Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
little hero
From unknown memoirs
I was then almost eleven years old. In July, they let me go to visit a village near Moscow, to my relative, T-vu, who at that time had about fifty people, and maybe more guests ... I don’t remember, I didn’t count. It was noisy and fun. It seemed that it was a holiday that began with that, never to end. It seemed as if our host had given himself a promise to squander all his enormous fortune as soon as possible, and he managed to justify this conjecture recently, that is, to squander everything, completely, cleanly, to the last chip. Every minute new guests arrived, but Moscow was a stone's throw away, in plain sight, so that those who were leaving only gave way to others, and the holiday went on as usual. Amusements were replaced by one another, and no end was foreseen for the undertakings. Either riding around the neighborhood, in whole parties, then walking in the forest or along the river; picnics, lunches in the field; suppers on the large terrace of the house, furnished with three rows of precious flowers, which filled the fresh night air with fragrances, under brilliant lighting, from which our ladies, who were already almost all pretty, seemed even more charming with their faces animated by daytime impressions, with their sparkling little eyes, with their criss-crossed speech, shimmering with ringing laughter like a bell; dancing, music, singing; if the sky frowned, living pictures, charades, proverbs were composed; settled down home theater. Claspers, storytellers, bonmotists appeared.
Several faces were sharply outlined in the foreground. Of course, slander, gossip went on as usual, because without them there would be no light, and millions of people would die of anguish, like flies. But since I was eleven years old, I did not notice these persons at that time, distracted by something completely different, and if I noticed something, it was not all. After that, I had to remember something. Only one brilliant side of the picture could catch my childish eyes, and this universal animation, brilliance, noise - all this, hitherto unseen and unheard of by me, struck me so much that in the first days I was completely at a loss and my little head was spinning.
But I keep talking about my eleven years, and, of course, I was a child, nothing more than a child. Many of these beautiful women, caressing me, did not yet think to cope with my years. But - a strange thing! - some sensation, incomprehensible to me, has already taken possession of me; something rustled already in my heart, hitherto unfamiliar and unknown to him; but why did it sometimes burn and beat, as if frightened, and often my face was covered with an unexpected blush. Sometimes I was somehow ashamed and even offended for my various childhood privileges. Another time, as if surprise overcame me, and I went somewhere where they could not see me, as if in order to take a breath and remember something, something that until now, it seemed to me, I I remembered very well, and what I have now suddenly forgotten, but without which, however, it is still impossible for me to show myself and in no way be.
Then, finally, it seemed to me that I was hiding something from everyone, but I never told anyone about it, then, which is a shame to me, little man, to tears. Soon, in the midst of the whirlwind that surrounded me, I felt a kind of loneliness. There were other children, too, but all of them were either much younger or much older than me; Yes, however, not until them was me. Of course, nothing would have happened to me if I had not been in an exceptional position. In front of all these beautiful ladies I was still the same small, indefinite creature, which they sometimes liked to caress and with whom they could play like with a little doll. Especially one of them charming blonde, with lush, thick hair, which I never saw later and, probably, never will see, seemed to have sworn not to give me rest. I was embarrassed, but she was amused by the laughter that resounded around us, which she constantly aroused by her sharp, eccentric antics with me, which, apparently, gave her great pleasure. In boarding schools, between friends, she would probably be called a schoolgirl. She was wonderfully pretty, and there was something about her beauty that caught my eye at first sight. And, of course, she was not like those little bashful blondes, white as fluff, and delicate, like white mice or pastor's daughters. She was short and a little plump, but with delicate, fine lines of her face, charmingly drawn. Something like lightning was sparkling in this face, and all of it - like fire, alive, fast, light. Of her big open eyes as if sparks were falling; they sparkled like diamonds, and I would never exchange such sparkling blue eyes for any black ones, even if they were blacker than the blackest Andalusian look, and my blonde, right, was worth that famous brunette, who was sung by a famous and beautiful poet and who also in such excellent verses he swore by all Castile that he was ready to break his bones if they let him just touch the mantilla of his beauty with the tip of his finger. Add to that my the beauty was the most cheerful of all the beauties in the world, the most eccentric laughter, frisky as a child, despite the fact that she had already been married for five years. Laughter did not leave her lips, as fresh as a morning rose, which had just managed to open, with the first ray of the sun, its scarlet, fragrant bud, on which cold large drops of dew had not yet dried.
I remember that on the second day of my arrival a home theater was set up. The hall was, as they say, packed to capacity; there was not a single place free; and since for some reason I happened to be late, I was forced to enjoy the performance standing up. But fun game more and more pulled me forward, and I imperceptibly made my way to the very first rows, where I finally stood, leaning on the back of the chair in which a lady was sitting. It was my blonde; but we didn't know each other. And then, somehow by chance, I stared at her wonderfully rounded, seductive shoulders, plump, white, like milky boil, although it didn’t matter to me to look: at the wonderful female shoulders or at the cap with fiery ribbons that hid the gray hair of one venerable ladies in the front row. Near the blonde sat an overripe maiden, one of those who, as I later noticed, always huddle somewhere as close as possible to young and pretty women, choosing those who do not like to drive young people away from themselves. But that's not the point; only this girl noticed my observations, leaned over to her neighbor and, giggling, whispered something in her ear. The neighbor suddenly turned around, and I remember that her fiery eyes flashed at me in the semi-darkness so that I, not prepared for the meeting, shuddered, as if burned. Beauty smiled.
- Do you like what they play? she asked, looking slyly and mockingly into my eyes.
"Yes," I replied, still looking at her in a kind of surprise, which she, in turn, apparently liked.
- Why are you standing? So - get tired; don't you have a place?
“That’s just what it is,” I answered, this time more preoccupied with care than with the sparkling eyes of the beauty, and seriously overjoyed that I had finally found kind heart to whom you can open your grief. “I was already looking, but all the chairs are occupied,” I added, as if complaining to her that all the chairs were occupied.
“Come here,” she spoke briskly, quick to all decisions as well as to every extravagant idea, no matter what flashed through her eccentric head, “come here to me and sit on my knees.
“On your knees…?” I repeated, puzzled.
I have already said that my privileges seriously began to offend me and conscience. This one, as if for laughter, went far as an example to others. In addition, I, already always a timid and shy boy, now somehow began to be especially shy in front of women and therefore became terribly embarrassed.
- Well, on your knees! Why don't you want to sit on my lap? she insisted, starting to laugh harder and harder, so that at last she simply began to laugh at God knows what, maybe her own invention or glad that I was so embarrassed. But that's what she needed.
I blushed and looked around in embarrassment, looking for where to go; but she had already warned me, somehow managing to catch my hand, precisely so that I would not leave, and, pulling it to her, suddenly, quite unexpectedly, to my greatest surprise, squeezed it painfully in her playful, hot fingers and began to break my fingers, but it hurt so much that I strained every effort not to scream, and at the same time made ridiculous grimaces. In addition, I was in the most terrible surprise, bewilderment, even horror, when I learned that there are such funny and evil ladies who talk to boys about such trifles and even pinch so painfully, God knows why and in front of everyone. Probably, my unhappy face reflected all my bewilderment, because the minx laughed into my eyes like crazy, and meanwhile she pinched and broke my poor fingers more and more. She was beside herself with delight that she had succeeded in swindling, embarrassing the poor boy and mystifying him to dust. My position was desperate. Firstly, I was burning with shame, because almost everyone around us turned to us, some in bewilderment, others with laughter, immediately realizing that the beauty had done something wrong. In addition, I wanted to scream with fear, because she broke my fingers with some kind of bitterness, precisely because I did not scream: and I, like a Spartan, decided to endure the pain, afraid to make a commotion with a cry, after which I don’t know what would become of me. In a fit of utter despair, I finally began to struggle and began to pull my own hand but my tyrant was much stronger than me. Finally, I could not stand it, I cried out - that was all I was waiting for! In an instant she left me and turned away, as if she had never happened, as if it wasn’t she who messed up, but someone else, well, just like some schoolboy who, the teacher slightly turned away, had already managed to mess up somewhere in the neighborhood , pinch some tiny, weak boy, give him a click, a kick, push his elbow and turn around again in an instant, recover, burying himself in a book, begin to peck his lesson and, thus, leave the angry mister teacher, who rushed like a hawk on noise, - with a long and unexpected nose.
A work written by Dostoevsky in Peter and Paul Fortress in anticipation of the trial (summer - autumn 1849), - strikes with its cheerful, almost Renaissance full-bloodedness. Dostoevsky in this story is most interested in the formation or definition of the main substantial property of a person, the problem of the formation of a personality, the formation of a moral position, the awakening of feelings.
Original title "Children's Tale". The Little Hero was conceived by Dostoevsky more broadly, as a novel (see letter to his brother Mikhail dated July 18, 1849). The name "Little Hero" itself, in addition to indicating the age (height) of the character, introduces the theme of "deed", "accomplishment". The oxymoronism of the title is palpable - the feat as such was not accomplished, the "hero" did not grow up to "heroism".
Published by Dostoevsky's brother Mikhail without the name of the author with an anagram M-iy. Dostoevsky regretted that he could not remake the story, make changes to the text: “to throw out everything that is worthless” (letter to his brother dated March 1, 1858). In subsequent editions and years. the beginning - an appeal to Mashenka - was omitted. However, in this preface, some important aesthetic principles early Dostoevsky: the story is written “to please” a capricious girl and must meet several criteria: amusement("so it was terrible how curious to listen"), not sentimentality(“because Mashenka doesn’t want to cry at all<...>She doesn't want to laugh either. not scary("and so last night I was exhausted all over: I had some kind of terrible dream"), conciseness("so that it is not long"), clarity of plot(“so that there is no confusion”). The focus of Dostoevsky's attention is the theme of "spring awakening": a non-standard situation when one falls in love with. As L.P. Grossman, this topic was hypocritically hushed up by official pedagogy.
The text dialectically develops along two directions - internal and external. On the one hand, Dostoevsky shows the emerging hero (his inner becoming), and on the other hand, a hero who becomes first an observer, and then a participant in the life drama. In the end, it is the inner “I” that helps the hero “perform a feat”, and the external whirlpool of events, establishing relationships with people around him helps the formation of his inner “I”.
It is known that the idea of childishness carried a double load in the ethical and aesthetic system of Dostoevsky: on the one hand, the Christian canon (to be like children), on the other hand, childishness as the infantilism of the soul, the inability to hear and perceive someone else's pain.
The Little Hero continues and develops many of the themes raised by Dostoevsky in Netochka Nezvanova. The image of the protagonist is at the origins of the theme of "thinking children" in the work of Dostoevsky (impressive children and thinking teenagers - Grossman). This is not yet a teenager (the narrator emphasizes several times “of course, I was a child, nothing more than a child”), but in essence the hero of the gap, the “threshold”, located between the world of adults and the world of children. Further, this image evolves into the image of a “resonant” teenager (“Idiot”), turns into the type of an “unprepared person”, who will have to “stand out” into a “new”, “future” person (“Teenager”). The importance of the children's theme in Dostoevsky's work is confirmed by the idea of the "novel about children", dating back to the late 1860s - 1870s. ("Childhood", "Children"). In "The Brothers Karamazov" all types of Dostoevsky's teenage children are synthesized: "thoughtful child" -, "resonant" - (the little hero is Kolya's first sketch, however, there is still no exceptional self-love and peculiar antics), the teenager's line is completed by himself.
It is important for Dostoevsky to point out the exceptional position of his hero in the story. He is a "semi-teenager", "savage", as he calls himself.
“Adolescents” grow up “suddenly” (it is precisely this moment that Dostoevsky depicts, the case when a child “says goodbye to childhood”), they begin to suffer from sensations that they themselves do not understand: for the first time in their life they experience “serious grief, insult, resentment” , joy, love, sincere sympathy. The hero himself does not yet know how to distinguish the main from the secondary, to clean the grain from the chaff, moves at random and, bribing the reader with his naivety, ardor, including him in the process of empathy, suddenly, accidentally finds the truth in front of the reader - "here and now".
The heroic plot in the story gradually unfolds according to the laws of the “knightly code”, and consists of episodes arranged in order of increasing complexity. The initial failure of the hero (shouted, could not stand the "competition" with the insidious blonde), shame (internal), ridicule - this is the first stage. The second is the right to be a “page” (you need to be able to prove your chosenness, devotion to a lady). Not in vain living picture, in which the hero and his beloved take part together, expresses a scene from medieval life and is called “The Lady of the Castle and Her Page”. The status of a page corresponds to the hero's age, but he is not satisfied and longs for a more obvious feat. The third stage is initiation: the hero openly comes out in defense of his beloved. And this stage also ends with a moral failure: “... I was defeated, destroyed;<...>I could neither resist this verdict, nor even discuss it well: I was bewildered; I only heard that my heart was inhuman, shamelessly wounded, and burst into impotent tears. Nevertheless, the hero is rewarded: “a whole bunch of the prettiest” ladies besiege his doors, they ask him, beg him to open, so that he can be kissed all “to dust”. This is the first formal recognition of the hero. After that follows climactic episode with a cascade, fireworks of deeds. Here the writer again explicates the theme of chivalry to emphasize the passionate, exalted, exalted character of the hero’s actions: “... tournaments, paladins, heroes, beautiful ladies, glory and winners flashed in my dizzy head, heralds, the sounds of swords, the cries and splashes of the crowd, and between all these cries there is one timid cry of one frightened heart, which indulges a proud soul sweeter than victory and glory. So, the knight is recognized, the feat is accomplished in front of the beloved and the whole society. It is in connection with the theme of chivalry that Schiller is mentioned.
At the level female images polarity is set: a hero between two women. One is a tormentor (infernal), the second is a Madonna, both experience it. Relations with a blonde (from ridicule, humiliation through a feat to "tender" friendship) can be considered as a duel that the hero wins thanks to his courage and perseverance (the hero "pacifies" the "tyrant" like a horse).
Relations with M-me M * (from selective chance to sincere tender gratitude) are built as the hero’s ability to guess, feel the tragedy of his beloved, readiness to help - the hero is deprived of a sense of possessiveness, jealousy, although psychological jealousy is natural: Natalie does not love husband, he suspects her, the little hero witnesses a gentle farewell and kiss M-me M * s. Dostoevsky emphasizes the difficult state of the hero, he reacts directly to everything, unaware of jealousy, feeling only endless sadness in himself: “I followed her, confused and surprised by everything that I saw. My heart was beating fast, as if from fear. I was as numb, as befuddled; my thoughts were broken and scattered; but I remember that for some reason I was terribly sad. But Dostoevsky "leads" the hero only from the sphere of reflection to an even more complex feat - indeed, now the beloved is in real danger: lost letter N-sky M-me M * threatens to discredit her reputation and destroy her forever.
The boy's delicate attempts to convey to his beloved a letter he accidentally found on the path of the garden also turn into a special feat. This act, unlike the first, public "feat", is deeply intimate and, in fact, is the result of the hero's internal evolution. The process of growing up can be considered complete, it is this episode that is the true initiation of the hero into the world of deeply feeling spiritual natures.
Confession and chronicle are realized by Dostoevsky in the story with the help of a unique hero-narrator, nature with a complex spiritual world, dating back to the author's (biographical) beginning. This is a kind of epic distancing. "Little Hero" has a sub-title "From unknown memoirs", which defines the very model of the narrative. The time between the event being described and the story situation is vague and indefinite. The main universal principle - the memoir style of presentation - is aimed at creating a special, intimate atmosphere of narration. The "unknown" narrator is busy carefully recalling not so much the events themselves as his own states. The narrator clearly shows the features of a traditional storyteller. early works Dostoevsky: anonymity, deprivation external characteristics(a technique of introspection that allows the reader to feel the plasticity of the inner “I”, to see the “inner landscape of the soul”); youth; raznochinno-democratic origin (this theme is implied); loneliness as a necessary ground for daydreaming; an intermediate place in society (generated by loneliness, gives certain advantages: you can observe, be relatively free).
During the life of Dostoevsky, the story was not noticed by critics. V " Domestic notes"In 1882, he called The Little Hero among the few works of Dostoevsky "completely complete, in the sense of harmony and proportionality" ( Mikhailovsky N.K. Articles about Russian literature of the 19th - early 20th century. L., 1989. S. 220-221). noted Dostoevsky's ability to recreate the complex inner world child, the awakening of "holy and pure feeling" ( Women's education. 1882. No. 2. S. 109-110).
The composition of the story, characteristic of Dostoevsky, is con-clave: the hero waits for the full gathering, all the guests who have gathered for a ride on horseback become witnesses of the hero's "test".
Smells of nature in the art world Dostoevsky is described infrequently. Most bright examples can be found precisely in the story "Little Hero": "dinners on the large terrace of the house, furnished with three rows of precious flowers, flooded with aromas ...". “I made my way to where the greenery is thicker, where the smell of trees is more resinous, and where the sunbeam looked more cheerfully, rejoicing that I managed to penetrate here and there the hazy density of leaves.”
It is important that nature is given through the sensations of an eleven-year-old child, but harmony is caused not so much by childish carelessness as by first love: “Behind them, endless furrows of mowed grass were persistently crawling, and from time to time a slightly moving breeze blew on us with her fragrant perspiration” . A boy in love collects a bouquet for a beautiful woman, and his identification of smells reflects the deep sensual nature of experiences: “... came across a whole family pansies, near which, fortunately for me, the fragrant violet smell revealed in the juicy, thick grass a lurking flower, still sprinkled with shiny dew drops. The obvious positivity of the world of smells is created due to the high vocabulary: “fragrant perspiration”, “smoking with sacrificial aroma”.
Zykhovskaya N.L. Little hero // Dostoevsky: Works, letters, documents: Dictionary-reference book. St. Petersburg: Pushkin House, 2008. S. 123-126.
Lifetime editions:
1857
- St. Petersburg: Type. I.I. Glazunov and Co., 1857. Nineteenth year. T. CXIII. August. (S. 359-398)
1860
— M.: Ed. ON THE. Osnovskiy. Type. Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages, 1860. T. I. (S. 501-544)
1866
— complete collection works of F.M. Dostoevsky. New, updated edition. Edition and property of F. Stellovsky. SPb.: Type. F. Stellovsky, 1866. T. III. (S. 150-164)
1866
— F.M. Dostoevsky. New revised edition. Edition and property of F. Stellovsky. SPb.: Type. F. Stellovsky, 1866. (52 p.)
From unknown memoirs
I was then almost eleven years old. In July, they let me go to visit a village near Moscow, to my relative, T-vu, who at that time had about fifty people, and maybe more guests ... I don’t remember, I didn’t count. It was noisy and fun. It seemed that it was a holiday that began with that, never to end. It seemed as if our host had given himself a promise to squander all his enormous fortune as soon as possible, and he managed to justify this conjecture recently, that is, to squander everything, completely, cleanly, to the last chip. Every minute new guests arrived, but Moscow was a stone's throw away, in plain sight, so that those who were leaving only gave way to others, and the holiday went on as usual. Amusements were replaced by one another, and no end was foreseen for the undertakings. Either riding around the neighborhood, in whole parties, then walking in the forest or along the river; picnics, lunches in the field; suppers on the large terrace of the house, furnished with three rows of precious flowers, which filled the fresh night air with fragrances, under brilliant lighting, from which our ladies, who were already almost all pretty, seemed even more charming with their faces animated by daytime impressions, with their sparkling little eyes, with their criss-crossed speech, shimmering with ringing laughter like a bell; dancing, music, singing; if the sky frowned, living pictures, charades, proverbs were composed; arranged a home theater. Claspers, storytellers, bonmotists appeared.
Several faces were sharply outlined in the foreground. Of course, slander, gossip went on as usual, because without them there would be no light, and millions of people would die of anguish, like flies. But since I was eleven years old, I did not notice these persons at that time, distracted by something completely different, and if I noticed something, it was not all. After that, I had to remember something. Only one brilliant side of the picture could catch my childish eyes, and this universal animation, brilliance, noise - all this, hitherto unseen and unheard of by me, struck me so much that in the first days I was completely at a loss and my little head was spinning.
But I keep talking about my eleven years, and, of course, I was a child, nothing more than a child. Many of these beautiful women, caressing me, did not yet think to cope with my years. But - a strange thing! - some sensation, incomprehensible to me, has already taken possession of me; something rustled already in my heart, hitherto unfamiliar and unknown to him; but why did it sometimes burn and beat, as if frightened, and often my face was covered with an unexpected blush. Sometimes I was somehow ashamed and even offended for my various childhood privileges. Another time, as if surprise overcame me, and I went somewhere where they could not see me, as if in order to take a breath and remember something, something that until now, it seemed to me, I I remembered very well, and what I have now suddenly forgotten, but without which, however, it is still impossible for me to show myself and in no way be.
Then, finally, it seemed to me that I was hiding something from everyone, but I never told anyone about it, then, which is a shame to me, a little man, to tears. Soon, in the midst of the whirlwind that surrounded me, I felt a kind of loneliness. There were other children, too, but all of them were either much younger or much older than me; Yes, however, not until them was me. Of course, nothing would have happened to me if I had not been in an exceptional position. In the eyes of all these beautiful ladies, I was still the same small, indefinite creature, which they sometimes liked to caress and with whom they could play like with a little doll. One of them in particular, a charming blond woman with thick, voluminous hair, the likes of which I have never seen since and probably never will, seemed to have vowed to haunt me. I was embarrassed, but she was amused by the laughter that resounded around us, which she constantly aroused by her sharp, eccentric antics with me, which, apparently, gave her great pleasure. In boarding schools, between friends, she would probably be called a schoolgirl. She was wonderfully pretty, and there was something about her beauty that caught my eye at first sight. And, of course, she was not like those little bashful blondes, white as fluff, and delicate, like white mice or pastor's daughters. She was short and a little plump, but with delicate, fine lines of her face, charmingly drawn. Something like lightning was sparkling in this face, and all of it - like fire, alive, fast, light. From her large open eyes sparks seemed to fall; they sparkled like diamonds, and I would never exchange such sparkling blue eyes for any black ones, even if they were blacker than the blackest Andalusian look, and my blonde, right, was worth that famous brunette, who was sung by a famous and beautiful poet and who also in such excellent verses he swore by all Castile that he was ready to break his bones if they let him just touch the mantilla of his beauty with the tip of his finger. Add to that my the beauty was the most cheerful of all the beauties in the world, the most eccentric laughter, frisky as a child, despite the fact that she had already been married for five years. Laughter did not leave her lips, as fresh as a morning rose, which had just managed to open, with the first ray of the sun, its scarlet, fragrant bud, on which cold large drops of dew had not yet dried.
I remember that on the second day of my arrival a home theater was set up. The hall was, as they say, packed to capacity; there was not a single place free; and since for some reason I happened to be late, I was forced to enjoy the performance standing up. But the cheerful game pulled me forward more and more, and I imperceptibly made my way to the very first rows, where I finally stood, leaning on the back of the armchair in which a lady was sitting. It was my blonde; but we didn't know each other. And then, somehow by chance, I stared at her wonderfully rounded, seductive shoulders, plump, white, like milky boil, although it didn’t matter to me to look: at the wonderful female shoulders or at the cap with fiery ribbons that hid the gray hair of one venerable ladies in the front row. Near the blonde sat an overripe maiden, one of those who, as I later noticed, always huddle somewhere as close as possible to young and pretty women, choosing those who do not like to drive young people away from themselves. But that's not the point; only this girl noticed my observations, leaned over to her neighbor and, giggling, whispered something in her ear. The neighbor suddenly turned around, and I remember that her fiery eyes flashed at me in the semi-darkness so that I, not prepared for the meeting, shuddered, as if burned. Beauty smiled.
- Do you like what they play? she asked, looking slyly and mockingly into my eyes.
"Yes," I replied, still looking at her in a kind of surprise, which she, in turn, apparently liked.
- Why are you standing? So - get tired; don't you have a place?
“That’s just what it is,” I answered, this time more preoccupied with care than with the sparkling eyes of the beauty, and seriously overjoyed that at last a kind heart was found to which I could open my grief. “I was already looking, but all the chairs are occupied,” I added, as if complaining to her that all the chairs were occupied.
“Come here,” she spoke briskly, quick to all decisions as well as to every extravagant idea, no matter what flashed through her eccentric head, “come here to me and sit on my knees.
“On your knees…?” I repeated, puzzled.
I have already said that my privileges seriously began to offend me and conscience. This one, as if for laughter, went far as an example to others. In addition, I, already always a timid and shy boy, now somehow began to be especially shy in front of women and therefore became terribly embarrassed.
- Well, on your knees! Why don't you want to sit on my lap? she insisted, starting to laugh harder and harder, so that at last she simply began to laugh at God knows what, maybe her own invention or glad that I was so embarrassed. But that's what she needed.
Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
From unknown memoirs
I was then almost eleven years old. In July, they let me go to visit a village near Moscow, to my relative, T-vu, who at that time had about fifty people, and maybe more guests ... I don’t remember, I didn’t count. It was noisy and fun. It seemed that it was a holiday that began with that, never to end. It seemed as if our host had given himself a promise to squander all his enormous fortune as soon as possible, and he managed to justify this conjecture recently, that is, to squander everything, completely, cleanly, to the last chip. Every minute new guests arrived, but Moscow was a stone's throw away, in plain sight, so that those who were leaving only gave way to others, and the holiday went on as usual. Amusements were replaced by one another, and no end was foreseen for the undertakings. Either riding around the neighborhood, in whole parties, then walking in the forest or along the river; picnics, lunches in the field; suppers on the large terrace of the house, furnished with three rows of precious flowers, which filled the fresh night air with fragrances, under brilliant lighting, from which our ladies, who were already almost all pretty, seemed even more charming with their faces animated by daytime impressions, with their sparkling little eyes, with their criss-crossed speech, shimmering with ringing laughter like a bell; dancing, music, singing; if the sky frowned, living pictures, charades, proverbs were composed; arranged a home theater. Claspers, storytellers, bonmotists appeared.
Several faces were sharply outlined in the foreground. Of course, slander, gossip went on as usual, because without them there would be no light, and millions of people would die of anguish, like flies. But since I was eleven years old, I did not notice these persons at that time, distracted by something completely different, and if I noticed something, it was not all. After that, I had to remember something. Only one brilliant side of the picture could catch my childish eyes, and this universal animation, brilliance, noise - all this, hitherto unseen and unheard of by me, struck me so much that in the first days I was completely at a loss and my little head was spinning.
But I keep talking about my eleven years, and, of course, I was a child, nothing more than a child. Many of these beautiful women, caressing me, did not yet think to cope with my years. But - a strange thing! - some sensation, incomprehensible to me, has already taken possession of me; something rustled already in my heart, hitherto unfamiliar and unknown to him; but why did it sometimes burn and beat, as if frightened, and often my face was covered with an unexpected blush. Sometimes I was somehow ashamed and even offended for my various childhood privileges. Another time, as if surprise overcame me, and I went somewhere where they could not see me, as if in order to take a breath and remember something, something that until now, it seemed to me, I I remembered very well, and what I have now suddenly forgotten, but without which, however, it is still impossible for me to show myself and in no way be.
Then, finally, it seemed to me that I was hiding something from everyone, but I never told anyone about it, then, which is a shame to me, a little man, to tears. Soon, in the midst of the whirlwind that surrounded me, I felt a kind of loneliness. There were other children, too, but all of them were either much younger or much older than me; Yes, however, not until them was me. Of course, nothing would have happened to me if I had not been in an exceptional position. In the eyes of all these beautiful ladies, I was still the same small, indefinite creature, which they sometimes liked to caress and with whom they could play like with a little doll. One of them in particular, a charming blond woman with thick, voluminous hair, the likes of which I have never seen since and probably never will, seemed to have vowed to haunt me. I was embarrassed, but she was amused by the laughter that resounded around us, which she constantly aroused by her sharp, eccentric antics with me, which, apparently, gave her great pleasure. In boarding schools, between friends, she would probably be called a schoolgirl. She was wonderfully pretty, and there was something about her beauty that caught my eye at first sight. And, of course, she was not like those little bashful blondes, white as fluff, and delicate, like white mice or pastor's daughters. She was short and a little plump, but with delicate, fine lines of her face, charmingly drawn. Something like lightning was sparkling in this face, and all of it - like fire, alive, fast, light. From her large open eyes sparks seemed to fall; they sparkled like diamonds, and I would never exchange such sparkling blue eyes for any black ones, even if they were blacker than the blackest Andalusian look, and my blonde, right, was worth that famous brunette, who was sung by a famous and beautiful poet and who also in such excellent verses he swore by all Castile that he was ready to break his bones if they let him just touch the mantilla of his beauty with the tip of his finger. Add to that my the beauty was the most cheerful of all the beauties in the world, the most eccentric laughter, frisky as a child, despite the fact that she had already been married for five years. Laughter did not leave her lips, as fresh as a morning rose, which had just managed to open, with the first ray of the sun, its scarlet, fragrant bud, on which cold large drops of dew had not yet dried.
I remember that on the second day of my arrival a home theater was set up. The hall was, as they say, packed to capacity; there was not a single place free; and since for some reason I happened to be late, I was forced to enjoy the performance standing up. But the cheerful game pulled me forward more and more, and I imperceptibly made my way to the very first rows, where I finally stood, leaning on the back of the armchair in which a lady was sitting. It was my blonde; but we didn't know each other. And then, somehow by chance, I stared at her wonderfully rounded, seductive shoulders, plump, white, like milky boil, although it didn’t matter to me to look: at the wonderful female shoulders or at the cap with fiery ribbons that hid the gray hair of one venerable ladies in the front row. Near the blonde sat an overripe maiden, one of those who, as I later noticed, always huddle somewhere as close as possible to young and pretty women, choosing those who do not like to drive young people away from themselves. But that's not the point; only this girl noticed my observations, leaned over to her neighbor and, giggling, whispered something in her ear. The neighbor suddenly turned around, and I remember that her fiery eyes flashed at me in the semi-darkness so that I, not prepared for the meeting, shuddered, as if burned. Beauty smiled.
- Do you like what they play? she asked, looking slyly and mockingly into my eyes.
"Yes," I replied, still looking at her in a kind of surprise, which she, in turn, apparently liked.
- Why are you standing? So - get tired; don't you have a place?
“That’s just what it is,” I answered, this time more preoccupied with care than with the sparkling eyes of the beauty, and seriously overjoyed that at last a kind heart was found to which I could open my grief. “I was already looking, but all the chairs are occupied,” I added, as if complaining to her that all the chairs were occupied.
“Come here,” she spoke briskly, quick to all decisions as well as to every extravagant idea, no matter what flashed through her eccentric head, “come here to me and sit on my knees.
“On your knees…?” I repeated, puzzled.
I have already said that my privileges seriously began to offend me and conscience. This one, as if for laughter, went far as an example to others. In addition, I, already always a timid and shy boy, now somehow began to be especially shy in front of women and therefore became terribly embarrassed.
- Well, on your knees! Why don't you want to sit on my lap? she insisted, starting to laugh harder and harder, so that at last she simply began to laugh at God knows what, maybe her own invention or glad that I was so embarrassed. But that's what she needed.
I blushed and looked around in embarrassment, looking for where to go; but she had already warned me, somehow managing to catch my hand, precisely so that I would not leave, and, pulling it to her, suddenly, quite unexpectedly, to my greatest surprise, squeezed it painfully in her playful, hot fingers and began to break my fingers, but it hurt so much that I strained every effort not to scream, and at the same time made ridiculous grimaces. In addition, I was in the most terrible surprise, bewilderment, even horror, when I learned that there are such funny and evil ladies who talk to boys about such trifles and even pinch so painfully, God knows why and in front of everyone. Probably, my unhappy face reflected all my bewilderment, because the minx laughed into my eyes like crazy, and meanwhile she pinched and broke my poor fingers more and more. She was beside herself with delight that she had succeeded in swindling, embarrassing the poor boy and mystifying him to dust. My position was desperate. Firstly, I was burning with shame, because almost everyone around us turned to us, some in bewilderment, others with laughter, immediately realizing that the beauty had done something wrong. In addition, I wanted to scream with fear, because she broke my fingers with some kind of bitterness, precisely because I did not scream: and I, like a Spartan, decided to endure the pain, afraid to make a commotion with a cry, after which I don’t know what would become of me. In a fit of utter despair, I finally began to fight and began to pull my own hand towards me with all my strength, but my tyrant was much stronger than me. Finally, I could not stand it, I cried out - that was all I was waiting for! In an instant she left me and turned away, as if she had never happened, as if it wasn’t she who messed up, but someone else, well, just like some schoolboy who, the teacher slightly turned away, had already managed to mess up somewhere in the neighborhood , pinch some tiny, weak boy, give him a click, a kick, push his elbow and turn around again in an instant, recover, burying himself in a book, begin to peck his lesson and, thus, leave the angry mister teacher, who rushed like a hawk on noise, - with a long and unexpected nose.
But, to my happiness, general attention was at that moment carried away by the masterful play of our host, who performed some kind of Scribov's comedy in the play that was being played, leading role. Everyone applauded; I, under the guise, slipped out of the row and ran to the very end of the hall, to the opposite corner, from where, crouching behind a column, I looked with horror at where the treacherous beauty was sitting. She was still laughing, covering her lips with a handkerchief. And for a long time she turned back, peeping out at me in all corners - probably very sorry that our extravagant fight ended so soon, and thinking of how to play something else.
This began our acquaintance, and from that evening she was no longer behind me a single step. She pursued me without measure and conscience, she became a persecutor, my tyrant. The whole comic of her tricks with me consisted in the fact that she said she was in love with me up to her ears and cut me in front of everyone. Of course, for me, a downright savage, all this was painful and annoying to tears, so that several times I was in such a serious and critical situation that I was ready to fight with my insidious admirer. My naive embarrassment, my desperate longing seemed to inspire her to pursue me to the end. She did not know pity, and I did not know where to go from her. The laughter that resounded around us, and which she knew how to arouse, only set her on fire for new pranks. But they finally began to find her jokes a little too far. And indeed, as I now had to remember, she already allowed herself too much with a child like me.
But such was her character: she was, in all her form, a spoiled child. I heard later that I spoiled her more than anything else. own husband, a very plump, very short and very red man, very rich and very businesslike, at least in appearance: fidgety, busy, he could not live in one place for two hours. Every day he went from us to Moscow, sometimes twice, and everything, as he himself assured, was on business. It was difficult to find a more cheerful and good-natured face of this comical and meanwhile always decent physiognomy. Not only did he love his wife to the point of weakness, to the point of pity, he simply worshiped her as an idol.
He did not constrain her in anything. She had many friends and girlfriends. Firstly, few people did not like her, and secondly, the anemone herself was not too picky in choosing her friends, although at the heart of her character was much more serious than one can assume, judging by what I have now told . But of all her friends, she loved all of them and distinguished one young lady, her distant relative, who was now also in our society. There was some kind of tender, refined connection between them, one of those connections that sometimes arise at the meeting of two characters, often completely opposite to each other, but of which one is stricter, and deeper, and purer than the other, while the other, with a high humility and with a noble sense of self-esteem, lovingly submits to him, feeling all his superiority over himself, and, as happiness, concludes his friendship in his heart. It is then that this tender and noble refinement begins in the relations of such characters: love and indulgence to the end, on the one hand, love and respect, on the other, respect, reaching some kind of fear, to fear for oneself in the eyes of someone who is so highly value, and to a jealous, greedy desire with every step in life, getting closer and closer to his heart. Both friends were the same age, but there was an immeasurable difference between them in everything, starting with beauty. M-me M* was also very pretty, but there was something special about her beauty that sharply separated her from the crowd of pretty women; there was something in her face that immediately irresistibly attracted all sympathies, or, rather, that aroused noble, sublime sympathy in those who met her. There are such happy faces. Around her, everyone felt somehow better, somehow freer, somehow warmer, and yet, her sad big eyes, full of fire and strength, looked timidly and restlessly, as if under every minute fear of something hostile and formidable, and this strange timidity sometimes covered her quiet, meek features, reminiscent of bright faces, with such despondency. Italian Madonnas that, looking at her, he himself soon became as sad as for his own, as for his native sadness. This pale, emaciated face, in which, through the irreproachable beauty of pure, regular lines and the dull severity of dull, hidden melancholy, the original childishly clear appearance still so often shone through - an image of still recent trusting years and, perhaps, naive happiness; this quiet, but timid, hesitant smile - all this struck with such unaccountable sympathy for this woman that a sweet, ardent concern involuntarily arose in everyone's heart, which loudly spoke for her from afar and still alienated her. But the beauty seemed somehow silent, secretive, although, of course, there was no being more attentive and loving when someone needed sympathy. There are women who are definitely sisters of mercy in life. You can hide nothing before them, at least nothing that is sick and wounded in the soul. Whoever suffers, boldly and with hope go to them and do not be afraid to be a burden, because few of us know how infinitely patient love, compassion and forgiveness can be in another female heart. Whole treasures of sympathy, consolation, hope are stored in these pure hearts, so often also wounded, because the heart that loves a lot is sad a lot, but where the wound is carefully closed from a curious look, because deep grief is most often silent and hidden. Neither the depth of the wound, nor its pus, nor its stench will frighten them: whoever approaches them is worthy of them; yes, they, however, seem to be born for a feat ... M-me M * was tall, flexible and slender, but somewhat thin. All her movements were somehow uneven, sometimes slow, smooth, and even somehow important, sometimes childishly quick, and at the same time some kind of timid humility was visible in her gesture, something as if trembling and unprotected, but who did not ask anyone and did not pray for protection.
I have already said that the unworthy pretensions of the insidious blonde shamed me, cut me, made me bleed. But there was also a secret, strange, stupid reason for this, which I concealed, for which I trembled like a kashchei, and even at the mere thought of it, one on one with my head turned over, somewhere in a mysterious, dark corner, where I did not encroach the inquisitorial, mocking look of no blue-eyed cheat, at the mere thought of this subject I almost choked with embarrassment, shame and fear - in a word, I was in love, that is, let's say that I said nonsense: this could not be; but why, of all the faces that surrounded me, only one face caught my attention? Why did I like to follow her with my eyes only, although I was definitely not in the mood then to look out for the ladies and get to know them? This happened most often in the evenings, when bad weather locked everyone in their rooms and when I, lurking alone somewhere in the corner of the hall, stared aimlessly around, resolutely not finding any other occupation, because with me, except for my persecutors, rarely anyone spoke , and I was unbearably bored on such evenings. Then I peered into the faces around me, listened to the conversation, in which I often did not understand a word, and at that time quiet glances, a gentle smile and the beautiful face of M-me M * (because it was her), God knows why, were caught by my enchanted attention, and this strange, indefinite, but incomprehensibly sweet impression of mine was no longer erased. Often for whole hours I seemed to be unable to tear myself away from her; I memorized every gesture, every movement of her, listened to every vibration of the thick, silvery, but somewhat muffled voice, and—strange thing! – from all his observations he brought out, together with a timid and sweet impression, some kind of incomprehensible curiosity. It looked like I was trying to find out some secret ...
The most painful thing for me was the ridicule in the presence of Mme M*. These ridicule and comic persecution, in my opinion, even humiliated me. And when it happened that there was general laughter at my expense, in which even m-me M * sometimes unwittingly took part, then I, in despair, beside myself with grief, broke free from my tyrants and ran upstairs, where I savaged the rest of the day not daring to show his face in the hall. However, I myself did not yet understand either my shame or excitement; the whole process was experienced in me unconsciously. With m-me M* I hardly said two more words, and, of course, I would not have dared to do so. But then one evening, after a most unbearable day for me, I fell behind the others on a walk, was terribly tired and made my way home through the garden. On one bench, in a secluded alley, I saw m-me M*. She sat alone, as if she had purposely chosen such a secluded place, bowing her head to her chest and mechanically turning over her handkerchief in her hands. She was so thoughtful that she did not hear me catch up with her.
End of introductory segment.
wits (from the French bon mot - sharpness)
