Trifonov exchange problems of the work. Moral problems of "urban" prose and its comprehension in Trifonov's story "Exchange

In the 1950s and 1980s, the genre of so-called "urban" prose flourished. This literature primarily addressed the individual, the problems of everyday moral relations.

The culminating achievement of "urban" pro-se were the works of Yuri Trifonov. It was his story "The Exchange" that marked the beginning of the cycle of "urban" stories. In the "urban" stories, Trifonov wrote about love and family relationships, the most ordinary, but at the same time complex, about the clash of different characters, different life positions, about the problems, joys, anxieties, hopes of an ordinary person, about his life.

In the center of the story "The Exchange" is a rather typical, ordinary life situation, which nevertheless reveals very important moral problems that arise when it is resolved.

The main characters of the story are engineer Dmitriev, his wife Lena and Dmitrieva's mother Ksenia Fedorovna. They have a rather complicated relationship. Lena never loved her mother-in-law; moreover, the relationship between them "was minted in the form of ossified and enduring enmity." Previously, Dmitriev often started talking about moving in with his mother, an elderly and lonely woman. But Lena always violently protested against this, and gradually this topic arose less and less in the conversations of husband and wife, because Dmitriev understood that he could not break Lena's will. In addition, Ksenia Fedorovna became a kind of instrument of enmity in their family skirmishes. During quarrels, the name of Xenia Fedorovna was often heard, although it was not at all that she served as the beginning of the conflict. Dmitriev mentioned his mother when he wanted to accuse Lena of selfishness or callousness, and Lena talked about her, trying to put pressure on the patient or just sarcastically.

Speaking of this, Trifonov points to the flourishing of hostile, hostile relations where, it would seem, there should always be only mutual understanding, patience and love.

The main conflict of the story is connected with the severe illness of Xenia Fedorovna. Doctors suspect "the worst." This is where Lena takes the "bull by the horns". She decides to urgently settle the issue of the exchange, to move in with her mother-in-law. Her illness and, possibly, approaching death become for Dmitriev's wife a way to solve the housing problem. Lena does not think about the moral side of this enterprise. Hearing from his wife about her terrible idea, Dmitriev tries to look into her eyes. Perhaps he hopes to find there doubt, awkwardness, guilt, but he finds only determination. Dmitriev knew that his wife's "spiritual inaccuracy" was exacerbated "when Lena's other, strongest quality came into play: the ability to achieve one's own." The author notes that Lena "bit into her desires like a bulldog" and never retreated from them until they were realized.

Having done the most difficult thing - having said about her plans, Lena acts very methodically. As a subtle psychologist, she "licks" her husband's wound, seeks reconciliation with him. And he, suffering from lack of will, cannot, does not know how to resist it. He perfectly understands all the horror of what is happening, he is aware of the price of the exchange, but he does not find the strength in himself to somehow prevent Lena, just as he once did not find the strength to reconcile her with his mother.

The mission to tell about the upcoming exchange of Ksenia Fedorovna Lena, naturally, entrusted to her husband. This conversation is the most terrible, the most painful for Dmitriev. After the operation, which confirmed the “worst neck”, Ksenia Fedorovna felt better, she gained confidence that she was on the mend. To tell her about the exchange means to deprive her of the last hope for life, because this smart woman could not fail to guess the reason for such loyalty for many years of her daughter-in-law, who was at war with her. The realization of this becomes the most painful for Dmitriev. Lena easily draws up a conversation plan for her husband with Ksenia Fedorovna. "Get it all on me!" she advises. And Dmitriev seems to accept Lenin's condition. His mother is simple-hearted, and if he explains everything to her according to Lenin's plan, she may well believe in the selflessness of exchange. But Dmitriev is afraid of his sister Laura, who is "cunning," shrewd and dislikes Lena very much. Laura has long seen through her brother's wife and will immediately guess what intrigues are behind the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe exchange. Laura believes that Dmitriev quietly betrayed her and her mother, “loked himself”, that is, he began to live according to the rules that Lena and her mother, Vera Lazarevna, rely on in life, which their father, Ivan Vasilievich, an enterprising man, once established in their family. , a "powerful" person. It was Laura who noticed Lena’s tactlessness at the very beginning of their family life with Dmitriev, when Lena, without hesitation, took all their best cups for herself, put a bucket near Ksenia Fedorovna’s room, and without hesitation took a portrait of her father-in-law with walls of the middle room and outweighed it in the entrance. Outwardly, these are just everyday little things, but behind them, as Laura managed to see, lies something more.

Lena's blasphemy is revealed especially vividly in the morning after the conversation with Dmitriev. She is in a bad mood because her mother, Vera Lazarevna, fell ill. Vera Lazarevna has cerebral spasms. Why not be sad? Of course, the reason. And no foreshadowing of the mother-in-law's death can compare with her grief. Lena is callous in soul and, moreover, selfish.

Not only Lena is endowed with egoism. Dmitriev's colleague Pasha Snitkin is also selfish. The question of his daughter's admission to a music school is much more important to him than the death of a person. Because, as the author emphasizes, the daughter is her own, dear, and a stranger dies.

Lena's inhumanity contrasts with the soulfulness of Dmitriev's former mistress, Tatyana, who, as Dmitriev realizes, "would probably be his best wife." The news of the exchange makes Tanya blush, because she understands everything perfectly, she enters into the position of Dmitriev, offers him a loan and shows all kinds of sympathy.

Lena is also indifferent to her own father. When he lies with a stroke, she only thinks that she has a ticket to Bulgaria, and calmly goes on vacation.

Ksenia Fedorovna herself is opposed to Lena, whom “friends love, colleagues respect, neighbors in the apartment and in the peacock dacha appreciate, because she is virtuous, compliant, ready to help and take part.”

Lena still gets her way. The sick woman agrees to the exchange. She dies soon after. Dmitriyev suffers a hypertensive crisis. The portrait of the hero, who yielded to his wife in this merciless deed, realizing the significance of his act and experiencing mental suffering because of this, changes dramatically at the end of the story. “Not an old man yet, but already elderly, with limp cheeks, an uncle,” this is how the narrator sees him. But the hero is only thirty-seven years old.

The word "exchange" in Trifonov's story takes on a broader meaning. It is not only about the exchange of housing, a “moral exchange” is being made, a “concession to dubious life values” is being made. “The exchange has taken place...,” Ksenia Fedorovna says to her son. - It was a long time ago".

Yuri Trifonov's story "The Exchange" depicts two families of Dmitrievs and Lukyanovs, who became related due to the marriage of two representatives of their young generation - Victor and Lena. To a certain extent, these two families are directly opposed to each other. The author does not show their direct confrontation, which is expressed indirectly through numerous comparisons, frictions and conflicts in the relations of these families. Thus, the Dmitriev family differs from the Lukyanovs in its long-standing roots and the presence of several generations in this family name. It is tradition that ensures the continuity of moral values ​​and ethical principles that have developed in this family. The moral stability of the members of the Dmitriev family is due to the transfer of these values ​​from generation to generation.

However, these values ​​are gradually leaving him and being replaced by others that are opposite to them. Therefore, the image of Fyodor Nikolaevich's grandfather, who appears in the story as a kind of ancient "monster", is extremely important for us, since many fateful historical events fell to his lot. But at the same time, he remains a real historical figure, making it possible to trace the process of the Dmitriev family losing those qualities, life principles that distinguished their house from others. Grandfather embodies the best qualities of the Dmitriev family, which once distinguished all representatives of this family - intelligence, tact, good manners, adherence to principles.

Ksenia Fedorovna, the daughter of Fyodor Nikolaevich, is completely different from her father. She is characterized by excessive pride, feigned intelligence, rejection of his life principles (for example, this is manifested in the scene of a dispute with her father about contempt). It appears such a trait as "prudence", that is, the desire to look better than what it really is. Despite the fact that Ksenia Fedorovna strives to play the role of an ideal mother, she is far from being a positive hero, since negative qualities are equally present in her. After a while, we learn that Ksenia Fedorovna is not at all as intelligent and disinterested as she wants to seem. But, despite her shortcomings, she fully realizes herself as a loving mother. She treats her only son with a feeling of trembling love, pities him, worries about him, perhaps even blames herself for his unrealized opportunities. In his youth, Victor drew superbly, but this gift was not further developed. Ksenia Fedorovna, spiritually bound by love with her son, is also the guardian of the internal ties of the Dmitriev family.

Victor Dmitriev is finally separated and spiritually cut off from his grandfather, in relation to whom he has only "childish devotion". Hence the misunderstanding and alienation that arose in their last conversation, when Victor wanted to talk about Lena, and grandfather wanted to think about death. It is no coincidence that with the death of his grandfather, Dmitriev, more than ever, felt cut off from his home, family, loss of ties with people close to him. However, the origins of the process of Victor's spiritual alienation from his family, which took on an irreversible character with the death of his grandfather, should be sought from the moment of his marriage to Lena Lukyanova. The rapprochement of the two houses becomes the cause of endless quarrels and conflicts between families and turns into the final destruction of the Dmitriev family.

The Lukyanov clan is opposite to them both in origin and occupation. These are practical people "who know how to live", in contrast to the impractical and poorly adapted Dmitrievs. The author presents the Lukyanovs much narrower. They are deprived of a home, and, consequently, of rootedness, support and family ties in this life. In turn, the absence of family ties leads to the absence of spiritual ties in this Lukyanov family, where the feeling of love, family warmth and simple human participation are unfamiliar. Relations in this family are somehow uncomfortable, official business, not at all like home. Therefore, the two fundamental features of the Lukyanovs are not surprising - practicality and incredulity. For this family, a sense of duty replaces a sense of love. It is because of the feeling of his duty to the family that Ivan Vasilyevich financially equips his house and provides for his family, for which Vera Lazarevna feels for him a feeling comparable to dog devotion, since she herself "never worked and lived on Ivan Vasilyevich's dependency."

Lena Lukyanova is an absolute copy of her parents. On the one hand, she combined her father's sense of duty and responsibility to her family, and on the other, Vera Lazarevna's devotion to her husband and family. All this is complemented by the practicality inherent in the entire Lukyanov family. So, Lena tries to carry out a profitable apartment exchange during her mother-in-law's illness. However, all these "deals" are not something immoral for her. For the heroine, initially, only the concept of benefit is moral, because her main life principle is expediency. Finally, Lena's practicality reaches its highest limit. This is confirmed by the "mental defect", "mental inaccuracy", "underdevelopment of feelings", noticed in it by Victor. In this lies her tactlessness in relation to close people (an apartment exchange started out of place, a quarrel that arose due to the movement of Lena's father's portrait in the Dmitrievs' house). In the house of the Dmitriev-Lukyanovs there is no love and family warmth. The daughter of Lena and Victor, Natasha, does not see affection, because for her mother the "measurement of parental love" is an English special school. Hence the constant falsehood, insincerity in relations between members of this family. In Lena's mind, the material replaces the spiritual. The proof of this is the fact that the author never mentions any of her spiritual qualities, talents, reducing everything exclusively to the material. On the other hand, Lena is much more viable than her husband, she is morally stronger and more courageous than him. The situation of the merger of two families, the combination of spiritual principles and practicality, shown by Trifonov, leads to the victory of the latter. Victor finds himself crushed as a person by his wife and, in the end, "sucks".

The story "Exchange" begins at a tragic moment in the hero's life - the fatal illness of the mother and the apartment exchange started in this connection. Thus, the author puts his hero before a choice, since it is in such a situation that the true essence of a person is manifested. Subsequently, it turns out that Viktor Dmitriev is a weak-willed person, constantly making worldly compromises. He seeks to get away from the decision, from responsibility and the desire to preserve the usual order of things at all costs. The cost of choosing Victor is extremely bitter. For the sake of material wealth and a well-equipped life, he loses his mother. But the worst thing is that Victor does not blame himself either for the death of his mother or for breaking spiritual ties with his family. He lays all the blame on the confluence of circumstances that he was never able to overcome, on the irresistible "lukianization". At the end of the story, Victor bitterly admits that he "really does not need anything", that he is only looking for peace.

From that moment on, his rapid "lukyanization" begins. Victor finally loses the spiritual qualities and moral education that were originally inherent in the Dmitrievs' house. Gradually, he turns into a cold, mentally callous person, living in self-deception and taking everything for granted, while his youthful aspirations and real, sincere dreams turn into inaccessible dreams. So the hero dies spiritually, degrades as a person and loses family ties.

An equally important semantic load is the image of Tanya, who embodies normal human connections, relationships and sincere love. She lives according to a completely different system of moral values, according to which it is impossible for her to live with an unloved person, even if he loves her. In turn, this man who loves her quietly leaves, allowing Tanya to live her life. This is true love - the desire for good and happiness for a loved one. Despite all the misfortunes that befell her, Tanya managed to preserve her spiritual world. Largely due to her inner integrity, strong moral principles and spiritual strength, she managed to survive in this life. Thanks to these qualities, Tanya is much stronger and stronger than Victor. Her "exchange" turned out to be much more honest than Dmitriev's material "exchange", since it was carried out in accordance with feelings and at the call of the heart.

“You have already exchanged, Vitya. The exchange has taken place,” is the dramatic finale of the “exchange” put into the mouth of the mother of Viktor Dmitriev, who exchanged the way of life, moral values ​​and life principles of the Dmitriev family for the practical way of life of the Lukyanovs. Thus, the exchange that took place is not so much a material transaction as a spiritual and psychological situation.

The general leitmotif of Yuri Trifonov's story "The Exchange" is reflections on the ever-decreasing spiritual relations between people and the rapidly thinning human ties. From this follows the main problem of the individual - the lack of spiritual ties with other people and, in particular, with loved ones. According to the author, relationships within the family are more dependent on spiritual closeness, on the depth of mutual understanding, and these are very difficult and subtle things that require the usual warmth and sensitivity. This is the tragedy of the Dmitriev-Lukyanov family. Without all these qualities, the family simply cannot exist. As a result, only the outer shell remains, destroyed inside and spiritually disunited.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin is a man of broad, liberal, “censored” views. It was hard for him, poor, to be in a secular hypocritical society, in St. Petersburg, with the palace sycophantic aristocracy. Away from the "metropolis" of the 19th century, closer to the people, among open and sincere people, the "descendant of the Arabs" felt much freer and "at ease". Therefore, all his works, from epic-historical, to the smallest two-line epigrams, dedicated to the "people" breathe respect and love.

"Little" and "unfortunate" people Pushkin was very sorry. His story "The Stationmaster" is imbued with this benevolent pity.

The narrative is symbolically divided into three parts, far from being equal in the number of words. The number of them (parts) is equal to the number of passages through the station where our poor caretaker serves and lives.

The first "chapter" of the story is colorful and wordy. Descriptions of nature and portraits, emotions of characters and their actions, interspersed with dialogues. Acquaintance with Samson Vyrin and his teenage daughter Dunya. Reflections on how poor these, provincial officials, every traveler off the shoulder and without hesitation can offend and humiliate. And go further, in a fur coat, on a sleigh, in deeds and hopes. And he, this caretaker, the 14th “class” official (that is, the smallest fry, no one at all), remains here, alone, in the wilderness, with his experiences, swallowed undeserved insults, rude words and the complete impossibility of correcting anything, with whom to discuss what happened, at least to complain corny!

Such "people" have neither their own house, nor money, nor connections. No family jewels, not even a decent tailcoat. And why does he, Vyrin, need a tailcoat? Where to go in it? The only thing that makes up his wealth, dignity and almost senile pride is his daughter, Dunya. A modest, pious girl, growing without a mother, will be a support in decrepitude.

"Chapter" second. After few years. Our narrator, on his own business, was again passing through that side. I met with the caretaker with pleasure and sincere joy. But he got old, sank, washed down. Because there was only one left. Dunya drove away to the city with an officer. And she did not want to return. It seemed better to her to live dishonored with a brave warrior than to drag out a gray, wretched, dull existence at the station. The daughter destroyed the whole world, and so not rosy, of her own unfortunate father. Our author took pity on Samson, but what can we do? There is absolutely nothing to help in such a situation.

Third chapter. Short, deliberately written without obvious emotions. For the third time, and probably the last, the author passed through the station. The caretaker was already different, unfamiliar. But what about Vyrin? Yes, he died. And once a lady came to his grave, smart, ruddy. With kids. No one in her Dunya, of course, did not recognize ...

Everything with my daughter has developed with dignity, nobility, richly. Yes, only the father, not knowing this, nevertheless died of grief ...

In literary criticism, "The Exchange" has traditionally been viewed as a work that raises acute social and moral issues in terms of denunciation of the bourgeoisie, consumer attitude to life, betrayal of high ideals (science), and so on. Members of the Lukyanov family acted as negative characters, and Dmitriev's mother, sister and other relatives were portrayed as the moral principle that opposes them. Dmitriev himself was regarded as a type of opportunist who gradually, without noticing it, turned into a tradesman, a consumer, gradually betraying moral ideals, “every day, in the words of his mother, making his “exchange””. However, it seems that such a problem is unlikely to fully exhaust the content of the work. The author's position, however, was not so unambiguous. As a truthful artist, Trifonov, depicting life, captured in the story not only the Dmitriev-Lukyanov family conflicts, but also the social and moral atmosphere of the time, the contradictions of contemporary reality.

First of all, this is reflected in the depiction of the Dmitriev family and that social stratum that is commonly called the "intelligentsia". With all the claims to the "highly spiritual interests" of the representatives of this layer, depicted by Trifonov, it is impossible not to notice their extreme impracticality, unsuitability and isolation from life. Their existence is largely illusory, a “contemptible” reality, in which efforts must be made not only to “smartly” talk about Picasso and other “not accessible to everyone” art, but also to fill up sewer pits, and also to keep clean and the order of their own dwelling, they do not like it. The fact that "talks about Picasso" in the village take place in an atmosphere of terrible stench coming from a broken sewer, which no one repairs, is largely symbolic. This resonates, for example, with Bulgakov's ideas: the arguments of Professor Preobrazhensky from The Heart of a Dog about the nature of devastation and about "singing in a choir" instead of fulfilling one's direct duties. At the same time, representatives of this “stratum” do not consider it shameful (unlike Lukyanov the father, for example) to live at someone else’s expense, freely enjoy the fruits of the work of other people and at the same time despise them for their “low interests” (for example, po-selok is a privileged place where former regional partisans live, and now for the most part their “aesthetic” and posing as hereditary aristocracy descendants who do not personally deserve the benefits they enjoy; especially the Dmitrievs, who settled down to the village under patronage, without having any, even indirect, rights to this). The little details that Trifonov provides in abundance are very eloquent. This is the study of English by Ksenia Fedorovna in order to “read detectives in the original” (at the same time, Lena, a professional translator, makes fun of her mother-in-law’s pronunciation, I think, not least because she is offended by the very fact that her sphere professional interests for someone is the subject of idle curiosity and attempts at least to fill their leisure time with something). This is the desire to "help half-familiar people", which, as psychologists rightly point out, is often a kind of screen, an excuse for a cruel attitude towards one's neighbors. At the same time, the son of Ksenia Feodorovna with his wife and child huddle in a small room in a communal apartment, but the exchange for Dmitrieva becomes a whole problem, although otherwise, after her death, the room will go to the state (under the Soviet regime there was no private ownership of housing, everything belonged to the state, and people, as it were, rented the area from him for a fee). As a result, the exchange nevertheless takes place, the only fruit of Ksenia Fedorovna's efforts is that she, dying, manages to instill in her son a sense of guilt for her own death (refusal to exchange living space is indicative, but then after 3 days - consent, t (i.e., an ostentatious sacrifice whose sole purpose was to instill in the son precisely this feeling of guilt). In the light of the foregoing, the accusation of hypocrisy thrown by Lena to her mother-in-law does not look so groundless.

"Chekhovian" intonations in the description of the life of the Dmitriev family are clearly felt. We seem to see the same “cherry orchard”, endlessly talking about something “otherworldly” of all these Ranevskys, Gaevs, Trigorins, Arkadins and others like them, who are in idleness that corrodes the soul, living in debt and making unhappy everyone who inadvertently within their reach.

As historians are fond of saying, history tends to repeat itself twice, once as a tragedy and once as a farce. If there was still a lot of tragedy in the discord of Chekhov's characters with life, then in the life of the "aristocracy" of new days it is completely absent. Spiritual emptiness appears before us in its purest form, completely devoid of the exquisite aura of suffering in the decadence style.

The socio-psychological nature of this kind of people is also told by another work by Trifonov - “The House on the Embankment”.

Yuri Valentinovich Trifonov 1925-1981 Exchange - A Tale (1969)

The action takes place in Moscow. The mother of the protagonist, thirty-seven-year-old engineer Viktor Dmitriev, Ksenia Fedorovna, became seriously ill, she has cancer, but she herself believes that she has a peptic ulcer. After the operation, she is sent home. The outcome is clear, but she alone believes that things are on the mend. Immediately after her discharge from the hospital, Dmitriev's wife Lena, an English translator, decides to urgently move in with her mother-in-law so as not to lose a good room on Profsoyuznaya Street. We need an exchange, she even has one option in mind.

There was a time when Dmitriev's mother really wanted to live with him and with her granddaughter Natasha, but since then their relationship with Lena became very tense and this was out of the question. Now Lena herself tells her husband about the need for an exchange. Dmitriev is indignant - at such a moment to offer this to his mother, who can guess what's wrong. Nevertheless, he gradually yields to his wife. Lena, concludes Dmitriev, is wise as a woman, and in vain he immediately attacked her. Now he is also aimed at the exchange, although he claims that he personally does not need anything. In the service, due to his mother's illness, he refuses to travel. He needs money, since a lot has gone to the doctor, Dmitriev is puzzling over who to borrow from. But it seems that the day is going well for him: the employee Tanya, his former lover, offers money with her usual sensitivity. After work, Dmitriev and Tanya take a taxi and go to her house for money. Tanya is happy to be alone with Dmitriev, to help him in some way. Dmitriev is sincerely sorry for her, perhaps he would have stayed longer with her, but he needs to hurry to his mother's dacha, in Pavlinovo.

Dmitriev has fond childhood memories of this dacha, owned by the Krasny Partisan cooperative. The house was built by his father, a railway engineer, who dreamed all his life of leaving this job to write humorous stories. A good man, he was not lucky and died early. Dmitriev remembers him fragmentarily. He remembers better his grandfather, a lawyer, an old revolutionary who returned to Moscow after a long absence and lived for some time in the country until they gave him a room. He did not understand anything in modern life. He also gazed with curiosity at the Lukyanovs, the parents of Dmitriev's wife, who were then also visiting Pavlinovo in the summer. Once on a walk, my grandfather, referring to the Lukyanovs, said that there was no need to despise anyone. These words, clearly addressed to Dmitriev's mother, who often showed intolerance, and to himself, were well remembered by his grandson. The Lukyanovs differed from the Dmitrievs in their adaptability to life, the ability to deftly arrange any business, whether it was repairing a summer house or placing a granddaughter in an elite English school. They are from the breed of "knowing how to live." What seemed insurmountable to the Dmitrievs, the Lukyanovs solved quickly and simply, only by the only way they knew. This was an enviable property, but such practicality caused the Dmitrievs, especially his mother Ksenia Fedorovna, who was used to selflessly helping others, women with strong moral principles, and sister Laura, an arrogant smile. For them, the Lukyanovs are philistines who care only about personal well-being and are deprived of high interests. In their family, even the word "lukyanitsya" appeared. They are characterized by a kind of spiritual flaw, manifested in tactlessness in relation to others. So, for example, Lena hung the portrait of Father Dmitriev from the middle room to the entrance - only because she needed a nail for the wall clock. Or she took all the best cups of Laura and Xenia Fedorovna. Dmitriev loves Lena and always defended her from the attacks of her sister and mother, but he also cursed with her because of them. He knows well the strength of Lena, “who gnawed at her desires like a bulldog.

Dmitriev feels that his relatives are condemning him, that they consider him to be a “lukyanish”, and therefore a slice cut off. This became especially noticeable after the story with a relative and former comrade Levka Bubrik. Bubrik returned to Moscow from Bashkiria, where he settled after graduation, and remained unemployed for a long time. He looked for a place at the Institute of Oil and Gas Equipment and really wanted to get a job there. At the request of Lena, who felt sorry for Levka and his wife, her father Ivan Vasilyevich was busy with this matter. However, instead of Bubrik, Dmitriev ended up in this place, because it was better than his previous work. Everything was done again under the wise guidance of Lena, but, of course, with the consent of Dmitriev himself. There was a scandal. However, Lena, protecting her husband from his principled and highly moral relatives, took all the blame.

The conversation about the exchange, which Dmitriev, who arrived at the dacha, begins with his sister Laura, arouses amazement and sharp rejection in her, despite all Dmitriev's reasonable arguments. Laura is sure that her mother cannot be happy next to Lena, even if she tries very hard at first. They are too different people. Ksenia Fyodorovna, just on the eve of her son's arrival, was unwell, then she gets better, and Dmitriev, without delay, proceeds to a decisive conversation. Yes, says the mother, she used to want to live with him, but now she doesn't. The exchange took place, and long ago, she says, referring to Dmitriev's moral capitulation.

Overnight at the dacha, Dmitriev sees his old watercolor drawing on the wall. Once he was fond of painting, did not part with the album. But, having failed in the exam, with grief he rushed to another, the first institute he came across. After graduation, he did not look for romance, like others, he did not go anywhere, he remained in Moscow. Then Lena and her daughter were already there, and the wife said: where is he from them? He is late. His train has left. In the morning Dmitriev leaves, leaving Laura money. Two days later, the mother calls and says that she agrees to come. When he finally gets along with the exchange, Xenia Fedorovna becomes even better. However, soon the disease worsens again. After the death of his mother, Dmitriev suffers from a hypertensive crisis. He immediately passed, turned gray, aged. And the Dmitrievskaya dacha in Pavlinovo was later demolished, like others, and the Burevestnik stadium and a hotel for athletes were built there.

34. A man in history in Trifonov's story "The Old Man"

Yuri Valentinovich Trifonov 1925-1981 Old man - Roman (1972)

The action takes place in a dacha village near Moscow in the unusually hot, suffocating summer of 1972. Pensioner Pavel Yevgrafovich Letunov, an elderly man (72 years old), receives a letter from his old friend Asya Igumnova, with whom he had been in love for a long time since school. Together they fought on the Southern Front during the Civil War. As old as Letunov, she lives not far from Moscow and invites him to visit.

It turns out that Asya found him by reading Letunov's note in a magazine about Sergei Kirillovich Migulin, a Cossack commander, a large red military commander from the time of the civil war. Migulin was unofficially her husband. Working as a typist at the headquarters, she accompanied him on military campaigns. She also had a son by him. In the letter, she expresses her joy that the shameful stigma of a traitor has been removed from Migulin, a bright and complex person, but she is surprised that it was Letunov who wrote the note, because he also believed in Migulin's guilt. The letter awakens many memories in Letunov. Letunov's memory resurrects with bright flashes individual episodes from the whirlwind of events of those years that remained the most important for him, and not only because it was his youth, but also because the fate of the world was being decided. He was drunk with mighty time. The red-hot lava of history flowed, and he was inside it. Was there a choice or not? Could it have happened differently or not? “Nothing can be done. You can kill a million people, overthrow a tsar, start a great revolution, blow up half the world with dynamite, but you can’t save one person.” Why did Letunov write about Migulin? Yes, because that time is not outlived for him. He was the first to start working on the rehabilitation of Migulin, he has been studying archives for a long time, because Migulin seems to him an outstanding historical figure. Letunov also feels a secret sense of guilt before Migulin - for the fact that during his trial, when asked if he admits Migulin's participation in the counter-revolutionary uprising, he sincerely answered that he does. That, obeying the general opinion, and previously believed in his guilt.

Forty-seven-year-old Migulin Letunov, then nineteen, considered an old man. The drama of the commander, in the past a military foreman, lieutenant colonel, consisted in the fact that many not only envied his growing fame and popularity, but most importantly, they did not trust him. Migulin enjoyed the great respect of the Cossacks and the hatred of the chieftains, he successfully fought against the whites, but, as many believed, he was not a real revolutionary. In the ardent appeals composed by him, distributed among the Cossacks, he expressed his personal understanding of the social revolution, his views on justice. They feared a mutiny, or maybe they did it on purpose in order to annoy Migulin, to provoke Migulin to a counter-revolutionary action, they sent him such commissars as Leonty Shigontsev, who were ready to flood the Don with blood and did not want to listen to any arguments. Migulin had already encountered Shigontsev when he was a member of the district revolutionary committee. This strange type, who believed that humanity should give up “feelings, emotions,” was hacked to death not far from the village where the headquarters of the corps stood. Suspicion could fall on Migulin, as he often opposed the "false communist" commissars.

Distrust haunted Migulin, and Letunov himself, as he explains to himself his then behavior, was part of this general distrust. Meanwhile, Migulin was prevented from fighting, and in the situation when the Whites now and then went on the offensive and the situation at the front was far from favorable. Migulin gets nervous, rushes about, and in the end can't stand it: instead of going to Penza, where he is summoned with an incomprehensible intention, Migulin begins to make his way to the front with a handful of troops subordinate to him. On the way, he is arrested, put on trial and sentenced to death. In a fiery speech at the trial, he says that he will die with the words "Long live the social revolution!"

Migulin is amnestied, demoted, he becomes the head of the land department of the Don Executive Committee, and two months later he is again given a regiment. In February 1921, he was awarded an order and appointed chief inspector of the Red Army cavalry. On the way to Moscow, where he was called to receive this honorary position, he stops by his native village. At that time, the Don was restless. As a result of the surplus appropriation, the Cossacks are worried, in some places uprisings break out. A spy is assigned to him, recording all his statements, and in the end he is arrested.

Nevertheless, even many years later, the figure of Migulin is still not fully understood by Letunov. Even now he is not sure that the purpose of the corps commander, when he arbitrarily went to the front, was not a rebellion. Pavel Evgrafovich wants to find out where he was moving in August of the nineteenth. He hopes that Asya Igumnova, a living witness of the events, the person closest to Migulin, will be able to tell him something new, shed light, and therefore, despite weakness and ailments, Letunov goes to her. He needs the truth, and instead the old woman says after a long silence: “I will answer you - I have never loved anyone so much in my long, tedious life ...” And Letunov himself, seemingly seeking the truth, forgets about his own mistakes and his own fault. Justifying himself, he calls it "the darkening of the mind and the breaking of the soul," which is replaced by oblivion, which saves conscience.

Letunov thinks about Migulin, remembers the past, but meanwhile passions boil around him. In the cooperative dacha settlement where he lives, the house was vacated after the death of the owner, and the adult children of Pavel Evgrafovich ask him to talk with the chairman of the board Prikhodko, because in their house the expanded family has not had enough space for a long time, while Letunov is an honored person who has lived here for a long time. years. However, Pavel Evgrafovich evades conversation with Prikhodko, a former cadet, an informer and a vile person in general, who, moreover, perfectly remembers how Letunov purged him from the party in his time. Letunov lives in the past, in memory of his recently buried beloved wife, whom he sorely misses. Children, who are immersed in everyday worries, do not understand him.