one young well-wisher. For the next few days, Rami searches for Odile to no avail. His excitement is great, because she does not appear in her room. Two days after the crime, two policemen come to Rami's home and unceremoniously take away all his papers, most of which are mathematical calculations and extracts from highly scientific publications.

With the assistance of Aglares and one of their mutual acquaintances, Rami seeks the return of all his records to him, as well as the removal of any suspicions from himself and from Odile. Odile, deprived of her livelihood after the death of Tesson and not self-confident enough to go to work, leaves for the village with her parents. Rami, having lost her company, becomes depressed, but soon finds a way to return Odile to Paris: he decides to bring her as his wife, offering her to arrange a fictitious marriage. He really does not want to become her husband, because he is sure that he does not feel love. Roland convinces his uncle to double his maintenance in connection with his marriage, goes for Odile and, offering her his last name and modest wealth in exchange for simple friendly feelings, brings her back, thereby saving her from rural hibernation and the futility of existence. Having signed, the young people continue to live separately and meet only a few times a week, and Rami, subconsciously not believing in his right to happiness, gradually removes Odile further and further from himself.

During the absence of Rami in Paris, a coup takes place in the Aglares group: Saxel is expelled from it, and on the sheet discrediting the poet, along with other signatures, is the signature of Rami, who actually sees this paper for the first time. In addition, in order to expand the influence of the group among the radical Parisians, unscrupulous people, obviously capable of meanness and betrayal, are allowed into its ranks. Such an unexpected turn of events contributes to the fact that for Roland Rami a certain period of political education ends, and he gradually moves further and further away from the communists.

Rally gets rid of the idea of ​​himself as a mathematician, or rather, as a computer that constantly loses count, and tries to "build" a new, more humane refuge out of the wreckage of his pride, in which there would be a place for such a feeling as love to a woman. Odile is the first to confess her love to Rami. Rami, hoping to think about his future life and understand himself, goes on a trip to Greece with his friends for several weeks. There he finds the strength to give up his constantly tempting desire to suffer and, looking into his soul, understand that he loves Odile. Arriving in Paris, he still manages to return Odile's favor, no longer fearing to be just a "normal" person, and begins to treat this state as a springboard from which he can jump into the future.

E. V. Semina

(Maigret hesite)

Roman (1968)

The case, which turned out to be extremely painful for Commissioner Maigret, began with an anonymous letter: an unknown person reported that a murder would soon occur. Maigret immediately notices the expensive velvet paper of an unusual size. Thanks to this circumstance, it is possible to quickly find out that the letter was sent from the house of the lawyer Emile Parandon, a specialist in maritime law. Having made the necessary inquiries, the commissioner finds out that Parandon has made a very profitable game: he is married to one of the daughters of Gassin de Beaulieu, the chairman of the cassation court.

Maigret calls Parandon asking for a meeting. The lawyer receives the commissioner with open arms: it turns out that he has long dreamed of discussing with a professional the sixty-fourth article of the criminal code, which defines the criminal's sanity. Maigret carefully examines the owner of the house: he is a miniature and very active man in glasses with thick glasses - in a huge, luxuriously furnished office, he looks almost like a dwarf. Parandon instantly recognizes his paper and reads a strange message, without showing surprise, but jumps up when an elegant woman of about forty with a tenacious look enters the office quite noiselessly. Madame Parandon is burning with desire to know the reason for the visit, but the men pretend not to notice this. After her departure, the lawyer, without any coercion, talks about the inhabitants of the house and their way of life. The couple have two children: eighteen-year-old Paulette is engaged in archeology, and fifteen-year-old Jacques is studying at the Lyceum. The girl came up with the nicknames Bambi and Gus with her brother. The secretary of Mademoiselle Bar, the intern Rene Tortyu and the young Swiss Julien Baud, who dreams of becoming a playwright, are working with the lawyer, but for now he is doing small assignments. The maid Lisa and the butler Ferdinand live in the house, the cook and cleaning lady leave in the evening. Parandon provides Maigret with complete freedom - all employees will be ordered to frankly answer any questions from the commissioner,

Maigret tries not to talk too much about this case. He is a little ashamed of what he is doing trifles. There is no reason to suspect that a drama is brewing in Parandon's house - in appearance everything here is decorous, measured, ordering. Nevertheless, the commissioner again goes to the lawyer. Mademoiselle Bar answers his questions with reserved dignity. She frankly admits that they have moments of intimacy with their patron, but always in fits and starts, because there are too many people in the house. Madame Parandon, perhaps, knows about this connection - once she went into her husband's office at a very inopportune moment. The room of the secretary herself is a real passage house, and madam is simply ubiquitous. You never know when she will appear - on her orders, the floors are everywhere covered with carpets.

The police receive a second anonymous letter: an unknown person warns that as a result of the commissar's awkward actions, a crime can be committed any hour. Maigret meets with the secretary again - he likes this smart, calm girl. She is clearly in love with her patron and believes that he is in danger. In the house, Madame Parandon runs all the affairs. She has a bad relationship with her daughter - Bambi considers her father a victim of her mother. Perhaps there is some truth in this: the Gassin family got the better of the Parandons - neither relatives nor friends of the lawyer actually come here. Gus loves his father, but is shy about showing his feelings.

Maigret begins to worry more and more. He already knows that both spouses have weapons. Madame Parandon, with whom he has not yet spoken, calls the police herself. She can't wait to enlighten the commissioner about her husband: the unfortunate Emil was born prematurely - he never managed to become a full-fledged person. For twenty years now, she has been trying to protect him, but he goes deeper into himself and completely fenced himself off from the world. Marital relations had to be terminated a year ago - after she found her husband with this secretary girl. And his maniacal interest in one of the articles of the criminal code - isn't that psychosis? She was afraid to live in this house.

Maigret meets the lawyer's assistants and servants. Julien Baud claims that the connection between the patron and Mademoiselle Wag is known to everyone. This is a very nice girl. The future playwright believes that he was lucky: the Parandon couple are ready-made characters in the play. They meet in the corridor like passers-by on the street, and sit at the table like strangers in a restaurant. Rene Tortyu behaves very reservedly and only notices that in the place of the patron he would lead a more active life. Butler Ferdinand frankly calls Madame Parandon a bitch and a damn cunning woman. The spiritual master was not lucky with Her, and talk about his insanity is complete nonsense.

Maigret receives a third message: an anonymous person claims that the commissioner actually provoked the murderer. Constant surveillance is established in the house: Inspector Laluent is on duty at night, Janvier replaces him in the morning. When the bell rings, Maigret's heart constricts involuntarily. Janvier reports the murder. Everything is all right with the Parandon spouses - Mademoiselle Bar has been stabbed to death.

Together with the investigative team, Maigret hurries to a familiar house. Julien Baud is crying, not ashamed of tears, self-confident René Tortu is clearly depressed, Madame Parandon, according to the maid, has not yet left the bedroom. It is established that the girl's throat was cut at about half past ten. She knew the killer well, for she continued to work quietly and allowed a sharp knife to be taken from her own table. The commissioner goes to the lawyer - he sits in complete prostration. But when Madame Parandon appears with a plea to confess to the murder, the little lawyer begins to stamp his feet in a rage - to the complete satisfaction of his wife.

After she leaves, Gus bursts into the office with the clear intention of protecting his father from Maigret. The commissioner had already guessed who the author of the mysterious anonymous letters was - it was a purely boyish idea. After a conversation with Bambi, Maigret's other assumption is also confirmed;

children are burdened by the way of life that their mother imposes on them. But Bambi, unlike his brother, considers Parandon a rag and dislikes Mademoiselle Bar.

The commissioner leaves the interrogation of Madame Parandon to the end. She insists that she took sleeping pills at night and woke up around twelve. The murder, of course, was committed by her husband - probably this girl was blackmailing him. However, he could do this without a reason, because he is obsessed with the fear of illness and death - it is not for nothing that he refuses to deal with people of his circle.

Meanwhile, Inspector Luca is interviewing the residents of the building across the street. Among them is a disabled person who sits by the window all day. Parandon's living room is perfectly visible from his apartment. Madame came out about half past nine - she was supposed to be seen by the maid busy cleaning. Backed against the wall, Liza no longer unlocks and asks for forgiveness from the hostess.

Maigret finds a small Browning in the toilet drawer. When Madame Parandon came out, the revolver was in her dressing-gown pocket. Most likely, at that moment she was going to shoot her husband, but then another thought occurred to her. By killing the secretary, she could not only strike him, but also bring all the suspicions on him. There was no need for a revolver, since Antoinette had a sharp knife for cleaning typos on the table.

Having ordered to deliver the suspect to the Orfevre embankment, Maigret again goes to the lawyer - Parandon has a reason to study article sixty-four in more detail. In the car, the commissioner recalls the wording, terrifying in its vagueness: "There is no crime if, at the time of the commission of the act, the accused was in a state of insanity or was forced to do so by force that he could not resist."

E. D. Murashkintseva

(L'Ceuvre au Noir)

Roman (1968)

1529. Cousins ​​meet at the crossroads of two roads. Henri-Maximilian, the son of the wealthy merchant Henri-Just Ligre, is sixteen years old: he raves about Plutarch and firmly believes that he can compete with glory with Alexander the Great and Caesar. He hates to sit in his father's shop and measure cloth with a yardstick: his goal is to become a man. The illegitimate Zenon is twenty years old: all his thoughts are occupied only with science, and he dreams of ascending above man, having learned the secrets of alchemy.

Zeno was born in Bruges. His mother was Hilzonda, sister of Henri-Just, and his father was the young prelate Alberico de Numi, scion of an old Florentine family. The handsome Italian seduced the young Flemish without difficulty, and then returned to the papal court, where a brilliant career awaited him. The betrayal of her lover inspired the young woman with an aversion to marriage, but one day her brother introduced her to the gray-bearded God-fearing Simon Adriansen, who introduced Hilsonda to the Evangelical faith. When the news reached Bruges that Cardinal Alberico de Numi had been killed in Rome, Hilzonda agreed to marry Simon, Zeno stayed in his uncle's house - his stepfather did not manage to tame this little wolf cub.

Henri-Just apprenticed his nephew to his brother-in-law Bartholome Campanus, canon of Saint Donatus. Some of Zenon's acquaintances worried his relatives: he willingly made friends with the barber Jan Meyers and the weaver Kolas Gel. Jan knew no equal in the art of bleeding, but he was suspected of secretly dismembering corpses. Kolas, on the other hand, dreamed of facilitating the work of cloth makers, and Zenon created drawings of machine tools. In the barber's pharmacy and in the weaver's workshop, the schoolboy comprehended what book wisdom could not give him. However, the weavers disappointed the young man - these absurd ignoramuses tried to break his machines. Once the house of Henri-Just was visited by Princess Marguerite, who liked the handsome impudent schoolboy: she expressed a desire to take him into her retinue, but Zenon preferred to embark on wanderings. Henri-Maximilian soon followed suit. Having failed with his eldest son, Henri-Just placed all his hopes on the youngest - Philibert.

At first, the rumor about Zeno did not subside. Many claimed that he comprehended all the secrets of alchemy and medicine. It was also said that he desecrates cemeteries, seduces women, confuses with heretics and atheists. He was allegedly seen in the most distant countries - according to rumors, he made a fortune by selling the Algerian Pasha the secret of the Greek fire he invented. But as time went on, Zeno gradually began to be forgotten, and only Canon Campanus sometimes remembered his former student.

Simon Adriansen and Hilzonda lived in peace and harmony for twelve years. The righteous gathered in their house - those to whom the light of truth was revealed. Word spread that in Münster the Anabaptists had driven out the bishops and municipal councilors, and that city had become a Jerusalem of the dispossessed. Simon, having sold his property, harnessed himself to the City of God, together with his wife and little daughter Martha. Soon the citadel of virtue was surrounded by Catholic troops. Hans Bockhold, formerly known as John of Leiden, proclaimed himself prophet-king. The new Christ had seventeen wives, which served as an undoubted proof of the power of God. When Simon went to collect money for a holy cause, Hilzonda became the eighteenth. Intoxicated with ecstasy, she barely noticed how the Bishop's soldiers burst into the city. Mass executions began. Hilzonda was beheaded, and a faithful maid hid Martha until Simon returned. The old man did not reproach his dead wife with a word: he blamed only himself for her fall. Life did not last long, and he entrusted Martha to his sister Salome, the wife of the richest banker Fugger. The girl grew up in Cologne with her cousin Benedikta. Martin Fugger and Just Ligre from Bruges, eternal friends-rivals, decided to combine capitals: Benedicte was to marry the Philibers. But when the plague broke out in Germany, Salome and Benedict died. The wife of Philibert the Liger of the herd Martha. All her life she was tormented by guilt, because she renounced the evangelical faith bequeathed by her parents and could not overcome the fear that drove her away from the bed of her fading sister. A witness to her weakness was a doctor - a tall, thin man with gray hair and a swarthy face.

From Cologne, Zenon moved to Innsbruck. Here the cousins ​​met again. Twenty years have passed - it was possible to sum up, Henri-Maximilian rose to the rank of captain: he did not regret leaving home, but life did not turn out at all as he had dreamed. Zeno learned a lot, but came to the conclusion that pundits are not in vain burned at the stake: they can gain such power that they will push the entire globe into the abyss - however, the human race does not deserve a better fate. Ignorance goes hand in hand with cruelty, and even the search for truth turns into a bloody masquerade, as happened in Munster. Zeno did not keep silent about his troubles either: his book "Predictions of the Future" was recognized as heretical, so he needs to hide and constantly change his place of residence.

Soon Henri-Maximilian died during the siege of Siena. And Zenon had to flee from Innsbruck, and he decided to return to Bruges, where no one remembered him. The ligers had long since left this city - Philibert was now one of the most influential and wealthy men of Brabant. Calling himself Sebastian Theus, the alchemist trusted his old friend Jan Meyers, in whose house he settled. At first, Zenon thought that he would linger in this quiet refuge for a short time, but gradually he realized that he had fallen into a trap and was doomed to wear someone else's disguise. He maintained friendly relations only with the prior of the Franciscan monastery - he was the only person who showed tolerance and breadth of views. Doctor Theus was more disgusted with people - even the human body had many flaws, and he tried to come up with a more perfect device. From a young age, he was attracted by the three stages of the Great Act of the alchemists: black, white and red - dismemberment, re-creation and union. The first phase required his whole life, but he was convinced that the path exists: after the decay of thought and the disintegration of all forms, either true death will come, or the return of the spirit, freed and cleansed from the abomination of the surrounding being.

The half-mad maid Katarina poisoned old Jan, and Zeno was again drawn to wander, but he could not leave the prior, who was dying painfully from water in his throat. Saturn's opposition did not bode well for either of them. Monks left unattended. more and more often they violated the rule, and some of the brothers indulged in secret fornication. Having opened a hospital at the monastery, Zenon took Cyprian as an assistant, a village boy who took tonsure at the age of fifteen. Troubled times were conducive to denunciations, and after the death of the prior, the case of monastic orgies was revealed. Under interrogation with passion, Cyprian accused his master of complicity. Sebastian Theus was immediately captured, and he amazed everyone by giving his real name.

In vain did Zeno think that he had been forgotten. A ghost that lived in the back streets of human memory suddenly took on flesh and blood in the guise of a sorcerer, apostate, foreign scout. The dissolute monks were put to death at the stake. Upon learning of this, Zeno suddenly felt remorse: as the creator of the Greek fire that killed hundreds of thousands of people, he was also involved in villainy. Then he wanted to leave this hell-earth. However, at the trial he defended himself quite skillfully, and public opinion was divided: the people who suffered from the machinations of Philibert extended their anger to Zeno, while the relatives and friends of the Ligers secretly tried to help the accused. Canon Campanus sent a messenger to the banker. But Martha did not like to think of the man who had guessed her rhinestone, and Philibert was too cautious to risk his position for a dubious cousin. Zeno's fate was sealed by the testimony of Katharina, who claimed to have helped poison Ian Meyers: according to her, she could not refuse a rascal doctor who inflamed her flesh with a love potion. The rumors about witchcraft were fully confirmed, and Zeno was sentenced to be burned. The people of Bruges looked forward to this spectacle.

On the night of February 18, 1569, Canon Campanus came to the dungeon to persuade Zeno to repent publicly and thereby save his life. The philosopher flatly refused. After the priest left, he took out a carefully hidden narrow blade. At the last minute, the skill of a barber-surgeon, which he was so proud of, came in handy. Having cut the tibial vein and the radial artery on the wrist, he clearly saw the three phases of the Act: the black turned green, turning into pure white, the muddy white turned into crimson gold, and then a scarlet ball fluttered right before his eyes. Zenon still managed to hear the steps of the jailer, but now the people were to him not terrible.

E. L. Murashkintseva

Roman (1938)

The novel is built on the principle of the diary entries of the protagonist Antoine Roquentin, who traveled around Central Europe, North Africa, the Far East and settled in the city of Bouville for three years to complete his historical research on the Marquis de Rollebon, who lived in the XNUMXth century.

In early January 1932, Antoine Roquentin suddenly begins to feel a change in himself. He is overwhelmed by some hitherto unknown sensation, similar to a slight attack of madness. For the first time, it seizes him on the seashore, when he is about to throw a pebble into the water. The stone seems alien to him, but alive. All objects on which the hero holds his gaze seem to him to have a life of their own, intrusive and fraught with danger. This condition often prevents Roquentin from working on his historical work on the Marquis de Rollebon, who was a prominent figure at the court of Queen Marie Antoinette, the only confidante of the Duchess of Angouleme, visited Russia and, apparently, had a hand in the murder of Paul I.

Ten years ago, when Roquentin only found out about the Marquis, he literally fell in love with him, and after many years of traveling almost all over the globe, three years ago he decided to settle in Bouville, where the city library has a rich archive: letters from the Marquis, part of his diary, various kinds of documents. However, recently he begins to feel that the Marquis de Rollebon is mortally tired of him. True, in the opinion of Roquentin, the Marquis de Rollebon is the only justification for his own meaningless existence.

More and more often he is overtaken by that new condition for him, to which the name "nausea" is most suitable. She attacks Roquentin with attacks, and there are fewer and fewer places where he can hide from her. Even in a cafe where he often goes, among people he cannot hide from her. He asks the waitress to put on a record of his favorite song "Some of these days". The music expands, grows, fills the hall with its metallic transparency, and the Nausea disappears. Roquentin is happy. He reflects on what heights he could reach if his own life became the fabric of the melody.

Roquentin often thinks of his beloved Annie, whom he broke up with six years ago. After several years of silence, he suddenly receives a letter from her, in which Annie says that in a few days she will be passing through Paris, and she needs to see him. There is no address in the letter, such as "dear Antoine", nor the usual polite farewell. He recognizes in this her love of perfection. She always aspired to embody "perfect moments". Some moments in her eyes had a hidden meaning that had to be "husked" out of it and brought to perfection. But Roquentin always got into trouble, and in those moments Annie hated him. When they were together, all three years, they did not allow a single moment, whether it be moments of sorrow or happiness, to separate from them and become past. They kept everything to themselves. Probably, they parted by mutual agreement due to the fact that this burden became too heavy.

During the daytime, Antoine Roquentin often works in the reading room of the Bouville library. In 1930, there he met a certain Ogier P., an office worker, whom he gave the nickname Self-Taught, because he spent all his free time in the library and studied all the books available here in alphabetical order. This Autodidact invites Roquentin to dine with him, for, apparently, he is going to tell him something very important. Just before the library closes, Roquentin gets Nausea again. He goes out into the street in the hope that fresh air will help him get rid of it "looks at the world, all objects seem to him somehow unsteady, as if exhausted, he feels that a threat looms over the city. How fragile all the barriers in the world seem to him "In one night the world can change beyond recognition, and does not do this just because he is lazy. However, at the moment the world looks like it wants to become different. And in this case, everything, absolutely everything can happen. Roquentin fancies, how a third, mocking eye hatches out of a small pimple on a child's cheek, how a tongue in a mouth turns into a monstrous centipede Roquentin is frightened.

Roquentin goes to the museum, where portraits of world-famous husbands hang. There he feels his mediocrity, the groundlessness of his existence, he understands that he will no longer write books about Rolle Bon. He just can't write anymore. The question suddenly arises before him, where should he put his life? The Marquis de Rollebon was his ally, he needed Roquentin in order to exist, Roquentin needed him in order not to feel his existence. He ceased to notice that he himself exists; he existed in the guise of a marquis. And now this Nausea that has rolled over him has become his existence, from which he cannot get rid of, which he is forced to drag out.

On Wednesday, Roquentin goes with the Autodidact to a cafe for lunch, in the hope that he will be able to get rid of Nausea for a while. The autodidact tells him about her understanding of life and argues with Roquentin, who assures him that there is not the slightest sense in existence. The self-taught woman considers herself a humanist and assures that the meaning of life is love for people. He talks about how, being a prisoner of war, one day in the camp he ended up in a barracks full of men, how "love" for these people descended on him, he wanted to hug them all. And every time, getting into this barracks, even when it was empty, the Autodidact experienced inexpressible delight. He clearly confuses the ideals of humanism with feelings of a homosexual nature, Roquentin is again overwhelmed by Nausea, with his behavior he even frightens the Autodidact and other cafe visitors. With a very indelicate bow, he hurries to get out into the street.

Soon there is a scandal in the library. One of the library attendants, who has been following the Autodidact for a long time, catches him when he sits in the company of two boys and strokes one of them on the hand, accuses him of baseness, of molesting children, and, having punched him in the nose, kicks him out of the library in disgrace, threatening to call the police.

On Saturday, Roquentin arrives in Paris and meets with Annie. For six years, Annie has become very stout, she looks tired. She has changed not only externally, but also internally. She is no longer obsessed with "perfect moments" because she realized that there will always be someone who will ruin them. Previously, she believed that there were certain emotions, states: Love, Hate, Death, which give rise to "winning situations" - the building material for "perfect moments", but now she realized that these feelings are inside her. Now she remembers the events of her life and builds them, correcting something, into a chain of "perfect moments". However, she herself does not live in the present, she considers herself a "living dead". Roquentin's hopes for resuming relations with Annie are crumbling, she leaves for London with a man who is in charge, and Roquentin intends to permanently move to Paris. He is still tormented by a sense of the absurdity of his existence, the consciousness that he is "superfluous".

Arriving in Bouville to collect his things and pay for the hotel, Roquentin enters a cafe where he used to spend a lot of time. His favorite song, which he asks to put on as a parting song, makes him think about its author, about the singer who performs it. He has a deep affection for them. He seems to be enlightened, and he sees a way that will help him come to terms with himself, with his existence. He decides to write a novel. If at least someone in the whole world, after reading it, thinks of its author in the same way, with tenderness, Antoine Roquentin will be happy.

E. V. Semina

Play (1943)

In the main square of Argos stands a fly-covered statue of Jupiter. Waving off the big fat flies, Orestes enters. Terrible screams are heard from the palace.

Fifteen years ago, Clytemnestra, the mother of Orestes and Electra, and her lover Aegiothes killed their father, Agamemnon. Aegisthus wanted to kill Orestes as well, but the boy managed to escape. And now Orestes, brought up in distant lands, enters his native city with curiosity.

Enter Jupiter disguised as a citizen. He explains to Orestes that today is the day of the dead, and the cries mean that the ceremony has begun: the inhabitants of the city, led by the king and queen, are repenting and begging their dead to forgive them.

Rumors circulate around the city that Agamemnon's son Orestes survived. By the way, Jupiter notes, if he accidentally met this Orestes, he would tell him: "The local inhabitants are big sinners, but they have embarked on the path of redemption. Leave them alone, young man "Leave them alone, respect the torment they have taken upon themselves, go away in good health. You have no part in the crime and cannot share their repentance. Your audacious innocence separates you from them like a deep ditch."

Jupiter leaves. Orestes is at a loss: he does not know what to answer to a stranger, the city where he could rightfully be king is alien to him, he has no place in it. Orestes decides to leave.

Elektra appears. Orestes speaks to her, and she tells the stranger about her hatred of Clytemnestra and Egasfus. Elektra is lonely, she has no girlfriends, no one loves her. But she lives in hope - waiting for one person ...

Enter Queen Clytemnestra. She asks Elektra to put on mourning: the official ceremony of penance will begin soon. Noticing Orestes, Clytemnestra is surprised: travelers, as a rule, go around the city sideways, "for them, our repentance is a plague, they are afraid of infection."

Elektra mockingly warns Orestes that public repentance is the national sport of the Argives, everyone already knows each other's crimes by heart. And the crimes of the queen - "these are official crimes, lying, one might say, at the heart of the state system." Every year on the day of the murder of Agamemnon, people go to the cave, which is said to communicate with hell. The huge stone that closes the entrance to it is rolled aside, and the dead, "as they say, rise from hell and disperse through the city." And the residents prepare tables and chairs for them, make beds. However, she, Elektra, is not going to take part in these stupid games. It's not her dead.

Elektra leaves. Following her, wishing Orestes to get out of the city as soon as possible, Clytemnestra also leaves. Jupiter appears. Learning that Orestes was about to leave, he offers him a pair of horses at a fair price. Orestes replies that he has changed his mind.

People crowd in front of the closed cave. Aegisthus and Clytemnestra appear. The stone is rolled away, and Aegisthus, standing in front of the black hole, addresses the dead with a speech of repentance. Suddenly, Elektra appears in a blasphemous white dress. She urges residents to stop repenting and start living simple human joys. And let the dead live in the hearts of those who loved them, but do not drag them with them to the grave. Then the block that closed the entrance to the cave rolls down with a roar. The crowd freezes with fear, and then rushes to deal with the troublemaker. Aegisthus stops the angry townspeople, reminding them that the law forbids punishment on the day of the holiday.

Everyone leaves, only Orestes and Elektra are on stage, Elektra is burning with a thirst for revenge. Having opened up to his sister, Orestes begins to persuade her to give up revenge and leave with him. However, Elektra is adamant. Then, wanting to win the love of his sister and the right to citizenship in Argos, which smells of carrion, Orestes agrees to "shoulder a serious crime" and save the inhabitants from the king and queen, who forcibly make people remember all the time about the atrocities they have committed.

In the throne room of the palace stands a creepy, bloodied statue of Jupiter. Orestes and Electra are hiding at its foot. Flies swarm around. Enter Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Both are dead tired of their own invented ceremony. The queen leaves, and Aegisthus turns to the statue of Jupiter with a request to grant him peace.

Orestes jumps out of the darkness with a drawn sword. He offers Aegisthus to defend himself, but he refuses - he wants Orestes to become a murderer. Orestes kills the king, and then rushes to the queen's room. Elektra wants to keep him - "she can no longer hurt ...". Then Orestes goes himself.

Elektra looks at the corpse of Aegisthus and does not understand: did she really want this? He died, but her hatred died with him. The cry of Clytemnestra is heard. "Well, my enemies are dead. For many years I rejoiced in this death in advance, now the vise squeezed my heart. Have I deceived myself for fifteen years?" Elektra asks. Orestes returns, his hands covered in blood. Orestes feels free, he has done a good deed and is ready to bear the burden of murder, since this burden contains his freedom.

Swarms of fat flies surround the brother and sister. These are Erinyes, goddesses of remorse. Elektra takes her brother to the sanctuary of Apollo in order to protect him from people and flies.

Orestes and Electra sleep at the foot of the statue of Apollo. Erinyes were arranged around them in a round dance. Brother and sister wake up. Like huge dung flies, Erinyes begin to awaken.

Glancing at his sister, Orestes discovers with horror that during the night she has become surprisingly similar to Clytemnestra. And this is not surprising: she, like her mother, witnessed a terrible crime. Rubbing their paws, Erinyes circle in a frantic dance around Orestes and Elektra Elektra regrets what he has done, Orestes persuades his sister not to repent in order to feel completely free, he takes full responsibility for himself.

Entered Jupiter pacifies Eriny. He is not going to punish Orestes and Elektra, he just needs a "drop of remorse". Jupiter convinces Elektra that she did not want to kill, just as a child she played murder all the time, because this game can be played alone. Elektra seems to be beginning to understand herself.

Jupiter asks Orestes and Electra to renounce their crime, and then he will put them on the throne of Argos. Orestes replies that he already has the right to this throne. Jupiter notices that now all the inhabitants of Argos are waiting for Orestes near the exit from the sanctuary with pitchforks and clubs, Orestes is alone, like a leper. Jupiter demands from Orestes to confess his guilt, but he refuses. Jupiter himself created man free. And if he did not want this crime, then why did he not stop the punishing hand at the moment of committing the crime? So, concludes Orestes, there is neither good nor evil in heaven, "there is no one there who could command me."

The freedom of Orestes means exile. Orestes agrees - each person must find his own way. Jupiter silently recedes.

Elektra leaves Orestes. As soon as she steps on the circle, Erinyes attack her, and she calls out to Jupiter. Elektra repents, and the Erinyes retreat from her.

The Erinyes focused all their attention on Orestes. The doors to the sanctuary swing open, behind them an angry mob is visible, ready to tear Orestes to shreds. Addressing the townspeople, Orestes proudly declares that he takes responsibility for the murder. He went for it for the sake of the people: he took upon himself the crime of a man who could not cope with his burden and shifted responsibility to all the inhabitants of the city. Flies must finally stop oppressing the Argives. Now it's his flies, his dead. Let the townspeople try to start living anew. He leaves them and takes away all the flies with him.

Orestes leaves the circle and moves away. The Erinyes run after him, screaming.

E. V. Morozova

(La R…respectueuse)

Play (1946)

The action takes place in a small town in one of the southern states of America. Lizzy McKay, a young girl, arrives from New York by train, where she witnesses the murder of one of two blacks by a white man, who, as the killer later explained, allegedly wanted to rape Lizzie. The next morning, the surviving gray-haired Negro appears at Lizzie's door and begs her to testify to the police that the Negro is not guilty of anything, otherwise he will be lynched by the inhabitants of the city, who are already hunting for him. Lizzie promises to fulfill his request, but refuses to hide him and slams the door in his face.

At this time, Fred comes out of the bathroom, her night guest, a rich and well-groomed young man. Lizzie admits to him that she avoids receiving random guests. Her dream is to have three or four permanent old friends who visit her once a week. Although Fred is young, he looks presentable, so she offers him her constant services. Fred tries not to show her that she made a strong impression on him, so he begins to be cheeky and pays her only ten dollars. Lizzie is indignant, but Fred orders her to shut up and adds that otherwise she will be behind bars. He may well arrange this pleasure for her, since his father is Senator Clark. Lizzie gradually calms down, and Fred starts a conversation with her about yesterday's incident on the train, described in the newspapers. He is interested in whether the Negro was really going to rape her. Lizzy replies that there was nothing like that. The Negroes were talking very calmly among themselves. None of them even looked at her. Then four white men entered. Two of them started walking towards her. They won a rugby match and were drunk. They began to say that the compartment smelled of blacks, and tried to throw the blacks out of the window. The Negroes defended themselves as best they could. In the end, one of the whites was knocked out in the eye, then he pulled out a revolver and shot the black man. Another Negro managed to jump out the window when the train approached the platform.

Fred is sure that the Negro does not have long to walk free, because he is known in the city and will soon be captured. He wonders what Lizzie will say in court when she is called to testify. Lizzie states that she will tell what she saw. Fred tries to talk her out of it. In his opinion, she should not bring a person of her race to justice, especially since Thomas (the name of the killer) is Fred's cousin. Fred forces her to choose whom she prefers to betray: some black man or Thomas, a "decent man" and a "natural leader". He even tries to bribe the girl with five hundred dollars, but Lizzie does not want to take his money and bursts into tears, realizing that Fred was only thinking about how to spend it all night.

The doorbell rings, and shouts of "Police" are heard. Lizzie opens and two policemen, John and James, enter the room. They demand documents from Lizzie and ask her if she brought Fred to her place. She replies that it was she who did it, but added that she makes love disinterestedly. To this, Fred replies that the money lying on the table is his and he has evidence. The police force Lizzie to choose: either she herself go to jail for prostitution, or document that Thomas is not guilty, because the judge, with her confirmation, is ready to release Thomas from prison. Lizzie categorically refuses to whitewash Thomas, despite Fred's threats to put her in prison or place her in a brothel. Fred resents the fact that the fate of the "best man in town" depends on the "ordinary girl". He and his friends are confused.

Senator Clark appears at the door. He asks the young people to leave the girl alone and declares that they have no right to terrorize her and force her to act against her conscience. In response to Fred's protesting gesture, the senator asks the police to leave, and he himself, making sure that the girl is not lying and that the black man really did not threaten her honor, begins to lament about poor Mary. When asked by Lizzy who Mary is, the senator replies that this is his sister, the mother of the unfortunate Thomas, who will die of grief. Having said this, the senator pretends to leave. Lizzie is clearly upset. She feels sorry for the old woman. Senator Clark asks the girl not to think about his sister anymore, about how she could smile at Lizzie through her tears and say that she will never forget the name of the girl who returned her son to her. Lizzie asks the senator about his sister, learns that it was at her request that the senator came to Lizzie and that now Thomas's mother, this "lonely creature thrown overboard by fate of society," is waiting for her decision. The girl doesn't know what to do. Then the senator approaches the matter from a different angle. He invites her to imagine that the American nation itself is addressing her. She asks Lizzie to make a choice between her two sons: a black man born by chance, God knows where and from whom. The nation nursed him, and what did he give her? Nothing. He messes around, steals and sings songs. And another, Thomas, the complete opposite of him, who, although he acted very badly, is one hundred percent American, a descendant of the oldest family in the country, a graduate of Harvard University, an officer, the owner of a factory that employs two thousand workers and who will become unemployed if their owner dies, that is, a man who is absolutely necessary for the nation. With his speech, the senator confuses Lizzie and, having also assured that Thomas's mother will love her like her own daughter, makes the girl sign a document justifying Thomas.

With Fred and the senator gone, Lizzie already regrets giving up.

Twelve hours later there is a noise from the street, a Negro's face appears in the window; grabbing onto the frame, he jumps into an empty room. When the doorbell rings, he hides behind the curtain. Lizzy exits the bathroom and opens the door. A senator stands on the threshold, who wishes, on behalf of his sister, sobbing with happiness in the arms of her son, to thank the girl and give her an envelope with a hundred-dollar bill. Not finding a letter in the envelope, Lizzie crumples it up and throws it on the floor. Would she be nicer if Thomas's mother herself labored to choose something for her to her liking. It is much more important for her attention and consciousness that they see a personality in her. The senator promises to thank Lizzie in due time and return soon. After he leaves, the girl bursts into sobs. The screams in the street are getting closer. The black man comes out from behind the curtains, stops near Lizzy. She lifts her head and screams. The Negro begs to be hidden. If they catch him, they will douse him with gasoline and burn him. Lizzy feels sorry for the Negro, and she agrees to shelter him until the morning.

The pursuers set up sentries at both ends of the street and comb house after house. Her apartment rings, and then three men with guns enter. Lizzy declares that she is the very girl whom the black man raped, so she has nothing to look for. All three leave. Fred appears after them, he locks the door behind him and hugs Lizzie. He reports that the pursuers nevertheless caught the Negro, although not the same one, and lynched him. After the lynching, Fred was drawn to Lizzie, which he admits to her.

There is a rustle in the bathroom. When Fred asks who is in the bathroom, Lizzie replies that this is her new client. Fred declares that from now on she will not have clients, she will only have him. A black man comes out of the bathroom. Fred pulls out a revolver. The Negro runs away. Fred runs after him, shoots, but misses and comes back. Lizzie, not knowing that Fred missed, takes the revolver, which Fred, having returned, threw on the table, and threatens to kill him. However, she does not dare to shoot and voluntarily gives him a weapon. Fred promises to put her in a beautiful house with a park, from where she, however, will not be able to go out, because he is very jealous, give a lot of money, servants and visit her three times a week at night.

B. V. Semina

(Le Diable et le Bon Dieu)

Play (1951)

The action takes place in Germany torn apart by the peasant war of the XVI century. However, history for the author is just a background, the characters, dressed in ancient costumes, think quite modernly, trying to answer the eternal questions: what is Good and Evil, what is the freedom of the human person.

Getz - a libertine, a blasphemer, a bandit commander, an illegitimate one, together with his brother, the knight Conrad, fights against the archbishop. But as soon as the archbishop promises Getz to give him his brother's possessions if he goes over to his side, Getz betrays Konrad, kills him during the battle and, together with the archbishop's people, besieges the rebellious city of Worms.

There is famine in the city, the people are embittered, the priests shut themselves up in the temple. The only priest Heinrich wanders the streets in confusion. He was always comforting the poor, so they didn't touch him. But now his persuasions to trust in the Lord and love your neighbor do not find a response from the townspeople. They understand much better the words of their leader, the baker Nastya, who calls to fight to the last.

Hoping to find bread, the hungry poor sack the bishop's castle and kill its owner. But the bishop told the truth: the barns of the castle are empty. This means that the pogroms will continue and the next victims will be priests. Dying, the bishop gives Heinrich the key to the underground passage to the city. Heinrich is faced with a choice: "The poor will kill the priests - or Goetz will kill the poor. Two hundred priests or twenty thousand people." By giving the key to Getz, Henry will betray the townspeople and save the servants of the Lord. Whose lives are more important? In desperation, Heinrich goes to Goetz's camp.

Heinrich is brought to Goetz; it seems to the priest that the devil himself is in front of him, and he refuses to give up the key. But Getz is sure that "the priest will betray", he feels a kindred spirit in him. Like Getz, Heinrich is illegitimate; he tries to do good all the time, he is full of love for people, but both he and the bloodthirsty Getz have the same result: evil and injustice.

A banker comes to Getz and asks him not to destroy the city; in return, he offers Getz a huge ransom. Getz refuses: he wants to capture the city "for the sake of Evil", for all the Good has already been done by the Lord.

Nastya comes to the camp. He asks Getz to become the head of the rebellious peasants, but Getz also refuses this offer. He is not interested in fighting with the aristocrats: "God is the only worthy adversary."

"I do Evil for the sake of Evil," Getz proudly declares, "all the rest do Evil out of voluptuousness or self-interest." But this does not matter, Heinrich objects to him, because it is "God wished that Good became impossible on earth," and therefore, there is neither Good nor justice anywhere. "Earth stinks all the way to the Stars!"

"So, all people do Evil?" Goetz asks. Everything, Heinrich answers him. Well, then he, Getz, will do Good. Getz makes a bet with Heinrich for a period of a year and one day: during this period he undertakes to do only Good ... And in order to finally "press God against the wall", Getz offers to play dice for the city. If he wins, he will burn the city, and God will be responsible for this, and if he loses, he will spare the city. Katerina, Getz's mistress, whom he once raped, plays and wins. Getz leaves to do good, Heinrich follows him - to judge the affairs of Getz himself.

Having taken possession of his brother's lands, Getz distributes them to the peasants. But the peasants are afraid to take the master's lands: they do not believe in the sincerity of Goetz's intentions. The barons - Goetz's neighbors beat him up: after all, their peasants may demand that they also give up their possessions. Getz dodges the blows but doesn't fight back.

Nastya comes to Getz. He also asks him to keep the land for himself: "If you wish us well, sit still and do not start changes." The rebellion that broke out at the wrong moment is doomed to defeat in advance, while Nastya wants to win, and for this you need to properly prepare. But Goetz does not listen to him: he loved all people, and therefore he will distribute his lands and build the City of the Sun on them.

Peasants gather near the church. Getz appears. He asks the peasants why they still bring him quitrents to the barn, when he clearly told everyone that there would be no more quitrents or duties. "For now, let's leave everything as it is," the peasants answer him, because "everyone has his own place." Here the monks appear and, like fair barkers, sell indulgences with jokes and jokes. Getz tries to stop them, but no one listens to him: the goods are selling like hot cakes.

For indulgence comes the leper. To prove his boundless love for people, Goetz kisses him, but his kiss causes only disgust - both for the leper and for the peasants crowded around. But when a monk gives a leper absolution. everyone gets excited. "Lord, show me the way to some hearts!" Getz exclaims in despair.

Heinrich appears. He is no longer a priest - he slandered himself, and he was deprived of the right to perform rituals. Now he follows Goetz like a shadow. Heinrich tells Getz that Katerina is mortally ill. She loves Getz, but grace touched him, and he "gave Katerina a purse and drove her away. That's what she's dying from." Trying to alleviate Katerina's suffering, Getz declares that he takes all her sins upon himself. Rushing to the crucifixion, he begs Christ to allow him to wear the stigmata and, without waiting for an answer, inflicts wounds on himself. Seeing the blood streaming down his hands, the peasants fall to their knees. They finally believed Getz. "Today the Kingdom of God begins for everyone. We will build the City of the Sun," Getz tells them. Catherine is dying.

In the village of Getsa, universal love reigns, "no one drinks, no one steals", husbands do not beat their wives, parents do not beat their children. The peasants here are happy "not only for their own sake, but also for the sake of everyone", they pity everyone, do not want to fight even for their own happiness and are ready to die in prayers for those who would kill them.

Getz appears, then Nastya. A rebellion broke out, and Getz is guilty of it; he proved to the peasants that they "can do without priests, and now preachers of rage have appeared everywhere, they call for revenge." The rebels have no weapons, no money, no military leaders. Nastya invites Getz to lead the peasant army - he is also "the best commander in Germany." After all, the war will find him anyway. Goetz hesitates. To agree means again to "hang anyone for the sake of warning - the right and the guilty", to pay for the victory with thousands of lives.

And howling Getz goes to the people, "to save the world", before leaving, ordering his peasants not to get involved in any fights:

"If you are threatened, respond to threats with love. Remember, my brethren, remember: love will make war retreat." Confident that it is God directing his steps, he goes to fight in the name of love.

Heinrich enters with flowers on his hat. He informs Getz that the peasants are looking for him to kill him. When asked how he knows this, Heinrich points to the devil, silently standing behind him. For some time now, this couple has been inseparable.

Heinrich proves to Goetz that all the good that he did turned into evil even more than when he simply did evil. Because God doesn't care about him. "Man is nothing." In response, Getz tells him his discovery, or, as he defines it, "the greatest scam" - there is no God. And so he starts his life all over again. Shocked Heinrich, feeling that he was right, dies. "The comedy of kindness ended in murder," says Getz.

Getz takes command of the army: he stabs the chief who refused to obey him, orders the deserters to be hanged. “So the kingdom of man on earth began,” he says to the frightened Nastya. Getz does not intend to retreat: he will make people tremble before him, since there is no other way to love them, he will be lonely, since there is no other way to be with everyone. "There is a war - I will fight," he concludes.

E. V. Morozova

Roman (1962)

The plot is based on a true event - a mutiny on the English brig "Bounty" (the first half of the XNUMXth century).

Boundless waters of the Pacific Ocean. Handsome "Blossom" is rapidly flying over the waves. Third mate Adam Parcel admires the ship, but at the sight of emaciated sailors, he becomes ashamed of the fact that he is well dressed and had a hearty lunch. The team is completely hounded by Captain Bart,

Bosun Boswell watches the deck being cleaned. There are guys in the outfit who can stir up the entire crew: first of all, the Scot McLeod, the Welsh Baker and the half-breed White. Caboose Jimmy climbs out of the galley with a bucket of dirty water. Without noticing the captain's appearance, he pours the water against the wind, and a few drops fall on Bart's coat. The captain brings down his mighty fist on the boy - the cabin boy falls dead. Further events develop rapidly. Baker does not seem to hear Bart's order to throw the body overboard, and Parcel asks permission to say a prayer. First mate Richard Mason, who was the cabin boy's nephew, shoots Bart. Giant Hunt, having received an undeserved blow with a molt, turns the boatswain's neck. McLeod cracks down on second mate John Simon, who tried to take over the ship.

The path to the homeland of the rebels is ordered. They sail to Tahiti to stock up on water and provisions. But English ships come here too often, and Mason offers to settle on an island lost in the ocean. Soon Parcel brings a list of nine volunteers. Everyone has their own reasons. Mason, McLeod and Hunt are on trial in their home country for murder. Parcell and Baker have come into open conflict with Bart, which under the circumstances does not bode well. Young Jones is ready to go to the ends of the earth for Baker, and little Smadge is ready for McLeod. Yellow-faced White is afraid of retribution for old sins: he once stabbed a man. Only the motives of Johnson, the oldest of the sailors, are not entirely clear. Later it turns out that he went on a voyage to escape from the vixen-wife.

Parcel had already been to Tahiti. He knows the language and customs of the good islanders well. In turn, the Tahitians love "Adamo" with all their hearts, and their leader Otu proudly calls himself his friend. Parcel is greeted with glee: the lieutenant moves from embrace to embrace, and Mason does not like this very much. However, he accepts the help of "blacks" willingly. Six Tahitians and twelve Tahitians agree to be resettled. But Mason refuses to take three more women on board - which means that some colonists will be left without a mate. This does not threaten Lieutenant Parcel: the golden-haired, slender "peritani" (British in the Tahitian language, who do not pronounce the letter "b") is passionately loved by the dark-skinned beauty Ivoa, daughter of Otu. Their wedding takes place on the ship. Other unions of sympathy soon arise: the huge Omaata becomes Hunt's girlfriend, the pretty Awapuhi chooses Baker, the young Amureya is imbued with ardent feelings for young Jones. The lovely Itia openly flirts with Parcel. The lieutenant timidly rejects her courtship, which amuses the rest of the women very much - according to their concepts, a fleeting love "game" can in no way be considered a betrayal of a lawful wife. Good relations deteriorate during a sea storm: the Tahitians, unaccustomed to the storm, huddle into the hold, and it seems to the sailors that the "blacks" have betrayed them. When an island appears on the horizon, Mason proposes to exterminate the natives, if any. To this end, the "captain" teaches the Tahitians how to shoot a gun. Fortunately, the island turns out to be uninhabited. Brother Ivoa Meani immediately notices its main drawback: the only source of fresh water is too far from a place suitable for habitation.

The colonists begin to settle on the island. The Tahitians live in one hut, the British prefer to live separately. Sailors cancel officer ranks. Power on the island passes to the assembly, where all decisions are made by majority vote. Despite Purcell's objections, "blacks" are not invited to parliament. The lieutenant is surprised to see that McLeod has the makings of a remarkable demagogue: Hunt supports him out of stupidity, Johnson out of fear, Smadge out of malice, and White out of misunderstanding. Offended to the depths of his soul, Mason is removed from all the grandfathers. McLeod has a solid majority, while Purcell represents an impotent opposition - he is supported only by Baker and Jones.

The sailors do not want to take into account the interests of the Tahitians in the division of women. However, here MacLeod fails: challenging Baker, he demands Avapui for himself, but the Tahitian woman immediately rushes into the forest. Baker is ready to rush at the Scot with a knife, and Parsed with great difficulty manages to stop him. Then Itia runs into the forest, not wanting to get White. When shorty Smadzh declares that he does not recognize the marriage of Parsel with Ivoa, the mighty Omaata gives the "rat" a few slaps in the face. Mason, to Parcel's great indignation, sends a note to the assembly asking him to give him a woman to run the household, and in this matter MacLeod willingly meets the former captain halfway - as Parcel suspects, the Scot simply wants to put the "blacks" in their place. When Parcel comes to the Tahitian hut to apologize, he is not greeted very friendly. Ivoa explains to her husband that Meani loves him as before, but is considered an apostate by the others. Tetaiti, who is recognized as chief by seniority, shares this opinion.

The next vote almost ends in execution. When the sailors decide to burn the Blossom, Mason attempts to shoot McLeod. The enraged Scot offers to hang him, but at the sight of the noose, the hard-thinking Hunt suddenly demands to remove "this dirty trick." Parsel wins his first parliamentary victory, but his joy does not last long: the sailors begin to divide the land, once again excluding the Tahitians from the list. In vain Parcel begs not to inflict such an insult on them - in Tahiti, the most seedy people have at least a garden. The majority does not want to listen to him, and then Purcell announces his withdrawal from the assembly - Baker and Jones follow his example. They offer the Tahitians their three plots, but Tetahichi refuses, considering such a division shameful - in his opinion, justice must be fought for. Parcell does not want to take on the sin of fratricide, and Baker cannot make a decision without knowing the language. In addition, the observant Welshman noticed that Ohu is jealous of Amurei for Ropati (Robert Jones) and willingly listens to the words of Timi, the most vicious and hostile of the Tahitians.

McLeod also understands that war is inevitable. He kills two unarmed men, and the rest instantly hide in the thicket. Parsel bitterly says that the British will have to pay dearly for this - McLeod has little idea of ​​​​what the Tahitian warriors are capable of. The once peaceful island becomes deadly. The Tahitians, after ambushing the spring, kill Hunt, Johnson, White and Jones, who went to fetch water. Baker and Amureya are now thinking only about revenge for Ropati - together they hunt down and kill Okha. Then the women tell Parcel that Baker was shot on the spot, and Amurya was hung up by his legs and his stomach was torn open - this was done by Timi.

In the face of a common enemy, Mason reconciles with MacLeod and demands that Parcel be tried for "treason". But the frightened Smadge votes against the execution, and McLeod declares that he does not wish evil to the lieutenant - in fact, the best times on the island were those times when the "archangel Gabriel" was in opposition.

Parcel tries to negotiate with the Tahitians. Timi calls to kill him. Tetaiti hesitates, and Meani becomes furious: how dare this swine offspring encroach on the life of his friend, the son-in-law of the great leader Otu? The women hide Parcel in a cave, but Timi tracks him down - then Parcel raises his hand against a man for the first time. In the last battle, the surviving British and Parsel's best friend Meani perish. Pregnant Ivoa, hiding in the forest with a gun, orders to tell Tetaiti that she will kill him if even a hair falls from her husband's head.

While there are lengthy negotiations between women and Tetaiti, Parcel indulges in bitter reflections: not wanting to shed blood, he killed his friends. If he had sided with the Tahitians after the first murder, he could have saved Baker, Jones, Hunt - perhaps even Johnson and White.

Tetaiti promises not to kill Parsel, but demands that he leave the island, as he no longer wants to deal with the deceitful, insidious "Peritani". Parcel asks for a delay until the baby is born. Soon, little Ropati is born, and this becomes a huge event for the entire colony - even Tetaiti comes to admire the baby. And women hypocritically feel sorry for the "old" leader: he is already thirty years old - he will overstrain with his wives. Having exhausted the theme of Tetahiti's inevitable death, the women start another song: the Tahitians are too black, the peritani are too pale, and only Ropati has the right skin - if Adamo leaves, no one will have golden children. Tetahichi listens imperturbably, but eventually breaks down and invites Parcel to try out the boat. They go out to sea together. The Tahitian asks what Adamo will do if the Peritani land on the island. Parcel replies without hesitation that he will defend freedom by force of arms.

The weather suddenly deteriorates - a terrible storm begins. Tetaiti and Parsel fight against the elements shoulder to shoulder, but they cannot find the island in pitch darkness. And then a bright fire flares up on the rock - it's the women who lit the fire. Once on the shore, Par-sel loses sight of Tetaiti. With the last of their strength, they seek and find each other. There are no more enemies on the island.

E. D. Murashkintseva

(Un animal doue de raison)

Roman (1967)

seventies of this century. Professor Sevilla. has been successfully studying dolphins for a long time. The truly amazing abilities of these animals, and most importantly, their intelligence, are of general interest - both among the curious public and various departments. In the United States, where Professor Sevilla lives and works, five hundred million dollars are spent annually on dolphinology. And among the organizations that invest heavily in the study of dolphins, there are many who work for the war.

Sevilla tries to teach the dolphins human speech. His work is overseen by two competing intelligence agencies; one he conditionally calls "blue", and the other - "green". In his opinion, some follow him with a touch of hostility, others with a touch of benevolence. And although Sevilla is only interested in his work, his natural sense of justice often makes him think about the correctness of the policy pursued by his country and the president. This is especially true of the Vietnam War, which the United States has been waging for a long time and without success.

Both departments know the professor's every move, even how and with whom he makes love. Surveillance of his personal life especially infuriates the professor: the temperamental Sevilla, in whose veins a lot of southern blood flows, is divorced and often starts novels, hoping to meet the woman of his dreams. However, it seems that he finally succeeds: his current assistant Arlette Lafay becomes his lover, and then his wife.

In addition to Miss Lafay, Peter, Michael, Bob, Susie, Lisbeth and Maggie work at the Sevilla station. They are all very different: Peter and Susie are great workers; Michael is more interested in politics, he adheres to leftist views and opposes the Vietnam War, Maggie is an eternal loser in his personal life; Lizbeth deliberately emphasizes her independence, and Bob is a secret informant for one of the departments.

Professor Sevilla achieves amazing success: the dolphin Ivan begins to speak. So that Fa, as the dolphin calls itself, is not lonely, the professor puts Bessie, a "dolphin", or, as Fa says, Bi. Suddenly, Fa stops talking. The existence of the laboratory is threatened. Then Sevilla applies the "carrot and stick" method to Ivan: the dolphins are given fish only when Fa asks for it in words. The result is not very comforting: Fa achieves fish with a minimum of words. Then the female is taken away from him and a condition is set: Fa says, and Bi is given to him. Fa agrees. Now the teaching of the Fa and Bi is truly progressing by leaps and bounds.

The work of the laboratory is classified, but the enthusiastic Sevilla does not attach any importance to this. Unexpectedly, he is called "on the carpet." A certain Mr. Adams reproaches the professor that, due to his negligence, secret information was leaked - the resigned Elizabeth Dawson gave the Russians secret information about the work of the laboratory and stated that she had done so on the instructions of the professor himself. However , Adams knows this is a lie: Elizabeth made this statement out of jealousy, however, he quite unequivocally warns Sevilla to be more vigilant or he will be suspended. his experiment, but in the form in which he is allowed.

Sevilla is allowed to hold a press conference with the dolphins: "there" they understand that since the enemy already knows about this work, it makes no sense to keep it a secret, it is better to publish it themselves in the most catchy, near-scientific form. Moreover, Sevilla does not suspect for what purposes "there" they intend to use the dolphins trained by him ...

The press conference with Fa and Bi becomes a real sensation. Dolphins intelligently answer questions ranging from "What is your attitude towards the President of the United States?" to "Your favorite actress?" In their answers, Fa and Bi show remarkable erudition and an undoubted sense of humor. Journalists learn that dolphins have learned not only to talk, but also to read and watch TV shows. And, as everyone unanimously points out, Fa and Bi love people.

The United States is engulfed in dolphin mania: records of the press conference are sold out instantly, toy dolphins are sold everywhere, “a la dolphin” costumes have become fashionable, everyone is dancing “dolphin” dances ... And other countries are frightened by yet another scientific achievement of the United States, their governments are feverishly thinking over how soon the Americans will be able to use dolphins for military purposes ...

Sevilla writes a popular book about dolphins, and it is a resounding success. The professor becomes a millionaire, but he is still passionate about his work and leads a modest lifestyle. Trouble comes unexpectedly: in the absence of Sevilla, Bob takes Fa and Bi out of the laboratory, and the professor is told that such is the order.

Angry, Sevilla wants to leave the country, but they won't let him out. Then he buys a small island in the Caribbean and settles there with Arlette, establishes a laboratory at his own expense and starts working with dolphins again. One of them - Daisy not only learns to speak, but also teaches the professor the dolphin language.

Suddenly, the world is shocked by the news: the American cruiser Little Rock was destroyed by an atomic explosion in the open sea near Haiphong. China is called the culprit of the explosion, anti-Chinese hysteria begins in America, and all people from Southeast Asia are being persecuted. The US President is ready to declare war on China, and he is supported by the majority of Americans. The Soviet Union warns that the consequences of American aggression against China may be irreversible.

Adams comes to Sevilla, He reports that Fa and Bi completed a certain task of a rival department, and he needs to find out what it consisted of, He wants to return the dolphins to Sevilla on the condition that the professor give him a record of their story. Adame says that the dolphins stopped talking when they returned from the mission, and he hopes that Sevilla will be able to talk to them. He also informs Sevilla about the death of Bob, who worked with Fa and B.

They bring dolphins. Fa and Bi refuse not only to speak, but also to take the fish from the hands of Sevilla, the Professor in the language of whistles tries to find out what happened, and finds out that "the person is not good."

Another problem arises: Daisy and her chosen one Jimne want to give up the harbor to new dolphins. Sevilla takes Fa and Bi to a remote grotto.

At night, the island is attacked by the military and the dolphins are killed in the harbor. Everyone believes that Fa and Bi died, only Sevilla and Arlette know the truth, but they are silent. Adams arrives to verify the death of the dolphins and find out if they had time to tell the professor anything. Leaving the island, Adams warns that Sevilla will most likely face the same fate as the dolphins.

Sevilla and Arlette go to the grotto, Fa and B reveal how they were tricked into blowing up the cruiser Little Rock. Those who sent them did everything so that they died with the cruiser, and only by a miracle did they manage to escape. They told Bob about everything, but he did not believe them. Since then, they do not want to talk to people.

The military surround the island. Sevilla and Arlette decide to flee to Cuba in order to tell the world the truth about the actions of the American military. Under the cover of night, they get into a boat, with the help of dolphins, they silently pass barrage posts and sail through the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea.

E V. Morozova

(Derriere la vitre)

Roman (1970)

In the 60s. The Sorbonne became crowded with its old walls - it was suffocating from the influx of students. Then I had to make a difficult decision reluctantly, the university admitted that some of the children of the capital would be able to get a higher education in Paris itself, the Faculty of Philology tore a piece out of its own body and threw it into the wastelands of Nanterre. In 1964, at the height of construction, the new faculty opened its paint-splattered doors to students. The action of the novel covers one day - March 22, 1968. Along with fictional characters, real people are presented - Dean Grappen, Assessor God, student leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit.

Six o'clock in the morning. Abdelaziz hears the alarm clock and opens his eyes. Darkness and icy cold. Sometimes he says to himself: "Abdelaziz, why are you hanging around here? Construction, dirt, rain, mortal anguish. Are you sure you didn't miscalculate? Which is better: the sun without grub or grub and cold?"

Seven o'clock. The alarm goes off and Lucia the Minstrel jumps out of bed instantly. There is nothing to wallow - the decisive second semester is coming. having washed and boxed with his own reflection in the mirror, he leisurely has breakfast. Why doesn't he have a girl? Other guys easily bring their girlfriends to the hostel. Glancing at the ruined construction pit outside the window, he sits down at the table: he needs to finish the Latin translation and reread Jean-Jacques for the seminar. Slug Bushyut, of course, is still sleeping. Before leaving, the Minstrel stops in front of his door - two straight lefts from a short distance, pam-pam!

Eight hours. David Schultz, twenty-one, second-year sociology student and leader of the anarchists, surveys his cramped kennel contemptuously. She and Brigitte barely fit on the narrow bunk. Sexual segregation has been done away with, but even girls who sleep with guys aren't truly free. So Brigitte shuddered as soon as he raised his voice - she is afraid that the neighbors will hear. He looks at himself in the mirror with disgust - the well-fed rump of a sissy is immediately visible. Why do these fools think he's handsome? And Brigitte bitterly thinks that all the talk about equality means nothing.

Nine o'clock. Assistant Delmon toils at the door to the office of the head of the department, Professor Earlier. You need to ask this nonentity to support his candidacy for the position of a full-time teacher. There are many applicants, and Marie-Paul Lagardette, who is walking along the corridor with a smile, will surely outrun him, because she knows how to flatter this pouted turkey.

Eleven o'clock. The minstrel sits in the reading room and stares with unseeing eyes at the old French text. The dearest mother refused to send money, and the scholarship is again delayed - he is threatened with a financial disaster. True, there is hope of getting a job as a baby-sitter with two spoiled little thugs. Will he deal with them? I really want to eat - but even more I want to be loved. Meanwhile, David Schultz meets an Algerian builder boy. Abdelaziz covers the terrace with tar. The young men are separated by thick glass. The student reading room is like a big aquarium.

Thirteen hours. Little, thin, resembling a street boy, Denise Farzho sits in a student cafe and listens attentively to her older comrade, the communist Jomet. The conversation is about politics; but Denise thinks about something completely different. Jome has a beautiful face. True, he is already terribly old - twenty-five years old, no less. It would be great to go with him to Scotland for the summer holidays. Jomet, having completed an educational conversation, forgets about Denise: Jacqueline Cavaillon sits down next to them, and he lazily reacts to her frank advances. There is a time for everything: he never had a shortage of young "parishioners".

Fifteen hours. Abdelaziz and two old workers are summoned by the boss. Construction ends, and jobs have to be cut. The chief would prefer to keep the young one, but Abdelaziz refuses in favor of Moktar. The second Algerian rushes at the young man with a knife - Abdelaziz hardly manages to repulse the blow. There is only one hope - to find a friendly guy from the reading room. David instantly finds a room in a hostel for a young Algerian.

Sixteen hours. In the professors' club, assistant Delmode listens to the rantings of the Earlier: the anarchist tendencies of the students must be suppressed, the rebels must be ruthlessly excluded, and the university police must be created. Unable to stand it, Delmon rushes to the exit and almost knocks Earlier down. Jacqueline Cavaillon makes a "great" decision - to become like other girls, Jaumet or Minstrel? Jomet has too many worries. She makes an appointment with Lucien in her room.

Eighteen hours. Denise Farjo is trying to write a paper. But the sheet after forty minutes of work remains white. It's pounding in my head. one thought - how to achieve the love of Jomet?

Eighteen hours thirty minutes. In the university cafeteria, Professor Fremencourt - a liberal and clever - comforts Delmont. Can't care less about the incident from earlier. Let the scientific adviser attach his assistant directly to the Sorbonne. From the revenge of one university boss, one should be saved by the patronage of another. A rebellious gesture will promote a career.

Nineteen hours thirty minutes. Radical students take over the tower where the university administration is located. Thus, they want to protest against the indifferent law, the repressive power. Listening to fiery speeches, David Schultz thinks that Brigitte is now studying mathematics with Abdelaziz - it was decided to help the guy get at least a primary education. Of course, David despises bourgeois prejudices and stands for free love with a mountain, but Brigitte is primarily his girl. The students do not take their eyes off the famous Dani Cohn-Bendit, and Denise Farzho, taking the opportunity, cuddles closer to Joma. At the same time, Professor N. is balancing on the verge of life and death - a heart attack knocked him right in the tower.

Twenty two hours. In a small service apartment on the sixth floor of the tower, Professor N. is still fighting for his life. Jacqueline Cavaillon lies in bed and wants to die. If the Minstrel does not come, she will eat all the pills, then they will all dance - and the mother, and the father, and the Minstrel. Lucien himself does not know if he needs this girl now. He has a lot of problems and is brutally hungry. The place of the baby-sitter has sailed away - the damn Englishwoman has suddenly set sail. Borrow money from Bushut? Then you can't kick this bore out of the room. He enters Jacqueline and immediately notices the pills. Lord, only this was not enough for him! .. Having scolded the stupid girl, he sees the sandwiches prepared by her and swallows saliva. Happy Jacqueline watches him eat. The ice of stiffness is gradually melting - both of them lacked love so much!

Twenty-three hours and thirty minutes. David Schultz looks at the sleeping Brigitte. He is aware that he is entangled in contradictions: on the one hand, he reproaches his girl for her inert ideology and respectable frigidity, and on the other hand, he does not allow the thought that she can belong to another. You still need to know what morality to choose for yourself.

One hour forty-five minutes. Tired students release the captured tower. Assessor God reports to Dean Gralpen that the revolution has announced a sleep break, Professor N still manages to cope with a heart attack. And Denise Farzho finally decides to invite Jomet for a vacation in Scotland.

B. D. Murashkintseva

(Les Belles Images)

Roman (1966)

Laurence, a beautiful young woman, at first glance, has everything you need to be happy: a loving husband, two daughters, an interesting job, prosperity, parents, friends. But Laurane, looking aloofly at all this well-being, does not feel happy. She notices the emptiness, the worthlessness of secular conversations about everything and nothing, sees all the falsity of the people around her. At a party with her mother and her lover, it seems to her that she has already seen and heard all this. Dominique, her mother, is reputed to be a model of good manners, she left her father, who never managed (or rather, did not want) to make a career, for the sake of the rich and successful Gilbert Dufresne, and everyone admires what a friendly and beautiful couple they are - a lovely picture. She brought up Dominique and Laurane as a "beautiful picture": a flawless girl, a perfect teenager, a perfect young girl. Lorane smiles learnedly, perfectly keeps herself in public. Five years ago, she already had depression, and it was explained to her that many young women go through this. Now she is again engulfed in unreasonable longing. Ten-year-old Catherine, Laurence's eldest daughter, cries in the evenings, she is worried about "non-childish" questions: why are not all people happy, what can be done to help hungry children. Laurane worries about her daughter: how to answer her disturbing questions without hurting the soul of an impressionable girl? And where does the child have such problems? Laurane also thought about serious things when she was a child, but then it was a different time: when she was as old as Katrin, it was 1945. Laurane works in an advertising agency, advertising - the same lovely pictures, she successfully invents bait for gullible people. Her lover Lucien arranges scenes of jealousy for her, but the connection with him is already weighing on Laurent: there is not a trace left of the former outbursts of passion, in fact, he is no better than her husband Jean-Charles, but with Jean-Charlemey he connects the house, children ... She still meets with Lucien from time to time, but since she does not have a great desire to see him, it becomes increasingly difficult for her to find time for dates. It is much more pleasant for her to communicate with her father: he knows how to truly love, truly appreciate, he is not capable of compromise, indifferent to money. She consults with him about Catherine. Her father advises her to meet her new girlfriend Katrin, to take a closer look at her. Jean-Charles is trying to lull his daughter with sweet tales about the future happiness of all people on the planet, in every possible way protect her from reality. Laurane cannot decide how to reconcile Katrin with reality, and vaguely feels that a lie is not the best way to do this.

Mother's lover Gilbert unexpectedly asks Laurent for a meeting. She is worried, assuming that this is no accident. Indeed, Gilbert directly declares to her that he is in love with a young girl and intends to part with Dominica. The wife finally agreed to give him a divorce, and he wants to marry his beloved. Gilbert asks Laurence not to leave her mother: tomorrow he will tell her about the breakup, she needs someone close to her in difficult times. Gilbert does not feel any guilt towards the woman with whom he lived for seven years. He believes that a woman who is fifty-one years old is older than a man who is fifty-six, and he is sure that nineteen-year-old Patricia sincerely loves him. Laurane hopes that Dominic will be rescued by pride. She will play the difficult but beautiful role of a woman who accepts a break with elegance. When Laurence visits her mother the next day, she pretends not to know anything. Dominica cannot come to terms with the breakup, she wants Gilbert back by all means. He hasn't told her who his lover is, and Dominica is at a loss. Laurensnet betrays Gilbert so as not to upset his mother even more. When she returns home, Catherine introduces her new girlfriend to her. Brigitte is a little older than Catherine, her mother has died, the girl looks rather abandoned, the hem of her skirt is pinned up with a pin. Brigitte seems much more mature than the infantile Catherine. Laurence recalls how once Dominique, protecting her from unwanted contacts, did not allow her to make friends with anyone, and she was left without friends. Brigitte is a nice girl, but is she a good influence on Catherine, Laurence asks herself. Laurence asks the smaller girl to talk to Catherine about sad things.

Laurence and Jean-Charles are on their way to Dominique's country house for the weekend. Gilbert is among the guests. Dominique tells everyone that he and Gilbert are going to Lebanon for Christmas. He promised her this trip long ago, and she hopes that if she tells everyone about it, he will be embarrassed to refuse it. Gilbert is silent. Laurence advises him to cancel the trip, without saying anything about Patricia - Dominique will be offended and break up with him herself. When Laurence and Jean-Charles are returning to Paris, a cyclist suddenly enters the road. Laurence, who is driving, swerves sharply and the car overturns into a ditch. Neither Laurens nor Jean-Charles were hurt, but the car was smashed to pieces. Laurence is glad she didn't crush the cyclist. Jean-Charles is upset: the car is expensive, and insurance does not provide compensation for damage in such cases.

Dominique learns that Gilbert is going to marry Patricia, the daughter of her former mistress. Gilbert is very rich, and the break with him means for Dominica and the rejection of luxury. She is unable to survive this and, no matter how Laurence tries to dissuade her, she writes a letter to Patricia, where she tells her the whole truth about Gilbert. She hopes that the girl will not tell Gilbert anything, but will break up with him. She is wrong: Patricia shows the letter to Gilbert, who slaps Dominique. In a conversation with Laurence, Dominica waters Patricia with public abuse.

Laurence discusses Catherine's behavior with Jean-Charles. She began to study worse, dares her parents. Jean-Charles is dissatisfied with her friendship with Brigitte: Brigitte is older, and besides, she is Jewish. In response to Laurence's bewildered question, he says that he meant only that Jewish children are characterized by premature development and excessive emotionality. Jean-Charles offers to show Catherine to a psychologist. Laurence does not want to interfere in her daughter's inner life, does not want Catherine to grow up as indifferent to other people's misfortunes as Jean-Charles, but still agrees. The whole family celebrates the New Year at Martha's, Laurence's sister. Martha believes in God and tries with all her might to impose her beliefs on her loved ones. She condemns Laurence for not taking Katrin to church: faith would return the girl to peace of mind. Usually Dominique spent this day with Gilbert, but now her daughters invited her too. Dominique has a friendly conversation with his ex-husband, Laurence and Martha's father. Father invites Laurence to go together to Greece. There, Laurence at some point realizes that his father is no better than others, that he is as indifferent as others, that his love for the past is the same escape from life as Jean-Charles's thoughts about the future. Laurence is sick.

Upon returning to Paris, she feels that her home is no closer to her than the stones of the Acropolis. Everything around is alien, no one is close to her, except for Catherine. Brigitte invites Catherine to spend the Easter holidays together at their country house. Laurence wants to let her daughter go, but Jean-Charles objects. He suggests that, in order not to upset Catherine, they should all go to Rome together, and then inspire Catherine with horseback riding - then she will not have time to meet Brigitte. The psychologist believes that the impressionable Catherine is better protected from shocks. Father Laurence also advises to listen to the opinion of a psychologist, Catherine is upset, but ready to obey. Laurence is worried, everyone is trying to persuade her not to make a tragedy out of such a trifle. Dominica reveals that she and Laurence's father have decided to move in together. She believes that spouses who have found each other again after many years of separate life, in order to meet impending old age together, should look dignified. Laurence finally realizes that she was disappointed in her father. Her disease, which manifests itself primarily in nausea, is despair. She is sick of her own life, of herself. She does not know if there is any use for the mole to open his eyes - after all, there is darkness all around. But she does not want Katrin to become what everyone around her is trying to make her, she does not want Katrin to become like her, so that she does not know how to love or cry. Laurence lets Catherine go on vacation to Brigitte.

O. E. Grinberg

Play (1953)

In 1429, Joan of Arc, a young peasant woman from Domremy, took the lead of the French army and changed the course of the Hundred Years' War between England and France in a year. The turning point was the lifting of the siege of Orleans. Encouraged by Jeanne, the soldiers won a series of brilliant victories and recaptured part of France, captured by the British.

However, many did not like the rapid rise of a girl from the people; becoming a victim of betrayal, Jeanne is captured by the supporters of the British and appears before the church court. In this difficult hour for her, the viewer meets the heroine of the play. For nine months now, the process has been going on in Rouen: the English Earl of Warwick, the French Bishop Cauchon, Fiscal and the Inquisitor are trying at all costs to discredit Joan and force her to renounce her deeds.

The judges invite Jeanne to tell her story, and she is immersed in memories. As a child, she first heard the voices of the saints. At first they urged her to be obedient and pray to God, and when she grew up, they ordered her to go to the aid of the king and return to him the kingdom, torn to pieces by the British. Jeanne's father, having learned that his daughter is going to become the head of the army and go on a campaign to save France, becomes furious and beats her. Mother also does not approve of Jeanne's intentions. In tears, the girl complains to the voices of the saints...

Inspired from above, Jeanne goes to the nearest town of Vaucouleurs, goes to the commandant Baudricourt and asks him for a man's suit, a horse and an armed escort to Chinon, where the residence of the Dauphin Charles is located, with whom she must definitely meet.

Baudricourt is not averse to having fun with a pretty girl, but to give her a horse and so on - no, thank you! However, Jeanne manages to persuade the proud martinet. Everyone knows that part of the French nobility went over to the side of the British. Orleans is under siege, and the French soldiers are completely depressed due to constant defeats. They need someone to inspire them. And that person will be she, Jeanne. And Baudricourt, who sent Jeanne to court, will be noticed and rewarded. Amazed by her reasoning, Baudricourt sends the girl to Chinon.

In the gloomy castle of Chinon sits the uncrowned king - Dauphin Charles. The king, his father, was insane, but the son wonders what is better - to be a bastard or crazy. Doubting his origins, Karl turned into a pawn in the hands of various political parties.

Charles is informed that some village girl wants to see him: she declares that she has come to save France and crown him. The Dauphin decides to accept her - it won't get any worse. Moreover, you can also laugh: the simpleton has never seen the king, so he will put a page on the throne, and he will get lost in the crowd of courtiers. So let's see if it really was sent down to him from above, or is it just a fool.

Entering the throne room, Jeanne unmistakably finds the Dauphin. She tells him that the Lord ordered her to stand at the head of the French army, lift the siege from Orleans and crown him in Reims. Amazed, Karl expels all the courtiers and is left alone with Jeanne. He wants to know why God didn't remember him earlier? "God does not love those who are afraid," the girl replies simply. Shocked by the simplicity and clarity of her answers, Charles appoints her commander of the French army.

Jeanne's memories are interrupted by Warwick. He states that Karl simply used Jeanne as a talisman. Although - he is forced to admit - indeed, Orleans was liberated, and the French unexpectedly won a number of significant victories. Maybe God helped them, or maybe "a lark singing in the sky of France over the heads of the infantrymen ...". But now the lark has been caught - Jeanne is in captivity, her voices have fallen silent, the king and the court have turned their backs on her, and in ten years no one will remember this story at all.

Bishop Cochon and the fiscal want to confuse Jeanne with insidious questions. Does she believe in miracles created by the Lord? Yes, he believes, but the main miracles are performed by a person with the help of courage and intelligence given to him by God. Cauchon accuses Jeanne that she likes to fight. No, just war is work, and to drive the English out of France, you need to work hard. One of her captains, Lair, appears before Jeanne's gaze. Now she knows that the glutton, blasphemer and bully Lair is just as pleasing to God as bishops and saints, because he is innocent and fights for a just cause. Zhanna is sure: Aair will come and free her. No, Cauchon answers her, Lair became the leader of the gang and now trades in robbery on the roads of Germany. Seeing how the girl was shocked by the betrayal of her comrade-in-arms, Cauchon insinuatingly invites Jeanne to renounce her votes and her victories. “I will never renounce what I have done,” the girl proudly declares.

The ominous voice of the Inquisitor is heard. He points to the main enemy of the church - a man who believes in himself, obsessed with love for people. The inquisitor demands that Jeanne be excommunicated, handed over to secular authorities, and executed.

The Rouen executioner enters the scene. But Zhanna is not afraid of him, but of excommunication, because for her the church and God are inseparable. Carl's speech increases Jeanne's suffering even more. Having become king, he no longer needs her help, on the contrary, he is unpleasantly reminded that he owes his crown to a simple village shepherdess, who, in addition, is going to be declared a heretic. No, no, he doesn't even want to hear about her anymore.

Jeanne finally loses heart - everyone who was dear to her turned away from her. She agrees to put on a woman's dress and renounce all her accomplishments. Not knowing how to write, Jeanne puts a cross under the renunciation.

Warwick congratulates Cauchon: Joan's execution would be a "triumph of the French spirit", and there is "something pathetic" in abdication. Indeed, little lonely Jeanne in a prison cell causes compassion. She calls out in vain to the voices, they are silent, they do not want to help her. Warwick comes to congratulate Jeanne. In fact, she is deeply sympathetic to him, he does not want to execute her at all, it's only commoners who let themselves be killed for nothing.

Warwick's words deeply hurt the girl's soul: she herself is from the people! Jeanne suddenly realizes that she made a mistake: she will never be able to forget what she did! Let the voices be silent - she takes care of everything! She refuses to renounce!

Cries are heard: "Into the fire of the heretic! Death!" All the actors sitting on the stage grab armfuls of brushwood and build a fire. Jeanne is tied to a post. She asks for a cross, and some English soldier gives her a cross, knitted from two sticks. Someone sets fire to firewood, Zhanna boldly and directly looks in front of her.

Suddenly Baudricourt bursts onto the stage with a loud cry. You can't finish the play because they haven't played the coronation yet! "The real end of Jeanne's story is a happy one. It's a lark in the sky! It's Jeanne in Reims, in all her splendor!"

Everyone rushes to light the fire. Jeanne is brought her sword, banner and cloak. The bells are ringing, the organ sounds. Everyone gets down on their knees. The archbishop places a crown on Charles's head. Jeanne is standing upright, smiling at the heavens, as in a picture from a history reader for schoolchildren. "The story of Joan of Arc is a story with a happy ending!"

E. V. Morozova

(Le Voyageur sans bagage)

Play (1973)

Events unfold in France eighteen years after the end of the First World War. Gaston, a man who fought against Germany and lost his memory at the end of the war, together with Maitre Yuspar, an attorney representing him, and the Duchess Dupont-Dufon, patroness of the asylum for the mentally ill, where Gaston spent the last eighteen years, come to a rich provincial house , owned by the gentlemen of Renault - the alleged family of Gaston. Several families whose members went missing during the war claim to be related to Gaston. Many of them are probably attracted by his disability pension, which for all these years he had no right to dispose of and which now amounts to two hundred and fifty thousand francs.

With the other four families, Gaston's meeting was supposed to take place even earlier, but the duchess decided to give priority to the Renault family, taking into account her social status and well-being. Gaston had already seen more than one family that came to the orphanage to meet him, but none of them aroused memories in him.

The maitre d' warns the guests about Renault's appearance, and they send Gaston away for a walk in the garden for a while. Gaston's presumed mother, or rather Jacques' mother, that was the name of her missing son, enters the drawing-room; his brother, Georges, and Georges' wife, Valentina. After mutual greetings, Madame Renault expresses indignation at the way in which confrontations with the sick were arranged before under the former manager of the asylum. Then they saw Gaston for only a few seconds. Madame Renault and her sister-in-law stopped at the hotel after that meeting, hoping to see Gaston just once more. Valentina even got a job as a seamstress in a shelter to be closer to him.

Gaston enters. As before, he does not recognize anyone. Meantime, servants are crowding outside the door and animatedly discussing the newcomer. Almost all of them think that they recognize in Gaston their former master, Jacques, the youngest son of Madame Renault, but none of them expresses the slightest delight about this, because everyone except Juliette, the maid, did not see anything good from him in the past. and rejoiced at the news of his death.

Madame Renault and Georges take Gaston to Jacques' room, furnished with ridiculous furniture made according to Jacques' own drawings. Gaston examines some unusual structure made of wood, it seems to be bent by a storm. Madame Renault tells Gaston that as a child he hated to play music and in a rage crushed the violins with his heels. The music stand is the only thing left from that time. He looks at his photograph at the age of twelve. He always thought he was a blond, shy kid, but Ms. Reno assures him that he was dark brown, played football all day and destroyed everything in his path. Soon Gaston becomes aware of the rest of the circumstances of Jacques' life,

He learns that as a child he loved to shoot from a slingshot and destroyed all the valuable birds in his mother's aviary, and once broke a dog's paw with a stone. On another occasion, he caught a mouse, tied a thread to its tail, and dragged it along for the whole day. A little later, he killed many unfortunate animals: squirrels, weasels, ferrets, and he ordered to make stuffed animals from the most beautiful ones. Gaston is confused. He wonders if he had a friend in childhood with whom he never parted, exchanged thoughts? It turns out that he really had a friend, but during a fight with Jacques, he fell down the stairs, broke his spine and remained paralyzed forever. After this incident, friends stopped talking. Gaston asks to show him the place of the fight. He feels that his alleged relatives are clearly keeping something back. Gaston learns that the maid Juliette was present during the fight. He asks her to come and questions the girl in detail about the circumstances of the accident. Juliette excitedly tells Gaston that before Jacques was drafted into the war, she was his mistress. His friend tried to woo her too; when Jacques caught him kissing Juliette, he fought with him, when he fell, Jacques dragged him by his legs to the edge of the stairs and pushed him down.

Georges enters Jacques' room, and Juliette has to leave. Georges reassures Gaston, assuring him that it was just an accident, childish. He, not knowing much himself and not believing the rumors, believes that it was a fight, the cause of which was the rivalry of sports clubs. From Georges Gaston learns that Jacques is guilty of other crimes. At one time, he charmed an old friend of the family, an elderly lady, and lured five hundred thousand francs from her, allegedly as an intermediary for some large company. He signed a fake bill for her, and when everything was opened, Jacques had only a few thousand francs left. The rest he let down in some dens. The family had to pay a huge sum. After all these stories, Gaston truly admires the joy with which Renault is preparing to once again welcome their son and brother into the bosom of the family,

However, it turns out that the list of his "exploits" is not yet complete. Among other things, he also seduced Georges' wife, Valentina. They cannot continue the conversation because of the appearance of Madame Renault.

She announces the arrival of numerous relatives who want to greet the returned Jacques. Gaston is not happy with the procedure he is about to undergo.

He asks Madame Renault if there were any joys in Jacques' life that did not concern school, at least in that short period of time when he had already said goodbye to textbooks, but had not yet picked up a rifle. It turns out that at that time, for almost a year, the mat "did not talk to him, because before that he insulted her and did not ask for forgiveness. Even Jacques went to the front without saying goodbye to his mother, because none of them wanted to take the first step towards Gaston, in a fit of indignation at the fact that his mother sent his son to war without even saying goodbye, repeats the words of Jacques, spoken by him at the age of seventeen, when his mother did not allow him to marry a seamstress.He says that he hates her and does not want they called him Jacques.

After the departure of Jacques' mother and his brother, Valentina appears in the room. She reminds him of their former love and insistently demands the restoration of the former relationship. Gaston never wants to become a traitor to his own brother twice, he is not at all sure that he is Jacques and that he will remain in this house. Then Valentina points out to him irrefutable evidence: Jacques has a small scar under his shoulder blade, which the doctors did not notice. Valentina herself left this mark with a hatpin when she decided that he was cheating on her. scarred and weeps bitterly.

The next morning, the other four families appear at Renaud's house, claiming kinship with Gaston. Among them is a boy who has come from England with his lawyer, Master Pickwick. The boy, wandering around the house, accidentally enters Gaston's room, He tells him that he is the alleged uncle of Gaston, that all his relatives and friends sank along with the ship "Neptunia" when he was still a baby. After talking with the boy's lawyer, Gaston informs the duchess that he is the boy's wanted nephew, and leaves the Reno house forever, because he does not want to start a new life with the baggage of old sins and constantly be surrounded by countless relatives who, with their appearance, will be about him every minute. remind them.

B. V. Semina

(La Matrimoine)

Roman (1967)

through the mouth of his hero, the provincial lawyer Abel Bretodeau, the author year after year, from 1953 to 1967, chronicles the daily life of the family. According to Abel, novelists are usually only interested in the beginning and end of love, but not in its middle. "And where, one wonders, is married life itself?" he exclaims. However, the author's attitude to marriage is partly expressed in the epigraph explaining the title of the novel: "I call the word Matrimoine everything that naturally depends on the woman in marriage, as well as everything that in our days tends to turn the share of the lioness into the lion's share."

Aspiring lawyer Abel Bretodeau, the only son in the family, falls in love with the daughter of a shopkeeper, Mariette Guimarche. In addition to Mariette, there are four more children in the Guimarche family: two unmarried sisters Simone and Arlette, older sister Ren, who married a rich Parisian aristocrat much older than herself, and Eric, whose wife, Gabrielle, gives him a third girl. By marrying Mariette, Abel, in fact, becomes, as it were, one of the members of the numerous Guimarches clan.

Abel brings his wife to his house, where six generations of Bretodo have lived before. From the very first steps, Mariette behaves in it like a hostess and unfolds a storm of activity to update and replace everything and everything.

Every day, Mariette "hangs" on the phone for a long time - she is used to consulting with Madame Guimarche in everything. The town of Angers, where both families live, is small, so the mother-in-law often comes to the young spouses. Benefit from her visits: the dishes prepared by Mariette under her guidance are much more edible than those that she cooks on her own.

At the end of the first year of marriage, Abel, who loves to sum up, draws up a kind of list of the advantages and disadvantages of his wife: eight qualities speak in her favor and as many against. And one more disappointing conclusion: the wife spends too much. Abel takes on any job, but the money is still not enough, because the ladies' magazines that Mariette reads constantly offer something new on the part of the household.

And now - the event, eagerly awaited by Mariette: they will have a child. Abel is happy, but it is still difficult for him to determine his attitude to what happened.

After the birth of Nicola, the wife becomes, first of all, a mother. The Son is the center and sense of existence. “A steak is fried on the stove for my father and mayonnaise is almost whipped - it doesn’t matter: let the meat burn, let the mayonnaise fall off, but only a special alarm clock (a wonderful invention that starts up once a day at feeding hours) gave a signal - of course, drop everything. Be late can not". The problems associated with the person of the husband completely disappear.

Mariette completely subordinates herself to the baby. It seems to Abel that "it is the child, and nothing else, that makes it possible to truly feel the main disaster of married life: terrible are these constant transitions from the inexpressible to the stupid, from admiration to disgust, from honey to litter." Abel is well aware of parents who rent their children to nannies, and thereby retain their habits, their daily routine, as well as their respectability. The latter is especially important for Abel's work: clients come to him, and children's screeching is by no means conducive to business conversations. The wife's desire to ensure that the child "has everything", he regards as an attempt to limit, first of all, his requests. After all, money in the family flows like water. "My wife gave me a child, I'm giving her my wallet," Abel reflects sadly.

Soon Louis is born, and then twins - Marianne and Yvonne. Abel is horrified: there are no major criminals in little Angers, which means there are no hopes for noisy trials. So how can a lawyer increase his budget? "Fathers' hearts ache under the wallet, which is getting thinner. Mothers' hearts rejoice under their full breasts," his uncle Tio comforts Abel.

And now - the money is exterminated mercilessly. But at the same time, everything becomes terribly simple: “Madame Bretodeau is no longer there or almost gone. Mariette barely finds an hour a day to take the children out for a walk. She neglects her toilet so much that one can easily be mistaken for a governess from a good house. hasty forays into department stores, Mariette became as invisible as a good half of the female population of Angers. A wall of apron and household utensils grows between husband and wife.

What are family conversations about? Of course, about children. Mariette completely ceased to be interested in her husband's work, but regularly demands money for children and household. It seems to Abel that Mariette does too much for the children. "In fact, she no longer has time to live on her own," he concludes.

Quarrels between spouses become rare - they rarely see each other - but they are thorough: the balanced Abel, feeling like an "evil shark" in his soul, breaks into a cry. Guimarches, whose manners the master Bretodo refers to as "syrup", act as peacekeepers and give the family a new large refrigerator, for which Abel has no money.

And now the lawyer, who lost the battle at the level of reason, gives the floor to Abel, who is trying to comprehend what is happening to him and his wife. It seems to him that the "clucking of the mother hen" has forever replaced the former "cooing of the dove." He reasons: “From time to time you will start to run away from home: you have to speak at a trial in Rennes, in Mance, in Type. You will willingly agree to travel, even start looking for them to get a break. Two or three times, no more - after all, rapprochement is also an art, and besides, you need money and not enough time - you will take advantage of these trips to have fun with some strangers, and if one of them tells you at dawn that she is married, it will outrage you and will cause the thought: "What a whore, if 6 Mariette did this to me?" However, you will clearly realize that this is not the same thing.

You will not leave the feeling that you have not violated marital fidelity, as you were married, married and remain and are not at all going to encroach on the peace of your family.

Abel is cheating on his wife with her young relative Annick. But in a small town, the life of each of its inhabitants takes place in front of everyone, and their romance quickly ends. In fact, Abel is happy about this - he does not have the strength to break with his family.

Abel doesn't know if Mariette is aware of his infidelity. Intending to restore peace in the family, he is surprised to notice that no6tt-val's wife is at the hairdresser's. Moreover, she is taken to do gymnastics and diet. Abel begins to look at his wife in a new way: how can he reproach her for her constant fuss? His wife's education was "like erased clean with a rubber band", but what did he do to prevent it? "Have you ever heard of a full-time workday? No pay. No vacation. No pension," he recalls Mariette's scathing remark. And among the seemingly hopeless everyday life, Abel still finds a ray of happiness: these are the smiles of his children.

And here is the result that the hero sums up. "My dear! I ask myself, where is the one I married? Here she is, here; and where is the one you married? both of them are already over. I wanted to say, the thoughts that everything could have ended differently have ended. Well, what will the future be like for us? My God, yes, it depends on the good will of each of us. It is enough to admit that there is no complete happiness in the world (show me such happiness), and then the feeling of catastrophe will disappear, because the marriage failed, you will consider it purely relative and stop being touched by your sorrows.

"Look. Evening has not yet come. The transparent twilight is still lasting, at the time of the summer solstice it is long so bright that the sunset beam penetrates the lattice shutter, and you can see how the dust particles are dancing in it. We are familiar with these dust particles. They lie down with a gray coating on furniture, I inhale and inhale them, they are in you and in me. There is not a single house, not a single family, where they do not exist. And we know: there is something in us that, having flared up, is able to illuminate them sometimes, and they will light up ".

E. V. Morozova

(Madame Ex.)

Roman (1975)

We first meet the protagonists of the novel, Alina and Louis Davermel, during their divorce proceedings. They lived together for twenty years, gave birth to four children, but at forty-four, Louis decided to start a new life with the young Odile, whom he had known for five years, and leave his old, petty, grumpy and narrow-minded wife, who tormented him with constant tantrums and scandals.

Until the final decision of the court, Alina and the children remain to live in the house bought by Louis, and their father is allowed to communicate with them on the second and fourth Sundays of each month, and even on vacation: he has exactly half of all vacations at his disposal. Children in a family of different ages and with different characters. Leon, the eldest son, is seventeen years old. This is a rather secretive, calm young man, to whom the absence of his father in the house is in some favor, since now he feels like a master here. Agatha, a fifteen-year-old girl, took her mother's side in a dispute between her father and mother and severely condemned her father's act. Thirteen-year-old Rosa, outwardly a copy of her mother, idolizes her father and always takes his side. Guy at the beginning of the divorce proceedings is too small to have his own view on what is happening: he is only nine. When Louis takes the children with him, Alina becomes terribly jealous and, upon their return, vents her anger on them.

The events of the novel cover a seven-year period, and each significant turn in the development of the plot is highlighted with rigorous accuracy by the narrator, who reports its specific date. In April 1966, six months after the start of the divorce proceedings, Louis informs Odile's relatives that in July she will become his wife. And so it happens. In early August, Louis takes his children to La Baule, the foothills where Odile is from, to introduce the children to his new wife. Odile, a twenty-year-old slender girl with long black hair and light eyes, shows maximum tact and patience when meeting. Soon the children get used to the environment and feel quite comfortable. Only Agatha, an ally of her mother, uses every excuse to annoy her father and his new wife.

Alina, meanwhile, at the initiative of her friend and also a single mother, Emma, ​​tries to visit the club of divorced and abandoned women. There she meets Master Grand, a woman lawyer, whom she later replaces, who did not please her with her softness, Master Leray.

A year after Louis's marriage, his parents Louise and Fernand Davermel come to visit him and are amazed at the view of the house rented by the newlyweds a year ago on the outskirts of Paris. Everything in it is now clean, renovated, comfortable. They pay tribute to the economic talents of the new daughter-in-law, towards whom at first they were not too friendly. When they learn that this house has not only been renovated, but has already been bought by a young couple, and Louis, who works in a design firm, has returned to his old passion - painting, with the support of Odile, then with humility and joy they admit that their son has made an excellent choice and it was not in vain that he decided to leave his grumpy wife, who oppressed him with her tediousness and disbelief in his abilities.

The old house where the Davermel family lived had to be sold, and Alina and her children now live in a four-room apartment, so the girls live together in one room, and Guy, whom Leon does not let into his room, is forced to sleep on a sofa in the living room, which he can dispose only when everyone else deigns to go to rest. Guy studies worse and worse, he is even left for the second year. Teachers, who understand that the boy has a hard time torn between two families: the father's family, where he is loved and where he has his own room, and the mother's house, which in rude terms sets him against his father and where the atmosphere leaves much to be desired, insist that so that Alina takes Guy for a consultation at the Center for Mentally Handicapped Children.

The Louis family is about to replenish: Odile is expecting a baby. Alika, on the other hand, annoys her ex-husband with endless subpoenas, appeals, cassations, begging for additional interest on the alimony that Louis scrupulously pays to her and the children. She was tired of living alone: ​​if her husband married a second time, then why shouldn't she get married. Ginette, Alina's sister, arranges a meeting for her at home with a certain widower, a retired military man. The acquaintance, however, does not continue, because Alina, no matter how difficult it is for her, is not going to connect her life with just anyone. She is warmed by the thought that if she has been neglected, then she can afford the same.

Odile gives birth to a boy, who is named Felix. Louis immediately informs Alina about this and asks her to convey this news to the children so that they can see her brother, but she deliberately hides this news. When Rosa and Guy find out about the mother's act, they fall into a rage: in addition to endless attacks on their father, she also forbids them to see their brother. Until now, the younger children have used every opportunity to visit their father in Nogent, even if only for five minutes, and now they want to move in with him. Rosa and Guy decide to take extreme measures in order to transfer custody of them to their father: they run away from home and, sitting at the station, write letters of complaint to all courts asking them to consider their case.

Alina, worried about the absence of children, sends Leon and Agatha, whom she always uses as a spy in her father's house, to find out if the children have fled to him. After another trial, the younger children are allowed to move in with their father. Older ones are also increasingly moving away from their mother. Leon is already quite an adult, he has a girlfriend, and more and more often Agatha can be seen on a motorcycle behind some strong guy. Alina looks at her daughter's company through her fingers: if only she would not be seriously carried away by someone alone. But, after talking with young guys, Agatha concludes that she is more interested in adult men, and falls in love with Edmond, the owner of a leather goods store. Edmond is married, but his wife is in a lunatic asylum. Agatha does not want to repeat the mistakes of her mother and wants to be able to break her connection at any time, without divorce. At the same time, she now understands better the motives and behavior of her father.

Alina is trying in every possible way to lure back the younger children, but she does not succeed. The children have matured and are already perfectly able to stand up for themselves. True, they continue to see her twice a month and during the holidays.

Three and a half years after the beginning of the divorce proceedings, Louis and Alina, completely exhausted by endless fees to lawyers and other fees associated with legal proceedings, finally decide, by mutual agreement, to complete it. Louis has the opportunity to devote more time and money to his family. Leon will now come to his father for a check once a month. Agatha gets the same opportunity, but it is on the last day of judgment that she leaves her mother's house forever to live with Edmond. Agatha feels like a traitor, because it was she who was closest to her mother, but she can no longer live under the wing of Alina. Agatha does not leave her even her new phone, but only gives her the opportunity to write poste restante letters.

Almost a year after these events, in February 1970, the three older children get together in a cafe and decide from now on to meet more often and try to somehow reconcile their parents.

One day, Alina, unable to cope with her nerves, gets into an accident near her old house by car, as a result of which she ends up in the hospital with broken legs, arms and ribs. The only thing that brings her consolation is that all the children, even Agatha, whom she has not seen for a long time, come to visit her.

In November 1972, Leon marries Solange, whom he had met for several years before. In a year, he will become, like his paternal grandfather, a pharmacist. Being proud of her children, sometimes seeing them and living in an apartment smelling of cats, and even paid for by her ex-husband, is all that remains for Alina. Without joy and without purpose, Alina quietly lives out her life and slowly, slowly fades away.

E. V. Semina

(La Cantatrice Chauve)

Antiplay (1950)

Bourgeois English interior. English evening. English married couple - Mr and Mrs Smith. The English clock strikes seventeen English strokes. Mrs. Smith says that it's already nine o'clock. She lists everything they ate for dinner and makes gastronomic plans for the future. She is going to buy Bulgarian yogurt, because it is good for the stomach, kidneys, appendicitis and "apotheosis" - that's what Dr. Mackenzie-King said, and you can trust him, he never prescribes drugs that he has not tried on himself. Before performing an operation on a patient, he first underwent the same operation himself, although he was absolutely healthy, and it was not his fault that the patient died: it was just that his operation was successful, and that of his patient was unsuccessful. Mr. Smith, reading an English newspaper, wonders why, under the rubric of civil conditions, the age of the dead is always indicated, and never the age of newborns; it seems absurd to him. The paper says that Bobby Watson has died. Mrs. Smith gasps, but her husband reminds her that Bobby died "two years ago" and they were at his funeral a year and a half ago. They discuss all the members of the deceased's family - they are all called Bobby Watson, even his wife, so they were always confused, and only when Bobby Watson died did it become completely clear who was who. The Smiths' maid appears - Mary, who had a pleasant evening with a man: they went to the cinema, then drank vodka with milk, and then read the newspaper. Mary reports that the Martins, whom the Smiths were waiting for dinner, are standing at the door: they did not dare to enter and were waiting for Mary's return. Mary asks the Martins to wait while the Smiths, who no longer expected to see them, change their clothes. Sitting opposite each other, the Martins smile embarrassedly: it seems that they have already met somewhere, but they can’t remember where. It turns out that both of them are from Manchester and only two months ago they left there. By a strange and surprising coincidence, they traveled in the same train, in the same car and in the same compartment. In London, both of them, oddly enough, live on Bromfield Street, at number 19.

And another coincidence: they both live in apartment number 18 and sleep on a bed with a green featherbed. Mr. Martin suggests that it was in bed that they met, perhaps even that it was last night. And they both have an adorable two-year-old daughter, Alice, who has one white eye and the other red. Mr. Martin assumes that this is the same girl. Mrs. Martin agrees that this is quite possible, although surprising. Donald Martin thinks for a long time and comes to the conclusion that in front of him is his wife Elizabeth. The couple are happy to have found each other again. Mary slowly reveals to the audience one secret: Elizabeth is not Elizabeth at all, and Donald is not Donald, because Elizabeth's daughter and Donald's daughter are not the same person: Elizabeth's daughter has a red right eye, and her left eye is white, and Donald's daughter has - vice versa. So despite the rare coincidences, Donald and Elizabeth, not being the parents of the same child, are not Donald and Elizabeth and are mistaken in imagining themselves to be them. Mary informs the viewers that her real name is Sherlock Holmes.

The Smiths enter, dressed exactly as before. After meaningless (and completely unrelated) phrases, Mrs. Martin says that on the way to the market she saw an extraordinary picture: near a cafe, a man was bending over and tying his shoelaces. Mr. Martin saw an even more incredible sight: a man was sitting on the subway reading a newspaper. Mr. Smith suggests that it may be the same person. The doorbell is ringing. Mrs. Smith opens the door, but there is no one behind it. As soon as she sits down again, another bell rings. Mrs. Smith opens the door again, but again there is no one behind it. When they ring for the third time, Mrs. Smith does not want to get up, but Mr. Smith is sure that once the doorbell rings, it means that there is someone behind the door. In order not to quarrel with her husband, Mrs. Smith opens the door and, seeing no one, comes to the conclusion that when the doorbell rings, there is never anyone there. Hearing a new call, Mr. Smith opens himself. Behind the door is the Captain of the fire brigade. The Smiths tell him about the dispute that has arisen. Mrs. Smith says that it was only the fourth time someone was at the door, and only the first three times are counted. Everyone is trying to find out from the Fireman who called the first three times. The fireman replies that he stood outside the door for forty-five minutes, did not see anyone and called himself only twice: the first time he hid for a laugh, the second time he entered. The fireman wants to reconcile the spouses. He believes that both of them are partly right: when the doorbell rings, sometimes there is someone there, and sometimes there is no one.

Mrs. Smith invites the Fireman to sit with them, but he's on business and in a hurry. He asks if they have anything on fire; he was ordered to put out all the fires in the city. Unfortunately, neither the Smiths nor the Martins are on fire. The fireman complains that his work is unprofitable: there is almost no profit. Everyone sighs: it is the same everywhere: both in commerce and in agriculture. Sugar, however, is, and even then because it is imported from abroad. It is more difficult with fires - there is a huge duty on them. Mr. Martin advises the Fireman to visit the Weckfield priest, but the Fireman explains that he has no right to put out the fires of the clergy. Seeing that there is no hurry. The fireman stays with the Smiths and tells anecdotes from his life. He tells a fable about a dog that didn't swallow its trunk because it thought it was an elephant, the story of a calf that ate too much crushed glass and gave birth to a cow that couldn't call him "mother" because he was a boy and couldn't call him "dad" because he was small, which is why the calf had to marry one person. The others also take turns telling jokes. The fireman tells a long nonsensical story, in the middle of which everyone gets confused and asks to repeat it, but the fireman is afraid that he has no time left. He asks what time it is, but no one knows: the Smiths have the wrong watch, which, out of a spirit of contradiction, always shows exactly the opposite time. Mary asks permission to tell a joke too. The Martins and Smiths are indignant: the maid should not interfere in the conversations of the owners. The fireman, seeing Mary, joyfully throws himself on her neck: it turns out that they have known each other for a long time. Mary recites a poem in honor of the Fireman until the Smiths push her out of the room. It's time for the fireman to leave: in three quarters of an hour and sixteen minutes, a fire should start at the other end of the city. Before leaving, the Fireman asks how the bald singer is doing, and, having heard from Mrs. Smith that she still has the same hairstyle, calmly says goodbye to everyone and leaves. Mrs. Martin says, "I can buy my brother's penknife, but you can't buy your grandfather's Ireland." Mr Smith says:

"We walk with our feet, but we are heated by electricity and coal." Mr. Martin continues: "Whoever took the sword, he scored the ball." Mrs. Smith teaches: "Life should be observed from the window of the car." Gradually, the exchange of remarks becomes more and more nervous: "Cockatoo, cockatoo, cockatoo ..." - "As I walk, I walk, I walk, I walk ..." - "I walk on the carpet, on the carpet ..." - "You walk while you're lying while you're lying..." - "Cactus, crocus, cook, cockade, crow!" - "The more mushrooms, the less stalks!" The lines are getting shorter, everyone is yelling into each other's ears. The light goes out. In the darkness, faster and faster you hear: "E-that-not-there-that-that-that-yes ..." Suddenly everyone falls silent, The light turns on again. Mr. and Mrs. Martin are seated like the Smiths at the beginning of the play. The play begins again, with the Martins repeating the Smiths' lines word for word. The curtain falls.

O. E. Grinberg

farce tragedy (1952)

There are many invisible characters in the play and three real ones - the Old Man (95 years old), the Old Woman (94 years old) and the Speaker (45-50 years old). There are two empty chairs on the proscenium, three doors and a window on the right, three doors and a window on the left, next to which there is a black board and a small elevation. Another door is at the back.

Water is splashing under the windows of the house - the Old Man, leaning over the window sill, is trying to make out the approaching boats with guests, and the Old Woman begs not to do this, complaining about the putrid halls and mosquitoes.

The old man calls the Old Woman Semiramide, but she manages with affectionate words "darling", "darling", "baby". In anticipation of the guests, the old people are talking: it used to be always light, but now there is impenetrable darkness all around, and there was once such a city of Paris, but it faded four thousand years ago - only a song remained from it. The old woman admires the talents of the Old Man: it’s a pity he didn’t have enough ambition, but he could be the chief emperor, chief editor, chief doctor, chief marshal ... However, he still became a marshal of flights of stairs - in other words, a doorkeeper. When the Old Woman inadvertently adds that there was no need to bury the talent in the ground, the Old Man bursts into tears and loudly calls for mommy - with great difficulty, the Old Woman manages to calm him down with a reminder of the great Mission. Tonight, the Old Man must convey to mankind the Message - for this purpose the guests are called. Absolutely everyone will gather: owners, craftsmen, security guards, priests, presidents, musicians, delegates, speculators, the proletariat, the secretariat, the military, the redneck, intellectuals, monuments, psychiatrists and their clients ... The universe is waiting for the News, and the Old Woman cannot hide her proud joy: finally - the Old Man decided to speak with Europe and other continents!

The splash of water is heard - the first invitees have appeared. Excited old men hobble to the door in a niche and escort an invisible guest to the forefront: judging by the conversation, this is a very kind lady - the Old Woman is subdued by her secular manners. Water splashes again, then someone insistently rings the doorbell, and the Old Man freezes on the threshold at attention in front of the invisible Colonel. The old woman hastily brings out two more chairs. Everyone is seated, and a conversation is started between the invisible guests, which more and more shocks the owners of the house - the Old Man even considers it necessary to warn the Colonel that the dear lady has a husband. One more call, and a pleasant surprise awaits the Old Man - a "young charmer", in other words, a childhood friend with her husband, has come. An invisible but clearly representative gentleman presents a picture as a gift, and the Old Woman begins to flirt with him like a real whore - lifts up her skirts, laughs loudly, builds her eyes. This grotesque scene stops suddenly, and the turn of memories begins: the Old Woman tells how the ungrateful son left the house, and the Old Man mourns that they have no children - but maybe this is for the best, since he himself was a bad son and left his mother to die under the fence. The doorbell rings one after the other, and the action speeds up:

The old man greets the guests, and the old woman, out of breath, drags out more and more chairs. It is already difficult to push through the crowd of invisible invitees: the Old Woman only manages to ask if the Old Man has put on his underpants. Finally, the calls stop, but the whole stage is already lined with chairs, and the Old Man asks the belated invisibles to be placed along the walls so as not to disturb the others. He himself makes his way to the left window, Semiramide freezes near the right one - both will remain in these places until the end of the play. The old people are having small talk with the guests and calling to each other through the crowd.

Suddenly, a rumble and fanfares are heard from behind the curtains - this was granted by the emperor. The old man is beside himself with delight: he orders everyone to stand up and laments only that he cannot get closer to His Majesty - court intrigues, what can you do! But he does not give up and, shouting over the crowd, shares his sufferings with the precious emperor: enemies feasted, friends betrayed, beaten with a baton, planted a knife, substituted a leg, did not give a visa, they never sent an invitation card in their life, destroyed the bridge and destroyed the Pyrenees ... But then an epiphany dawned on him: it was forty years ago when he came to kiss his daddy before going to bed. Then they began to laugh at him and married him - they proved that he was big. Now a speaker will appear, present the saving Message, for the Old Man himself - alas! - Can't speak very well.

The tension is rising. Door number five opens unbearably slowly, and the Orator appears - a real character in a wide-brimmed hat and cloak, similar to an artist or poet of the last century. Not noticing anyone, the Speaker goes to the stage and starts signing autographs for invisible people. The old man addresses the audience with a farewell word (the old woman echoes him, moving from sobs to real sobs): after long labors in the name of progress and for the benefit of mankind, he will have to disappear along with his faithful girlfriend - they will die, leaving behind an eternal memory. Both shower confetti and serpentine on the Speaker and empty chairs, then shout "Long live the emperor!" each jump out of their own window. There are two screams, two splashes. The speaker, impassively watching the double suicide, begins to mumble and wave his arms - it becomes clear that he is deaf and mute. Suddenly his face brightens: grabbing the chalk, he writes on the black board large letters DRR… SHCHCHCHNY… PRDRBR… Looking around with a satisfied smile at the invisible audience, he waits for an admiring reaction - then he darkens, bows sharply and leaves through the door in the depths. On an empty stage with chairs and a stage covered with serpentine and confetti, exclamations, laughter, coughing are heard for the first time - this is an invisible audience disperses after the performance.

E. D. Murashkintseva

Drama (1960)

Square in a provincial town. The shopkeeper hisses indignantly after the woman with the cat - The housewife went shopping in another store. Jean and Beranger appear almost at the same time - nevertheless, Jean reproaches his friend for being late. Both sit down at a table in front of the cafe. Berenger does not look well: he can hardly stand on his feet, yawns, his suit is rumpled, his shirt is dirty, his shoes have not been cleaned. Jean enthusiastically lists all these details - he is clearly ashamed of his weak-willed friend. Suddenly, the clatter of a running huge beast is heard, and then a drawn-out roar. The waitress screams in horror - it's a rhinoceros! The frightened Housewife runs in, convulsively clutching the cat to her chest. The elegantly dressed Old Master hides in the shop, unceremoniously pushing the owner. The logician in the boater hat is pressed against the wall of the house. When the clatter and roar of the rhinoceros subside in the distance, everyone gradually comes to their senses. The logician declares that a reasonable person should not succumb to fear. The Shopkeeper comforts the Housewife insinuatingly, praising his merchandise along the way.

Jean is indignant: a wild animal on the streets of the city is unheard of! Only Berenger is sluggish and sluggish with a hangover, but at the sight of a young blonde Daisy, he jumps up, knocking his glass over Jean's trousers. Meanwhile, the Logician is trying to explain to the Old Master the nature of the syllogism: all cats are mortal, Socrates is mortal, therefore Socrates is a cat. The shaken old gentleman says that his cat is called Socrates. Jean tries to explain to Beranger the essence of the right way of life: you need to arm yourself with patience, intelligence and, of course, completely abandon alcohol - in addition, you need to shave every day, clean your shoes thoroughly, walk in a fresh shirt and a decent suit. Shocked, Beranger says that he will visit the city museum today, and in the evening he will go to the theater to see the play by Ionesco, which is now being talked about so much. The logician approves of the Old Master's first successes in the field of mental activity. Jean approves of Beranger's good intentions in the field of cultural leisure. But then all four are drowned out by a terrible rumble. The exclamation "Oh, rhinoceros!" is repeated by all participants in the scene, and only Beranger breaks out the cry "Oh, Daisy!". Immediately, a heart-rending meow is heard, and the Housewife appears with a dead cat in her arms. From all sides there is an exclamation of "oh, poor pussy!", And then an argument begins about how many rhinos there were. Jean states that the first was Asian - with two horns, and the second African - with one. Berenger, unexpectedly for himself, objects to his friend: the dust stood in a column, there was nothing to be seen, and even more so to count the horns. To the moaning of the Housewife, the skirmish ends in a quarrel: Jean calls Berenger a drunkard and announces a complete break in relations. The discussion continues: the shopkeeper claims that only the African rhinoceros has two horns. The logician proves that the same being cannot be born in two different places. Frustrated, Beranger scolds himself for his intemperance - there was no need to climb on the rampage and anger Jean! Having ordered a double portion of cognac out of grief, he cowardly abandons his intention to go to the museum.

Legal office. Colleagues Beranger vigorously discuss the latest news. Daisy insists that she saw the rhino with her own eyes, and Dudar shows a note in the accident department. Botar declares that all these are stupid stories, and it is not for a serious girl to repeat them - being a man of progressive convictions, he does not trust corrupt newspapermen who write about some crushed cat instead of exposing racism and ignorance. Beranger appears, who, as usual, was late for work. The head of the office, Papillon, urges everyone to get down to business, but Botar cannot calm down in any way: he accuses Dudar of malicious propaganda with the aim of inciting mass psychosis. Suddenly, Papillon notices the absence of one of the employees - Beth. A frightened Madame Bef runs in: she reports that her husband is ill, and a rhinoceros is chasing her from the very house. Under the weight of the beast, the wooden staircase collapses. Crowded upstairs, everyone looks at the rhinoceros. Bothard declares that this is a dirty machination of the authorities, and Madame Boeuf suddenly screams - she recognizes her husband in a thick-skinned animal. He answers her with a frenetically gentle roar. Madame Beth jumps on his back, and the rhinoceros gallops home. Daisy calls the fire department to evacuate the office. It turns out that firefighters are in great demand today: there are already seventeen rhinos in the city, and according to rumors - even thirty-two. Botar threatens to expose the traitors responsible for this provocation. A fire truck arrives: employees go down the rescue ladder. Dudar invites Berenger to pull a glass, but he refuses: he wants to visit Jean and, if possible, make peace with him.

Jean's apartment: he lies on the bed, not responding to Beranger's knock. The old neighbor explains that yesterday Jean was very out of sorts. Finally, Jean lets Berenger in, but immediately goes back to bed. Béranger stammeringly apologizes for yesterday. Jean is clearly sick:

he speaks in a hoarse voice, breathes heavily, and listens to Beranger with increasing irritation. The news of Beth's transformation into a rhinoceros completely infuriates him - he begins to rush about, hiding in the bathroom from time to time. From his increasingly indistinct cries, one can understand that nature is above morality - people need to return to primitive purity. Beranger notices with horror how his friend gradually turns green and a bump resembling a horn grows on his forehead. Once again, running into the bathroom, Jean begins to roar - there is no doubt, it's a rhinoceros! With difficulty locking the angry beast with a key, Berenger calls for help from a neighbor, but instead of the old man he sees another rhinoceros. And outside the window a whole herd destroys the boulevard benches. The bathroom door creaks, and Berenger takes flight with a desperate cry of "Rhinoceros!"

Beranger's apartment: he lies on the bed with his head tied. From the street comes the clatter and roar. There is a knock on the door - this is Dudar came to visit a colleague. Sympathetic questions about health terrify Beranger - he constantly imagines that a bump is growing on his head, and his voice becomes hoarse. Dudar tries to reassure him: in fact, there is nothing terrible in turning into a rhinoceros - in fact, they are not evil at all, and they have some kind of natural innocence. Many decent people completely disinterestedly agreed to become rhinos - for example, Papillon. True, Botar condemned him for apostasy, but this was dictated more by hatred of his superiors than by true convictions. Berenger rejoices that there are still inflexible people left - if only a Logic could be found who would be able to explain the nature of this madness! It turns out that the Logic has already turned into a beast - he can be recognized by his boater hat, pierced by a horn. Berenger is dejected: first, Jean is such a bright person, a champion of humanism and a healthy lifestyle, and now Logic! Daisy appears with the news that Botar has become a rhinoceros - according to him, he wished to keep up with the times. Berenger declares that it is necessary to fight brutality - for example, put rhinos in special pens. Dudar and Daisy unanimously object: the Society for the Protection of Animals will be against it, and besides, everyone has friends and close relatives among rhinos. Dudar, clearly distressed by Daisy's preference for Béranger, makes a sudden decision to become a rhinoceros. Berenger tries in vain to dissuade him: Dudar leaves, and Daisy, looking out the window, says that he has already joined the herd. Béranger realizes that Daisy's love could have saved Dudar. Now there are only two of them left, and they must take care of each other. Daisy is frightened: a roar is heard from the handset, a roar is transmitted on the radio, the floors are shaking due to the clatter of the rhino tenants. Gradually, the roar becomes more melodic, and Daisy suddenly declares that the rhinos are great - they are so cheerful, energetic, it's nice to look at them! Béranger, unable to restrain himself, gives her a slap in the face, and Daisy goes off to the beautiful musical rhinos. Beranger looks at himself in the mirror with horror - how ugly the human face is! If only he could grow a horn, acquire a wonderful dark green skin, learn to roar! But the last man can only defend himself, and Beranger looks around in search of a gun. He doesn't give up.

E. L. Murashkintseva

Tale (1942)

Meursault, a petty French official, a resident of the Algerian suburbs, receives news of the death of his mother. Three years ago, unable to support her on his modest salary, he placed her in an almshouse. Having received a two-week vacation, Meursault goes to the funeral the same day.

After a brief conversation with the director of the almshouse, Meursault is going to spend the night at his mother's coffin. However, he refuses to look at the deceased for the last time, talks for a long time with the watchman, calmly drinks coffee with milk and smokes, and then falls asleep. Waking up, he sees his mother's friends from the almshouse nearby, and it seems to him that they have come to judge him. The next morning, under the scorching sun, Meursault indifferently buries his mother and returns to Algiers.

After sleeping for at least twelve hours, Meursault decides to go to the sea for a swim and accidentally meets a former typist from his office, Marie Cardona. That same evening, she becomes his mistress. Having spent the next day at the window of his room overlooking the main street of the suburbs, Meursault thinks that, in essence, nothing has changed in his life.

The next day, returning home after work, Meursault meets neighbors: old man Salamano, as always, with his dog, and Raymond Sintes, a storekeeper who is known as a pimp. Sintes wants to teach a lesson to his mistress, an Arab woman who cheated on him, and asks Meursault to compose a letter for her in order to lure her on a date and then beat her. Soon, Meursault witnesses Raymond's violent quarrel with his mistress, in which the police intervene, and agrees to act as a witness in his favor.

The patron offers Meursault a new assignment to Paris, but he refuses: life still cannot be changed. That same evening, Marie asks Meursault if he is going to marry her. Like promotion, Meursault is not interested in this.

Sunday Meursault is going to spend on the seashore with Marie and Raymond visiting his friend Masson. As they approach the bus stop, Raymond and Meursault notice two Arabs, one of whom is the brother of Raymond's mistress. This meeting disturbs them.

After swimming and a hearty breakfast, Masson invites his friends to take a walk along the seashore. At the end of the beach, they notice two Arabs in blue overalls. They think the Arabs have tracked them down. A fight breaks out, one of the Arabs stabs Raymond with a knife. They soon retreat and flee.

After some time, Meursault and his friends come to the beach again and see the same Arabs behind a high rock. Raymond gives Meursault a revolver, but there is no apparent reason for a quarrel. The world seemed to have closed and bound them. Friends leave Meursault alone. The scorching heat presses on him, he is seized by a drunken stupor. At the stream behind the rock, he again notices the Arab who wounded Raymond. Unable to endure the unbearable heat, Meursault takes a step forward, takes out a revolver and shoots at the Arab, "as if knocking on the door of misfortune with four short blows."

Meursault is arrested and summoned for interrogation several times. He considers his case very simple, but the investigator and the lawyer have a different opinion. The investigator, who seemed to Meursault as an intelligent and sympathetic person, cannot understand the motives for his crime. "He starts a conversation with him about God, but Meursault confesses his disbelief. His own crime only annoys him.

The investigation continues for eleven months. Meursault understands that the prison cell has become his home and his life has stopped. At first, he is mentally still at large, but after a meeting with Marie, a change occurs in his soul. Languishing from boredom, he recalls the past and understands that a person who has lived at least one day will be able to spend at least a hundred years in prison - he will have enough memories. Gradually Meursault loses the concept of time.

The Meursault case is scheduled for hearing at the final session of the jury. A lot of people are crowded in the stuffy hall, but Meursault is not able to distinguish a single face. He gets the strange impression that he is superfluous, like an uninvited guest. After a long interrogation of witnesses: the director and caretaker of the almshouse, Raymond, Masson, Salamano and Marie, the prosecutor pronounces an angry conclusion: Meursault, never crying at the funeral of his own mother, not wanting to look at the deceased, the next day enters into a relationship with a woman and, being a friend of a professional pimp, he commits murder for an insignificant reason, settling scores with his victim. According to the prosecutor, Meursault has no soul, human feelings are inaccessible to him, no moral principles are known. Horrified by the insensibility of the criminal, the prosecutor demands the death penalty for him.

In his defense speech, Meursault's lawyer, on the contrary, calls him "an honest worker and an exemplary son who supported his mother as long as possible and killed himself in a moment of blindness. Meursault will face the gravest punishment - inescapable repentance and remorse of conscience.

After a break, the chairman of the court announces the verdict: "on behalf of the French people," Meursault will be beheaded in public, in the square. Meursault begins to think about whether he will be able to avoid the mechanical course of events. He cannot accept the inevitability of what is happening. Soon, however, he comes to terms with the thought of death, because life is not worth clinging to, and if you have to die, it does not matter when and how this happens.

Before the execution, a priest comes to Meursault's cell. But in vain he tries to turn him to God. For Meursault, eternal life does not make any sense, he does not want to spend the rest of his time on God, so he pours out all the accumulated indignation on the priest.

On the threshold of death, Meursault feels a breath of darkness rise up to him from the abyss of the future, that he was chosen by a single fate. He is ready to relive everything and opens his soul to the gentle indifference of the world.

O. A. Vasilyeva

Roman (1956)

The meeting between the reader and the narrator takes place in an Amsterdam bar called Mexico City. The narrator, a former lawyer who had an extensive practice in Paris, after a turning point in his life, moved to a place where no one knows him and where he tries to get rid of his sometimes painful memories. He is very sociable and uses the bar in some way as a temple, where he meets people he likes, tells them about his life, about his sins, and almost always ensures that his interlocutors answer him with frankness for frankness and confess as they would confess to his confessor.

Jean-Baptiste Clemence, that is the name of the former lawyer, reveals himself to the reader, as to one of his daily interlocutors. Working in Paris, he specialized in "noble deeds", in the protection of widows and orphans, as they say. He despised the judges and felt a sense of satisfaction from the fact that he was undertaking a just cause. He earned his living by arguing with people he despised. Clemence was in the camp of justice, and that was enough for his peace of mind. In his professional activities, he was impeccable: he never accepted bribes, did not stoop to any fraud, did not flatter those on whom his well-being depended. Finally, he never took payment from the poor, was known as a generous person and really was such, extracting certain joys from his philanthropy, not least among which was the thought of the futility of his gifts and the very likely ingratitude that would follow them. He called it "the pinnacle of nobility", even in everyday trifles he always wanted to be above others, because only by towering above others, it is possible to achieve "enthusiastic looks and cheers from the crowd."

One evening, Clemence, very pleased with the day that had passed, was walking along the Pont des Arts, which was completely deserted at that hour. He stopped to look at the river, a sense of his own strength and completeness growing in him. Suddenly, he heard soft laughter behind him, but, looking around, he did not see anyone nearby. Laughter was coming from nowhere, His heart was pounding. Arriving home, he saw his face in the mirror, it was smiling, but the smile seemed to Jean-Baptiste somehow false. Ever since then, it seemed to him that from time to time he heard this laughter in himself. That's when it all started.

Clemence began to feel that some string in him went wrong, that he had forgotten how to live. He began to clearly feel the comedian in himself and understand that from day to day only one worried him: his "I". Women, living people, tried to grab onto him, but they did not succeed. He quickly forgot them and always remembered only about himself. In his relations with them, he was guided only by sensuality. Their affection frightened him, but at the same time he did not want to let go of any of the women, while maintaining several connections and making many unhappy. As Clemence realized later, during that period of his life he demanded everything from people and gave nothing in return: he forced many, many people to serve him, and it was as if he hid them in the refrigerator so that they were always at hand and he could use them on as needed. At the memory of the past, shame burns his soul.

One November night, Clemence was returning from his mistress and was walking along the Royal Bridge. A young woman was standing on the bridge. He walked past her. Having descended from the bridge, he heard the sound of a human body falling into the water. Then there was a scream. He wanted to run to help, but he couldn't move, and then he thought it was too late and slowly moved on. And he didn't tell anyone about anything.

His relations with friends and acquaintances outwardly remained the same, but little by little they were upset. They still praised his sense of harmony, but he himself felt only confusion in his soul, seemed to himself vulnerable, given over to the power of public opinion. People seemed to him no longer the respectful audience to which he was accustomed, but his judges. Clemence's attention sharpened, and he discovered that he had enemies, and especially among people unfamiliar, because they were infuriated by his behavior as a happy and self-satisfied person. On the day he received his sight, he felt all the wounds inflicted on him and immediately lost his strength. It seemed to him that the whole world began to laugh at him.

From that moment on, he began to try to find an answer to these ridicule, which actually sounded inside him. He began to shock the listeners of his public lectures on jurisprudence and behave in a way that he would never have allowed to behave before. He scared away his entire clientele.

He became bored with women because he no longer played with them. Then, tired of both love and chastity, he decided that all he had to do was indulge in debauchery - he perfectly replaces love, stops people's ridicule and establishes silence, and most importantly, does not impose any obligations. Alcohol and women of easy virtue gave him the only relief worthy of him. Then an immense fatigue attacked him, which still does not leave him. So several years passed. He already thought that the crisis had passed, but he soon realized that this was not so, the cry that resounded on the Seine that night behind him did not stop and, at any opportunity, reminded of himself even after Clemence moved to Amsterdam.

One day, in a Mexico City bar, he saw on the wall a painting of Van Eyck's Incorruptible Judges, stolen from St. Bavo. The owner was exchanged for a bottle of gin by one of the regulars of his establishment. This picture was searched for by the police of three countries. Clemence convinced the frightened owner to give it to him for safekeeping. Since then, the picture has been in his apartment, he tells all his interlocutors about it, and each of them can inform on him. Subconsciously, he strives for this, feeling his inexcusable guilt before the girl he did not save, realizing that now there will never be an opportunity to pull her out of the water. And the heaviness in his heart will remain with him forever.

E. V. Semina

Novel parable (1974)

The novel is an eyewitness account of a plague that broke out in 194 ... in the city of Oran, a typical French prefecture on the Algerian coast. The story is told from the perspective of Dr. Bernard Rieux, who was in charge of anti-plague activities in the infected city.

The plague comes to this city, devoid of vegetation and not knowing the singing of birds, unexpectedly. It all starts with the fact that dead rats appear on the streets and in houses. Soon they are collected every day throughout the city in thousands. On the very first day of the invasion of these gloomy harbingers of trouble, not yet suspecting the catastrophe that threatens the city, Dr. Rieux sends his wife, who has long suffered from some kind of illness, to a mountain sanatorium. His mother moves in to help with the housework.

The gatekeeper in the doctor's house was the first to die of the plague. No one in the city yet suspects that the disease that has fallen on the city is a plague. The number of sick people is increasing every day. Dr. Rieux orders a serum in Paris, which helps the sick, but not much, and soon it runs out. It becomes obvious to the prefecture of the city the need to declare a quarantine. Oran becomes a closed city.

One evening, the doctor is called to his old patient, an employee of the city hall by the name of Gran, whom the doctor, because of his poverty, treats for free. His neighbor, Cottard, tried to commit suicide. The reason that pushed him to this step. Gran is not clear, but later he draws the doctor's attention to the strange behavior of a neighbor. After this incident, Cottar begins to show extraordinary courtesy in dealing with people, although he had previously been unsociable. The doctor has a suspicion that Cottard has a bad conscience, and now he is trying to earn the favor and love of others.

Gran himself is an elderly man, thin, timid, with difficulty finding words to express his thoughts. However, as it later becomes known to the doctor, he has been writing a book in his spare hours for many years and dreams of writing a truly masterpiece. All these years he has been polishing one single, first phrase.

At the beginning of the epidemic, Dr. Rie meets a journalist who has arrived from France, Raymond Rambert, and a rather young, athletic man with a calm, gaze of gray eyes named Jean Tarrou. Tarru, from his very arrival in the city, a few weeks before the unfolding events, keeps a notebook, where he makes detailed observations of the inhabitants of Oran, and then of the development of the epidemic. Subsequently, he becomes a close friend and colleague of the doctor and organizes sanitary brigades from volunteers to fight the epidemic.

From the moment the quarantine was announced, the residents of the city begin to feel like they are in a prison. They are forbidden to send letters, swim in the sea, go outside the city, guarded by armed guards. The city is gradually running out of food, which is used by smugglers, people like Cottard; the gap between the poor, who are forced to drag out a miserable existence, and the wealthy residents of Oran, who allow themselves to buy food at exorbitant prices on the black market, luxuriate in cafes and restaurants, and visit entertainment establishments, is growing. No one knows how long this horror will last. People live in one day.

Rambert, feeling like a stranger in Oran, rushes to Paris to his wife. First by official means, and then with the help of Cottard and smugglers, he tries to escape from the city. Doctor Rie, meanwhile, works twenty hours a day, caring for the sick in the infirmaries. Seeing the dedication of the doctor and Jean Tarrou, Rambert, when he has a real opportunity to leave the city, abandons this intention and joins Tarrou's sanitary squads.

In the midst of an epidemic that claims a huge number of lives, the only person in the city who is satisfied with the state of affairs remains Cottar, because, using the epidemic, he makes a fortune for himself and does not have to worry that the police will remember him and resume the trial started over him.

Many people who have returned from special quarantine facilities, who have lost loved ones, lose their minds and burn down their own homes, hoping in this way to stop the spread of the epidemic. Marauders rush into the fire before the eyes of indifferent owners and plunder everything they can carry.

At first, funeral rites are performed subject to all the rules. However, the epidemic becomes so widespread that soon the bodies of the dead have to be thrown into the ditch, the cemetery can no longer accept all the dead. Then their bodies begin to be taken out of the city, where they are burned. The plague has been raging since spring. In October, Dr. Castel creates a serum in Oran itself from the virus that has taken possession of the city, because this virus is somewhat different from its classic version. In addition to bubonic plague, pneumonic plague is also added over time.

They decide to try the serum on a hopeless patient, the son of investigator Ogon. Dr. Rieux and his friends observe the child's atony for several hours in a row. He cannot be saved. They have a hard time with this death, the death of a sinless being. However, with the onset of winter, at the beginning of January, cases of recovery of patients begin to repeat more and more often, this happens, for example, with Gran. Over time, it becomes obvious that the plague begins to unclench its claws and, exhausted, release the victims from its embrace. The epidemic is on the wane.

Residents of the city at first perceive this event in the most contradictory way. From joyful excitement they are thrown into despondency. They do not yet fully believe in their salvation. Cottar during this period closely communicates with Dr. Rieux and with Tarrou, with whom he has frank conversations that when the epidemic ends, people will turn away from him, Cottara. In Tarrou's diary, the last lines, already in illegible handwriting, are dedicated to him. Suddenly, Tarru falls ill, with both types of plague at the same time. The Doctor fails to save his friend.

One February morning, the city, finally declared open, rejoices and celebrates the end of a terrible period. Many, however, feel that they will never be the same again. The plague introduced a new trait into their character - a certain detachment.

One day, Dr. Rieux, on his way to Grand, sees Cottard, in a state of insanity, shooting at passers-by from his window. The police are having a hard time getting him out of harm's way. Grange resumes writing the book, the manuscript of which he ordered to be burned during his illness.

Dr. Rie, returning home, receives a telegram, which refers to the death of his wife. He is in great pain, but he realizes that there is no inadvertence in his suffering. The same incessant pain had tormented him for the past few months. Listening to the joyful cries coming from the street, he thinks that any joy is under threat. The germ of the plague never dies, it can doze for decades, and then the day may come when the plague again awakens the rats and sends them to die on the streets of a happy city.

E. V. Semina

(Les routes des Flandres)

Roman (1960)

For the first time, the author introduces us to the heroes of the novel on the eve of how they, as part of the French troops fighting against the fascist conquerors in Flanders, retreat, are captured and sent to a concentration camp for prisoners of war in Germany.

The main characters of the story are a young man named Georges, Captain de Reichac, his distant relative and commander, as well as their colleagues Blum and Iglesia, de Reichac's former jockey, and now his orderly. The plot of the novel does not have a linear composition. It is built on the memories, assumptions of the characters, as well as our attempt to compare the events taking place before their eyes or imprinted in their memory with the events of a century and a half ago.

Georges's mother, Sabina, belongs to the side line of the old noble family of de Reychakov, which she is incredibly proud of. Her family lives in the family castle inherited from her. Among other relics and documents collected by Sabina, the castle houses a portrait of one of her ancestors, who, according to legend, because of his wife’s infidelity, committed suicide with a pistol shot and was found in the bedroom by servants who came running to the sound of a shot completely naked. As a child, Georges looked at this portrait in a gilded frame with vague anxiety and fear, because on the forehead of the ancestor depicted on it there was a red hole from which blood flowed in a stream. In the endless stories that Sabina told him about the de Reichacs, he imagined the image of the whole family. So Georges did not even need to meet with de Reychak himself, who was left completely alone from the whole family, and four years before the events described in the novel, he married Corinne, a young girl of a very dubious reputation, under a scandalous whisper. She forced him to retire from military service, buy a huge black car for joint trips, and she - a racing car and a racehorse. Following the acquisition of the horse, her close relationship with the jockey Iglesia, a man of very unattractive appearance, began, which caused burning jealousy in de Reychak. Soon de Reychak was drafted into the army and, despite his suspicions, arranged for the jockey to become his orderly, that is, to remain under his command.

Georges, once in the army, falls under the command of de Reishac, who receives a letter from Sabina, Georges' mother, asking him to take care of her son. Her letter throws Georges into a rage. He does not have time to take part in the battles, as his squad is forced to retreat under the onslaught of the enemy. At first this happens under the leadership of de Reychak. However, he is increasingly losing any desire to fulfill his commanding duties. According to Georges, all his behavior, his fatalism and serenity in the face of danger testify to his desire to end his existence, since only death seems to him a way out of the situation in which he put himself, marrying Corinne four years ago.

The cavalry detachment of de Reixac moves through Flanders, observing on all its roads the traces left by the war. The roadsides are littered with the corpses of people, animals, things that their owners left on the roads, being unable to drag them along.

In a small village, where the detachment stops for a halt awaiting orders from the command, Georges and his friends observe a skirmish between two men over a young woman whose husband is at war. The husband's brother with a gun is trying to ward off his impudent boyfriend from his daughter-in-law and protect the honor of the family. Georges, it seems, manages to notice her milky-pale silhouette in the predawn hour, and another time - the swaying of the curtain behind which she is? allegedly recently stood, and this is enough for him to remember this girl in the most difficult moments of a life full of hardships and imagine that he is not alone and will be warmed by the warmth of her love.

The order from the command of de Reychak cannot wait, and he decides to move along with his detachment in search of the surviving parts of the French army. On the way to one of the villages they see a funeral procession. All its members accept the detachment with hostility, and only one woman, taking pity on the cavalrymen, shows them a path free from the enemy. Soon, from behind the fence, he begins to scribble a machine gun. Reishak, sitting on a horse, only manages to draw his saber, but the bullets overtake him and he dies. The cavalrymen scatter, and Georges continues on his way with only one Iglesia. They make their way into an empty, as it seems to them, house and want to find some civilian clothes in it for themselves. In the house, it turns out to be a lonely old man, who only after threats agrees to give it to Georges and Iglesia. Together with them, he gets to the nearest inn, where all three, drunk on juniper vodka, spend the night.

The next morning, Georges and Iglesia, sensing the approach of the enemy, try to hide in the forests. But they fail to escape, they are seized and thrown into a cattle car packed full of French prisoners. Anyone who gets into this car, moving incredibly slowly towards Germany, it seems that he will not be able to breathe its fetid, stale air for more than a few seconds. Without food or drink, Georges and Iglesia will have to spend long days here. After some time, Blum, Georges's comrade in the detachment, gets into the same car. Georges shares with him the last loaf of bread.

All three soon find themselves in a concentration camp, where Zhoras and Iglesia (Blum dies after a while) will spend five years. In the camp, life flows according to its own laws. Prisoners are used for earthworks, paying them miserable camp pennies. For faults and negligence in their work, they are subtly punished. One day, taking advantage of the guard's inattention, Georges tries to escape, but the hunters find him sleeping in the forest and send him back.

Wanting to do something to occupy their time, Georges and Blum are trying to extract from Iglesia new details of his relationship with Corinna de Reichac. Blum draws parallels between the fate of Captain de Reychak and his ancestor, depicted in a portrait in the house of Georges, for Georges told him in detail about him. Blum invents more and more new circumstances of his life and death, trying through one de Reychak to understand the other, to understand their generic features.

After his release, Georges lives in his parents' house and works on the land. One day he meets with Corinna, the thoughts of which supported him in moments of difficult trials. By her behavior, as well as by the behavior of Iglesia, it is difficult to assert that everything the jockey said about his relationship with Corinna is true.

E. V. Semina

(Les Racines du ciel)

Roman (1956)

Events unfold in the mid-50s. The novel begins with a meeting between Father Tassin, a seventy-year-old member of the Jesuit order, and Saint-Denis, director of a large state reserve in French Equatorial Africa. Father Tassin is a scientist who works in Africa to test his paleontological hypotheses and has a reputation among missionaries as a man more busy with the science of the origin of man than with the salvation of the soul. Saint-Denis is one of those African-loving colonial officials who, having worked for a long time as an administrator in the outback, did a lot to alleviate the plight of the local population. However, long life experience has made him a pessimist, and he does not believe in the ability of state bodies to do anything radical in order to protect people and nature from the onset of technology. Saint-Denis does not like civilization, he is obsessed with saving black Africans from the materialistic West, helping them preserve their tribal traditions and beliefs, and preventing Africans from following in the footsteps of Europeans and Americans.

Admiring African rituals, he is friends with local sorcerers, with one of whom he even has an agreement that he will turn him into an African tree after death. Previously, he even regretted that he was not born with black skin, because he considered Africans children of nature. But now he notes with regret that they are moving farther and farther from nature, because local revolutionaries are poisoning Africa with Western poisons and because only words of hatred remain on the slogans of the black liberators.

Father Tassin rode a very long and difficult journey for him to hear the story of Saint-Denis about Morel and everything connected with it. Morel is the main character of the novel. A romantic and idealist, he tries to protect elephants from destruction, mercilessly exterminated by white hunters because of the tusks and by the black local population because of the meat. Morel once managed to survive in a German concentration camp thanks to the fact that he and his comrades thought about these strong and free animals walking through the vast expanses of Africa. He tries to save them partly out of gratitude, but mainly because he connects with the salvation of animals also the salvation of a renewed, regenerated humanity thanks to them. He dreams of something like a historical reserve, similar to the reserves in Africa, where hunting is prohibited. In this reserve, all the spiritual values ​​of mankind should be preserved for the transfer to great-grandchildren.

Morel's main weapon is appeals and manifestos, which he offers to sign to everyone he meets on his way. There are not so many who want to sign, but gradually a group of people who sympathize with him is formed around Morel. Some of them sincerely share his concerns. Such is, first of all, the Danish naturalist Per Quist, who began his struggle for the preservation of nature almost at the beginning of the century. Another reliable ally of his, or rather, an ally, is the German Minna. Once in post-war Berlin, this beautiful girl became friends with a Soviet officer, who paid for this friendship either with freedom, or most likely with his life. After that, Minna, having lost interest in life, sank to its very bottom. The struggle for the preservation of the fauna has become for her the struggle to regain her human dignity. Another of Morel's sympathizers is the former American pilot Forsyth, who at one time fought in Korea and, being shot down, was forced, in order to escape, to participate in an operation developed by Chinese and North Korean propaganda agencies, the purpose of which was to convince world public opinion that that bacteriological weapons were used by American troops. As a result, when he returned from captivity, life in his homeland was impossible for him. He was expelled from the army in disgrace, and, having illegally left the United States, he went to Africa and took refuge in Chad, and there, recognizing the justice of Morel's actions, became his ally.

Among the opponents of Morel, a certain Orsini, a hunter-athlete, stands out in the first place. In an effort to give a more convex idea of ​​​​this man, Saint-Denis resorts to an analogy. He talks about an American writer who once drunkenly explained to him that regularly visiting Africa to shoot another portion of lions, elephants and rhinos there, he is driven by fear of life, of death, of inevitable old age, of illness, before impotence. When fear became unbearable, this writer tried to mentally identify it with a rhinoceros or an elephant, with something that could be killed. After that, during the six weeks of hunting, he seemed to undergo a course of treatment, which saved him from schizophrenic obsession for six months. Something similar happened with Orsini, whose whole life, according to Saint-Denis, was. a long rebellion against his own insignificance, which just made him kill strong and beautiful animals. Orsini, not without the courage of a petty mongrel, defended his own insignificance from too high an idea of ​​\uXNUMXb\uXNUMXba man, in which he had no place. He killed elephants to cope with his feelings of inferiority. Being a natural antagonist of Morel, he organizes a mass shooting of elephants in spite of him and eventually dies a shameful death, trampled by elephants.

At a certain point, Morel, seeing that his petitions for the protection of animals did not help, that colonial officials not only did not support him, but also put up all sorts of obstacles, decided to start punishing the most malicious animal exterminators on his own, most of them wealthy planters and ivory merchants. He and like-minded people set fire to their farms and warehouses with ivory. A few more people adjoin him: some of them are in trouble with the law, and some of them dream of freeing Africa from colonial rule. Such is the brilliant leader of the liberation movement Vaitari, a handsome black man who received an excellent education in Paris, and was at one time a member of the French parliament. He is trying to use Morel for his own purposes, although in essence he is the same antagonist of Morel, like Orsini, the same enemy of African nature as he is. The fact is that, ashamed of the backwardness of Africa, he does not want to contribute to its progress by gradually improving living conditions; inspired by the example of the USSR, is a supporter of the accelerated industrialization of the continent. He is ready to turn Africa into the same concentration camp that Stalin turned Russia into, in order to force his compatriots to abandon their ancient customs and force them to build roads, mines, and dams. And for this he is ready to destroy all African elephants. Laughing in the depths of his soul at Morel's idealism, he cynically uses it, trying to pass off his struggle for the salvation of nature as a political struggle, and secretly gives his young followers the task of destroying the naive Frenchman so that he can be declared the first white who gave his life for the independence of Africa, and to make a legend out of it useful for African nationalism. At the same time, he and his detachment destroy a herd of elephants in order to sell the tusks and buy weapons with the proceeds. Naturally, Vaitari's personal ambitions, connected with the inferiority complex inherent in the overwhelming majority of political figures, also play a significant role here.

Ultimately, it turns out that in the fight against the idealist Morel, all forces have united, either interested in the destruction of elephants, or simply indifferent to everything. At the end of the novel, those who were with Morel are arrested, and he himself goes into the forest. Perhaps he died, but the author leaves no hope that Morel is alive and continues to fight somewhere.

E. V. Semina

Roman (1984)

The female narrator talks about her youth in Saigon 5th. The main events relate to the period from 1932 to 1934.

A French girl of fifteen and a half years old lives in a state boarding school in Saigon, and studies at a French lyceum. Her mother wants her daughter to get a secondary education and become a mathematics teacher at a lyceum. The girl has two brothers, one is two years older than her - this is the "younger" brother, and the other, the "older", is three. She, without knowing why, madly loves her younger brother. He considers the older one a disaster for the whole family, although his mother cherishes and loves him, perhaps even more than the other two children. He steals money from relatives, from servants, impudent, cruel. There is something sadistic about him: he rejoices when his mother beats his sister, beats his younger brother with wild fury for any reason. The girl's father serves in Indochina, but falls ill early and dies. The mother carries all the hardships of life and the upbringing of three children.

After the lyceum, the girl is transported by ferry to Saigon, where her boarding house is located. For her, this is a whole journey, especially when she travels by bus. She returns from the holidays from Schadek, where her mother works as the director of the girls' school. Her mother sees her off, entrusting her to the care of the bus driver. As the bus enters the ferry crossing one of the branches of the Mekong from Shadek to Vinh Long, she gets off the bus, leaning against the parapet. She wears a worn silk dress girded with a leather sash, high-heeled gold brocade shoes, and a soft, flat-brimmed men's felt hat with a wide black band. It is the hat that gives the whole image of the girl a clear ambiguity. She has long copper-red heavy curly hair, she is fifteen and a half years old, but she is already wearing makeup. Foundation, powder, dark cherry lipstick.

On the ferry next to the bus is a big black limousine. In the limousine there is a driver in a white livery and an elegant man, Chinese, but dressed in a European way - in a light, light suit, such as bankers in Saigon wear. He keeps looking at the girl, as many look at her. A Chinese man approaches her, speaks to her, offers to take her to the boarding house in his limousine. The girl agrees. From now on, she will never ride the local bus again. She is no longer a child and understands something. She understands that she is ugly, although, if she wants, she can seem like that, she feels that it is not beauty and outfits that make a woman desirable. A woman either has sex appeal or she doesn't. This is immediately visible.

In the car, they talk about the girl's mother, whom her companion knows. The girl loves her mother very much, but she does not understand much about her. Her commitment to rags, old dresses, shoes, her bouts of fatigue and despair are incomprehensible. Mother is constantly trying to get out of poverty. That is probably why she allows the girl to walk around dressed as a little prostitute. The girl is already well versed in everything, knows how to use the attention given to her. She knows - it will help to get money. When a girl wants money, her mother will not interfere with her.

Already in adulthood, the narrator talks about her childhood, about how all the children loved their mother, but also how they hated her. The history of their family is a story of love and hate, and she cannot understand the truth in it, even from the height of her age.

Even before the man speaks to the girl, she sees that he is scared, and from the first minute she understands that he is entirely in her power. And she also understands that today is the time to do what she must do. And neither her mother nor her brothers should know about it. The slamming car door cut her off from her family once and for all.

One day, shortly after their first meeting, he picks her up at the boarding house, and they go to Sholon, the Chinese capital of Indochina. They enter his bachelor apartment, and the girl feels that she is exactly where she should be. He confesses to her that he loves her like crazy. She replies that it would be better if he did not love her, and asks to behave with her in the same way as he behaves with other women. She sees how much pain her words cause him.

He has amazingly soft skin. And the body is thin, devoid of muscles, so fragile, as if suffering. He moans, sobs. Choking on his unbearable love. And gives her a boundless, incomparable sea of ​​​​pleasure.

He asks why she came. She says it was necessary. They are talking for the first time. She tells him about her family, that they have no money. She wants him along with his money. He wants to take her away, to go somewhere together. She cannot leave her mother yet, otherwise she will die of grief. He promises to give her money. Evening comes. He says that the girl will remember this day for the rest of her life, the memory will not fade away, and when she completely forgets him, she will even forget his face, even his name.

They go outside. The girl feels that she has grown old. They go to one of the big Chinese restaurants, but no matter what they talk about, the conversation never turns to themselves. This continues for the whole year and a half of their daily meetings. His father, the richest Chinese in Cholon, would never agree to his son marrying this little white prostitute from Jadek. He never dares to go against the will of his father.

The girl introduces her lover to her family. Meetings always begin with luxurious dinners, during which the brothers gorge themselves terribly, and the owner himself is ignored, without uttering a single word about him.

He takes her to the boarding house at night in a black limousine. Sometimes she does not come to sleep at all. Mothers are informed. The mother comes to the headmistress of the boarding house and asks to give the girl freedom in the evenings. Soon, a very expensive diamond ring appears on the girl's ring finger, and the guards, although they suspect that the girl is not engaged at all, completely stop reprimanding her.

One day, a lover leaves for his ill father. He recovers and thus deprives him of his last hope of ever marrying a white girl. The father prefers to see his son dead. The best way out is her departure, separation from her, in the depths of his soul he understands that she will never be faithful to anyone. Her face speaks for itself. Sooner or later they will still have to leave.

Soon the girl and her family sail away on a ship to France. She stands and looks at him and his car on the shore. She is in pain, she wants to cry, but she cannot show her family that she loves the Chinese.

Arriving in France, the mother buys a house and a piece of forest. Big brother loses it all overnight. During the war, he robs his sister, as he always robbed his relatives, takes her last meal and all the money from her. He dies on a gloomy, overcast day. The younger brother died even earlier, in 1942, from bronchopneumonia in Saigon, during the Japanese occupation.

The girl does not know when her lover, obeying the will of his father, married a Chinese girl. Years passed, the war ended, the girl gave birth to children, got divorced, wrote books, and now, many years later, he comes with his wife to Paris and calls her. His voice is trembling. He knows that she writes books, her mother, whom he met in Saigon, told him about this. And then he says the main thing: he still loves her, as before, and will love only her alone until his death.

E. V. Semina

(Les grandes families)

Roman (1948)

In French, this novel is called "Great Families", and it deals mainly with the old aristocratic family of La Monnerie and the family of big financiers from Austria, the Schudlers.

Representatives of these two families visited one of the Parisian maternity hospitals in January 1916 on the occasion of the birth of Jean-Noel Schudler, Jean-Noel is the grandson of the elderly poet, the "romantic of the fourth generation" Count Jean de La Monnerie, who came to together with his wife Juliette, the baby's grandmother. This family is also represented at the meeting by the brother of the poet, the Marquis Urbain de La Monnerie, and even by herself. woman in labor. Jacqueline, now bearing the surname Schudler. Jean and Urbain have two more brothers: Robert is a general and Gerard is a diplomat. Jacqueline's husband Francois is not here, because he is at the front, but ninety-year-old Siegfried, the baby's great-grandfather, the founder of the Schudler bank, his son, the manager of the French Bank, Baron Noel Schudler, and his wife Adele, respectively, the father and mother of the absent father Jean- Noel. The visit is interrupted by a German air raid that bombs Paris, and the next meeting of the heroes takes place already at the end of 1920 at the bed of the dying Jean de La Monnerie. Here, in addition to family members, a thirty-three-year-old scientist, a native of a peasant family, Simon Lashom, who wrote a dissertation on the work of Jean de La Monnerie, and the famous doctor Lartois. Simon meets here with Isabella, the niece of Juliette de La Monnerie, who later becomes his mistress, and at the funeral of the poet he also meets the Minister of Education Anatole Rousseau, thanks to whom he parted with teaching work at the Lyceum, goes to the ministry and, since he is not devoid of abilities , rapidly begins to make a career. He is married, and therefore, when Isabella became pregnant from him, Madame de La Montnerie arranges for her to marry her old admirer, seventy-year-old Olivier Meniere. The newlyweds leave for Switzerland. There, Isabella has a miscarriage, and after a while, Olivier, unable to withstand the overload of a happy family life, dies. Meanwhile, Simon Lachaume has a new mistress, Marie-Hélène Eterlin, who until very recently was Jean's mistress. de La Monnerie.

Here another figure appears in the novel - the fifty-seven-year-old Lucien Maublanc, who is the brother of the poet Jean and all the other La Monnerie brothers of the older generation by his mother. At the same time, he is the ex-husband of Baroness Adele Schudler. Outwardly, he is ugly, but he is very rich. It is called the king of gambling houses and night restaurants.

One fine day, Noel Schudler invites him, his wife's ex-husband, to her office for an important conversation. This conversation is preceded by Noel's conflict with his son Francois. Going to America for two months, he instructs his son to manage, among other things, the newspaper Eco de Matin, which belongs to him. He successfully copes with the task, but at the same time he makes a number of necessary reforms in the newspaper, somewhat rejuvenates the staff and gains such authority among his subordinates that it causes a fit of jealousy in his father, who has returned from a trip. And the immediate cause of the conflict is the intention of Francois to appoint Simon Lachaume, too young, in the opinion of his father, to the post of head of the foreign policy department, who at this moment has a slight pause in his political career. As a result of this conflict of generations, Noel Schudler, having taken away the newspaper from François, instructs him to take care of the Sonchel sugar factories. Francois is also undertaking modernization there, which promises big profits, but at a certain point requires additional investment. It would not have been difficult for Noel Schudler to find funds, but since François somehow violated his instructions, his father decides to teach him a lesson.

It is for this purpose that he invites Lucien Maublant, who also has a stake in the Sonchel sugar refineries. Schudler, by offering him his shares, gives Maublan the impression that the Schudlers are on the verge of ruin. Maublant, who has long hated the Schudlers - among other things, because they, along with his ex-wife, spread rumors about his impotence - decides, as Noel expected, to sell his shares in sugar mills in order to hasten the collapse. The share price is falling. Noel suggested, after waiting two or three days, to buy them at a lower price. But since he does not say anything about this operation to his son, but, on the contrary, assures that everything happens because of his oversights, Francois goes to bow to Maublanc and, after listening to the cynical admission that he longs for the ruin of the Schudlers, commits suicide. This death gives rise to panic among the depositors of the Shudler bank, who begin to urgently withdraw their money. There is a threat of a very real bankruptcy of the Schudlers. But Noel Schudler copes with the situation and doubles his profits, thus earning even on the death of his own son. However, the true winner is still Lucien Maublant: having lost ten million francs in two days, he can be proud of the fact that he sent one of the Schudlers to the next world.

Jacqueline Shudler, who sincerely loved her husband, suffered a mental trauma, miraculously avoiding a brain hemorrhage, and remained bedridden for two months. She recovers very slowly, and those close to her begin to take steps to restore her peace of mind with the help of religion. The Dominican priest they invited really helps her: she begins to emerge from a crisis. And Noel Schudler, having studied his son's papers, is imbued with his ideas and begins to reorganize the newspaper in accordance with his plans. Not only that, he passes off François's ideas as his own and hatches plans for revenge on Lucien Maublanc. And he, trying to prove to everyone that, contrary to the slanders of the Schudlers, everything is in order with his potency, he intends to have a child and in this regard allows his mistress, a young actress with the stage name Sylvain Dual, to fool himself. Since Maublanc promised Sylvain to give her, if she gives birth to a child, a whole million francs, she, having gone far into the provinces with a companion who was really pregnant, returns a few months later with twins and bargains with Maublant for this as much as two million.

Simon Lachaume, whom Noel Schudler, meanwhile, is luring from the ministry to his newspaper, learns about Sylvain's trick and informs his master about it. Moblan's fate is in the hands of Schudler. He decides to take advantage of the greed of Moblan's heirs, who are not satisfied with either the extravagance of the latter or the unexpected appearance of two more heirs. Shudder consults with lawyers and finds out that he can initiate a case for custody of Moblanc in such a situation. After all, he, Schudler, is the guardian of his grandchildren, these grandchildren, in turn, are his relatives, and therefore the potential heirs of Moblan. He, Schudler, can't watch the money being squandered, which rightfully belongs to those whom he takes care of. And he convenes a family council, which, as it turns out, has very broad powers. Especially if there is a justice of the peace there. At the same time, by giving a bribe to Minister Anatole Rousseau under the guise of a fee for legal advice, he enlists the support of the latter. Everything works out as intended. As a result, Noel Schudler himself becomes Moblan's guardian.

Meanwhile, Aded Shudler gets cancer. Siegfried Schudler dies. Gradually mentally degrades Moblanc. And then one day Isabella is summoned to a lunatic asylum, because a man posing as her late husband Olivier Meniere got there. This man turns out to be Lucien Maublanc. The day after Isabella's visit, he dies. By that time, the heirs had already divided all his millions among themselves, and none of his relatives come to his funeral.

Ya. V. Nikitin

(L'ecume des jours)

Roman (1946)

The protagonist of the novel, Colin, a very sweet young man of twenty-two, who smiles so often with a baby smile that he even has a dimple in his chin, is preparing for the arrival of his friend Schick. Nicolas, his chef, works magic in the kitchen, creating masterpieces of culinary art. Schick is Colin's age and also a bachelor, but he has much less money than his friend, and, unlike Colin, he is forced to work as an engineer, and sometimes ask his uncle, who works in the ministry, for money.

Colin's apartment is remarkable in itself. The kitchen is equipped with miracle appliances that perform all the necessary operations on their own. The bathroom sink supplies Knee with live eels. Lighting from the street does not penetrate into the apartment, but it has two of its own suns, in the rays of which a small mouse with black antennae plays. She is a full-fledged occupant of the apartment. She is fed and touchingly cared for. Colin also has a "piano cocktail" - a mechanism created on the basis of a piano that allows you to get excellent cocktails from alcoholic beverages by playing one or another melody. Over dinner, it turns out that Aliza, the girl Chic recently fell in love with, is Nicolas' niece. She, like Chic, is fond of the work of Jean-Sol Partre and collects all his articles.

The next day, Colin goes with Chic, Aliza, Nicolas and Isis (a mutual friend of Colin and Nicolas) to the skating rink. There, through the fault of Colin, rushing towards his friends in front of all the other skaters, a bunch of small things happen. Ishida invites the whole company to her Sunday party, which she throws on the occasion of the birthday of her poodle, Dupont.

Knee, looking at Chic, also wants to fall in love. He hopes that happiness will smile at him at the reception at Isis. He actually meets a girl named Chloe there and falls in love with her. Their relationship develops rapidly. It's about the wedding. Meanwhile, Aliza begins to feel sad as Chic believes that her parents will never agree to their marriage due to his poverty. Colin is so happy that he wants to make his friends happy too. He gives Shik twenty-five thousand inflanks out of the one hundred thousand that he possesses, so that Shik can finally marry Alize.

Colin's wedding is a success. Everyone looks admiringly at the performance given in the church by the Principal, the Drunkard, and the Priest. Colin pays five thousand inflates for this event. Most of them the Overseer rakes in himself. The next morning, the newlyweds drive south in a luxurious white limousine. Nicolas this time acts as a driver. He has one very unpleasant, from Colin's point of view, feature: when he puts on the uniform of a cook or a driver, it becomes absolutely impossible to talk to him, since he begins to speak exclusively in ceremonial official language. At one fine moment, Colin's patience bursts, and, being in his room at some roadside hotel, he throws shoes at Nicolas, but gets into the window. Through a broken window from the street, a winter cold enters the room, and the next morning Chloe wakes up completely sick. Despite the caring care of Colin and Nikodi, her health is deteriorating every day.

Meanwhile, Schick and Aliza diligently attend all the lectures of Jean-Sol Partre. To squeeze through them, they have to go to all sorts of tricks: Shik - dress up as a doorman, Alize - spend the night in the back.

Colin, Chloe and Nicola return home. From the very threshold, they notice that there have been changes in the apartment. Two suns now do not flood the corridor, as before. The ceramic tiles have faded, the walls no longer sparkle. A gray mouse with a black mustache, not understanding what the matter is, only spreads its paws. Then she begins rubbing the tarnished tiles. the corner shines again, as before, but the paws of the mouse are bloody, so that Nicolas has to make small crutches for her. Colin, looking into his safe, discovers that he has only thirty-five thousand bottles left. He gave Schick twenty-five, the car cost fifteen, the wedding cost five thousand, the rest went to trifles.

Chloe feels better the day she gets home. She wants to go to the store, buy herself new dresses, jewelry, and then go to the skating rink. Chic and Colin immediately go to the skating rink, while Isis and Nicola accompany Chloe. When Colin finds out while skating that Chloe is ill and has fainted, he rushes headlong home, fearfully thinking about the worst that could have happened along the way.

Chloe - calm and even enlightened - lies on the bed. In the chest, she feels someone's unkind presence and, wanting to cope with it, coughs from time to time. Dr. d'Hermo examines Chloe and prescribes medicine for her. A flower appeared in her breast, a nymphaeum, a water lily. He advises to surround Chloe with flowers so that they dry the nymph. He believes that she needs to go somewhere in the mountains. Colin sends her to an expensive mountain resort and spends a lot of money on flowers. Soon he has almost no money left. The apartment is getting more and more dull look. For some reason, twenty-nine-year-old Nicolas looks at all thirty-five. The walls and ceiling in the apartment are shrinking, leaving less and less space.

Schick, instead of marrying Alize, spends all his inflans given to him by Colin on the purchase of books by Partre in luxurious bindings and old things that allegedly once belonged to his idol. Having spent the last thing he has, he informs Alize that he cannot and does not want to meet with her anymore, and puts her out the door. Aliza is desperate.

Colin asks Nicolas to go work as a cook for Isis's parents. It hurts Nicolas to leave a friend, but Colin can no longer pay him a salary: he has no money at all. Now he himself is forced to look for work and sell his piano cocktail to an antique dealer.

Chloe returns from the sanatorium, where she had an operation and removed the nymphaeum. However, soon the disease, having spread to the second lung, resumes. Kolen now works in a factory where human heat is used to grow rifle barrels. The trunks at Knee come out uneven, each trunk grows a beautiful metallic rose. Then he enters the bank as a security guard, where he has to walk all day long along a dark underground corridor. He spends all his money on flowers for his wife.

Schick was so carried away by collecting Partre's works that he spent all his money on them, in particular those that were intended for paying taxes. The seneschal of police comes to him with his two assistants. Aliza, meanwhile, heads to the cafe where Jean-Sol Partre works. He is currently writing the nineteenth volume of his encyclopedia. Aliza asks him to postpone the publication of the encyclopedia so that Schick has time to save money for her. Partre refuses her request, and then Aliza tears his heart out of his chest with a heart beater. Partre is dying. She does the same with all the booksellers who supplied Partre's works to Chic, and sets them on fire. Meanwhile, the cops kill Sheek. Aliza dies in the fire.

Chloe is dying. Colin only has enough money to pay for funerals for the poor. He has to endure the bullying of the Rector and the Priest, for whom the amount he offered is not enough. Chloe is buried in a distant cemetery for the poor, which is located on the island. From that moment on, Colin begins to weaken hour by hour. He does not sleep, does not eat, and spends all the time at Chloe's grave, waiting for a white lily to appear above her in order to kill her. At this time, the walls in his apartment are closed, and the ceiling falls to the floor. The gray mouse barely manages to escape. She runs to the cat and asks to eat it.

E. B. Semina

(Dans le labyrinthe)

novel (1959)

The scene is a small town on the eve of the arrival of enemy troops in it. According to the author, the events described in the novel are strictly real, that is, they do not pretend to any allegorical significance, however, the reality depicted in it is not the one that is familiar to the reader from personal experience, but fictional.

The story begins with the fact that a certain soldier, emaciated and stiff from the cold, stands in the winter cold under the continuously falling snow near the lantern and waits for someone. In his hands he holds a tin box wrapped in brown paper, similar to a shoe box, in which there are some things that he must give to someone. He does not remember the name of the street where the meeting is to take place, nor the time; does not know what military unit he is from, nor whose overcoat he is wearing. From time to time he crosses to another street, exactly the same, covered with snow, drowned in a haze, stands near exactly the same lantern, as if through a labyrinth, wanders along the intersection of deserted and straight alleys, not knowing either why he is here, or what time he already spent here, not how much more will endure.

The scenery of the novel is strictly outlined: this is a cafe where a soldier goes to drink a glass of wine, a room where a black-haired woman and her disabled husband give him a break, and a former military warehouse turned into a shelter for the wounded and sick lone soldiers. These scenery imperceptibly flow into one another, and each time something changes in them, something new is added. The events of the novel are depicted as static scenes that have neither past nor future, in the form of framed paintings.

Intending to go to one place, the soldier often ends up in a completely different place than he was going, or in his mind one set of scenery is suddenly replaced by another. From time to time, a ten-year-old boy is shown to the soldier’s eyes, who approaches him, stops, and then either enters into a conversation with him, or quickly runs away or simply disappears.

In one of the episodes, a boy brings a soldier to a cafe. The reader is presented with a static picture of visitors and staff of the cafe, sometimes frozen in the most amazing poses. Then everything suddenly springs to life, the soldier waits for the waitress to approach him and asks where the street is, the name of which he does not remember.

Or the soldier, following the boy, finds himself in a dark corridor with many doors and flights of stairs, in which light suddenly appears, then disappears, and the corridor again plunges into twilight. One of the doors opens and a woman comes out in a black dress, with black hair and light eyes. She invites the soldier to come in, sit down at a table covered with oilcloth in a red-and-white checkered pattern, and gives him a glass of wine and a slice of bread. Then she and her disabled husband discuss for a long time which street the soldier should go to, and come to the conclusion, without any justification, that this street is Bouvard Street. The boy is equipped to see off the soldier. The boy leads him to some house, which turns out to be a shelter for the sick and wounded soldiers. The soldier is allowed inside, although he does not have any documents with him. He finds himself in a large hall with sealed windows. The room is lined with beds on which people lie motionless with their eyes wide open. He falls asleep right in a wet overcoat on one of the beds, after putting his box under the pillow so as not to steal. At night, he makes an attempt to find a washbasin in the network of corridors to drink water, but he does not have enough strength to walk. He's delirious. He dreams of his military past and what happened to him during the day, but in a modified version. The next morning, the paramedic determines that the soldier has a high fever. He is given medicines, another, dry overcoat, but without stripes. The soldier changes clothes, seizes the moment when no one sees him, and leaves the shelter. Downstairs, he meets yesterday's invalid, who caustically remarks to the soldier that today he is in too much of a hurry, and wonders what is in his box. The soldier goes outside, where he meets the boy again, gives him a glass ball, which he finds in the pocket of his new overcoat, and goes on to a cafe, where he drinks a glass of wine among the motionless and silent visitors around him. Then on the street he meets a man in a fur coat, to whom he vaguely tells why he is here and whom he is looking for, hoping that this man is exactly the one he needs. However, this turns out not to be the case.

He meets the boy again. The roar of a motorcycle is heard. The soldier and the child manage to hide. Motorcyclists passing by belong to the enemy army. They do not notice those hiding in the doorway and drive past. The boy rushes to run home. The soldier follows him, silently, fearing how not to attract the attention of motorcyclists. They return and shoot the fleeing soldier with machine gun shots. He runs to a door, opens it and hides inside the building. The motorcyclists looking for him knock on the door, but they cannot open it from the outside and leave. The soldier loses consciousness.

He comes to his senses in the same room where the woman treated him to wine. She says that she brought him to her with a man in a fur coat, who turned out to be a doctor and gave the soldier an anesthetic injection. The soldier feels extremely weak. At the request of the woman who treated him so sensitively and now shows a lively interest, he says that the box belongs to his comrade who died in the hospital and he had to give it to his father. It contains his things and letters to the bride. However, he either mixed up the meeting place, or was late, but he never met his comrade's father.

The soldier is dying. A woman ponders what she should do with a box of letters.

E. B. Semina

(La modification)

Roman (1957)

The novel is written in the second person singular: the author, as it were, identifies the hero and the reader: "You put your left foot on a copper bar and try in vain to push the compartment sliding door with your right shoulder..."

Leon Delmont, director of the Paris branch of the Italian company Scabelli, which produces typewriters, secretly from his colleagues and family leaves for Rome for a few days. On Friday at eight in the morning, having bought a novel at the station to read on the road, he boards the train and sets off. He's not used to taking the morning train - when he travels on company business, he takes the evening train, and not third class as he is now, but first. But the unusual weakness is explained, in his opinion, not only by the early hour - this age makes itself felt, because Leon is already forty-five. But, leaving his aging wife in Paris, Leon goes to Rome to see his thirty-year-old mistress, next to whom he hopes to find his fading youth. He notes with his eyes all the details of the landscape changing outside the window, and carefully looks at his fellow travelers. He remembers how his wife Henriette got up early in the morning to serve him breakfast - not because she loves him so much, but in order to prove to him and herself that he cannot do without her even in trifles - and reflects how far she had gone in her conjectures as to the true purpose of his present trip to Rome. Leon knows the whole route by heart, because he regularly travels to Rome on business, and now he mentally repeats the names of all the stations. When a young couple sitting in the same compartment with him (Leon assumes that these are newlyweds making almost the first joint trip) goes to the restaurant car, Leon decides to follow their example: although he recently drank coffee, visiting the restaurant car is for him an indispensable part of the journey, is included in his program. Returning from the restaurant, he finds that his favorite place, where he used to sit and sat before, is occupied. Leon is annoyed that he did not think, when leaving, to put the book down as a sign that he would return soon. He asks himself why, going on a trip that should bring him freedom and youth, he does not feel either inspiration or happiness. Could it really be that he left Paris not in the evening, as he was accustomed to, but in the morning? Has he really become such a routinist, a slave to habit?

The decision to go to Rome came suddenly. On Monday, returning from Rome, where he was on a business trip, Leon did not think that he would go there again so soon. He had long wanted to find a job in Paris for his mistress Cecile, but until recently he had not taken any serious steps in this direction. However, already on Tuesday, he called one of his clients - the director of a travel agency, Jean Durier - and asked if he knew of any suitable place for Leon's friend, a thirty-year-old woman of extraordinary abilities. Now this lady serves as a secretary to the military attaché at the French embassy in Rome, but is ready to accept a modest salary, if only to return to Paris again. Durier called that same evening and said that he planned to reorganize his agency and was ready to provide work to Leon's friend on very favorable terms. Leon took it upon himself to assure Durier of Cecile's consent.

At first, Leon thought simply of writing to Cecile, but on Wednesday, the thirteenth of November, the day Leon turned forty-five years old and the festive dinner and congratulations of his wife and four children caused him annoyance, he decided to put an end to this protracted farce, this well-established falsehood. He warned his subordinates that he would be leaving for a few days, and decided to go to Rome to personally inform Cecile that he had found her a place in Paris and that as soon as she moved to Paris, they would live together. Leon is not going to make a scandal or a divorce, he will visit the children once a week and is sure that Henriette will accept his conditions. Leon looks forward to how delighted Cecile will be at his unexpected arrival - to surprise her, he did not warn her - and how she will be even more delighted when she learns that from now on they will not have to meet occasionally and furtively, and they will be able to live together and not part. Leon thinks in detail how he will be waiting on the corner opposite the house on Saturday morning and how surprised she will be when she leaves the house and suddenly sees him.

The train stops, and Leon decides, following the example of his English neighbor, to go out on the platform to get some air. When the train moves off, Leon again manages to sit in his favorite seat - the man who occupied it while Leon went to the restaurant car, met a friend and moved to another compartment. Opposite Leon sits a man reading a book and making notes in its margins, he is probably a teacher and is going to Dijon to give a lecture, most likely on questions of law. Looking at him, Leon tries to imagine how he lives, what kind of children he has, compares his way of life with his own and comes to the conclusion that he, Leon, despite his material well-being, would be more worthy of pity than a teacher who studies favorite thing, if not for Cecile, with whom he will start a new life. Before Leon met Cecile, he did not feel such a strong love for Rome, only discovering it for himself with her, he was imbued with great love for this city. Cecile for him is the embodiment of Rome, and, dreaming of Cecile next to Henriette, he dreams of Rome in the very heart of Paris. Last Monday, after returning from Rome, Leon began to imagine himself as a tourist who comes to Paris once every two months, at most once a month. To prolong the feeling that his journey was not yet complete, Leon did not dine at home and came home only in the evening.

A little over two years ago, in August, Leon went to Rome. Opposite him in the compartment sat Cecile, whom he did not yet know. He first saw Cecile in the dining car. They started talking, and Cecile told him that she was Italian by mother and was born in Milan, but was listed as a French citizen and was returning from Paris, where she spent her vacation. Her husband, who worked as an engineer at the Fiat factory, died in a car accident two months after the wedding, and she still cannot recover from the blow. Leon wanted to continue the conversation with Cecile, and leaving the dining car, he walked past his first-class compartment and, after escorting Cecile, who was traveling in third class, to her compartment, he remained there.

Leon's thoughts turn now to the past, now to the present, now to the future, either distant or recent events pop up in his memory, the narrative follows random associations, repeats the episodes as they appear in the hero's head - randomly, often incoherently. The hero often repeats himself: this is not a story about events, but about how the hero perceives events.

It occurs to Leon that when Cecile is not in Rome, he will no longer go there on business trips with the same pleasure. And now he was going to talk to her about Rome for the last time - in Rome. From now on, Leon will be the Roman of the two, and he would like Cecile to pass on most of her knowledge to him before she leaves Rome, until they are swallowed up by Parisian everyday life. The train stops in Dijon. Leon gets out of the car to stretch his legs. To prevent anyone from taking his place, he puts on him a book he bought at the Paris station, which he has not yet opened. Returning to the compartment, Leon recalls how a few days ago Cecile accompanied him to Paris and asked when he would return, to which he replied: "alas, only in December." On Monday, when she will again accompany him to Paris and ask again when he will return, he will again answer her: "alas, only in December," but not in a sad, but in a joking tone. Leon is dozing off. He is dreaming of Cecile, but her expression is frozen in disbelief and reproach, which so struck him when they said goodbye at the station. And is it not because he wants to part with Henriette that in her every movement, in every word, eternal reproach comes through? Waking up, Leon remembers how two years ago he also woke up in a third-class compartment, and Cecile was dozing opposite him. Then he did not yet know her name, but nevertheless, having taken her to the house in a taxi and saying goodbye to her, he was sure that sooner or later they would definitely meet. Indeed, a month later he accidentally met her at the cinema, where a French film was on. At that time, Leon stayed in Rome for the weekend and enjoyed seeing its sights with Cecile. Thus began their meeting.

Having come up with biographies for his fellow travelers (some of them have changed), Leon begins to pick up names for them. Looking at the newlyweds, whom he christened Pierre and Agnes, he recalls how he once rode in the same way with Henriette, unaware that one day their union would become a burden to him. He ponders when and how he should tell Henriette that he has decided to break up with her. A year ago, Cecile came to Paris, and Leon, explaining to Henriette that he was connected with her in the service, invited her to the house. To his surprise, the women got on very well, and if anyone felt out of place, it was Leon himself. And now he has to explain to his wife. Four years ago, Leon was in Rome with Henriette, the trip was unsuccessful, and Leon asks himself if he would have loved his Cecile so much if this ill-fated trip had not preceded their acquaintance.

It occurs to Leon that if Cecile moves to Paris, their relationship will change. He feels that he will lose her. Probably, he should have read the novel - after all, for this he bought it at the station, in order to pass the time on the road and not allow doubts to settle in his soul. After all, although he never looked at the name of the author or the title, he did not buy it at random, the cover indicated his belonging to a certain series. The novel undoubtedly speaks of a man who is in trouble and wants to be saved, embarks on a journey and suddenly discovers that the road he has chosen leads not at all where he thought he was lost. He understands that by settling in Paris, Cecile will be much further away from him than when she lived in Rome, and will inevitably be disappointed. He understands that she will reproach him for the fact that his most decisive step in life turned into a defeat, and that sooner or later they will part. Leon imagines that on Monday, when he boarded the train in Rome, he will be glad that he did not tell Cecile about the work he found for her in Paris and about the apartment offered for a while by friends. This means that he does not need to prepare for a serious conversation with Henriette, because their life together will continue. Leon recalls traveling to Rome with Cecile after her unsuccessful arrival in Paris, and on the train told her that he would like to never leave Rome, to which Cecile replied that she would like to live with him in Paris. Views of Paris hang in her room in Rome, just as views of Rome hang in Leon's Paris apartment, but Cecile in Paris is just as unthinkable and unnecessary to Leon as Henriette is in Rome. He understands this and decides not to tell Cecile anything about the place he has found for her.

The closer Rome is, the firmer Leon is in his decision. He believes that he should not mislead Cecile and, before leaving Rome, he must directly tell her that although this time he came to Rome only for her sake, this does not mean that he is ready to forever connect his life with her. But Leon is afraid that his confession, on the contrary, will inspire hope and trust in her, and his sincerity will turn into a lie. He decides this time to refuse a meeting with Cecile, since he did not warn about his arrival.

In half an hour the train will arrive in Rome. Leon picks up a book that he has not opened all the way. And he thinks: "I must write a book; only in this way can I fill the void that has arisen, I have no freedom of choice, the train rushes me to the final stop, I am bound hand and foot, doomed to roll along these rails." He understands that everything will remain the same: he will still work for Scabelli, live with his family in Paris and meet Cecile in Rome, Leon will not say a word to Cecile about this trip, but she will gradually understand that the path of their love leads nowhere. The few days that Leon will have to spend alone in Rome, he decides to devote to writing a book, and on Monday evening, without seeing Cecile, he will board the train and return to Paris. He finally understands that in Paris Cecile would become another Henriette and the same difficulties would arise in their life together, only even more painful, since he would constantly remember that the city, which she should have brought closer to him, - far. Leon would like to show in his book what role Rome can play in the life of a person living in Paris. Leon thinks about how to make Cecile understand and forgive him that their love turned out to be a lie. Only a book can help here, in which Cecile will appear in all her beauty, in the halo of Roman grandeur, which she so fully embodies. The most reasonable thing is not to try to reduce the distance separating these two cities, but in addition to the real distance, there are also direct transitions and points of contact, when the hero of the book, walking near the Parisian Pantheon, suddenly realizes that this is one of the streets near the Roman Pantheon.

The train approaches Termini Station, Leon recalls how, immediately after the war, he and Henriette, returning from their honeymoon, whispered when the train left Termini Station: "We will return again - as soon as we can." And now Leon mentally promises Henriette to return with her to Rome, because they are not so old yet. Leon wants to write a book and relive for the reader a decisive episode of his life - a shift that took place in his mind while his body moved from one station to another past the scenery flickering outside the window. The train arrives in Rome. Leon exits the compartment.

O. E. Trinberg

(Bonjour tristesse)

Roman (1954)

The action takes place in the 50s. in France. The main character Cecile was born into a wealthy bourgeois family, for several years she was in a Catholic boarding house, where she received a secondary education. Her mother has died and she lives in Paris with her father Raymond. The father, a forty-year-old widower, easily flutters through life, not hiding from his daughter his connections with constantly changing mistresses. But there is no need for him to hide from Cecile: all this does not shock the girl at all, but, on the contrary, brings the aroma of pleasant sensual sensations into her own life. In the summer, Cecile turns seventeen, and the father and daughter and with their next young and frivolous mistress Elsa go to the Cote d'Azur to rest. But Raymon also invites a friend of his dead mother, Cecile, a certain Anna Larsen, his age, a beautiful, intelligent, elegant woman who promises to come later.

On the day of Anna's arrival, a small misunderstanding occurs: Reimon and Elsa go to meet her at the station, but after waiting there for some time and not meeting anyone, they return home, where Anna is already waiting for them. It turned out that she did not come by train, but by her car. Anna is located in one of the rooms of the house, and the resort life, now the four of them, continues. Cecile meets a handsome student from the suburbs named Cyril on the beach and starts dating him. Together they swim, sunbathe, ride a sailboat. Meanwhile, the atmosphere in the house is gradually changing. A silent rivalry begins between Anna and Elsa. The hot sun of the Mediterranean does not have the best effect on Elsa's appearance: her skin turns red, flakes, Anna, on the contrary, looks amazing: she tanned, became even more beautiful, even slimmer. Elsa incessantly talks all sorts of nonsense and eventually gets bored with Raymon. Anna, with her mind and upbringing, could easily put Elsa in her place, but she does not do this, but calmly listens to her stupid speeches, does not react to them in any way, and this alone causes Raymon to feel gratitude. In general, Father Cecile looks more and more frankly at Anna. One evening they all go to have fun in the casino. On this day, the final break between Reimon and Elsa takes place. Raymon leaves with Anna for home, leaving her daughter and Elsa to have fun in the casino. And the next day, father and Anna inform Cecile that they have decided to get married. Cecile is amazed: her father, constantly changing mistresses, used to living cheerfully and noisily, suddenly decides to marry a calm, intelligent and balanced woman. She begins to think about it, tries to imagine how her life and the life of her father will turn out if he marries Anna. Cecile treats Anna very well, but she can't imagine how Anna suddenly becomes a member of their family. Then in Paris they would have to change their whole way of life, they would have to give up the pleasures that had become necessary for her and her father.

But while the sun, the sea, the feelings of summer happiness are stronger than anxiety and anxiety. She continues to date Cyril. Young people spend quite a lot of time together, and they have a feeling deeper than just friendship. Cecile is ready for physical intimacy with a young man, she is quite happy with happiness at the moment. One day, Anna notices them together, when they lie half-naked on the ground, and tells Cyril not to come to Cecil again, and she sits the girl down at her textbooks - because she needs to prepare for the bachelor's degree philosophy exam, which she already failed once and should take it again in the fall. Cecile is outraged by Anna's behavior, bad thoughts arise in her head, she scolds herself for them, but cannot get rid of them, although she understands that Anna is basically right and wishes her and her father well.

One afternoon, Cecile meets Elsa, who is returning to the house to collect her things. Cecile convinces her that she needs to save her father from Anna, that in fact Raymon loves only Elsa, that the experienced and cunning Anna is to blame for everything, who has set herself the goal of marrying her father and now holds him in her hands. Cecile arranges for Elsa to stay with Cyril for a while, then she tells them her plan to "save" her father. It consists in the fact that Elsa and Cyril should pretend to be lovers and appear more often in front of Raymon.

Cecile hopes that he will become irritated with the fact that Elsa so quickly consoled herself with another, will have a desire to prove to himself that he left Elsa and that at any moment he can get her back. The daughter hopes that her father, wanting to prove to himself that he still attracts young women, will cheat on Anna and Elsa, and Anna will not be able to come to terms with this and will leave Raymon, this plan is quite successful. Everything goes like clockwork. Elsa and Cyril play their roles well, the blows hit the target. Raymon reacts as Cecile intended. The daughter is happy that her plan is being realized. But in her heart she understands that she is wrong, that it is impossible to do this with Anna. After all, Anna loves her father, and most importantly, and her father fell in love with her and is sincerely ready to change his lifestyle for her sake. But Cecile can no longer change anything, and does not want to. She is interested to know how well she understands people, whether she manages to identify their weaknesses and predict their actions, in general, how successful she is as a director. Meanwhile, Cecile can no longer tell Elsa and Cyril that she deceived them, that Reimon really fell out of love with Elsa. Cecile decides to no longer participate in this game, but is not going to reveal or explain anything to adults either. She learns from Elsa that she is going on a date with her father, but now this news does not please her anymore. And a little later, Cecile sees Anna, who runs in desperation to the garage. Anna is determined to leave immediately, because, having caught Raymon with Elsa, she understands everything and makes an instant and firm decision. Cecile rushes after her, begs Anna not to leave, but she does not want to hear anything.

In the evening Raymond and her daughter have dinner alone. Both feel the need to bring Anna back. They write her a letter full of sincere apologies, love and remorse. At this time, the phone rings. They are told that Anna crashed on the road to Estril:

the car fell from a height of fifty meters. Heartbroken, they leave for the crash site. On the way, Cecile thanks Anna from the bottom of her heart that she gave them a great gift - she gave them the opportunity to believe in an accident, and not in suicide. The next day, when Cecile and her father return, they see Cyril and Elsa together. At this point, Cecile realizes that, in fact, she never loved Cyril. After the funeral of Anna Cecile and her father, they live for a whole month as a widower and an orphan, they have lunch and dinner together, they don’t go anywhere. Gradually, they get used to the idea that Anna really had an accident. And the former life begins, easy, full of pleasures and entertainments. When Cecile meets her father, they laugh as they tell each other about their love victories. They seem to be happy again. But sometimes at dawn, when young Cecile is still in bed and only the noise of cars is heard on the streets of Paris, memories of the past summer come to her memory, and she again experiences the feeling that haunts her "insinuating longing." This feeling of sadness.

Ya. E. Nikitin

(Un peu de soleil dans l'eau froide)

Roman (1969)

Journalist Gilles Lantier, now thirty-five, is depressed. Almost every day he wakes up at dawn, his heart pounding with what he calls the fear of life. He has an attractive appearance, an interesting profession, he has achieved success, but he is gnawed by longing and hopeless despair. He lives in a three-room apartment with the beautiful Eloise, who works as a fashion model, but he never had spiritual intimacy with her, and now she has ceased to attract him even physically. During one party at his friend and colleague Jean Gilles, having gone to wash his hands in the bathroom, he suddenly felt inexplicable horror at the sight of a small pink bar of soap. He stretches out his hands to take it, and can't, as if the soap has become some small nocturnal animal, lurking in the darkness, ready to crawl up his hand. So Gilles discovers that, most likely, he develops a mental illness.

Gilles works in the international department of the newspaper. Bloody events are taking place in the world that evoke a tickling sense of horror in his brethren, and not so long ago he too would have willingly gasped along with them, expressing his indignation, but now he feels only annoyance and irritation from these events because they divert his attention from the real, his own drama. Jean notices that something is wrong with his friend, tries to somehow shake him up, advises him to either go on vacation or go on a business trip, but to no avail, because Gilles feels dislike for any kind of activity. Over the past three months, he has practically ceased to meet with all his friends and acquaintances. The doctor, whom Gilles turned to, prescribed him a medicine just in case, but explained that the main cure for this disease is time, that you just need to wait out the crisis, and most importantly, relax. The same advice is given to him by Eloise, who also had something similar a few years ago. Gilles finally heeds all this advice and goes to rest with his older sister Odile, who lives in a village near Limoges.

When he lived there, without experiencing any improvement, for two weeks, his sister pulled him out to visit Limoges, and there Gilles met Nathalie Silvenere. The red-haired and green-eyed beauty Natalie, the wife of a local judicial officer, feels like the queen of Limousin, that is, that historical region of France, the center of which is Limoges, and she wants to please a visiting Parisian, besides a journalist. Moreover, she falls in love with him at first sight. But the heartthrob Gilles this time does not have the slightest penchant for love adventures, and he flees. However, the next day, Natalie herself comes to visit his sister. A love relationship quickly develops between Gilles and Natalie, in which the initiative always belongs to her. Gilles shows the first signs of recovery and a revival of interest in life.

Meanwhile, in Paris, the post of editorial manager is vacated in his newspaper, and Jean proposes the candidacy of Gilles, who, in connection with this, is forced to urgently return to the capital. Everything is going as well as possible, and Gilles is confirmed in the position. However, although he has long dreamed of this promotion, now this success does not worry him too much. For his thoughts are in Limoges. He understands that he has seriously fallen in love, does not find a place for himself, constantly calls Natalie. And he explains the situation to Eloisa, who, of course, suffers greatly from the need to part with Gilles. Only three days pass, and Gilles is already rushing to Limoges again. Vacation continues. Lovers spend a lot of time together. One day, Gilles finds himself at a party organized by the Silveners in their rich house, where, as the experienced look of a journalist notes, it was not the luxury that you would surprise a Parisian that suppressed, but the feeling of lasting prosperity. On this evening, Gilles has a conversation with Natalie's brother, who frankly admits to him that he is in despair, because he considers Gilles a weak, weak-willed egoist.

Natalie had previously expressed her readiness to leave her husband and follow Gilles to the ends of the earth, and this conversation pushes Gilles to take more decisive action, and he decides to take her to him as soon as possible. Finally, the vacation ends, Gilles leaves, and three days later - to keep up appearances - Natalie comes to visit him in Paris. Several months pass. Gilles is gradually accustomed to the new position. Natalie visits museums, theaters, sees the sights of the capital. Then he gets a job in a travel agency. Not so much for money, but to make your life more meaningful. Everything seems to be going well, but the first crack appears in these relations. The editor-in-chief, who is also the owner of the newspaper, who invited Gilles, Natalie and Jean to dinner, smugly quotes Chamfort, stating that these words belong to Stendhal. Natalie, a woman well-read and at the same time uncompromising, corrects him, which causes displeasure both in the boss and in the weak character, inclined to adapt Gilles. In general, he finds himself more and more at the mercy of the contradictions that tear him apart. A conflict is brewing in his soul between love for Natalie, gratitude to her for her miraculous healing and longing for the former free life, a thirst for freedom, a desire to feel independent and communicate more, as in the old days, with friends.

Having gone to Limoges on the occasion of the illness and death of her aunt, where her husband persuades her to stay, Natalie burns all bridges behind her and makes the final choice in favor of Gilles. A rash move, as it soon turns out. One morning, Gilles comes to the office beaming: the night before he wrote a very good article about the events in Greece connected with the coming to power of the "black colonels". He reads more than Natalie, she admires this article, and Gilles feels uplifted. This is very important for him, because during the last time he had something like a creative crisis. Both the editor-in-chief and Jean praised the article. And after they released a newspaper issue that day. Gilles invites Jean to his home. They settle into the living room, drink Calvados, and then Gilles discovers in himself an irresistible craving for psychoanalysis. He begins to explain to Jean that once Natalie helped him a lot, warmed him and brought him back to life, but now her guardianship is choking him, he is burdened by her authoritativeness, straightforwardness and integrity. At the same time, he admits that he has nothing to reproach his girlfriend for, that he himself is more to blame, or rather, his sluggish, weak, unstable character. To this analysis, as the author notes. Gilles should have added that he cannot even imagine a life without Natalie, but in a fit of pride and complacency, seeing the obvious sympathy of a friend and drinking buddy, he saves himself from this recognition. And absolutely in vain. Because it suddenly turns out that Natalie at that moment was not at work at all, as they assumed, but nearby, in the bedroom, and heard the whole conversation from beginning to end. True, when she went out to her friends, she did not tell them this. She seems to be calm. Having exchanged two or three words with friends, she leaves the house. A few hours later, it turns out that she did not go on business at all, but rented a room in one of the hotels and took a huge dose of sleeping pills there. She cannot be saved. In the hands of Gilles is her suicide note: "You have nothing to do with it, my dear. I have always been a little exalted and did not love anyone but you."

Ya. V. Nikitin

(Osudy dobreho vojaka Svejka za svetove valky)

Roman (1921-1923, unfinished)

Schweik, a former soldier of the 91st Infantry Regiment, recognized by the medical commission as an idiot, lives by selling dogs, which he composes fake pedigrees. Once, from a maid, he hears about the murder of Archduke Ferdinand and with this knowledge goes to the tavern "At the Chalice", where the secret agent Bretschneider is already sitting, who provokes everyone into anti-government statements, and then accuses them of treason. Schweik does everything he can to evade direct answers to his questions, but Bretschneider nevertheless catches him on the fact that Schweik predicts war in connection with the assassination of the Archduke. Schweik, together with the innkeeper Palivets (who allowed himself to say that the portrait of the emperor hanging on his wall was infested with flies) is dragged to the police station, from where they end up in prison. There sits a lot of their brothers in misfortune, who ended up in prison for generally harmless statements.

The next day, Schweik appears before a forensic examination, and the doctors recognize him as a complete idiot, after which Schweik ends up in a lunatic asylum, where, on the contrary, he is recognized as quite normal and driven away - without lunch. Schweik starts to make a fuss and as a result ends up in the police commissariat, from where he is again sent to the police department. When he goes there under escort, he sees the crowd in front of the highest manifesto declaring war and begins to shout slogans in praise of the Emperor. In the police department, he is persuaded to admit that someone pushed him to such mocking actions, but Schweik assures that true patriotism spoke in him. Unable to bear Schweik's pure and innocent gaze, the police officer lets him go home.

On the way, Schweik enters the tavern "At the Chalice", where he learns from the owner that her husband, the innkeeper Palivets, was sentenced to ten years for high treason. Bretschneider sits next to Schweik, having received the task of getting closer to him on the basis of the dog trade. As a result, the agent buys from Schweik a whole pack of the most miserable bastards who have nothing to do with the breed indicated in their passports, but he still cannot find out anything. When a detective has seven monsters, he locks himself in a room with them and does not let them eat anything until they eat him.

Soon Schweik receives a summons to go to war, but at that moment he has just an attack of rheumatism, so he goes to the recruiting station in a wheelchair. Newspapers write about this as a manifestation of patriotism, but the doctors recognize him as a simulator and send him to the hospital barracks at the garrison prison, where they try to make those who, due to poor health, are absolutely unsuitable for military service fit for military service. They are subjected to severe tortures there: they are starved, wrapped in a wet sheet, put on an enema, etc. During Schweik's stay in the infirmary, he is visited by Baroness von Bozenheim, who learned from the newspapers about the patriotic feat "der brave Soldat". The inhabitants of the barracks quickly deal with the food brought by the baroness, but the head physician Grunstein takes this as evidence of their complete health and sends everyone to the front. Schweik, on the other hand, ends up in a garrison prison for arguing with the medical board.

There are those who committed minor crimes in order to avoid being sent to the front, those who managed to steal money at the front, as well as soldiers - for crimes of a purely military nature. A special group consists of political prisoners, mostly innocent.

The only entertainment in the prison is a visit to the prison church, where services are held by the field officer Otto Katz, a baptized Jew, known for his drinking and predilection for the female sex. He intersperses the sermon with swear words and blasphemy, but the touched Schweik suddenly begins to sob, which attracts the attention of the feldkurat. He intercedes for Schweik before a familiar investigator, and Schweik gets into his batmen. They live in perfect harmony, Schweik repeatedly rescues the field officer, but nevertheless, after a while, Otto Katz loses Schweik at cards to Lieutenant Aukash, a typical career officer who is not afraid of his superiors and cares about the soldiers. However, unlike the soldiers, he hates batmen, considering them to be creatures of a lower order. Nevertheless, Schweik manages to win Lukasz's trust, although one day, in the absence of the lieutenant, his beloved cat eats his beloved canary. In a conversation with the lieutenant, Švejk shows knowledge about dogs, and Lukasz instructs him to get a pinscher.

Schweik turns to his old friend Blagnik, who has extensive experience in stealing dogs, for help, and he looks after a suitable specimen - a pinscher belonging to Colonel Friedrich Kraus von Zidlergut, commander of the regiment where Lieutenant Lukasz serves. Schweik quickly tames the dog, and Lieutenant Lukash goes for a walk with her. While walking, he runs into a colonel who is famous for his vindictiveness. The colonel recognizes his dog and threatens Lukash with reprisals. The lieutenant is about to give Schweik a good spanking, but he says that he only wanted to please the lieutenant, and Lukasz loses his temper. The next morning, Lukash receives an order from the colonel to go to Budejovitsy, to the 91st regiment, which is waiting to be sent to the front,

Together with Schweik and Lieutenant Lukash, an elderly bald gentleman is traveling in a compartment of a train bound for Budejovice. Schweik very politely informs the lieutenant how much hair a normal person should have on his head. The bald gentleman explodes with indignation. To the chagrin of the lieutenant, he turns out to be Major General von Schwarburg, making an incognito inspection tour of the garrisons. The general reprimands the lieutenant, who drives Schweik out of the compartment.

In the vestibule, Schweik starts a conversation with some railway worker about the emergency brake and accidentally breaks it. They want to force Schweik to pay a fine for an unreasonable stop of the train, but since he has no money, he is simply thrown off the train.

At the station, some compassionate gentleman pays a fine for Schweik and gives him five crowns for a ticket so that he can catch up with his part, but Schweik safely drinks the money in the buffet. In the end, he is forced to go to Budejovice on foot, however, having mixed up the road, he heads in the opposite direction. On the way, he "" teas an old woman who takes him for a deserter, but Schweik still sincerely intends to reach Budejovice.

But his feet themselves lead him to the north. It was then that the gendarme met him. As a result of cross-examination, the gendarme sergeant leads Schweik to the fact that he is a spy. Together with the corresponding report, he sends Schweik to Pisek, and the local captain, who does not share the spy mania reigning in the troops, escorts Schweik to the 91st regiment, to the place of service.

Lukasz, who had hoped that Schweik had disappeared from his life forever, is in shock. However, it turns out that he issued a warrant for the arrest of Schweik in advance, and he is taken to the guardhouse. In the cell, Schweik meets the volunteer Marek, who talks about his misadventures, in particular about how he tried to get rid of military service. He is waiting for a terrible punishment, but Colonel Schroeder sentences him to eternal exile in the kitchen, which means for Marek liberation from the front. The colonel orders Schweik, after three days in the guardhouse, to again enter the disposal of Lieutenant Lukash.

In Most, where the regiment is stationed, Lukash falls in love with a certain lady and instructs Schweik to take the letter to her. Having had a good drink in the pub "At the Black Lamb" together with the sapper Vodichka, Schweik goes to look for the house of the lady of the lieutenant's heart. Needless to say, the letter falls into the hands of her husband, whom the sapper Vodichka lowers down the stairs. The fight continues on the street, and Vodichka and Švejk end up at the police station.

Schweik is to be brought to trial, but the auditor Ruller terminates Schweik's case and sends the good soldier to the front, and Colonel Schroeder appoints him as an orderly of the 11th company.

When Schweik arrives at the regiment, the company is preparing to be sent to the front, but such confusion reigns everywhere that even the regiment commander himself does not know when and where the unit will move. He just holds endless meetings, devoid of any meaning. Finally, Lieutenant Lukash still receives an order to move to the border of Galicia.

Schweik goes to the front. On the way, it turns out that before leaving, he handed over to the warehouse all copies of the book, which was the key to deciphering field reports.

The train arrives in Budapest, where news of Italy's entry into the war awaits everyone. Everyone begins to judge and judge how this will respond to their fate and whether they will be sent to Italy. Among the officers, second lieutenant of the third company Dub, in peacetime - a teacher of the Czech language, who always sought to show his loyalty, participates in the discussion. In the regiment, he is known for his phrases: “Do you know me? And I tell you that you don’t know me! .. But you still recognize me! .. Maybe you only know me from the good side! recognize me from the bad side too!.. I will bring you to tears!” He tries in vain to provoke Švejk and other soldiers into unlawful remarks.

Schweik receives an order from Lieutenant Lukash to get cognac and fulfills the order with honor, when suddenly Lieutenant Oak stands in his way. In order not to let Lukas down, Svejk passes off cognac as water and drinks the whole bottle in one gulp. The oak asks to show him the well where the water was taken from, and tries this water, after which the "taste of horse urine and slurry" remains in his mouth. He releases Schweik, who, having barely reached his car, falls asleep.

Meanwhile, the volunteer Marek, as the most educated, is appointed historiographer of the battalion, and he composes a fantastic story about his glorious victories.

Since the service telegrams cannot be deciphered, the train arrives at its destination two days ahead of schedule. The officers have fun as much as they can, but in the end the battalion still moves into position. Schweik and his team go in search of apartments for the regiment and, once on the shore of the lake, put on the uniform of a captured Russian soldier for fun, and then the Hungarians take him prisoner.

Schweik tries in vain to explain to the guards that he is his own. Other prisoners also do not understand him, since there are no Russians among them - they are mostly Tatars and Caucasians. Together with the rest of the prisoners, Schweik is sent to construction work. But when he finally manages to explain that he is a Czech, Major Wolf takes him for a defector who changed his oath and became a spy.

A seamstress is placed in a guardhouse and a provocateur is placed next to him. The next morning, Schweik once again appears before the court. The major suggests to the general, who at all costs wants to uncover the conspiracy, before finding out whether Schweik is really who he claims to be. Schweik is sent to the garrison prison.

Finally, confirmation comes from the 91st regiment that Schweik is missing and should be returned to the regiment, but General Fink, who dreams of hanging Schweik as a deserter, sends him to the brigade headquarters for further investigation.

At the headquarters of the brigade, Schweik gets to Colonel Gerbich, who suffers from gout and at the moment of enlightenment sends Schweik to the regiment, giving money for the road and a new uniform.

The novel ends with a scene of a soldier's feast in the kitchen of the cook Urayda ...

E.B. Tueva

(Valka z mloky)

Novel. (1936)

The captain of the Candon-Baddung, Vantah, who fishes for pearls off the coast of Sumatra, suddenly discovers the amazing Devil Bay on the island of Tanamas. According to local residents, devils live there. However, the captain finds intelligent creatures there - these are salamanders. They are black, a meter and a half high and look like seals. The captain tames them by helping to open shells with their favorite delicacy - clams, and they catch mountains of pearls for him. Then Vantah takes a vacation in his shipping company and goes to his homeland, where he meets his Countryman, a successful businessman G. X. Bondi. Captain Vantah manages to convince the rich man to embark on the risky adventure he proposes, and soon the price of pearls begins to fall due to a sharp increase in production.

Meanwhile, the problem of salamanders begins to interest world public opinion. First, there are rumors that Vantakh is carrying devils around the world, then scientific and pseudo-scientific publications appear. Scientists come to the conclusion that the salamanders discovered by Captain Vantakh are Andrias Scheuchzeri, which was considered extinct.

One of the salamanders ends up in the London Zoo. Somehow she speaks to the watchman, introducing herself as Andrew Sheikhtser, and then everyone begins to understand that salamanders are intelligent creatures that can speak, and in different languages, read and even reason. However, the life of the salamander, which has become a sensation in the zoological garden, ends tragically: visitors overfeed her with sweets and chocolate, and she falls ill with catarrh of the stomach.

Soon there is a meeting of shareholders of the Pacific Export Company, engaged in the exploitation of salamanders. The meeting honors the memory of Captain Vantah, who died of apoplexy, and makes a number of important decisions, in particular, to stop pearling and to abandon the monopoly on salamanders, which multiply so quickly that they cannot be fed. The board of the company proposes to create a giant syndicate "Salamander" for the large-scale exploitation of salamanders, which they plan to use in various construction works in the water. Salamanders are transported all over the world, settling them in India, China, Africa and America. In some places, however, there are strikes in protest against the displacement of human labor from the market, but the existence of salamanders is beneficial to the monopolies, since thanks to this it is possible to expand the production of tools necessary for salamanders, as well as agricultural products. There are also fears that the salamanders will pose a threat to fisheries and undermine the shores of the continents and islands with their underwater burrows.

Meanwhile, the exploitation of salamanders is in full swing. Even a gradation of salamanders has been developed: leaders, or overseers, are the most expensive individuals; heavy, designed for the most difficult physical work; Tim - ordinary "workhorses" and so on. The price depends on belonging to one or another group. There is also a thriving illegal trade in salamanders. Mankind invents more and more projects for the implementation of which these animals can be used.

In parallel, scientific congresses are held, exchanging information in the field of both physiology and psychology of salamanders. A movement is unfolding for the systematic school education of the bred salamanders, discussions arise about what kind of education should be given to salamanders, what language they should speak, etc. An international league for the protection of salamanders appears, which aims to build relations between humanity and salamanders on the basis of decency and humanity . Legislation related to salamanders is adopted: since they are thinking beings, they must themselves be responsible for their actions. Following the publication of the first laws on salamanders, people appear demanding that certain rights be recognized for salamanders. However, it does not occur to anyone that the "newt question" can be of the greatest international importance and that the newts will have to be dealt with not only as thinking beings, but also as a single salamander collective or even a nation.

Soon the number of salamanders reaches seven billion, and they inhabit over sixty percent of all the coasts of the globe. The cultural level is growing: underwater newspapers are being published, scientific institutes are emerging where salamanders work, underwater and underground cities are being built. True, the salamanders themselves do not produce anything, but people sell them everything down to explosives for underwater construction work and weapons to fight sharks.

Soon, the salamanders realize their own interests and begin to rebuff people invading their sphere of interests. One of the first to arise is a conflict between the garden-eating salamanders and the peasants, who are dissatisfied with both the salamanders and the government's policies. The peasants start shooting marauding salamanders, to which they come out of the sea and try to take revenge. Several companies of infantry barely manage to stop them, in retaliation they blow up the French cruiser Jules Flambeau. After some time, the Belgian passenger steamer Udenburg, which was in the English Channel, is attacked by salamanders - it turns out that the English and French salamanders did not share something between themselves.

Against the backdrop of the disunity of mankind, the salamanders unite and begin to come forward with demands to give them living space. As a show of strength, they set up an earthquake in Louisiana. The Supreme Salamander demands to evacuate people from the sea coasts indicated by him and invites humanity, together with the salamanders, to destroy the world of people. The salamanders really have great power over people: they can block any port, any sea route and thereby starve people to death. So, they declare a complete blockade of the British Isles, and Great Britain is forced to declare war on the salamanders in response. However, the salamanders are much more successful in combat - they just start flooding the British Isles.

Then a world conference on settlement meets in Vaduz, and the lawyers representing the Newts offer to go to any lengths, promising that "the flooding of the continents will be carried out gradually and in such a way as not to lead the matter to panic and unnecessary catastrophes." Meanwhile, flooding is in full swing.

And in the Czech Republic lives and lives Mr. Povondra, the porter in the house of H. H. Bondi, who at one time could not let the captain of Vantakh on the threshold and thereby prevent a universal catastrophe. He feels that it is he who is to blame for what happened, and the only thing that pleases him is that the Czech Republic is located far from the sea. And suddenly he sees the head of a salamander in the Vltava River...

In the last chapter, the author talks to himself, trying to come up with at least some way to save humanity, and decides that the "western" salamanders will go to war against the "eastern" ones, as a result of which they will be completely exterminated. And humanity will remember this nightmare as another flood.

E. B. Tueva

(Nesnesitelna lehkost byti)

Roman (1984)

Tomas is a surgeon, works in one of the clinics in Prague. A few weeks ago, in a small Czech town, he met Teresa. Teresa works as a waitress at a local restaurant. They spend only an hour together, then he returns to Prague. Ten days later, she visits him. This unfamiliar girl awakens in him an inexplicable feeling of love, a desire to somehow help her. Teresa seems to him a child, "who was put in a tarred basket and launched into the river so that he could fish out his bed on the shore."

After living with him for a week, Teresa returns to her provincial town. Tomasz is confused, does not know what to do: connect his life with Teresa and take responsibility for her, go save his usual freedom, be left alone.

Teresa's mother - a beautiful woman - leaves her father and goes to another man. The father goes to prison, where he soon dies. Stepfather, mother, her three children from a new marriage and Teresa settle in a small apartment in a provincial Czech town.

Teresa's mother, dissatisfied with life, takes everything out on her daughter. Despite the fact that Teresa is the brightest in the class, her mother takes her away from the gymnasium. Teresa goes to work in a restaurant. She is ready to work hard to earn her mother's love.

The only thing that protects her from the hostile surrounding world is a book. Love for reading distinguishes her from others, is, as it were, an identifying sign of a secret brotherhood. Tomas gets her attention by reading a book in the restaurant where she works.

A chain of accidents - an open book on Tomasz's restaurant table, Beethoven's music, the number six - sets in motion the feeling of love dormant in her and gives her the courage to leave home and change her life.

Teresa, leaving everything, comes to Prague again without an invitation and stays with Tomasz.

Tomasz is amazed that he made the decision to keep Teresa so quickly, contrary to his own principles - no woman should live in his apartment. This he firmly adheres to for ten years after the divorce. Fearing and at the same time desiring women, Tomasz develops a kind of compromise, defining it with the words "erotic friendship" - "those relationships in which there is not a trace of sentimentality and neither partner encroaches on the life and freedom of the other." This method allows Tomasz to keep constant mistresses and at the same time have many fleeting relationships.

Striving for complete freedom, Tomasz limits his relationship with his son only to the accurate payment of alimony. Tomasz's parents condemn him for this, break with him, remaining on defiantly good terms with his daughter-in-law.

Tomas is going to take care of Teresa, protect her, but he has no desire to change his lifestyle. He rents an apartment for Teresa. One of his girlfriends - Sabina - helps Teresa get a job in the photo lab of an illustrated weekly.

Gradually Teresa learns about Tomasz's infidelities, and this makes her morbidly jealous. Tomasz sees her torment, sympathizes with her, but he can’t cut off his “erotic friendships,” he can’t find the strength to overcome his craving for other women, and he doesn’t see the need for it.

Two years pass. To muffle Teresa's suffering from his betrayals, Tomasz marries her. On this occasion, he gives her a bitch dog, which they call Karenin.

August 1968 Soviet tanks invade Czechoslovakia.

A Swiss friend of Tomasz - the director of one of the clinics in Zurich - offers him a place at his place. Tomas hesitates, assuming that Teresa will not want to go to Switzerland.

Teresa spends the entire first week of the occupation on the streets of Prague, filming episodes of the entry of troops, mass protests of citizens and distributing films to foreign journalists who almost fight because of them. One day she is detained, and she spends the night in the Russian commandant's office. She is threatened with execution, but as soon as she is released, she again goes to the streets. During these days of trials, Teresa feels strong and happy for the first time.

The Czech leadership signs a kind of compromise agreement in Moscow. It saves the country from the worst: from executions and mass exile to Siberia.

Days of humiliation are coming. Tomasz and Teresa emigrate to Switzerland.

Zurich. Tomas works as a surgeon for his friend. Here he meets again with Sabina, who also emigrated from Czechoslovakia.

In Zurich, Teresa enters the publishing house of an illustrated magazine and offers her photographs of the Soviet occupation of Prague. She is politely but firmly denied - they are no longer interested. She is offered a job - photographing cacti. Teresa refuses.

Teresa is at home alone all the days. Jealousy wakes up again, which she, along with beauty, inherited from her mother. She decides to return to her homeland, hoping deep down that Tomas will follow her.

Six or seven months pass. Returning home one day, Tomas finds a letter from Teresa on the table, in which she announces that she is returning home to Prague.

Tomas rejoices in his newfound freedom, enjoys the ease of being. Then he is seized by relentless thoughts about Teresa. On the fifth day after her departure, Tomas informs the director of the clinic about his return to Czechoslovakia.

The first feelings that he experiences upon returning home are mental depression and despair from the fact that he has returned.

Teresa works as a bartender in a hotel. She was kicked out of the weekly a month or two after they returned from Switzerland.

At work, during one incident, a tall man stands up for her. Teresa later learns that he is an engineer. Teresa soon accepts an invitation to visit his home and enters into a love affair with him.

Days pass, a month - the engineer no longer appears in the bar. A terrible guess appears in her head - this is sexot. A situation was created to compromise and then use it for their own purposes, drawing informants into a single organization.

Sunday. Tomasz and Tereza go for a walk outside the city. They visit a small resort town. Tomas meets his old patient - a fifty-year-old peasant from a remote Czech village. The peasant talks about his village, about the fact that there is no one to work, because people are fleeing from there. Teresa has a desire to leave for the village, it seems to her that this is now the only saving road.

Upon his return from Zurich, Tomas is still working "in his clinic. One day, the head physician calls him to him. He suggests Tomas to recant the political article he had previously written, otherwise he will not be able to leave him in the clinic. Tomas refuses to write a letter of repentance and leaves from the clinic.

Tomasz works in the village hospital. A year passes, and he manages to find a place in a suburban dispensary. Here he is found by a man from the Ministry of the Interior. He promises Tomasz to resume his career as a surgeon and scientist, but for this it is necessary to sign a certain application. In this statement, Tomasz should not only renounce his political article, as was demanded of him two years ago, it also contained words about love for the Soviet Union, loyalty to the Communist Party, as well as condemnation of intellectuals. In order not to sign and write such statements, Tomas quits medicine and becomes a window cleaner. He, as it were, returns to the time of his youth, to the expanse of freedom, which means for him, first of all, the freedom of love affairs.

Teresa talks about the incident at the bar. She is very anxious. Tomas first notices how she has changed, aged. He suddenly realizes with horror how little attention he has paid to her for the past two years.

Tomasz is invited to wash windows in one apartment. There he meets his son. The people gathered in the apartment offer him to sign a petition asking for amnesty for political prisoners. Tomas sees no point in this petition. He remembers Teresa - apart from her, nothing matters to him. He cannot save the prisoners, but he can make Teresa happy. Tomas refuses to sign the paper.

Five years have passed since the Soviet invasion of Prague. The city has changed beyond recognition. Many acquaintances of Tomasz and Teresa emigrated, some of them died. They decide to leave Prague and go to the countryside.

Tomasz and Teresa live in a remote, forgotten village. Tomas works as a truck driver, Teresa tends the calves. They finally find peace - there is nowhere to expel them from here.

Teresa is happy, it seems to her that she has reached her goal: she and Tomasz are together and they are alone. The joy of life is overshadowed only by the death of their only devoted friend - the dog Karenin.

Geneva. Franz lectures at the university, travels to foreign symposiums and conferences. He is married and has an eighteen year old daughter. Franz meets a Czech artist and falls in love with her. Her name is Sabina. This is Tomas' girlfriend.

Sabina has been drawing since childhood. Immediately after graduation, she leaves home, enters the Prague Academy of Arts, and then marries an actor in one of the theaters in Prague. Shortly after the untimely death of her parents, Sabina leaves her husband and begins her life as a freelance artist.

Franz confesses to his wife that Sabina is his mistress. He wants to divorce his wife and marry Sabina.

Sabina is confused. She does not want to change anything in her life, does not want to take any responsibility. She decides to leave Franz.

Franz leaves his wife. He rents a small apartment. He has an affair with one of the students, but when he wants to remarry, his wife refuses to divorce him.

Sabina lives in Paris. Three years later, she receives a letter from her son Tomas, from which she learns about the death of his father and Teresa - they died in a car accident. Sabina is depressed. The last thread linking her to the past has been broken. She decides to leave Paris.

Sabina lives in America, in California. She successfully sells her paintings, is rich and independent.

Franz joins a group of Western intellectuals and sets off for the borders of Cambodia. While walking through Bangkok at night, he dies.

A. I. Khoreva

Dramatic cantata

(Fulqor v muerte de Joaquin Murieta, bandido chileno injusticiado en California el 23 de julio de 1853)

Play (1967)

The action takes place in 1850-1853. The chorus begins the story of the glorious robber Joaquin Murieta, whose ghost still hovers over California, a free Chilean who died in a foreign land. Newsboys are shouting out the news: there's a gold rush in California. Drawn by a distant mirage, crowds of people flock to the port of Valparaiso from all over the country, eager to go to a fertile land, where they live heartily and warmly. A brigantine is being built on the stage, sails are raised. Customs officer Adalberto Reyes requires a bunch of all kinds of information from Juan Three-Fingers, but it is not difficult for the former miner to persuade the zealous campaigner to sail with everyone to the mines in California to extract gold. Three-fingered accompanies Joaquin Murieta, in which he is for the uncle and guide. This young man is a leader by mixing, he explains to the now former customs officer. Together with Joaquin, he shared until now the poor people's fate, the poor people's bread and the poor people's cuffs.

The chorus tells how, while traveling by sea, the horse-rider Joaquin Murieta lassoed a peasant woman, Teresa. Right there, on the ship, their wedding takes place.

While a wild revelry is going on on the deck, and rude fun is like a blind challenge to death, from the cabin window one can hear the love dialogue of the newlyweds, absorbed in their happiness. (Muriet does not appear on stage during the performance, only his silhouette or profile is shown facing the horizon. Teresa will also remain an invisible character.)

Panorama of San Francisco 1850 Chileans were the first to arrive in the world of wealth, easy money, says the chorus. In the tavern "Mess" there was almost a clash of Latin Americans who came to work, including Reyes and Three-Fingers, and Rangers in Texas hats armed with revolvers, but this time it does without bloodshed.

When the unbelted Yankees finally get away, a black-clad Horseman appears with the news that two dozen Chileans and several Mexicans have been killed in Sacramento, and all because the Yankees treat them like blacks, do not want to recognize their rights. However, the visitors do not grieve for long, the revelry continues, the singers perform, demonstrate a striptease. The swindler Caballero fools the customers with tricks with a hat, but then the Singers intervene, and visitors are forced to put their watches and chains in the hat. Having collected the prey, the conjurer disappears, then the deceived catch on and are going to catch up and teach the swindler a lesson. But a group of Hoodies appears, waving revolvers, they beat those present, smash the tavern.

When it's over, one of the raiders throws off his cape, this is Caballero a swindler who pays off with improvised stolen things.

The chorus describes the hard, painstaking work that Murieta does. Joaquin dreams of getting a lot of gold and, returning to his homeland, to distribute it to the poor. But again on the stage is a group of Hoodies plotting to unleash terror against strangers. The white race is above all! Blond greyhounds from California, as they call themselves, attack the prospectors' villages. In one of these raids, rioters, among whom Caballero is a fraudster, break into Murieta's house, rape and kill Teresa. Returning from the mine, Joaquin swears over the lifeless body of his wife to avenge her and punish the killers. From that day on, Joaquin becomes a robber.

Murieta, riding a horse of vengeance, keeps the entire district in fear, executing reprisals against white gringos who commit lawlessness and profit from crimes. Reyes and Three-Fingers, like some other Chileans, decide to join the formidable robber, to pay retribution for the spilled blood of their brothers. A detachment of avengers is gathering around Joaquin.

Bandits, led by Three-Fingers, attack a stagecoach in which seven passengers, including women, follow. They massacre Caballero as a swindler who is trying to hide bags of gold, while the rest of the travelers are released, and the gold is distributed to the locals. A group of Greyhounds stumble upon a rogue Caballero who, for the umpteenth time, emerges alive from the mess. Outrageous: Murieta's gang killed the passengers of the stagecoach and took away the gold they had plundered with such difficulty. And the people praise the intercessor and sing of his deeds.

The choir forms a kind of funeral frieze on both sides of the modest grave and comments on the events of the tragic July evening. Murieta brings roses to his dead wife, and the Greyhounds ambush the graveyard. Joaquin was unarmed, the chorus sadly explains, they shot him, and then, so that he would not resurrect, they cut off his head.

The showman - this is still the same Caballero swindler - invites passers-by to the fair booth, where Murieta's head is displayed in a cage.

People walk in an endless line, and the coins keep flowing into the bottomless pocket of the rogue.

Women shame men: how could they leave the head of a man who punished the offenders for them to reproach the enemies.

The men decide to steal the head from the booth and bury it on Teresa's grave.

The funeral procession is moving, Three-Fingers and Reyes are carrying Murieta's head. The head of the robber expresses regret that the whole truth about him will not reach the descendants. He did a lot of evil, although he did good deeds, but the inescapable longing for his murdered wife drove him across the earth, and his honor shone like a star.

Murieta lived bravely, ardently, but he was also doomed, concludes the chorus. The ghost of a robbery rebel rides on a horse of bright red color between reality and fiction.

L. M. Burmistrova

Drama (1901)

An artillery captain and his wife Alice, a former actress, live in a fortress on an island. Autumn. They sit in the living room, located in the fortress tower, and talk about the upcoming silver wedding. The captain thinks that it should certainly be noted, while Alice would prefer to hide their family hell from prying eyes. The captain conciliatory remarks that there were good moments in their lives and they should not be forgotten, because life is short, and then - the end of everything: "The only thing left is to take it out in a wheelbarrow and manure the garden!" - "So much fuss because of the garden!" Alice replies caustically. Spouses are bored; not knowing what to do, they sit down to play cards. That evening everyone gathered for a party to the doctor, but the Captain is not on good terms with him, like with everyone else, so he and Alice are at home. Alice worries that because of the difficult nature of the Captain, their children grow up without society. Cousin Alice Kurt, after a fifteen-year absence, arrived from America and was assigned to the island as the head of the quarantine. He arrived in the morning, but has not yet appeared at their place. They assume that Kurt went to the doctor.

The sound of a telegraph machine is heard: this is Judith, the daughter of the Captain and Alice, telling them from the city that she does not go to school, and asks for money. The captain yawns: he and Alice say the same thing every day, he is bored with it. Usually, to his wife’s remark that children always do their own thing in this house, he replies that this is not only his house, but also hers, and since he had already answered her five hundred times, now he just yawned.

The maid reports that Kurt has arrived. The captain and Alice rejoice at his arrival. Talking about themselves, they try to soften the colors, pretend that they live happily, but they cannot pretend for a long time and soon begin to scold again. Kurt feels that the walls of their house seem to exude poison and hatred has thickened so that it is difficult to breathe. The captain leaves to check the posts. Left alone with Kurt, Alice complains to him about life, about a tyrant-husband who cannot get along with anyone; they don't even keep servants, and for the most part Alice has to take care of the household herself. The captain turns the children against Alice, so now the children live separately in the city. Inviting Kurt to stay for dinner, Alice was sure that there was food in the house, but it turned out that there was not even a crust of bread. The captain is back. He immediately guesses that Alice managed to complain about him to Kurt. Suddenly, the Captain loses consciousness. When he comes to, he soon faints again. Kurt tries to call a doctor. Waking up, the Captain discusses with Alice whether all married couples are as unhappy as they are. Rummaging through their memory, they cannot remember a single happy family. Seeing that Kurt isn't coming back. The captain decides that he turned his back on them, and immediately begins to talk nasty things about him.

Soon Kurt arrives, who found out from the doctor that the Captain has sclerosis of the heart and he needs to take care of himself, otherwise he may die. The captain is put to bed and Kurt stays by his bedside. Alice is very grateful to Kurt for wishing well for both of them. When Alice leaves. The captain asks Kurt to take care of his children if he dies. The captain doesn't believe in hell. Kurt is surprised: after all, the Captain lives in the very hell. The captain objects: it's just a metaphor. Kurt replies: "You portrayed your hell with such authenticity that there can be no talk of metaphors - neither poetic nor anything else!" The captain doesn't want to die. He talks about religion and finally consoles himself with the thought of the immortality of the soul. The captain falls asleep. In a conversation with Alice, Kurt accuses the Captain of arrogance, because he argues according to the principle: "I exist, therefore. God exists." Alice tells Kurt that the Captain had a hard life, having to start working early to help his family. Alice says that in her youth she admired the Captain and at the same time was horrified by him. Once again talking about the shortcomings of the Captain, she can no longer stop. Kurt reminds her that they were only going to say good things about the Captain. "After his death," Alice replies. When the Captain wakes up, Kurt persuades him to write a will so that Alice will not be left without a livelihood after his death, but the Captain does not agree. The Colonel, at the request of Alice, grants the Captain a vacation, but the Captain does not want to admit that he is ill and does not want to go on vacation. He goes to the battery. Kurt tells Alice that the Captain, when it seemed to him that life was leaving him, began to cling to Kurt's life, began to ask about his affairs, as if he wanted to get into him and live his life. Alice warns Kurt not to let the Captain near his family in any case, not to introduce him to his children, otherwise the Captain will take them away and move them away from him. She reveals to Kurt that it was the Captain who arranged for Kurt to be deprived of their children in the divorce, and now regularly scolds Kurt for allegedly abandoning his children. Kurt is amazed: after all, at night, thinking that he was dying, the Captain asked him to take care of his children. Kurt promised and is not going to take out his resentment on the children. Alice believes that keeping her word is the best way to get revenge on the Captain, who hates nobility more than anything in the world.

Having been in the city. The captain returns to the fortress and says that the doctor did not find anything serious in him and said that he would live another twenty years if he took care of himself. In addition, he reports that Kurt's son has been assigned to the fortress and will soon arrive on the island. Kurt is not happy about this news, but the Captain is not interested in his opinion. And one more thing: The captain filed a divorce petition with the city court, because he intends to connect his life with another woman. In response, Alice says that she can accuse the Captain of an attempt on her life: once he pushed her into the sea. This was seen by their daughter Judith, but since she is always on the side of her father, she will not testify against him. Alice feels powerless. Kurt takes pity on her. He is ready to start a fight with the Captain. Kurt came to the island without malice in his soul, he forgave the Captain for all his previous sins, even the fact that the Captain separated him from his children, but now, when the Captain wants to take his son away from him, Kurt decides to destroy the Captain. Alice offers him her help: she knows something about the dark deeds of the Captain and the bayonet junker who committed embezzlement. Alice rejoices, anticipating victory. She recalls how in her youth Kurt was not indifferent to her, and tries to seduce him. Kurt rushes to her, clasps her in his arms and sinks his teeth into her neck so that she screams.

Alice is delighted to have found six witnesses willing to testify against the Captain. Kurt feels sorry for him, but Alice scolds Kurt for his cowardice. Kurt feels like he's gone to hell. The captain wants to talk to Kurt face to face. He confesses that the doctor actually told him that he wouldn't last long. Everything he says about the divorce and the appointment of Kurt's son to the fortress is also not true, and he asks Kurt for forgiveness. Kurt asks why the Captain pushed Alice into the sea. The captain himself does not know: Alice was standing on the pier, and it suddenly seemed quite natural for him to push her down. Her revenge also seems completely natural to him: since the Captain looked death in the eyes, he has gained cynical humility. He asks Kurt who he thinks is right: him or Alice. Kurt does not recognize any of them as right and sympathizes with both of them. They shake hands. Alice enters. She asks the Captain how his new wife is feeling, and kisses Kurt that her lover feels great. The captain draws his saber and lunges at Alice, slashing right and left, but his blows hit the furniture. Alice calls for help, but Kurt doesn't move. Cursing them both, he leaves. Alice calls Kurt a scoundrel and a hypocrite. The captain tells her that his words that he will live another twenty years and everything else that he said when he arrived from the city is also not true. Alice is in despair: after all, she did everything to put the Captain in prison, and they are about to come for him. If she could save him from prison, she would faithfully look after him, fall in love with him. The telegraph machine is knocking: everything worked out. Alice and the Captain rejoice: they have already tortured each other enough, now they will live in peace. The captain knows that Alice tried to destroy him, but he crossed it out and is ready to move on. She and Alice decide to lavishly celebrate their silver wedding.

Kurt's son Allan sits in the richly decorated living room of his father's house and solves problems. Judith, the daughter of the Captain and Alice, calls him to play tennis, but the young man refuses, Allan is clearly in love with Judith, and she flirts with him and tries to torment him.

Alice suspects that the Captain is up to something, but she can't figure out what. Once she forgot herself, seeing Kurt as a deliverer, but then she came to her senses and believes that it is possible to forget "what has never happened." She is afraid of her husband's revenge. Kurt assures her that the Captain is a harmless chick who invariably shows his affection to him. Kurt has nothing to fear - after all, he is doing his duties well as the head of the quarantine and is otherwise behaving as expected. But Alice says that in vain he believes in justice. Kurt has a secret - he is going to run for the Riksdag. Alice suspects that the Captain found out about this and wants to nominate herself.

Alice is talking to Allan. She tells the young man that he is jealous of the Lieutenant in vain: Judith is not at all in love with him. She wants to marry the old Colonel. Alice asks her daughter not to torment the young man, but Judith does not understand why Allan suffers: after all, she does not suffer. The captain returns from the city. He has two orders on his chest: one he received when he retired, the second - when he used Kurt's knowledge and wrote articles about quarantine posts in Portuguese ports. The captain announces that the soda factory has gone bankrupt. He himself managed to sell his shares in time, and for Kurt this means complete ruin: he loses both the house and the furniture. He can no longer afford to leave Allan in the artillery, and the Captain advises him to transfer his son to Norrland, in the infantry, and promises his help. The captain hands Alice a letter that she took to the post office: he checks all her correspondence and stops all her attempts to "destroy family ties." Upon learning that Allan is leaving, Judith is upset, she suddenly understands what suffering is, and realizes that she loves Allan. The captain has been appointed quarantine inspector. Since the money for Allan's departure was collected from subscription lists, Kurt's failure in the elections to the Riksdag is inevitable. Kurt's house goes to the Captain. Thus, the Captain took everything from Kurt. "But this ogre left my soul intact," says Kurt Alice. The captain receives a telegram from the colonel whom Judith wanted to marry. The girl called the colonel and said impudent things, so the colonel breaks off relations with the Captain. The captain thinks that it was not without the intervention of Alice, and draws his saber, but falls, overtaken by apoplexy. He plaintively asks Alice not to be angry with him, and Kurt to take care of his children. Alice rejoices that the Captain is dying. Judith thinks only of Allan and pays no attention to her dying father. Kurt takes pity on him. At the moment of death, only the Lieutenant is next to the Captain. He says that before his death, the Captain said: "Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Alice and Kurt talk about what, no matter what. The captain was a good and noble man. Alice realizes that she not only hated, but also loved this man.

O. E. Grinberg

Drama (1902)

The author recalls that he sought to imitate the incoherent but seemingly logical form of the dream. Time and space do not exist, clinging to the tiny basis of reality, the imagination spins its yarn. Heroes split, evaporate, condense, merge together. Above all is the consciousness of the dreamer.

In the prologue, the Daughter of Indra descends on a cloud to Earth. Indra sends her to find out if the fate of people is really so difficult. The daughter of Indra feels how pernicious the air below is a mixture of smoke and water. Indra invites you to be filled with courage and endure this test.

The Daughter and the Glazier approach the castle, which is growing out of the ground. Its roof is crowned with a bud, which, according to the Daughter, is about to blossom. The daughter thinks that a prisoner is languishing in the castle and wants to free him. Entering the castle, she frees the Officer, who sees in her the embodiment of beauty and is ready to suffer, if only he could see her. The Officer and the Daughter look behind the screen-partition and see the sick Mother, who tells the Officer that the Daughter is Agnes, the child of Indra. Before her death, the Mother asks the Officer never to argue with God and not consider himself offended by life. The Mother wants to give the maid the mantilla that the Father gave her: the maid has nothing to wear to the christening, and the Mother is so ill that she doesn't go anywhere anyway. The Father is offended, and the Mother is upset: it is impossible to do good to one person without doing harm to another. Daughters feel sorry for the people. The Officer and Daughter see the Doorkeeper in a shawl, crocheting a starry veil, waiting for the groom who left her thirty years ago when she was a ballerina in the theater. The daughter asks the Gatekeeper to lend her a shawl and allow her to sit in her place and look at the children of men. The daughter sees the actress, who did not receive an engagement, sobbing. The doorkeeper shows her what a happy person looks like: An officer with a bouquet is waiting for his beloved - Victoria, who promised him her hand and heart. He has been caring for her for seven years and now he is waiting for her to go downstairs, but she still does not go. Evening comes, the roses withered, but Victoria did not come. The officer turned gray, autumn came, but he is still waiting for his beloved. The officer tries to find out what is behind the closed door, but no one knows. He sends for a blacksmith to open it, but the Glazier comes instead of the blacksmith. As soon as the Glazier comes to the door, the Policeman appears and, in the name of the law, forbids opening it. The officer does not give up and decides to turn to a lawyer. The lawyer complains that he never sees happy people: everyone comes to him to pour out anger, envy, suspicions. The daughter takes pity on people. The lawyer hopes to receive a Juris Doctor degree and a laurel wreath, but is turned down. The daughter, seeing his suffering and desire to restore justice, puts a crown of thorns on his head. The daughter asks the Lawyer if there is joy in the world? He replies that the sweetest and bitterest joy is love. The daughter wants to test her and becomes the lawyer's wife, despite the fact that he is poor: if they lose heart, a child will appear and give them comfort.

Kristin seals the windows in the house. The daughter complains that she is very stuffy. The lawyer argues that if the windows are not sealed, the heat will leave and they will freeze. A child scares away customers with his crying. It would be nice to rent a bigger apartment, but there is no money. The daughter is not accustomed to living in the mud, but neither she nor the Advocate can wash the floor, and Kristin is busy sealing the windows. The lawyer notes that many live even worse. Upon learning that the Daughter lit the fire with his newspaper, the Advocate scolds her for her carelessness. Although they don't get along, they have to put up with each other for the sake of the baby. The daughter takes pity on people. Kristin continues to seal the cracks in the house. The lawyer comes out, colliding at the door with the Officer, who came to call the Daughter with him to the Bay of Beauty. But instead of the Bay of Beauty, the Officer and the Daughter end up in the Strait of Shame. The head of the quarantine asks the Officer if they managed to open the door. The officer replies that no, because the trial is not yet over. The head of the quarantine draws the attention of the Daughter to the Poet, who is going to take a mud bath: he is constantly hovering in the higher spheres, therefore he misses the mud. A white sailboat is seen in the distance, sailing to the Bay of Beauty. At the helm sit embracing He and She. The officer forces them to turn into the Strait of Shame. He and She go ashore, sad and ashamed. They do not understand why they are here, but the Head of Quarantine explains to them that it is not necessary to do something bad in order to incur minor troubles. Now they have to stay here for forty days. The daughter takes pity on people.

In the Bay of Beauty, fun reigns, everyone is dancing. Only Edith sits at a distance and is sad: she is not good-looking and no one invites her to dance.

The teacher checks the knowledge of the Officer, but he cannot answer in any way how much twice two will be. Although the Officer has been awarded his doctorate, he must remain at the school until he is mature. The officer himself understands that he has not yet matured. He asks the Master what time is. The teacher replies that time is what runs while he speaks. One of the students gets up and runs away while the Master is talking, comes out, is he the time? The teacher thinks that this is absolutely correct according to the laws of logic, although crazy.

The officer shows the Daughter of a man whom everyone envy, for he is the richest man in these places. But he also grumbles: he is blind and does not even see his son, whom he came to see him off. The blind man talks about the fact that life consists of meetings and partings: he met a woman, the mother of his son, but she left him. He had a son, but now he is leaving him. The daughter comforts the Blind Man, saying that his son will return.

The lawyer tells the Daughter that now she has seen almost everything except the worst. The worst thing is the eternal repetition and return. He urges the Daughter to return to her duties. Responsibilities are all that she does not want to, but must do. The daughter asks if there are pleasant duties? The lawyer explains that duties become pleasurable when done.

The daughter understands that duties are all that is unpleasant, and wants to know what is then pleasant. The lawyer explains to her that pleasure is a sin, but sin is punishable, and after a pleasant day or evening, a person is tormented by remorse. The daughter sighs: it's not easy being human. She wants to go back to heaven, but first she needs to open the door and find out the secret. The lawyer says that she will have to get back on track, go all the way back and relive the whole nightmarish process of repeating, recreating, rehashing, repeating ... The daughter is ready, but first she wants to retire to the desert region in order to find herself. She hears the loud groans of the unfortunates from the Strait of Shame and wants to free them. The lawyer says that once a liberator appeared, but the righteous crucified him on a cross. The daughter ends up on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. She thinks it's heaven, but she sees two charcoal workers who carry coal in a terrible heat and have no right to bathe or pick an orange from a tree. the coal miners explain to her that every person at least once committed a bad deed, but some were punished and now carry coal in the sweat of their faces all day long, while others were not punished and sit in the casino and gobble up an eight-course dinner. The daughter is surprised that people do nothing to alleviate their situation. The lawyer says that those who try to do something end up either in prison or in a lunatic asylum. The place that seemed to the Daughter as paradise, in fact, turns out to be a real hell.

The daughter leads the Poet to the end of the world in the cave, which is called the ear of Indra, for here the heavenly ruler listens to the greed of mortals. The daughter tells the Poet what the wind moans about, what the waves sing about. The poet finds the wreckage of ships, including the one that sailed from the Bay of Beauty. It seems to her daughter that both the Bay of Beauty, and the Strait of Shame, and the "growing castle", and the Officer she dreamed about. The poet says that he composed it all. Poetry is not reality, but more than reality, not a dream, but a waking dream. The daughter feels that she has been too long below, on the ground, her thoughts can no longer take off. She asks her Heavenly Father for help. The poet asks the Daughter of Indra to convey to the Ruler of the world the petition of mankind, composed by a dreamer. He hands the Daughter a scroll with his poem. The poet notices a ship in the distance by the reefs. His crew begs for help, but when they see the Savior, the sailors jump overboard in fear. The daughter is not sure that in front of them is really a ship, it seems to her that this is a two-story house, and next to it is a telephone tower reaching up to the clouds. The poet sees a snowy wasteland, a training ground along which a platoon of soldiers is marching. A cloud descends on the wasteland, covering the sun. Everything disappears. The moisture of the cloud extinguished the fire of the sun. Sunlight created the shadow of the tower, and the shadow of the cloud smothered the shadow of the tower.

The daughter asks the Gatekeeper to call the Deans of the four faculties: now they will open the door, behind which is the solution to the secrets of the world. An officer appears, beaming with joy, with a bouquet of roses: his beloved, Victoria, is about to go downstairs. It seems to both the Poet and the Daughter that they have already seen all this somewhere: either the Poet dreamed it, or he composed it. The daughter remembers that they have already said these words somewhere else. The poet promises that soon the Daughter will be able to determine what reality is. The Lord Chancellor and the Deans of the four Houses are discussing the matter of the door. The Lord Chancellor asks what the Dean of the Faculty of Theology thinks, but he does not think, he believes. The Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy has an opinion, the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine knows, and the Dean of the Faculty of Law has doubts. An argument erupts. The Daughter accuses them all of sowing doubt and discord in the minds of the youth, in response to which the Dean of the Faculty of Law accuses the Daughter on behalf of all the righteous of arousing doubt in the youth about their authority. They drive her away, threatening to kill her. The daughter calls the Poet with her, promising him that soon he will find out the solution to the secrets of the world. The door opens. The righteous shout "Hurrah", but they see nothing. They shout that the Daughter has deceived them: there is nothing behind the door, the Daughter says that they did not understand this nothingness. The righteous want to beat her. The daughter is about to leave, but the Advocate takes her by the hand and reminds her that she has responsibilities. The daughter replies that she obeys the command of a higher duty. The lawyer says that the child is calling her, and she realizes how much she is tied to the earth. She feels remorse, the only salvation from which is to fulfill her duty. The daughter suffers a lot. She says that everyone around is her children. Alone, each of them is good, but as soon as they come together, they begin to quarrel and turn into demons. She leaves the Advocate.

Daughter and Poet at the walls of the castle growing from the ground. The daughter realized how difficult it is to be a man. The poet reminds her that she promised to reveal to him the secret of the world. The daughter tells that at the dawn of time, Brahma, the divine fundamental principle, allowed the mother of the world Maya to seduce herself in order to multiply. This contact of the divine first mother with the earthly became the fall of heaven. Thus, the world, life, people are nothing more than a phantom, an appearance, a dream. In order to free themselves from earthly matter, the descendants of Brahma seek hardship and suffering. But the need for suffering collides with the thirst for pleasure, or with love. There is a struggle between the pain of pleasure and the pleasure of suffering. This struggle of opposites gives rise to strength. The daughter suffered on earth much more than people, because her feelings are more subtle. The poet asks her what caused her the most severe suffering on earth. The daughter replies that her existence: the feeling that her eyesight is weakened by her eyes, her hearing is dulled by her ears, and her thought is entangled in a labyrinth of fatty convolutions. To shake off the dust from her feet, the Daughter takes off her shoes and throws them into the fire. The Doorkeeper enters and throws his shawl into the fire, the Officer his roses, on which only thorns remain, and the Glazier his diamond, which opened the door. The theologian throws the martyrology into the fire, for he can no longer defend a God who does not defend his children. The poet explains to the Daughters who the martyrs for the faith are. The daughter explains to him that suffering is redemption and death is deliverance. The poet read that when life is nearing its end, everything and everything rushes by in a whirlwind. The daughter says goodbye to him. She enters the castle. Music plays out. The castle lights up and the bud on its roof blossoms into a giant chrysanthemum flower. On the backdrop, lit by the flames of the burning castle, many human faces appear - surprised, saddened, desperate ...

O. E. Grinberg

(Spoksonaten)

Drama (1907)

The old man is sitting in a wheelchair by the poster stand. He sees the Student talking to the Milkmaid and telling her that the day before he was rescuing people from under the rubble of a collapsed building. The old man hears the words of the Student, but does not see the Milkmaid, for she is a vision. The old man speaks to the Student and finds out that he is the son of the merchant Arkenholtz. The student knows from the late father that the Old Man - the director of Hummel - ruined their family. The old man claims the opposite - he rescued the merchant Arkenholz from trouble, and he robbed him of seventeen thousand crowns. The old man does not demand this money from the Student, but wants the young man to render him minor services. He tells the Student to go to the theater to see the Valkyrie. The Colonel and his daughter will sit in adjacent places, living in a house that the Student likes very much. The student will be able to get to know him and visit this house. The student looks at the daughter of the Colonel, who is actually the daughter of the Old Man: once the Old Man seduced the wife of the Colonel Amalia. Now the Old Man decided to marry his daughter to the Student. The student says that he was born in a shirt. The old man speculates that this gives him the ability to see things that others can't (he means the Milkmaid). The student himself does not know what is happening to him, for example, the day before he was pulled into a quiet lane, and soon the house collapsed there. The student caught a child walking along the wall when the house collapsed. The student remained safe and sound, but he did not have a child in his arms. The old man takes the Student by the hand - the young man feels what an icy hand he has, and recoils in horror. The old man asks the Student not to leave him: he is so infinitely lonely. He says he wants to make the Student happy. The Old Man's servant Johanson appears. He hates his master: once the Old Man saved him from prison and for this he made him his slave. Johanson explains to the Student that the Old Man longs to rule: “All day long he rides around in his gurney, like the god Thor ... inspects houses, demolishes them, lays streets, pushes apart squares; but he also breaks into houses, breaks into windows, rules the fate of people, kills enemies and forgives nothing to anyone." The old man is afraid of only one thing: the Hamburg milkmaid.

In the round living room of the house, beloved by the Student, guests are waiting. Johanson is hired to help the Colonel's servant Bengtson meet them. Bengtson announces to Johanson that so-called "ghost dinners" are regularly held in their house. For twenty years now, the same company has been gathering, they say the same thing or are silent so as not to say something out of place. The mistress of the house sits in the pantry, she imagined herself to be a parrot and became like a talkative bird, she cannot bear the cripples, the sick, even her own daughter because she is sick. Johanson is amazed: he did not know that Freken was sick.

An Old Man on crutches comes to visit the Colonel and tells Bengtson to report himself to the owner. Benggson exits. Left alone, the Old Man looks around the room and sees the statue of Amalia, but then she herself enters the room and asks the Old Man why he came. The old man came for his daughter. It turns out that everyone around is lying - the colonel has a false birth certificate, Amalia herself once faked her year of birth. The Colonel took the Old Man's bride, and the Old Man seduced his wife in revenge. Amalia predicts to the Old Man that he will die in this room, behind the Japanese screens, which are called mortals in the house and put up when it is time for someone to die. Amalia says that people who hate each other regularly gather in their house, but sin, guilt and mystery bind them inextricably.

The old man is talking to the Colonel. The old man bought up all his bills and considers himself entitled to dispose of his house. The old man wants the Colonel to receive him as a guest, in addition, he demands that the Colonel drive away his old servant Bengtson. The colonel says that, although all his property now belongs to the Old Man, the Old Man cannot take away the coat of arms of the nobility and his good name. In response to these words, the Old Man takes out of his pocket an extract from a noble book, which says that the family, to which the Colonel allegedly belongs, died out a hundred years ago. Moreover. The old man proves that the Colonel is not a colonel at all, because after the war in Cuba and the transformation of the army, all the previous ranks were abolished. The old man knows the secret of the Colonel - this is a former servant.

The guests are coming. They silently sit in a circle, except for the Student, who goes into the room with hyacinths, where the Colonel's daughter is sitting. Always, when Freken is at home, she is in this room, she has such a strangeness. The old man says that he entered this house in order to tear out the tares, reveal the sin, take stock and enable the young to start life anew in this house, which he gives them. He says that everyone present knows who they are. And who he is, they also know, although they pretend not to know. And everyone knows that Freken is actually his daughter. She withered in this air, saturated with deceit, sin and falsehood. The old man has found a noble friend for her - the Student - and wants her to be happy with him. He tells everyone to disperse when the clock strikes. But Amalia goes to the clock and stops the pendulum. She says that she can stop the passage of time and turn the past into nothing, what has been done into something not done, and not by threats, not by bribery, but by suffering and repentance. She says that for all their sinfulness, those present are better than they seem, because they repent of their sins, while the Old Man, who dresses in the toga of a judge, is worse than all of them. He once lured Amalia with false promises, he entangled the Student with a fictitious debt of his father, although in fact he did not owe the Old Man a single era ... Amalia suspects that Bengtson knows the whole truth about the Old Man - that's why the Old Man wanted to get rid of him. Amalia rings the bell. The little Milkmaid appears at the door, but no one but the Old Man sees her. Horror froze in the eyes of the Old Man. Benggson talks about the atrocities of the Old Man, he tells how the Old Man, who at that time was a usurer in Hamburg, tried to drown the milkmaid girl, because she knew too much about him. Amalia locks the Old Man in the pantry, where she has been sitting for many years and where there is a string that is quite suitable for hanging on. Amalia orders Benggson to block the door to the closet with mortal Japanese screens.

Froken in the room with hyacinths plays the harp to the Student. On the fireplace is a large Buddha holding a hyacinth root on his knees, which symbolizes the earth; the stem of the hyacinth, straight as the earth's axis, rushes upward and is crowned with star-like flowers with six rays. The student tells Freken that the Buddha is waiting for the earth to become the sky. The student wants to know why Freken's parents don't talk to each other. She replies that the Colonel and his wife have nothing to talk about because they don't trust each other. "Why talk if we can no longer deceive each other?" - the Colonel thinks, the freken complains about the cook, who runs everything in the house. She is from the vampire family of Hummels, and the owners can neither drive her away nor cope with her. This cook is a punishment for their sins, she feeds them so that they wither and become emaciated. In addition to her, there is also a maid in the house, for whom Freken has to clean up endlessly. The student tells Freken that he dreams of marrying her. "Be quiet! I will never be yours!" - she answers, but does not explain the reasons for her refusal. The student is surprised how many secrets there are in their house. He sees that if people were completely frank, the world would collapse. A few days ago, the Student was at the church for the funeral of Director Hummel, his imaginary benefactor. At the head of the coffin stood a friend of the deceased, a respectable elderly gentleman. And then the Student found out that this elderly friend of the deceased burned with passion for his son, the deceased borrowed from his son's admirer. A day after the funeral, the pastor was arrested, whose heartfelt speech at the coffin so touched the Student: it turned out that he had robbed the church cash desk. The student tells that his father died in a lunatic asylum.

He was healthy, just one time he could not restrain himself and told the guests gathered in his house everything that he thought about them, explained to them how deceitful they were. For this he was taken to a lunatic asylum, and there he died. The student recalls how the Colonel's house seemed to him a paradise, but it turned out that he, too, was completely saturated with lies. The student knows that Freken refused him because she is sick and has always been sick. "Jesus Christ descended into hell, the descent into hell was his descent to earth, the land of madmen, criminals and corpses, and the fools killed him when he wanted to save those who wanted to, and they let the thief go, they always love thieves! Woe to us! Save us. Savior of the World, we're dying!" Freken falls, pale as chalk. She tells Bengtoon to bring the screens: he brings the screens and sets them up, blocking the girl. Harp sounds are heard. The student prays the Heavenly Father to be merciful to the deceased.

O. E. Grinberg

(Lowenskoldska ringen)

Roman (1920-1928)

The action of the first novel of the trilogy "The Ring of Löwenskiöld" takes place in the Hedeby estate, which the old general Löwenskiöld receives as a reward from King Charles XII for his faithful service in the war. After the death of the illustrious general, fulfilling the will of the deceased, the shade, also a royal gift, is placed in his coffin. The family crypt remains open for several days, which allows the peasant Bordsson to steal the jewel at night. Seven years later, the illegal owner of the ring dies. All these years he was haunted by misfortunes and misfortunes: the estate burned down, the cattle fell from a rampant pestilence, and Bordsson became impoverished, like Job. The pastor, who confessed the peasant before his death, learns about his sin and receives the missing ring. The son of the deceased, Ingilbert, who overheard the confession, forces the pastor to give the ring to him. A few days later, Ingilbert is found dead in the forest. Three travelers who accidentally pass by and discover the body are suspected of murder, and although the ring is not found with them, they are sentenced to death.

Thirty years later, Marit, the bride of one of the executed, unexpectedly finds a knitted hat at the bottom of the chest, into which Löwenskiöld's ring was sewn. How did he get there? Mertha, Ingilbert's sister, recognizes her brother's hat. Marit decides to return the ill-fated ring to the young Löwenskiöld, Baron Adrian, sewing the jewel into his cap. Since then, peace in the Hedeby estate has been disturbed. Both the maids and the owners are convinced that the ghost of the old general lives in the house. Baron Adrian falls seriously ill. The doctor says he has a few hours to live. But the housekeeper Malvina Spaak, who is in love with the young Löwenskiöld, lives in the house and does everything possible to save her beloved. On the advice of Marit, she takes Adrian's clothes (including a cap with a ring) and puts them in the old general's grave. As soon as the ring returns to its true owner, Adrian's illness passes, peace reigns in the house.

The action of the second novel of the trilogy "Charlotte Löwenskiöld" takes place in Karlstad, its characters are the family of Baroness Beata Ekenstedt from the Löwenskiöld family. This educated, charming and universally admired woman has two daughters and a son. She idolizes her son, Charles Arthur. He passes the entrance exams to the famous Uppsala University brilliantly, standing out among fellow students with intelligence and erudition. Once a week he sends letters home, and the Baroness reads them aloud to all her family at Sunday dinners. The son is convinced that his mother could become a great poetess if she did not consider it her duty to live only for her children and her husband; all his letters are filled with love and admiration. At the university, Karl-Arthur meets Freeman, an ardent supporter of pietism (a religious movement within the Lutheran church that preached asceticism in everyday life and the rejection of all worldly pleasures. - N.V.), and falls under his influence. Therefore, having received the title of master and becoming a doctor of philosophy, he also passes the examination for the pastor. Parents did not like the fact that their son chose such a modest career.

Karl-Arthur receives a place in the pastor's estate in Korschyurk and becomes an adjunct pastor. The pastor and the pastor are elderly people, they wander around the house like shadows, but their distant relative, Charlotte Loewenskiold, a cheerful, lively, lively girl, taken into the house by a companion, breathed new life into them. Charlotte is well versed in all things pastoral, so she teaches Charles Arthur how to baptize children and how to speak at prayer meetings. Young people fall in love with each other and announce their engagement. Charlotte understands that Charles Arthur needs a decent salary to get married, and she tries to convince her fiancé to apply for a teaching position, but he does not want to hear about it. Therefore, one day, wanting to scare Karl Arthur, the girl publicly declares that, despite her love for her fiancé, if the rich factory owner Shagerström asks her, she will not refuse him. Karl-Arthur, along with the guests, laughs at Charlotte's words, taking them for a joke.

The careless words dropped by the girl reach Shagerström, and he decides to get to know her. At the pastor's estate, Shagerström is given a warm welcome, because both the pastor and the pastor are against Charlotte's engagement to a man who resolutely refuses to think about the maintenance of the family. But the proud Charlotte is offended and throws indignantly at Shagerström: "How dare you come here and ask for my hand if you know that I'm engaged?" A worthy rebuff, Freken Löwenskiöld, even more disposes to her the richest man in Korschyurka. Karl-Arthurzhe doubts the bride and suspects that she refused Shagerström only because she hopes to see an adjunct pastor as rector of the cathedral or even a bishop in the future. Charlotte, having heard accusations of double-mindedness and greed, does not consider it necessary to make excuses. Young people quarrel, and Karl-Arthur exclaims in anger that now he will marry only the one whom God himself chooses for him, meaning by this that the first unmarried woman who meets him on the way will become his wife. The choice falls on Anna Sverd, a poor peddler from Dalecarlia, a remote mountainous area, a young and beautiful girl. She will not hesitate to agree to join her fate with a man who would like to remain a poor man for life, rejecting wealth and earthly goods, - this is how Karl-Arthur argues. The Dalecarlian, barely recovering from the unexpected proposal, not believing her happiness, cherishes the dream of living in her own house in prosperity and contentment.

Meanwhile, Shagerström, having learned about the gap between Charlotte and Charles Arthur, is trying to reconcile the young, believing that their happiness is destroyed through his fault. He offers Karl-Arthur a factory pastor in the mines, but the young man rejects such a lucrative offer. By this time, the assistant pastor had already managed to sell himself in his parish. Possessing the gift of eloquence, the young priest with heartfelt sermons attracts parishioners who gather from afar for Sunday services and, with bated breath, catch his every word. Charlotte, who continues to love Charles Arthur and is having a hard time with the termination of the engagement, nevertheless causes hostility among others and serves as an object of ridicule and bullying. Blame it on Thea Sundler, the organist's wife, in love with Charles Arthur. The woman is hypocritical and treacherous, she sees her enemy in Charlotte. It is she who unambiguously hints to Charles Arthur that Charlotte repented of her refusal to Shagerström and intentionally quarreled with her fiancé so that he canceled the engagement. In this vicious slander, Thea made believe not only Karl-Arthur, but also all those around him. Charlotte tries to write a letter to Baroness Eckenstedt, the only person in the world who understands her, and tell the whole truth about what happened, but, after rereading it, the girl notices that, wanting to prove her own innocence, she portrays the actions of Charles Arthur in a very unsightly way. . Charlotte is unable to cause grief to her adored, failed mother-in-law, so she destroys the letter and, for the sake of peace between mother and son, silently endures vain accusations. But the peace in the Ekenstedt family has already been broken. When the baroness finds out about her son's intention to marry a Dalecarl woman, she, who has seen Charlotte only once, but managed to fall in love with an independent and intelligent girl, prevents this marriage in every possible way. The adamant Karl-Arthur, not wanting to give in to his parents and breaking off relations with them, marries Anna Sverd,

The young wife hopes for a separate pastoral estate with a maid in the house and a large household. What was her disappointment when she saw a house consisting of a room and a kitchen, and found out that she would have to cook, heat the stove and everything else around the house herself. All hopes are shattered in an instant. In addition, Thea Sundler, whom Karl-Arthur considers his friend (not realizing her true feelings) and whom he trusts with the arrangement of his new home, causes sharp pain to Anna Sverd. The girl sees an old single sofa in the kitchen, and Thea explains that it will be comfortable for her to sleep here. The unfortunate Dalekarlian immediately understands that in this house she is destined for the role of a servant. She falls into despair, not finding understanding and love from Kard-Arthur, and only her strong, hardworking nature helps her to pass the test. She has no time to delve into her own mental anguish, as Charles Arthur soon rescues ten orphans who were threatened with being exposed and sold at auction, and takes them under his care.

Now Anna Sverd comes to life: she gives all her strength and love to the children, and the kids reciprocate. Work is constantly in full swing in the house, laughter does not stop, but Karl-Arthur is unhappy that children's noise interferes with his studies. And one fine day, he tells his wife that he is giving the children to their distant relatives who do not mind this. Anna is heartbroken, the burden of parting with her children is unbearable for her, and she leaves Karl-Arthur. After learning that she will have a child, she goes to the baroness and receives the money she needs to purchase her own house.

Charlotte Löwenskiöld, who married Shagerström, is nevertheless interested in the life of Charles Arthur. Therefore, when she learned that he had decided to distribute the orphans, she was very surprised by this inhuman act. The astute Charlotte realizes that Karl-Arthur did not do this without the influence of Thea Sundler. She meets with Karl-Arthur, trying to protect him from this cruel and vengeful woman, but she sees that another person is already in front of her and it is unlikely that she will be able to save him.

One day, Charlotte is invited to a guest by a distant relative, Baron Adrian Löwenskiöld, a wealthy owner of Hedeby. He tells her about the terrible death of his brother, Yoran, who has long led a dissolute life, wandered with gypsies and froze at night in his wagon. Gyoran has a daughter, and Adrian, knowing that Charlotte has no children, offers her to take the girl to raise. Charlotte happily agrees, but the child is kidnapped. Charlotte and Adrian pursue the thieves, and on the way, Adrian reminisces. Malvina Spaak was in love with his father, Adrian, and he owed his life to her. Therefore, Adrian Sr. sharply condemned his sons when he realized that they disliked Thea Sundder, Malvina's daughter. Moreover, when Yoran began to scare Thea with the ghost of the old general, and she told her mother about everything, he had no other choice but to run away from home.

From that time on, Yoran began a wandering life. Adrian believes that it was little Thea who condemned Gyoran to death in a ditch by the side of the road. In addition, Adrian reports that the child was kidnapped by none other than Karl-Arthur. It turns out that he has long fallen, mired in lies, crimes, poverty. This is facilitated by Thea Sundler, who has long shared his fate. Saving the child, Adrian dies, Charles-Arthurzhe miraculously remains alive thanks to Charlotte. Thea tries to bring Charles Arthur back by force, but Charlotte saves him and takes him away from this low woman, capable of bringing only suffering.

Eight years passed, and in 1850 Karl-Arthur returned to Korschyurka from Africa, where he was a missionary. Finally, he found his true place in life, now he has learned to love his neighbors. When Anna Sverd heard his sermon and felt the kindness of heart in every word of his, she realized that this was the same person "to whom she once sent bows with migratory birds."

N. B. Vinogradova

(Doctor Glas)

Roman (1905)

The novel is written in the form of the diary of Tuco licentiate of medicine Gabriel Glas. At thirty-three, he had never known a woman. He does not hide the fact that he does not tell everything about himself, but at the same time he does not prevaricate, trusting his thoughts and feelings to the diary. A diary for him is a convenient and non-committal form of detached self-observation, an activity that helps to fill a spiritual void and forget about loneliness. Glas has no personal life, and he has long been disappointed in his professional activities, although in his youth the choice of the profession of a doctor was dictated by his ambitious dreams and the desire to become a "friend of mankind."

From childhood, accustomed to discipline and self-restraint. Glas achieves brilliant results at school and university. Sensuality awakens in him rather slowly, and the young man early develops the habit of subjecting all his thoughts and actions to reflection. However, he soon loses all interest in acquiring purely external knowledge, and close attention to the innermost movements of the soul, enthusiastic and ardent in its own way, against the background of loneliness, which does not brighten up anyone's friendship and love, gradually leads Glas to disappointment in life and cynicism. When Glas is once again faced with the request of an unknown woman to terminate an early pregnancy, he coldly notes in his diary that this is already the eighteenth case in his practice, although he is not a gynecologist. As before, Voice resolutely refuses, citing his professional duty and respect for human life. However, the concept of duty has long meant nothing to him, Voice understands that duty is a screen that allows you to hide fatigue and indifference from others. Glas is aware that in some cases he could go to the extent of violating medical ethics in order to save the reputation of some girl, but he does not want to sacrifice his career and position in society. However, he immediately admits to himself that he is ready to take any risk for the sake of "The Real Deal". So Voice leads, in fact, a double life and, despising the bigots and hypocrites who surround him, plays the role of a respectable member of the society he hates.

Pastor Gregorius is one of those people that Dr. Glass especially hates. He is fifty-six years old, but he is married to a young and beautiful woman. Unexpectedly for Glas fru Helga Gregorius comes to his reception and admits that she has a lover, and her husband is deeply disgusting to her. She has no one else to turn to for help, and she begs the Voice to convince her husband, who wants a child, not to force her to fulfill her marital duty under the pretext that she is sick and needs treatment. The voice, which is enraged by the very word "duty", this time decides to help a woman for whom he feels sincere sympathy. In a conversation with the pastor, Voice advises him to refrain from intimate relationships with his wife, since her fragile health needs careful attention. However, the pastor still seeks intimacy with her, and one day Helga again comes to Glas's appointment and says that her husband took her by force. When the pastor complains to Glas about his heart, he uses this pretext and categorically forbids Gregorius intimate relations with his wife. However, Voice understands that this will not achieve anything. Gradually, he comes to the conclusion that he can really help Helga only if he saves her from her hated husband. Voice understands that secretly from himself he has long loved Helga, and for the sake of her happiness, he decides to kill the pastor. Subjecting to a scrupulous analysis of the motives of the act that he is going to commit. Voice comes to the conclusion that the murder of Gregorius is the very "Cause" for which he is ready to put everything at stake. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Glas, under the guise of a new medicine for heart pain, gives the pastor a pill with potassium cyanide to drink, and in the presence of several witnesses declares death from heart failure.

The crime gets away with Voice, but discord reigns in his soul. At night, fear begins to haunt him, and during the day he indulges in painful reflections. He committed a crime, but nothing has changed in his life: the same blues, the same cynicism and contempt for people and for himself. However, Voice does not feel any guilt behind him, since he comes to the conclusion that he, the murderer, knows only some of the facts and circumstances of the pastor's death, but in essence, he knows no more than others: death, like life, was and remains incomprehensible, it is shrouded in mystery, everything is subject to the law of inevitability, and the chain of causality is lost in darkness. Having visited the funeral mass, Glas goes to the Finnish bath, meets friends there and goes to a restaurant with them. He feels renewed and rejuvenated, as if he had recovered from a serious illness: everything that happened seems to him an obsession. But his high spirits are again replaced by despondency and longing when he learns that Klas Rekke, Helga's lover, is going to marry Miss Levinson, who, after the death of her father, a stockbroker, inherited half a million. The voice sincerely regrets Helga, who has gained freedom, but will soon lose her lover.

Gradually, the Voice comes to the idea that one should not try to understand life at all: the most important thing is not to ask, not to solve riddles and not to think! But his thoughts are confused, and he falls into hopeless despair. The pastor begins to appear to him in a dream, which aggravates the already difficult state of mind of the doctor. Soon he learns about the engagement of Klas Rekke with Miss Levinson. The voice is tormented by the pangs of unrequited love, but does not dare to go to Helga and ask her for help, as she once turned to him. Autumn is coming, Voice understands that he is unable to understand anything or change anything in his destiny. He resigns himself to this inescapable mystery and indifferently watches how life passes by.

A. B. Vigilyanskaya

Roman (1930)

When Benjamin Bork, known simply as Benbe, turns twenty-two, he is about to go to America and there to carry out one of his many projects that have one goal: to get rich without spending too much effort. Nothing keeps the young man at home. Benbe's father, who belonged to an old family of respectable burghers, died when Benbe was still a child, his mother also died, having done her best to give her son a harsh upbringing. However, she succeeded a little in this: gifted with an inquisitive mind, Benbe is distinguished by frivolity and inconstancy. He managed to become a bachelor of philosophy and graduate from a trade school, but still does not know what to do. With youthful carelessness, Benbe hopes that once in America, in the country of "unlimited possibilities", he will somehow be able to find a place in life. The money for the trip is given to him by his maternal uncle, Lengsel, who, together with his wife and two daughters, Vera and Karolina, lives in the Vernoye estate. From his uncle, the young man learns that their relative, Jonathan Bork, cousin of the late father Benbe, lives in America. Uncle tells Benba about how Jonathan ended up in America. Jonathan, who was not so much raised as spoiled by his grandmother Bork, was an extremely unbalanced child and amazed all his relatives with his eccentric behavior. However, at the same time, the boy was distinguished by sincerity, good nature and was so nervous and shy that his grandmother put up with his antics and did not dare to resort to severe punishments.

One night, young Jonathan robbed the jewelry shop of the Jew Havenstein, and gave away all the trinkets to school friends. The scandal was going to be hushed up, but the tomboy did not wait for the denouement and, having stolen a few hundred dollars from his grandmother's closet, disappeared. After a while, letters began to come from him from America, from which it was clear that his life was not easy. After the money was sent to him, no news came from him, and twelve years later Jonathan wrote a letter to his relatives asking if he could visit his grandmother. For some reason, she decided that he would appear hungry and in rags, and was ready to forgive her grandson and even find him a decent job, but when she found out that Jonathan had become fabulously rich, she, to the amazement of all relatives, put him out the door. The proud old woman could not accept the fact that Jonathan, secretly acting through the jeweler Havenstein, bought her estate, which she was forced to sell, and invited her to become its owner again. But most of all, my grandmother resented the fact that Jonathan acquired untold wealth, becoming a famous clown throughout America. She grew up in a simple peasant family and could not help but despise the people of this profession. Jonathan stayed for a few weeks at the Vernoye estate, and then arrived only two years later, after the death of his grandmother, and since then no one has heard from him.

Vera, Benbe's cousin, an ugly, sickly and eccentric girl, hands him a sealed bag to give to their famous relative, and Benbe leaves. In America, he fails to get a job, especially since he does not really strive for this, and when he lives all the money, he tries to meet with Jonathan Bork, known to the public under the pseudonym Yak Trakbak. But this turns out to be not an easy task: Yak's secretary looks through all the letters that are written to him, and the entrance to the huge clown's estate is securely guarded. After several unsuccessful attempts, Benbe despairs of meeting Yak, but he himself comes to him, and Benbe sees a frail and timid person in front of him. Convinced that Benbe, despite his frivolity and propensity for adventure, is an honest and decent young man, the clown invites him to his estate, in which almost all household items, including furniture, were taken out of his grandmother's house in Sweden. The estate is a bizarre conglomeration of numerous courtyards, picturesque lawns, buildings and covered passages in which you can get lost: this is a real labyrinth. In addition to Yak himself, his young wife lives here, the former dancer Siv, an elderly couple of Swedish servants, an elderly Austrian major de Grazie and a black porter Longfellow with his wife and a bunch of children. Secretly from Yak, his secretary, Abel Rash, the son of the jeweler Havenstein, comes to Benba. He insists that Benbe leave America as soon as possible, and promises him a large sum from the Yak Truckback syndicate, which deals with the financial affairs of the famous clown. The four owners of the syndicate - influential politicians and big businessmen Adam, Israel, Bych, Perch, as well as the brother of the oil tycoon, neurologist Henny - are seriously concerned that Benbe's arrival could disrupt Truckbuck's planned tour of America: huge money has already been put into this business and they do not intend to lose a considerable percentage of the profits. The clown finds out about Benbe's conversation with Rash and becomes furious. He is going to fire the secretary and take Benbe in his place. Moreover, Yak announces to the owners of the syndicate that he will not sign the contract, since he has completely exhausted all his creative possibilities, and performances have long become a real torture for him.

But the syndicate is not going to give up their money so easily. Then Yak announces that he is abolishing the syndicate and instructs his lawyer to lead the trial. Benbe is amazed to see that he is embroiled in a difficult and dangerous game. The young man remembers the sealed bag, which his cousin Vera asked to give to Yak. The clown unpacks the bag: it contains a lady's glove, a pair to the one that Yaku was given as a keepsake by his lover many years ago. Yak confesses to Benbe that he had a brief affair with Maria, Benbe's aunt and his uncle's wife. The clown still fondly remembers her. Yak begs the young man to go to Sweden and bring back Vera, their daughter, the fruit of their secret love. Benbe learns that his aunt secretly corresponded with Yak from her husband and even sent him photos of Vera.

Benbe comes to Sweden and woo Vera's sister, pretty and cheerful Karolina. It turns out that on the bag that Vera gave to Yak through Benbe, it was written by Maria's hand that it should be handed over to Jonathan Bork only after her death, but the eccentric Vera decided to do her own thing. Benbe conveys Yak's request to Maria Langsel, who agrees to send Vera to her real father. Langsel guesses everything, but does not show it. He sincerely regrets his wife Maria, especially since she does not have long to live: she has liver cancer.

Benbe with Caroline and Vera leave for America. Benbe has grandiose plans: he is going to become a journalist, and in this he is helped by his new acquaintance, an influential Swedish businessman who takes the young man under his protection. Yak receives a letter from Maria, in which the dying woman bitterly tells him everything she thinks of him: he is a pitiful and low egoist, he is "her shame, a dirty stain on her name." The clown falls into a severe depression and is unable to enter the arena. To delay the day of the show, he deliberately falls off the trapeze during practice and breaks his ankle. His daughter arrives, but the relationship between them does not add up. Vera inherited from her father exactly those character traits that do not enjoy the love of others - eccentricity, uncontrollability, irritability, selfishness and painful ambition, but at the same time she is completely devoid of any talents. She does not understand that her father is tired of fame and despises his audience, the girl is flattered by her father's popularity, and she is pleased to bask in the rays of his glory. Desperately, Yak realizes that he has nothing in common with his daughter, and she demands more and more attention from him and does not tolerate anyone near him, even his wife Siv.

The day of Yak's performance is approaching. In a huge hall, the audience is looking forward to dangerous acrobatic stunts and funny jokes of their pet. But Yak disappoints the audience: he delivers an impromptu monologue, either referring to the "Clown Catechism" written by him a few days before the performance, or reasoning aloud, as if he were alone in this hall. The clown expresses to the idle crowd everything he thinks about life, about art, about love, about the appointment of an artist. But no one understands that this is Yak's confession to himself: everyone is waiting for him to finally start a fun performance. The clown becomes ill and is led off the stage. After some time, Yak gives in to the demands of the syndicate and performs in a vulgar play composed for the needs of the public. All this time, Vera is tormented by idleness and, out of boredom, tries to seduce first Major de Grazie, who is afraid of her, and then Yak's secretary, Abel Rash.

The clown thinks of nothing but peace. But about five hundred eminent guests come to his estate to take part in a grandiose ball, which is given in honor of Yak. The preparations for the feast fall on the shoulders of Major de Grazie, who arranges colossal fireworks to the deafening sounds of jazz. Yak is so confused by surprise that his heart almost breaks, but the guests think that this is his next trick and laugh at how cleverly he plays deadly horror. Someone releases monkeys, the clown's favorite animals, from their cages, and they rush around the park. The guests, excited by music, wine and dances of half-naked teenagers dressed up as Indians, begin to behave more and more unbridled. Vera enjoys a holiday that threatens to turn into a bacchanalia, and openly flirts with young people, but none of them take her seriously. The clown is thoughtful and sad. He looks at Vera with bitterness, pity and contempt. Siv, who alone understands what is going on in Yak's soul, fears that he will give vent to his irritation, but Yak tells her that he is a clown and will be able to hide his true feelings. A few days later, Yak receives a notice of the death of Maria Langsel.

A. V. Vigilyanskaya

(Det eviga leendet)

Roman (1920)

Somewhere in the darkness, beyond life, the dead sat and talked. Everyone talked mostly about themselves, but everyone else listened intently. In the end, having discussed their position, the dead decided to act.

One of those sitting in the darkness was indignant at the living, he considered them too presumptuous. The living imagine that everything that exists is supported only by them. But life has several billion dead people! And it is the dead who have been tormented by spiritual struggles for many millennia.

Another from the darkness objected to him: the living also mean something. Of course, they shamelessly speculate on what is created by the dead, and exalt themselves too much. But you have to give credit to the living.

The first of the darkness continued: he was very significant during his lifetime. So significant that it was as if created in order to die! In general, only what remains after death is significant.

No, the opponent who has already spoken out objected to him, here he, for example, was also a wonderful personality, but he was created just the opposite in order to live. There are few people endowed with the talent of life - those about whom it can be said that they really lived.

That seemed to be the end of the conversation between the dead. But a third man intervened, a squat fat man with small eyes and short legs, such as merchants are usually imagined. This was the merchant, and his name was Petterson, and in that other life he was very fond of his shop, goods, the smell of coffee, cheese, soap and margarine. Petgerson died hard. It is difficult to count on immortality for a herring that has wrapped its whole life. Besides, Petgerson did not believe in life after death. But here he sits here in the dark. He is grateful. He lived. He died. And yet he is alive. He is very grateful for all this.

Then others spoke. Those whose life and death were full of meaning and even philosophical, and others, with ordinary, rustic destinies, sometimes touching in their naivety. Even the most primitive dead, who lived in ancient times, made sounds. The savage did not know who he was, he did not even remember that he had once lived. He remembered only the halls of a large forest, resin and damp moss - and yearned for them.

And still the dead sat in the darkness, suffering in life from their specialness. One, for example, was missing a thumb on his right hand. He lived an ordinary life, communicated with other people, and yet he felt lonely. Another had a peculiarity: he suffered from the presence of a black spot on the nail of the middle toe of his left foot. He was born with a speck, passed his whole life with it, and died with it. Everyone thought that this man was like everyone else, and no one understood his loneliness, And he spent his whole life looking for his own kind and left her without being understood.

A man and a woman were talking in the darkness, they were drawn to each other even here. A woman has always been happy just because she was with her beloved. But she didn't understand him, he insisted. All his life he fought and suffered, and built, and destroyed, but she did not understand him. Yes, but she believed in him, the woman protested. He fought with life, and she lived. So they bickered. darkness, united and irreconcilable.

And one of those sitting in the darkness said nothing. He could not tell others about his fate. To them, it might seem insignificant or even ridiculous. He himself worked all his life as a servant of an underground public toilet: he collected fees from incoming people and distributed paper. In natural human needs, he did not see anything humiliating and considered his work necessary, although not very important.

Away from the others sat two - a young man and a gray-haired old man. The young man was talking to himself: he promised his beloved to sail to her on the shore, fragrant with lotus flowers. The old man admonished the young man, he told him: his beloved had died long ago, and it was he, the old man, who held her hand when she was dying, because he is her son, he knows: his mother lived a long and happy life with his father, he recognized only from a faded photograph, his mother never remembered him: after all, love is not everything, but life is everything ... But the young man continued to whisper, turning to his beloved, and he told the old man that his whole life was love, a different life He does not know.

There were louder voices in the darkness. One of the dead lived on an island, within which a fire was enclosed. He loved a girl named Giuditta and she loved him too. Once they went to the mountains and met there a one-eyed old woman - with this eye the old woman saw only the true. The old woman predicted to Judith that she would die in childbirth. And although the narrator decided not to touch his beloved, so that she lived, she forced him to master herself and married him, she was a very earthly woman. When Giuditta gave birth to a child and died and the narrator left the hut with a newborn in her arms, he saw his tribe singing a hymn in honor of the symbol of fertility - the phallus, and just at that moment the fire burst out of the ground on the mountains, and everyone stood and waited him, not trying to save himself, because it was impossible to save himself, and they sang a hymn in honor of the fertility of life. At that moment, the narrator understood the meaning of life. Life is important only life in general. She, of course, needs trees, and people, and flowers, but they are not dear to her separately - having manifested herself in them, life easily destroys them.

Then another voice spoke, slow, clear, and infinitely soft. The speaker claimed: he is the savior of people. He announced to them suffering and death, freeing them from earthly joy and earthly torment. He was a temporary guest on earth and taught: everything is only an appearance, the expectation of a truly existent. He called God his father, and death - his best friend, for she was supposed to connect him with God, who sent him to live among people and take upon himself the sorrow of all living things. And so the people crucified the speaker, and the Father hid him in the darkness to hide him from human eyes. Now he is here, in the dark, but he did not find the Father here and understood: he is just a man, and the sorrow of life is not bitter, but sweet, it is not what he wanted to take upon himself with his death.

Before he could finish, another voice nearby announced: but he, who is speaking now, was a head waiter in earthly life, he served in the largest and most visited restaurant. Maitre d' is the most difficult and respected profession, it requires a subtle ability to guess human desires. What could be higher! And now he is afraid that they, on earth, have not yet found a worthy replacement for him. He is worried about this. He suffers.

The dead stirred, no one understood anything, each repeated his own, but then another one rose - in life he was a shoemaker - and delivered a fiery speech. What is truth? he asked. Earthly life is a complete mess. Everyone knows only himself, although everyone is looking for something else. Everyone is alone in the infinite space. You need to find something one, the same for everyone! We need to find God! To exact from him an answer for a life that confuses everyone!

Something that spoke deeply wounded the dead. And everyone realized what a terrible confusion life is, and agreed that there is no peace, no soil, no solid foundation in it. Although some thought: is there a God? But they were persuaded to go looking for him - after all, many people wanted to find him.

And the long journey began. More and more groups joined the dead, and in the end they merged into a vast human sea, which seethed and bubbled, but gradually, oddly enough, was ordered. In fact, united by a common idea, the dead quickly found their own kind: the especially unfortunate found the especially unfortunate, in general happy - in general happy, rebels - rebels, magnanimous - magnanimous, knitters of brooms - knitters of brooms ... And then suddenly it opened : the variety of life is not so great! One group of the dead called out to another. Who are you? some asked. We are the Petterson shopkeepers, they answered. And who are you? And they were answered: we are those who have a black spot on the nail of their left foot.

But when everyone finally figured it out and peace and quiet came, people felt emptiness. There was no confusion. Everything was in order. And the feeling of loneliness disappeared - the lonely united with millions of lonely people. All problems resolved themselves. And there was no need to seek God.

And then someone unsightly stepped forward and said: “What is this! Everything is so simple that, it turns out, it’s not worth living! There is nothing mysterious in life. And everything in it is just a simple repetition of essentially simple functions. it turns out, for nothing? The only thing that remains of a person, whoever he is, is a pile of manure for the next year's grass. No! It is imperative to find God! So that he will answer for the worthlessness of the life that he created! "

And everyone moved on. Thousands of years passed, and they all raved and wandered, and already began to despair. Then, having consulted, they chose the most wise and noble and put them in front. And those, in fact, after another thousand years, pointed to a bright speck flickering ahead. It seemed that before him - hundreds of years of travel, but a speck of light suddenly turned out to be nearby. Light poured from an iron lantern with dusty glass, it fell on an old man who was sawing firewood. The dead were surprised. You are a god? they asked. The old man gave them a bewildered nod in response. “And we are the life you created.” We fought, suffered, worried and believed, we guessed and hoped... For what purpose did you create us? - The old man was confused. Terrified, he looked at the crowds surrounding him, looked down and said: - I am a worker. “You can see it,” the chosen elders remarked, and exclamations of indignation were heard from behind. “When I was making life, I didn’t want anything like that,” the old man continued to apologize.

But he threw them into the abyss of despair, doomed them to torment, fear and anxiety, he inspired unjustified hopes in them! So the elders shouted. “I did my best,” the old man replied.

And he gave them the sun and joy, allowed them to enjoy the beauty of life, morning and happiness! So the elders shouted. And the old man answered them the same. He did the best he could. He told them the same thing. And his answer confused those who asked. But passions rushed out. Why did he do all this? Was there a purpose? For what purpose did he launch the diabolical machine of life? People crave harmony and are full of denial, they want diversity and unity, complexity and simplicity - all at once! Why did he make them like this?

The old man listened calmly, On the face of it he was still embarrassed, but his humility had diminished. He answered them. He is just an employee. And he worked tirelessly. And he didn't aim for anything too complicated. Not to joy, not to sorrow, not to faith, not to doubt. He just wanted people to have something and not have to settle for nothing.

The elders felt something prick in their hearts. The old man grew before their eyes. And their hearts were filled with warmth. But the people behind did not see what was happening ahead. And, in order to prevent any attempt at deceit, thousands of children were put forward, who followed with everyone. Why did God create these innocent little ones? They are dead! What was he thinking then?

The children did not know what they wanted from them, they liked the old grandfather, they reached out to him, and he sat down among them and hugged him. He did not think anything then, - God said, caressing the children.

Crowds of the dead stood looking at God with children, and something was melting in everyone's chest. Everyone suddenly felt a mysterious connection with Him and realized that He is the same as them, only deeper and greater than them.

It was difficult for them to leave God, and it was the children who parted with him the hardest. But the old man told them that they should obey adults. And the kids obeyed!

The crowds of the dead were on their way again. People calmly and peacefully, like brothers, talked to each other. And the meaning of all their very different words came down to what one old man said. And he said a simple thing - he accepts life as it is. After all, it is impossible to imagine any other life anyway!

Having reached the region of darkness from which they all came out, and having said everything they wanted to say, the dead dispersed. Everyone went to the place that was prepared for him in the future.

B. A. Erkhov

Tale (1967)

Mariamne, the wife of Herod the Great, king of Judea (years of his life c. two of his own sons from Mariamne - Alexander and Aristobulus (not mentioned in the story).

The people of Judea considered King Herod a despot and a stranger: the Romans put him on the royal throne, whom he knew how to please, he came from Judea, a desert area south of the Dead Sea. The same Romans helped Herod to seize his own capital - Jerusalem. Undoubtedly, King Herod was capable of inspiring fear - his inherent cruelty and intoxication with power, coupled with a sharp mind and strong will, made him a dangerous enemy. But there was in Herod both a love of life and a love for beauty. And although he treated the clergy and their rituals with mockery, it was he who undertook the restoration of the Jerusalem temple, the course of which the king personally observed, arranging the construction so that it did not interfere with the performance of religious rites. It was rumored that the king started this construction out of pride - in order to glorify his own name for centuries. Rumor generally attributed to Herod many vices. It is only known for sure that in love Herod was rude and cruel: having quenched his passion, he was filled with disgust for a woman and often changed concubines, then giving them to his close associates. All the more surprising was what happened to him one day at the city gates on the road leading to Damascus.

Here Herod first saw Mariamne, who struck him to the core. Although Herod did not even get a good look at the girl, he only noticed that she was young and fair-haired. He began to look for Mariamne, without resorting to the help of his spies, they would have soiled her appearance. Unexpectedly, Mariamne came to the palace herself - to ask for the boy, her relative, who rushed to the guard Herod. The boy wanted to avenge his executed father - one of the Maccabees. By turning to Herod for mercy, Mariamne thus exposed herself to terrible danger. The king appreciated her courage; he did not yet know that she could not do otherwise. He released the boy, but told Mariamne that he was doing it only for her.

The news of the unprecedented intercession swept through the whole city. Nobody has been able to do this yet. Mariamne was approached by women whose sons or husbands had been captured by Herod. She refused no one and was able to help many, but not all. Her debt to Herod grew, and she feared what would come next. Finally, the moment came when the king asked Mariamne to become his wife.

On their wedding night, Herod's violent passion frightened her. Although Herod tried to be more restrained and attentive with her than with others, he still could not tame Mariamne. She understood that she did not love him, and only tried to please him in order to soften his temper and humble his cruelty. She also tried not to dwell on what she couldn't stand in him.

Mariamne succeeded and much more. The king released almost all the prisoners he kept in the dungeons of the palace, executing only his most implacable enemies. The people of Jerusalem praised the queen. And the relatives of Mariamne began to hate her, considering her a traitor. But she didn't know about it. The old maid who brought her news of her relatives kept silent about it.

Time passed, but the king's passion for Mariamne did not subside, never before had he known a woman like her. Herod really loved her. And the resentment grew in him. Herod was far from stupid and gradually realized that Mariamne was only trying to please him, but did not love him. The king suffered, but endured humiliation, without showing his offense in any way. Then he began to show in every possible way that he did not really need Mariamna, and stopped approaching her. This is how he expressed love.

Soon the king learned with anger that the boy, whom he had released, had fled to the mountains, where the Maccabees had gathered an army against him. Before, Herod had always been the attacking side, but this time the Maccabees came out first, and the king's troops suffered one defeat after another. Then Herod himself. went on a hike. During a decisive battle in which he won, he saw a runaway boy in the camp of the enemy, attacked him and cut him with a sword from shoulder to heart. Herod's companions were very surprised by his act: the boy was practically defenseless.

Returning, Herod fell on his knees before Mariamne and without a word began to pray that she would forgive him his cruelty - Mariamne knew what had happened to her relative, and blamed herself for his death. She forgave the king: she wanted to regain her influence on him, and also, as she involuntarily admitted to herself, her awakened female body needed him. So she felt doubly guilty.

The people breathed a sigh of relief again. But not for long. Herod became more and more restless, he increasingly fell into suspicion and unbelief. The moment came when he openly expressed to Mariamne: she does not love him, he notices this every time he lies down with her, she betrays herself already by trying so hard to show him ardor and passion, which she does not feel at all. After this explanation, Herod again went with the army to the mountains to fight the Maccabees, and calm and lonely days came for Mariamne; at this time, she finally found out what was hidden from her: her relatives abandoned her. Mariamne, who met Mariamne in the square near the well, pretended not to notice her.

When Herod reappeared in Jerusalem, he told Miriamne that he would now have other women. And he again started the former order in the palace. Of course, promiscuous women disgusted him. But disgust, in a strange way, only kindled lust in him.

Dark days have come again. People were seized in their homes, and then they disappeared. The dungeons of the palace were filled with prisoners, and the chambers with painted harlots. Herod needed them not only for lust, but also for the humiliation of Mariamne. His heart remained evil even in love.

Once he began to reprimand Mariamne for the fact that she endures such a life and does not notice what is happening around, does not shame and does not condemn him for his debauchery. Is this how a real queen should behave?.. But, looking at Mariamne, Herod stopped short... He never met her again until her death.

The old maid who brought news of her relatives to Mariamne was ordered to be killed by Herod. She probably helped the enemies of the king to secretly communicate with his wife. Moreover, Herod suspected Mariamne herself of a conspiracy. She was just the perfect conspiracy figure! Of course, the king knew that this was not true. But he constantly convinced himself of this. Like many passionate and cruel natures, he was very afraid of death. And he was maniacally suspicious. Herod carefully hid from himself what was the cause of his thoughts. And he did not admit to himself those dark motives that were hiding at the bottom of his muddy soul.

And the people of Jerusalem still loved the meek queen, although now she could do nothing more for him.

Herod hesitated. Can he continue to tolerate this woman next to him? She lived very close to him. A strange woman whom he had not seen for a long time. This is dangerous! Enough! We must put an end to this!

The king hired an assassin. Both in physique and face, he was very much like him. For some reason, out of the many people who were ready to fulfill his order, the king chose this particular person.

Herod saddled his horse and left Jerusalem. On the way, he reversed his horse and galloped back at full speed. But he knew he wouldn't make it. When Herod broke into the palace, Mariamne was already dying: he fell on his knees in front of her, wringing his hands and repeating only one word: "Beloved, beloved ..."

Soon he ordered to seize the murderer and bring him to him. He killed him with his own sword. The killer didn't resist.

After the death of Mariamne, the life of the king did not change at all. She, as before, proceeded in malice, hatred and pleasure in vice. Moreover, the vices of the king multiplied over time. In the end, he managed to destroy all the men from the Maccabee tribe that were dangerous to his power. The people who suffered under his yoke had no hope left.

But the king did not forget Mariamne. He was sick, aging, he was increasingly overcome by the fear of death. The Magi informed him of the birth of the King of the Jews. Herod followed them and thus learned that the baby was born in the small city of Bethlehem. He then ordered to kill all the boys in that city and around it, but when his terrible will was fulfilled, the baby with his parents was already far away.

King Herod was left alone. All close associates and servants left him. In the lonely days of his old age, he often thought of Mariamne. One night, while walking around her chambers, he collapsed to the floor, repeating her name. The great king Herod was only a man. He lived his allotted time on earth.

B. A. Erkhov

(Rid i natt! Roman fran Varend 1650)

Roman (1941)

The scene of the novel is the author's birthplace, the forests of the southern province of Varend, or rather, the village of Brendabol (the name is fictitious). People living in the twelve courtyards of Brandabol become dependent on a new neighbor - the landowner Kleven, who arrived from Germany: he serves at the court of the Swedish Queen Christina and introduces a new order in the district - serfdom.

Kleven acts with self-confidence, characteristic of a person with unlimited power. First, he is given the right to collect taxes, then - the right to the working time of the peasants: a little more - and they will all become his serfs. Understanding the depth of the danger that awaits them, the villagers take an oath to protect their ancient liberties: they will seek intercession from the queen, and if necessary, they will take up arms. However, the local head of administration, the voigt serving the landowner, takes the peasants by cunning: after waiting for some time, he enters the village at dawn with a detachment of reiters. Taking advantage of surprise and the threat of force, he forces the local elected headman Jon Stonge to agree to corvée. Then, with the help of the headman, he forces all the men of the village to agree one by one, with the exception of two: the hero of the novel, the young bond (peasant) Svedye and the local blacksmith-gunsmith. In the house of Svedye, the fochta and the soldiers also have a surprise in store - the owner meets them with weapons in their hands , will injure one of the reiters who raised a hand against him, and goes into the forest. And from now on, a Vogt settles in his estate: from here he oversees the peasants: instead of working in their own fields, they now go to corvée (they are building a new house for the German Kleven), as a result, the hungry winter that the village has just experienced turns into hungry summer and autumn.

However, in the depths of their souls, the peasants of Brendabol remain unbroken, they are sure that the lost liberties will be returned - either by the queen, or they will return them themselves. That's just to do it with the least losses - the dead do not have freedom for the future. And then a baton (in a peasant way "shtafet") is secretly delivered to Brendaball - a wooden board a cubit long, charred and bloody, with a sign carved on it - a flail. In other, prosperous times, another baton was passed through the villages of the district every few years - a burning torch, from the fire of which the stoves were rekindled - the "new fire" helped to discard the memory of the misfortunes experienced by the owners and forget about the mistakes they made. In a dashing time, when the enemy was seriously threatening the peasant community, a “shtafet” was launched - a call for uprising and unity - it was passed from village to village on horseback or on foot, night or day, personally or on behalf. But the "shtafet" delivered to Brendabol was not lucky: he fell into the hands of the same elected headman Jon Stong, who had already lost to the focht once. Having weighed all the pros and cons, the judicious headman celebrates the coward this time too: he buries the "staple" in the ground, which is also not easy for him - according to custom, the one who delayed the "stafet" was punishable by death. But hiding the "stuff" from the authorities also deserves to be executed. From now on, the headman lives in constant fear: the cursed board will either be dug out of the ground by an unringed pig, or it will be washed by an underground source found in this place.

Double-dealing does not bring happiness to the headman. From longing for Svedya, who has gone into the forest, the daughter of the headman Bottila almost goes crazy. The father refused the word given to Svedya, now he promises his daughter's hand to another. In addition, the wandering village widow Annika accuses her of witchcraft and secret relations with the Unclean - otherwise why would she go to the forest, where obviously there can be no one? In utter desperation, Bottila lays hands on herself. However, the headman is ready to lose his daughter rather than give her to the hated Svedya - he envies the determination and inner freedom of the young bond. Even the food that is now in the house of Stand, thanks to the patronage of the Vogt, is more than enough, he does not please him: all of it is devoured by the long and white worms that have wound up in the headman's womb. Both literally and figuratively, something gnaws at him from the inside.

But Svedye, who left the village, kept peace in his soul, although he also had a hard time on the run: he lives alone in a fox hole among the rocks until he finds another outcast - the village thief, whose name is Ugge Blesmolsky thief. Ugge is a great master in his profession, he is not without a kind of morality: he steals only "from the rich, distributing part of the booty to the poor people. Ugge saves Svedye, who almost died in the forest from illness, who did not want to know him before. experienced and resourceful thief has his own weakness - excessive self-confidence: which is why he dies at the hands of Bezukhy - another outcast, although of a completely different type. Bezukhy - a local executioner who agreed to this position for forgiving him an accidental murder (in memory of which he they cut off his ear). Thus, he saved his life, but hated the whole world. Bezukhy did not pay the corrupt girl, who earns her craft to feed sick and impoverished parents. Ugge reproached Bezukhy for this and received a knife in the back.

A true peasant, Svedye firmly believes in justice, it is immutable for him, like the daily path of the sun from east to west or the innocence of his bride Bottila, with whom he shares a bed at night, not touching her until the wedding. Svedje believes that the efforts of the local priest, to whom his mother turned, will not be in vain and a petition describing the injustice committed against him will reach the queen. Unfavorable news (Queen Christina at the Council of the Estates in 1650 completely took the side of the nobility, refusing to help the petty clergy and peasants) force him to take the matter of restoring justice into his own hands. Svedye openly challenges Kleven to a duel: he knocks on his estate at night to call the landowner to account, but the frightened servants say: Kleven is far away, he is at the court in Stockholm. Having learned about the threats to Svedya, Kleven takes them seriously: he asks the local authorities to judge the one who escaped into the forest and start searching for him. In the end, Svedya was besieged like a wolf in a winter swamp, wounded with a musket shot and buried - by court order! - still alive in the ground.

And yet, the justice that Svedje believed in is eventually restored. Jon Stonga managed to hide the "stuff" from the community. But instead of him, a new one appears in the village: the men of Brandabol made it on their own initiative - the baton is nevertheless passed on.

B. A. Erkhov

(Strandemas Swall)

Roman (1946)

Ten years after the end of the Trojan War. The messenger of the gods Hermes arrives on the island of the nymph Calypso, where Odysseus has been living for seven years now, with a report and instructions: The time has come for the Wanderer to return home and put things in order there. But Odysseus does not aspire to Ithaca, for he understands that he will again be forced to kill, and he has always been not so much a king and a warrior as a plowman. He was forced to leave his homeland and take part in the war of conquest launched by the Olympians in order to show that war is also a "deity" that requires sacrifice. And Odysseus sacrificed Troy, leaving for the war only to return as soon as possible. But now the Wanderer is simply afraid to feel the passage of time again, which you do not feel here, at Calypso. Maybe he was her prisoner, although he never tried to leave. Nevertheless, he has no choice: he must obey the will of the gods.

... And in Ithaca in recent years, riots have really been going on. The suitors of Penelope, who founded the Progress Party, wanting to seize the fortune and power of the Long-Absent King, tried to force the Spouse to consent to the marriage, convincing her that she was ruined. But Penelope nevertheless remained a wealthy woman. Eurycleia, Odysseus's nurse, the ubiquitous old woman, kept going to the mainland, where she traded herself or through nominees. There was an economic and political struggle on the island. The wife was playing for time: at first, Eurycleia advised her to spin all the available wool (this dragged on for several years), and then, when the grooms cut off the supplies, proceed to the fabric of the funeral cover for the father-in-law, rumors about whose illness were spread by the same old woman.

The time of the Wanderer's departure draws near. He would leave the place where he had tasted peace and go into the unknown, into a world that must have changed too much in the past twenty years. Again to the war, which is so sweet to the gods, who do not want to see the human race as sublime and tender, doing everything to bring out "a breed of people where men hastily lighten heavy flesh, a breed <...> men who do not have time to rest on a woman's chest."

... The wife's political tricks were not liked by the Son, who in many ways was still a boy, naive and straightforward. Telemachus subconsciously felt that his mother. A middle-aged woman who has already made her choice and that when the Long-Expectant thinks of young men who want her, her shuttle runs faster ...

On the last night at the Nymph's, the Stranger tells her about what he had experienced. No, not to him, but to a man named utis - Nobody. About how his companions mistook ordinary girls for sirens, and whirlpools - for monsters, how, having drunk strong wine on the island of Kirki, they behaved like pigs ... And also about the fact that he is haunted by memories of the murder of Hector's son - Astyanax. Can't remember who did it. Odysseus tries to convince himself that it was not him, but the war.

... Weaving continued for a long time. And the middle-aged woman yearned rather not for her Spouse, but for men in general. She didn't know if being strong meant waiting or taking care of her own life? Then she had to (at the prompt of Eurycleia) gradually dissolve the canvas, not deceiving, but "pursuing a policy." The grooms found out about everything before they officially announced it: they were not averse to using other people's good. But anyway, the Weave ploy was exposed, and Penelope was led to promise to choose a new husband in a month.

Memories do not let go of Odysseus: he thinks too often about Troy, about the War and about the descent into Hades, which he saw in delirium. Then the soothsayer Tiresias told the Stranger that he would return home knee-deep in blood, when there would no longer be a desire to return. And Odysseus will be unhappy until he finds people in the west who do not know the sea and war. Then, perhaps, he will become the first man of a new breed, and happiness will smile upon him.

Meanwhile, on the advice of a certain Mentes, Telemachus decides to go to Nestor and Menelaus to find out something about his father and prove to everyone that he himself has already grown up. An attempt to officially achieve this fails: the Progress Party easily manages to dissolve the People's Assembly. The son has to go to Pylos in secret.

The voyage of Odysseus starts off well. But soon a storm, the wrath of Poseidon, falls upon him. The Stranger spends several days in raging waves until he comes ashore. "I am a man away from the sea, I live."

Pylos and his ruler Nestor deceive Telemachus' expectations. The young man expected to see a mighty hero, but he meets a talkative old drunkard. Confused in his thoughts, he begins his reminiscences with the words: “Well, at first, of course, we killed the children ...” Nestor did not say anything definite about Odysseus.

The exhausted, hungry Wanderer finds himself in the lands of the Phaeacians, where he is found by the princess Navzikaya, a young girl dreaming of her Only, true hero. "...Real heroes are noble gentlemen, they don't kill children..." The Theacian king receives Odysseus as a welcome guest, and he gets the opportunity to rest a bit. But even here he continues to remember Astyanax, who was killed by the War. "I was a participant in the War. But the War is not me."

The fact that Telemachus has left becomes known to the Progress Party, and the suitors decide to remove the Son as an unnecessary obstacle to power over Ithaca (and then over the rest of the lands) as soon as possible. The spy informs Penelope about the suitors' plan, and Eurycleia immediately sends him to the mainland to warn Telemachus of the danger.

Meanwhile, at a feast held by Tsar Alcinous, the Stranger reveals his real name: partly true, partly simulated excitement at the sound of a song about the Trojan War betrays him. Then he tells everyone about his wanderings, transforming them not in the main, but in the details. In order to be believed, he creates a legend shrouded in a halo of divinity: a volcano turns into a cyclops, strong wine into a magical drink, whirlpools into bloodthirsty monsters ... Odysseus wants the Phaeacians to help him return to his homeland. Maybe he would have stayed here, married Navzikai, but it's too late. He will return to Ithaca and fulfill the role of the executioner prepared for him.

The first person Odysseus meets when he gets home is the chief swineherd Eumeus. Pretending that he did not recognize the King, he says that Odysseus, once again setting foot on the land of Ithaca, will still not return from the war, for he will start it again. He has no choice, because he is just a prisoner of cheerful, playing gods, which the people themselves invented. Blood will flood not only the small island of Odysseus, but all other countries. But probably. The king of Ithaca, having taken away power from the suitors and divided it more among many citizens, will be able to lay the foundation for a new kingdom of man, when people themselves understand who they are and what they should do. And then the power of the gods will no longer be able to draw them into a new war.

Returning from his unsuccessful journey (Menelaus also did not say anything new and did not provide significant assistance), Telemachus meets his father, but does not recognize him: the man he saw did not look like his dreams of a Father, a Hero and a Protector. And Odysseus, having revealed his secret to his son, understands that the family will accept him, maybe they will recognize his body, but never himself.

Disguised as a beggar, the Stranger enters his house. Despite the constant insults of the suitors, it still seems to him that there is no need to kill them all and many can be spared... twenty years of waiting, anxiety and longing.

According to the conceived plan for the extermination of suitors, Telemachus announces that his mother will become the wife of the one who can shoot an arrow from Odysseus's bow through the rings of twelve axes. Grooms cannot do this. They try to turn everything into a joke and, mocking Telemachus and the allegedly dead Odysseus, one by one confirm their death sentence. If the Stranger could have left even one of them alive, he would have said to himself that, disregarding the divine command, he managed to save Astyanax. But he came to kill. I took the bow. Odysseus begins his mission.

And he kills them all. Subsequently, the rumor exaggerated the number of victims of this massacre by almost five times. In fact, there were no more than twenty of them. A doll in the hands of the gods, the personification of war, Odysseus destroys the world for many years, shedding blood under the moans of a giving birth slave, coming from the servants' quarters. And in her room, Penelope is crying, realizing that no one needs a fragment of the war deprived her of her freedom of choice and the right to happiness ...

When, along with the suitors, the slaves, their former lovers, are also destroyed, Odysseus learns that they also want to remove the woman who has given birth and her child from the "world of those who are pure." This decision provokes a protest in the Stranger, because not a single child in this world has done and will not harm him. But it's' too late. Besides, he has no time to think about it: he must go on his journey, a far journey to the west. However, the wise old Eurycleia, with a devoted smile, stops him: "The journey is over, my child, the ships are pulled ashore for the winter. I have prepared a bath for you, my beloved master ..."

V. V. Smirnova

(Aniara. En revy from Mainniskan i tid och rum)

(1956)

The lyrical "I", on behalf of which the narration is being conducted, is "mimorob", a nameless engineer serving Mima - a machine that reproduces sensual images caught from the most remote corners of the universe. Mimorob and Mima, along with eight thousand passengers and crew, are on board the "goldonder" Aniar, making a routine flight from Doris (the former Earth) to the Tundra Planet (as Mars is now called, in the forty-third century). The Goldonder's flight ends in disaster. Turning sharply and thus avoiding a collision with an asteroid, Aniara falls into a stream of stones. Tacking among them along a broken trajectory, she loses control (the "Saba-aggregate" fails) and, having completely lost her course, rushes into the void in the direction of the unattainable constellation Lyra.

Fortunately, all the main components of the goldder ("heat pipe, light pipe and gravity system") are in order. Fell into apathy after the surging panic and despair, the passengers gradually come to their senses. Their position is unenviable. They have an "endless odyssey": they can neither turn, nor go back, nor call for help, the "loxodrome" speed of Aniara's movement is also not so great that they could hope that during their lifetime Aniara could fly to the constellation to which she is directed nose.

Caught in a state of forced idleness, people are looking for something to occupy themselves with. Soon exotic religious sects arose, a considerable part of the passengers and crew became "yurg worshipers" ("yurg" - dance), spending all their time in carnal pleasures. They are helped in this by priestesses of love - "yurgini" Daisy, Yale, Tschebeba and Libidel. Pleasures (Mimorob also pays tribute to them - with Daisy) help to forget ... but not completely: most of the eight thousand population of Aniara (the dimensions of the goldonder are huge, its length is 14 feet, its width is 000) prefers to spend time in the halls of Mima, which transmits a stereoscopic picture of what is happening on other planets and star systems - wherever life exists. Created by man, Mima has the ability to self-develop, moreover, she is endowed with consciousness and a certain degree of freedom - in any case, it is impossible to force her to lie. Mima can only be turned off, with which the Aniarians would not agree: the spectacles of other worlds, no matter how terrible and depressing they may be - and for the most part Mima conveys pictures of decay: he prevails in space - still distract the thoughts of passengers from their own fate.

But in the sixth year of the journey, Mima begins to convey terrible visions of what is happening on Doris: the country of Gond burns in the whirlwinds of the fiery "photonoturba", then the huge Dorisburg, Aniara's homeland, turns into boiling lava. Mima conveys to the passengers not only the "picture", but also the feelings and thoughts of those dying on Earth: from the "thickness of the stone" the dead cry out to them - deaf from the explosion and blind from the flash of light. Now the Aniarians understand what the expression "when the stones cry out" means. What they see and hear paralyzes their will and desire to live for a long time. Mima also behaves strangely after the transmission: at first, interference is detected in her work, then she requires repair and asks to turn it off, on the sixth day Mima declares to Mimorobu that she is blind and refuses to work: her mind is traumatized - Mima destroys herself.

From now on, people are completely alone. The last thread that connected them with the world is broken. It is not surprising that many Aniarians reminisce about the past. Mimorob, as if replacing Mima, draws up their internal monologues. In the longest monologue, the Space Sailor, who previously worked on transporting people from Doris to the Planet Tundra (there are now several zones on Mars called Tundra 1, Tundra 2, etc.), talks about his love for Nobby, a selfless woman who helped wretched and desperate people and who loved even the meager and stunted vegetation of the tundra and its animal world poisoned by metals. From the monologues it becomes clear what kind of mechanized hell Doris-Earth has turned into - the living flame of burning wood is shown to schoolchildren on it as an example of a very ancient curiosity. In the memoirs of other passengers, the main milestones of the path traversed by mankind, as if by the way, emerge: by the 10rd century, "the brilliant kingdom of man / in the smoke of war shone dimmer, / the projects of the humanists failed, / and again it was necessary to dig trenches." Then a "clot of star dust" shielded the Earth from the Sun for as much as XNUMX centuries, and a new era of glaciation began, science and art as a result fell into decay, but did not disappear at all, and after another ten centuries the dust dissipated and the world was restored to its former splendor.

But he looks extremely inhuman. Traveling people to Mars is forced: because of the long wars of earthlings among themselves and with other planets, Doris is poisoned by radioactivity. In the spaceports of Dorisburg, people are sorted according to the readings of their "psycho punch cards". “Gond is useless” (that is, a man), and instead of the Planet Tundra, he is sent to the swamps of Venus, and there they are placed in “Mansions and goals”, intended for the painless killing of their inhabitants. The terrestrial region of Gond, home of the escapees from Dorisburg, has been destroyed by a "photonoturbo". Apparently, by order of the rulers of Doris, the planet Rind with its main city Xinombra was blown up: a naked slave - a captive from this city adorns the "flying garden" of Shefork - the sovereign commander of Aniara (and in the past the commandant of the "Mansions of the Needle"), phantoms " xinombre," like furies of vengeance, haunt the Aniiarians in their sleep. In general, the future of mankind appears on the pages of the poem as frighteningly cruel, blurry and chaotic - this is exactly how Aniary's passengers remember it. And yet they, languishing from the nonsense of being, he is desirable, and they would give everything to return back.

Mimorobe's attempts to restore Mima are in vain. And as if in mockery of the aspirations of the Aniars, an incredible event takes place right next to them - in the same direction as Aniara, a spear rushes ahead of her! It was released by someone unknown. And it is not known for what purpose. But it sets a riddle for everyone - "the spear pierced everyone." This happened in the tenth year of the journey. Aniars now live in anticipation of a miracle. But completely different surprises lie in wait for them: either they fall into an accumulation of cosmic dust, which causes panic on the ship (as a result, the mirrors that increase the visual volume of the interiors are broken, and several "yurgins" are stabbed with their fragments), then they are seized by an eerie feeling of endless falling into a well (and Mimorobu costs a lot of effort to get them out of this state).

As it turns out, the most painful thing is the feeling of aimlessness of life. Shefork, the all-powerful leader of the flight, makes an attempt to overcome it in his own way: he establishes a cult of his personality, requiring human sacrifice. And what? He did not surprise the passengers of Aniara with this: Mima fed them with more terrible spectacles, fragments of which can be viewed again in the Mimorob's Mimostorage, partially restored. Thus twenty-four years pass. By the end of them, many inhabitants of Aniara die a natural death. Among them is the terrible Shefork: after making sure that his power claims do not touch his subjects at all, and finally crucifying several servants of his own cult on four powerful magnets, he, in the past, also a murderer, becomes the most ordinary inhabitant on the eve of his death - power feeds on inspired illusions that residents Aniars are not able to perceive in their special position. Mimorobe sadly recalls his attempt to forget himself in the arms of the absurd beauty Daisy (she died long ago) and his love for Isagel, a female pilot who passed away of her own free will. Aniara's energy is running out. Having settled down around Mima, at its foot, the survivors, having gathered all their courage, "free time from space."

B. A. Erkhov

Roman (1908)

Swiss province at the beginning of the XNUMXth century. A young man named Josef Marti enters the technical bureau of engineer Karl Tobler as an assistant. Before entering a new place, Joseph had to vegetate for several months without work, so he really appreciates his current position and tries to be worthy of the hopes placed on him by the owner. In Tobler's house, a beautiful mansion in which the office is located, Joseph likes everything: his cozy room in the turret, the beautiful garden with a gazebo, the way he is fed, and the fine cigars that his patron treats him to.

The owner of the house, engineer Tobler, gives the impression of a strict, sometimes even harsh, self-confident person, but subject to good-natured surges and sincerely caring for his wards. He has a wife, a tall, slender woman with a slightly mocking and indifferent look, as well as four children - two boys, Walter and Edie, and two girls, Dora and Sylvie. Previously, Mr. Tobler worked as an engineer at a factory, lived with his family on a modest salary. Having received an inheritance, he decided to leave his position, buy a house and open his own invention bureau. That is why he settled with his family in Barensville some time ago.

The engineer has several inventions in his arsenal, for which he is looking for sponsors who can support his undertakings. The clock with wings for advertisements, which can be placed in places with a special congestion of people, for example, in a tram, is already ready. In addition to advertising watches, the engineer is armed with projects of an automatic machine that dispenses cartridges, chairs for the sick and an underground drill. Mr. Tobler spends almost every day traveling and negotiating, looking for a customer for his technical projects.

From the very first week of his stay with the Toblers, Joseph has to show not only his engineering skills, but also to act as a clerk and answer the holders of bills demanding repayment of debts with a request to wait a little longer. In his free time, Joseph bathes in the lake, walks in the forest, drinks coffee with Mrs. Tobler in the garden on the veranda.

On the very first Sunday, guests come to the mansion - this is Joseph's predecessor in the service, Virzich, and his mother. Virzikh fell in love with the Toblers for his devotion and diligence. However, he had one shortcoming, which negated all his positive qualities: from time to time he went into drinking bouts, burst into abuse, shouted insults, but, having sobered up, came back with a repentant look. Mr. Tobler, having read the notation to Virzikh, forgave him. But when this poor fellow went beyond all limits in his insults, the engineer finally fired him and invited a new assistant. Now Virzich again begs to take him back. This time, the engineer really cannot do it, and Virzikha, along with his old mother, has to leave the mansion with nothing.

On weekdays, Josef writes texts for announcements that the engineer is looking for contact with the owners of free capital in order to finance his patents, sends them to large companies, helps Mrs. Tobler around the house, waters the garden. Physical work attracts Joseph, perhaps even more than mental work, although in the latter he seeks to prove his worth. The Tobler family quite often communicates with neighbors, hosts guests, and Joseph is involved in all their undertakings: boat rides, maps, walks in Barensville, and everywhere he has the opportunity to see how dazzling the villagers are with his owners.

On the first of August, Tobler arranges a celebration in his mansion on the occasion of the date of the official formation of Switzerland in 1291. Meanwhile, more and more bills are coming to the office, requiring repayment. Iosef sees his task in protecting the patron from negative emotions, and often he himself answers such messages with a request to wait. One day, in the absence of Tobler, Johannes Fischer arrives at the office, responding to an advertisement for "owners of capital." The assistant fails to show enough courtesy and ingenuity to detain Fischer and his wife until the return of the patron, which infuriates Tobler. Fisher never appears again, but the engineer does not lose hope of moving his business forward.

One Sunday, the Toblers go for a walk, while Sylvie is left at home. As much as the mother loves her second daughter, Dora, she neglects Sylvie just as much. The girl is always to blame for something, her whims drive her mother crazy, she cannot look at her daughter without irritation, because Sylvie is ugly and does not please the eye. She has placed the child almost entirely in the care of Paulina, a maid who treats Sylvie like a slave, forcing her to clear the table and do other things that, strictly speaking, she would have to do herself. Every night, screams are heard from Sylvie's room, because Paulina, coming to wake the girl in order to put her on the potty, and finding that the baby is already wet, beats her. Joseph repeatedly tries to point out to Mrs. Tobler the inadmissibility of such treatment of a child, but each time he does not dare to speak, so as not to further upset this woman, whose soul is becoming increasingly difficult due to material difficulties.

She also has other grievances: a former servant, fired because of her connection with Virzikh, spreads rumors that Mrs. Tobler herself had an intrigue with Virzikh. Madame Tobler writes an angry letter to the mother of the scoundrel and, as if in passing, praises Joseph of his predecessor. The assistant is offended and angrily defends his dignity. Madame Tobler considers it her duty to complain about Josef to her husband. However, he is so immersed in his unhappy thoughts that he almost does not react to her words. Iosef allows himself to criticize even the engineer, which is extremely amazing. For all his insolence, Joseph loves and is even afraid of Tobler, who, due to financial difficulties, does not pay his salary. Unpaid bills, however, do not prevent Tobler from building an underground grotto for relaxation near his mansion, and his wife from using the services of a first-class dressmaker from the capital.

One Sunday, Joseph goes to the capital to have fun. After a nice evening in one of the pubs, he goes outside and sees Virzikh sitting on a bench under the open sky on a frosty night. He takes him to an inn, enlightens him and makes him write several letters to employers. Then he invites Virzikh to go from office to office and look for places. In one of them, happiness smiles at Virzikh and he finds a job.

All their Barensville acquaintances are gradually turning away from the Toblers. The engineer is forced to send his wife, who has not yet fully recovered from her illness, to ask her mother for the part of the inheritance due to him. Madame Tobler manages to get only four thousand francs. This money is only enough to shut the mouths of the most noisy creditors.

Josef seizes the opportunity to talk to Mrs. Tobler about Sylvie. She frankly admits that she does not love her daughter, but she understands that she is wrong and promises to treat her more gently. Christmas this year is very sad in the mansion. Ms. Tobler understands that the family will soon have to sell the house, move to the city, rent a cheap apartment, and her husband will have to look for work.

Josef meets Virzikh in the village, again dismissed due to drunkenness and toiling without work and money. He brings Virzich to the mansion, where Mrs. Tobler allows the unfortunate man to spend the night. The next morning Tobler's anger knows no bounds. He insults Joseph. He asks to pay him a salary. Tobler orders Joseph to get out, then his rage gives way to complaints. Joseph collects his things and leaves the Toblers together with Virzikh...

E. V. Semina

(Don Juan, oder Die Liebe zur Geometrie)

Comedy (1953)

The action takes place in Seville in the "era of beautiful costumes". Don Juan's father, Tenorio, complains to Diego's father that his son, a twenty-year-old young man, is not at all interested in women. His soul belongs entirely to geometry. And even in a brothel he plays chess. This conversation takes place during a masquerade preceding the wedding of Don Juan and Donna Anna, daughter of Don Gonzalo, commander of Seville. Don Gonzalo promised his daughter to Don Juan as a hero of Cordoba: he measured the length of the enemy fortress, which no one else could do.

A masked couple enters. The girl kisses the hands of the young man, assuring that she recognized them; she saw Don Juan play chess in a brothel, and she, Miranda, fell in love with him. The young man assures that he is not Don Juan. Seeing the real Don Juan behind the column, Miranda runs away. Don Juan confesses to a young man, who turns out to be his friend Roderigo, that while he is free, he wants to leave, because he cannot swear eternal love to Donna Anna, he could love any girl he meets. Having said this, Doi Juan hides in a dark park.

Enter Father Diego and Donna Anna, unmasked. After a short conversation with the priest, in which the girl confesses that she is afraid of getting married, she jumps over the balustrade, over which Don Juan jumped shortly before, and disappears into a dark park so as not to meet Don Juan.

Miranda, meanwhile, is crying in front of Celestina, the mistress of the brothel, confessing her crazy love for Don Juan. Celestina gets angry and says that whores "don't sell souls" and shouldn't fall in love, but Miranda can't help herself.

The next day, Donna Ine, the bridesmaid, combs Donna Anna, who is sitting in her wedding dress. All her hair is wet, grass and earth come across in them. Donna Anna tells Donna Ineya that she met a young man in the park at night, and for the first time she knew love with him. She considers him alone as her fiancé and is looking forward to the night, so that, as the young people agreed, they will meet again in the park.

Don Gonzalo and Father Diego rush the girls. The wedding begins. Enter Donna Elvira, the bride's mother, Don Juan's father, Don Roderigo, the bride's three cousins, and the rest. When the veil is removed from Donna Anna, Don Juan is speechless. When asked by Father Diego if Don Juan is ready to swear that as long as he lives, his heart will remain true to love for Donna Anna, Don Juan replies that he is not ready. Last night he and Donna Anna met by chance in the park and fell in love, and tonight Don Juan wanted to kidnap her. But he did not expect that the girl would be his bride, the one who was supposed to wait for him alone. Now he does not know who he really loves, and he does not even believe himself anymore. He does not want to give a false oath and wishes to leave. Don Gonzalo is going to challenge him to a duel. Donna Elvira tries to calm him down. Don Juan leaves, and Donna Anna reminds him of the upcoming date. Her father rushes in pursuit of the groom, orders three cousins ​​to surround the park and release all the dogs. All except Donna Elvira leave. She believes that Don Juan is simply a miracle. The culprit of the scandal himself runs in, he threatens to kill the whole pack and is not at all going to marry. Donna Elvira takes him to her bedroom. Returning Tenorio sees Donna Elvira and Don Juan, embracing, run away. Tenorio is horrified. He has a heart attack and dies.

Celestina, meanwhile, dresses up Miranda in her wedding dress. Miranda wants to appear before Don Juan in the guise of Donna Anna. Let him only once in his life take her for his bride, kneel before her and swear that he loves only this face - the face of Donna Anna, her face. Celestina is sure that Miranda will fail.

In the pre-dawn twilight, Don Juan sits on the stairs and eats a partridge. Barking dogs can be heard in the distance. Enter Don Roderigo. He wandered around the park all night, hoping to find a friend while he jumped from bedroom to bedroom. By the pond, he saw his bride, she either sat motionless for hours, then suddenly broke off and wandered along the shore. She is sure that Don Juan is on a small island, and it is impossible to dissuade her. Roderigo thinks that Don Juan needs to talk to her. Don Juan now cannot talk about feelings that he does not experience. The only thing he feels now is hunger. Hearing the sound of footsteps, the friends hide.

Three cousins ​​enter, all covered in blood, ragged and exhausted. Don Gonzalo learns from them that they had no other choice and they killed the dogs because the dogs attacked them. Don Gonzalo is furious. He intends to take revenge on Don Juan also for the death of dogs.

Don Juan is going to leave the castle at once, for he is afraid of the "quagmire of feelings." He admits that he reveres only geometry, because before the harmony of lines all feelings crumble to dust, which so often confuse human hearts. In geometry there are no whims that make up human love. What is true today is true tomorrow, and everything will remain just as true when it is no more. He leaves and is sure that another will console his bride, and at parting he tells his friend that he spent the night with his bride, Donna Ines. Roderigo does not believe. Juan says he was joking. Roderigo confesses that if this turned out to be true, he would have killed himself.

A woman comes down the stairs, dressed in white, her face hidden by a black veil. Don Juan is surprised why she came, because he left her. He informs her, thinking that before him is Donna Anna, that he spent the night with her mother, then visited the second bedroom, then the third. All women in a man's arms are the same, but the third woman had something that no one else would ever have: she was the bride of his only friend. Donna Ines and Don Juan tasted the sweetness of their own meanness to the very cocks. Roderigo runs away in confusion. Don Juan sees that Donna Anna still believes in his love and forgives him. Don Juan is now convinced that they have lost each other in order to meet again, and now they will be together all their lives, husband and wife.

Don Gonzalo enters and reports that Don Roderigo had just stabbed himself and cursed Don Juan before he died. Don Gonzalo wants to fight Don Juan, but he, shocked by the news, irritably brushes off Don Gonzalo's sword as if it were an annoying fly. Don Gonzalo, stricken by a lightning strike, dies. Father Diego enters, holding the body of the drowned Donna Anna in his hands.

The other bride removes her veil and Don Juan sees that it is Miranda. He asks to bury the poor child, but does not cross himself and does not cry. Now he is no longer afraid of anything and intends to compete with heaven.

In the next act, Don Juan is already thirty-three years old, by which time he has killed many husbands who were watching him and climbing onto the sword themselves. The widows hunted Don Juan to comfort them. The fame of him thunders throughout Spain. All this disgusted Don Juan, he decides to change his life, invites the bishop and persuades him to give him a cell in a monastery overlooking the mountains, where he could calmly study geometry. In exchange for this, he offers to dissolve the rumor throughout the country that he, an inveterate sinner, was swallowed up by Hell. For this, he prepared all the scenery: he bribed Celestina, who disguised herself with a statue of the commander in order to take Don Juan by the hand and go down with him into a pre-arranged hatch from which smoke would come, and also invited witnesses - several ladies seduced by him. The bishop turns out to be Don Badtasar Lopez, one of the deceived husbands, and convinces the ladies who have come that everything that happens before their eyes is a pure spectacle. They do not believe him and are baptized in fear. The rumor about the death of Don Juan is safely spreading throughout the country, and Don Lopez, who unsuccessfully tried to prove that this is a lie, lays hands on himself.

Don Juan is forced to agree with the proposal of Miranda, now the Duchess of Ronda, the owner of a forty-four-room castle, to marry her and live behind the fence of her castle so that no one can see him. In the end, Miranda informs Don Juan that she will have a child with him.

E. V. Semina

Novel. (1957)

Events unfold in 1957. Walter Faber, a fifty-year-old engineer, Swiss by birth, works for UNESCO and is engaged in the establishment of production equipment in industrially backward countries. He travels frequently for work. He flies from New York to Caracas, but his plane is forced to make an emergency landing in Mexico, in the Tamaulipas desert, due to engine problems.

During the four days that Faber spends with the rest of the passengers in the hot desert, he approaches the German Herbert Henke, who flies to his brother, the manager of the Henke-Bosch tobacco plantation, in Guatemala. In a conversation, it suddenly turns out that Herbert's brother is none other than Joachim Henke, a close friend of Walter Faber's youth, about whom he had not heard anything for about twenty years.

Before World War II, in the mid-thirties, Faber dated a girl named Hanna. They were connected in those years by a strong feeling, they were happy. Hanna became pregnant, but for personal reasons and, to a certain extent, due to the instability of the political situation in Europe, she told Faber that she would not give birth. Faber's friend doctor Joachim was supposed to perform an abortion on Hanna. Shortly thereafter, Ganna ran away from City Hall, where she was to register her marriage to Faber. Faber left Switzerland and left alone for work in Baghdad, on a long business trip. It happened in 1936. In the future, he did not know anything about the fate of Hanna.

Herbert reports that after Faber's departure, Joachim married Hanna and they had a child. However, they divorced a few years later. Faber does some calculations and comes to the conclusion that the child they have is not his. Faber decides to join Herbert and visit his old friend in Guatemala.

Having reached the plantation after a two-week journey, Herbert and Walter Faber learn that Joachim hanged himself a few days before their arrival. They bury his body, Faber goes back to Caracas, and Herbert remains on the plantation and becomes its manager instead of his brother. Having completed the adjustment of equipment in Caracas, Faber returns to New York, where he lives most of the time and where Ivy, his mistress, is waiting for him, a very obsessive married young lady, for whom Faber does not have strong feelings before flying to the colloquium in Paris. Having become fed up with society in a short time, he decides to change his plans and, contrary to his usual, in order to part with Ivy as soon as possible, he leaves New York a week ahead of schedule and gets to Europe not by plane, but by boat.

On board the ship, Faber meets a young red-haired girl. After studying at Yale University, Sabet (or Elisabet - that's the girl's name) returns to her mother in Athens. She plans to get to Paris and then hitchhike around Europe and finish her trip in Greece.

On the ship, Faber and Sabet communicate a lot and, despite the big difference in age, a feeling of affection arises between them, which later develops into love. Faber even offers Sabet to marry him, although he had never thought of connecting his life with any woman before. Sabet does not take his proposals seriously, and after the ship arrives at the port, they part.

In Paris, they meet again by chance, visit the opera, and Faber decides to accompany Sabet on a trip to the south of Europe and thereby save her from possible unpleasant accidents associated with hitchhiking. They visit Pisa, Florence, Siena, Rome, Assisi. Despite the fact that Sabet drags Faber to all the museums and historical sites that he is not a fan of, Walter Faber is happy. A feeling he had never known before opened up to him. Meanwhile, from time to time he has unpleasant sensations in the stomach. At first, this phenomenon hardly bothers him.

Faber is unable to explain to himself why, after meeting Sabet, looking at her, he increasingly begins to remember Hanna, although there is no obvious external resemblance between them. Sabet often tells Walter about his mother. From a conversation that took place between them at the end of their journey, it turns out that Ganna is the mother of Elisabeth Pieper (the name of Ganna's second husband). Walter gradually begins to guess that Sabet is his daughter, the child he did not want to have twenty years ago.

Not far from Athens, on the last day of their journey, Sabet, lying on the sand by the sea while Faber swims fifty meters from the shore, is stung by a snake. She gets up, walks forward and, falling down the slope, hits her head on the rocks. When Walter runs up to Sabet, she is already unconscious. He carries her to the highway and first on a wagon and then on a truck delivers the girl to a hospital in Athens. There he meets with a slightly older, but still beautiful and smart Ganna. She invites him to her house, where she lives alone with her daughter, and almost all night long they tell each other about the twenty years that they spent apart.

The next day, they go together to the hospital to Sabet, where they are informed that the timely injection of the serum has borne fruit and the girl's life is out of danger. Then they go to the sea to pick up Walter's things that he left there the day before. Walter is already thinking about finding a job in Greece and living with Ganna.

On the way back, they buy flowers, return to the hospital, where they are informed that their daughter died, but not from a snakebite, but from a fracture of the base of the skull, which occurred at the moment of falling on a rocky slope and was not diagnosed. With the correct diagnosis, it would not be difficult to save her with the help of surgical intervention.

After the death of his daughter, Faber flies to New York for a while, then to Caracas, and visits Herbert's plantation. In the two months that have passed since their last meeting, Herbert has lost all interest in life, has changed a lot both internally and externally.

After visiting the plantation, he again calls in Caracas, but cannot take part in the installation of equipment, because due to severe stomach pains he has to lie in the hospital all this time.

On his way from Caracas to Lisbon, Faber ends up in Cuba. He admires the beauty and open disposition of the Cubans. In Düsseldorf, he visits the board of the Henke-Bosch company and wants to show its management a film he has shot about the death of Joachim and the state of affairs on the plantation. The film reels have not yet been signed (there are a lot of them, since he does not part with his camera), and during the show, instead of the necessary fragments, Sabet's films come across at hand, evoking bittersweet memories.

After reaching Athens, Faber goes to the hospital for an examination, where he is left until the operation itself. He understands that he has stomach cancer, but now, more than ever, he wants to live. Ganna managed to forgive Walter for her life, which he had twice ruined. She regularly visits him in the hospital.

Ganna informs Walter that she sold her apartment and was going to leave Greece for good to live for a year on the islands where life is cheaper. However, at the very last moment, she realized how pointless her departure was, and got off the ship. She lives in a boarding house, she no longer works at the institute, because when she was about to leave, she quit, and her assistant took her place and is not going to leave him voluntarily. Now she works as a guide in the archaeological museum, as well as on the Acropolis and Sounion.

Hanna keeps asking Walter why Joachim hung himself, tells him about her life with Joachim, about why their marriage broke up. When her daughter was born, she did not resemble Hanne Faber in any way, it was only her child. She loved Joachim precisely because he was not the father of her child. Hanna is convinced that Sabet would never have been born if she and Walter had not broken up. After Faber left for Baghdad, Ganna realized that she wanted to have a child alone, without a father. When the girl grew up, the relationship between Ganna and Joachim began to become more complicated, because Ganna considered herself the last resort in all matters relating to the girl. He dreamed more and more about a common child who would return to him the position of the head of the family. Ganna was going to go with him to Canada or Australia, but, being a half-Jew of German origin, she did not want to give birth to any more children. She performed a sterilization operation on herself. This hastened their divorce.

After parting with Joachim, she wandered around Europe with her child, worked in different places: in publishing houses, on the radio. Nothing seemed difficult to her when it came to her daughter. However, she did not spoil her, for this Ganna was too smart.

It was rather difficult for her to let Sabet travel alone, even if only for a few months. She always knew that someday her daughter would still leave her home, but she could not even foresee that on this journey Sabet would meet her father, who would ruin everything.

Before Walter Faber is taken away for surgery, she tearfully asks his forgiveness. He wants to live more than anything in the world, because existence has been filled with a new meaning for him. alas, too late. He was never destined to return from the operation.

E. V. Semina

(Mein Name sei Gantenbein)

Roman (1964)

The plot breaks up into separate stories, and each of them has several options. So, for example, the image of the narrator splits into two different images, Enderlin and Gantenbein, personifying the possible variants of his existence for the narrator. The author does not allow "watching" the fate of his heroes to their natural end. The point is not so much in them, but in the true essence of man, as such, hidden behind the "invisible", in the "possible", only a part of which comes to the surface and finds a real embodiment in reality.

The narrator tries on stories for his hero like dresses. The novel begins with Enderlin getting into a car accident and nearly hitting eleven schoolchildren. As he drove, he must have been thinking about an invitation he had received shortly before to give a few lectures at Harvard. He loses the desire to act in front of his friends and everyone around him as a forty-year-old Ph.D., and he decides to change his image, chooses a new role for himself - the role of a blind man, and calls himself Gantenbein. He acquires all the attributes of a blind man: glasses, a wand, a yellow armband and a certificate of a blind man, which gives him a legal opportunity to gain a foothold in society in this image. From now on, he sees in people what they would never allow him to see, if they did not consider him blind. Before him opens the true essence of all those with whom he communicates, whom he loves. His dark glasses become a kind of element that splits truth and lies. It is convenient for people to communicate with those in front of whom they do not need to put on a mask, who does not see too much.

Posing as a blind man, Gantenbein tries to free himself, in particular, from the vulgar jealousy that was characteristic of him before. After all, the blind man does not see, does not see much: looks, smiles, letters, those who are next to his beloved woman. His appearance changes, but does his essence change?

Enderlin hesitates for a long time before starting to play the role of Gantenbein. He imagines his future life if everything goes as before. One rainy day, he sits in a bar and waits for the arrival of a certain Frantisek Svoboda, whom he has never seen before. Instead, his wife arrives, a blue-eyed, black-haired woman in her thirties, very attractive, and warns Enderlin that her husband will not be able to come, as he is currently on a business trip in London. They talk for a long time, in the evening they are going to go to the opera together, but they never leave her house, where he calls for her before the start of the performance. After spending the night together, they swear to each other that this story will remain without continuation, there will be no letters or calls.

The next day, Enderlin already needs to fly away from this unfamiliar city and really part forever with the woman for whom he begins to have a true feeling. He's going to the airport. His consciousness is divided. One inner "I" wants to leave, the other wants to stay. If he leaves, this story ends, if he stays, it becomes his life. Let's assume he stays. A month later, Svoboda's wife, her name is, for example, Lilya, confesses to her husband that she is madly in love with another. Now the fate of Enderlin largely depends on the behavior of Svoboda, this tall, broad-shouldered, blond-haired Czech with an emerging bald head, as Enderlin imagines him. If he behaves smartly, with dignity, leaves for a resort for a month, gives Lily the opportunity and time to weigh everything and returns without reproach, striking her with his masculinity and romance, she may stay with him. Or, after all, she breaks up and begins a life together with Enderlin. What could this life be like?

It is possible that he met Lily already when he began to portray a blind man. He lives on her content. She does not know that he has his own bank account and that when she does not notice it, he pays fines, receipts, takes care of the car, buys her birthday, supposedly from his pocket money, which Lily gives him, such gifts which she would never allow herself. Thus, the material issue is resolved in the family, when a working, independent woman feels really independent. Suppose Lilya is an actress by profession, a great actress. She is charming, talented, but somewhat messy - she never cleans the apartment and does not wash the dishes. In her absence, Gantenbein secretly puts the apartment in order, and Lilya believes in magical gnomes, thanks to which the mess is destroyed by itself.

He walks around the atelier with her, talking about her outfits, spending as much time on it as no man ever spends. He is present at the theater at rehearsals, supports her morally, gives the necessary advice about her acting and about staging the play.

Meeting Lily at the airport when she returns from the next tour, he never asks her about that man, always the same, who helps her carry her suitcases, because he cannot see him. Gantenbein never asks Lilya about those letters that come to her regularly three times a week in envelopes with Danish stamps.

Lilya is happy with Gantenbein.

However, Gantenbein may not have enough endurance. One fine evening, he may open up to Aida, tell her that he is not blind, that he has always seen everything, and demand from her an answer about this man from the airport, about letters. He shakes Lily, she sobs. Gantenbein then asks for forgiveness. They start a new life. Returning from the next tour, Lily tells Gantenbein about a young man who impudently looked after her and even wanted to marry her. Then telegrams arrive from him with the message that he is coming. Scenes and showdown between Gantenbein and Lilya. Once Gantenbein ceases to play the role of the blind, he becomes impossible. He is in anxiety. They speak frankly. Gantenbein and Lilya are close to each other, as they have not been for a long time. Until one fine morning the doorbell rings.

On the threshold is a young man whom Gantenbein thinks he recognizes, although he has never seen him before. He takes him to Lily's bedroom, being sure that this is the same obsessive dude who sent telegrams to Lily. Lily wakes up and screams at Gantenbein. He locks Lily with a young man in the bedroom with a key, and he leaves. Then, when he begins to doubt whether this is really the same young man, he returns home. Lily - in a blue dressing gown, the door to the bedroom is broken down, the young man turns out to be a medical student who dreams of a stage and has come to consult with Lily. When the door slams behind him, Lily announces that she is leaving; she cannot live with a madman. It's clear. No, Gantenbein prefers to remain blind.

One day he comes to visit Enderlin. Enderlin's lifestyle has changed a lot. He has a rich house, luxurious cars, servants, beautiful furniture, jewelry. The money just keeps flowing into his hands. Enderlin tells something to Gantenbine so that he understands him. Why doesn't Gantenbein say anything? He only makes Enderlin see everything that he is silent about. They are not friends anymore.

The narrator arbitrarily changes Lily's profession. Now Lily is not an actress, but a scientist. She is not a brunette, but a blonde, she has a different vocabulary. She sometimes frightens Gantenbein, at least at first. Lily is almost unrecognizable. She expresses what the actress is silent about, and is silent in those cases when the actress speaks out. Different interests, different circle of friends. The same only bathroom accessories that Gantenbein sees. Or Lily, an Italian countess, who for many centuries has grown accustomed to being shouted at, has breakfast in bed. Even the people she meets get their own style. Gantenbein looks like a count. You can wait for Lily for hours for dinner, she lives in her own time, and it makes no sense for anyone to encroach on him. Gantenbein can't stand it when Lilya sleeps all day. The servants do everything so that Gantenbein does not get angry. The lackey Antonio does everything to make the presence of the countess, whom Gantenbein does not see, at least be heard: he pushes her chair with his knee, arranges the cups, and so on. As the footman leaves, Gantenbein is talking to the absent countess. He asks her about who she has besides him, what she has with Niels (the supposed name of the Dane), says that he once read a letter from Denmark ... What can the countess answer him? .. The countess who is sleeping?

Where is the real Lily? And what, in fact, was in the life of the hero, which is coming to an end? One man loves one woman. This woman loves another man, the first man loves another woman, who again loves another man: a very ordinary story in which the ends do not converge ...

In addition to the main characters, both fictional and true stories of minor characters emerge in the fabric of the narrative. Issues of morality, the world situation in the sphere of politics and ecology are touched upon. The theme of death comes up. One person mistakenly believes that he has one year left to live. How does his life change in connection with this delusion? Another reads his own obituary in the newspaper. For everyone and even for himself, he is dead, because he is present at his own funeral. What remains of his fate, life, connections, the role he used to play? What is left of him? Who is he now?

E. V. Semina

(Der Richter und sein Henker)

Roman (1950-1951)

On the morning of November 3, 1948, Alphonse Klenen, a policeman from Twann, stumbles upon a blue Mercedes parked on the side of the road in the direction of Aambouen. In the car, he discovers the corpse of Ulrich Schmid, Lieutenant of the Bern Police, who was shot in the temple the night before with a revolver. He delivers the victim to the police department, where he worked.

The investigation is entrusted to the elderly commissioner Berlach, who takes as his assistant a certain Tshanets, an employee of the same department. Before Berlach lived abroad for a long time, he was one of the leading criminologists in Constantinople, and then in Germany, but back in 1933 he returned to his homeland.

First of all, Berlach orders to keep the story of the murder a secret, despite the disagreement of his boss Lutz. That same morning, he goes to Schmid's apartment. There he discovers the folder of the murdered person with documents, but so far he has not told anyone about it. When Tschanz, called by him, appears in his office the next morning, for a moment it seems to Berlach that he sees the deceased Schmid in front of him, since Tschanz is dressed exactly like Schmid. Berlach tells his assistant that he knows who the killer is, but Tshanz refuses to reveal his name. Tschanz himself must find the answer.

From Frau Schenler, from whom Schmid rented a room, Tschanz learns that on the days marked with the letter "G" in the calendar, in the evenings her tenant put on a tailcoat and left home. Tschanz and Berlach go to the crime scene. Tschanz stops the car before turning onto the road from Twann to Lambouin and turns off the headlights. He hopes that where Schmid was on Wednesday, a reception is being held today, and he expects to follow the cars that will be sent to this reception. And so it happens.

Both policemen go out not far from the house of a certain Gastman, a wealthy, respected city dweller. They decide to go around the house from different sides and for this they split up. At the very place where Berlach is supposed to meet his colleague, he is attacked by a huge dog. However, Tshanz, who arrived in time, saves Berlach's life by shooting the animal. The sound of the shot makes Gastman's guests, who are listening to Bach performed by the famous pianist, cling to the windows. They are outraged by the behavior of strangers. The national adviser, Colonel von Shandy, who is also Gastman's lawyer, comes out of the house to talk to them. He is surprised that the police associate his client with the murder of Schmid, and assures that he has never met a person with that name, but still asks to give him a photograph of the murdered man. He promises to visit the Bern Police Department the next day.

Tschanz goes to get information about Gastman from the local police. Berlach, whose stomach hurts all the time, heads to the nearest restaurant. After talking with colleagues, Tschanz goes to meet Berlach, but does not find the commissioner in the restaurant, gets into the car and leaves. At the place where the crime took place, the shadow of a man separates from the rock and waves his hand, asking to stop the car. Tschanz involuntarily slows down, but in the next moment he is pierced by horror: after all, probably the same thing happened to Schmid on the night of his murder. In the approaching figure, he recognizes Berlach, but his excitement does not go away from this. Both look into each other's eyes, then Berlach gets into the car and asks to drive on.

At home, Berlach, left alone, takes a revolver out of his pocket, although before that he told Tshanz that he does not carry a weapon, and, taking off his coat, unwinds several layers of fabric with which his hand is wrapped - this is usually done when training service dogs.

The next morning, Lutz, Berlach's chief, is visited by Gastmann's lawyer, Colonel von Shandy. He intimidates Lutz, who owes the colonel his promotion. He informs Lutz that Schmid was most likely a spy, as he appeared at the parties under an assumed name. He argues that in no case should the murder be connected with Gastmann's name, since this threatens with an international scandal, because at Gastmann's evenings, large industrialists of Switzerland meet with high-flying diplomats of a certain power and conduct business negotiations there, which should not be the subject of publicity. Lutz agrees to leave his client alone.

Returning from Schmid's funeral, Berlach finds a certain man in his house leafing through Schmid's stick, calm, withdrawn, with deeply sunken eyes on a broad, high-cheeked face. Berlach recognizes him as an old acquaintance of his, who now lives under the name of Gastman. Forty years ago in Turkey they made a bet. Gastman promised that in the presence of Berlach he would commit a crime, and he would not be able to convict him. Three days later, this is what happened. Gastman threw a man off a bridge and then passed off his death as a suicide. Berlach could not prove his guilt. Their competition has been going on for forty years and, despite Berlach's forensic talent, each time ends not in his favor. Before leaving, Gastman takes Schmid's stick with him, who, as it turns out, was sent by Berlach to follow Gastman. This folder contains documents compromising Gastman, without which the commissar again finds himself powerless against his opponent. Before leaving, he asks Berlach not to get involved in this matter.

After the guest leaves, Berlach has a stomach attack, but he nevertheless soon goes to the office, and from there, together with Tschanz, to the writer, one of Gastman's acquaintances. Berlach constructs a conversation with the writer in such a way that Tshants loses his temper. Tschanz shows with all his appearance that he is sure of Gastman's guilt, but Berlach does not react to his statements. On the way back, the two policemen talk about Schmid. Berlach has to listen to Tschanz's full of indignation attacks against Schmid, who bypassed him in everything. Now Tshanz is determined to find the killer, because, in his opinion, this is his only chance to attract the attention of his superiors. He persuades Berlach to beg Lutz to let him meet with Gastmann. The commissioner, however, assures that he can do nothing, because Lutz is not in the mood to interfere with Gastmann in the murder case.

After the trip, Berlach goes to his doctor, who informs him that he needs to have an operation no later than three days later.

On the same night, someone in brown gloves, having penetrated Berlach's house, tries to kill him, but he fails to do this, and the criminal hides. Half an hour later, Berlach summons Tschanz. He tells him that he is going to the mountains for treatment for a few days.

In the morning, a taxi stops near his entrance. As the car pulls away, Berlach discovers that he is not alone. Nearby sits Gast-man in brown gloves. He once again demands that Berlach stop the investigation. He, however, replies that this time he is going to prove Gastman's guilt in a crime that he did not commit, and that in the evening an executioner will come to Gastman from him.

In the evening, Tshants appears on the estate to Gastman and kills the owner along with two of his servants. Lutz is even glad that now he does not have to intervene in diplomatic troubles. He is sure that Gastman was Schmid's killer, and Tschanz intends to be promoted.

Berlach invites Tschanz to his place for dinner and informs him that Tschanz is the true killer of Schmid. He forces him to admit it himself. The bullets found near the murdered Schmid and in the dog's body are identical. Tschanz knew that Schmid was dealing with Gastman, but did not know why. He even found a folder with documents and decided to take care of this business himself, and kill Schmid so that he alone would succeed. It was he who wanted to kill Berlach at night and steal the folder, but he did not know that Gastman had taken it in the morning. Tschanz thought it would be easy for him to convict Gastmann of Schmid's murder, and he was right. And now he got everything he wanted: Schmid's success, his position, his car (Tschanz bought it in installments), and even his girlfriend. Berlach promises that he will not hand him over to the police, provided that Tschanz disappears forever from his field of vision.

That same night, Tschanz crashes his car. Berlakhzhe goes for an operation, after which he has only a year to live.

E. V. Semina

(Der Besuch der alten Dame)

Tragicomedy (1955)

The action takes place in the provincial Swiss town of Güllen in the 50s. XNUMXth century An old multi-millionaire Clara Tzahanassian, nee Vesher, a former resident of Güllen, arrives in the town. Once upon a time, several industrial enterprises worked in the town, but one after another they went bankrupt, and the town fell into complete desolation, and its inhabitants became impoverished. The inhabitants of Güllen have high hopes for Clara's arrival. They expect her to leave her hometown a few million to renovate it. To "process" the guest, to awaken in her nostalgia for the past times she spent in Gyllen, the inhabitants of the city trust the sixty-year-old grocer Ill, with whom Clara had an affair in her youth.

To get off in a city where trains rarely stop, Clara rips off the stopcock and appears before the inhabitants, surrounded by a whole retinue of her entourage, consisting of her seventh husband, a butler, two thugs, all the time chewing gum and carrying her palanquin, maids and two the blind Kobi and Lobi. She is missing her left leg, which she lost in a car accident, and her right arm, which was lost in a plane crash. Both of these body parts are replaced by first-class prostheses. It is followed by luggage, consisting of a huge number of suitcases, a cage with a black leopard and a coffin. Clara takes an interest in the policeman, wondering if he knows how to turn a blind eye to what is happening in the city, and the priest, asking him if he forgives the sins of those condemned to death. In response to his reply that the country has abolished the death penalty, Clara expresses the opinion that it will probably have to be introduced again, which leaves the people of Güllen bewildered.

Clara decides, together with Ill, to go around all those places where their passion once boiled: Peter's barn, Konrad's forest. Here they kissed and loved each other, and then Ill married Matilda Blumhard, more precisely, in her dairy shop, and Clara married Tzakhanassyan, for his billions. He was found in a Hamburg brothel. Clara smokes. Ill dreams of a return to bygone days and asks Clara to help her hometown financially, which she promises to do.

They return from the forest to the city. At a festive dinner hosted by the burgomaster, Clara announces that she will give Gullen a billion: five hundred million to the city and five hundred million will be divided equally among all residents, but on one condition - on the condition that justice is done.

She asks her butler to come forward, and the residents recognize him as District Judge Hofer, who forty-five years ago was the judge of the city of Güllen. He reminds them of the lawsuit that took place in those days, Clara Vesher, as Mrs. Tzahanassian was called before marriage, was expecting a child from Illa. However, he brought two false witnesses to court, who, for a liter of vodka, testified that they also slept with Clara, so supposedly the father of the child expected by Clara is not necessarily silt. Klara was expelled from the city, she ended up in a brothel, and the child, a girl born to her, died a year after birth in the arms of strangers, in an orphanage in which, according to the law, she was placed.

Then Clara swore that someday she would return to Güllen and avenge herself. Having become rich, she ordered to find those false witnesses who, according to them, were her lovers, and ordered her thugs to castrate and blind them. Since then, they have lived next to her.

Clara demands that justice be finally done. She promises that the city will get a billion if anyone kills Ill. The burgomaster declares with dignity on behalf of all the townspeople that the inhabitants of Güllen are Christians and, in the name of humanism, reject her proposal. It is better to be beggars than executioners. Clara assures that she is ready to wait.

In the hotel "Golden Apostle" in a separate room there is a coffin brought by Clara. Its thugs daily carry more and more mourning wreaths and bouquets from the station to the hotel.

Two women enter Illa's shop and ask to be sold milk, butter, white bread and chocolate. They never allowed themselves such a luxury. And they want to get all this on credit. The following buyers ask for cognac and the best tobacco, also on credit. Ill begins to see clearly and, terribly worried, asks how they are all going to pay.

Meanwhile, a black leopard escapes from Clara's cage, who has already managed to change her seventh husband to her eighth, a film actor. I must say that in her youth she also called Illa "her black leopard." All residents of Güllen take precautions and walk around the city with weapons. The atmosphere in the city is heating up. Ill feels cornered. He goes to the policeman, to the burgomaster, to the priest and asks them to protect him, and to arrest Klara Tsakhanasyan for incitement to murder. All three advise him not to take what happened to heart, because none of the residents took the billionaire's proposal seriously and is not going to kill him. Ill, however, notices that the cop is also wearing new boots and has a gold tooth in his mouth. The burgomaster flaunts in a new tie. Further - more: the townspeople begin to buy washing machines, televisions, cars. Ill senses where things are going and wants to leave by train. He is escorted to the station by a crowd of apparently benevolent townspeople. Ill, however, does not dare to enter the train, because he is afraid that as soon as he is in the car, he will immediately be grabbed by one of them. The black leopard is finally shot down.

Clara is visited by a city doctor and a school teacher. They inform her that the city is in a critical situation, because their fellow citizens have bought too much for themselves, and now the hour of reckoning has come. They ask for loans in order to resume the activities of the city's enterprises. They offer her to buy them, to develop deposits of iron ore in the Konrad forest, to extract oil in the Pyukenried valley. It is better to invest millions at interest in a businesslike manner than to throw a whole billion into the wind. Clara reports that the city has long been entirely hers. She only wants to avenge that red-haired girl who shivered from the cold when the inhabitants drove her out of the city and laughed after her.

The townspeople, meanwhile, have fun at Clara's weddings, which she arranges one after another, alternating them with divorce proceedings. They are becoming more and more wealthy and elegant. Public opinion is not in favor of Illa. The burgomaster talks with Ill and asks him, as a decent person, to commit suicide with his own hands and remove the sin from the townspeople. Ill refuses to do so. However, with the inevitability of his fate, he seems to have almost come to terms. At a meeting of the city community, the townspeople unanimously decide to end Ill.

Before the meeting, Ill talks with Clara, who admits that she still loves him, but this love, like herself, has turned into a petrified monster. She is going to take his body to the Mediterranean coast, where she has an estate, and place it in a mausoleum. That same evening, after the meeting, the men surround Ill and take his life, assuring that they do it only in the name of the triumph of justice, and not out of self-interest.

Clara writes out a check to the burgomaster and, to the admiring and laudatory exclamations of the townspeople, leaves Güllen, where the factory chimneys are already smoking with might and main, new houses are being built, life is in full swing everywhere.

E. V. Selima

Radio play (1956)

Alfredo Trans, the only Gefeston representative in Europe, drives through a small village and wonders how he will deal with his business partner, who wants to extract an extra five percent from him. His car, a brand new Studebaker, stalls near the auto repair shop. He leaves the car for a mechanic to pick it up the next morning and goes to a village inn for the night.

All the hotels, however, are occupied by members of the livestock union. On the advice of the owner of one of them, Trans goes to the house of Mr. Verge, who takes guests. Judge Verge willingly agrees to shelter him for the night, and completely free of charge. Guests are sitting in the judge's house, retired servants of the law: prosecutor Tson, lawyer Kummer, Mr. Pile. Judge Verge asks his servant Simone not to prepare a room for a guest yet, since each guest in his house occupies a room depending on his character, and he has not yet had time to get acquainted with the character of Trance. The judge invites Trance to the table, which is covered with a sumptuous dinner. He informs Trance that he has rendered him and his guests a great service by his arrival, and asks him to take part in their game. They play in their former professions, that is, in court. Usually they repeat the famous historical trials: the trial of Socrates, the trial of Joan of Arc, the Dreyfus case, and so on. However, they do better when they play with a living object, that is, when guests put themselves at their disposal. Trance agrees to take part in their game in the only free role - the role of the accused. True, at first he asks in surprise what kind of crime he committed. They answer him that this is not important, there will always be a crime.

Lawyer Kummer, who is going to play the role of Trance's defense lawyer, asks him to accompany him to the dining room before the "opening" of the court session. He tells him more about the prosecutor, who was once a world celebrity, about the judge, who at one time was considered strict and even pedantic, and asks him to trust him and tell him in detail about his crime. Trans assures the lawyer that he did not commit any crime. The lawyer warns against chatter and asks to weigh every word.

The court session begins at the same time as dinner, which opens with turtle soup, followed by trout, Brussels salad, champignons in sour cream and other delicacies. Under interrogation, Trans reveals that he is forty-five years old and is the main representative of the firm. Just a year ago he had an old car, a Citroen, and now a Studebaker, an extra model. Previously, he was an ordinary textile salesman. He is married and has four children. His youth was harsh. He was born into the family of a factory worker. I was only able to finish elementary school. Then for ten years he peddled and went from house to house with a suitcase in his hand. Now he is the only representative of the company that produces the best synthetic fabric that relieves the suffering of rheumatic patients, perfect for both parachutes and spicy women's nightgowns. This position was not easy for him. First, they had to dump old Gigas, his boss, who died last year of a heart attack.

The prosecutor is extremely pleased that he was finally able to unearth the dead man. He also hopes to discover the murder that Trance has committed to everyone's pleasure.

The lawyer asks Trance, surprised that the interrogation, it turns out, has already begun, to go out with him to smoke in the garden. In his opinion. Trance does everything to lose the process. The lawyer tells him why he and his friends decided to start this game. After retiring, these servants of the law were a little confused when they found themselves in a new role for themselves as pensioners, with nothing to do but the usual senile joys. When they started playing this game, they immediately perked up. They play this game every week with the referee's guests. Sometimes they are street vendors, sometimes vacationers. The possibility of the death penalty, which state justice has abolished, makes their game incredibly fun. They even have an executioner - this is Mr. Pile. Before his retirement, he was one of the most talented craftsmen in one of the neighboring countries.

Trance is suddenly frightened. Then he bursts into laughter and assures that without the executioner, dinner would be much less fun and exciting. Suddenly, Trance hears someone scream. The lawyer tells him that it is Tobias, who poisoned his wife and was sentenced to life in prison by Judge Verge five years ago. Since then, he has been living in a room specially designated for life-sentenced prisoners as a guest. The lawyer asks Trance to confess, did he really kill Gigas? Trance assures that he has nothing to do with it. He expresses his assumption about the purpose of the game, which, in his opinion, is that the person becomes creepy, the game seems to be a reality, and the accused would begin to ask himself if he is not really a criminal. But he's innocent of the old crook's death.

They return to the dining room. They are greeted with noise of voices and laughter. The interrogation resumes. Trance reveals that Gigas died of a heart attack. He also confesses that he learned about his ailing heart from his wife, with whom he had something. Gigas was often on the road and clearly neglected his very seductive wife. Therefore, from time to time, Trance had to play the comforter. After the death of Gigas, he no longer visited this lady. Didn't want to compromise the widow. For the judge, his words are tantamount to admitting his own guilt. Further, the prosecutor comes forward with an accusatory speech and recreates the course of events so skillfully and faithfully that Trance can only shrug his hands in surprise at the sight of the prosecutor's perspicacity. The prosecutor tells about Gigas, that the deceased was a man who went ahead, the means he used were sometimes not very clean. In public, he played the role of a big man, a successful businessman. Gigas was convinced of the fidelity of his wife, but, trying to succeed in business, began to neglect this woman. He was deeply struck by the news of his wife's infidelity. His heart could not withstand the cruel blow, which was conceived and carried out by Trance, who made sure that the news of his wife's betrayal would certainly reach his ears. In a conversation with the prosecutor, Trance finally faces the truth and admits, to the indignation of his lawyer, that he really is the murderer, and insists on it. He is sentenced to death.

The executioner Pile takes him to the room intended for him, where he sees a guillotine from the collection of the judge, and he is seized by a horror similar to that which arises in criminals before a real execution. However, Pile puts Trance to bed, and he instantly falls asleep. Waking up in the morning, Trans has breakfast, gets into his car and, as if nothing had happened, with the same thoughts about his business partner that his head was occupied with the day before the car broke down, leaves the village. He recalls yesterday's dinner and the trial as an extravagant whim of pensioners, surprised at himself, at the fact that he imagined himself a murderer.

E. V. Semina

Comedy (1961)

The action takes place in the early 60s. XNUMXth century in Switzerland, in a private lunatic asylum "The Cherry Orchard". The sanatorium, thanks to the efforts of its mistress, the hunchbacked fraulein Mathilde von Tsang, MD, and donations from various charitable societies, is expanding. New buildings are being built, where the most wealthy and respected patients are transferred. Only three patients remain in the old building, all of them physicists. Lovely, harmless and very likable psychopaths. They are accommodating and modest. They could be called exemplary patients, if three months ago one of them, who considers himself Newton, had not strangled his nurse. A similar incident happened again. This time, the culprit was a second patient who claims to be Einstein. The police are investigating.

Police inspector Richard Vos conveys to Fraulein von Tsang the prosecutor's order to replace nurses with orderlies. She promise to do it.

The ex-wife of the third physicist, Johann Wilhelm Mobius, comes to the hospital, who married the missionary Rose and now wants to say goodbye to her first husband with her three sons, since she is leaving for the Mariana Islands with the missionary Rose. One of the sons tells his father that he wants to become a priest, the second - a philosopher, and the third - a physicist. Möbius is categorically opposed to one of his sons becoming a physicist. If he himself had not become a physicist, he would not have ended up in a madhouse. After all, King Solomon appears to him, The boys want to play flutes for their father. At the very beginning of the game, Mobius jumps up and asks them not to play. He overturns the table, sits down in it and begins to read the fantastic psalms of King Solomon, then drives away the Rose family, who leave frightened and crying, parting with Mobius forever.

Sister Monica, his caregiver, who has been caring for him for two years, sees him pretending to be crazy. She confesses her love to him and asks to leave the lunatic asylum with her, since Fraulein von Tsang does not consider him dangerous. Moebius also admits that he loves Monica more than life, but he cannot leave with her, he cannot betray King Solomon. Monica does not give up, she insists. Then Moebius strangles her with a curtain cord.

The police come to the house again. They again measure something, record, photograph. Gigantic orderlies, former boxers, enter the room and bring the sick a sumptuous dinner. Two police officers carry out Monica's corpse. Mobius laments that he killed her. In a conversation with him, the inspector no longer shows the amazement and hostility that he had in the morning. He even informs Mobius that he is pleased that he found three murderers who, in good conscience, may not be arrested, and justice can rest for the first time. Serving the law, he says, is a grueling job that burns you both physically and mentally. He leaves, conveying friendly greetings to Newton and Einstein, as well as a bow to King Solomon.

Newton comes out of the next room. He wants to talk to Mobius and inform him of his plan to escape from the sanatorium. The appearance of orderlies forces him to speed up the implementation of the plan and do it today. He admits that he is not Newton at all, but Alec Jasper Kilton, the founder of the correspondence theory, who sneaked into the sanatorium and pretended to be a madman in order to be able to spy on Mobius, the most brilliant. modern physicist. To do this, he mastered the German language with the greatest difficulty in the camp of his intelligence. It all started with the fact that he read Moebius' dissertation on the foundations of new physics. At first he considered her childish, but then the veil fell from his eyes. He realized that he had met with a brilliant creation of the latest physics, and began to make inquiries about the author, but to no avail. Then he informed his intelligence, and she attacked the trail.

Einstein comes out of another room and says that he also read this dissertation and is also not crazy. He is a physicist and, like Kilton, is in the service of intelligence. His name is Joseph Eisler, he is the author of the Eisler effect. Quilton suddenly has a revolver in his hands. He asks Eisler to turn around to face the wall. Eisler calmly walks up to the fireplace, puts his violin on it, which he had previously played, and suddenly turns around with a revolver in his hand. Both of them are armed and come to the conclusion that it is better to do without a duel, so they put their revolvers behind the grate.

They tell Moebius why they killed their nurses. They did this because the girls began to suspect that they were not crazy, and thus endangered their missions. All this time they considered each other really crazy.

Three orderlies enter, check for all three patients, put bars on the windows, lock them, and then leave.

After their departure, Kilton and Eisler cheer to praise the prospects that their countries' intelligence could offer to Moebius. They offer Moebius to escape from the lunatic asylum, but he refuses. They begin to "tear" him out of each other's hands and come to the conclusion that the matter still needs to be resolved by a duel, and if necessary, then shoot at Moebius, despite the fact that he is the most valuable person on earth. But his manuscripts are even more valuable. Here Moebius admits that he burned all his notes in advance, the result of fifteen years of work, even before the police returned. Both spies are furious. Now they are finally in the hands of Mobius.

Mobius convinces them that they must take the only reasonable and responsible decision, because their mistake can lead to a world catastrophe. He finds out that in fact both - both Kilton and Eisler - offer the same thing: the complete dependence of Mobius on the organization where he would go to serve, and the risk that a person has no right to take: the death of mankind due to weapons that can be created based on his discoveries. At one time, in his youth, such a responsibility made him choose a different path - to abandon his academic career, to announce that King Solomon appeared to him in order to be locked up in a lunatic asylum, because he was freer in it than outside it. Mankind lags behind physicists. And because of them, it may die, Moebius calls on both colleagues to stay in the madhouse and to pass on the radio to his superiors that Moebius is really crazy. They agree with his arguments.

Following this enter the orderlies in black uniforms, caps and with revolvers. Together with them - Dr. von Tsang. They disarm Kilton and Eisler. The Doctor informs the physicists that their conversation was overheard and that they have long been under suspicion. The doctor declares that King Solomon has appeared to her all these years and said that now it is she who must take power over the world on behalf of the king, because Mobius, whom he first trusted, betrayed him. She says that she made copies of all the Moebius records long ago and, based on them, opened gigantic enterprises. She framed all three physicists, forcing them to kill the nurses, whom she set on them herself, For the world around them, they are killers. The orderlies are employees of her factory police. And this villa from now on becomes the true treasury of her trust, from which all three cannot escape. She dreams of power, of conquering the universe. The world will fall into the hands of a crazy mistress of a madhouse.

E. V. Semina

(Herbal chronicle)

Roman (1942, publ. 1945)

1807. Residents of the small Bosnian town of Travnik, located on the outskirts of the Turkish empire, are worried that soon two consulates will open in their city, which had previously only heard a vague echo of world events, first French and then Austrian, as it became known that Bonaparte had already secured the consent of the Porte in Istanbul. Residents of the town see this as a sign of future changes and treat the news differently. Most of the population are Muslim Turks who hate everything foreign, and perceive any innovation as an encroachment on their traditions and way of life. On the contrary, Jews and Christians - Catholics and Orthodox - live in the hope of getting rid of the Turkish yoke. They remember the recent anti-Turkish uprising in Serbia led by Karageorgi (Giorgi Cherny) and believe that with the arrival of the consuls their situation will improve.

In February, the French consul Jean Daville comes to Travnik. Behind Daville is a difficult and hectic life. In his youth, he was fascinated by the ideas of the revolution, he wrote poetry, was a journalist, a volunteer soldier during the war in Spain, an official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From the very first days of his stay in Bosnia, Daville understands that a hard life and exhausting struggle await him here. Separated from his wife and children, whose arrival he is looking forward to, cut off from the entire civilized world, Daville feels complete helplessness: there is always a shortage of money, which comes very late, while senseless circulars come from the main treasury, and contradictory ones from the ministry. requirements. The consul has to do almost all the clerical work himself, since he has no employees. The Turkish population treats him with undisguised hostility, and Daville at first does not know how to behave. Due to ignorance of the language, he employs an interpreter and personal physician of the vizier Mehmed Pasha, Caesar D'Avenat, whom the Turks called Davna. A Frenchman by nationality, Dawn has long connected his life with the East, but he adopted from the Turks only the worst in character and behavior: deceit, cruelty, hypocrisy, servility to those in power, contempt for the weak.

Daville does not like Dawn, but he is forced to resort to his help in the most delicate situations: he acts as his spy, attorney and mediator in negotiations between him and influential Muslim dignitaries. Daville often visits the vizier, Mehmed Pasha. This is an intelligent and educated person, he sympathizes with the French and supports their reform policy pursued by his patron, Sultan Selim III. However, it is precisely for this that he, like Sultan Selim himself, is hated by the Muslims of Travnik, who do not want to learn anything from the "infidels". In May of the same year, Daville learns that a coup d'etat took place in Istanbul, Sultan Selim III was overthrown from the throne and imprisoned in a seraglio, and Sultan Mustafa IV took his place. French influence in Istanbul has weakened, and this worries Mehmed Pasha, who supports the French. The vizier understands that either resignation or death awaits him.

In the summer, an envoy of the new Kapiji-bashi sultan arrives in Travnik with a secret mission: he must lull the vizier's vigilance with expensive gifts, present a decree according to which Mehmed Pasha remains in Travnik, and then kill him and publicly read the real decree of Mustafa IV on the deposition of the vizier. However, the vizier bribes the envoy's retinue, learns of his plans, and instructs Dawna to poison the capiji-basha. The cause of his death is declared a sudden illness, and the vizier for some time consolidates his shaky position: the Muslims of Travnik, seeing that Mehmed Pasha has avoided deposition, believe that the new sultan favors him. These events make a depressing impression on Daville. He understands that if Mehmed Pasha is deposed, he will have to deal with Sultan Mustafa's henchman, who hates the French. However, for some time in Travnik, and indeed in the whole world - at least it seems to Daville - calm reigns. The congress in Erfurt ends, and Napoleon's interests are focused on Spain. For Daville, this means that the whirlpool of events is moving west.

To the delight of the consul, his wife and three sons come to Travnik, and an official who knows Turkish is sent from Paris. Through the efforts of Madame Daville, meek, pious and hardworking, the house and life of the consul is being transformed. Local residents are gradually imbued with sympathy for a woman who, thanks to her kindness and humility, knows how to find a common language with everyone. Even the monks of a Catholic monastery, who do not like Daville, the representative of the "godless" Napoleon, respect the consul's wife. Des Fosses, the new consular official, is a young and cheerful man, full of hope, but also sober and practical - the exact opposite of Daville. The consul was tired of the revolutionary storms he had experienced, military upheavals and the struggle for a place in the sun, he was disappointed in the ideals of his youth, thoughtless and zealous service to which brought only self-doubt and a constant willingness to compromise. Daville now wants only one thing: peace and tranquility, which, alas, does not exist and cannot exist in this wild country, among people whose true goals and motives cannot be understood by a European.

The Austrian Consul Colonel von Mitterer arrives in Travnik with his wife and daughter. From now on, Daville and von Mitterer, no longer young, family people who could become friends, because they lived a difficult life and know from experience the true price of victories and defeats, are forced to fight with each other for influence on the vizier and his closest employees, to distribute among the people through proxies, false news and refute the messages of the enemy. Each slanders and slanders the other, delays his couriers, opens his mail, bribes servants.

Mehmed Pasha learns from friends in Istanbul that he has been deposed and decides to leave Travnik before the news in the city is known. Daville is upset: in the person of the vizier, for whom he managed to feel sincere sympathy, he loses a reliable ally. Unrest begins in the city: crowds of fanatics from the lower Muslim classes gather at Daville's house and shout threats. The consul and his family lock themselves up for several days and wait out the riots. Finally, a new vizier arrives in Travnik, Ibrahim Pasha, who, as Daville learns, is boundlessly loyal to the deposed sultan. However, Ibrahim Pasha is not a supporter of reforms, and he does not like the French. This cold and withdrawn man is hardened by his assignment to a remote Bosnian province, and Daville fears at first that he will not be able to find a common language with him. However, over time, Daville established a much deeper and more trusting relationship with the new vizier than with Mehmed Pasha. A fierce political struggle continues in Istanbul. Ibrahim Pasha, according to an eyewitness, talks about an attempt to free the deposed Sultan and his tragic death. For the vizier, the murder of Selim III is a real tragedy. He understands that soon his enemies will try to transfer him from Travnik to some other outback, where he will end his days.

Von Mitterer informs Daville that relations between Turkey and Austria are deteriorating, but Daville knows that a conflict is actually brewing between the Vienna government and Napoleon. A fifth coalition is formed against Napoleon, to which the latter responds with a lightning attack on Vienna. It is now becoming clear to everyone why the consulates were established in Bosnia and what purpose they should serve. The employees of both consulates, the French and Austrians, cease all relations with each other, von Mitterer and Daville, sparing no effort and not disdaining any means, develop vigorous activity, trying to win over to their side the vizier and his entourage, the monks of the Catholic monastery, Orthodox priests, prominent townspeople. The paid agents of the consuls are doing subversive work everywhere, which leads to frequent clashes, and Catholic monks pray for the victory of the Austrian emperor over the Jacobin armies and their godless emperor. In the spring, by order from Istanbul, Ibrahim Pasha sets out on a campaign against Serbia. In his absence, Travnik begins to unrest and unrest again. Crowds of brutalized fanatics carry out brutal reprisals against captured Serbs.

In October 1809, peace was concluded in Vienna between Napoleon and the Vienna court. Relations between employees of both consulates are being restored. But Daville, as before, is tormented by one question: is this the final victory and how long will the peace last? His employee Des Fosses does not seem to care about these issues. He confidently makes a career. The young man is transferred to the ministry and informed that within a year he will be assigned to the embassy in Istanbul. Des Fosses is pleased that he has become acquainted with this country, and glad that he can leave it. During his tenure at the consulate, he wrote a book about Bosnia and doesn't feel like he wasted his time.

1810 passes peacefully and happily. Travnicians of all faiths become accustomed to the consuls and their entourage and cease to fear and hate foreigners.

In 1811, von Mitterer was transferred to Vienna, and Lieutenant Colonel von Paulich took his place. This handsome, but completely impassive and cold thirty-five-year-old man neatly performs his duties and has extensive knowledge in many areas, but Daville becomes extremely unpleasant, as the new consul reminds him of an impeccably tuned mechanism. Any conversation with von Paulich is always impersonal, cold and abstract, it is an exchange of information, but not thoughts and impressions.

The wars have ceased, and the French consulate is in charge of commercial affairs, issuing passports for goods and letters of recommendation. Because of the British blockade, France is forced to conduct trade with the Middle East not through the Mediterranean, but by land, along the old trade routes - from Istanbul to Vienna along the Danube and from Thessaloniki through Bosnia to Trieste along the mainland. Daville works with enthusiasm, forbidding himself to think that soon calm and peace will come to an end.

In 1812 the French army moves to Russia. Austria, being an ally of Napoleon, also participates in this campaign with a corps of thirty thousand under the command of Prince Schwarzenberg. However, von Paulich, to Daville's amazement, behaves as if he wants to show the vizier and everyone around him that this war is entirely a French undertaking. By the end of September, it becomes known about the capture of Moscow, but von Paulich, with impudent calmness, claims that he has no news of military operations, and avoids talking with Daville. Ibrahim Pasha is surprised that Napoleon is moving north on the eve of winter and tells Daville that it is dangerous. Daville is tormented by painful forebodings. Therefore, he is not surprised when he learns about the complete defeat of the French army in Russia. A bitter winter rages in Travnik, people suffer from hunger and cold, and for several months the consul is cut off from the outside world and does not receive any news. In March, Daville learns that Ibrahim Pasha has been deposed. For Daville, this is a heavy blow and an irreparable loss. Ibrahim Pasha cordially says goodbye to Daville, with whom he has become close over the years.

The new vizier, Ali Pasha, enters the city accompanied by armed Albanians, and fear reigns in Travnik. Ali Pasha, for any reason, inflicts cruel reprisals, he throws into prison and executes all people who are objectionable to him. Von Paulich is busy about the arrested monks, Daville decides to put in a good word about the Jews who are languishing in prison, since Ali Pasha wants to get a ransom for them.

From Paris come comforting information about the formation of new armies, news of new victories and new orders. Daville understands that the old game continues, and against his will he again becomes a participant in it. War is declared between Austria and France. Ali Pasha, who has returned from a campaign against Serbia, is cold with Daville, as von Paulich informed him of Napoleon's defeat, his retreat beyond the Rhine, and the unstoppable advance of the allies. During the first months of 1814, Daville did not receive any news or instructions from either Paris or Istanbul. In April, he was handed a written message from von Paulich that the war was over, Napoleon had abdicated and his place was taken by the rightful sovereign. Daville is amazed, although he has long thought about the possibility of such an end. However, remembering that Talley-ran, who eighteen years ago patronized him, stood at the head of the new government, Daville sends him a letter and assures him of his devotion to Louis XVIII. Daville proposes to abolish the consulate and asks permission to travel to Paris. He receives a positive response and is going to go. However, he does not have cash, and then suddenly he is rescued by an old merchant, a Jew, Solomon Atiyas, grateful to Daville for always showing kindness and justice to the Jews. Von Paulich also proposes to the palace office that the Austrian consulate be abolished, since he is convinced that unrest will soon begin in Bosnia due to the cruel tyranny of Ali Pasha, and therefore nothing threatens the Austrian borders in the near future. Daville's wife is packing, and he experiences a strange calm: right now, when he is ready to leave everything and move into the unknown, he feels in himself the energy and will that he has been deprived of for the past seven years.

A. V. Vigilyanskaya

Roman (1906)

The narrator is a cat, just a cat that doesn't have a name. He does not know who his parents are, he only remembers how, as a kitten, he climbed into the kitchen of some house in search of food and the owner, taking pity, sheltered him. It was Kusyami - a school teacher. Since then, the kitten has grown and turned into a big fluffy cat. He fights with the maid, plays with the master's children, flirts with the master. He is smart and inquisitive. The owner, in whom the features of Natsume himself are clearly visible, often locks himself in the office, and the household considers him very hardworking, and only the cat knows that the owner often naps for a long time, buried in an open book. If the cat were a man, he would certainly become a teacher: after all, it is so pleasant to sleep. True, the owner claims that there is nothing more thankless than the work of a teacher, but, according to the cat, he is simply showing off. The owner does not shine with talents, but takes on everything. He either composes haiku (three lines), or writes articles in English with many errors. One day he decides to take up painting seriously and writes such pictures that no one can determine what is depicted on them.

His friend Meitei, whom the cat considers an art critic, gives the owner the example of Andrea del Sarto, who said that one should depict what is in nature, no matter what. Following wise advice, Kusyami begins to draw a cat, but the cat does not like his own portrait. Kusyami rejoices that, thanks to Andrea del Sarto's statement, he comprehended the true essence of painting, but Meitei admits that he was joking and the Italian artist did not say anything like that. The cat believes that although Meitei wears gold-rimmed glasses, but with impudence and arrogance, he resembles the neighbor's bully cat Kuro. The cat is upset that he was never given a name: apparently, he will have to live his whole life in this house nameless. The cat has a girlfriend - the cat Mikeko, whom the owner takes great care of: she feeds deliciously and gives gifts. But one day Mikeko falls ill and dies. Her owner suspects that the cat who came to visit her has infected her with something, and, fearing revenge, he stops going far from his home.

From time to time, Kusami is visited by his former student, who has become an adult and even graduated from the university, Kangetsu. This time he invited the owner to take a walk. There is a lot of fun in the city: Port Arthur has fallen. When Kusyami and Kangetsu leave, the cat, having somewhat compromised the rules of decency, finishes the pieces of fish remaining on Kangetsu's plate: the teacher is poor, and the cat is not fed very well. The cat talks about how difficult human psychology is to understand. He cannot comprehend the attitude of the owner to life in any way: either he laughs at this world, or he wants to dissolve in it, or he has generally renounced everything worldly. Cats are much easier in this regard. And most importantly, cats never have such unnecessary things as diaries. People living, like Kusyami, a double life, perhaps, have a need at least in a diary to express those aspects of their nature that cannot be flaunted, for cats, their whole life is natural and genuine, like a diary.

Ochi Tofu comes to Kusami with a letter of recommendation from Kangetsu, who, together with his friends, organized a recitation circle. Tofu asks Kusyami to become one of the patrons of the circle, and he, having found out that this does not entail any obligations, agrees: he is even ready to become a participant in an anti-government conspiracy, unless this entails unnecessary trouble. Tofu tells how Meitei invited him to a European restaurant to taste tochimembo, but the waiter could not understand what kind of dish it was, and to hide his confusion, he said that now there are no necessary products to cook it, but in the near future, maybe , will appear. Meitei asked if their restaurant made tochi membo from Nihonga (Togi Membo is one of the poets in the Nihonga group), and the waiter confirmed that yes, it was from Nihonga. This story made Kusyami very amused.

Kangeiu and Meitei come to wish Kusami a Happy New Year. He reveals that Tofu visited him. Meitei remembers how one day, at the end of the old year, he waited all day for Tofu to come and, without waiting, went for a walk. By chance, he came across a strangled pine tree. Standing under this pine tree, he felt the urge to hang himself, but he became embarrassed in front of Tofu and decided to go back home, talk to Tofu, and then go back and hang himself. At home, he found a note from Tofu, where he asked for forgiveness for not coming due to urgent business. Meitei was delighted and decided that now he could safely go and hang himself, but when he ran to the treasured pine tree, it turned out that someone had already outstripped him. So, having been late only for some minute, he remained alive.

Kangetsu says that an incredible story happened to him before the New Year. He met young lady N on a visit, and a few days later she fell ill and, in her delirium, repeated his name all the time. Learning that young lady N is dangerously ill, Kangetsu, walking along the Azumabashi Bridge, thought about her, and suddenly heard her voice calling him. He thought that he heard it, but when the cry was repeated three times, he strained all his will, jumped high and rushed down from the bridge. He lost consciousness, and when he came to himself, he found that he was very cold, but his clothes were dry: it turns out that he had jumped by mistake not into the water, but in the other direction, to the middle of the bridge. No matter how much Meitei tried to find out what kind of young lady they were talking about, Kangetsu did not name her. The owner also told a funny story. The wife asked him to take her to the theater as a New Year's gift. Kusyami really wanted to please his wife, but he didn’t like one play, the other too, and he was afraid of not getting tickets for the third. But the wife said that if you come no later than four o'clock, then everything will be all right. The owner began to get ready for the theater, but felt a chill. He hoped to be cured before four o'clock, but as soon as he brought a cup of medicine to his mouth, he began to feel sick, and he could not swallow it. But as soon as four o'clock struck, the owner's nausea immediately disappeared, he was able to drink the medicine and immediately recovered. If the doctor had come to see him a quarter of an hour earlier, he and his wife would have been in time for the theater, but it was already too late.

After the death of Mikeko and a quarrel with Kuro, the cat feels lonely, and only communication with people brightens up his loneliness. Since he believes that he has almost turned into a man, from now on he will only tell about Kangetsu da Meitei. One day, Kangetsu decides to read it to Kusami and Meitei before giving a talk at the Physical Society. The report is called "Hanging Mechanics" and is replete with formulas and examples. Soon after, the wife of a wealthy merchant, Mrs. Kaneda, comes to Kusami, whom the cat immediately gives the nickname Hanako (Lady Nose) for her huge hooked nose, which stretched and stretched up, but suddenly became modest and, deciding to return to its original place, leaned over and remained hang. She came to inquire about Kangetsu, who supposedly wants to marry their daughter. Her daughter has a lot of admirers, and she and her husband want to choose the most worthy of them. If Kangetsu is going to be a PhD soon, then he will suit them. Kusami and Meitei doubt that Kangetsu really wants to marry Kaneda's daughter, rather, she shows immoderate interest in him. In addition, Lady Nose is so arrogant that her friends have no desire to help Kangetsu marry Miss Kaneda. Without telling the visitor anything specific, Kusyami and Meitei sigh with relief after her departure, and she, dissatisfied with the reception, begins to harm Kusyami in every possible way - she bribes his neighbors to make noise and swear under his windows. The cat sneaks into the Kaneda house, He sees their capricious daughter, who mocks the servants, her arrogant parents, who despise all who are poorer than them.

At night, a thief enters Kusyami's house. In the bedroom, at the head of the hostess, like a chest of jewels, stands a box nailed shut with nails. It stores wild sweet potatoes received by the owners as a gift. It is this box that attracts the attention of the thief. In addition, he steals a few more things. While filing a complaint with the police, the spouses quarrel over the price of the missing items. They discuss what the thief will do with the wild sweet potato: just boil it or make soup. Tatara Sampei, who brought Kusyami sweet potatoes, advises him to become a merchant: merchants get money easily, not like teachers. But Kusyami, although she cannot stand teachers, hates businessmen even more.

There is a Russo-Japanese war, and the cat-patriot dreams of forming a consolidated cat brigade to go to the front to scratch Russian soldiers. But since he was surrounded by ordinary people, he has to accept being an ordinary cat, and ordinary cats have to catch mice. Going out on a night hunt, he is attacked by mice and, escaping from them, overturns the utensils standing on the shelf. Hearing a roar, the owner thinks that thieves have climbed into the house again, but he does not find anyone.

Kusami and Meitei ask Kangetsu what the topic of his dissertation is and how soon he will finish it. Kangetsu replies that he is writing a dissertation on the topic "The influence of ultraviolet rays on the electrical processes occurring in the eyeball of a frog" and, since this topic is very serious, he intends to work on it for ten, or even twenty years.

The cat starts playing sports. The enviable health of the fish convinces him of the benefits of sea bathing, and he hopes that someday cats, like people, will be able to go to resorts. In the meantime, the cat catches praying mantises, does the exercise "sliding along the pine tree" and "bypasses the fence." The cat gets fleas, and he goes to the bathhouse, the visitors of which seem to him to be werewolves. The cat has never seen anything like a bathhouse and believes that everyone should definitely visit this institution.

Kusyami reflects on the greatest question that occupies the minds of philologists: what is the “meow” of a cat or “yes-yes”, with which the wife answers his call - interjections or adverbs. The wife is perplexed:

Do cats meow in Japanese? Kusyami explains that this is precisely the whole difficulty and that this is called comparative linguistics. Pussies of a nearby private gymnasium are pestering Kusami, and his philosopher friend Dokusen advises him not to fall under the influence of the European spirit of activity, the disadvantage of which is that it knows no limits. European culture has made progress, but it is a culture of people who do not know satisfaction and never rest on their laurels. Dokusen, as an adherent of Japanese culture, believes that, no matter how great a person is, he will never be able to Remake the world, and only with himself a person is free to do whatever he wants. The main thing is to learn to manage yourself, to achieve imperturbable calmness, improving your spirit in all-perceptive passivity. Kusami is imbued with Dokusen's ideas, but Meitei makes fun of him: Dokusen is passive only in words, and when there was an earthquake nine years ago, he was so frightened that he jumped from the second floor.

The police catch the thief who robbed Kusyami, He goes to the police department for his things. Meanwhile, his wife is visited by the owner's seventeen-year-old niece Yukie, who tells her how to behave with her husband. Since the spirit of contradiction is strong in Kusyami, everything must be said the other way around. For example, when he decided to give Yukie a gift, she deliberately said that she did not need an umbrella - and he bought her an umbrella. Kusyami's wife wanted him to insure, but Kusyami did not agree. When he returns from the police department, his wife says how well he did that he did not insure - and Kusyami immediately rebukes her, promising to insure from next month.

Kangetsu leaves for his homeland and marries his compatriot. When he returns to Tokyo and tells his friends about it, they feel sorry for Tofu, who, in anticipation of Kangetsu's marriage to the girl Kaneda, has already composed "The Song of the Eagle", but Tofu quickly redirects his poem. Tatara Sampei, having learned that Kashehyu did not become a doctor, wants to marry Tomiko Kaneda, and Kangetsu gladly concedes this honor to him. Sampei invites everyone to the wedding. When Kusyami's guests disperse, the cat reflects on their lives. "All these people seem carefree, but tap on the bottom of their souls and you will hear some kind of sad echo." The cat is over two years old. Until now, he considered himself the smartest cat in the world, but recently he read the reasoning of Murr the cat, and they amazed him: "I found out that Murr the cat died a long time ago, about a hundred years ago. Now, it turns out, only to surprise me, he became a ghost and appears to me from a distant other world. This cat did not know the laws of filial duty - one day he went to visit his mother, bringing her a fish as a gift, but on the way he could not stand it and ate it himself. inferior to the mind of man. Once he even surprised his master by composing poetry. And if such a hero lived a century ago, such an insignificant cat as I should have long said goodbye to this light and go to that kingdom where Nothing reigns. " The cat decides to try the beer and gets drunk. Going out into the courtyard, he falls into a vat of water dug into the ground. After floundering for a while, he realizes that he still can’t get out, and entrusts himself to fate. It becomes easier and easier for him, and he no longer understands what he is experiencing - torment or bliss, and finds great peace, which is given only in death.

Story (1910)

"It was at a time when people considered frivolity a virtue, and life was not yet darkened, as it is today, by severe hardships. That was the age of idleness ..." People went to great lengths for the sake of beauty, without stopping to cover their bodies with a tattoo . Among the lovers of such decorations were not only porters, players and firefighters, but also wealthy citizens, and sometimes samurai. In those days, there lived a young tattoo artist named Seikichi. When tattoo reviews were held, many of his works aroused universal admiration. Before Seikichi was an artist, this was felt in the sophistication of his drawing, in a special sense of harmony. He did not agree to make tattoos for everyone, but those who received this honor had to completely trust the master, who himself chose the drawing and set the price. Then he toiled for a month or two, enjoying the groans and convulsions of the unfortunate man into whom he had thrust his needles.

He got the greatest pleasure from the most painful procedures - retouching and impregnation with cinnabar. People who silently endured pain irritated him, and he tried to break their courage. For many years, Seikichi cherished the dream of creating a masterpiece on the skin of a beautiful woman and putting his whole soul into it. The most important thing for him was the character of a woman - a beautiful face and a slender figure were not enough for him. In his fourth year of searching, he once saw a naked woman's leg peeking out of a palanquin that was waiting at the gate of a restaurant in Fukagawa, not far from his home. To Seikichi's sharp gaze, a leg could tell as much as a face. Seikichi followed the palanquin, hoping to see the stranger's face, but after a while he lost sight of the palanquin. A year after this meeting, a girl once came to Seikichi with an assignment from a familiar geisha. The girl trained as a geisha and was supposed to become the "little sister" of Seikichi's acquaintance. The girl was about fifteen or sixteen years old, but her face was marked by a mature beauty. Looking at her dainty legs, Seikichi asked if she had ever left the Hiracei restaurant in a palanquin a year ago. The girl replied that her father often took her with him to Hiracei, and this is quite possible. Seikichi invited the girl to his place and showed her two paintings. One of them depicted a Chinese princess looking at preparations for her execution in the palace garden. As soon as the girl looked at the picture, her face took on a resemblance to the face of a princess. She found her hidden self in the painting. The second picture was called "Tlen". The woman depicted in the center of the picture joyfully and proudly looked at the numerous corpses of men stretched out at her feet. Looking at the picture, the girl felt that the secret that was hidden in the depths of her soul was revealed to her.

The girl became frightened, she asked Seikichi to let her go, but he put her to sleep with chloroform and set to work. "The soul of a young tattoo artist was dissolved in thick paint and seemed to pass onto the girl's skin." Inserting and withdrawing the needles, Seikichi sighed as if each prick had wounded his own heart. He worked all night, and by morning a huge spider appeared on the girl's back. With each deep inhalation and strong exhalation, the spider's legs moved as if they were alive. The spider tightly held the girl in his arms. Seikichi told the girl that he put his whole soul into the tattoo. Now in Japan there is no woman who can compare with her. All men will turn to mud at her feet. The girl was very happy that she became so beautiful. Hearing that she needed to take a bath so that the colors would show up better, she, overcoming the pain, obediently went to the bathroom, and when she came out, writhing in pain and groaning, as if possessed, she threw herself on the floor. But soon she came to her senses and her eyes became clear. Seikichi was amazed at the change that had taken place in her. He gave her the pictures that had frightened her the day before. She said that she completely got rid of her fears, and Seikichi was the first to become dirt at her feet. Her eyes flashed like a blade. She heard the rumble of the victory anthem. Seikichi asked her to show her the tattoo again before leaving. She silently took off her kimono from her shoulders. "The rays of the morning sun fell on the tattoo, and the woman's back burst into flames."

Tale (1933)

Kogo Mozuya, known as Shunkin, was born in Osaka to a druggist's family in 1828. She was the most beautiful and most gifted of all the druggist's children, and she also had an even, cheerful disposition. But at the age of eight, the girl suffered a misfortune: she became blind. Since that time, she left dancing and devoted herself to music. Her teacher was the master of playing for whom and shamisen Shunsho. Syunkin was talented and diligent. She belonged to a wealthy family, studied music for her own pleasure, but so diligently that Master Shunsho set her as an example to other students. Shunkin's guide was a boy, an acolyte in a druggist's shop named Sasuke. His parents gave him as an apprentice to Syunkin's father just in the year when Syunkin lost her sight, and he was glad that he had not seen Syunkin before she became blind - after all, then the current beauty of the girl might have seemed flawed to him, and so he found appearance Shunkin impeccable. He was older than Syunkin by four years and kept himself so modest that she always wanted him to accompany her to music lessons.

Having lost her sight, Shunkin became capricious and irritable, but Sasuke tried to please her in everything and not only did not take offense at her nit-picking, but considered them a sign of special disposition. Sasuke secretly bought a shamisen and at night, when everyone was sleeping, he began to learn to play it. But one day his secret was revealed, and Syunkin undertook to teach the boy herself. At that time she was ten years old, and Sasuke was fourteen. He called her "Madam teacher" and took his studies very seriously, but she scolded and beat him, because in that era teachers often beat students. Shunkin often brought Sasuke to tears, but those were tears not only of pain, but also of gratitude: after all, she spared no effort to work with him! Parents somehow scolded Shunkin for being too harsh with a student, and she, in turn, scolded Sasuke for being a crybaby and she gets it because of him. Since then, Sasuke has never cried, no matter how bad it was for him.

Meanwhile, Shunkin's character was becoming completely unbearable, and Shunkin's parents sent Sasuke to study music with the master Shunsho, considering it likely that the role of a teacher had a bad effect on her temper. Shunkin's father promised Sasuke's father to make the boy a musician. Syunkin's parents began to think about how to find a suitable match for her. Since the girl was blind, it was difficult to count on a profitable marriage with equals. And so they reasoned that the caring and accommodating Sasuke could become her a good husband, but the fifteen-year-old Shunkin did not want to hear about marriage.

Nevertheless, the mother suddenly noticed suspicious changes in the appearance of her daughter. Syunkin denied it in every possible way, but after a while it became impossible to hide her position. No matter how much the parents tried to find out who the father of the unborn child was, Syunkin never told them the truth. They questioned Sasuke and were surprised to find that it was him. But Syunkin denied his paternity, and she did not want to hear about marrying him. When the child was born, he was given up for education. The relationship between Shunkin and Sasuke was no longer a secret to anyone, but to all proposals to legitimize their union with a marriage ceremony, both unanimously answered that there was nothing between them and could not be.

When Shunkin was nineteen, master Shunsho died. He bequeathed his teaching license to his beloved student and chose for her the nickname Syunkin - Spring Lute. Syunkin took up teaching music and settled separately from her parents. The faithful Sasuke followed her, but despite their close relationship, he still called her "Madam Teacher". If Syunkin behaved more modestly with people less gifted than herself, she would not have so many enemies. Her talent, coupled with a difficult character, doomed her to loneliness. She had few students: most of those who began to study with her could not stand scolding and punishment and left,

When Syunkin was thirty-six years old, another misfortune befell her: one night someone splashed boiling water from a kettle in her face. It is not known who and why did it. Maybe it was her student Ritaro, a brazen and depraved young man whom Shunkin put in his place. Maybe the father of the girl she hit in class so hard she got a scar. Apparently, the actions of the villain were directed against both Shunkin and Sasuke: if he wanted to make one Shunkin suffer, he would have found another way to take revenge on her. According to another version, it was one of the music teachers - Syunkin's competitors. According to the "Biography of Shunkin", compiled on behalf of Sasuke, when he was already an old man, a robber entered Shunkin's bedroom at night, however, when he heard that Sasuke woke up, he fled, not taking anything, but having managed to throw a teapot that had come under Shunkin's head: on her marvelous white skin was splashed with a few drops of boiling water. The burn mark was tiny, but Syunkin was embarrassed by even such a small flaw and hid her face under a silk veil for the rest of her life. Further in the "Biography" it is said that, by a strange coincidence, a few weeks later Sasuke developed a cataract and soon became blind in both eyes. But when you consider Sasuke's deep feelings for Shunkin and his desire to hide the truth in other cases, it becomes clear that this was not the case. Sunkin's beautiful face was brutally mutilated. She didn't want anyone to see her face, and Sasuke invariably closed his eyes as he approached her.

When Shunkin's wound healed and it was time to remove the bandages, she shed tears at the thought that Sasuke would see her face, and Sasuke, who also did not want to see her disfigured face, gouged out both of his eyes. The feeling of inequality that separated them even in moments of physical intimacy disappeared, their hearts merged into a single whole. They were happy like never before. In the soul of Sasuke Shunkin forever remained young and beautiful. Even after becoming blind, Sasuke continued to faithfully care for Shunkin. They took a servant girl into the house, who helped them with the housework and studied music with Sasuke.

On the first ten days of the sixth moon of the 10th year of Meiji (1877), Shunkin fell seriously ill. A few days before, she and Sasuke went out for a walk, and she let her pet lark out of the cage. The lark sang and disappeared into the clouds. In vain they waited for his return - the bird flew away. From that time on, Syunkin was inconsolable and nothing could cheer her up. She soon fell ill and died a few months later. Sasuke thought about her all the time, and since even during his lifetime he saw his beloved only in a dream, then perhaps for him there was no clear boundary between life and death. Sasuke survived Shunkin for a long time, and even after he was officially awarded the title of master and began to be called "teacher Kindai", he considered his teacher and mistress much higher than himself.

His grave is on the left side of Syunkin's grave, and the tombstone on it is half the size. The graves are looked after by an old woman of about seventy years old - a former servant and student named Teru, who remained faithful and devotion to the deceased owners ... The narrator talked to her, who shortly before read the "Biography of Shunkin" and became interested in her story. "When Reverend Gazan from Tenryu Shrine heard the story of Sasuke's self-blinding, he praised him for comprehending the spirit of Zen. to the deeds of the saints."

Roman (1943-1948)

The action takes place in the thirties and ends in the spring of 1941. The Makioka sisters belong to an old family. Once, their surname was known to all the inhabitants of Osaka, but in the twenties, the financial situation of Makioka-father was shaken, and the family gradually became poorer. Makioka had no sons, therefore, in his old age, having retired from business, he transferred the headship of the house to the husband of Tsuruko's eldest daughter, Tatsuo. After that, he married off his second daughter, Sachiko, and she and her husband Teinosuke founded a side branch of the family. The husbands of the eldest daughters, being the youngest sons in their families, took the surname Makioka. By the time the third daughter - Yukiko - reached marriageable age, the affairs of their house had already fallen into decay, so her father could not find a good match for her. Soon after his death, Tatsuo undertook to marry Yukiko to the heir to the wealthy Saigus family, but his sister-in-law flatly refused the groom, considering him too provincial. Since then, Tatsuo has been wary of arranging her fate. The youngest of the Makioka sisters, Taeko, fell in love at the age of twenty with the offspring of an old merchant family, Okubata, and ran away with him from home, because, according to existing custom, she would not be allowed to marry before Yukiko. The lovers hoped to pity their relatives, but both families showed firmness and returned the fugitives home.

Unfortunately, one of the small Osaka newspapers made this story public, and mistakenly named Yukiko as the heroine of the escape, which cast a shadow on her reputation and seriously complicated the search for a suitable match. Tatsuo insisted on a retraction, but instead the newspaper printed a revised version of the article, naming Taeko's name in it. All this did not overshadow the sisters' friendship, but their relationship with their elder son-in-law became more strained. The unmarried sisters lived either at Tsuruko's in Osaka, or at Sachiko's house in Ashiya, a small town between Osaka and Kobe, but after the story with the newspaper, both Yukiko and Taeko prefer to live with Sachiko.

At first, Teinosuke was afraid of the discontent of the "main house" - according to custom, unmarried sisters are supposed to live in the house of an older sister - but Tatsuo does not insist on this, and Yukiko and Taeko live in Ashiya. Okubata and Taeko still love each other and are waiting for Yukiko's marriage to ask for consent to their marriage. Taeko makes dolls and begins to do it professionally - she arranges exhibitions, she has students. Yukiko pays a lot of attention to her niece, Sachiko's only daughter. Fragile, shy Yukiko looks very young, although she is already under thirty, and her family understands that one should not be too picky when choosing a husband for her.

At first, Yukiko did not end up with suitors, but now the proposals are coming in less and less, and the sisters are seriously concerned about fate. Itani, the owner of a barbershop in Kobe, wants to serve the Makioka sisters and tries to woo Yukiko. Sachiko inquires about Segoshi, Itani's protégé, consults with Tsuruko. Itani wants to introduce Yukiko to Segoshi as soon as possible. After all, various minor details can be clarified later. It is not necessary to arrange real bridesmaids. Itani will just invite everyone to dinner. In order not to drop their dignity, the sisters, under a plausible pretext, postpone their acquaintance with the groom for several days.

But finally everyone meets in a restaurant. Segoshi and Yukiko liked each other, but Yukiko's fragility inspires fear in the groom: does she suffer from some kind of illness? Teinosuke, with the consent of the "main house", persuades Yukiko to undergo an X-ray examination. Itani assures him that there is no need for this, his guarantee is enough, but Teinosuke believes that full clarity is better, besides, if the matchmaking is upset, an x-ray may be useful in the future. In addition, the captious groom saw a barely noticeable speck above Yukiko's left eye and would like to find out why. The sisters find an article in a women's magazine that says that such spots usually disappear by themselves after marriage, but in any case they can be removed with the help of drugs.

Yukiko is being examined. A medical report is sent along with an X-ray to Itani. Segoshi asks permission to meet Yukiko again, after which he asks for her hand in marriage. Itani hurries the family with an answer, but the "main house", not content with the information received from the detective agency, decides to send a trusted person to his homeland, who finds out that Segoshi's mother suffers from a mental disorder. The groom is denied. Sachiko gives Itani a gift in gratitude for her troubles, while Itani promises to make every effort to correct her oversight and make Yukiko happy. Yukiko is unlucky: a year ago, a forty-year-old gentleman wooed her, who had a mistress with whom he was not going to part, he wanted to marry only so that this relationship would not damage his reputation. Making unreasonably high demands on applicants for Yukiko's hand, Tsuruko and her husband deliberately doom the case to failure, because a rare well-to-do fiancé - one of those who remain bachelors up to forty years old - does not have a secret vice or hidden flaw.

Taeko has a student from a family of Russian white emigrants - Katerina Kirilenko. Katerina studied at the English Gymnasium in Shanghai, and her mother and brother are real Japanophiles. At their house, portraits of the Japanese imperial couple hang in one room, and portraits of Nicholas II and the Empress hang in the other. Katerina invites Taeko to visit with her sisters and brother-in-law. Yukiko stays to look after her niece, while Teinosuke and Sachiko accept the invitation and, together with Taeko, come to Kirilenko's house. Russians dine later than the Japanese, so at first the guests cannot understand anything and suffer from hunger, but then they are treated tasty and generously.

Tsuruko's husband is appointed director of the Tokyo branch of a bank, and the family must move to Tokyo. Everyone congratulates Tatsuo on her promotion, but Tsuruko suffers: it is difficult to leave the city where she has lived without a break for thirty-six years. The Makioka sisters' aunt arrives in Asia. She says that while the "main house" was in Osaka, Yukiko and Taeko could live here and there, now they should go to Tokyo with the family, of which they are officially members. If unmarried sisters-in-law remain in Ashiya, this may adversely affect Tatsuo's reputation as the head of the house. Tsuruko asks Sachiko to talk to her sisters. Yukiko dutifully agrees to move to Tokyo, but misses Asia: Tsuruko has six children, the house is cramped, and Yukiko doesn't even have a private room. Having received a new offer, Yukiko immediately agrees to the bride, because this gives her the opportunity to go to Asia. The new groom - Nomura - is a widower. Before arranging a bride-to-be, Makioka finds out what his wife died from, make inquiries whether any hereditary illness was the cause of the death of his children. The detective agency gives them the exact details of Nomura's income. Sachiko doubts that Nomura will like Yukiko: in the photo he looks even older than his forty-six years, but the bride is the reason for Yukiko's visit to Asia.

Yukiko has not been to Asia for half a year and is very happy to meet her sisters and her beloved niece. During the viewing, Nomura talks with Teinosuke, showing full knowledge of all the affairs of the Makioka family: he obviously made inquiries about Yukiko wherever he could, his man even visited the doctor who used Yukiko and the music teacher who gave her lessons. After visiting the restaurant, Nomura invites everyone to his house for a cup of coffee. Yukiko does not like that he leads guests to a niche with photographs of his deceased wife and children - she sees in this the callousness of his nature. Nomura gets rejected. Yukiko spends more than a month in Asia, and Sachiko is already afraid of the dissatisfaction of the "main house", but in mid-April, after going to Kyoto to admire the cherry blossoms, Yukiko returns to Tokyo.

Okubata visits Sachiko and reveals that Taeko is taking sewing lessons, intending to become a milliner. To do this, she is going to go to Paris for six months or a year. Okubata believes that making dolls is not shameful, but a girl from a decent family should not earn money by sewing. The Makioka sisters do not like the spoiled barchuk Okubata, but then Sachiko agrees with him and promises to talk to Taeko. In addition to sewing, Taeko is engaged in traditional dances, dreaming of getting a diploma that would allow her to open her own school in the future. At a concert hosted by the Daughters of Osaka, Yamamura students show their art, and local photographer Itakura, trained in America, photographs them. A month after the concert, a flood occurs. Luckily, neither Sachiko's house nor her daughter Etsuko's school was damaged, but Taeko, who ended up in the home of the sewing teacher Noriko Tamaki, nearly dies. Itakura, risking his life, saves her. Yukiko hurries to visit her sisters, whom she has not seen for more than two months.

Sachiko's neighbors are a German Stolz family, Etsuko is friends with their children Peter and Rosemary. Sachiko overhears the Stoltz children calling their imaginary opponent "Frankreich" - France during the game. She is shocked at how children are brought up in German families. Soon the Stoltsy return to Germany. They invite Makioka to their place in Hamburg. Sachiko goes to Tokyo to see off the Stoltsev and to see his relatives. There comes a letter from Okubata, who writes that in her absence, Itakura visits Taeko too often in Asia. Itakura is from the bottom, he is not a match for a girl from a good family. Sachiko worries about Taeko's reputation. Returning to Asia, she tells her about Okubata's letter, Taeko and Itakura agree not to meet for a while, and Sachiko promises Taeko that Teinosuke will discuss with the "main house" the possibility of her going to Paris. Teinosuke is afraid that a war will start in Europe not today tomorrow, so the trip there is not safe. Tatsuo and Tsuruko strongly oppose Taeko's plans to become a milliner. As for her trip to Paris, Taeko's desire to make it with the money intended for her wedding causes bewilderment in them, because they do not have any amount of money recorded in her name. In the event of Taeko's marriage, they are willing to bear the wedding expenses, but are not going to pay for her trip.

Taeko is upset, but it soon turns out that the plans of Lady Tamaki, with whom she was going to go, have changed, and she cannot go alone. But Taeko does not give up sewing. She states to Sachiko that she wants to marry Itakura. Comparing him with the empty and frivolous Okubata, she came to the conclusion that he was much more worthy and would be a good husband. She decides to call off her engagement to Okubata. Sachiko tries to reason with her sister, but the only concession Taeko is willing to make is to wait until Yukiko is betrothed.

The Daughters of Osaka are hosting an old dance night again, and Yukiko comes to Ashiya to watch Taeko perform. While Yukiko is in Asia, Taeko decides to go to Tokyo to talk to Tatsuo about the money she wants to open a dress shop. Sachiko rides with her. But even before talking with Tatsuo, Taeko learns that Itakura is seriously ill, and immediately leaves back. Itakura is dying.

Yukiko has been living in Ashiya for almost four months and doesn't talk about returning to Tokyo, but an unexpected letter arrives from Tsuruko. Her husband's older sister invites the Makioka family to Ogaki for firefly viewing. At the same time, she is going to introduce Mr. Sawazaki to Yukiko, a rich widower with three children. This is the first proposal in more than two years since Nomura's matchmaking. Tsuruko and Tatsuo do not believe too much in the possibility of such an alliance, but they do not want to offend Tatsuo's sister and are afraid to scare off future suitors by refusing to show off. Meanwhile, Yukiko is already thirty-three years old, and you should hurry. Unfortunately, Yukiko doesn't impress Sawazaki. For the first time, a young lady from the Makioka family finds herself in a position of rejection.

After Itakura's death, Taeko starts dating Okubata again. Mat?" Okubyata died, his older brother kicked him out of the house for embezzling family money, so now he lives alone Taeko assures that she meets him just out of pity. "Main House" requires Taeko to live with them in Tokyo for a while, otherwise threatening to break off all relations with her.Taeko flatly refuses to go to Tokyo, and since Teinosuke takes the side of the "main house", she rents an apartment and settles separately and only occasionally visits Sachiko and Yukiko when Teinosuke is not at home. reveals to Sachiko that she met Katerina Kirilenko's brother. European customs are similar to Japanese ones: "No, it simply does not fit in the mind - for a thirty-year-old bachelor, the head of an insurance company, the owner of a luxurious mansion, to marry a woman who entered his service only six months ago and about whom he knows absolutely nothing ! Yes, if Katerina was a hundred times more beautiful than she is, for a Japanese, for example, such a situation would be completely unthinkable. " Sachiko and Tsuruko are ashamed of unmarried sisters. They are no longer so meticulous in choosing suitors. The prim Tsuruko says that she would be glad to extradite Yukiko for anyone, even if it is clear from the very beginning that the matter will end in divorce.

Itani has not forgotten her promise to find a groom for Yukiko and offers to introduce her to the director of a large pharmaceutical company, Hasidera. This is an enviable groom, and Yukiko's relatives rejoice at the upcoming bride-to-be, but Yukiko was brought up in strict rules and her behavior seems to Hasidera, accustomed to greater freedom in circulation, insulting and arrogant.

Taeko falls ill with dysentery. The disease overtakes her in the Okubata house, and the sisters do not know what to do: she is in such a serious condition that it is impossible to transport her home, and it is a shame to call their family doctor to the house of a lonely man. As Taeko gets worse and worse, the sisters put her in Dr. Kambara's clinic, who owes a lot to their father and treats them with great reverence. Taeko is starting to get better. The maid Sachiko O-Haru, while the sick Taeko was in Okubata's house, took care of her and made friends with his old housekeeper. The old woman told her that it was Taeko who was to blame for many of Okubata's troubles: both money and jewelry that disappeared from the store owned by the Okubata trading house often ended up with Taeko. The relationship between Okubata and Taeko has been going on for ten years, and Taeko does not want to either completely break up with him or marry him, so the old woman believes that she is primarily interested in his money. In addition, the old woman more than once saw Taeko drunk and heard Okubata reproach her with some unknown Miyoshi. Sachiko is horrified by this behavior of Taeko: the best thing to do now is to quickly pass off her sister as Okubata. Taeko leaves the hospital. Teinosuke has not seen Taeko for almost a year, but, realizing that such severity will only push away the obstinate sister-in-law more strongly, he nevertheless meets with her. Meanwhile, Okubata receives an offer to go to Manchuria to serve at the court of the emperor there. The sisters persuade Taeko to go with him, but she keeps silent, and after a while reports that Okubata is not going anywhere.

Itani is going to America, but before leaving, she wants to make Yukiko happy. This time we are talking about the bastard son of Viscount Hirotika - Mimaki. Convinced that Mr. Mimaki is a worthy person, Yukiko's family agree to meet with him.

The meeting turns into a real show. Finally, both parties are satisfied.

Taeko confesses to Sachiko that she is pregnant. The father of the unborn child is Miyoshi. Taeko's selfishness outrages Sachiko: putting everyone before a fait accompli, she did not think about the honor of the Makioka family, nor about the future of Yukiko, which is in jeopardy: it is unlikely that the groom's father will want to intermarry with the family in which such a harlot grew up. Sachiko tells everything to her husband. Teinosuke meets with Miyoshi, who makes a good impression on him. He is not a person of their circle, but sincerely loves Taeko. He promises not to seek out Taeko until she is relieved of her burden. Taeko is sent incognito to Arima.

The "Main House" agrees to Yukiko's marriage to Mimaki. Yukiko also agrees. Everyone is getting ready for the wedding. O-Haru calls from Arima with the news that Taeko is in labor and her life is in danger. Everyone understands that now is not the time to think about the family's reputation, and Sachiko immediately goes to the clinic where Taeko is. She manages to be saved, but the newborn girl dies. After leaving the clinic, Taeko moves in with Miyoshi.

Novella (1915)

One day, in the evening, a certain servant, dismissed by the owner, was waiting for the rain under the gates of Rashomon. Sitting down on the top step, he kept touching the boil that had popped up on his right cheek. Although the gate stood on the main street, there was no one but this servant under it, only a cricket was sitting on a round post. Over the past two or three years, disasters have struck Kyoto one after another - now a hurricane, then an earthquake, then a fire, then a famine - that's the capital and deserted. The abandoned Rashomon gate was now inhabited by foxes and badgers. Thieves found shelter in them. It was customary even to bring and throw corpses here. After sunset, it was somehow creepy here, and no one dared to come close to the gate.

The servant, who had nowhere to go, decided to climb into the tower above the gate and see if he could hide there for the night. Fearfully looking inside the tower, he saw an old woman there. Squatting on her haunches, she pulled out the hair from one of the corpses by the light of a torch. The servant rushed at the old woman, twisted her arms and angrily asked what she was doing there. The frightened old woman explained that she pulled out her hair for wigs. She is sure that the woman whose hair she tore when the servant entered would not have condemned her, for she herself, during her lifetime, cut the snakes into strips and sold them to the palace guards, passing them off as dried fish. The old woman did not think that this woman acted badly - otherwise she would have starved to death. The old woman tore hair from corpses into wigs in order to avoid starvation, which means that her act cannot be considered bad either. The story of the old woman inspired determination in the servant, who had previously been ready to die of hunger rather than become a thief. "Well, don't blame me if I beat you! And otherwise I'll have to die of hunger, too," he growled and tore off the kimono from the old woman. Slipping it under his arm, he ran down the stairs and has not been seen since.

Novella (1918)

A lady who served at the court of his lordship Horikawa tells the story of the writing of the screens of the Torments of Hell. His lordship was a powerful and generous ruler, so all the inhabitants of the capital revered him as a living Buddha. There were even rumors that when one day the bulls harnessed to the chariot of his lordship carried and crushed one old man, he only folded his hands and thanked fate for that his lordship's bulls had passed over it. The most famous artist at that time was Yoshihide - a gloomy old man in his fifties who looked like a monkey. When one day his lordship was presented with a tame monkey, his prankster son named it yoshihide. Once a monkey stole tangerines, and the young master wanted to punish her. Running away from him, the monkey ran up to the fifteen-year-old daughter of Yoshihide, who was a maid in the palace of his lordship, clung to her hem and whined plaintively. The girl stood up for the monkey: after all, it was just an unreasonable animal, and besides, the monkey bore the name of her father. When rumors reached his lordship about the reason for the girl's affection for the monkey, he approved of her respect and love for her father and began to favor her, which gave evil tongues a reason to claim that his lordship was carried away by the girl.

Terrible things were told about Yoshihide's paintings: for example, they said that the women depicted by him soon fell ill, as if their soul was taken out of them, and died. It was rumored that witchcraft was involved in his paintings. He loved only his only daughter and his art. When, as a reward for a successful painting, His Grace Horikawa promised to fulfill Yoshihide's cherished desire, the artist asked him to let his daughter go home, but he sharply replied: "It is impossible." The narrator believes that his lordship did not let the girl go because nothing good awaited her in her father's house, and not at all because of his voluptuousness.

And at a time when Yoshihide was almost out of favor because of his daughter, his lordship called him and ordered him to paint the screens, depicting the torments of hell on them. For five or six months, Yoshihide did not appear in the palace and was only engaged in his painting. In his sleep he had nightmares and talked to himself. He called one of the disciples to him, put him in chains and began to make sketches, not paying attention to the suffering of the young man. Only when a snake crawled out of an overturned pot and almost stung the young man, Yoshihide finally relented and untied the chain with which he was entangled. Yoshihide set an owl at another student and coolly captured on paper how an effeminate young man was being tormented by a strange bird. It seemed to both the first and second students that the master wanted to kill them.

While the artist was working on the picture, his daughter became more and more sad. The inhabitants of the palace wondered what was the cause of her sadness; in mournful thoughts about the father or in love longing. Soon there were rumors that his lordship was coveting her love. One night, when the narrator was walking along the gallery, the monkey Yoshihide suddenly ran up to her and began to pull at the hem of her skirt. The narrator went in the direction where the monkey was pulling her, and opened the door to the room from which voices were heard. The half-dressed daughter of Yoshihide jumped out of the room, and in the depths there was a sound of receding steps. The girl was in tears, but did not name the person who wanted to dishonor her.

Twenty days after this incident, Yoshihide came to the palace and asked to be received by his lordship. He complained that he could not complete the picture of the torments of hell. He wanted to depict in the middle of the screen how a carriage falls from above, and in it, scattering black hair engulfed in flames, an elegant court lady wriggles in agony. But an artist cannot draw what he has never seen, so Yoshihide asked his lordship to burn the carriage in front of him.

A few days later, his lordship called the artist to his country villa. Around midnight, he showed him a carriage with a bound woman inside. Before setting fire to the carriage, his lordship ordered the curtains to be raised so that Yoshihide could see who was in the carriage. The artist's daughter was there. Yoshihide nearly lost his mind. When the carriage caught fire, he wanted to rush towards it, but suddenly stopped. He kept looking at the burning carriage. Inhuman suffering was written on his face. His lordship, chuckling ominously, also kept his eyes on the carriage. Everyone who saw the torment of the poor girl, their hair stood on end, as if they really saw the torment of hell. Suddenly, something black fell off the roof and fell right into the burning carriage. It was a monkey. She clung to the girl with a plaintive cry, but soon both the monkey and the girl disappeared into the clouds of black smoke. Yoshihide seemed to be petrified. But if until then he had suffered, now his face shone with selfless delight. Everyone looked with admiration at the artist as at a newly-appeared Buddha. It was a majestic sight. Only his lordship was sitting upstairs, on the gallery, with a distorted face and, like an animal whose throat is dry, choking, gasping for air ...

There were various rumors about this story. Some believed that his lordship burned the artist's daughter to avenge the rejected love. Others, including the narrator, believed that his lordship wanted to teach a lesson to the evil artist, who, for the sake of his painting, was ready to burn the carriage and kill a man. The narrator heard it with her own ears from the lips of his lordship.

Yoshihide did not leave his intention to paint a picture, on the contrary, he only established himself in it. A month later, the screen with the picture of the torments of hell was finished. Presenting the screens to his lordship, Yoshihide hanged himself the next night. His body still lies in the ground in the place of their house, but the tombstone is so overgrown with moss that no one knows whose grave it is,

Novella (1918)

One morning, the Buddha was wandering alone along the bank of a paradise pond. He stopped in thought and suddenly saw everything that was going on at the bottom of the Lotus Pond, reaching to the very depths of the underworld. There, below, crowded a great multitude of sinners. The Buddha's gaze fell on one of them. His name was Kandata, and he was a terrible robber: he killed, robbed, set fire, but still he had one good deed on his account. Once, in the depths of the forest, he almost stepped on a tiny spider, but at the last moment he took pity on him and removed his foot. The Buddha wanted to reward the robber for a good deed and save him from the abyss of hell. Seeing a heavenly spider, the Buddha "hung a beautiful silver thread from a green, like jade, lotus leaf" and lowered its end into the water. The web began to descend until it reached the depths of the underworld, where Kandata, along with other sinners, suffered severe torment in the Lake of Blood. Suddenly he raised his head and began to peer into the darkness. He saw how a silver cobweb was descending from the sky towards him, gleaming with a thin ray, as if fearing that other sinners would not notice it. Kandata clapped his hands in joy. Grasping the cobweb, he began to climb up with all his might - for an experienced thief this was a familiar thing. But it is far from the underworld to the sky, and Kandata is tired. Stopping to rest, he looked down. He rose so high that the Lake of Blood disappeared from sight, and the top of the terrible Needle Mountain was under his feet. He joyfully shouted: "Saved! Saved!", But immediately noticed that countless sinners stuck around the cobweb and crawled higher and higher after him. Kandata was afraid that the web might break and he would again fall into the underworld, and yelled that it was his web and he did not allow anyone to climb it. And then the cobweb, until then whole and unharmed, burst with a crash just where Kandata was clinging to it, and he flew down. The Buddha saw everything that happened, from beginning to end. When Kandata sank to the very bottom of the Lake of Blood, the Buddha continued his walk with a sad face.

Novella (1919)

The narrator is sitting in a second-class train on the Yokosuka-Tokyo train, waiting for the signal to depart. At the last second, a village girl of thirteen or fourteen years old with a rough, weather-beaten face runs into the car. Putting a bundle of things on her knees, she clutches a third-class ticket in her frozen hand. The narrator is annoyed by her ordinary appearance, her stupidity, which prevents her from even understanding the difference between second and third grades. This girl seems to him a living embodiment of gray reality. Glancing over the newspaper, the narrator is dozing. When he opens his eyes, he sees that the girl is trying to open the window. The narrator coldly looks at her unsuccessful efforts and does not even try to help her, considering her desire a whim. The train enters the tunnel just as the window slams open. The car fills with suffocating smoke, and the throat-stricken narrator begins to cough, while the girl leans out the window and looks ahead of the train. The narrator wants to scold the girl, but then the train leaves the tunnel, and the smell of earth, hay, water pours in through the window. The train passes through a poor suburb. Behind the barrier of a deserted crossing are three boys. Seeing the train, they raise their hands and shout some unintelligible greeting. At that moment, the girl takes out warm golden tangerines from her bosom and throws them out the window. The narrator instantly understands everything: the girl is leaving to work and wants to thank the brothers who came to see her off. The narrator looks at the girl with completely different eyes: she helped him "at least for a while to forget about his inexpressible fatigue and longing and about the incomprehensible, base, boring human life."

Novella (1920)

Song Jin-hua, a fifteen-year-old prostitute, sits at home and nibbles on watermelon seeds. From time to time, she looks at the small bronze crucifix hanging on the wall of her squalid room, and hope appears in her eyes. Jinhua is a Catholic. She became a prostitute to support herself and her old father. Jin-hua is sure that "Mr. Christ" understands what is in her heart, and her craft will not prevent her from getting to heaven, "otherwise, Mr. Christ would be like a policeman from the station in Yaojiakao." When she mentions this to the Japanese tourist with whom she spent the night, he smiles and gives her jade earrings as a keepsake.

A month later, Jin-hua falls ill with syphilis, and no medicine helps her. One day her friend says that there is a belief that the disease should be given to someone else as soon as possible - then in two or three days the person will recover. But Jin-hua does not want to infect anyone with a bad disease and does not receive guests, and if anyone comes in, she only sits and smokes with him, so the guests gradually stop going to her and it becomes more and more difficult for her to make ends meet. And then one day a tipsy foreigner comes to her - a tanned bearded man of about thirty-five. He does not understand Chinese, but he listens to Jin-hua with such cheerful goodwill that the girl becomes joyful in her soul.

The visitor seems to her more beautiful than all the foreigners she has seen so far, not to mention her countrymen from Nanking. However, she does not leave the feeling that she has already seen this man somewhere. While Jin-hua is trying to remember where she might have seen him, the stranger holds up two fingers, meaning he is offering her two dollars a night. Jinhua shakes his head. The stranger decides she's not happy with the price and holds up three fingers. So he gradually reaches ten dollars - a huge amount for a poor prostitute, but Jin-hua still refuses him and even angrily stamps his foot, causing the crucifix to break off the hook and fall at her feet. Raising the crucifix, Jin-hua looks at the face of Christ, and it seems to her a living likeness of the face of her guest sitting at the table.

Stunned by her discovery, Jin-hua forgets about everything and gives herself to a foreigner. When she falls asleep, she dreams of a heavenly city; she sits at a table laden with food, and behind her a foreigner sits on a sandalwood chair, with a halo shining around his head. Jin-hua invites him to share a meal with her. The foreigner replies that he, Jesus Christ, does not like Chinese food. He says that if Jinhua eats the treat, then her illness will pass overnight. When Jinhua wakes up, there is no one by her side. She thinks that she also dreamed about the foreigner with the face of Christ, but in the end she decides: "No, it was not a dream." She becomes sad because the man she fell in love with left without saying a word goodbye to her, without paying the promised ten dollars. And suddenly she feels that, thanks to a miracle that has happened in her body, the terrible ulcers have disappeared without a trace. “So it was Christ,” she decides, and, kneeling before the crucifix, prays fervently.

In the spring of the following year, a Japanese tourist who had already visited Jin-hua once again visits her. Jin-hua tells him how Christ, descending one night to Nanjing, appeared to her and healed her of her illness. The tourist recalls how a certain half-breed named George Merry, a bad, unworthy man, boasted that he had spent the night in Nanjing with a prostitute, and when she fell asleep, he ran away quietly. He also heard that the man later went mad because of syphilis. He guesses that Jin-hua infected George Merry, but does not want to disappoint the pious woman. "And you haven't been sick since then?" - asks the Japanese tourist. "No, never," Jin-hua replies firmly with a clear face, continuing to nibble on watermelon seeds.

Novella (1921)

The novella is a different version of the same event, expressed by different people.

The woodcutter said during interrogation that he found the corpse of a man in a grove under the mountain, where bamboo grows interspersed with young cryptomeria. The man was lying on his back, he was wearing a light blue suikan (short kimono), a wound gaped in his chest. There were no weapons nearby, only a rope and a comb.

The wandering monk said during interrogation that the day before he had met the murdered man on the road from Yamashin to Sekiyama. With him was a woman sitting on a red horse. The man had a sword in his belt and a bow with arrows behind his back. The woman was wearing a wide-brimmed hat, and her face was not visible.

The guard said during interrogation that he had caught the famous robber Tajomaru. Tajomaru had a sword in his belt, as well as a bow and arrows. A reddish horse threw him off and nibbled the grass nearby.

The old woman said during interrogation that she recognized her twenty-six-year-old son-in-law, Kanazawa Takehiro, in the murdered man. The day before, the old woman's daughter, nineteen-year-old Masago, went to Bakaev with her husband. The old woman reconciled with the fate of her son-in-law, but anxiety for her daughter haunts her: the young woman has disappeared, and they can’t find her in any way.

Tajomaru confessed during interrogation that he killed the man. He met him and his wife the afternoon before. The breeze pushed back the silk veil that covered the woman's face, and Tajomaru's face flashed for a moment. It seemed to him so beautiful that he decided to take possession of a woman at all costs, even if for this he had to kill a man. When they want to take possession of a woman, the man is always killed. Tadzomaru kills with a sword, because he is a robber, while others kill with power, money, flattery. In this case, no blood is shed, and the man remains safe and sound, but still he is killed, and who knows whose guilt is heavier - the one who kills with a weapon, or the one who kills without a weapon?

But killing the man was not Tajomaru's goal. He decided to try to possess the woman without killing him. To do this, he lured them into the thicket. It turned out to be easy: Tajomaru stuck to them as a fellow traveler and began to brag that he dug out a mound on the mountain, found many mirrors and swords there and buried it all in a grove under the mountain. Tajomaru said that he was ready to sell any thing cheaply if there was a willing man sitting on a horse. Leading the man into the thicket, Tajomaru pounced on him and tied him to a tree trunk, and so that he could not scream, he stuffed his mouth with fallen bamboo leaves. After that, Tajomaru returned to the woman and said that her companion suddenly fell ill and she needed to go see what was the matter with him. The woman dutifully followed Tajomaru, but as soon as she saw her husband tied to a tree, she pulled out a dagger from her bosom and rushed at the robber. The woman was very brave, and Tajomaru barely managed to knock the dagger out of her hands. By disarming the woman, Tajomaru was able to possess her without taking the life of the man.

After that, he wanted to hide, but the woman grabbed his sleeve and shouted that being disgraced in front of two men is worse than death, so one of them must die. She promised that she would go with whoever was left alive. The burning eyes of the woman captivated Tajomaru, and he wanted to take her as his wife. He decided to kill the man. He untied him and invited him to fight with swords. The man with a distorted face rushed at Tajomaru. On the twenty-third swing, Tajomaru's sword pierced the man's chest. As soon as he fell, Tajomaru turned to the woman, but she was nowhere to be found. When Tajomaru got out onto the path, he saw the woman's horse peacefully grazing. Tajomaru does not ask for leniency, because he understands that he is worthy of the most cruel execution, besides, he always knew that someday his head would stick out on top of a pillar.

The woman told confession in the Kiyomizu temple that, having taken possession of her, the robber turned to her bound husband and laughed mockingly. She wanted to approach her husband, but the robber kicked her to the ground with a kick. At that moment, she saw that her husband was looking at her with cold contempt. From the horror of this look, the woman lost her senses. When she came to, the robber was gone. Her husband still looked at her with contempt and hidden hatred. Unable to bear such a shame, she decided to kill her husband, and then commit suicide. The sword and bow with arrows were taken by the robber, but the dagger lay at her feet. She picked it up and plunged it into her husband's chest, after which she again lost consciousness. When she woke up, her husband was no longer breathing. She tried to commit suicide, but could not, and does not know what to do now.

The spirit of the slain said through the mouth of the soothsayer that, having taken possession of his wife, the robber sat down next to her and comforted her. The robber said that he decided on outrage because he fell in love with her. After what happened, she will no longer be able to live with her husband, as before, so wouldn't it be better for her to marry a robber? The woman thoughtfully raised her face and told the robber that he could lead her wherever he wanted. Then she began to ask the robber to kill her husband: she cannot stay with the robber while her husband is alive. Without answering "yes" or "no", the robber kicked her to a pile of fallen leaves. He asked the woman's husband what to do with her: kill or pardon? While the husband hesitated, the woman took off running. The robber rushed after her, but she managed to escape. Then the robber took the sword, bow and arrows, untied the rope with which the man was tied to the tree, and left. The man picked up the dagger dropped by his wife and plunged it into his chest. As he was dying, he heard someone quietly creep up on him. He wanted to see who it was, but everything around was covered with twilight. The man felt an invisible hand take the dagger from his chest. At the same moment, his mouth was filled with gushing blood, and he forever plunged into the darkness of non-existence.

Novella (1925)

An unremarkable employee of the Beijing branch of the Mitsubishi company, Oshino Handzaburo, suddenly died before reaching the age of thirty. According to Professor Yamai, director of the Tongren Hospital, Hanzaburo died of a stroke. But Hanzaburo himself didn't think it was a blow. He didn't even think he was dead. He just suddenly found himself in some office where he had never been before. Two Chinese were sitting at a large table leafing through ledgers. One of them asked him in English if he was really Henry Ballet. Hanzaburo replied that he was an employee of the Japanese company "Mitsubishi" Oshino Hanzaburo. The Chinese were alarmed: they mixed something up. They wanted to bring Hanzaburo back, but after looking at the ledger, they realized that it was not so easy: Oshino Hanzaburo died three days ago, and his legs had already decayed. Hanzaburo thought:

"Such nonsense can not be!", but when he looked at his legs, he saw that his trousers were swaying from the wind blowing from the window. The Chinese wanted to replace his legs with those of Henry Ballet, but it turned out that this was impossible: by the time Henry Ballet's legs arrived from Hankow, Hanzaburo's whole body would decompose. At hand was only a horse that had just died,

The Chinese decided to attach horse legs to Hanzaburo, believing that it was still better than not having any. Hanzaburo begged them not to put horse legs on him, for he could not stand horses. He agreed to any human legs, even if a little hairy, but the Chinese did not have human legs, and they assured him that he would be fine with horse legs, and if you change horseshoes from time to time, you can safely overcome any road, even in mountains. Hanzaburo protested and wanted to run away, but he couldn't do it without his legs. One of the Chinese brought the horse's legs, put them into the holes of the Hanzaburo's tripods, and they immediately adhered to his thighs.

Further Hanzaburo remembered vaguely. When he came to, he was lying in a coffin, and the young missionary recited a prayer for the dead over him. The resurrection of Hanzaburo made a lot of noise. The authority of Professor Yamai was under attack, but Yamai declared that this was a secret of nature, inaccessible to medicine. Thus, instead of his personal authority, he jeopardized the authority of medicine. Everyone rejoiced at the resurrection of Hanzaburo, except for himself. He was afraid that his secret would be revealed and he would be fired from his job.

Hanzaburo's diary shows how much trouble horse legs gave him: they became a breeding ground for fleas, and fleas bit; there was an unpleasant smell from the feet, and the manager sniffed suspiciously when he spoke to Hanzaburo; he had to sleep in socks and underpants so that his wife Tsuneko could not see his legs. One day, Hanzaburo went to a book dealer. A horse-drawn carriage stood at the entrance to the shop. Suddenly the coachman, cracking his whip, shouted: "Tso! Tso!" The horse backed away, and Hanzaburo, to his own surprise, involuntarily backed away. The mare neighed, and Hanzaburo felt something like a neigh rise in his throat as well. He covered his ears and ran as fast as he could.

It's yellow dust season. The spring wind brings this dust to Beijing from Mongolia, and since the legs of the Khanzaburo belonged to the Kunlun horse, smelling the native Mongolian air, they began to jump and gallop. No matter how hard Hanzaburo tried, he couldn't stand still. Overturning seven rickshaws along the way, he rushed home and asked his wife for a rope with which he entangled his naughty legs. Tsuneko thought her husband was crazy and urged him to contact Professor Yamai, but Hanzaburo didn't want to hear about it. When the window of their room was suddenly blown open by a gust of wind, Hanzaburo jumped high and shouted something loudly. Tsuneko fainted. Hanzaburo ran out of the house and, with a yell like a horse's neigh, rushed straight into the yellow dust. He disappeared without a trace, and no one knew what had become of him.

The editor of Junten Nippon, Mr. Mudaguchi, published an article in the newspaper, where he wrote that the power of the Japanese empire is based on the principle of the family, so the head of the family does not have the right to arbitrarily go crazy. He condemned the authorities, who still have not issued a ban on going crazy.

Six months later, Tsuneko experienced a new shock. The doorbell rang outside her apartment. When she opened the door, she saw a ragged man without a hat. She asked the stranger what he needed. He raised his head and said: "Tsuneko ..." The young woman recognized her husband in the stranger and wanted to throw herself on his chest, but suddenly she saw that bay horse legs were visible from under his trousers torn to shreds. Tsuneko felt an indescribable disgust for those legs. She wanted to overpower him, but she couldn't. Hanzaburo turned and began to slowly descend the stairs. Gathering all her courage, Tsuneko wanted to run after him, but before she even took a step, she heard the clatter of hooves. Unable to move, Tsuneko stared after her husband. When he was out of sight, she fell unconscious.

After this event, Tsuneko began to believe her husband's diary, but everyone else: Professor Yamai, the editor Mudaguchi, and Hanzaburo's colleagues - believed that a person could not have horse legs, and that Tsuneko saw them was nothing more than a hallucination. The narrator believes that Hanzaburo's diary and Tsuneko's account are trustworthy. As evidence, he cites a note in the Junten Nippon in the same issue as the report about the resurrection of Hanzaburo. The article says that on the train to Hankow, the chairman of the sobriety society, Mr. Henry Ballett, died suddenly. Since he died with a bottle in his hands, there was a suspicion of suicide, but the results of the analysis of the liquid showed that the bottle contained alcohol.

Roman (1937)

Japan in the thirties. A certain Shimamura, a middle-aged man, is on a train to a snowy country - this is the name of a harsh mountainous region in the north of Honshu (the main island of Japan), which is famous for heavy snowfalls. For the first time he came there to admire the northern nature a year ago in early spring, and now he is going again: to see a young woman with whom he made an acquaintance. Shimamura grew up in Tokyo, he is a wealthy person and if he does anything, it is solely for his own pleasure. So, he became interested first in folk dances, then in European ballet, which he had never seen; he writes articles about him. On the train, he sees a beautiful young girl sitting across the aisle from him. The girl is local, and from her conversation with the stationmaster, Shimamura learns that her name is Yoko. Her voice seems to him painfully beautiful. He watches her face, which is reflected in the window pane, as in a mirror, and is delighted when her eye is combined with some distant light and the pupil flashes. The girl is not traveling alone: ​​she has a sick man with her, whom she carefully cares for. Shimamura cannot understand who they are to each other. The girl and her companion get off the train at the same station as Shimamura. The hotel agent drives Shimamura past snow-covered houses. Shimamura asks the agent about the girl who then, in the spring, lived in the dance teacher's house, and hears in response that she was also at the station: she met the teacher's sick son. Shimamura is not surprised by the coincidence: "it means that in the mirror, against the backdrop of the evening landscape, he saw Yoko caring for the sick son of the mistress of the house where the woman lives for whom he came here ..."

They meet in the hallway of the hotel. She does not reproach him for the fact that he did not come for a long time, did not write to her, and did not even send the promised dance manual. She is silent, but Shimamura feels that she not only does not blame him, but is full of tenderness, reaching out to him with her whole being. Shimamura remembers how he met her. At the beginning of the mountaineering season, he came to these places and, having descended from the mountains after a week-long hike, he asked to invite a geisha. It was explained to him that all the geishas were invited to a banquet on the occasion of the completion of the road, but there was also a girl living in the dance teacher's house, maybe she would agree to come. She is not exactly a real geisha, but when there are big banquets, she is willingly invited: she dances, and she is very appreciated here. The girl came, and Shimamura breathed amazing cleanliness.

She told about herself: she was nineteen years old, she was born here, in the land of snow, at one time she worked as a waiter in Tokyo, but then her patron bought her: he wished that she would teach national dances and gain independence. But soon he died, and since then she has lived for real, in her own way. Shimamura talked to her about kabuki theater - it turned out that the girl is well versed in the art of this theater. Shimamura began to feel something like friendly concern for her. The next day, the girl went to his room to visit. Shimamura asked her to recommend him a geisha, he wanted him and the girl to remain only friends. Perhaps in the summer he will come here with his family, she could keep company with his wife, and bodily intimacy may end up with the fact that in the morning he does not even want to look at her. But the girl still refuses to help. When the maid sent a geisha to Shimamura, he immediately became bored, and he delicately escorted her out. Having met the girl in the cryptomerium grove, he told her that he had changed his mind and let the geisha go: it seemed to him annoying to spend time with another girl who was not as beautiful as she. But something between them has changed, everything was no longer the same as before the arrival of the geisha. In the evening, the girl came to Shimamura's room. She was at a party, and they made her drunk, so that she could hardly stand on her feet. Shimamura hugged her, but she remembered his words that it was better for them to remain just friends, and fought the urge to give herself to him. Yet she gave in. She left him before dark, before the hotel staff got up, and Shimamura returned to Tokyo the same day.

And now, a few months later, Shimamura, not afraid of the bitter cold, came to the snowy country to see again the girl whose name he would soon learn: Komako. She counts how many days they haven't seen each other: one hundred and ninety-nine. Shimamura is surprised that she remembers the exact date of their love date: the twenty-third of May. She explains that she has been keeping a diary for a long time. Moreover, it turns out that since the age of fifteen she has been taking notes of the stories and novels she has read, and now she has accumulated about a dozen notebooks with such notes. The notes are simple: the name of the author, the title of the book, the names of the characters and their relationship. It seems to Shimamura that this is a meaningless occupation, vain work. However, if Shimamura began to think about his own life, he might come to the conclusion that his life is also meaningless. Komako invites Shimamura to her home. He says he will come if she shows him her diaries, but she replies that she will burn them. Shimamura tells Komako that he was riding in the same car with her teacher's son and the girl who accompanied him. He tries to find out who she is to him, but Komako does not want to answer. She talks only about the teacher's son: he is twenty-six years old, he has intestinal tuberculosis and he returned to his homeland to die. Komako lives in the attic, where silkworms used to be bred, in a cozy, clean room.

Leaving the teacher's house, Shimamura runs into Yoko and remembers how on the train Yoko's reflected eye in the glass was aligned with a distant light in the field and her pupil flared up and became inexpressibly beautiful. "He remembered his impression then, and that in turn brought to mind Komako's bright cheeks, glowing in the mirror against the background of the snow." Shimamura goes to the top of the hill and meets a blind masseuse there. He learns from her that Komako became a geisha this summer in order to send money for the treatment of the teacher's son, to whom she was rumored to be engaged. Shimamura again comes to mind the words "wasted work" and "vanity" - after all, he, apparently, found himself a new lover - Yoko, and he himself is on the verge of death. To Shima-mura's questions, Komako replies that she was not engaged to the teacher's son. There was probably a time when the teacher dreamed of marrying her son, but she did not say a word about it, and young people could only guess about her desire.

But there was never anything between them, and Komako did not go to the geisha at all because of him. She cryptically talks about doing her duty, and remembers that when she was sold in Tokyo, she was accompanied only by the teacher's son. Komako avoids talking about Youko at all costs, and Shimamura can't figure out why. And when Shimamura notices that it is not good when Komako does not spend the night at home, Komako objects that she is free to do as she wants and even a dying person cannot forbid her to do so. Komako plays Shimamura on the shamisen. Shimamura realizes that Komako is in love with him, from this thought he becomes sad and ashamed. Now Komako, staying at Shimamura's for the night, no longer tries to return home before dawn. On the eve of departure, on a clear moonlit evening, Shimamura again invites Komako to her place. She is sad that he is leaving. She is in despair at her own helplessness: she cannot change anything. The hotel clerk brings Shimamura the bill, where everything is taken into account: when Komako left at five, when before five, when at twelve the next day. Komako goes to escort Shimamura to the station. Yoko comes running there and calls her home: the teacher's son feels bad. But Komako doesn't want to go home, and neither Yoko nor Shimamura can talk her into it. "No! I can't look at a dying man!" Komako says. It sounds like the coldest heartlessness and the hottest love at the same time. Komako says that now she will no longer be able to keep a diary, and promises to send all her diaries to Shimamura - after all, he is a sincere person and will not laugh at her. Shimamura leaves.

Arriving a year later, Shimamura asks Komako what happened to the teacher's son. "Dead, what else," she replies. Shimamura promised Komako to come on February 14, the feast of the expulsion of birds from the fields, but did not come. Komako is offended: she left her job and went to her parents in February, but returned for the holiday, thinking that Shimamura would come. Now Komako lives in a shop where they sell cheap sweets and tobacco, where she is the only geisha, and the owners take great care of her. Komako asks Shimamura to visit her at least once a year. Shimamura asks what happened to Yoko. "Everyone goes to the grave," Komako replies. While walking, Shimamura sees Yoko sitting on the side of the road, she is peeling beans and singing in "crystal clear, painfully beautiful voice." Komako spends the night at Shimamura's and leaves only in the morning. The next day, Shimamura goes to bed before dark to pass the time, for his hope that Komako would come by herself, without his call, did not come true. At half past seven in the morning, he finds Komako sitting at the table, reading a book. He can’t understand anything: did Komako spend the night with him, but he didn’t notice? But Komako laughingly admits that she hid in the closet when the maid brought coals for the hearth. Shimamura and Komako go for a walk. Shimamura suggests walking towards the cemetery. It turns out that Komako has never been to the grave of the teacher and her son. At the cemetery, they meet Yoko. Embarrassed by her piercing gaze, Komako says that, in fact, she went to the hairdresser ... Both Shimamura and Komako feel embarrassed. At night, Komako comes to Shimamura drunk.

Yoko now works in a hotel. Her presence for some reason embarrasses Shimamura, he even begins to hesitate whether to invite Komako to him. Shimamura is drawn to Youko. Komako sometimes sends notes to Shimamura with her, and Shimamura talks to the girl. Yoko says that Komako is good but unhappy and asks Shimamura not to hurt her. "Noya can't do anything for her," Shimamura replies. He thinks it's better for him to return to Tokyo as soon as possible. It turns out that Yoko is also going to Tokyo. Shimamura asks if it was Komako who advised her to go there, but Yoko replies: "No, I did not consult her and never will. She is nasty..." Shimamura suggests Yoko go together, the girl agrees. When she used to live in Tokyo, she was a nurse. But she cared for only one patient, and now every day she goes to his grave. She no longer wants to be a sister of mercy, does not want to look after anyone. Shimamura asks if it's true that the teacher's son was Komako's fiancé. Yoko vehemently replies that this is not true. "Why do you hate Komako then?" Shimamura is surprised. In response, Yoko asks Shimamura to make sure Komako is well and storms out of the room. Autumn ends, the first snow falls. Shimamura thinks about crepe, a fabric made in these parts and bleached in the snow. In ancient books it is written that "there is crepe, because there is snow. Snow should be called the father of crepe." Shimamura has a desire to travel around the places where crepe is produced. Having visited one of these towns, he meets Komako on the way back. She scolds him for not taking her with him, but then the sounds of the tocsin are heard; burning building for fattening silkworms. It is full of people: movies are shown in this room. Komako is crying, she is worried about people. Everyone runs to the fire. "The Milky Way originated where they came from and flowed in the same direction as them. Komako's face seemed to float in the Milky Way." Shimamura and Komako look at the fire. Suddenly, the crowd, uttering a cry of horror, freezes: a female body falls from above. Komako screams heartbreakingly. The fallen woman is Yoko. "For some reason, Shimamura did not feel death, but only a transition, as if Yoko's life, leaving her body, entered his body." Komako rushes to Youko, takes her in his arms and carries her, "like her victim and her punishment." Shimamura wants to rush towards her, but he is pushed back, and when he looks up, he sees the Milky Way, crashing down, coming right at him.

Roman (1961)

The adopted daughter of a ready-to-wear wholesaler Takichiro Sada notices that two violet bushes have blossomed on an old maple growing near their house - they grow in two small depressions on the trunk of an old maple and bloom every spring for as long as Chieko can remember. They seem to the girl like unhappy lovers who cannot meet in any way. Chieko admires the flowers. Shinichi Mizuki, whom Chieko has been friends with since childhood, invited her to admire the cherry blossoms at the Heian Jingu Temple. Weeping cherries in the temple garden fill Chieko's heart with sacred awe, her lips whisper poetry on their own. From there, Chieko and Shinichi go to the pond, cross over the stones to the other side of it, where pines grow, and come to the "palace bridge", from where a wonderful view of the vast garden behind the pond opens. Then Chieko offers to go on foot to the Kiyomizu temple to admire the evening Kyoto from its height, to look at the sunset over the Western Mountain.

There, Chieko unexpectedly tells Shin'ichi that she is a foundling. The stunned Shinichi does not immediately understand her: he thinks that the girl is figuratively conveying her state of mind. After all, he knows that Chieko is the only beloved child. Chieko says that once, when she was already at school, her mother and father confessed to her that she was not their own daughter, but out of pity they did not say that she was a foundling, but said that they had kidnapped her when she was a baby. But they did not agree in advance, so the father said that she was picked up under the cherry blossoms in Gion (the area in Kyoto adjacent to the temple of the same name), and the mother - that on the banks of the Ka-mogawa River. Chieko knows nothing about her real parents, the adoptive ones are so kind to her that she had no desire to look for them. Shinichi wonders why Chieko suddenly decided to tell him about this? She, of course, guesses that the young man is in love with her. Her words sounded like she was rejecting his love in advance. Chieko obeys her parents in everything. When she wanted to go to university, her father told her that this would be a hindrance to his only heiress, and advised her to take a closer look at his trading business. When Shinichi asks Chieko what she will do if it comes to marriage, the girl replies without the slightest hesitation that she will obey the will of her parents, but not at all because she does not have her own feelings and opinions. To Shinichi, Chieko's behavior is a mystery, but Chieko does not reveal her heart to him.

Chieko's father, Sada Takichiro, retires to Saga (in northwestern Kyoto) to a nunnery, where only the old abbess remains. There he rents a room and, in solitude, comes up with sketches for kimono belts. All his life he dreamed of being an artist. Chieko gave him the albums of Klee, Matisse, Chagall, and now Takichiro is looking at them, hoping that this will stimulate his imagination, help him come up with a completely new pattern for the fabric. Chieko always wears kimonos designed by Takichiro. His shop sells clothes designed for the average buyer, and the clerk gives only two or three kimonos made according to Takichiro's sketches for coloring - solely to maintain the owner's prestige. However, Chieko always willingly takes the kimono for herself, and not out of obligation, but because she likes her father's work. Takichiro's shop in the Nakagyo district was built in the old Kyoto style, with Indian ocher-painted trellises and finely sashed windows on the second floor. Things in the store are getting worse every month.

Sada Takichiro visits an old acquaintance, Otomo Sosuke, the owner of a weaving workshop in the Nishijin district (the Nishijin brocade has long been famous in Japan). He brings back a design for a kimono belt inspired by Klee's work. Sosuke wants to entrust his eldest son Hideo with weaving a belt for Chieko. Hideo weaves belts on a high takabata loom. His craftsmanship is known to manufacturers and wholesalers alike. Hand weaving is gradually becoming a thing of the past, the younger generation prefers other activities, but all three sons of Sosuke followed in their father's footsteps and became weavers. Hideo is cold about Takichiro's work, and an offended Takichiro slaps him in the face. Coming to his senses, he asks for forgiveness for his temper. Hideo humbly explains. He says that he really likes the drawing itself, but it lacks harmony and warmth. Takichiro wants to take the sketch. Hideo says that the design is excellent, and when he weaves the belt, the paints and colored threads will give it a different look. But Takichiro takes the drawing away and throws it into the river.

Takichiro invites his wife Shige and Chieko to go to Omuro to see the flowers. From there they go to the botanical garden and meet Sosuke and Hideo there. Looking at a field of tulips, Takichiro says that Western flowers are too bright and he prefers a bamboo grove. Hideo, when asked about tulips, answers that they live, and even if the time of their flowering is short, but in this fleeting moment - all the fullness of life. Hideo is not going to weave belts that will remain for granddaughters and great-granddaughters, he wants the girl to say: this is for me - and would gladly wear them today, now, when she is in the prime of her youth. Hideo compares Chieko to the beautiful statues of Miroku Buddha in the temples of Koryuji (in Kyoto) and Chuguji (in Nara) and claims that she is more beautiful than them. Takichiro is worried: is he in love with Chieko? What will happen if Chieko marries him? After all, although Takichiro's affairs have been shaken lately, he is still a wholesale trader from the Nakagyo quarter, how can you compare his trading house and the Otomo workshop, where there are only three looms and there is not a single hired weaver? But then Takichiro comes to the conclusion that it is not at all necessary for Chieko to go to Otomo's house, you can take Hideo into their family, because Sosuke has two more sons. Takichiro asks Shige what she thinks of Hideo. Takichiro likes him, and the wholesaler is ready to accept him into his family. But Shige believes that Chieko's opinion should be asked first of all; although she is an obedient daughter, such matters cannot be insisted upon.

A friend invites Chieko to go to Takao to see the maples. During the walk, the girls reach a village on the North Mountain, where cryptomeria grow. Local women cut off branches on cryptomeria and grind their trunks. A friend notices that one of the village girls is like two drops of water similar to Chieko. These words sink into Chieko's soul. She often travels to the village on North Mountain, explaining that very beautiful cryptomeria grow there. Chieko thinks about the secret of her birth all the time. In fact, she was thrown at the entrance to Takichiro's shop, and neither he nor his wife know who the girl's real parents are.

Hideo brings a belt that he has woven according to Takichiro's design. Takichiro is at a loss: after all, he threw the sketch into the river. But it turns out that Hideo remembered the drawing, and now he brought the belt for Chieko. The girl really likes the belt: both the drawing and the work. She tries it on, it suits her very well.

The Feast of Gion is approaching. Chieko recalls how, as a child, when she and Shinichi were seven or eight years old, he portrayed a novice at this festival and sat on a festive ark, and she followed him everywhere. Chieko goes for a walk. The statues of the gods were moved from the Yasaka Shrine to the place of the temporary parking of the arks, she buys a candle and puts it in front of the deity. She notices a girl doing the sevenfold prayer. Chieko feels as if she has seen her somewhere before. Chieko unconsciously also begins to perform the sevenfold prayer. Moving away from the statue of the deity seven times and approaching it seven times, the girls finish the prayer at the same time and converge face to face in front of the statue of the deity. The girl says that she prayed to God to tell her where her sister is. Now she knows: here is her sister. It was God's will for them to meet here. Chieko recognizes the girl: it's the same girl from the North Mountain Village!

The girl says that her parents died when she was just a baby. She knows that she had a twin sister, but does not know what became of her. The girl's name is Naeko, she lives in the village and invites Chieko to visit her. She calls her "young lady", sensing the difference in their situation, and does not want to go to Chieko's house. At the bridge, Chieko is pushed back by the crowd and she falls slightly behind Naeko. At the very bridge, Naeko calls out to Hideo: he mistook her for Chieko. He asks if the young lady really liked the belt he wove. Naeko does not know how to behave and what to answer, but still does not turn to Chieko for help: after all, if Chieko wanted to meet the young man, she would have approached them now. Hideo asks permission to weave a belt according to his own design for the young lady's twentieth birthday. Naeko sheepishly thanks him. She decides that Chieko didn't fit because she didn't want Hideo to know they were twins.

At the Fourth Avenue Bridge, Chieko meets Shin'ichi. He introduces his older brother Ryusuke to her. Chieko and Shin'ichi remember how Shin'ichi pretended to be a novice on the Gion Festival. Shin'ichi notices that Chieko is very excited. Believing that she is unwell, the young people escort her home. The mother also notices that Chieko does not look healthy. The girl looks again at the two violet bushes that have blossomed on the trunk of the old maple - now it seems to her that it is she and Naeko. She goes to bed, but she can't sleep.

Hideo brings Chieko kimono belt designs to choose from. On one of them is a pattern of flowers and leaves of chrysanthemum, on the other - red maple leaves. But Chieko asks him to weave a belt with mountains overgrown with cryptomeria and red pines. She explains to Hideo that then, on the eve of the Gion holiday, he made a fool of himself and promised to weave a belt not for her, but for her sister. She tells Hideo about Naeko and asks him to go to the village on North Mountain when the belt is ready and give it to Naeko. Chieko visits Naeko and tells her about Hideo and that he is going to give her the belt. But Naeko does not want to accept the gift, because Hideo did not want to weave a belt for her. Chieko insists: in the end, she asked the young man to weave a belt for her sister. Naeko promises to accept the gift. Back at home, Chieko tells her parents about Naeko. Parents are amazed, they also did not suspect that Chieko had a sister.

Takichiro wants to buy a small cheap house. Shige wonders if he wants to sell the shop and retire, or he just wants to live separately from the shop. Takichiro, Shige and Chieko go to look at the camphor laurel, with which they have many memories. After inspecting a house near Nanzenji Temple and admiring the hagi flowers growing in front of it, the three go to Tatsumura's shop, where, in addition to fabrics, Sony portable radios and other goods that can attract tourists are sold.

Things are going well for Tatsumura, not like Takichiro, who does not want to break with tradition. In the shop's living room, they meet Ryusuke. He invites Chieko to look at the striped carps in the pond. Young people go for a walk. Ryusuke advises Chieko to be stricter with the clerk and offers his help. He says that his father is a good guide to his grandfather, they have two reliable clerks, and if the clerk who works for Takichiro leaves, they can send one of their clerks to help Takichiro. Ryusuke says that he is ready to leave graduate school at any time and enter the service of Takichiro's shop in order to set things right. In addition, Ryusuke promises to ask his father to find a suitable home for Takichiro, who has decided to retire.

Hideo weaves a belt for Chieko. The images of Chieko and Naeko merge into one in his eyes. After completing the job, he travels to the North Mountain Village and presents the belt to Naeko. She promises to keep it all her life, as the most precious treasure. "Why? I'll be happy to weave you more," says Hideo. He invites the girl to the Festival of the Ages, which is held in memory of the transfer of the capital to Kyoto in 794. During the festival, Hideo looks at the green pines, at the procession, but from the corner of his eye he watches Naeko all the time.

Shin'ichi calls Chieko and says that she's seen her at the Festival of the Ages with a young man. Chieko immediately realizes that he was not actually seeing her, but Naeko, and guesses that Hideo was with her. Shin'ichi hands the phone to Ryusuke, who asks for permission to enter Takichiro's shop and meet their clerk. Arriving at Takichiro's shop, Ryusuke talks with the clerk. Ryusuke's father is a large wholesale merchant with many influential friends. Ryusuke himself, although engaged in science, shows interest in his father's trading business. Ryusuke invites Chieko to have dinner with him and Shin'ichi at a restaurant. After visiting the restaurant, Chieko confesses that at the Festival of the Ages, Shin'ichi mistook her for her sister. “We are twins… But of the two of us, they threw me in,” Chieko says. Ryusuke regrets that the baby was not thrown to their house, he would gladly take up the upbringing of little Chieko.

Naeko calls Chieko and says that she would like to see her. She still refuses to come to her house, so Chieko promises to come to her village. The parents tell Chieko that they are ready to adopt Naeko. Twenty years ago, twins were treated with prejudice, considering their birth a bad omen, a sign that evil forces gravitate over the house, but now they look at it differently. Chieko is touched by the kindness of her parents. Naeko tells Chieko that Hideo proposed to her, but she hasn't responded yet. She is held back by pride: Naeko thinks that Hideo sees in her not her, but the image of Chieko. In addition, Hideo's father's workshop is dealing with Takichiro's shop, and Naeko's appearance will not be too convenient for Chieko, and Naeko does not want to inconvenience her sister. In response, Chieko reveals that her parents are ready to adopt Naeko. Naeko is moved to tears. Chieko asks her to come to their house at least once.

Back at home, Chieko remembers her conversation with Naeko. Naeko is sure that in fact Hideo dreams of marrying Chieko, but, realizing that he is not a match for her, he offered his hand to Naeko.

Mizuki - Ryusuke and Shin'ichi's father - asks Takichiro to take Ryusuke to his shop. Mizuki realizes that Ryusuke just wants to be closer to Chieko. He asks if Takichiro will agree to accept Ryusuke into his family if Chieko ever turns her attention to him. In this case, Mizuki is even ready to refuse him as an heir, because happiness is not in wealth. Takitiro believes that young people should decide their own destiny. Ryusuke starts work the next day. In the evening, after the shop is closed, Naeko visits Chieko. Chieko introduces her sister to her parents. The girls go upstairs to talk quietly. Chieko asks Naeko to stay at their house forever, but Naeko refuses. The girls talk for a long time, then fall asleep next to each other. Light snow falls at night. Naeko leaves early in the morning. Chieko invites you to come again, but Naeko shakes her head. Chieko follows the retreating figure of her sister for a long time.

Novel parable (1963)

One day in August, a man goes on a three-day vacation to replenish his collection of insects with rare species that are found in the sands. He gets on the train to station S, transfers to the bus and, getting off at the final stop, continues on foot. He passes the village and follows the sandy road towards the sea. The road gets steeper and steeper, and all around you can no longer see anything but sand. A man thinks about sand: being interested in the insects that are found in it, he also studied the literature about sand and became convinced that sand is a very interesting phenomenon. Continuing his journey, he suddenly finds himself at the edge of a sandy pit, at the bottom of which stands a shack. He sees an old man and asks him where he can stay overnight. An old man, having previously found out that the visitor is a teacher by profession. not an inspector from the prefecture, leads him to one of the pits. A man descends there on a rope ladder. He is warmly greeted by a young woman - the mistress of a squalid shack. She feeds and waters the guest, but when asked whether it is possible to wash herself, she replies that water will be brought only the day after tomorrow. The man is sure that the day after tomorrow he will no longer be here. "Is it?" - the woman is surprised.

The shack is buried in the sand, the sand penetrates everywhere, and the woman holds a paper umbrella over the man's head when he eats so that the sand does not get into the food, but the sand is still felt in the mouth, creaks on the teeth, soaked with sweat, the sand sticks to the body. The woman says that during last year's typhoon, her husband and daughter were covered with sand, so now she is all alone. At night, she has to shovel sand so that the house does not fall asleep. Upstairs they know that a man has appeared in her house: another shovel and cans are lowered to her on a rope. The man still doesn't understand...

The woman collects sand in cans, pours it out near the place where the rope ladder hangs, then the baskets are lowered, and the cans rise up. It is easier to rake sand at night when it is wet, during the day it is so dry that it immediately collapses. The man helps the woman. The woman explains to the man that the sand does not rest and does not give rest. The man is indignant: it turns out that the villagers live only to shovel sand. In his opinion, it is ridiculous to live like this, this way of life, chosen voluntarily, does not even evoke sympathy in him. He is unable to sleep for a long time, thinking about the sand and hearing how the woman continues to shovel it. When he wakes up, he finds that the woman is sleeping by the hearth completely naked, wrapping her face in a towel to protect herself from the sand.

The man wants to leave unnoticed, but he sees that the rope ladder has disappeared: those who came at night to lift the sand took it away. The man feels trapped. It seems to him that there was just some kind of mistake.

The man starts digging, but the sand immediately crumbles, the man continues to dig - and suddenly an avalanche of sand rushes down, which crushes him. He loses consciousness. A woman takes care of him: he probably fell ill from working in direct sunlight for a long time. He has been in the pit for a week, probably, his colleagues filed an application for his search. He imagines them discussing where he might have disappeared to. The man pretends to be seriously ill: he wants both the woman and those who put him in this hole to finally be convinced that he is not a helper for them, but a burden, and they themselves will try to get rid of him. He can not understand the meaning of a woman's life. He tells her about how pleasant it is to walk, but she does not see joy in this: "walking around idle is just getting tired in vain ..."

The man decides to make another attempt to get out of the hole. At night, when a woman is raking sand, he suddenly pounces on her and ties her up. When people with baskets come and lower the rope into the pit, the man grabs it and demands to be lifted up if they want to help the woman. They begin to pick him up, but soon let go of the rope and he falls to the bottom of the pit, while they pull the rope out of his hands and leave.

A package with three packs of cigarettes and a bottle of vodka are lowered into the pit. The man hopes that this is a guarantee of an early release. However, the woman explains to him that all the men are given tobacco and vodka once a week. The man wonders if people like him wandered into the village, lost on their way. The woman says that several people accidentally ended up in the village, one soon died, the other still lives, no one managed to escape. "I'll be the first!" - says the man. Looking into the tank, the man sees that the water has run out. He understands that she was not brought to break his resistance; the torment of a woman does not excite anyone. The man releases the woman from the fetters on the condition that without his permission she will not pick up a shovel.

He grabs a shovel and hits the wall: he wants to destroy the house in order to make a staircase out of the rubble. Seeing that the wall is rotten (it turned out that the woman was right when she said that the sand rots the wood), he decides to use not boards for this purpose, but transverse beams. The woman hangs on his arm and tries to snatch the shovel. The fight for the shovel ends in a love scene. A man understands: enmity with a woman is useless, he can achieve something only in a good way. He asks her to contact those who bring water, and tell them to immediately deliver it. The woman replies that as soon as they start working, they will find out about it upstairs - someone is always looking through binoculars from the fire tower - and then they will immediately bring water. The man takes the shovel. When a bucket of water is lowered to them, he tells the old man standing upstairs that his colleagues will announce a wanted list and then those who forcibly keep him here will not be happy. But the old man objects that since they haven’t found him in ten days, they won’t find him in the future either. The man promises his help in alleviating the situation of the locals, he has connections, and he can start a campaign in the press, but his words do not make any impression, the old man leaves without listening to the end.

In his spare time, a man furtively makes a rope. Having finished it, he attaches scissors to it instead of a hook, and in the evening, when the woman sleeps off before night work, he throws a rope on the bags, which serve as a pulley when lowering buckets of water and lifting baskets of sand. The scissors dig into the bag, and the man manages to get out of the hole. This happens on the forty-sixth day of his "imprisonment." In order not to be swept away from the fire tower, he decides to hide and wait until the sun goes down. As soon as the sun goes down, he needs to get through the village quickly - before the sand-basket carriers get to work. A man goes astray: thinking that he has passed the village, he suddenly finds it in front of him. He runs in fear through the village. Dogs follow him. To protect himself from them, a man twirls a rope with scissors at the end over his head and touches children who accidentally turn up.

The villagers are chasing the man. His legs suddenly become heavy and begin to bog down in the sand. Submerged in the sand almost to the hips, he begs his pursuers to save him. Three men, having attached boards to the soles, approach him and begin to dig sand around him. After pulling it out, they place it back in the pit. Everything that was before begins to seem to him a distant past.

October is coming. The woman lowers the beads and saves money for the down payment for the receiver. The man built a small canopy of polyethylene so that sand would not fall on them during sleep, and came up with a device for boiling fish in hot sand. He stops reading newspapers and soon forgets they exist. The woman tells that the villagers secretly sell sand to the construction site at half price. The man is indignant: after all, when the foundation or the dam collapses, who will feel better because the sand was cheap or even free. He tries to arrange a walk with the sand carriers, in return they demand that he make love to a woman in front of them. The woman refuses to do it in front of witnesses, but the man wants to get out of the hole so badly that he jumps on her and tries to rape her. The woman resists. The man asks her to at least pretend, but she beats him with unexpected force.

The man notices that water is accumulating at the bottom of the barrel, which he wanted to use as bait for the crows. He thinks again and again about the properties of sand. After a long hard winter, spring comes, A receiver appears in the house. At the end of March, the woman feels that she is pregnant, but after two months she has a miscarriage. She is taken to the hospital. The rope on which she is lifted from the pit remains hanging. The man goes upstairs, looks after the pickup truck taking the woman away. He notices that in the hole in the device for collecting water, the bar has moved away, and he hurries down to fix the breakage. The rope ladder is at his disposal, so there is no need to rush to escape.

Seven years after the disappearance of a man, a wanted notice appears, and since no one responds to it, another six months later, the court issues a decision to consider him dead.

Novel parable (1964)

A researcher, head of a laboratory at the Institute of High Molecular Chemistry, burned his face with liquid oxygen during an experiment, causing scars all over his face. The wounds do not heal in any way, and he walks around with a bandaged face all the time. He reflects that the lack of skin on his face, which is nothing more than a shell, fenced him off from society. He feels like he has lost face and notices that the face plays a much more important role in life than he thought: even the soothing music of Bach now seems to him not a balm, but a lump of clay. "Is a disfigured face capable of influencing the perception of music?" he laments. The hero wonders if he has lost something else along with his face. He recalls how, as a child, he pulled off and threw into the fire the false hair of his older sister, which seemed to him something obscene, immoral, and now the bandages have become, as it were, his false face, devoid of expression and individuality.

The hero tries to re-establish physical intimacy with his wife, who broke off after an accident, but he does it too abruptly, too rudely, and his wife pushes him away. His connection with people has been broken: passers-by politely avert their eyes from his face, colleagues diligently pretend that nothing happened, children begin to cry at the sight of him. The hero wants to make a mask that would replace his face, restore his connection with people. First of all, he meets with K. - a scientist involved in the manufacture of artificial organs. K. shows him an artificial finger, but the face is another matter. According to K., this is not only a cosmetic problem, but also a problem associated with the prevention of mental illness.

During the war, K. was a military doctor and saw that the wounded were primarily worried not about whether they would live and whether their bodies would function normally, but about whether their original appearance would be preserved. One soldier, whose face was mutilated, committed suicide just before being discharged from the hospital. This convinced K that "a serious external injury to the face, like a decal, is imprinted in the form of a mental trauma."

K. is ready to tackle the hero's face and is confident that he can offer him something better than bandages. But the hero refuses. He buys an artificial finger and hurries to leave as soon as possible. At night, placing an artificial finger on the table, like a candle, the hero thinks about his conversation with K. If the face is a path between people, then the loss of face forever walled up the hero in solitary confinement, and then the idea of ​​​​the mask is similar to the plan to escape from prison, where put the existence of man. The hero is really looking for a way to people. But the face is not the only path. The scientific works of the hero on rheology were read by people who had never seen him, therefore, scientific works also connect people with each other. The hero tries to understand why the artificial finger looks so repulsive. It's probably the feel of the skin. To reproduce the smallest details of the skin, you need to use someone else's face.

The hero meets with a school friend - a specialist in the field of paleontology. He explains to the hero that even an experienced specialist can only recreate the general arrangement of muscles - after all, if the skeleton gave an accurate idea of ​​​​the appearance of a person, plastic surgery would be impossible.

The hero considers which face suits him. He is looking for material for a smooth epithelium, for the keratin layer of the epidermis, for the inner layers of the skin. The hero makes a cast of his face from antimony - this is the inner surface of the future mask. Now he needs to choose a face type for the outer surface of the mask, which is not so easy. The inability to share his grief with anyone begins to turn the hero into a monster. If Carlyle's saying that the cassock makes the priest is true, then perhaps it is also true that the monster's face makes the monster's heart.

The hero begins to love darkness. He goes to the cinema to be in the dark, accidentally gets to the exhibition of masks of the "No" theater. It seems to him that the features of their faces are moving, but he understands that this is an optical illusion: in fact, it is not the mask that changes, but the light falling on it. Masks do not have their own expression, but the one who looks at them sees a certain expression on them, each one has his own. It all depends on the viewer, on his choice.

The hero has an idea to choose the type of person from the position of a close person - his wife. The hero tells his wife that in the cinema, the audience, as it were, rents faces from the actors and puts them on, and if the faces of the actors are not liked, then the film is not interesting to watch. The wife replies that she loves films where there are no actors - documentaries. The hero is annoyed that she always yields to him. Returning to his thoughts about the type of face, he comes to the conclusion that, from the point of view of his wife, he suits the "disharmonious, extroverted type." The face of a strong-willed, active person. The hero, on the one hand, seeks to restore the path that connects him with his wife, on the other hand, seeks revenge on her. He feels like a hunter whose arrow is always aimed at his wife.

After much work, the mask is finally ready. To hide the line of its connection with the face, the hero makes the mask a beard. He doesn't like beards - it looks pretentious, but he has no choice. The hero puts on a mask, but his own face seems lifeless to him. Probably, the fact is that the mask is motionless and therefore devoid of expression. The hero decides to rent a room in the house S and there "accustom the mask to wrinkles", to give it expression.

The hero goes out into the street wearing a mask for the first time. His goal is to get used to the mask, so he doesn't care where he goes. He goes into a tobacco shop. The saleswoman does not pay much attention to him, he is the same for her as the others. The next day, the hero asks the manager to rent the next room to his younger brother, so that he can come and go wearing a mask without attracting attention. Unfortunately, the room has already been rented. Then the hero says that the brother will come and rest in his room from time to time. The hero meets the manager's daughter in the yard, who burst into tears when she saw his bandaged face for the first time. The girl is mentally retarded, and the hero speaks to her. "We play secrets," the girl tells him. The hero is amazed at how exactly this random phrase corresponds to what is happening to him. He promises the girl to buy a new toy. The mask begins to seem like an evil spirit to the hero.

One day remains before the end of his fictitious business trip. He needs to get comfortable with the mask. He goes to the store, buys the promised toy for the girl. The shopkeeper shows him a blowgun. The hero doesn't want to buy it, but the mask gets the better of him and he buys the weapon. The hero experiences the mask as something almost separate from himself, almost hostile. He wants to come to his wife in a mask under the guise of a stranger and seduce her. Approaching his house, the hero, not recognized by his neighbors, imagines in his imagination the meeting of his wife with a mask. The mask, which should have become an intermediary between him and his wife, causes the jealousy of the hero. The hero feels that an abyss lies between him and his mask. Looking through the window of his house, the hero sees a lot of bandages hanging from the ceiling with ribbons: waiting for his return, his wife washed the old bandages with which he wrapped his face. The hero feels that he loves his wife very much.

The next day, at four o'clock, the hero arrives in a mask at the bus stop to meet his wife, who is returning from a lecture on applied arts. When she gets off the bus, the hero speaks to her. He invites her for coffee, then dinner. She calmly allows the mask to seduce her, says that her husband is on a business trip, a few hours after meeting her, she goes with the hero to the hotel and gives herself to him. The hero experiences a sense of defeat. He does not understand his wife.

The next day, wrapping his face in bandages, the hero pretends to be returning from a week-long business trip. At first, he goes to work to calm down and get used to his appearance in bandages. At home, his wife meets him as if nothing had happened. He is amazed - he is so desperately struggling with the split between the face and the mask, while his wife withstood the split, which was completely unexpected for her, and did not experience a shadow of shame or remorse. After dinner, the hero, citing an unfinished experiment, leaves the house. After some time, he calls his wife on behalf of the mask. She says that her husband returned, but soon left, and adds: "It's a pity for him."

The hero is confused, he cannot figure out his wife in any way. Approaching his refuge in house S, the hero meets a girl. The hero, in dismay, pretends not to understand what is at stake: after all, when he promised the girl a toy, he was wearing a mask. But the girl says to him:

"Don't worry, we're playing with secrets." The hero sees that his mask cannot deceive even a weak-minded girl, but reassures himself that a girl, like a dog, trusts not external water, but intuition, which is why it is more difficult to deceive her than an adult thinking person. The hero gives the girl a toy.

Wearing a mask, he goes on a date with his own wife. Returning, he begins to write notes to destroy the triangle he created. He cannot merge with the mask in any way, therefore he perceives the connection of the mask with his wife as a betrayal, as a betrayal. This has been going on for almost two months. The hero's wife meets with the mask, and the hero writes notes to explain everything to his wife. Having finished the notes, the hero tells his wife how to get to his shelter in house S. The wife comes there and finds three notebooks where the hero described all his thoughts and feelings - the content of these notebooks is the text of the novel. In conclusion, the hero writes to his wife where his mask lies, and says that she can do whatever she wants with it.

On the blank pages of the last notebook, the hero makes notes for himself. He describes how he sat at home and waited while his wife at S's house read his notebooks. He hopes that the exposure of the mask will hurt his wife, that she will be ashamed. After all, she also wounded the hero with her "treason", which means they are even. He believes that any solution is better than a similar love triangle. Without waiting for his wife, the hero hurries to the house S. The wife is not there. The mask is still in the closet. On the table, he finds a letter from his wife. She writes that from the first minute she guessed everything. But he, who at first sought to return himself with the help of a mask, from a certain moment began to look at the mask as a cap of invisibility, but not in order to hide from others, but in order to escape from himself. The mask became his other face. The wife writes that the mask was not bad, he just did not know how to handle it: in the end, the mask did not change anything. The wife accuses the hero of not wanting to know anyone but himself, and considers his behavior a mockery of her.

After reading his wife's letter, the hero tries to understand at what point he made a mistake. Two of his wife's remarks hurt him the most: first, the confession that, having exposed the true nature of the mask, she continued to pretend that he had succeeded in deceiving her; secondly, the reproach that, despite the many excuses, he backed them up with no real action, it was only enough for these notes, which, in essence, make him look like a snake clutching its own tail. The hero feels that the mask was not so much a mask as something close to a new, real face.

He decides to give the mask another chance. Putting on a mask and taking a blowgun, the hero feels that his mood immediately changes. Previously, he felt that he was already forty years old, now he feels that he is only forty years old. The self-confidence inherent in the mask makes itself felt. The hero tries to find his wife, but to no avail. From obedient, weak, blinded by jealousy, the mask turns into a wild beast capable of anything. Hearing the tapping of heels, the hero hides around the corner and lowers the safety of the pistol. He himself does not know what he will do - it will be decided at the last moment, when the woman is at a distance of a shot. He hates people. The steps are getting closer. His last words: "I can never write again. Apparently, you need to write only when nothing happens."

Novel parable (1973)

The box man, sitting in his box, proceeds to write notes about the box man. He describes in detail which box is suitable for a box man, how it should be equipped so that it is comfortable to be in it in any weather, what things a box man needs. The most suitable box is made of corrugated cardboard. A window should be cut out in the box and hung with a polyethylene curtain cut in half: with a short movement of the head to the right or left, the edges of the curtain move apart slightly, and you can see everything that is happening around. At the moment when a person climbs into a cardboard box and goes out into the street, both the box and the person disappear, and a completely new creature appears - the box man.

Each man-box has its own story. Here is the story of A. A man-box settled under his windows. His presence irritated A. very much, and in order for the box-man to leave, A. shot him with an air gun. The box-man left, and A. began to forget about him. But then one day A. bought a new refrigerator. When he took it out of the box, he had an irresistible desire to climb into the box himself. Every day, after returning from work, he spent some time in the refrigerator drawer, and a week later he became so close to him that he no longer wanted to get out of it. Putting on the box, A. went out into the street and did not return home.

The box-man who takes notes sometimes writes from his own face, sometimes from someone else's, his narration is either monologue or dialogical, and it is often impossible to understand where it is about people who are the fruit of his imagination, and where about other heroes of the story, and it is not even clear if there are any, this stream of consciousness and narrative is so bizarre.

The box man sits on the bank of a canal under a freeway bridge, waiting for a girl who has promised to buy his box for fifty thousand yen. A few days ago, the box man was urinating while standing at the fence of his factory. Suddenly he heard a click and felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. Being a professional photojournalist, he managed to photograph a man who, having shot at him from an air gun, rushed to run. Blood flowed from the wound of the Boxman. Suddenly, a girl rode up on a bicycle, who said that there was a clinic nearby, on a mountain, and slipped three thousand yen through the window of the box so that the box man would have something to pay for the treatment.

When the box man arrived at the clinic, it turned out that the man who had shot him was the clinic's doctor, and the girl was a nurse. While the box-man was in the clinic, the girl smiled affectionately at him and listened with interest to the fables that he told her. At some point, the box man promised to get a box for the girl for fifty thousand yen. After leaving the clinic, the box-man felt unwell and vomited for a long time. He suspects that he was drugged without his knowledge. He waits for a long time, finally the girl comes and throws fifty thousand yen from the bridge and a letter, where she asks him to break the box before the low tide and throw it into the sea. The Box Man contemplates the girl's true intentions. He does not want to return to the former world, he would be glad to leave the box only if he could, like an insect with which metamorphosis took place, throw off his shell in another world. Secretly, he hopes that the meeting with the girl will give him such an opportunity and a new, unknown creature will appear from the larva of the box-man.

The Box Man decides to talk to the girl, return her money and cancel the contract. Approaching the clinic, he uses a car mirror to observe what is happening in one of the rooms. There, the girl is talking to another box-person, the double of the writer. This second box-man is undoubtedly a doctor, he is a false box-man. At first, it seems to the box-man that he has already seen this scene somewhere, even was a participant in it, then he comes to the conclusion that this is not a memory, but a dream. He looks with pleasure at the naked girl. He remembers her story about herself. She was. poor art student and made a living by posing. Two years ago, she had an abortion in this clinic, and, having no means to pay for the treatment, she remained in it to work as a nurse. Most of all she was. I like the work of a model, and if the doctor was not against it, she would continue to pose even now. The Box Man is jealous of his doppelgänger. The box man is sure that getting out of the box costs nothing, but he believes that if so, then there is nothing to get out in vain, but still he would very much like to lend a hand to someone.

The box-man on an empty beach cleans himself up, preparing to leave the box forever. He sees the exit of the tunnel ahead:

"If the box is a moving tunnel, then the naked one is a blinding light at the exit from it." He is going to be at the clinic by eight o'clock. The appointment starts at ten, so he will have enough time to explain everything to the girl, and, if necessary, to the doctor of the false box man. The box man imagines his conversation with the girl. He would tell her that he used to follow all the news closely, he subscribed to many newspapers, installed two televisions and three radios. But one day he saw a dead man on the street. As a professional reporter, he wanted to photograph him, but changed his mind, because he realized that this case was hardly suitable for news. After all, people listen to the news just to calm down. No matter what amazing news a person is told, since he listens to it, it means that he is alive. Since then, the box man stopped following the news. Among people who are not interested in the news, there are no villains, he believes.

The false box-man is so similar to the box-man that it seems to the box-man that the one who is looking is him, and the one who is being looked at is also him. The false box man invites the box man to do whatever he wants, for example, enter into any relationship with the girl, provided that the false box man can watch them all the time: after all, being in the box, he will not harm anyone and you can calmly ignore. The box man himself is used to peeping, but is by no means ready to be peeped at. The false box-man reproaches him that in fact he is not going to part with the box, and, despite assurances that the box is finished, he writes his notes while in the box. The box man has to admit that his interlocutor is a figment of his imagination. In reality, there is only one person writing these notes. And as this man desperately clings to his box, he intends to endlessly write his notes. The box-man tells his interlocutor that when he finishes with his box, these notes will disappear, and with them his interlocutor - the false box-man, who is also a doctor.

The interlocutor catches the box-man on a contradiction: the box-man claims that he wrote only one hour and thirty-four minutes, while the notes take up fifty-nine pages, so the false box-man considers himself entitled to assume that the author of the notes is not the box-man, but who something else, and he writes them in another place. For example, the author of the notes may be a false box person who writes imagining a box person, who in turn writes imagining a false box person. The author of the notes notes that, regardless of who writes, the story moves extremely stupidly.

S. gives written testimony. He was born on March 7, 1926. He served in the army as an orderly under the command of a military doctor and at first helped him, and then began to practice medicine under his guidance and with his knowledge. After the war, S. under the name of this doctor, with the knowledge of the latter, continued to independently engage in medical practice. S. until last year lived in an unregistered marriage with N., the former legal wife of a military doctor, who, as a nurse, helped S. in her work. But when S. hired Yoko Toyama, a nurse trainee a year ago, N. broke up with him. During the war, the military doctor fell seriously ill, and S., at his request, began to give him injections of morphine. As a result, the military doctor became a drug addict.

After the war, he kept S. with him, because he could not do without his help. But gradually the mental state of the military doctor began to deteriorate, and finally he had a desire to commit suicide. S. begged the military doctor to refuse suicide at least temporarily, but the military doctor in return demands that he increase the dose of the drug and be allowed to admire the nakedness of the new nurse. At the suggestion of the military doctor's wife, S. turned into a military doctor and registered the clinic in his name, and the military doctor stopped all communication with the outside world. S. suggests that the military doctor convinced himself that, along with his name, origin, rights, he transferred S. and all of himself as a person, and he himself turned into nothing. S. does not know the reason why the military doctor dressed in a cardboard box. He probably did this following the example of a tramp who roamed the city for several months. But perhaps this tramp was a military doctor who, leaving the house, put on a box. Anyway, some people saw the box man leaving and entering the clinic.

When the corpse of a box-man was thrown onto the shore of the seaside boulevard T., traces of numerous injections were found on it, which led to suspicions about the connection of the box-man with the clinic and, as a result, made it possible to identify the corpse.

Someone, apparently a military doctor, writes, referring to his accomplice, who should help him end his life and pass him off as a drowned man. S. did not send him a girl whose nakedness is a necessary condition for suicide, from which the author of the notes concludes that his hour has come. S. gives him two injections of morphine, then kills him, and when he dies, pours water from a canister into his mouth to pass him off as a drowned man. The notes break off in mid-sentence. In the last insert in the manuscript, the author says that he wants to appear in his true form and honestly tell what his true goal is. In everything that has been written so far, there is not a drop of lies, for it is only a figment of the imagination. The fastest way to get closer to the truth is not to find out who is the real box man, but to find out who is not real.

The box man finally made it to the clinic. A sign hangs on the locked doors that there is no reception. He presses the call button, and the woman lets him into the building. Box Man suspects that she mistook him for a false Box Man (or a false doctor), and begins to explain to her that he is the real Box Man, the one who had been waiting for her under the bridge the night before, a former photojournalist. The woman demands that he remove the box immediately. Box Man explains to her that he is naked - the boys stole his pants while he slept. So that he is not so embarrassed, the woman also strips naked. The man gets out of the box and hugs the woman. He confesses to her that he was not a real box man, but the notes are real, he got them from a real box man after his death. For about two months, two naked people live together, trying to be as close as possible to each other. But there comes a day when a woman dresses and silently looks at her roommate. Now his nakedness begins to look infinitely pitiful, and he crawls back into his box. Instead of getting out of the box, he prefers to lock the whole world into it. "Just now the world should close its eyes. And it will become what I imagine it to be," the box-man reflects. Turning off the light and removing the box, he enters the woman's room naked, but the space that has always been a room suddenly turns into an alley near some station. He is looking for a woman, but to no avail.

The box-man makes an important addition to the description of the structure of the box: it is imperative to leave enough free space in it for writing. The fact is that the inside of the box is an extremely confusing space, and there is no doubt that somewhere in this labyrinth a woman also disappears. She did not run away, she is simply unable to find the place where the box man is now. When there are many guiding threads, there are as many truths as there are these threads.

An ambulance siren is heard.

Tale (1956)

The narrator is Mizoguchi, the son of a poor provincial priest. As a child, his father told him about the Golden Temple - Kinka-kuji - in the old capital of Japan, Kyoto. According to his father, there was nothing more beautiful than the Golden Temple, and Mizoguchi began to think about it often: the image of the Temple settled in his soul. Mizoguchi grew up as a frail, sickly child, besides, he stuttered, this alienated him from his peers, developed isolation, but deep down he imagined himself either a merciless sovereign, or a great artist - the master of souls.

In the village on Cape Nariu, where Mizoguchi's father lived, there was no school, and the uncle took the boy to him. Next door to them lived a beautiful girl - wico. One day, Mizoguchi ambushed her and unexpectedly jumped out into the road when she was riding a bicycle, but from excitement he could not utter a word. The girl's mother complained about him to her uncle, who scolded him severely. Mizoguchi cursed Wiko and began to wish her death. A few months later, a tragedy occurred in the village. It turned out that the girl had a lover who deserted from the army and hid in the mountains. Once, when Huico was bringing him food, she was seized by the gendarmes. They demanded to be shown where the runaway sailor was hiding. When Huiko led them to the Kongō temple on Mount Kahara, her lover shot her with a pistol and then shot himself. So the curse of Mizoguchi came true.

The following year, his father took him to Kyoto for a few days, and Mizoguchi saw the Golden Temple for the first time. He was disappointed: the Golden Temple seemed to him an ordinary three-story building, darkened with age. He wondered if the Temple was hiding its true form from him. May be. Beautiful, in order to protect itself, and should hide, deceive the human eye?

The abbot of the Temple, Reverend Dosen, was an old friend of Mizoguchi's father: in their youth they lived side by side as novices in a Zen monastery for three years. Consumption-stricken father Mizoguchi, knowing that his days were numbered, asked Dosen to take care of the boy. Dosen promised. After returning from Kyoto, the Golden Temple began to again take possession of the soul of Mizoguchi. "The temple has overcome the test of reality to make the dream even more captivating." Soon Mizoguchi's father died, and the boy went to Kyoto and began to live at the Golden Temple. The abbot accepted him as a novice. Leaving the gymnasium, Mizoguchi entered the school at the Rinzai Buddhist Academy. Unable to get used to the fact that he was now so close to the beautiful building, Mizoguchi went to look at the Golden Temple many times a day. He begged the Temple to love him, to reveal his secret to him.

Mizoguchi made friends with another novice - Tsurukawa. He felt that Tsurukawa was not able to love the Golden Temple the way he did, for his admiration for the Temple was based on the consciousness of his own ugliness. Mizoguchi was surprised that Tsurukawa never laughed at his stuttering, but Tsurukawa explained that he was not the type to pay attention to such things. Mizoguchi resented ridicule and contempt, but he hated sympathy even more. Now something new was revealed to him: spiritual sensitivity. Tsurukawa's kindness ignored his stuttering, and Mizoguchi remained himself to him, whereas earlier Mizoguchi thought that a person who ignored his stuttering rejected his entire being. Tsurukawa often did not understand Mizoguchi and always tried to see noble motives in his thoughts and actions. It was the forty-fourth year.

Everyone was afraid that Kyoto would be bombed after Tokyo, and Mizoguchi suddenly realized that the Temple could die in the fire of war. Before, the Temple seemed to the boy eternal, while the boy himself belonged to the mortal world. Now he and the Temple lived one life, they were threatened by a common danger, they were waiting for a common fate - to burn in the flames of incendiary bombs. Mizoguchi was happy, he dreamed of a city engulfed in fire. Shortly before the end of the war, Mizoguchi and Tsurukawa went to the Nanzenji temple and, admiring its surroundings, saw in the Tenju temple (part of the Nanzenji temple ensemble), where rooms were rented out for tea ceremonies, how a young beautiful woman served tea to an officer. Suddenly she opened the kimono collar, bared her breasts and squeezed her fingers. Milk squirted from his chest directly into the officer's cup. The officer drank this strange tea, after which the woman again hid her white breasts in a kimono. The boys were amazed. Mizoguchi the woman appeared to come to life to Wiko. Later, trying to find some explanation for what they saw, the boys decided that it was the farewell of an officer leaving for the front with a woman who had given birth to a child from him,

When the war ended and the Temple was no longer in danger, Mizoguchi felt that his connection with the Temple was broken: "Everything will be as before, only even more hopeless. I am here, and the Beautiful is somewhere there." There were more visitors to the Golden Temple, and when the soldiers of the occupying troops came, Mizoguchi led a tour, because of all those who lived at the Temple, he knew English better than anyone. One morning a drunken American soldier came to the Temple with a prostitute. They were quarreling among themselves, and the woman gave the soldier a slap in the face. The soldier got angry, knocked her down and told Mizoguchi to step on her. Mizoguchi complied. He enjoyed trampling a woman. Getting into the car, the soldier handed Mizoguchi two packs of cigarettes. The boy decided that he would give these cigarettes to the abbot. He will be delighted with the gift, but he will not know anything, and thus will become an unwitting accomplice in the evil committed by Mizoguchi. The boy studied well, and the abbot decided to do him good. He said that when Mizoguchi finished school, he could go to Otani University. It was a great honor. Tsurukawa, who was going to study at Otani at his own expense, was happy for Mizoguchi. A week later, a prostitute came to the abbot and told how one of the novices trampled her feet, after which she had a miscarriage. The abbot paid her the compensation she demanded and didn't say anything to Mizoguchi because there were no witnesses to the incident. The fact that the abbot decided to hush up the case, Mizoguchi found out only by accident. Tsurukawa couldn't believe that his friend was capable of such a heinous act. Mizoguchi, in order not to disappoint him, said that there was nothing like that. He rejoiced in the perfect evil and his impunity.

In the spring of forty-seven, the young man entered the preparatory department of the university. The behavior of the abbot, who never said anything to him after talking with a prostitute, was a mystery to him. It was also unknown who would become the successor of the abbot. Mizoguchi dreamed of taking his place over time, and the young man's mother also dreamed about it. At the university, Mizoguchi met Kashiwagi. Kashiwagi was a clubfoot, and Mizoguchi, the stutterer, felt that this was the most suitable company for him. For Kashiwaga, his clubfoot was both a condition, a reason, a goal, and the meaning of life. He said that a pretty parishioner was crazy about him, but he rejected her love, because he did not believe in her. In front of Mizoguchi, he met a beautiful girl from a wealthy family and started an affair with her. Tsurukawa did not like the rapprochement between Mizoguchi and Kashiwagi, he warned his friend more than once, but Mizoguchi could not free himself from Kashiwagi's evil spell.

One day, deliberately choosing the most dull and windy weather, Kashiwagi and his girlfriend invited Mizoguchi and Kashiwagi's housemate to a picnic. There, a neighbor of Kashiwagi told about a familiar ikebana teacher who had a lover during the war, from whom she even gave birth to a child, but he immediately died. Before sending their lover to the front, they held a farewell tea ceremony at Nanzenji Temple. The officer said that he would like to taste her milk, and she poured milk directly into his cup of tea. And then less than a month later, the officer was killed. Since then, the woman has been living alone.

Mizoguchi was amazed to hear this story and remembered the scene he and Tsurukawa had seen back then at the temple. Kashiwagi claimed that all of his girlfriends were crazy about his legs. Indeed, as soon as he shouted that his legs hurt, his girlfriend rushed to stroke and kiss them. Kashiwagi and his girlfriend left, and Mizoguchi kissed the remaining girl, but as soon as he put his hand under her skirt, the Golden Temple appeared before him and revealed to him all the futility of longing for life, all the insignificance of the fleeting compared to the eternal / l. Mizoguchi turned away from the girl. In the evening of the same day, the abbot of the Temple received news from Tokyo about the death of Tsurukawa, who went there to visit his relatives. Mizoguchi, who didn't cry when his father died, wept bitterly this time. For almost a year, his self-imposed mourning for Tsurukawa continued. He hardly talked to anyone. But a year later, he again became close to Kashiwagi, who introduced him to his new mistress: the same ikebana teacher who, according to Kashiwagi, went into all serious trouble after the death of her lover. Mizoguchi witnessed Kashiwagi's rough treatment of this woman. He just decided to break up with her. The woman ran out of the Kashiwagi house in tears. Mizoguchi followed after her. He told her that he saw her farewell to her lover. The woman was ready to surrender to him, but at the last moment, the Golden Temple appeared before the young man again ... Leaving the woman, Mizoguchi went to the Temple and told him: “Someday you will submit to me! I will subordinate you to my will and you will no longer be able to harm me! "

At the very beginning of the forty-ninth year, Mizoguchi accidentally saw the abbot with a geisha while walking. Fearing that he would not notice him, Mizoguchi went in the other direction, but soon ran into the abbot again. It was impossible to pretend that he did not see Dosen, and the young man wanted to mutter something, but then the abbot angrily said that there was nothing to spy on him, from which Mizoguchi realized that the abbot had also seen him for the first time. All the following days he waited for a severe reprimand, but the abbot remained silent. His dispassion infuriated and disturbed the young man. He bought a postcard with a portrait of a geisha, which was with the abbot, and placed it among the newspapers that Dosen brought into the office. The next day he found it in a drawer in his cell.

Convinced that the abbot held a grudge against him, Mizoguchi began to study worse. He skipped classes, and even a complaint from the dean's office came to the Temple. The rector began to treat him with accentuated coldness and one day (it was November 9) said bluntly that there was a time when he was going to appoint him as his successor, but that time had passed. Mizoguchi had an irresistible desire to run away somewhere, at least for a while.

Having borrowed money from Kashiwagi at interest, he bought a fortune-telling tablet from Tateisao Omikuji Temple to determine the route of his journey. On the sign, he read that misfortune awaited him on the road and that the most dangerous direction was the northwest. It was to the northwest that he went.

In the place Yura on the seashore, a thought occurred to him, which grew and gained strength, so that she no longer belonged to him, but he to her. He decided to burn down the Golden Temple. The owner of the hotel where Mizoguchi was staying, alarmed by his stubborn refusal to leave his room, called the policeman, who, paternally scolding the young man, brought him back to Kyoto.

In March 1950, Mizoguchi graduated from the preparatory department of Otani University. He was twenty-one years old. Since he did not repay the debt, Kashiwagi went to the abbot and showed him the receipt. The abbot paid his debt and warned Mizoguchi that if he didn't stop his outrages, he would be expelled from the Temple. Mizoguchi realized that he had to hurry. Kashiwagi sensed that Mizoguchi was hatching some destructive plans, but Mizoguchi did not reveal his soul to him. Kashiwagi showed him Tsurukawa's letters, where he confided his secrets to him (although, according to Kashiwagi, he did not consider him his friend). It turns out that he fell in love with a girl whom his parents forbade him to marry, and in desperation committed suicide. Kashiwagi hoped that Tsurukawa's letters would turn Mizoguchi away from his destructive plans, but he was wrong.

Although Mizoguchi did not study well and was the last to graduate from the preparatory department, the abbot gave him money to pay for the first semester. Mizoguchi went to a brothel. He could no longer understand: either he wanted to lose his innocence in order to burn down the Golden Temple with an unwavering hand, or he decided to set fire to, wanting to part with the accursed innocence. Now the Temple did not prevent him from approaching the woman, and he spent the night with a prostitute. On June 29, the guide reported that the fire alarm was not working in the Golden Temple. Mizoguchi decided that this was a sign sent down to him by heaven. On June 30, they did not manage to fix the alarm, on July 1 the worker did not come, and Mizoguchi, throwing some of his things into the pond, entered the Temple and piled the rest of his things in a pile in front of the statue of its founder, Yoshimitsu. Mizoguchi plunged into the contemplation of the Golden Temple, he said goodbye to him forever. The temple was the most beautiful thing in the world. Mizoguchi thought that maybe he had prepared so carefully for the Deed, because actually it was not necessary to perform it at all. But then he remembered the words from the book "Rinzairoku": "If you meet a Buddha - kill a Buddha, if you meet a patriarch - kill a patriarch, if you meet a saint - kill a saint, if you meet a father and mother - kill your father and mother, if you meet a kinsman - kill a kinsman. Only in this way will you reach you are enlightenment and deliverance from the frailty of being."

The magic words lifted the spell of impotence from him. He set fire to bundles of straw that he brought to the Temple. He remembered the knife and arsenic he had taken with him. He had the idea of ​​committing suicide in the third tier of the Temple, the Top of the Beautiful, engulfed in fire, but the door there was locked, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not knock it out. He realized that the Top of the Beautiful refuses to accept him. Going down, he jumped out of the Temple and started running wherever his eyes looked. He came to his senses on Mount Hidarideimonji. The temple was not visible - only flames. Putting his hand into his pocket, he felt for the vial of arsenic and the knife and threw them away: he was not going to die. His heart was calm, as after a job well done.

Story (1960)

On February 28, 1936, on the third day after the military coup staged by a group of young nationalist-minded officers who were dissatisfied with a too liberal government, Guards Lieutenant Shinji Takeyama, unable to come to terms with the order of the emperor, who condemned uninvited intercessors and ordered the suppression of the rebellion, made hara-kiri own saber. His wife Reiko followed her husband's example and also took her own life. The lieutenant was thirty-one years old, his wife was twenty-three. Not even six months have passed since their wedding.

Everyone who was present at the wedding, or at least saw the wedding photo, admired the beauty of the young couple. On the day of the wedding, the lieutenant laid a drawn saber on his knees and told Reiko that the officer's wife must be prepared for the fact that her husband might die, and even very soon. In response, Reiko took out the most precious thing given to her by her mother before the wedding - a dagger - and silently placed the drawn blade in her lap. Thus, a silent contract was concluded between the spouses.

Young people lived in peace and harmony. Reiko never contradicted her husband. On the altar in the living room of their house was a photograph of the imperial family, and every morning the couple bowed low to the portrait. On the morning of February 26, having heard the alarm signal, the lieutenant jumped out of bed, dressed quickly, grabbed his saber and left the house. Reiko heard what had happened from the radio messages. Among the conspirators were her husband's best friends. Reiko eagerly awaited the imperial rescript, seeing how the uprising, which was originally called the "national revival movement", was gradually being branded with the stigma of "mutiny." The lieutenant came home only on the twenty-eighth in the evening. His cheeks were sunken and darkened. Realizing that his wife already knew everything, he said: "I didn't know anything. They didn't invite me along. Probably because I recently got married." He said that tomorrow an imperial rescript would be announced, where the rebels would be declared rebels, and he should lead his soldiers against them. He was allowed to spend that night at home, so that tomorrow morning he would participate in the suppression of the rebellion. He could neither disobey his superiors nor go against his friends. Reiko realized that her husband had made the decision to die. His voice was firm. The lieutenant knew that there was nothing more to explain: his wife had already understood everything. When he said he would do hara-kiri at night, Reiko replied, "I'm ready. Let me follow you." The lieutenant wanted to die first.

Reiko was touched by her husband's trust. She knew how important it was for her husband that the ritual of his death went flawlessly. A hara-kiri must certainly have a witness, and the fact that he chose her for this role spoke of great respect. It was also a sign of trust that the lieutenant wanted to die first, because he could not check whether she would fulfill her promise. Many suspicious husbands killed their wives first, and then themselves. The young spouses were overwhelmed with joy, their faces lit up with a smile. It seemed to Reiko that they had yet another first wedding night ahead of them. The lieutenant took a bath, shaved, and looked into his wife's face. Not seeing the slightest sign of sadness in him, he admired her restraint and again thought that he had not made a mistake in choosing. While Reiko was taking a bath, the lieutenant went up to the bedroom and began to think about what he was waiting for - death or sensual pleasure.

One expectation was layered on another, and it seemed as if death was the object of his desire. The realization that this night of love was the last in their lives gave their enjoyment a special refinement and purity. Looking at the beautiful wife, the lieutenant was glad that he would die first and not see the death of this beauty. Getting out of bed, the couple began to prepare for death. They wrote farewell letters. The lieutenant wrote: "Long live the Imperial Army!" Reiko left a letter to her parents asking for their forgiveness for passing away before them. After writing letters, the couple went to the altar and bowed in prayer. The lieutenant sat down on the floor with his back to the wall and laid his saber on his knees. He warned his wife that the sight of his death would be hard, and asked her not to lose courage. The death that awaited him is no less honorable than death on the battlefield. For a moment, it even seemed to him that he would die in two dimensions at once: both in battle and in front of his beloved wife. This thought filled him with bliss. At that moment, his wife became for him the personification of all that is most sacred: the Emperor, the Motherland, the Battle Banner.

Reiko, watching her husband prepare for death, also thought that there could hardly be a more beautiful sight in the world. The lieutenant drew his blade and wrapped it in a white cloth. To test if the saber was sharp enough, he first slashed his leg. Then he plunged the point into the left lower abdomen. He felt a sharp pain. Reiko sat beside her and did her best to restrain herself from rushing to her husband's aid. The blade was stuck in the insides, and it was difficult for the lieutenant to move it to the right. When the blade reached the middle of the abdomen, the lieutenant experienced a surge of courage. Bringing the blade to the right side of the abdomen, the lieutenant growled in pain. With a last effort of will, he aimed the blade at his throat, but could not get into it. His strength was at an end. Reiko crawled up to her husband and opened the collar of his tunic wider. Finally, the point of the blade pierced the throat and exited under the back of the head. A fountain of blood sprayed, and the lieutenant fell silent.

Reiko went downstairs. She applied make-up to her face, then went to the front door and unlocked it; she didn't want their bodies to be found until they were already decomposing. Going upstairs again, she kissed her dead husband on the lips. Sitting down beside him, she drew a dagger from her belt and touched it lightly with her tongue. The metal was sweet. The young woman thought that she would soon be reunited with her beloved. There was only joy in her heart. It seemed to her that she felt the sweet bitterness of the Great Meaning in which her husband believed. Reiko put the dagger to her throat and pressed it down, but the wound was very shallow. She mustered all her strength and plunged the dagger into her throat to the very hilt.

Roman (1967)

Nedokoro Mitsusaburo (Mitsu), waking up before dawn, tries again and again to find a sense of hope, but in vain. He recalls his comrade, who stripped naked, painted his head red and hanged himself. A year before his death, he interrupted his studies at Columbia University, returned to his homeland and was treated for a mild mental disorder. Before leaving America, the comrade met Mitsu's younger brother, Takashi, who arrived there as part of a theater group that staged the play Our Own Shame. This collective included participants in the political events of 1960, when students protested against the Japanese-American "security treaty" and thwarted the US President's visit to Japan.

Now the repentant participants in the student movement, with their performance, seemed to be asking for forgiveness from the Americans. Takashi was going to leave the troupe and travel on his own when he came to America, but fearing that he would be sent out of the country, he did not. Comrade Mitsu also took part in student demonstrations and was hit on the head with a club - since then he has developed symptoms of manic-depressive psychosis. After meeting with a friend, Takashi really left the troupe, and there was no news from him for a long time. And finally, Takashi announced that he was coming. Mitsu considers whether to tell his brother about his handicapped child in the clinic, ponders how to explain to him the drunkenness of his wife, whom his brother does not yet know. When Takashi arrives, Mitsu's wife Natsuko quickly finds a common language with him. Takashi invites Mitsu to return to Shikoku to his native village and start a new life.

In America, Takashi met a department store owner in Shikoku. He wants to buy an old barn belonging to their family, transport it to Tokyo and open a national restaurant in it. The brothers need to go to their homeland to watch its disassembly.

In addition, Takashi is interested in the past of their kind. He heard the story that a hundred years ago, in 1860, their great-grandfather killed his younger brother and ate a piece of meat from his thigh to prove to the authorities that he was not involved in the rebellion raised by his brother. Mitsu heard another version: after the uprising, his great-grandfather helped his brother hide in the forest and flee to Kochi. From there, my great-grandfather's brother crossed by sea to Tokyo, changed his name and later became a prominent person. Great-grandfather received letters from him, but did not tell anyone about it, because many people were killed in the village through the fault of his brother, and great-grandfather was afraid that the wrath of his fellow villagers would fall on his family.

Takashi and his "guards" - very young Hoshio and Momoko, looking into the mouth of their idol - go to Shikoku. Two weeks later, Mitsusaburo and his wife join them. Natsuko decides to stop drinking. Takashi rejoices in his newfound roots. The village youth needs a leader - a man who looks like the brother of Mitsu and Takashi's great-grandfather. They themselves cannot do anything properly: they decided to breed chickens, but they set to work so clumsily that several thousand chickens are about to rest from hunger. Jin - the former nanny of Mitsu and Takashi - is afraid that she will be evicted with the whole family, but Mitsu reassures her: she and her brother are going to sell only the barn; the land, the main house and the outbuilding will remain, so that no one will deprive her of housing.

An urn with the ashes of Brother S, the older brother of Mitsu and Takashi, who was killed in a skirmish with residents of a neighboring Korean village, is kept in the village temple. Korean speculators, finding out where the undelivered rice was hidden in the village, repeatedly stole it and took it to the city to sell. It was unprofitable for the peasants who hid the rice to turn to the police, so they began to incite the local youth to teach the Koreans a lesson. During the first raid on a Korean village, one Korean was killed; during the second raid, a Japanese was supposed to die. Brother S did not try to defend himself during the fight and voluntarily sacrificed himself. Mitsu believes that brother S was painfully worried that during the first raid, he and his friends stole moonshine and toffee from the Koreans. Takashi seems to remember how Brother S, dressed in the uniform of a cadet of the school of naval pilots, leading the guys from the village, challenged the bravest guys from the Korean village to battle. Mitsu is sure that all this is the fruit of the imagination of Takashi, who then, in 1945, was still very young. The feeble-minded mother, whom Brother S forcibly took to a psychiatric hospital, did not even want to say goodbye to the deceased, so he was simply cremated and his ashes remained in the temple. Mitsu and Takashi's sister, who was very fond of music, was also not quite normal and committed suicide. Their nanny Jin believes that Natsuko gave birth to a handicapped child due to her husband's poor heredity. Natsuko starts drinking again.

The chickens, which were bred by the local youth, died. Takashi travels to town to consult with the supermarket owner (who is responsible for half the cost of raising chickens) on how to proceed. Young people hope that he will be able to persuade the owner of the supermarket not to sue her. In addition, he expects to receive a deposit from the owner of the supermarket for the barn. The owner of the supermarket is a Korean, he is one of those who were once brought here for logging. Gradually, he bought land from his fellow villagers and became rich by taking over all the trade in the village.

Takashi decides to organize a football team and train local youths in it. He becomes their leader. Mitsu recalls how, in 860, his great-grandfather's brother taught fellow villagers to fight with bamboo pikes. Takashi dreams of being like him. In Mitsu's dream, the image of his great-grandfather's brother merges with that of Takashi. Mitsu heard from his mother that the uprising of 1860 arose from the greed of the peasants, who were led by the brother of their great-grandfather. Peasants destroyed and burned down the main house in Nedokoro Manor. They would have captured the barn where the great-grandfather had locked himself, but the peasants had wooden pikes, and the great-grandfather had a gun. Great-grandfather's brother was in the eyes of the Naedokoro family a dangerous lunatic who burned down his own house. Mother drew attention to the fact that the peasants had wooden peaks, and the great-grandfather had a gun.

The abbot brings to Mitsu the notes of his older brother, who died at the front - brother S gave them to him shortly before his death. The abbot tells Mitz his version of the events of 860. He says that just before the uprising, a messenger from Kochi arrived in the village, who brought the gun. He met his great-grandfather and his brother. Seeing the brewing discontent of the peasants, they decided that the best thing was to give him a way out, that is, to raise an uprising. It is known that the leaders of the uprising were always arrested and punished. But the great-grandfather's brother was promised that if he stood at the head of the local youths, who were basically the second and third sons in the families, that is, extra mouths, then they would help him escape to Kochi. The uprising lasted five days, and as a result, the peasants' demand for the elimination of the preliminary tax system was satisfied. However, the leaders of the rebellion locked themselves in the barn and resisted the people of the prince. Great-grandfather figured out how to lure them out of there. All of them were executed, except for the brother of their great-grandfather, who hid in the forest.

Mitsu refuses to read his older brother's notes, Takashi reads them. He sees a kindred spirit in his older brother, calls him "an active creator of evil." Takashi says that if he had lived during his older brother's time, this diary might have been his own.

A boy drowns in a river, and the footballers, led by Takashi, rescue him. Takashi becomes a recognized leader of the local youth. Mitsu wants to return to Tokyo. He is like a rat that is always striving for its hole. He feels like a stranger in the village. Natsuko declares that she is staying in the village. Mitsu puts off leaving, but moves into the barn. Natsuko stays at the house with Takashi, Hoshio and Momoko. She stops drinking again because Takashi insists on it. Takashi tells the local youth about the uprising of 860, about how its instigators forced other villages to join them; youth gave free rein to their wild temper, crushed everything in its path. The peasants were under the rule of cruel youths. Therefore, when the people of the prince came and the youth tried to resist, the adult peasants did not support her. The guys from the football team felt like the youth who rebelled in 860. Takashi wants to revive the rebellious spirit of their ancestors.

The supermarket arranges a New Year's distribution of goods. Slow goods are distributed free of charge to local residents, each with one thing. A crowd gathers at the door, a stampede begins. Through the efforts of Ta-kasi, the distribution turns into a robbery, he tries to get all the villagers to take part in it. Events take on a nationalistic character: after all, the owner of the supermarket is a Korean. The leader of the local youth, who raised chickens, wants to kick out the owner of the supermarket and create a collective board of the villagers. Takashi supports him. The locals are already repenting that they robbed a department store, but Takashi filmed everything and made it impossible to renounce the robbery.

The abbot gives Mitsu several letters from his great-grandfather's brother, written after his flight to Kochi. Hoshio moves to Mitsu's barn: Takashi is sleeping with Natsuko, and Hoshio can't bear it. Takashi states that he and Natsuko have decided to get married. Local residents are making plans to compensate the owner of the supermarket for the damage from the robbery and buy the store. They want to transfer it to the ruined village shopkeepers so that the economic power in the village falls into the hands of the Japanese. Mitsu is overcome by the thought that the rebellion can end successfully for Takashi, and even if it fails, Takashi will be able to leave the village and enjoy a peaceful married life with Natsuko.

At night, Natsuko comes to the barn and reports that Takashi tried to rape a village girl and killed her. The guys from the football team left Takashi and fled to their homes, and tomorrow the whole village will come to capture him. Takashi wants to defend himself and asks Mitsu to switch places with him: Mitsu will sleep in the house, and he will sleep in the barn. At the barn, Takashi tells Mitsu the truth about his relationship with his handicapped sister. There was a love affair between them, and the sister became pregnant. Takashi convinced her to tell the uncle they lived with after her mother's death that she had been raped by some stranger. Her uncle took her to the hospital, where she had an abortion and was sterilized. She could not recover from the shock, and Takashi, realizing the seriousness of the operation she had undergone, moved away from her, and when she tried to caress him, hit her. The next morning my sister was poisoned.

Takashi says that even if his fellow villagers don't lynch him tomorrow, his days are still numbered. He bequeaths his eye to Mitsu - once in his childhood, Mitsu had his eye gouged out. Mitsu does not believe that Takashi is really preparing to die. Mitsu is sure that Takashi did not kill the girl, he just wants to feel like a real criminal, he sees something heroic in this, so he passes off an accident as a murder, firmly knowing that the court will still establish the truth and he will be released or, in extreme cases, given three years in prison, after which he will return to society as an ordinary, unremarkable person. Mitsu is overwhelmed by a wave of contempt for his brother. Takashi is discouraged. Mitsu leaves for the house, meanwhile Takashi commits suicide. Hoshio and Momoko decide to get married and leave the village: now that Takashi is dead, they need to stick together. The supermarket owner did not demand damages and did not report to the police. He sent a truck full of goods to the village and reopened his shop. He begins to dismantle the barn to move it, and discovers a large basement that Mitsu was unaware of. It turns out that the great-grandfather's brother did not disappear anywhere after the failure of the uprising, he spent the rest of his life in this basement, and his letters are the fruit of his imagination and reading books. The supermarket owner says that he was in the village when brother S was killed in 1945. In the midst of a fight, brother S dropped his hands, so he was killed, and it is not even known who it was: Koreans or Japanese, probably both .

Natsuko accuses Mitsu of causing Takashi to feel shame before his death and thus making his suicide even more horrific. Natsuko is pregnant by Takashi and decides to keep the baby.

Mitsu was reading a book about the unrest in their village in 1871, which ended in the suicide of the chief adviser. The rebels behaved so cunningly and skillfully that they achieved everything they wanted without staining their hands with blood. The name of their leader remained unknown, and Mitsu suddenly realizes that this was his great-grandfather's brother - after ten years of voluntary seclusion, he, having considered the failure of the first uprising, managed to raise the second and achieve the desired success. The abbot tells Mitsu that even though Takashi's rebellion failed at first glance, everyone recognized the youth as a real force and one guy from the youth group was even elected to the municipality. The stagnant village organism received a thorough shake-up.

Mitsu climbs into the basement and thinks about Takashi, about their ancestors, about their entire family. Mitsu and Natsuko decide not to break up.

Novel. (1973)

One Japanese industrialist, influenced by American fashion, decided to build individual nuclear shelters, but they could not be mass-produced, and the only shelter built was abandoned. Five years later, the construction company, using the bunker as a foundation, erected a three-story building, the back of which was closely adjacent to the slope. A man who voluntarily left society settled in this house. In the recent past, he was the personal secretary of a prominent politician, married his daughter, and advertised nuclear shelters for a construction company controlled by his father-in-law.

But one fine day, he took his five-year-old son from his wife, whom doctors considered mentally retarded, and together with the child began to live as a recluse in a shelter. He himself appointed himself the attorney of those whom he loved most in this world - trees and whales. He changed his name to emphasize his new identity, and began calling himself Ooki ("mighty tree") Isana ("brave fish"). He is busy looking at photographs of whales, watching trees growing outside with binoculars. To be closer to nature, he made a 30x30 cm hole in the floor of the bunker and immersed himself in thoughts, putting his bare feet on the real earth. Isana recorded the voices of various birds on film, and his son Jin learned to accurately recognize them: it turned out that the boy had unusually sharp hearing.

Once in a swampy lowland, which is visible from the windows of the shelter, an incident occurs. A young girl seduces a police agent, and her friends attack him and take away the gun. To save himself, the agent chooses the most frail of the attackers and, having contrived, puts a handcuff on his hand, while he snaps the second handcuff on his hand. Teenagers beat up the agent, and the boy tries to cut off his hand to escape. The police agent unfastens the handcuff and runs away, and the teenagers rush after him screaming for a long time.

Seeing that the trees are covered with young leaves and have gained a sense of their complete security, Isana, who is spiritually connected with them, also feels protected and leaves the shelter. He, like plants, awakens from hibernation and is looking for a way out for the energy accumulated in him. Together with Jin, he gets on a bus and goes to the park, but they arrive too late: the park is already closed and the rides are not working. The watchman nevertheless lets them through, and in a deserted park they meet a group of aggressive teenagers, one of whom has a bandaged hand. Isana feels unaccountable fear and hurries back to the shelter. Going to the store and leaving Jin at home alone, Isana also experiences fear. At night he has nightmares. He gets the feeling that their hideout is being watched all the time. One day he discovers a drawing on the wall of the house - a circle and a cross. Isana draws next to this eye drawing. He meets a girl near his house who invites him to sleep in the dressing room of a famous actress in an abandoned film studio, standing at a distance from a swampy lowland. Isana does not answer and leaves, and at night she hears the clatter of teenagers on the roof and worries about Jin, whose fragile mental balance is so easy to break.

The next day, Isana looks through binoculars at the ruins of the film studio and sees a naked girl in the window of the pavilion. Suddenly, he spots a group of teenagers who accuse him of spying on them. They ask why Isana and Jin live here without interacting with anyone. Isana explains to them that he is an attorney for trees and whales. Threatened with violence, the teenagers force Isan to let Boy, a teenager whose wound began to fester, and Inago, the very girl who offered Isan to sleep with her, enter their house. Isana goes to the pharmacy to get some medicine for a sick person while Inago looks after Jin. To Isan's surprise, the girl treats the baby with care and attention.

One of the teenagers - Takaki - tells Isana about the Whale Tree. As a child, Takaki heard about him, dreamed about him, but never saw him. The name "Whale Tree" evokes a warm feeling in Isan, he also begins to think that such a tree exists. After returning from the pharmacy, Isana falls off her bike. Teenagers laugh, not at all thinking that he might be hurt. Isana is amazed at their cruelty. Takaki comes to pick up Isan in a stolen car and continues the story of the Whale Tree. A few days later, Takaki shows Isana the stash of teenagers: they settled in an abandoned film studio. They dismantled the schooner, which one of them was supposed to guard, dragged it piece by piece to one of the pavilions, and there they assembled it and began to study maritime affairs in order to subsequently set sail. Teenagers have united in the Union of Free Sailors and live right here, equipping a cockpit in the basement.

Seeing that Takaki has brought Isan, Boy, who has almost recovered and returned to the schooner, wants to shoot "this madman": no stranger should know about the cache. Isana is not afraid of death: Inago takes care of the boy so well that he can do without a father. But Isana must fulfill his mission - to tell the aliens from other worlds that not a man reigned on earth, but whales and trees. Boy is afraid that Isana will report them to the police, but all the other teenagers are imbued with confidence in Isana and invite him to join them.

A man called Short, who is already forty years old, so he is even older than Isan, says that at thirty-five he suddenly began to shrink and still shrinks. Indeed, his limbs seem too long compared to his too short torso. He was sent to a psychiatric hospital, but he escaped from there. He has no place in the world of ordinary people, and he feels fine in the society of teenagers. Listening to Isan talk about trees and whales, teenagers come to the conclusion that he has what they lack: the ability to put their thoughts into words. They believe that his excellent command of the word can be useful to them.

Isana confesses her sins to teenagers: when he was his father-in-law's secretary, he brought boys to him, indulging his perversions. Once they accidentally killed a boy, and since then Isana has not known peace. As a "specialist in words", Isana begins to study English with teenagers, choosing for this "Moby Dick" and Dostoevsky in English translation. At first, he fears that the conversations of the elder Zosima will seem too moralizing to teenagers, but they listen with great interest, and the word "prayer" (prayer) literally captures them. To Isan's surprise, the teenagers are very fond of Jin and listen to serious music with pleasure. Isana lives in anticipation of the end of the world, and teenagers are waiting for the Great Earthquake - they have a lot in common.

Teenagers attract a soldier of the self-defense forces, beloved Inago, to the Union of Free Mariners. They want him to teach them how to handle weapons. Isana asks his wife Naobi to find a place on the coast where he and his friends can stay for two or three weeks. Naobi finds such a place for them in Izu, but there Short commits a betrayal - he photographs the military exercises of the Union of Free Mariners and sells photographs to a weekly. He wants to force the teenagers to kill him, believing that the crime will rally them and turn the Union of Free Mariners into a militant organization. The teenagers arrange a trial for Shorty, during which one of them - Tamakichi - accidentally injures Shorty. Realizing that Short's wound is fatal, the teenagers decide to execute him. Each of them throws a stone at him. Isana and the soldier stand to the side. The soldier, grabbing a loaded machine gun and leaving Inago, gets on a motorcycle and runs away, the teenagers give chase. One of them - Tamakichi - throws a grenade at a fishing schooner. The schooner catches fire, and suspicion falls on the soldier. The soldier commits suicide. Inago becomes Isan's mistress, Isan, Jini, Inago return to Tokyo, to the hideout. There they are met by teenagers: the film studio is being destroyed, they had nowhere to go, and breaking the window, they climbed into Isan's shelter.

There was only one Boy left in the pavilion at the film studio: he would never agree to leave the schooner. To prevent it from falling into the wrong hands, he blows it up. The workers destroying the film studio beat up Boy. Tamakichi takes a dying comrade to the University of Tokyo clinic and leaves him in the arcade. Teenagers think about what to do next. Isana asks Naobi to help her get money for the ship so she can go sailing with the teenagers. Naobi has announced her candidacy for the election, and Isana hopes that it is more profitable for her to have her husband and son sail the sea protecting whales, and not sit in an atomic shelter. Naobi promises to offer a construction company to buy a shelter and land from Isan - the money received will be enough for the planned enterprise. Just in case, teenagers stock up on food - if they face a siege, they will need them in shelter, but if they are waiting for a swim, they will take them with them. In order not to endanger the child, the teenagers offer Isana and Jin to leave the shelter, but Isana wants to inform his wife that she and Jin are taken hostage - then she will surely provide them with a ship. Police cars are visible from the window of the shelter. The motorized detachment surrounded the building. Teenagers are shooting, the police are firing tear gas. They call on the besieged to surrender.

Teenagers are waiting for the arrival of Isan's wife. Naobi arrives, but declares that even for the sake of the life of her child, she will not enter into a deal with criminals. Teenagers fight bravely, but the power is not on their side, and they die one by one. It becomes clear that they no longer need the ship: they still could not set sail, because both the navigator and the radio operator died. Tamakichi intends to fight to the end, but he does not want the Union of Free Mariners to disappear without a trace. He invites Takaki to leave and revive him. Isana is stepping down as a specialist, according to the Union of Free Mariners, now he devotes himself fully to the duties of an attorney for whales and trees. Takaki admits that his story about the Whale Tree is a fabrication, but Isana retorts that, as long as he can't go to Takaki's homeland and verify it, nothing prevents him from believing that the Whale Tree exists. Takaki with a white flag comes out of the shelter, followed by Inago with Jin in his arms and a doctor (a former medical student). As they walk towards the car, the police beat them.

As the car takes away those who have surrendered, a fire truck with a crane arrives at the shelter and begins to demolish the building. Only Isana and Tamakichi remained in the shelter. Isana descends into the bunker. With his feet on the ground, he listens to a tape of whale calls. Water spouts out of the ground like a fountain: thrown out by a fire engine, it seeped under the foundation and scored in the place where there was a hole in the floor. The manhole cover rises, shots are heard. Isana shoots back. The water is rising higher and higher. Turning to the souls of trees and whales, Isana sends them the last forgiveness and perishes.

Editor: Novikov V.I.

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