History of creation what a pity Solzhenitsyn. Analysis of the work what a pity for Solzhenitsyn

What do you think this little story is about? What is the meaning of its name? Why is it given without an exclamation mark?

This is a story about the fate of the Russian intelligentsia during the years of Stalin's repressions. It is possible to formulate the theme of this story in a different way - a person and power in a totalitarian regime. Taking as a title for his story the final phrase of a journalist's article about the project of a talented inventor and removing the exclamation mark, Solzhenitsyn gives it a tragic-philosophical meaning. It is a pity that through the fault of the state the life of the inventor-reclamation worker developed contrary to all the laws of logic, it is a pity that the article was devoted to an allegedly deceased, and not a living person, it is a pity that the correspondent of the "non-stingy pen" could not publish his essay, knowing the true circumstances of Modest's life Alexandrovich. It is a pity that the daughter of an exiled inventor lives in constant fear of those in power and with a constant feeling of humiliated dignity.

What do you see as the structure of this story? How does this affect his emotional

reader's perception? The story is structured in such a way that the reader gradually penetrates into the essence of what is happening and finally, having read it to the end, comes to unraveling the reasons for such a seemingly unusual behavior of a middle-aged lady and, together with the solution, to understanding the socio-philosophical problems of the work, its characteristic for creativity of Solzhenitsyn. After all, only at the end does the connection between the content of the article in the newspaper and its real significance for Anya become clear. Emotionally, in the process of reading, the reader's sympathy for Anna Modestovna and her family deepens.

What is more - epic or lyrical in the story? Justify your point of view.

The event underlying the plot is quite simple: a woman tries to remove a newspaper from the stand, she is stopped by a policeman, but before determining the punishment, she tries to understand the reasons for her act. Upon learning that the newspaper contains a laudatory article about her father, he allows her to take the newspaper with her, and she happily runs home to please her mother. However, this simple plot is complemented by a number of lyrical reflections and scenes, as well as a description of the heroine's experiences. Lyrical inserts include a description of autumn nature in Moscow, Anna Modestovna's game with raindrops, her peculiar reaction to the content of a newspaper article

and, finally, a brief sadly lyrical epilogue.

On the pages of a short story, a fairly detailed description of the autumn nature in the city is given. Why do you think the author uses this technique? What is the role of the landscape in the story "What a pity"?

The landscape in the story is special, somewhat contradictory. It combines both gloomy and some refreshing beginnings. Rainy, damp, but not cold. The rain has already stopped drizzling. "A tenderly gray raised boulevard." On the boulevard, "the chest rested between two roads of burned-out gas." The author describes in detail the water drops, silvery-white in a cloudy day, and the game of Anna Modestovna, who came to the institution for some necessary information, with raindrops. This landscape, in its inconsistency, symbolizes the expectation of changes for the better: through the dirt and dampness, through the dense network of brown and damp branches that have already become obsolete, Anya saw twigs, and twigs, and buds of next year. That is why her mood suddenly changed, she forgot herself and began to hunt for drops.

What time period is described in the story? Do you feel the expectation of something new, some hopeful change?

It was October 1952. It was already a little before the end of the Stalinist regime, a few years before the onset of the “thaw”. Premonition of future changes, as already mentioned, we find in the description of the nature of autumn Moscow, in the appearance of an unverified article in the newspaper about the still pre-revolutionary invention of a repressed engineer, the rather soft-hearted behavior of a policeman who, in the spirit of that harsh time, should have acted unequivocally, but allowed to carry away the newspaper , saying: “Take it soon, while no one has seen ...” It is difficult to predict, but already in the story “What a pity” it was breathed with the expectation of a new life, for all its then tragedy.

Follow the behavior of the heroine of Anna Modestovna's story. What can be said about her character, the circumstances in which she lives? Why did the image of a passerby so attract her attention and what caused the hostile feeling? What does the author think of the passerby?

Anna Modestovna is an intelligent person, modest and polite in behavior and communication with other people. She is easily lost in difficult circumstances, she is constantly haunted by a sense of fear. One gets the impression that she often had to act as a beggar in Soviet institutions. She is embarrassed by the natural manifestations of her mood. So, carried away by the game with drops, she suddenly “dropped her hand”, hearing solid steps behind her. “Frightened” - Solzhenitsyn uses such a strange, but interesting participle, characterizing her state at that moment (she is not frightened, not frightened, but frightened, which emphasizes the suddenness of the fear that overtook her). Her attention was drawn to a passerby, one of those who, in the words of the author, "notices only a taxi or a tobacconist on the street." Anna Modestovna knew well the type of such early-confident people, with the stamp of education and a victorious expression on their faces. When we find out that she is the daughter of a repressed person, we understand the reason for her constant fear, insecurity in behavior and fear of such young people with a victorious expression on their faces.

The reason for Anna Modestovna's fear at the appearance of a policeman is that her attempt to remove the newspaper from the stand can be interpreted as a political action (“or do you want people not to read newspapers” - the first thing that could and that came to mind in general - then a good guardian of order in those days). Her behavior during the dialogue with the policeman is uncertain, somewhat ingratiating, full of fear. However, she was already used to hiding a lot: explaining why she needed a newspaper, she revealed only a half-truth, realizing that her sincerity could destroy her. The expression of gratitude to the policeman is, of course, sincere, but it sounds humiliated and is accompanied by curving bows.

What is the attitude of the article to Anna Modestovna and the author himself? What does the definition of the author “correspondent of a merciless pen” mean?

Anna Modestovna's article aroused hope that the plight of her exiled father would be alleviated, and she even forgot about the certificate she needed, probably needed in the same case. At the end of the story, we learn about the efforts of Modest Alexandrovich to transfer him to live in the valley of the Chu River, where his project was implemented. Her reaction was characteristic of a person frightened by life: she did not flinch, she was not delighted - “she trembled with internal and external trembling as before an illness.”

The author shifts the journalist's article with obvious irony to the style of newspaper articles of the Soviet times, noticing and ridiculing the prevailing ideological clichés: a joyful mood in contrast to the gloomy weather, a joyful mood in Frunze in consonance with sunny weather. The “correspondent of an unsparing pen,” i.e., one who expounds his thoughts and observations at length, made abundant use of hydrotechnical terminology and cited figures for harvests on collective farm fields. With all the possession of a “non-stingy pen,” Modest Alexandrovich’s project was said very briefly, and Solzhenitsyn quotes this text in full. With irony, the author quotes about the inert tsarist regime, far from the interests of the people. This is an obligatory ideological characteristic of Russia's past. The journalist did not even bother to find out the further fate of the inventor, only on his own guesses suggested that he did not live to see the bright days of the triumph of his invention.

The position of the author in the finale of the story is revealed laconically, but succinctly. His words are full of bitterness for the fate of talented people who are forced to languish in camps, serve a link and not find application for their knowledge and strength. The first four sentences of the final are exclamatory. This exclamation contains emotions of surprise. And then a decrease in mood to bitterness and sadness. Especially sad are the words about the absurdity of the current situation with the inventor - "the commandant's office now will not stick this useless old man in any way: there is no suitable job for him, and he has not worked out for retirement."

Read for yourself and analyze one of Solzhenitsyn's stories, for example, "The Incident at the Kochetovka Station" or "The Right Hand."

One of the themes of Solzhenitsyn's work is the study of the foundations of the national character and its manifestation under the conditions of a totalitarian regime. We meet such folk images in One Day of Ivan Denisovich, and in the story “Matryona’s Dvor”, and in the writer’s short stories, including “The Case at the Kochetovka Station”.

This work shows the conflict between truly popular ideas about good and evil and the worldview formed in specific historical circumstances, under the conditions of a totalitarian regime. There is a conflict of duty and conscience, as a result of which the positive in a person is destroyed, which at first glance can be considered the embodiment of a national character. The young lieutenant Vasily Zotov, in fact, a very good person, makes a good impression on the reader at first. He attracts with his appearance, sincerity, feelings that he could not get to the front line, his anxiety for the family under occupation. He is sincere in his belief in the revolution, the cause of Lenin and Soviet power. The ideological arguments of Zotov are conveyed by the author with undisguised irony.

A test of humanity was a meeting with the intellectual Tveritinov, who had fallen behind the echelon, a former actor who voluntarily joined the militia, along with many got into an environment, left it. He belongs to the vulnerable people. Instead of the documents destroyed in the encirclement, he presents Zotov, assistant military commandant of the station, with a photograph of his family. And Zotov for some time feels sympathy for this middle-aged, tired man, wants to believe him. But as soon as Tveritinov made a reservation and confused the names Stalingrad and Tsaritsyn, Vasily acted cruelly and inhumanly: he handed over Tveritinov to the NKVD, that is, to certain death, accompanying his dispatch with a denunciation. His conscience is restless, he even tries to find out from the investigator about the fate of Tveritinov. In the depths of his soul, he understands that he has committed an unworthy act. And he tries to justify himself: “I wanted to make sure that he was still a disguised saboteur or that he had already been released a long time ago.”

“But never then in his whole life could Zotov forget this person…” The researchers note that he could not forget the person, and not the detainee, the suspect. The “case” became a serious moral test for the lieutenant, a pangs of conscience that lasted all his life. In the story, Solzhenitsyn continued his reflections on the essence of the national character, proving the idea of ​​the righteousness of the Russian person by the method of "contradiction".

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There was a break for lunch at the institution where Anna Modestovna had to take a certificate. It was annoying, but it made sense to wait: there were fifteen minutes left, and she still had time for her break.

I did not feel like waiting on the stairs, and Anna Modestovna went down to the street.

The day was late October, damp but not cold. It rained during the night and in the morning, but now it has stopped. Passenger cars rushed along the asphalt with liquid mud, some protecting passers-by, and more often dousing them. A raised boulevard gleamed tenderly in the middle of the street, and Anna Modestovna crossed over there.

There was almost no one on the boulevard, even in the distance. Here, bypassing the puddles, it was not at all wet to walk on the granular sand. Fallen, wet leaves lay in a dark floor under the trees, and if you walk close to them, then a slight smell seemed to curl from them - whether the remnant of what was not given away during life or already the first smoldering, but nevertheless the chest rested between the two paths of burnt gas.

There was no wind, and the whole dense network of brown and blackish wet ... - Anya stopped - ... the whole network of branches, branches, even smaller branches, and twigs, and buds of the next year - this whole network was surrounded by a multitude of water drops, silvery-white in cloudy day. It was the moisture that, after the rain, remained on the smooth skin of the branches and oozed in the absence of wind, collected and hung down already in drops - round from the tips of the lower knots and oval from the lower arcs of the branches.

Shifting the folded umbrella into the same hand where she had her purse, and pulling off the glove, Anya began to bring her fingers under the droplets and remove them. When this was done carefully, the drop was completely transferred to the finger and did not spread here, only slightly flattened. The wavy drawing of the finger was seen through the drop larger than next to it, the drop magnified like a magnifying glass.

But, while showing through itself, the same drop simultaneously showed above itself: it was also a spherical mirror. On a drop, on a bright field from a cloudy sky, one could see - yes! - dark shoulders in a coat, and a head in a knitted cap, and even an interweaving of branches above the head.

So Anya forgot herself and began to hunt for larger drops, taking and taking them now on the nail, then on the flesh of the finger. Just then, very close, she heard firm steps and dropped her hand, ashamed that she was behaving like her youngest son, and not her.

However, the passer-by did not see either Anna Modestovna's fun, or her herself - he was one of those who notice only a free taxi or a tobacco kiosk on the street. It was a young man with a clear stamp of education with a bright yellow stuffed briefcase, in a soft-colored coat and a fleecy hat crumpled into a pie. Only in the capital are such early confident, victorious expressions. Anna Modestovna knew this type and was afraid of him.

Frightened, she walked on and drew level with a billboard on blue columns. Under the glass hung "Trud" with the outer and inner sides. In one half, the glass was chipped from the corner, the newspaper was stuck, and the glass was flooded from the inside. But it was in this half below that Anna Modestovna read the title above the double cellar: "New Life in the Valley of the Chu River."

This river was not alien to her: she was born there, in Semirechye. Wiping the glass with a glove, Anna Modestovna began looking through the article.

It was written by a correspondent of a merciless pen. He started from the Moscow airfield: how he boarded a plane and how, as if in contrast to the gloomy weather, everyone was in a joyful mood. He also described his companions on the plane, who flew for what, and even a stewardess briefly. Then - the Frunze airfield and how, as if in tune with the sunny weather, everyone was in a very joyful mood. Finally, he proceeded to actually travel along the valley of the Chu River. He described hydrotechnical work, water discharges, hydroelectric stations, irrigation canals in terms, admired the view of the now irrigated and fruitful desert, and was surprised at the figures of harvests on collective farm fields.

And at the end he wrote:

“But few people know that this grandiose and imperious transformation of an entire region of nature was conceived a long time ago. Our engineers did not have to re-examine the valley, its geological layers and water regime. The entire main large project was completed and substantiated by laborious calculations forty years ago, in 1912, by the talented Russian hydrographer and hydraulic engineer Modest Alexandrovich V *, who then began the first work at his own peril and risk.

Anna Modestovna did not flinch, did not rejoice - she trembled with internal and external trembling, as before an illness. She bent down to better see the last paragraphs in the very corner, and still tried to wipe the glass and barely read:

“But under the inert tsarist regime, far from the interests of the people, his projects could not find implementation. They were buried in the Department of Land Improvements, and what he had already dug was abandoned.

What a pity! - (the correspondent ended with an exclamation) - what a pity that the young enthusiast did not live to see the triumph of his bright ideas! that he cannot look at the transfigured valley!”

Fear fluttered like boiling water, because Anya already knew what she would do now: she would rip this newspaper! She looked furtively to the right, to the left - there was no one on the boulevard, only someone's back was far away. It was very indecent, shameful, but ...

The newspaper was held on the top three buttons. Anya stuck her hand into the broken glass. Here, where the newspaper got wet, it immediately raked a corner into a damp paper ball and fell behind the button. Standing on tiptoe, Anya reached out to the middle button, loosened it and pulled it out. And it was impossible to reach the third, farthest one - and Anya simply pulled. The newspaper fell off - and all was in her hand.

But immediately behind him there was a sharp, fractional turk of a policeman.

As if singed (she knew how to be frightened, and the police whistle always frightened her), Anya pulled out her empty hand, turned around ...

It was too late to run. Not along the boulevard, but through the opening of the boulevard fence, which Anya had not noticed before, a tall policeman was walking towards her, especially large from his raincoat with his hood pulled back.

He did not speak from afar. He approached without haste. From top to bottom he looked at Anna Modestovna, then at the fallen newspaper, bent behind the glass, again at Anna Modestovna. He towered over her. From his broad-nosed, ruddy face and hands, it was clear how healthy he was - he was quite capable of pulling people out of a fire or seizing someone without a weapon.

What is it, citizen? Will we pay twenty-five rubles? ..

(Oh, if only a fine! She was afraid that it would be worse interpreted!)

- ... Or do you want people to not read newspapers?

(Exactly!)

- Oh, what are you! Oh no! Sorry! - Anna Modestovna even began to bend somehow. - I am very sorry ... I will now hang it back ... if you allow ...

No, if he had allowed it, it would have been difficult to hang up a newspaper with one end cut off and one end soaked.

The policeman looked at her from above, without expressing a decision.

He had been on duty for a long time, and he endured the rain, and it would be good for him to take her to the department now, along with the newspaper: for now, the protocol is to dry a little. But he wanted to understand. A decently dressed lady, in good years, not drunk.

She looked at him and waited for punishment.

Why don't you like the newspaper?

- Here about my dad! .. - All apologizing, she pressed to her chest the handle of an umbrella, and a purse, and a removed glove. She herself did not see that she had bloodied her finger on the glass.

Now the sentry understood her and took pity on the finger and nodded:

- Scold?.. Well, and what one newspaper will help?..

- No! No no! On the contrary - praise!

(Yes, he is not evil at all!)

Then she saw blood on her finger and began to suck it. And she kept looking at the large, rustic face of the policeman.

His lips parted slightly.

- So that you? Can't buy at the stall?

- Look what a number! - She quickly removed her finger from her lips and showed him in the other half of the display case on an untorn newspaper. - She was not filmed for three days. Where can you find it now?

The policeman looked at the number. One more time for a woman. Once again on the fallen newspaper. Sighed:

- A protocol needs to be drawn up. And to fine ... Okay, for the last time, take it quickly, while no one has seen ...

- Oh thanks! Thank you! How noble you are! Thank you! Anna Modestovna began to frequent, still bending a little or bowing a little, and changed her mind about taking the handkerchief to her finger, but deftly thrust her same hand with a pink finger there, grabbed the edge of the newspaper and dragged it. - Thank you!

The newspaper stretched out. Anya, as best she could with the wet edge and with one free hand, folded it. With another polite twist, she said:

- Thank you! You have no idea what a joy it is for mom and dad! May I go?

Standing sideways, he nodded.

And she walked quickly, completely forgetting why she had come to this street, clutching a sideways folded newspaper and sometimes sucking her finger as she walked.

Run to mom! Read on for two! As soon as the exact residence is assigned to dad, mom will go there and carry the newspaper herself.

The reporter didn't know! He didn't know otherwise he wouldn't have written! And the editors did not know, otherwise they would not have missed it! Young enthusiast - survived! He survived until the triumph of his bright ideas, because the death penalty was replaced for him, he spent twenty years in prisons and camps. And now, at the stage of eternal exile, he applied to Beria himself, asking to be exiled to the valley of the Chu River. But they put him in the wrong place, and now the commandant’s office will not stick this useless old man in any way: there is no suitable job for him, and he has not worked out for retirement.

1. What do you think this little story is about? What is the meaning of its name? Why is it given without an exclamation point?

This is a story about the fate of the Russian intelligentsia during the years of Stalin's repressions. It is possible to formulate the theme of this story in a different way - man and power under the conditions of a totalitarian regime. Taking as a title for his story the concluding phrase of a journalist's article about the project of a talented inventor and removing the exclamation mark, Solzhenitsyn gives it a tragic-philosophical meaning. It is a pity that, through the fault of the state, the life of the inventor-reclamation worker turned out contrary to all the laws of logic, it is a pity that the article was devoted to an allegedly deceased, and not a living person, it is a pity that the correspondent of the "non-stingy pen" could not publish his essay, knowing the true circumstances of the life of Modest Alexandrovich. It is a pity that the daughter of an exiled inventor lives in constant fear of those in power and with a constant feeling of humiliated dignity.

2. What do you see as the features of the construction of this story? How does this affect his emotional perception by the reader?

The story is structured in such a way that the reader gradually penetrates the essence of what is happening and finally, having read it to the end, comes to unraveling the reasons for such a seemingly unusual behavior of a middle-aged lady and, together with the solution, to understanding the socio-philosophical problems of the work, its typical for Solzhenitsyn's work. After all, only at the end does the connection between the content of the article in the newspaper and its real significance for Anya become clear. Emotionally, in the process of reading, the reader's sympathy for Anna Modestovna and her family deepens.

3. What is more - epic or lyrical in the story? Justify your point of view.

The event underlying the plot is quite simple: a woman tries to remove a newspaper from the stand, a policeman stops her, but before determining the punishment, she tries to understand the reasons for her act. Learning that the newspaper contains a laudatory article about her father, he allows her to take the newspaper with her, and she happily runs home to please her mother. However, this simple plot is supplemented by a number of lyrical reflections and scenes, as well as a description of the heroine's experiences. Lyrical inserts include a description of autumn nature in Moscow, Anna Modestovna's game with raindrops, her peculiar reaction to the content of a newspaper article, and, finally, a short sad lyrical epilogue.

4. On the pages of a short story, a fairly detailed description of the autumn nature in the city is given. Why do you think the author resorts to such a technique? What is the role of the landscape in the story "What a pity"?

The landscape in the story is special, somewhat contradictory. It combines both gloomy and some refreshing beginnings. Rainy, damp, but not cold. The rain has already stopped drizzling. "A tenderly gray raised boulevard." On the boulevard, "the chest was breathing between two roads of burned-out gas." The author describes in detail the water drops, silvery-white in a cloudy day, and the game of Anna Modestovna, who came to the institution for some necessary information, with raindrops. This landscape, in its inconsistency, symbolizes the expectation of changes for the better: through the dirt and dampness, through the dense network of brown and damp branches that have already lived away, Anya saw twigs, and twigs, and buds of next year. That is why, suddenly, her mood changed, she forgot herself and began to hunt for drops.

5. What time period is described in the story? Do you feel the expectation of something new, some hopeful change?

It was October 1952. There was already a little left before the end of the Stalinist regime, a few years before the onset of the “thaw”. A premonition of future changes, as already mentioned, we find in the description of the nature of autumn Moscow, in the appearance of an unverified article in the newspaper about the still pre-revolutionary invention of a repressed engineer, the rather soft-hearted behavior of a policeman who, in the spirit of that harsh time had to act unequivocally, but he allowed to take away the newspaper, saying: “Take it soon, so far no one has seen ...” It is difficult to predict, but already in the story “What a pity” it was breathed with the expectation of a new life, for all its then tragedy.

6. Follow the behavior of the heroine of Anna Modestovna's story. What can be said about her character, the circumstances in which she lives? Why did the image of a passerby so attract her attention and what caused the hostile feeling? What does the author think of the passer-by?

Anna Modestovna is an intelligent person, modest and polite in behavior and communication with other people. She is easily lost in difficult circumstances, she is constantly haunted by a sense of fear. One gets the impression that she once had to act as a beggar in Soviet institutions. She is embarrassed by the natural manifestations of her mood. So, carried away by playing with drops, she suddenly “dropped her hand”, hearing firm steps behind her. “Scared away” - Solzhenitsyn uses such a strange, but interesting participle, characterizing her state at that moment (she is not frightened, not frightened, but frightened, which emphasizes the suddenness of the fear that overtook her). Her attention was drawn to a passer-by, one of those who, in the words of the author, “only notices a taxi or a tobacconist on the street.” Anna Modestovna knew well the type of such early-confident people, with the stamp of education and a victorious expression on their faces. When we find out that she is the daughter of a repressed person, we understand the reason for her constant fear, insecurity in behavior and fear of this kind of young people with a victorious expression on their faces.

7. Analyze Anna Modestovna's dialogue with a policeman. What is the reason for her fear?

The reason for Anna Modestovna’s fear at the appearance of a policeman is that her attempt to remove the newspaper from the stand can be interpreted as a political action (“or do you want people not to read newspapers” - the first thing that could and that came to mind in this generally a good guardian of order in those days). Her behavior during the dialogue with the policeman is uncertain, somewhat ingratiating, full of fear. However, she had already gotten used to hiding a lot: explaining why she needed a newspaper, she revealed only half-truths, realizing that her sincerity could destroy her. The expression of gratitude to the militiaman is, of course, sincere, but it sounds humiliated and is accompanied by curving bows.

8. What is the attitude of Anna Modestovna's article and the author himself? What does the definition of the author "correspondent of a merry pen" mean?

Anna Modestovna's article aroused hope for easing the lot of her exiled father, and she even forgot about the information she needed, probably needed in the same case. At the end of the story, we learn about the efforts of Modest Alexandrovich to move him to live in the valley of the Chu River, where his project was implemented. Her reaction was characteristic of a person frightened by life: she didn’t flinch, she didn’t rejoice - “she trembled with internal and external trembling as before an illness.”

The author shifts the journalist's article with obvious irony to the style of newspaper articles of the Soviet times, noticing and ridiculing the prevailing ideological clichés: a joyful mood in contrast to the gloomy weather, a joyful mood in Frunze in harmony with sunny weather. The “correspondent of an unsparing pen,” i.e., who expounds his thoughts and observations at length, abundantly used hydrotechnical terminology, cited yield figures on collective farm fields. With all the possession of a “non-stingy pen”, Modest Alexandrovich’s project was said very briefly, and Solzhenitsyn quotes this text in full. With irony, the author quotes about the inert tsarist regime, far from the interests of the people. This is an obligatory ideological characteristic of Russia's past. The journalist did not even bother to find out the further fate of the inventor, only on his own guesses suggested that he did not live to see the bright days of the triumph of his invention.

9. How did the author's position appear at the end of the story?

The position of the author in the finale of the story is revealed laconically, but succinctly. His words are full of bitterness for the fate of talented people who are forced to languish in camps, serve a link and not find application for their knowledge and strength. The first four sentences of the final are exclamatory. In this exclamation - emotions of surprise. And then a decrease in mood to bitterness and sadness. Especially sad are the words about the absurdity of the current situation with the inventor - "now the commandant's office will not stick this useless old man in any way: there is no suitable job for him, and he has not worked out for retirement."

10. Read for yourself and analyze one of Solzhenitsyn's stories, for example, "The Incident at the Kochetovka Station" or "The Right Hand."

One of the themes of Solzhenitsyn's work is the study of the foundations of the national character and its manifestation under the conditions of a totalitarian regime. We meet such folk images in One Day of Ivan Denisovich, and in the story "Matryona Dvor", and in the short stories of the writer, including in "The Case at Kochetovka Station". material from the site

This work shows the conflict between truly popular ideas about good and evil and the worldview formed in specific historical circumstances, under the conditions of a totalitarian regime. There is a conflict of duty and conscience, as a result of which the positive in a person is destroyed, which at first glance can be considered the embodiment of the national character. The young lieutenant Vasily Zotov, in fact, a very good person, makes a good impression on the reader at first. He attracts with his appearance, sincerity, feelings that he could not get to the front line, his anxiety for the family under occupation. He is sincere in his belief in the revolution, the cause of Lenin and Soviet power. Zotov's ideological reasoning is conveyed by the author with undisguised irony.

A test of humanity was a meeting with the intellectual Tveritinov, who had fallen behind the echelon, a former actor who voluntarily joined the militia, along with many got into an environment, left it. He belongs to the unprotected people. Instead of documents destroyed in the environment, he presents Zotov, assistant military commander of the station, with a photograph of his family. And Zotov for some time feels sympathy for this middle-aged, tired man, wants to believe him. But as soon as Tveritinov made a reservation and confused the names Stalingrad and Tsaritsyn, Vasily acted cruelly and inhumanly: he handed over Tveritinov to the NKVD, that is, to certain death, accompanying his dispatch with a nose. His conscience is restless, he even tries to find out from the investigator about the fate of Tveritinov. In the depths of his soul, he understands that he has committed an unworthy act. And he tries to justify himself: “I wanted to make sure that he was still a disguised saboteur or had already been released a long time ago.”

“But never then in his whole life could Zotov forget this person ...” The researchers note that he could not forget the person, and not the detainee, the suspect. The “case” became a serious moral test for the lieutenant, a pangs of conscience that lasted all his life. In the story, Solzhenitsyn continued his reflections on the essence of the national character, proving the idea of ​​the righteousness of the Russian person by the method of "by contradiction".

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Analysis of Solzhenitsyn's story "What a pity"

Shiyanova Irina, 11 "A" class, 2010

The tragic era of Stalinism was reflected in literature, and A.I. Solzhenitsyn is a cult figure for the rehabilitation period of the latest Russian literature. He was the last one whom the Soviet authorities did not allow to reach the reader.

The story "What a pity", written in 1965, falls out of the context of the writer's works, although it is also devoted to the theme of the fate of man in a totalitarian society. Events do not take place in places of detention. There are no terrible pictures depicting the work of camp inmates (as, for example, in the works of the writer "The Gulag Archipelago", "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"). There are no scenes of destruction, humiliation of prisoners. However, the story makes a strong impression.

The heroine of the story, Anna, accidentally discovers a newspaper with an article about her father in the window of a kiosk, it says about his useful discoveries and that he did not live to see them recognized. She tries to steal this “treasure”, a policeman catches her on this and, unexpectedly for her, releases her without fine or punishment. Only at the end of the story do we find out that the father is actually alive, even “he served twenty years in prisons and camps”, since “the death penalty was replaced for him”, and “the commandant’s office does not know what to do with this useless old man” ... The family lives only hope for the best. Anna hurries home to show the newspaper to her mother, and she, perhaps, will later convey this news to her father, that, they say, his life did not go in vain, his labors were useful to people.

The meaning of the title of the story is revealed in the article about the father: “... what a pity that the young enthusiast did not live to see the triumph of his bright ideas,” the correspondent writes. What a pity that so many destinies were ruined in this era, how pitiful for talented and free-thinking people, how pitiful for people who are waiting and did not wait for their relatives who disappeared in Stalin's time, immeasurably sorry!

This is the idea of ​​the story - the fate of a person in a totalitarian state is difficult and tragic, both in prison (the fate of prisoners) and in freedom, albeit imaginary. The feeling of danger constantly experienced by the heroine speaks volumes. This style of human behavior is dictated by totalitarian ideology. Prisoners in Solzhenitsyn's works behave differently - they have nothing to lose, their freedom has been taken away, the same story shows the life of people who are in the so-called "freedom" and squeezed into the rigid framework of leaderism.

The story is based on chance. A chain of unpredictable events reveals the relationship of the characters to us. A similar technique of surprise, chance was used by A.P. Chekhov, this helped him to reveal the character of the hero. Solzhenitsyn uses it for the same purpose.

The composition is peculiar - the “structure of waves”: both parts (meeting with a man with a briefcase, meeting with a policeman) have the same, albeit different “strength”, structure: starting calmly, they are replaced by an explosion of feeling (fright), and end differently (in in the first one, the heroine withdraws into herself; in the second, she feels joy both from the fact that the policeman understood her, and from the fact that she became the owner of the treasure - an article about the repressed father).

The author calls the heroine either Anya or Anna Modestovna. From the name of “Anya” it breathes something warm, feminine, homely and childish. When the heroine is alone with herself, when she seems to return to childhood, where she feels safe, then she becomes Anya. Anna Modestovna is the one who merges with a faceless crowd of identical people. Such were the people of a totalitarian society. It is noteworthy that the author does not describe to us the appearance or age of the heroine. This tells us about the collective image of a person living in the era of Stalinist terror. Solzhenitsyn managed to give a generalized portrait of an intellectual of that terrible time.

On the example of the fate of Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, one can illustrate the difficult fate of a talented person in a totalitarian state. The autobiographical nature of his works makes them truly the most invaluable historical sources of knowledge about what a totalitarian state, the Stalinist regime, repressions and camps are.

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5. Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1)

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   December 11, 2008 marks the 90th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Russian writer, publicist, public figure, dissident, one of the spiritual leaders of the Orthodox-patriotic movement - Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn.

The ideals that illuminated my path and gave me courage and courage were kindness, beauty and truth. Without a sense of solidarity with those who share my convictions, without the pursuit of the eternally elusive objective in art and science, life would seem to me absolutely empty.

Solzhenitsyn Alexander Isaevich was born on December 11, 1918 in Kislovodsk. The boy was still fond of literature at school, wrote articles, studied in the drama club. But the fact that he wants to be a writer, he clearly understood only by the end of the university. Almost immediately, the idea of ​​writing a series of novels about the revolution arose. Solzhenitsyn set to work, but in October 1941 he was drafted into the army, and by the end of the war (in February 1945), the writer, who had already become a captain and was awarded two orders, was arrested for correspondence with an old comrade in which he spoke unflatteringly about the leader. Alexander Isaevich knew perfectly well about censorship, but the internal opposition to totalitarianism did not allow him to remain silent, and he decides to criticize "Stalin himself." Summary Solzhenitsyn, what a pity Given the tough policy of the leader, the expected result was a harsh court sentence - 8 years in the camps for propaganda and agitation.

But it was during the conclusion that Solzhenitsyn had the idea of ​​the need to tell the world about all the horrors of the Stalinist camps. In March 1953, on the day of the death of the leader, the writer is released from the camp hell.

An important stage in subsequent events in the life of the writer was the report of the USSR Secretary General Khrushchev on the "cult of personality", exposing the crimes of the deceased Stalin. By that time, Alexander Isaevich was finishing work on his work "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", and the work "Matryona's Dvor" soon followed. But time did not stand still, events developed rapidly, and the Khrushchev thaw came to an end. The country was expecting a new round of repressions and persecution of representatives of the intelligentsia and culture. Under these conditions, Alexander Isaevich's conflict with the government was again inevitable. In 1969, he was expelled from the Union of Writers for nothing more than his desire to tell the truth. All life Solzhenitsyn, as he himself put it, "opened all the sores on the face of Soviet power."

In 1973, the KGB confiscated the manuscript of The Gulag Archipelago, which was based on the author's own memoirs, as well as the testimonies of more than 200 prisoners. Summary Solzhenitsyn, what a pity on February 12, 1974, the writer was arrested again, accused of treason and, depriving him of the citizenship of the USSR, was deported to Germany.

In the 90s, Alexander Solzhenitsyn returned to his homeland, but already in 2008, at the age of 90, the writer died of heart failure. Solzhenitsyn, until the last day of his life, remained a detractor of a difficult era, which became one of the most dramatic pages in Russian history. Summary Solzhenitsyn what a pity

In order for the upbringing of children to be successful, it is necessary that the educators, without ceasing, educate themselves.

The lesson is held after getting acquainted with the works of Solzhenitsyn "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", the stories of Varlam Shalamov ("Berries", "Sherry Brandy", "How It Started").

Epigraphs for the lesson:

I'm not hiding, but the night is cold.
I'm not afraid, but time is dangerous ...

O.Chukhontsev

A moment and - there is no end and no edge
Fire ... Everything around is in pieces,
then to hell...

I shout: "Help!", I shout: "I'm dying!" ...
... And someone is pushing a speech up there.

During the classes

1. Introductory speech of the teacher.

For several lessons we have been talking about the era of Stalinism and its reflection in literature. Reading the works of V. Shalamov, A. Solzhenitsyn, we are convinced that the time was tragic, because there was a systematic and purposeful struggle against the individual, against the living soul of man. Was there resistance? And if so, which one? We are talking about this today, reading A. Solzhenitsyn's story "What a pity."

2. "Immersion" in the atmosphere of time. Reading and discussion of records on cards (excerpts from familiar works, anecdotes of “that” time are given arbitrarily, here each teacher can choose his own options).

1) “Rybakov lay between the bumps unexpectedly small. The sky, the mountains, the river were huge, and God knows how many people can be laid in these mountains, on the paths between the bumps ... ”(V. Shalamov.“ Berries ”).

2) “For many months, day and night, countless execution orders were read at morning and evening verifications. In a fifty-degree frost, the imprisoned musicians from the "bytoviki" played carcasses before reading and after reading each order. Smoky torches did not break the darkness, drawing hundreds of eyes to the frosty sheets of thin paper on which such terrible words were printed. And at the same time, as if it was not about us. Everything seemed alien, too terrible to be real” (V. Shalamov, “How It Started”).

3) “Shukhov is pleased that everyone is pointing fingers at him like that: here he is finishing his term, but he himself does not painfully believe in it. Look, those whose term ended in the war were kept until further notice, until the forty-sixth year. Who and the main term was three years. So five years of peresidiya turned out. The law is reversible. Ten will end - they will say, you have one more. Or in a link. So you live with your face on the ground, and there is no time to think: how did you sit down? how are you going to get out?” (A. Solzhenitsyn. "One day of Ivan Denisovich").

4) “The poet died for so long that he stopped understanding that he was dying. Sometimes, painfully and almost tangibly pushing through the brain, some simple and strong thought came - that the bread that he had put under his head was stolen from him, and it was so burningly terrible that he was ready to argue, swear, fight, search, to prove... But there was no strength for all this...” (V. Shalamov. “Sherry Brandy”).

5) Anecdote.

Stalin lost his pipe. He calls Beria. He readily reports:

Clear. The action of the enemies of the people. Let's find out who it is.

A few days later, Stalin found the pipe in his tunic pocket. Calls Beria again:

Found a tube...

Comrade Stalin, we also completed your task: thirty-seven people fully confessed.

6) Anecdote.

On the tram. A citizen stands, reads a newspaper and says in an undertone:

He will drive us to the edge!

He is taken away immediately. Interrogation.

So what did you say? Who will bring us to the handle?

Like who? Of course, Truman!

Ah, yes! Okay, go ahead then.

He jumped out. Then he came back, stuck his head in the door:

Tell me who do you mean?

Students conclude that in the works of V. Shalamov and A. Solzhenitsyn the image of a tragic, disharmonious world appears. Even the anecdotes of those terrible years testify to how cheap human life was, how easy it was to pay for years of captivity or even life for a thoughtlessly spoken word, for the right to be oneself.

3. Work on the story A.I. Solzhenitsyn "What a pity" (it is taken into account that students are familiar with the biography of the writer).

- How does the story differ from other works about totalitarianism that we have read before?

Events do not take place in places of detention. There are no terrible pictures depicting the exhausting labor, the ever-sucking feeling of hunger that the camp inmates experienced. There are no scenes of destruction, humiliation of prisoners. And yet the story makes a strong impression.

- What do you think the story is about?

About the fate of a person living in a totalitarian state, about how fear dictates a certain style of behavior, about how the unlimited power of some and the dependence of others disfigure the system of relationships between people, about the fact that the innocent suffer, the talented die.

- What is the basis of the story?

Surprise, chance. A chain of accidents, unpredictable events reveals the relationship of the characters.

- What, in your opinion, is the originality of the composition?

Along with the classic version - exposition, plot, climax, denouement - students offer to see the two-part organization of the story - the “wave structure” (a term proposed by the high school students themselves). Both parts (a meeting with a man with a briefcase, a meeting with a policeman) have the same, albeit different “strength”, structure: starting calmly (the effect of still water is created), they are replaced by an explosion of feeling (fright - in the first; shock, fright - in the second ), ends in different ways (in the first, the heroine closes in on herself; in the second, she feels joy both from the fact that the policeman understood her and from the fact that she became the owner of the treasure - an article about a repressed father).

In these parts, the name of the heroine is interestingly played up. She is called now Anya, then Anna Modestovna. On behalf of Anya, something homely, warm, soft, even childish, and at the same time, it emphasizes the vulnerability, insecurity of a young woman. This is what it becomes Anna Modestovna, when she is alone with nature (plays with water drops) or in those moments when she is sure that she is not in danger. But, having heard the “firm steps” of a young man with a briefcase (a symbol of belonging to power!) Or a “policeman’s Turk”, the heroine seems to put on a mask of an ordinary layman, becomes like all the people around her - just Anna Modestovna.

Such reincarnations of the heroine in the story occur twice: in the first part and in the second. But in the first part, she remains Anna Modestovna, and in the second part she again turns into Anya at the very end. A policeman who saw the heroine tearing down a newspaper with an article about her prisoner father could punish her (and not only with a fine). However, he listens to the woman, understands her, that is, he behaves not as a representative of the authorities, but as a person: he allows him to take the newspaper and lets go without punishing. And we see how the soul of a young woman is freed from fear and she becomes Anya again: she takes a bloodied finger in her mouth like a child and thinks about the policeman: “He’s not scary at all.”

- "History is embodied in small things," - A. Solzhenitsyn said. Name the details that help to represent the historical time.

High school students highlight such “talking” details as a drop of water in which Anya is reflected. Associative lines are drawn: a circle - a globe - a drop of water in L. Tolstoy's novel from Pierre Bezukhov's dream - the circles of hell in Dante's Divine Comedy. The drop reflects not only Anya, but also the sky, a tree against the sky, branches, branches, twigs, buds - is this not a symbol of the fact that all life on earth is endowed with an equal right to the sun, air, water, freedom? So the author brings us to the understanding of the truth: no one has the right to deprive another of this right. And if it has, it means that the society is “sick”.

Students note that the name of the Chu River is significant.

• chu! (interjection - a call for silence, for attention);
• Chu-zhoi (in the context it is rejected - “the river was not alien”);
• sensitivity (lack of sensitivity is a tragedy!);
• miracle-do (miracle of mutual understanding: “the policeman understood”!).

The talent of the writer, students conclude, is reflected in expressive details that help to understand the main idea of ​​the story: in a totalitarian state, the personality of a person who turns into a part of a huge mechanism is not put in anything; resistance to this process is courage. Silence plays an important role in the story: we ourselves can guess what fate befell the young talented scientist, the father of Anna Modestovna (he, who breathed life into the valley of the Chu River, spent many years in prison himself, turned into an “unnecessary old man”; he is crossed out from the list of the dead and the living), we also guess what suffering his family had to go through (Anna Modestovna lives with a constant sense of danger, and this says a lot).

High school students also talk about the author's attitude to the depicted, they note that the writer skillfully "hid" behind his characters. But it is easy to see his sympathetic attitude towards the innocent victims of an unjust society: Anna, her mother, father; ironic - to a journalist who wrote an article about the father of the heroine; condemnation of the fact that an indifferently cruel attitude towards a person has become the norm in the native country of the writer; pride for ordinary people who have not lost hope and faith in such inhuman conditions, who have kept their “soul alive”. Fragile, defenseless women, mother and daughter, who have preserved the memory of their father and husband, loyalty to him, are eager to restore the unfortunate prisoner's belief that his life was not in vain: at the first opportunity, Anya's mother will go to him and carry a newspaper, which talks about how the Chu River Valley was transformed by the scientist's discoveries.

4. The final word of the teacher.

The stories of V. Shalamov and A. Solzhenitsyn show how the totalitarian machine for the destruction of people, their living souls, operates. But even its uninterrupted movement meets resistance, imperceptible, but stubborn. Is it not about them the words of the poet Oleg Khlebnikov:

Poor, poor! my soul
everyone took care of it like the last
soldering -
meager and hardened -
in a pile
did not lose in an unequal battle.
Dim light bulb shines
in the mist.
There is no other - this one also illuminates
dark piece of white light
path on earth...

Ordinary people found the strength to survive and, moreover, to preserve all human qualities, carried in their souls the ability to take care of their neighbors, fidelity, mercy, did not forget how to love life and each other. This is the hope that Solzhenitsyn leaves to man in the painful movement of history.

And in conclusion, he wrote that the entire main project was completed by painstaking calculations four decades ago, back in 1912, by the gifted hydrographer V * Modest Alexandrovich, who worked hard, despite the unfavorable and dangerous time in which he lived. It was about his dedication and diligence that Solzhenitsyn wanted to tell. Summary “What a pity” does not convey the full charm of the work.

Anna bent down to take a closer look at the text located in the very corner, wiped the glass again and, barely restraining her emotions, continued to read. The journalist wrote that under the tsarist regime, which never took into account the interests of the people, the ideas of the hydrograph could not be realized. What a pity! It's a shame that such a talented person died without waiting for the implementation of his plans.

Attempt to steal a newspaper, meeting with a policeman

Suddenly Anna felt like she was all over with fear, because she already knew what her next action would be: she would steal the newspaper! As soon as she tore it off, she heard the distinct and loud whistle of a policeman behind her. The woman did not run away: it was already late, and it would have looked somehow stupid. Probably, Solzhenitsyn himself adhered to this opinion. The summary of “What a pity” allows you to get acquainted with the plot of the famous story.

Outcome of the situation

In a low voice, the law enforcement officer asked if Anna would pay a fine of twenty-five rubles. The woman could only answer that she was very sorry, and she was ready to hang the publication back if the policeman allowed. She looked at her accuser and expected punishment. The policeman asked why she did not like this printed edition. Anna replied that it was written about her father. Now the law enforcement officer understood her and suggested that they were probably criticizing him. But will one torn newspaper help in this case? The woman hastened to explain that her father was being praised. The policeman asked why she did not want to buy a newspaper in the shop. Anna explained that it was an old edition and could not be found anywhere now. The policeman took pity on the woman and allowed her to take the newspaper without anyone noticing. Anna thanked him warmly and hurried away. It is good that Solzhenitsyn foresaw such a favorable outcome of the situation. The summary of “What a pity”, however, can be called rather gloomy, like the story itself.

The woman walked swiftly, forgetting the purpose for which she came to this boulevard, clutching an unevenly folded edition to her chest. More to mom! You need to read this article together! Soon dad will be given permanent residence, and after that mom will go there, taking a newspaper with her.

tragic ending

The journalist did not know that this great man is still alive. He managed to wait for the realization of his brilliant ideas, since it was decided to replace the death penalty with imprisonment, and he spent twenty years in hard labor and in prisons. What a tragic and stunning ending Solzhenitsyn wrote! Summary "What a pity", however, makes a weaker impression than the full story.

Story analysis

The work "What a pity", created in 1965, differs markedly from other stories by Solzhenitsyn, despite the fact that it also tells about human destiny, crippled by a totalitarian society. The plot does not take place in a prison or in a camp. There are no terrifying pictures describing the work of convicts (as, for example, in the author's novels One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Gulag Archipelago). There are no moments depicting the suffering and anguish of the prisoners. But after reading the work, the reader is still impressed for a long time. Human fate in a totalitarian society is gloomy and bleak, both in prison and in freedom. By the way, there can be no truly free people in such a state. This is what the story "What a pity" tells about. Solzhenitsyn would approve of the analysis, because it explains the meaning of the work in an accessible way.

Interestingly, the writer does not tell us anything about Anna's age and appearance. This indicates that he wanted to portray in her face a collective image of a citizen living in a period of a kind of terror carried out by Stalin. The author managed to draw a generalized portrait of an educated person, eking out an unhappy existence in those terrible years.

There was a break for lunch at the institution where Anna Modestovna had to take a certificate. It was annoying, but it made sense to wait: there were fifteen minutes left, and she still had time for her break.

I did not feel like waiting on the stairs, and Anna Modestovna went down to the street.

The day was late October - damp, but not cold. It rained during the night and in the morning, but now it has stopped. Passenger cars rushed along the asphalt with liquid mud, some protecting passers-by, and more often dousing them. A raised boulevard gleamed tenderly in the middle of the street, and Anna Modestovna crossed over there.

There was almost no one on the boulevard, even in the distance. Here, bypassing the puddles, it was not at all wet to walk on the granular sand. The fallen, wet leaves lay in a dark floor under the trees, and if you walk close to them, then a slight smell seemed to curl from them - the remnant of something that was not given away during life or already the first smoldering, but nevertheless the chest rested between the two paths of burnt gas.

There was no wind, and the whole dense network of brown and blackish wet ... - Anya stopped - ... the whole network of branches, pavements, even smaller branches, and knots, and buds of the next year, this whole network was surrounded by many water drops, silvery-white in a cloudy day. This was the moisture that after the rain remained on the smooth skin of the branches, and in the calm oozed, collected and hung already in drops - round from the tips of the lower knots and oval from the lower arcs of the branches.

Shifting the folded umbrella into the same hand where she had her purse, and pulling off the glove, Anya began to bring her fingers under the droplets and remove them. When this was done carefully, the drop was completely transferred to the finger and did not spread here, only slightly flattened. The wavy drawing of the finger was seen through the drop larger than next to it, the drop magnified like a magnifying glass.

But, while showing through itself, the same drop simultaneously showed above itself: it was also a spherical mirror. On a drop, on a bright field from a cloudy sky, one could see - yes! - dark shoulders in a coat, and a head in a knitted hat, and even an interweaving of branches above the head.

So Anya forgot herself and began to hunt for larger drops, taking and taking them now on the nail, then on the flesh of the finger. Just then, very close, she heard firm steps and dropped her hand, ashamed that she was behaving like her youngest son, and not her.

However, the passer-by did not see either Anna Modestovna's fun, or herself - he was one of those who notice only a free taxi or a tobacco kiosk on the street. It was a young man with a clear stamp of education with a bright yellow stuffed briefcase, in a soft-colored coat and a fleecy hat crumpled into a pie. Only in the capital are such early-confident, victorious expressions. Anna Modestovna knew this type and was afraid of him.

Frightened, she walked on and drew level with a billboard on blue columns. Under the glass hung "Trud" with the outer and inner sides. In one half, the glass was chipped from the corner, the newspaper was stuck, and the glass was flooded from the inside. But it was in this half below that Anna Modestovna read the title above the double cellar: "New Life in the Valley of the Chu River."

This river was not alien to her: she was born there, in Semirechye. Wiping the glass with a glove, Anna Modestovna began looking through the article.

It was written by a correspondent of a merciless pen. He started from the Moscow airfield: how he boarded a plane and how, as if in contrast to the gloomy weather, everyone was in a joyful mood. He also described his companions on the plane, who flew for what, and even a stewardess briefly. Then - the Frunze airfield and how, as if in tune with the sunny weather, everyone was in a very joyful mood. Finally, he proceeded to actually travel along the valley of the Chu River. He described hydrotechnical work, water discharges, hydroelectric stations, irrigation canals in terms, admired the view of the now irrigated and fruitful desert, and was surprised at the figures of harvests on collective farm fields.

And at the end he wrote:

“But few people know that this grandiose and imperious transformation of an entire region of nature was conceived a long time ago. Our engineers did not have to re-examine the valley, its geological layers and water regime. The entire main large project was completed and substantiated by laborious calculations forty years ago, in 1912, by the talented Russian hydrographer and hydraulic engineer Modest Aleksandrovich V *, who then began the first work at his own peril and risk.

Anna Modestovna did not flinch, did not rejoice - she trembled with internal and external trembling, as before an illness. She bent down to better see the last paragraphs in the very corner, and still tried to wipe the glass and barely read:

“But under the inert tsarist regime, far from the interests of the people, his projects could not find implementation. They were buried in the Department of Land Improvements, and what he had already dug was abandoned.

What a pity! - (the correspondent ended with an exclamation) - what a pity that the young enthusiast did not live to see the triumph of his bright ideas! that he cannot look at the transfigured valley!”

Fear dangled like boiling water, because Anya already knew what she would do now: she would rip this newspaper! She looked furtively to the right, to the left - there was no one on the boulevard, only someone's back was far away. It was very indecent, shameful, but ...

The newspaper was held on the top three buttons. Anya stuck her hand into the broken glass. Here, where the newspaper got wet, it immediately raked a corner into a damp paper ball and fell behind the button. Standing on tiptoe, Anya reached out to the middle button, loosened it and pulled it out. And it was impossible to reach the third, farthest one - and Anya simply pulled. The newspaper fell off - and all was in her hand.

But immediately behind him there was a sharp, fractional turk of a policeman.

As if singed (she knew how to be frightened, and the police whistle always frightened her), Anya pulled out her empty hand, turned around ...

It was too late to run. Not along the boulevard, but through the opening of the boulevard fence, which Anya had not noticed before, a tall policeman was walking towards her, especially large from his raincoat with his hood pulled back.

He did not speak from afar. He approached without hesitation. From top to bottom he looked at Anna Modestovna, then at the fallen newspaper, bent behind the glass, again at Anna Modestovna. He towered over her. From his broad-nosed, ruddy face and hands, one could see how healthy he was - he was quite capable of pulling people out of a fire or seizing someone without a weapon.

What is it, citizen? Will we pay twenty-five rubles? ..

(Oh, if only a fine! She was afraid - it would be worse interpreted!)

- ... Or do you want people to not read newspapers?

(Exactly!)

Ah, what are you! Oh no! Sorry! - Anna Modestovna even began to bend somehow. - I am very sorry ... I will now hang it back ... if you allow ...

No, if he had allowed it, this newspaper, with one end cut off and one end soaked, would have been difficult to hang up.

The policeman looked at her from above, without expressing a decision.

He had been on duty for a long time, and he endured the rain, and it would be good for him to take her to the department now, along with the newspaper: for now, the protocol is to dry off manenko. But he wanted to understand. A decently dressed lady, in good years, not drunk.

She looked at him and waited for punishment.

Why don't you like the newspaper?

It's about my dad! .. - All apologizing, she pressed the umbrella handle, and her purse, and her glove off to her chest. She herself did not see that she had bloodied her finger on the glass.

Now the sentry understood her, and took pity on the finger and nodded:

Scold?.. Well, and what one newspaper will help?..

No! No no! On the contrary - praise!

(Yes, he is not evil at all!)

Then she saw blood on her finger and began to suck it. And she kept looking at the large, rustic face of the policeman.

His lips parted slightly.

So that you? Can't buy at the stall?

And look what a number! - She quickly removed her finger from her lips and showed him in the other half of the display case on an untorn newspaper. - She was not filmed for three days. Where can you find it now?

The policeman looked at the number. One more time for a woman. Once again on the fallen newspaper. Sighed:

A protocol needs to be drawn up. And to fine ... Okay, for the last time, take it quickly, while no one has seen ...

Oh thanks! Thank you! How noble you are! Thank you! - Anna Modestovna began to frequent, still bending a little or bowing a little, and changed her mind about taking the handkerchief to her finger, but deftly thrust the same hand with a pink finger there, grabbed the edge of the newspaper and dragged it. - Thank you!

The newspaper stretched out. Anya, as best she could with the wet edge and with one free hand, folded it. With another polite twist, she said:

Thank you! You have no idea what a joy it is for mom and dad! May I go?

Standing sideways, he nodded.

And she walked quickly, completely forgetting why she had come to this street, clutching a sideways folded newspaper and sometimes sucking her finger as she walked.