Ostrovsky late love content. Late Love (play)

PERSONS:

Felicita Antonovna Shablova, owner of a small wooden house.

Gerasim Porfirich Margaritov, retired lawyer, good-looking old man.

Ludmila, his daughter, an elderly girl. All her movements are modest and slow, she is dressed very cleanly, but without pretensions..

Dormedont, younger son Shablova, in Margaritov's clerks.

Onufry Potapych Dorodnov, middle-aged merchant.

A poor, darkened room in Shablova's house. On the right side (from the audience) there are two narrow single-leaf doors: the closest one to Lyudmila's room, and the next one to Shablova's room; between the doors there is a shaped mirror of a Dutch stove with a firebox. In the back wall, to the right corner, is the door to Margaritov's room; on the left is a dissolved door leading to a dark hallway, in which one can see the beginning of the stairs leading to the mezzanine, where the sons of Shablova are placed. Between the doors is an antique chest of drawers with a glass cupboard for dishes. On the left side there are two small windows, in the wall between them there is an old mirror, on the sides of which are two dull pictures in paper frames; large table under the mirror simple tree. Prefabricated furniture: chairs different kind and magnitude; With right side, closer to the proscenium, an old half-torn Voltaire chair. Autumn twilight, the room is dark.

PHENOMENON FIRST

Lyudmila leaves her room, listens and goes to the window.

Then Shablova leaves her room.

Shablova (not seeing Lyudmila). As if someone had knocked a gate. No, it felt like it. I'm very worried about my ears. What weather! In a light coat now ... oh-oh! Where is my dear son walking? Oh, children, children - mother's grief! Here is Vaska, what a walking cat, and he came home.

Ludmila. Did he come?... Did he come?

Shablova. Ah, Lyudmila Gerasimovna! I don’t even see you, I’m standing here and fantasizing among myself ...

Ludmila. You say come?

Shablova. Who are you waiting for?

Ludmila. I? I am nobody. I just heard you say "come".

Shablova. This is where I express my thoughts; it boils in my head, you know ... The weather, they say, is such that even my Vaska came home. He sat down on the couch and purred like that, even choked; he really wants to say that, they say, I'm at home, don't worry. Well, of course, he warmed himself, ate, and left again. It's a man's business, you can't keep it at home. Yes, here’s a beast, and even he understands that he needs to go home - to visit, how, they say, there; and my son Nikolenka disappears for another day.

Ludmila. How do you know what's wrong with him?

Shablova. Who knows if not me! He has no business, he beats the buckets.

Ludmila. He is a lawyer.

Shablova. Yes, what an abomination! There was a time, but it's gone.

Ludmila. He's busy with some lady's business.

Shablova. Yes, mother, lady! Lady lady strife. Wait, I'll tell you everything. He studied well with me, finished his course at the university; and, as if it were a sin, these new courts will start here! He signed up as a lawyer, - business went, and went, and went, rake money with a shovel. From the very fact that he entered the monetary merchant circle. You know yourself, to live with wolves, to howl like wolves, and he began this very merchant's life, that day in a tavern, and night in a club or somewhere. Needless to say: pleasure; man is hot. Well, what are they? They have thick pockets. And he was lording and lording, but things went between hands, and even laziness; and here there are countless lawyers divorced. No matter how much he got confused there, he spent all his money; I lost my acquaintance and again came to my former poor situation: to my mother, which means that from sturgeon fish soup to empty cabbage soup. He got used to taverns - he had nothing to do with good ones, so he began to hang around bad ones. Seeing him in such decline, I began to find something for him to do. I want to take him to my lady friend, but he is shy.

Ludmila. Shy, must be the character.

Shablova. Enough, mother, what a character!

Ludmila. Yes, there are people of a timid nature.

Shablova. Yes, what a character! Does a poor man have character? What character have you found?

Ludmila. But what?

Shablova. The poor man has character! Wonderful, right! There is no good dress, that's all. If a person has no clothes, that's a timid character; how could he conduct a pleasant conversation, and he should look around himself, if there is a flaw somewhere. Take at least from us women: why good lady Does the company have a cheeky conversation? Because everything on it is in order: one is fitted to the other, one is neither shorter nor longer than the other, the color is matched to the color, the pattern is fitted to the pattern. This is where her soul grows. And our brother in high company is in trouble; it seems better to fall through the ground! It hangs there, it’s short here, in another place it’s a bag, there are sinuses everywhere. Like a goblin, they look at you. Therefore, it is not madams who sew for us, but we ourselves are self-taught; not according to magazines, but as it happened, on a damn wedge. It was also not a Frenchman who sewed for his son, but Vershkokhvatov because of the Dragomilovskaya outpost. So he thinks over the tailcoat for a year, walks, walks around the cloth, cuts, cuts it; now from one side, then from the other, he will cut it - well, he will cut out a sack, and not a tailcoat. But before, too, as the money was, Nikolai was a fool; well, and it’s wild for him in such and such a disgrace. I persuaded him at last, and I myself am not glad; he is a proud man, did not want to be worse than others, because she has dandies from morning till night, and ordered a good dress for an expensive German on credit.

Ludmila. Is she young?

Shablova. At the time of the woman. That's the trouble. If only the old woman would have paid money.

Ludmila. And what is she?

Shablova. The woman is light, spoiled, hopes for her beauty. Young people are always around her - she is used to everyone pleasing her. Another even considers happiness to serve.

« Late love" A. N. Ostrovsky and " women's issue" in Russia

November 28, 1873, Wednesday, the hall of the Alexandrinsky Theater was "almost full." They gave a new, not yet published play by A. N. Ostrovsky "Late Love".

The reviewers, the next day or a little later, reported to the public their impressions of the performance and through it of the play. “Strange”, “extremely paradoxical” - newspaper reports about Ostrovsky's play are full of such words. It had to be explained, interpreted; almost none of the reviewers outlined the plot of the play, bypassing doubts and their own explanations of what was happening in it.

The genre of the play, completed in September 1873, Ostrovsky for the first time in his work designated as "scenes from the life of the outback", although he had previously addressed the outback. The world of the play is devoted exclusively to modern reality, it is not associated with historical distance or folklore, as the closely spaced time of writing the play "Comedian XVII century"(1872)," Snow Maiden "(1873). “The term “backwater,” writes K. N. Derzhavin about the plays “Late Love” and “Labor Bread,” like the “Zamoskvorechie” that preceded it, should be understood broadly and generally. In both comedies, the backwoods of life is drawn, and not just the life of the outlying streets of Moscow. The playwright no longer turns to the dull, petty and shallow environment in search of the Balzaminovs, Kryukovs and Epishkins, but in an effort to meet images of good and honest people.

The main line of Ostrovsky's moral searches is indicated by the researcher convincingly - indeed, in "Late Love" and in the subsequent "Labor Bread" the playwright finds people who preserve moral values. However, "Late Love" is based on the contradiction of the world of traditional moral values with the post-reform reality, with the "new time". This conflict, which sounded so sharp and decisive for the first time in Ostrovsky's post-reform dramaturgy, will be found in his further work. Time transformed the "outback": life "according to custom" gave way to life "of one's own free will." The events of Late Love, despite their seeming insignificance, acquired a polemical meaning. The play fell into the knot of topical issues that were actively discussed in public life 1870s. Controversial and strange seemed to contemporaries the personality of the heroine of the play, Lyudmila Margaritova. Moreover, it is interesting that the strangeness, inconsistency of the play were noted only at the time of its appearance - after twenty years it began to seem that the play was “simple, sweet, unpretentious”.

The main knot of actual problems, with which the play was connected, was the so-called "women's question". The heroine stealing own father for the sake of her love, appeared before her contemporaries as an unsolvable riddle. And according to the author, the whole essence of the play lies in the relationship between Lyudmila and her beloved Nikolai.

The "women's question", the question of women's rights, escalated in the early 1870s in connection with the rise of the democratic movement in the country and acquired a new character. Concrete progress in the fight for higher education(in 1872, the Higher Women's Courses were opened in Moscow and St. Petersburg), "the great migration of the female from the deaf backwoods to all those points where there is at least some opportunity to learn something sensible," in the words of the observer of Otechestvennye Zapiski N. A. Demert, changes in the way of life and consciousness of many, many women - all this forced those who were thinking about the life of the country to investigate the pressing problems, to clearly assess the ongoing processes.

At the end of 1872, a controversy arose between Otechestvennye Zapiski and Prince V.P. Meshchersky's weekly Grazhdanin, two opposite poles of public life. Meshchersky showed exceptional attention to the "women's issue", devoting many articles to it. Depicting the grief of fathers abandoned by their daughters, the collapse of the family, the loss of primordial virtues by Russian women, Meshchersky urged the public to come to their senses and comprehend the whole real danger entry of women into the arena of rivalry with men. As you know, Meshchersky was nicknamed Prince Tochka for offering to "put an end" to the reform of Russian life, so as not to increase "disturbance and confusion." " Domestic notes"occupied an unshakable position of defending women's equality and ridiculed Meshchersky's ideas about mythical "learned women". In January 1873, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin made an article “On the Part of the Women's Question” in Otechestvennye Zapiski. His position has caused confusion among many. “He sympathizes (Shchedrin. - T. M.) women's issue or not? - Asked, for example, the critic of "New time". In the March issue of the journal, N. Mikhailovsky gave an explanation of Shchedrin's article. He argued that Shchedrin's satire was directed at the feminist hype of "freedom from morality". (Shchedrin's opinion, usually so unambiguous, had to be explained!) In his article, Shchedrin argues that women's rights, especially the right to immorality, should not be written on paper, because from time immemorial this right has been exercised "simply, without any laws." "Even during Trojan War the women's question had already been decided, but it was so cleverly solved that only Menelaus was involved. ‹…› All these Phrynes, Laisas, Aspasias, Cleopatras - what is this if not a direct solution of the women's issue? And they are worried, demanding some kind of explanatory rules, they say: “Write us all this on a piece of paper.”

The fact that Ostrovsky's play was published in Otechestvennye Zapiski, and that the most angry, outstandingly harsh response to the play appeared in The Citizen, seems far from accidental. “Let me use your venerable impartial journal to say a few words about Ostrovsky's new work,” the anonymous author of The Citizen begins his review ironically. “Oh, Mr. Ostrovsky! Why didn't you die before writing "Late Love"! - he exclaims, then bringing down the whole weight of anger on the heroine of the play. - ‹…› What kind of creature is the heroine of “Late Love”, whom the squandered lawyer calls noble soul despite the fact that she is a thief with cynicism? ‹…› Is she a nihilist, in the poetic sense of the word, is she simply stupid or stupid and unprincipled at the same time? ‹…› Apparently, modern, and even completely modern… ‹…› Someone, leaving the theater and getting into a cab, said about the heroine of the play: “That's the real nihilist!” The expression is apt, although boring ... "

The word is found: the heroine is a nihilist, respectively, undermining the sacred foundations of the family and the nation; the author, on the other hand, brought her into genuine heroines and did not condemn her in any way.

The review was titled "Letter to the Editor".

The editor of The Citizen since January 1873 was F. M. Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky in 1873 published various articles, notes and feuilletons in The Citizen. He also touched on the "women's issue", considering this expression "the most vague and controversial." “Finally speaking,” writes Dostoevsky in the preface to the article by L. Yu. Kokhnova, “we believe that the women's issue as a question does not exist with us at all. He exists only in some obscure and yet insatiable need. In the same note, Dostoevsky calls Shchedrin's satire "witty."

Dostoevsky warmly sympathizes with every experience of women in the sphere of work and education. However, like Shchedrin, he believes that these are particular tasks, and the question itself consists in solving problems of a general nature. In the article “Something about lies,” he writes: “In our woman, more and more, sincerity, perseverance, seriousness and honor, the search for truth and sacrifice are noticed; and always in a Russian woman all this was higher than in men ... ‹...› A woman lies less, many do not even lie at all... ‹...› A woman is more persistent, more patient in business; she is more serious than a man, she wants a job for the sake of the job itself, and not just for the sake of appearing. Can we really expect a lot of help from here?

So, Dostoevsky welcomes the "search for truth and sacrifice," but he fears that on the path of search the Russian woman would not be carried away by nihilistic teachings. He wants a woman to really get an education, "and not get confused in empty theories." Let's also not forget that it's only been a year since "Demons" came out. Dostoevsky agrees with the rules that the indefatigable "Citizen" came up with for female students; among them the following: "The slightest violation of the rules of morality should entail the immediate exclusion of women from the ranks of students."

Again we are convinced: no matter what the real problem associated with the movement of women's emancipation, society would deal with, it always turned to morality. The reviewer of The Citizen presents Ostrovsky as a singer of modern female immorality. Dostoevsky, on the pages of the journal he edited, allows this publication, which is also made in the form of a letter to himself personally. Review of Ostrovsky is not a trifle, not noteworthy, and the rough tone of the review stands out even against the background of the newspaper and magazine controversy of that time.

It remains to be assumed that either Dostoevsky shares the opinion of his reviewer, or is forced to publish the article, even though he does not fully agree with it. The latter is possible only if the author of the article is Prince Meshchersky himself. (The author of the review has not been identified, the article is signed with the letter "K".) But whoever its author is, his opinion on the "women's issue" and rejection of "nihilism" does not at all contradict Dostoevsky's views.

What happened on November 28, 1873 on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater? To what extent was the theater to blame for the controversy that flared up around "Late Love"?

In Moscow, the premiere took place before in St. Petersburg, but was not the success of the theater and did not cause conflicting rumors. The play was recognized as weak, the love of a highly moral girl for a scoundrel - impossible. Moreover, N. E. Vilde, who played Nikolai, made up with an ugly reveler: “Such handsome men, with tousled red hair, with a swollen face, with impudent manners, are liked only by Aspasias of the lowest rank.” The Maly Theater consistently mastered the genre side of Ostrovsky's plays, but this time did not catch her living nerve.

On the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater, something essential for the play seemed to be captured, although it was distorted in the spirit of superficial actualization. The Alexandrinsky Theater in the capital was especially associated with the “topics of the day”. According to P. A. Markov, the actors of the Alexandrinsky Theater perfectly mastered the life that the popular playwrights V. Dyachenko and V. Krylov portrayed in their plays, and often played Ostrovsky precisely “according to Dyachenko”. On the stage of the theater at that time there could not be a heroine in a play from modern life not correlated in one way or another with the "women's issue". Everything that was connected with the problems of women's labor and education, attitudes towards parents, free love, attracted the attention of the Alexandria Theater. It was not at all easy to conduct free talk about the "women's issue" from the stage - many plays on this topic banned or passed with difficulty. The theatre, which existed in an atmosphere of lively controversy around "topical problems", could not give a deep analysis of the events of the "outback", grasping, however, motives that were understandable to it.

The performance, given for F. A. Burdin's benefit performance, was prepared, as usual, hastily, "with two or three rehearsals." The roles were played by: Lyudmila - E. P. Struyskaya, Nikolai - A. A. Nilsky, Lebedkina - V. A. Lyadova-Sariotti, Margaritov - F. A. Burdin, Dormedont - N. F. Sazonov. There were cries of “Author! the author!"; "The public reacted to new play with participation and respect.

The beneficiary himself was scolded amicably and in various ways. “Burdin is trying very hard, but he positively should not take on pathetic roles”; “His voice is unpleasant, low-pitched and extremely small in volume, his face is lifeless, even his grimaces are monotonous: he opens his mouth and moves his jaws for some time.” It was reported that "during the performance of his role, the audience hissed", "he fell into excessive pathos and excessive tearfulness." “Bourdin can play smart and even typical until the drama begins, since the expression of all kinds of feelings in him is accompanied by an invariable oversalt.” The most benevolent critic clarified: “... Seeing Burdin on stage, we always think that he is smart and educated person, in the game of which there is never anything vulgar, but on the other hand, a spark of talent will never flash. Sazonov (Dormedont) and Lyadova (Lebedkina) did not cause any displeasure among the public, the faces in the play are the most solid, definite. “Every gesture, every word of this bruised clerk, starting from the first scene, when he appears in a hood, all stiff from the cold, is full of truth and warmth”; "Lyadova is lively, cheerful, sweet." But the main and most complex roles requiring explanation, interpretation, caused a different attitude.

“What kind of creature is the heroine of “Late Love”?” - this question of the reviewer of "The Citizen" remained a question. By general opinion, Struyskaya at the premiere played better than usual, was "rather simple", played "with warmth" and "this time she renounced tearfulness." But critics are more credible, noting that Struyskaya played in the way “as she usually plays in all melodramas,” that is, in essence, without delving into the character of the heroine, but outlining only the sequence of fate. No wonder all the critics discussed, explained the character of the heroine - the actress did not do this.

About Nilsky (Nikolai), the word “in good faith” is mentioned three times in the reviews, once “coldly”, and the result is the following words: “Nilsky did not explain Nikolai’s spiritual movements, he could not“ interpret ”to the viewer, under the influence of which the thought arose in him deceive Lebedkina ... whether he fell in love with Lyudmila or marries her, sacrificing himself.

So, the theme of Margaritov, the noble and unhappy solicitor, was ruined on stage by Burdin. Good, "faithful to the type" of Lyadova and Sazonov, but these are secondary persons. Struyskaya and Nilsky play the way they play in all modern melodramas, and do not explain anything in their characters. Unexpectedly, this is precisely what interests the viewer. We remember that the Maly Theater was looking for favorite types in Ostrovsky's play, and Vilda (Nikolai) gave the type of drunkard, bastard. This spoiled the play, which by its very nature is quite different from some of the former "everyday" genre scenes Ostrovsky. The Alexandrinsky Theater played "Late Love" as an actual play on the "topic of the day", moreover, without explaining anything in the characters of the main characters. But here's what happened. The play, not crushed by the weight of the "genre", "everyday" interpretation, reached the audience, forced them to argue, to think: what happened in the Shablovs' house? At one of the next performances in the theater, the author appeared. Ten years later, Ostrovsky will sharply write about Struyskaya: “She was somehow lifeless, knew nothing, had not seen anything in her life, and therefore could not portray any type, any character, and constantly played herself. And she herself was a far from interesting person. ‹…› But there were suppliers for this prime minister: partly - Dyachenko, and partly - Krylov wrote plays just to the measure of her means. ‹…› I read in the papers that the play (“Late Love.” - T. M.) does not go badly, Struyskaya plays very well, but her role is ungrateful and strange and impossible psychological infidelities occur in her. I went to see what was happening on the stage and what they were depicting instead of my play, and this is what I saw: in the last act, Struyskaya did not reveal any struggle and in the scene between the father and the young man remained indifferent, and to the words of the father: “My child, go to me!" - instead of bitter reflection and a short answer: “No, I’ll go to him,” she answered quite cheerfully: “Oh no, dear, kind papas, I’ll go to him.”

The image of Lyudmila in the play, of course, contradicts the lightness and gaiety with which Struyskaya portrayed the heroine, and her performance, most likely, convinced the reviewer of The Citizen of Lyudmila's cynicism. But besides Struyskaya's acting, there was also the objective reality of the play. And the fact that in the heroine, devoid of the obvious attributes of a "shorn nihilist", in a play that does not have sharp signs of "topics of the day", some opinion of Ostrovsky on the "women's issue" was seen, testifies to important features"Late love".

The position of the "Citizen" was not exclusive. The critic of Russkiy Mir also saw in the play "an immeasurable amount of dirt, which the author is struggling to pass off as something valuable and even modestly lofty." Unattractive sides in the character of the heroine (obtrusiveness, shamelessness) were noted by critics of other publications.

The line under the dispute about “Late Love” was summed up by the “Notes of the Fatherland”, true to their convictions, unshakably staunch in the defense of their comrades-in-arms. V. S. Kurochkin, not condescending to discussing the personality of Lyudmila Margaritova, simply defends Ostrovsky: “Some newspaper reviewers who are only interested in staging their plays decide against the facts and common sense to insinuate that Ostrovsky wrote himself out, and therefore his plays should not be given at all. But those familiar with our theatrical mores will certainly agree with me, and I ask the reader to pay special attention to these words: one must be amazed at what Ostrovsky has done and continues to do for the Russian stage; not to mention his talent." These noble words were the necessary emotional point of the dispute, but still did not resolve the issue of "Late Love". In any case, Ostrovsky's opinion of his play as "very simple" can hardly be recognized as unconditionally fair. Lyudmila Margaritova is still unusual: this is the first heroine of Ostrovsky, going to crime. That it is a crime that is being committed is clearly stated in the text:

« Nicholas. To get out of debt, to get rid of shame, there is only one way left for me: to commit a crime. ‹…›

Ludmila. Don't, don't do crime! Oh my God! Oh my God! But if it is necessary, make me, order me... I will do... What crime?

Nicholas. Theft.

Ludmila. It's disgusting, it's disgusting!

Nicholas. Yes, it's ugly."

What is the connection between Lyudmila's misdeed and her personality?

According to the remark, Lyudmila is "a middle-aged girl", "all her movements are modest and slow." In the first act, her father says about Lyudmila: “She is a saint ... She is meek, sits, works, is silent; all around need; after all, she spent her best years sitting silently, bending over - and not a single complaint. After all, she wants to live, she must live, and never a word about herself. The surname of Margaritov echoes the similar “flowery” surname of the heroine of The Poor Bride, Nezabudkina, a virtuous girl who submits to fate and duty.

However, there is a great difference between the heroines of the plays of 1851 and 1873. The virtuous life of Lyudmila beyond the scope of the play. The play itself is a chain of resolute actions of Lyudmila, made by her of her own free will and in the struggle for her happiness. “Love is everything for me, love is my right”, - under this motto there is a “rebellion” of a quiet girl from the Moscow outback. Direct feeling is already based on the consciousness of one's right to love - that's what's new. Ludmila exercises this right in a situation where everything is hostile to her intentions. Nikolai does not love her, her father does not love Nikolai, and yet Lyudmila manages to unite with her chosen one in marriage. The self-will of the heroine in Ostrovsky's play leads her to a successful outcome, and for this it was necessary to step over unconditional moral norms.

The figure of a sinful woman, one way or another "crossed the line", is in the center of attention of Russian literature of the 1860s-1870s. The fate of a woman is an arena for the battle of the cruel forces of life, and a woman in this battle shows more and more will, more and more determination, leading her away from the "primordial" virtues assigned to her. From Anna Karenina, Dostoyevsky's "Great Sinners", Lady Macbeth Mtsensk district, Vera from "The Cliff" to some "Evening Sacrifice" by Boborykin - on all floors of literature there was an awareness of the collapse of traditional morality that was happening before our eyes, in comparison with which the issue of women's work and education was really not so significant. This was understood by Ostrovsky, Shchedrin, Dostoevsky, and by no means always understood by ordinary journalism of the 1870s.

Complete independence of decisions and actions, up to a crime - such is the path of Lyudmila Margaritova. The awakening of "late love" in a modest girl from the outback - an echo of the fracture women's destinies that took place in the 1860s and 1870s. However, in her new birth, Lyudmila does not break with her former moral values.

In 1873, love is dedicated and " spring fairy tale» Ostrovsky "Snow Maiden", and autumn sketch "Late Love". But if in "The Snow Maiden" love is a natural element, the highest manifestation of being in its joy and tragedy, then Lyudmila's love is like a voluntary promissory note. "Sacrifice", "duty", "service" - that's her language. “I have a remedy in my hands,” Lyudmila says, handing over to Nikolai a bill stolen from his father, “I must help you ... I don’t know another love, I don’t understand ... I’m just doing my duty.” Thus, it is not the call of nature, not a blind passion or a whim of self-will that leads Ostrovsky's heroine to sin, but a new understanding of duty, a new service. Lyudmila is not Dunya Rusakova (“Don’t Get in Your Sleigh”, 1852), a naive, deceived creature for whom the conflict between father and lover will ultimately be resolved in favor of her father and his worldview. Lyudmila consciously, of her own free will, leaves her father, does not agree with him and sees her duty in this. This selfless sacrifice, the search for a new ministry, the fulfillment of a new duty brings Lyudmila closer - in tone, so to speak - with the important tendencies of the women's movement of the 1870s, although Ostrovsky writes about what is happening in "a poor, darkened room with time."

In the play, the cheerful liberty and cheerfulness of the widow Lebedkina, of a traditional type, even more emphasizes the harsh character of Lyudmila and her love. Lebedkina tempted Nikolai, promising money and her love in exchange for a bill, but Lyudmila made this exchange. Such "reversals" of sin and virtue are one of the contradictions and numerous paradoxes of Ostrovsky's play, which explores the moral turmoil of post-reform Russia at the level of "outback". The play is built on a chain of deceptions of trust associated with monetary documents, with the desire to "live properly." The theme of “deception of trust” is developed, moreover, not in the merchant environment, where back in 1847 “their own people” did not agree, but in the presence of two servants of the law. Margaritov is an old-style lawyer, Nikolai is a lawyer of a new formation, and this circumstance is extremely important in the analysis of the content of the play, relevant for 1873. “He studied well with me,” says Shablova about her son, “he finished his course at the university: and, as a sin, start up these new courts here! He signed up as a lawyer, - business went, and went, and went, rake money with a shovel.

After the judicial reform, the figure of a lawyer becomes popular both in public life and in art. The lawyer is an absolutely new type in Russian life, a visible embodiment of the ideas of freedom and democracy. Meanwhile, in the works of great Russian minds, the lawyer often appears in the halo of the author's mockery, irony (Fetyukovich in Dostoevsky, the lawyer in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina). The moral relativism underlying the profession (to defend regardless of guilt and for money), the dubiousness - for these writers - of worldly judgment led to the fact that in their portrayal of the lawyer from the hero of public life turned into a parody of it.

The ironic intonation is also noticeable in the image of Nicholas, faulty in moral attitude his figure. “It’s hard to even understand here,” writes the critic of “Son of the Fatherland” about Nikolai’s final statements about his nobility, “how a lawyer from a university graduate can say, who cannot understand that having a stolen document in your pocket does not mean to be right. But in the “scenes” everything somehow gets confused and interferes ... "

Nikolai admits to Lyudmila that he was once "little Jules Favre", that is, he imagined himself to be a famous French lawyer (later a figure in the government of Thiers). The comparison is rather ambiguous; as well as fraud with monetary documents, in which he, a lawyer, gets involved. As a lawyer, Nikolai is on a shaky line - between law and lawlessness. But just as unclear human face, oscillating between a parody of romantic hero and real character. And this indefinite, contradictory hero at the end of the play is entrusted with his affairs by the crystal-clear Margaritov, whom Lyudmila loves.

Lyudmila is not allowed to reap the bitter fruits of her free choice. Researchers of Ostrovsky's work put forward various assumptions about the future life of Lyudmila and Nikolai, but in the world of the play, the results for Lyudmila are prosperous. However, the fact that the heroine is whole, definite, with a strong character entrusts her fate to an indefinite, vague hero, looks much more disturbing than the natural disappointments and insights of women in Ostrovsky’s subsequent plays, which treat the theme of “vain love”, love for the unworthy (“The Last Victim ", 1877; "Dowry", 1878; "Slaves", 1880).

Although the movement of time gave the character of Lyudmila a previously impossible determination, she is connected with the world " eternal values»; Nikolai, on the other hand, is a perfect child of his time, and only his, he has no support, no basis, which is why he is so inclined to try on various roles, to pose. The union of the “eternal” and the “temporary” in “Late Love” is contradictory, paradoxical: if he had satisfied the playwright, he would not have returned to this topic again and again in his further work, solving it anew.

The structure of the play is also paradoxical: it rests on a purely melodramatic backbone, while life, modernity argue in it with established faces and masks, with plot schemes, blur the strong channel of the usual melodramatic ideas. It was hardly possible for the theater in 1873 to understand the full modernity and complexity of "Late Love". To do this, the actors would have to actively comprehend the time in which they lived. Such a task was beyond the power of Struiskaya and Nilsky. But the text of the play reached the viewer, disturbed, raised questions.

The fate of "Late Love" in the future was not without interest. In 1896, the centenary of women's education in Russia was celebrated (it was counted from the initiative of the Empress, who in 1796 founded the Educational Society for Noble Maidens). And in January 1895 and November 1896, two premieres took place, at the Alexandrinsky and Maly Theaters, of Ostrovsky's Late Love.

More than twenty years have passed since the first productions. The "women's question" in the form in which it was decided in the 1870s ceased to exist. Women's education, as well as women's participation in the social "division of labor", has ceased to be a debatable or exclusive phenomenon. Has this led to fundamental changes in female psychology?

In one of the feuilletons of the 80s of the 19th century, called “Women's Bread and Women's Dramas,” A. R. Kugel wrote: feelings ... - give women the opportunity to live their work, and you will see how her romantic delirium instantly evaporates. They demanded sewing machines and Mr. Rangof's courses as a safety measure against flights from the fifth floor. And now we see that Mr. Rangof's courses are standing still, and sewing machines are sold at an extremely preferential terms and the flights go on and on…”

Such evidence - at the level of a newspaper feuilleton - is important in that it indicates the divergence, commonness, and typicality of the process. Ostrovsky turned out to be absolutely right in his in-depth and concentrated study of precisely female love, in a creative conviction that it is in love that the main thing, the main thing, happens for a woman. (By the way, the work of Lyudmila Margaritova is related to the notorious “sewing machines”, to sewing, as indicated by her words in the first monologue, which Ostrovsky then excluded from the final text of the play.) Lyudmila is an image, although extremely connected with her time , but having two sides. On the one hand, independence of actions, a resolute struggle for one's happiness, awareness of the right to it, free choice in love, they make Lyudmila related to a whole generation of women-contemporaries who defended their rights and their freedom up to the extreme case - to the dock. But on the other hand, Lyudmila is an ordinary girl in love, showing noble frankness and great passion, even with some affectation of feeling, about which Kugel wrote. This second side of the image of Lyudmila turns out to be more significant for the viewer in 1896.

“Soft Mood” is the main tone of the Maly Theater production.

“After the stilted and crackling dramatic novelties, with labored effects, with ideas stretched out by the hair, with colorless or fake language, with bloodless, dull characters - the simple, everyday story of “Late Love”, told by Ostrovsky with such warmth, softness and such wonderful language , both refreshing and warming the viewer. "There is so much softness in the whole play," another critic echoes. Undoubtedly, this atmosphere was the merit of the Maly Theatre. sharp corners, the problems and questions of the play were not so dear now, how dear were softness and warmth. “Crackling novelties” speculated on superficial ideas and problems for so long that they turned to Ostrovsky with a desire to get away from bare theses and artificially constructed images, to live a simple, sincere life, to present to the viewer simple good people with real, non-fictional interests.

M. Ermolova, by the nature of her talent, could not but exalt Lyudmila, however, by no means heroizing her. It must be said that the modern belief that the distribution of roles is a concept is the best suited to theater XIX century. Yermolova as Lyudmila is already a concept. She couldn't help being right in everything she did. A. Yuzhin saw in Nikolai, first of all, a real character, in which the romantic pose was a kind of ironic self-defense. “Comparatively restrained, calm, prone to irony,” the reviewer described him and, expressing doubt that Ostrovsky’s Nikolai was exactly like that, admitted, however: But if Nikolai is understood in this way, then Mr. Yuzhin plays him very well. It is clear that what we have before us in this case is precisely an interpretation, a creative interpretation, and not an image of superficial signs of a “type”, as N. Vilde once did, or an unmastered presentation of the situation, as in A. Nilsky.”

The performance was warmly received.

A little earlier, in the production of the Alexandrinsky Theater, the play was received coolly. But, ironically, it was precisely the failures of the Alexandrinsky Theater that revealed something significant in Ostrovsky's Late Love.

In the interpretation of the Maly Theater, Lyudmila did not seem to have committed any crime. On the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater, it was still about a crime. “The very crime in the deed of this amazing girl acquires a reconciling beauty. ‹…› Great is the destructive power of late love…” There was no soft mood, no simple quiet life. Feeling the sharpness and roughness of the play, the actors were looking for some outlet for their feelings. V. Michurina - (Lyudmila) "sounded sharply melodramatic notes", she "wept some kind of dry tear", her love was "feverish, with a painful tinge." M. Dalsky did not wake up under her influence, but "remained lethargic, tired." Something sharp, painful, neurasthenic suddenly appeared through the “simple everyday story” and quite had a real psychological meaning for the late 1890s, when dramaturgy and theater came close to complexity. modern man that does not fit into a single social or ethical dimension.

If the critics, who spoke approvingly about Late Love at the Maly Theater, nevertheless wrote with bewilderment about the main plot node associated with the theft of a bill (“The story of the theft of a document is incredible. push her to such a step as theft, which should completely ruin her father, and maybe kill him"), then in reviews of "Late Love" in Alexandrinsky theater there was no such confusion. “The unfortunate Lyudmila had to experience the destructive power of late love. <...> She had to sacrifice not only her honor, but also the honor of her father. It turned out all the same scary, tough and also in its own way to match the changed times.

The resurrection of Ostrovsky's play on the Alexandrinsky stage in 1908 caused a unanimous verdict: lifeless, boring, "you can hardly recognize Ostrovsky among these flat and sweet and sour virtues, annoying capital morals and bill of exchange intrigue instead of lively passions."

Ostrovsky's moralism seemed outdated. However, there were also dissenting opinions. A. R. Kugel in 1907, in a review written about a student performance of "Late Love", did not doubt the significance of Ostrovsky's moralism one iota. But for him this moralism already appears as a realm of pure obligation, of what the theater is obliged to take into account for its normal development (the theater, consequently, and society). “Is it that I completely forgot the play, or that this play by Ostrovsky is really outstanding, or, finally, that the spirit, style, essence of Ostrovsky really suits a naive, simple, and most importantly, uncomplicated student performance in everything, - but the impression I got was very strong, big and deep. ‹…› With Ostrovsky, I always see that the element of morality occupies, so to speak, the entire proscenium… he does not treat his characters with ethical indifference. ‹…› So Ostrovsky always hears a probing voice: who are you, dear man? is there a cross on the neck or not? ‹…› Let us turn, for example, to “Late Love”. “Good” is firmly established. This is the business honesty of the solicitor Margaritov. ‹…› Here is the axis, as always with Ostrovsky, of an ethical order. Everything else is the rotation of characters around the core of ethical unconditionality. ‹…› Here they are both (Nikolai and Lyudmila - T. M.) is already on the edge of the abyss and betrayal. But the charm of goodness, its strength, deep, truly Christian faith Ostrovsky's miracle of goodness is such that he does not allow the fall and even a momentary triumph of evil. Good wins: God does not allow... ‹...› Is there any other writer in Russian literature who is kinder, less egoistic, not in the least broken and completely alien to hypocrisy, like Ostrovsky? For me personally, this is a question ... "

Where the theater loses touch with Ostrovsky's play, the critic finds it precisely in moralism. Everything fades into the background, turns pale, loses its meaning - money intrigues, thefts, revolvers and "pits", "women's question" and sewing machines, romantic parodies and affectation of feelings. “There should be, so to speak, a pillar on the stage, and there should be an inscription on the pillar: here is the road to heaven, and there - to hell.”

The critic offers the theater of his time the salutary "ethical unconditionality" of Ostrovsky. But the theater, at all times soldered to society, in the entire history of the productions of "Late Love" has not given a single interpretation in the spirit of Kugel - a parable of good and evil. As, of course, Ostrovsky did not write such a parable. His "Late Love" is the creative result of the playwright's interaction with the difficult and to the very bottom not clear processes of development of Russian society after the reforms of the 1860s. If "ethical unconditionality" is indeed the fundamental feature of Ostrovsky's work, then the life of society is deprived of it. And if you look at the play precisely from the point of view of the life of society, then it will appear complex and even paradoxical. Much of it resonated with Ostrovsky's contemporary life, much he understood and foresaw. The sketch about the love of an elderly girl for a dissolute lawyer will remain a kind of monument to the 1870s and Ostrovsky's creative development of them.

Chapter 5 Women's romance(story) in the period of extensive construction of capitalism Retroperspective. Our time has given rise to such an exotic phenomenon, as some critics would say, as a women's detective novel (or story). Exotic is here