"Well-intentioned speeches" are devoted, if we keep in mind their ultimate task, to the "secret of secrets" and the "holy of holies" of contemporary Saltykov society, its "cornerstones". It is about fundamental social concepts("institutions") developed historically by mankind.

"Have these concepts retained that strict meaning, that holiness that humanity gave them at the time when they were composed; if they did not, then is it possible to return to them what was lost?" - Saltykov asked a question in the article "Modern Ghosts", written back in 1863.

This article, like a number of other works, testifies that the circle of ideas embodied in "Well-intentioned speeches" worried Saltykov for a long time. He worried the writer later. Confirmation of this is his well-known letter to E.I. Utin dated January 2, 1881. It was written about the last interpretation of the cycle "All the Year Round" and Saltykov's attitude to "ideals", but it is also directly related to "Well-intentioned speeches", is a kind of author's commentary on them. “It seems to me that a writer who has in mind more than just the interests of the moment is not obliged to put forward ideals other than those that have worried humanity from time immemorial,” Saltykov wrote to Utin. “Namely: freedom, equality and justice. After all, family, property, the state - "were also ideals in their time, but they seem to be exhausted. To settle down in these details, to defend some and destroy others is the business of publicists. Reading Chernyshevsky's novel What Is To Be Done?, I came to the conclusion that his mistake consisted precisely in that he was too preoccupied with practical ideals. Who knows whether it will be so! And can the forms of life indicated in the novel be called final? After all, Fourier was a great thinker, and the entire applied part of his theory turns out to be more or less untenable, and only the undying This gave me reason to set out on a more modest mission, namely: to save the ideal of free research as the inalienable right of every person and to turn to those modern "foundations" in the name of which this freedom of research is trampled. To the best of my ability and to the extent of censorship arbitrariness, this is what I did in Well-Intentioned Speeches.

A few lines later, Saltykov clarified what he meant by these modern "foundations" of Russian reality. In Well-Intentioned Speeches, according to the satirist, he “turned to the family, to property, to the state, to what“ was also ideals in its time, ”and made it clear that none of this was already available. Perhaps the principles in the name of which freedom is constrained are no longer principles even for those who use them.

Enlightener Saltykov, who sacredly and sincerely believed in the mind as the main guiding force of progress, believed that there is nothing more important than the overthrow of insolvent "idols", these spiritual and moral "altars", which are the main obstacle to progress, overthrow by the power of reason, research , analysis, and finally - by the power of laughter.

In order to protect the interests of the propertied classes and justify the socio-political status quo, representatives of official science put forward various theories, among which a prominent place belonged to the theory of "alliance". Its essence was stated by B. N. Chicherin in the book "The History of Political Doctrines" (1869) as follows: "The first union is the family. It is based on the complete internal consent of the members, on mutual love, which makes up the life of the family. the totality of all private relations between people. Here the main principle is a free person with his rights and interests. The third union, the church, embodies the moral-religious principle; the element of moral law predominates in it. Finally, the fourth union, the state, dominates all the rest. He is primarily the beginning of power, as a result of which the supreme power on earth belongs to him.

"Well-intentioned speeches" were devoted to an artistic study of the real essence of these "alliances", declared by the official ideology as " cornerstones"Russian society.

In the essays "Father and Son", "On the Part of the Women's Question", "Family Happiness", "More Correspondence", "Irreverent Coronation" the "family union" was studied primarily in the most typical and characteristic forms of its existence in the conditions of post-reform reality.

In the essays "Guardians", "Correspondence", "In a circle of friends", "A hard year", "In pursuit of ideals", "Hello", the main thing is the analysis of the union of "civil" and "state".

The third direction of artistic and social research in "Well-intentioned speeches", the third - the most significant group of essays and stories in terms of volume and space occupied - "On the Road", "On the Road Again", "Pillar", "Candidate for Pillars", " Transformation”, “Cousin Masha” is devoted to a theme that was barely outlined in Saltykov’s work of the 60s and came to the fore for him in the 70s: the theme of property. This manifested the pattern of time: the principle of ownership by the mid-70s was becoming one of the main "cornerstones" of post-reform Russia. His study became a cross-cutting theme of "Well-intentioned speeches", which sounded not only, say, in the dilogy about Derunov (the essays "Pillar" and "Transformation"), but also in a number of essays of the "family" cycle ("Father and Son", for example) , in essays on "civil" and "state" unions ("Guardians", "Correspondence", etc.).

The "narrator", on behalf of whom the Well-meaning Speeches are written, is connected with the reality explored in the essays through his entire biography and life experience. The "Narrator" tells about trips to his native places on the business of his estate, about the impressions that he made from these trips to his homeland after a long absence, about meetings with people who have long been known and unfamiliar. He is a local landowner and at the same time a "writer of the satirical part", known in those places as the author of "Well-intentioned speeches". All this made us perceive "Well-meaning Speeches" as a reliable, factual story about real people and real situations that Saltykov encountered in his trips.

However, the documentary nature of the Well-Intentioned Speeches is of a special kind: it must be taken with the essential amendment that the "writer of the satirical part", who in the essays acts as the author of the Well-Intentioned Speeches, on behalf of whom the story is being told, is Saltykov, and together with so not Saltykov. This is a “narrator”, that is, a fictional character, far from identical in views and positions to Saltykov himself, a kind of literary mask. The relationship between Saltykov and his double narrator is quite definite and at the same time complex. The difficulty here is in the constantly changing distance between them: from the complete absence of such, when the appearance of the real author of the Well-Intentioned Speeches and his literary alter ego merge, and then the words and intonations of the "narrator" speak in full voice the writer himself - up to a complete confrontation, when the narrator is extremely distant and internally hostile, unacceptable to Saltykov and himself is the object of his irony and satire. Certainty lies in the fact that under the literary mask of a "narrator" - either a harmless "frondeur", or a "simpleton", or a person of "average cultural class" - we always, in any case, feel, feel Saltykov himself, his ideological position, his attitude to life and the "narrator".

The figure of the "narrator" - a well-intentioned "Russian frondeur" who organically belongs to the social reality that was the object of the writer's research and denunciation - and allowed Saltykov to illuminate this reality "from the inside". The writer, as it were, demonstrates the self-disclosure of his contemporary society, its cornerstones. The artistic principle of Saltykov's satire - and this is characteristic of all the essays in the book - is the exposure, or rather, the self-exposing of a striking contradiction; between appearance and essence, between word and deed, between the external forms of bourgeois-feudal reality, presented as truth, and its true content.

"Well-intentioned speeches", exposing the dominant contradictions of the post-reform society as a whole, developed hatred for the false "foundations" of life and readiness for a "high impulse", revolutionized the public consciousness of the country, educated fighters. This, in the final analysis, consisted of "practical consequences" , the considerable benefit that this work of Saltykov brought - one of the central ones in his work - to the Russian people, the Russian liberation movement.

The “well-meaning speeches” are dedicated, if we keep in mind their ultimate task, to the “secret of secrets” and the “holy of holies” of contemporary Saltykov society, its “cornerstones”. We are talking about the fundamental social concepts ("institutions") developed historically by mankind.

"Have these concepts retained that strict meaning, that holiness that humanity gave them at the time when they were composed; if they did not, then is it possible to return to them what was lost?" - Saltykov asked a question in the article "Modern Ghosts", written back in 1863.

This article, like a number of other works, testifies that the range of ideas embodied in Well-Intentioned Speeches has worried Saltykov for a long time. He worried the writer later. Confirmation of this is his well-known letter to E.I. Utin dated January 2, 1881. It was written about the last interpretation of the cycle "All the Year Round" and Saltykov's attitude to "ideals", but it is also directly related to "Well-intentioned speeches", is a kind of author's commentary on them. “It seems to me that a writer who has in mind more than just the interests of the moment is not obliged to put forward ideals other than those that have worried humanity from time immemorial,” Saltykov wrote to Utin. “Namely: freedom, equality and justice<…>After all, the family, property, the state were also ideals in their time, but they, apparently, are being exhausted. To settle down in these details, to defend some and destroy others is the business of publicists. Reading Chernyshevsky's novel What Is to Be Done?, I came to the conclusion that his mistake lay precisely in the fact that he was too preoccupied with practical ideals. Who knows if it will! And can the forms of life indicated in the novel be called final? After all, Fourier was a great thinker, and the entire applied part of his theory turns out to be more or less untenable, and only undying general propositions remain. This gave me reason to set out on a more modest mission, namely: to save the ideal of free research as the inalienable right of every person and to turn to those modern "foundations" in the name of which this freedom of research is trampled. To the best of my ability and to the extent of censorship arbitrariness, this is what I did in Well-Intentioned Speeches.

A few lines later, Saltykov clarified what he meant by these modern "foundations" of Russian reality. In Well-Intentioned Speeches, according to the satirist, he “turned to the family, to property, to the state, to what“ was also ideals in its time, ”and made it clear that none of this was already available. Perhaps the principles in the name of which freedom is constrained are no longer principles even for those who use them.

Enlightener Saltykov, who sacredly and sincerely believed in the mind as the main guiding force of progress, believed that there is nothing more important than the overthrow of insolvent "idols", these spiritual and moral "altars", which are the main obstacle to progress, overthrow by the power of reason, research , analysis, and finally - the power of laughter.

In order to protect the interests of the propertied classes and justify the socio-political status quo, representatives of official science put forward various theories, among which a prominent place belonged to the theory of "alliance". Its essence was stated by B. N. Chicherin in the book "The History of Political Doctrines" (1869) as follows: "The first union is the family. It is based on the complete internal consent of the members, on mutual love, which makes up the life of the family<…>The second union, civil society, contains the totality of all private relations between people. Here the main beginning is a free person with his rights and interests.<…>The third union, the church, embodies the moral-religious principle; the element of moral law predominates in it. Finally, the fourth union, the state, dominates all the others. He is predominantly the beginning of power, as a result of which the supreme power on earth belongs to him.

The "well-intentioned speeches" were devoted to an artistic study of the real essence of these "alliances" declared by the official ideology as the "cornerstones" of Russian society.

In the essays "Father and Son", "On the Part of the Women's Question", "Family Happiness", "More Correspondence", "Irreverent Coronation" the "family union" was studied primarily in the most typical and characteristic forms of its existence in the conditions of post-reform reality.

In the essays "Guardians", "Correspondence", "In a circle of friends", "A hard year", "In pursuit of ideals", "Hello" the main thing is the analysis of the union of "civil" and "state".

The third direction of artistic and social research is in "Well-meaning Speeches", the third - the most significant group of essays and stories in terms of volume and space occupied - "On the Road", "On the Road Again", "Pillar", "Candidate for Pillars", " Transformation”, “Cousin Mashenka” is devoted to a theme that was barely outlined in Saltykov’s work of the 60s and came to the fore for him in the 70s: the theme of property. This manifested the pattern of time: the principle of ownership by the mid-70s was becoming one of the main "cornerstones" of post-reform Russia. His study became a cross-cutting theme of "Well-intentioned speeches", which sounded not only, say, in the dilogy about Derunov (the essays "Pillar" and "Transformation"), but also in a number of essays of the "family" cycle ("Father and Son", for example) , in essays on "civil" and "state" unions ("Guardians", "Correspondence", etc.).

The "narrator", on behalf of whom the Well-meaning Speeches are written, is connected with the reality explored in the essays through his entire biography and life experience. The "Narrator" tells about trips to his native places on the business of his estate, about the impressions that he made from these trips to his homeland after a long absence, about meetings with people who have long been known and unfamiliar. He is a local landowner and at the same time a "writer of the satirical part", known in those places as the author of "Well-intentioned speeches". All this made me perceive "Well-Intentioned Speeches" as a reliable, factual story about real people and real situations that Saltykov encountered on his trips.

However, the documentary nature of the Well-Intentioned Speeches is of a special kind: it must be taken with the essential correction that the "writer of the satirical part", who in the essays acts as the author of the Well-Intentioned Speeches, on whose behalf the story is being told, is Saltykov, and together with so not Saltykov. This is a “narrator”, that is, a fictional character, far from identical in views and positions to Saltykov himself, a kind of literary mask. The relationship between Saltykov and his double narrator is quite definite and at the same time complex. The difficulty here lies in the ever-changing distance between them: from the complete absence of such, when the appearance of the real author of the Well-Intentioned Speeches and his literary alter ego merge, and then the writer himself speaks in the words and intonations of the "narrator" in full voice, - to a complete confrontation, when the narrator is extremely distant and internally hostile, unacceptable to Saltykov and is himself the object of his irony and satire. The certainty lies in the fact that under the literary mask of a “narrator” – sometimes a harmless “frondeur”, sometimes a “simpleton”, sometimes a person of “average cultural class”, we always, in any case, feel, feel Saltykov himself, his ideological position, his attitude to life and the "narrator".

The figure of the "narrator" - a well-intentioned "Russian frondeur" who organically belongs to the social reality that was the object of the writer's research and denunciation - and allowed Saltykov to illuminate this reality "from the inside". The writer, as it were, demonstrates the self-disclosure of his contemporary society, its cornerstones. The artistic principle of Saltykov's satire - and this is typical of all the essays in the book - is the exposure, or rather, the self-exposing of a striking contradiction; between appearance and essence, between word and deed, between the external forms of bourgeois-feudal reality, presented as truth, and its true content.

"Well-intentioned speeches", exposing the dominant contradictions of the post-reform society as a whole, developed hatred for the false "foundations" of life and readiness for a "high impulse", revolutionized the public consciousness of the country, educated fighters. This, in the final analysis, consisted of "practical consequences" , the considerable benefit that this work of Saltykov brought - one of the central ones in his work - to the Russian people, the Russian liberation movement.

F. F. Kuznetsov

TO THE READER

For the first time - a magazine. "Domestic Notes", 1873, No. 4.

All the main questions posed in this essay converge to one of the most important problems in Saltykov's understanding of contemporary Russian life - to the problem of "bringing", that is, violence.

"Bridling" is delimited by Saltykov from another "principle" of Russian socio-political life - "under the tug and in and n and I." And here, and here we are talking about coercion. However, the content of these concepts is "not at all equivalent". "Pull-up" - the state-police system of the struggle of tsarism with opponents of the regime: administrative and judicial prosecutions, overt and covert supervision<…>political control of the autocracy, etc. “Reining” is the designation of all forms and types of conservative-protective ideology: from the aphorisms of “folk wisdom” and the provisions of “customary law”, which have fixed in themselves negative sides life of the masses in conditions of age-old lack of rights (“do not fight the strong”, etc.), to official and unofficial, secular and church-religious, philosophical, historical and artistic theories and practical norms that directly or indirectly contributed to the education of the people and society in the direction of passivity, unconsciousness and blind obedience to authorities.

Near the "principle of curbing" legions of people "huddle and feed" for whom "curbing" is the "starting point" of all their activities. Saltykov calls these people liars - he calls them so primarily because of the falsity of the very "starting point" of their consciousness and actions. "Liars", zealots and practitioners of "curbing" Saltykov divides into two "grades": hypocritical, deliberately lying, and sincere, fanatical.

"Hypocritical liars" are practitioners and pragmatists of "restraint". They do not believe in any "foundations" and "cornerstones", but glorify them and rely on them for the sake of self-interest. Such are almost all the "heroes" of the Well-Intentioned Speeches: bureaucracy, which regards the state as a "consumer pie"; the emerging Russian bourgeoisie, which covers its predation with the "sacred principle of property", etc.

"Sincere liars" are theorists of "restraint", the creators of reactionary utopias, who do not stop "not only before violence, but also before emptiness", like Ugryum-Burcheev from "The History of a City".

In his "systematization" of ideological life and its representatives, Saltykov introduces not only genuine theoreticians and activists of the principle of restraint, but also "idle dancers", that is, phrasemongers of "all parties and camps", based on the same principle.

The denunciation of reaction and conservative reactionary ideologies is carried out by Saltykov in a polemic with the liberals - "theorists of foam skimming" - replacing the struggle for great social ideals, for "revision of the very principle of curbing" by petty struggles over a multitude of "private issues".

Page 5. "Good Beginnings"- one of the phraseological stamps of official and liberal journalism (denoting government reforms of the 60s).

Page 8. ... which is more liberal: whether to curb humanity with the help of zemstvo administrations or with the help of special presences on zemstvo duties ...- In connection with the zemstvo reform of 1864, the liberal press widely discussed the issue of how to collect zemstvo duties - in cash and in kind. Compulsory duties covering expenses state importance, were under the jurisdiction of "special zemstvo duties of presences"; local, which went to the maintenance of institutions of the provincial scale, disposed of local zemstvo councils.

Page 9. One has only to recall the fairy tales about the "soil" with all the retinue of conditional forms of community life, unions, and so on ...- It is proposed to "remember" the fierce debates of democratic criticism of the 60s, including Saltykov himself, with "pochvennichestvo" - a literary and social trend, the organ of which were the magazines of the Dostoevsky brothers "Time" and "Epoch". Words about "conditional forms of community life, unions, etc." they have in mind the Slavophiles with their idealization of patriarchal forms of folk life, in particular the community, as well as the views of B. N. Chicherin and his supporters, according to which the state was a supra-class organization of “social unions” - family, property, church, etc.

... about renaming zemstvo courts into police departments ... transferring the investigative unit from bailiffs to judicial investigators ...- Zemsky courts were transformed into police departments in 1862, and the position of judicial investigators was introduced in 1860.

Page 10. ... the question of universal military service ...- Lively debated in periodicals in the early 70s, in 1874 all-class military service was approved (earlier, since 1762, the nobles were exempted from compulsory military service).

Page 11. "Pour le zhans" - for servants (French - pour les gens).

Entremetters - here: pimps (from French - entre-metteur - intermediary).

Crazy work of the danaid- fruitless work. According to Greek mythology, the daughters of King Danae (Danaids), in punishment for the murder of their husbands, were to underworld forever pouring water into a bottomless barrel.

ON THE ROAD

For the first time - a magazine. "Domestic Notes", 1872, No. 10.

In 1872, Saltykov, who, as usual, spent the summer months at the Vitenev estate near Moscow, had to travel a lot around the Tver and Yaroslavl provinces, as well as to Moscow. The reason for the trips was the illness, and then the death on July 7, 1872, of brother Sergei Evgrafovich, in common ownership with whom Saltykov owned the estate of Zaozerye, Uglich district, Yaroslavl province.

Traveling impressions gave Saltykov rich material for creating a general picture of the social, economic and moral changes in the life of post-reform Russia, and above all the Russian village.

In the essay "On the Road" the plots of a number of subsequent essays in the cycle are sketched out. Russia's entry into the path of capitalist development is portrayed in two aspects: the decline of the countryside after the reform of 1861, which destroyed the "former political economy" of the landowners, and bourgeois predation, which is taking its first steps in the countryside, but is already gaining strength in the cities and industrial regions.

Page 21. ... affairs on the estate ... turned out to be neglected ... Judicial proceedings were foreseen ... - Here, as in a number of other places in Well-meaning Speeches, Saltykov introduces autobiographical information into the narrative. The Yaroslavl estate Zaozerye was managed by Sergei Evgrafovich alone and, as it turned out after his death, very mismanaged.

... since the time the landlords ... sang: "On the rivers of Babylon - tamo gray and plakah ..."- That is, from the time of February 19, 1861. The regrets of the landlords about serfdom are expressed by a quotation from the Bible - the cry of captive Jews for their lost homeland (Psalter, CXXXVI, 1).

... the people "became weak ... "the German defeated us!"- The decline in agriculture in the country was noted in 1872 by all periodicals. After the reform, many landowners' estates passed into the hands of tenants and buyers, especially from German colonists. However, this was a private occurrence, and increased attention he was obscured by the question of the social nature of the “new man” who appeared in the village - the bourgeois. Saltykov explains the decline of agriculture in the post-reform years from fundamentally different positions: the Russian peasant, who had just ceased (legally) to be a serf slave, does not historical experience free enterprise, its consciousness and experience are crushed by the memory of age-old lack of rights.

Page 22. Trifonychi, Sidorychi- Saltykov designation of noble landowners.

He gave the peasants to the treasury.- According to the Regulations of February 19, 1861, when switching to redemption, the landowner received from the peasants 20% of the value of the allotments that went to them, the remaining 80% was paid to him by the state - a redemption loan, which the peasants had to repay within 49 years. On account of the loan to the landowner, redemption certificates were issued - securities of a fixed value, exchanged in a bank for money. The deadlines for the transition to redemption were set according to mutual agreement landowner and peasants as world mediators. The landowner could receive a redemption loan without reaching an agreement, but then his right to peasant payments passed to the "treasury", that is, to the state. The unbearable burden of redemption payments usually forced the peasants to delay the transition to redemption and remain in the position of "temporarily liable". The landlords, who were ruined by the economic system built on the labor of "temporarily liable", sought to speed up the redemption and often "gave the peasants to the treasury."

Page 24. Shreds. – See note. to pp. 112–113.

Page 25. ... who declared himself innocently fallen ...– See note. to page 39.

Page 27. Peun - rooster (Tver and bonfire).

Page 28. This was invented by the slanderers of the Russian people ... opponents of the current excise system.– The excise system allowed the private production and sale of wine by acquiring a patent.

Page 29. ... Ivan Fedorovich Shponka himself - and he will admire them!- The hero of the story by N.V. Gogol "Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and his aunt" is talking about the signs of well-fed turkeys.

Page 33. Siberian - old clothes: a short pleated caftan with a standing collar. It was worn by merchants and clerks.

Page 36. ... now would have him to the world - and the Sabbath! and at that time - go forty miles to the police department.- According to the reform of 1864, justices of the peace had to live within the limits of a small area subordinate to them and deal with cases of simple legal proceedings. Previously, such cases were handled by the county police departments (“county court”), located in the respective county towns.

Page 37. ... an old-fashioned lawyer ...- Solicitors - before the judicial reform of 1864 - private intercessors in court cases. After the reform, their functions were transferred to lawyers, and attorneys at commercial courts began to be called solicitors.

Page 39. ... he thought at that time to declare himself innocently fallen ... as long as the competition ... he, my dear, into the pit!- Innocently fallen - bankrupt. The commercial court gave an opinion on the insolvency of a bankrupt, imposed a ban on his property and announced a competition - that is, an auction, a sale of property in favor of creditors; the debtor himself was arrested before the competition. The indulgence of the legislation towards the “innocently fallen” caused the widespread use of fictitious bankruptcies in order to get rid of loan payments.

GUARDS

For the first time - a magazine. "Domestic Notes", 1874, No. 9.

The spring and summer of 1874 were the peak and at the same time the beginning of the decline of "going to the people" - the movement of the raznochintsy intelligentsia, mainly young people, to the village with the aim of enlightenment and revolutionary propaganda among the people. This broad movement, which mainly marked the onset of the second democratic upsurge in Russia, caused on the part of the government and conservative circles of society an increase in protective moods and an expansion of repression. In the summer of 1874 mass arrests of propagandists began. By the end of the year, more than a thousand people had been arrested and brought to the inquiry, many of them on the denunciations of voluntary rural "spies".

Page 43. In this pool, where I am with you ...- From "Eugene Onegin" (ch. VI, stanza XLVI) by A. S. Pushkin.

Page 45. ... you are seriously angry at all these "signs of the times".- The police officer makes it clear that he is also familiar with Saltykov's book "Signs of the Times."

Page 46. ... told ... conservative tales ... dreamed of English lords and ruling classes ...- We are talking about supporters of the English political system among the publicists of the noble camp in Russia in the 60s, in particular about Katkov. Further, Saltykov uses in a parodic way the terminology and style of official government documents.

Page 47. ... Derzhimorda, with whom I was once so friendly.- An indication of the pre-reform service - Saltykov's exile in Vyatka.

Page 48. Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky- Mayor from Gogol's "Inspector", the head of Derzhimorda.

... it's a kind of habeas corpus.- An ironic allusion to the position of the individual in the conditions of political lack of rights under the autocracy and the predation of his police apparatus. The emergence of the English legal term habeas corpus, meaning guarantees of personal liberty, is historically associated with the 1679 Bill of Parliament against the arbitrary arrest and indefinite imprisonment of opponents of the monarchy.

Page 51. ... Make Verkhoyansk a free city and establish a free port in it.- A hint at the case of the "Siberian separatists" or the "circle of Siberians" involved in the "Nechaev case." Porto-franco - port cities, free from customs supervision.

Page 52. ...we are ripe or we are not ripe...– In 1859, the economist E. I. Lamansky (1825–1902) stated at one of the disputes that “we are not yet ripe” for a public discussion of social issues. This phrase was picked up by democratic journalism, ridiculing the arguments of the conservative press about the "immaturity" of Russian society, unpreparedness for reforms.

Page 54. "Droit au travail" - a clause of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen" of the Great French Revolution of the late 18th century, introduced under the Jacobin dictatorship.

Some (church Slav.) - somehow, as if.

… Ostrovsky has two matchmakers: a matchmaker for the nobility and a matchmaker for the merchant class.- In the comedy "The Poor Bride".

Page 55. ... I happened to subtract the expression from you: "expect actions."- In the essay "The Pillar", which in the magazine publication preceded the "Guardians".

Page 56. "Miserere" - here: aria from the opera "Il Trovatore" by G. Verdi (1813-1901), written in the Latin text of the 50th Psalm of King David (Bible).

Page 57. ... served as a noble assessor ... until the appearance of bailiffs ...- that is, until 1837, when the zemstvo court (district police) was reorganized and the elected positions of noble assessors were replaced by bailiffs appointed by the governor.

Page 58. ... teased ... fofan ...- that is, a simpleton, a fool, a simpleton.

... if he had not been late to the secretary ... none of this would have happened.- That is, Terpibedov would not have been put on trial if he had time to pay a bribe.

Page 60. …banned pop-s.- The prohibition to send church services and requests (temporarily or with removal from office) was imposed on clergy by the church court for crimes in office or for slander.

Page 61 ...wenyo-zisi! - come here! (French - venez-ici!).

Only before I called her Mon Repos, and now I call her Monsufrance ... the priest, he calls it the good air!- Monrepos - my rest (French - mon repos); used by Saltykov in "The Mon Repos Shelter"; (vol. 6, current ed.); Monsufrance is my suffering (distorted French - ma souffrance). Prosperity of the air - an expression from the prayer "For the prosperous air, for the abundance of the fruits of the earth and times of peace ...". Used in the meanings: silence and tranquility; wonderful weather.

Page 62. ...permette bonjour!- Hello! (French - permettez, bonjour!).

In patience we want to acquire our souls...- a paraphrase of the gospel text: "By your patience save your souls" (Luke, XXI, 19).

Page 63. Long-maned - they are ... these were examples!- A hint that a number of leaders of revolutionary democracy, in particular Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, came out of the clergy - long-maned.

Page 64. ... vulgarity ... causes ... inclinations towards proselytism ...- Proselytism - imitation, assimilation.

Page 74. ... cash registers ... when have you seen this?- Savings and loan banks, along with other economic and financial associations, in the early 70s became widespread among the working class thanks to the populist intelligentsia.

Page 75. Kohl is glorious ... this, then, is in Zion, sir!- "How glorious is our Lord in Zion ..." - one of the Christian, including Orthodox hymns. In tsarist Russia, it also had the significance of the state national anthem along with "God save the Tsar ...".

CORRESPONDENCE

For the first time - a magazine. "Domestic Notes", 1873, No. 12.

A satirical critique of "good intentions" and "well-intentioned speeches" is given in the essay "Correspondence" on the material of the activities of the new judicial institutions introduced by the reform of 1864.

In the center of the essay - the figure of Batishchev - the image of the prosecutor's office and Erofeev - the image of the new estate, barristers, the bar. Prosecutors - "favorite people of the law" - represented the idea of ​​statehood and defended the "state union"; lawyers combined in their activities "elements of public and private", the prosecutor was in the "public service" and received a salary. The remuneration of lawyers was formally determined by the tax, but practically depended on the agreement with the client. All these aspects of the new structure of the court case are satirically covered in the essay.

The writer pays the main attention to Batishchev and his prosecutorial zeal in solving the case of " secret society", which he investigates with such zeal, not because he is concerned with protecting the "foundations" and "cornerstones", but because he hopes to advance his career in this matter.

Page 77. Kleper is a very expensive breed of traveling horses.

Page 78. Not because the criminal should be punished because the security of society or the greatness of the law requires it, but because the evil will itself cries out about it ...– One of the main provisions of the idealistic philosophy of law and bourgeois criminal legislation is criticized satirically: “crime is<…>manifestation of evil human will.

Page 79. ... declared himself a specialist in eunuchs and received forty thousand.- Belonging to the sect of eunuchs was punishable by hard labor as fanaticism and encroachment on official Orthodoxy. In 1872-1873 in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kaluga, large-scale trials were heard in the affairs of entire skopsky communities. Such cases “every time opened abundant gold-bearing jets in Russia” for lawyers (“Russkiy Mir”, 1872, No. 84), since hoarding was especially common among merchants and businessmen and was accompanied by mutual responsibility.

Page 80. "Lafille de Dominique" - vaudeville by P. Levasseur (1808-1870).

Carry this cross with humility... and not a single hair... will fall without the will of the one who knows everything in advance... - The "well-intentioned" maxims of Nadezhda Batishcheva are built on the precepts of Christian morality, borrowed from the Bible.

Page 83. "Society for the anticipation of the harmonies of the future" ...- The speech of the prosecutor V. A. Polovtsev, the prosecutor at the "Nechaev trial", is parodied, who stated that any type of organization - a student circle, an artel or a mutual aid society - threatens the existing order, because "the dissemination of useful, scientific and mostly practical information" was only "official, external" goal, "internal, real" was to spread the "false teachings of communism and socialism."

Page 88. ... walks through the rows of money changers and looks for prey from mutilated people! - The money-changing shops were engaged in the exchange of money and small banking operations. There were many eunuchs among the money changers.

... now I have ... already eighty-three people accused - A hint at the "Nechaev case", which featured 83 defendants, of which only eleven were charged with "malicious intentions against the state."

Page 89. ... how perspicacious was the late bishop ... - About the “sagacity”, that is, in this case, about the public position of the Moscow Metropolitan Filaret, his letter to Alexander II gives an idea (“Extract from a letter from a Moscow clergyman to St. Petersburg, December 17, 1861”, M., 1862). Herzen assessed this appeal as “a wild cry of fanaticism, turning pale before thought, before the human will and calling for persecution and executions. In this criminal and insane writing - a denunciation of literature, magazines, public opinion ... ”(“ The Bell ”, 1862, l. 133).

Page 90. You are Pharisees and hypocrites… Everything is in the spirit of the prophet Elijah. - Filaretov uses biblical images: the Pharisees are members of the ancient Jewish religious sect, distinguished by fanaticism and hypocrisy; Esau, the eldest son of the patriarch Isaac, sold younger brother the birthright for a pot of lentil stew; the prophet Daniel was thrown into the lions' den for exposing the immorality of the king and his entourage; siren charm - seduction, temptation.

And steal and kill and swear falsely- the commandments of Moses, the violation of which was considered a mortal sin, said: “do not steal, do not kill, do not swear falsely”; “eat Baal” - worship idols (eat - make a sacrifice to God). Baal is a pagan god depicted as a calf; worshiping him meant forgetting the highest moral principles in the name of self-interest and money-grubbing; Elijah is a biblical prophet who denounced the depravity of his fellow tribesmen and foreshadowed their retribution.

Page 91. Commemorative- memorable, reminiscent (French - commemoratif).

Page 92. “La fille de m-me Angot”…– The hero of Saltykov is aware of the novelties of the cascading world: the operetta by Ch. Lecoq (1832–1918); was first staged at the St. Petersburg Mikhailovsky Theater in the 1873 season.

Page 93. Sakkos - the vestment of an Orthodox bishop during worship.

Prediki - sermons (from lat. - praedico).

Page 96. ... subscribed to the "Proceedings of the Free Economic Society" ... in order to start unlawful gatherings about them ...– satirical image, the real background of which lies in the nature of the activities of most circles of revolutionary youth in the early 70s. For example, a well-known group, or society, of the “Chaikovites” began its activities with the organization of secret circles for self-development and with the distribution among the intelligentsia, both in St. Petersburg and throughout Russia, of works of scientific, journalistic and fiction that corresponded to its propaganda goals. The vast majority of this literature was legal editions. "Proceedings of the Free Economic Society" were of a liberal nature.

Page 100. ... until they hand me over ... to the archive, a member of the Belozersky district court ... to judge the Belozersk smelt. - That is, they will be sent to the outback under the pretext of a service transfer. The prospect of “judging the Belozersk smelt” outlined here was subsequently developed in the famous scenes of the trial of the piskar in “Modern Idyll”.

Page 101. Cumulate - combine (French - cumuler).

PILLAR

For the first time - a magazine. "Domestic Notes", 1874, No. 1.

“The Pillar” is the first of two stories in Well-Intentioned Speeches (the second is “The Metamorphosis”), dedicated to Osip Derunov, one of the brightest and most complete figures in the Saltykov gallery of the rural and provincial bourgeoisie - the “grimy” - quickly rising by leaps and bounds of the post-reform economic development from the environment of the prosperous peasantry and the county philistinism.

Describing at the very beginning of the story "our family estate Chemezovo", Saltykov recalls the ancient center of the family estate of his fathers and grandfathers, the village of Spas-Ugol, Kalyazinsky district, where he was born and where he spent his childhood years. But a little further in the same story, as well as in the story "Candidate for the Pillars", where the theme of the "liquidation" of Chemezov arises and is being developed, Saltykov's memories and impressions associated with another estate, the vast Saltykov patrimony, are summarized under the same title, the village of Novinki, where there was a dilapidated "master's house", the village of Myshkino and the forest cottage of Filiptsevo.

Page 102. ... Bishop ... in K - he did not serve mass ...- Here: K - n - Kalyazin and his Trinity Monastery.

... there were signs, and now the account has gone to silver ...- The financial reform of 1839 established the silver ruble as the state currency instead of banknotes: 1 p. silver was equated to 3 p. 50 k. banknotes.

Page 104. Dog flies - flies that appear in the hottest time of summer, on the so-called "dog days".

Page 104–105. ... I was brought up in one of the ... institutions where ... corporal punishment was allowed only in the most exceptional cases.- Saltykov here means the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, and not the Moscow Noble Institute: in the latter, the cross-section of pupils was practiced quite often.

Page 106. yard hay- collected on the courtyard land, that is, adjacent to the village.

Page 107. ... before there was a mayor ... now ... a retired cornet has been elected to the mayors.– urban reform 1870 replaced the former estate city dumas with all-class city institutions local government, administratively appointed mayor - elected mayor. The reform, built on the principle of a property qualification for elected city dumas, was aimed at improving the economy of cities by attracting mainly local commercial and financial bourgeoisie - merchants and wealthy burghers - to self-government. But at the beginning, according to tradition, nobles were often elected to mayors, metonymically denoted in Saltykov's text by the word retired cornet.

... judges ... a retired lieutenant ...– We are talking about the Magistrate's Court, established in 1864. The magistrate was elected by the county zemstvo assembly from among those who had property and educational qualifications - practically, at that time, from noble landowners.

Red - ten-ruble bill.

Page 110. Dealers are here: clerks.

Page 112. Belous - field weed.

Page 112–113. ... Earth - some trimmings ... Do you have a dacha?- In the course of the peasant reform, when drawing up charters that determined the delimitation of landlord and peasant lands, the landlords tried to take the best lands in different places estates. As a result, many landlord estates lost their integrity and consisted of separate plots interspersed with peasant land. Dacha - a term of boundary legislation: a land plot of independent value (a forest dacha, a land dacha).

Page 116. Muslin factory- Cotton factory.

He rented, you see, the railway ... Siberia, I think.- The end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s were a period of tremendous growth in railway construction in Russia, which was accompanied by an enormous scale of shareholder excitement around this construction and the criminal machinations of many shareholders.

Page 118. ... was not brought up in a commercial ...- that is, at the Commercial School.

... didn’t Chikunov’s clerks drive over?- The Chikunovs are Zaozersky peasants who, in front of Saltykov, became merchants.

Page 120. Didn't the manufacturers accuse their workers of rebellion...- A hint of a strike at the Neva Paper-Spinning Manufactory on May 22, 1870 - the first mass strike in Russia, when 800 people went on strike, demanding higher wages and the return of illegal fines; 63 strikers were arrested and put on trial on charges of political agitation.

Page 121. ... to zugunder ... - to reprisal (from German - zu Hundert - to a hundred<палочных ударов>).

Page 122. Zadelnaya land- remained with the landowner after the allocation of peasant allotments.

Page 124. And so I went to “finish”.– See the essay Candidate for Pillars.

Page 126. ... I read Paul de Kock ... even Barkov knows by heart ...– Passion for the novels of Paul de Kock (1793–1871) and Barkov’s poems, as well as the cafeteria theaters of Berg and Egarev, the entertainment establishment of Izler “Mineralnye Vody” (“Minerashki”), the operettas of Offenbach and Lecoq, the circus, dance classes and chansonettes are in Saltykov’s satire one example to denote "good intentions".

CANDIDATE FOR PILLARS

For the first time - a magazine. "Domestic Notes", 1874, No. 2.

The story "The Candidate for the Pillars" in its plot directly continues the story "The Pillar". Saltykov emphasized the connection between both stories in a journal publication, where the second of them has a subtitle: “Continuation of the same matter” and a link: “See previous No“ Fatherland.

The plot of the story is basically autobiographical: Chemezovo resembles the Novinki estate and the history of the "liquidation" of this estate (see the commentary on the story "The Pillar"). But Chemezovo at the same time, and this is the main thing - typical image abandoned after the reform of the landowner's estate, which became the object of the struggle of newly appeared predators.

Chemezovo is the soil on which the future Derunovs laid the foundation for their prosperity, where numerous "shades of covetousness" crystallized. One of these shades is demonstrated by the "candidate for pillars" - "The Hare from Dolgikha", an intermediary-broker in arranging transactions between landowners and buyers of their lands - a new figure in the Russian village. Here this is an episodic figure, in the story "Father and Son" she will be shown in full growth in the form of another "candidate for pillars" - Strelova.

Page 133. Woe to the "crucian carp", dozing in ignorance that ... their purpose ... to serve as food for pikes ... - On the theme of this "well-intentioned" maxim, Saltykov in 1884 will write the fairy tale "Karas the Idealist."

Page 133–134. ... one must belong to the number of the seven wise men ...- Semi-Legendary Sages Ancient Greece who lived in the 7th-6th centuries BC. e. and expressing their thoughts in brief figurative sayings (gnomes).

Page 134. ... I find my opponent armed with the finest chasseau, and I myself attack him with a flintlock gun, which has ... instead of flint ... a chock.- Chasseau is a rifled gun invented in 1866 by a French worker and named after him. Churochka instead of flint is an echo of the events of the Crimean War period, when contractors and quartermasters-predators also supplied such guns.

Page 135. “I’ll buy myself a suburban one!”... I admire the forest sold to me, but I can’t enter it: it’s a stranger! - An autobiographical fact related to the purchase by Saltykov at the end of 1861 of the Vitenevo estate near Moscow.

I remember the "serf deeds" in the Moscow Civil Chamber.- Saltykov recalls here the purchase of the Vitenevo estate. The purchase was made in the Moscow Civil Chamber.

Page 136. ...here they cut and shave and open the blood!“The usual inscription at the entrance to the barbershop.

Page 137. Burmic pearls- selected large pearls of the correct form and pure water.

...this is an indirect tax on your ignorance!- The arguments of the lawyer are quoted - the character of the essay "On the Road Again", in a magazine publication preceding "The Candidate ..."

Page 141. ... a wall of heart-learners ... They look, putting on the breeches, but everyone concludes in accordance with the degree of their own ignorance! - Saltykov compares heart experts, that is, full-time and voluntary informers of the political police in the post-reform village, with the boyars pre-Petrine Rus' who cared only about their privileges and sat in vain in the Duma, "tired their brothers."

... the province went to write. - So it is said in Gogol's "Dead Souls" (vol. I, ch. VIII) about a provincial ball at the governor's. Saltykov uses this expression, which has become popular, in the Aesopian sense: denunciations of local "hearts" rained down.

Page 148. ... and in R., and in K., and in T. - The biographical commentary reveals these initials as referring to Rostov, Kalyagin, and Taldom.

TRANSFORMATION

For the first time - a magazine. "Domestic Notes", 1875, No. 4.

"Transformation" in the order of writing and early publication of "Well-meaning Speeches" completed a series of essays and stories devoted to the study of "proprietary union": "On the Road", "On the Road Again", "Pillar", "Candidate for Pillars", "Cousin Masha ", "Father and son". The typical “transformation” of Derunov is evidenced by the fate of Gubonin, who in 1860 redeemed himself from the serfs and emerged “almost from behind the counter of a drinking establishment” into “heroes of the railway epic”. Vl. Mikhnevich. Our friends, St. Petersburg, 1884, p. 70 The "abstract robbery" of the "transformed" Derunovs more and more took on the character of parasitism, predation, and was deprived of any signs of "labor", "work". The frank story of Zachatievsky at the end of the "Transformation" about the criminal acts of Derunov returns us to the finale of the story "The Pillar" with its conclusion: "Derunov is not a pillar."

Page 160. ... to bother about the concession ...- on the concession for the construction of the railway.

... she herself remained to talk with the "Kalegvards".- Cavalry guards ("kalegvardy") - officers of the cavalry guards regiment, belonged to the most noble families, served in royal palace. But in Saltykov’s satire, the word “cavalry guards” is often used, as in this case, for the general designation of the St. Petersburg “golden youth”, mostly military, completely unprincipled, vulgar, interested only in women and wine.

Page 163. Like the sea along Khvalynsky- one of the most common round dance songs.

Page 164. ... and you want to go under the Khiva!- that is, to participate in military operations in Central Asia.

Page 165. ... to borrow some details from the opera "Fra Diavolo" ...– The libretto of this opera by F. Aubert was written on the basis of the legends about the Calabrian robber Fra Diavolo.

Incident in the Abruzzi mountains. (Dedicated to Russian writers...)- A parody of fashion essays on travel to countries that were considered romantic - to Spain, Italy, Greece, and in Russia - to the Caucasus or the Crimea. Saltykov borrowed the plot from "Adventures in Calabria" by the French pamphleteer P.-L. Courier (1772–1825), however, the main object of parody is not Courier's work, but travel essays by Evgeny Salias "Spain" ("Russian Messenger", 1874, Nos. 4, 6, 9) and "Essays on Crimea" by Evgeny Markov (St. Petersburg, 1872). Calling such writers “Russian Dumas-fis” (Dumas-sons), Saltykov hints at the similarity of their creations with the description of travels in Russia and the Caucasus by Alexander Dumas-père (“De Paris a Astracan”), full of absurdities and curiosities.

Page 166. ... the act of the high school student Polozov!– In 1872, a trial was held in Kharkov against young men from wealthy families – Polozov and Edelberg, who, having read novels about robbers, decided to become robbers themselves and killed a cabman to test themselves.

Page 169. Judic ... Schneider - French singers of the light genre, touring in St. Petersburg.

Page 176. …the goal of the Brussels conferences…- At the Brussels Conference of European States on International Military Law (1874), a declaration was adopted declaring all forms of people's war against the invaders "inhumane."

Page 179. Nikitsky swamps- one of the names of Saltykov's native places. They adjoined the village of Spas-Ugol.

Page 182. You see the Greek ... there is a big bugger ...– There were quite a few Greeks among the St. Petersburg financial aces, in particular, concessionaires.

FATHER AND SON

For the first time - a magazine. "Domestic Notes", 1875, No. 3.

The scene of the events described in the essay is openly attributed by Saltykov to his native Kalyazinsky district of the Tver province. On the basis of personal observations, the writer draws a picture of the change in the village of "masters of life" characteristic of the post-reform period. He creates one of his most vivid images, personifying this historical process: the old general - the landowner Utrobin and the new young predator opposing him - "homo novus" - Antoshka Strelova. With no less characteristic, although more sketchy, the figure of the young General Petenka Utrobin is drawn - a representative of the highest bureaucracy from the nobility, adapting to all the turns of government policy and entering into "business" (in this case, criminal) relations with the new bourgeoisie.

Page 186. In the wild north...- An inaccurate quote from M. Yu. Lermontov's poem "Pine".

Page 187. ... a member of the provincial zemstvo assembly, in which Tocqueville, as you know, enjoys the fame of almost a folk writer ...– The French historian A. Tocqueville (1805–1859) enjoyed the reputation of an advanced theoretician among the Russian noble liberals, who had a predominant influence on the activities of the Zemstvo. The true nature of the positions of Tocqueville and his Russian admirers, under whose “liberalism” “obscurantism is hidden”, was revealed by Chernyshevsky in an 1859 article “Mr. Chicherin as a publicist” (Poln. sobr. soch., vol. V, M., 1950 , p. 666).

Page 189. ... to honor Utrobin ... by choosing to be the leader ...- Saltykov ironically over the traditional "enmity" between the governors as guardians of the interests of the central government and the leaders of the nobility as representatives of the "freedom of the nobles."

Page 191. ... as in ancient times there were masters and slaves, so ... have to remain ...- A reference to the biblical parable of Shem, Ham and Japhet (Genesis, IX, 18-29).

Page 192. ... at the end of 1857, the first step had already been taken towards resolving the peasant question.- I mean the rescripts of Alexander II to the Governor-General of the Western Territory V. Nazimov and St. Petersburg Governor-General P. Ignatiev, in which for the first time it was publicly announced that the preparations for the peasant reform had begun.

Page 193. ...the best thing is now... to resettle the peasants on inconvenient land...- The royal rescripts provided for the release of the peasants with the redemption of land, and the landlords sought to keep the best and nearest lands.

But in January 1858, addresses poured in from everywhere, and the following summer, the election of committee members was already underway ... - At the end of 1857, the Nizhny Novgorod noble assembly turned to Alexander II with a request - an address - for permission to start preparing a reform in their province. In January 1858, under government pressure, the Moscow nobility filed a similar address, then the nobles of other provinces, and to prepare the reform, elected provincial noble committees "to improve the life" of the landlord peasants were formed.

... Utrobin ... warned against excesses and, on behalf of the majority, presented a project that began with the words: "but if" and ended with the word "however." - Hints (here and below) on the content of the general's project quite definitely indicate that it was one of the purely feudal "counterprojects" rejected by the government.

Page 194. As a projector, he was sent from the majority to the commission as an expert. - In 1859, two editorial commissions were formed under the Main Committee for Peasant Affairs to consider reform projects developed on the spot. “Experienced landowners” who have proven themselves in drafting projects, proposals, etc., were involved in their work as experts.

Page 195. ... led a fierce debate with the mediator ...- With the abolition of personal dependence, the peasants were equalized with the landowners in legal rights and the conflicts between them, when switching to redemption, were sorted out by peace mediators with the participation of both parties. A two-year period was set for the introduction of the Regulations on the Peasant Reform.

Page 197. ... of any rank to wandering people who suddenly remembered the saying ...- Hereinafter, by wandering people (Saltykov uses the term of the Petrine legislation) are meant both ruined noble landowners, and a whole army of raznochintsy of a business fold.

Page 205. ... the notorious riots of 1862 appeared. - We are talking about the May fires of St. Petersburg in 1862. Philistine gossip and government-inspired press reports blamed "nihilist" students and revolutionaries for the arson.

Page 206. ... in Moscow, a project is being developed to study roots and threads.- I mean the speeches of the Russkiy Vestnik and especially Moskovskiye Vedomosti: their editorials constantly talked about "treason", about its "roots and threads" throughout the country.

... a field of nihilism ... in Moscow, on Tsvetnoy Boulevard ... in the hotel "Crimea", in ... department ... "Hell" ... - A hint at Ishutin's revolutionary populist circle of 1863-1866: the circle met at the Krym Hotel on Tsvetnoy Boulevard. "Hell" was the name given to one of the departments of this hotel and the operational-terrorist group of the Ishutins, which included D. V. Karakozov.

... the forerunner of it ... in the edition of some time-based edition, which later brought repentance for that. - A mockery of Russky Vestnik and its publisher Katkov, who began his career in the camp of liberalism, but soon became the inspirer of the reaction.

Page 208. ...like the ancient goat of purification...– We are talking about the biblical scapegoat, on which, according to the Hebrew rite, the high priest laid the sins of the people and drove them into the wilderness (Leviticus, XVI, 21-22).

Page 210. "Feed your sheep" - an expression that goes back to the Gospel (John, XXI, 16).

Page 212. Nekavo (Church Slav.) - somehow, as if.

Page 213. ... about the father of lies ... one of his most zealous aggels.– The father of lies is Satan (John, VIII, 44), Aggel is an evil spirit, a minion of Satan.

Page 215. Feed - rent.

Page 216. ... not an obol ... - not a penny (an obol is an ancient Greek small coin).

Page 218. …have announced the free sale of wine in the near future.- By the Regulation of July 4, 1861, the farming system was replaced by an excise tax, which allowed the private production and sale of wine.

Page 222. Bel-ohm - a handsome man (French - bel homme).

Page 223. ... from onyx. – Immediately (card term).

Page 224. "How many times have they told the world"- from Krylov's fable "The Crow and the Fox".

Page 225. In 186* he directly declared himself a conservative.– By 186* we mean the year 1866 and rampant reaction after Karakozov's assassination attempt on Alexander II (see the essay "They" from "Lords of Tashkent").

What kind of education is needed... This and the following two "state questions" are satirical responses to the preparation and implementation of the reform of secondary education in 1871.

Page 226. The gift of the heart that is, the police sense of political "unreliability" (see essay "Guardians").

Cocodes - life-burners (from French - cocodes).

Page 227. "Sly slave! ... where did you bury ... talent?"- Link to gospel parable about a slave who buried a "talent" (a coin given by the master) in the ground instead of multiplying it by his own efforts (Matthew, XXV, 23-26).

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

For the first time - a magazine. "Domestic Notes", 1873, No. 10.

The essay "On the Road Again" reflects Saltykov's impressions of a new trip to places that were "witnesses" of his childhood. In the case of the inheritance left after the death of his brother Sergei Evgrafovich (see note to the essay “On the Road”), in May 1873 Saltykov visited his mother in Ermolino, Tver province and in his Zaozerye, as well as in Uglich, Yaroslavl province. He returned to St. Petersburg via Kimry and Tver, thus completing part of the journey along the Volga.

As Saltykov himself pointed out in a note to the journal publication of the essay, it is devoted to the same "subject" as the 1872 essay "On the Road." This “subject” is a description of the main processes that took place in the post-reform village. The theme of the decline of landownership unfolds into a picture of the "liquidation" of "noble nests" and the flight of their owners. The theme of the appearance in the village of "homo novus" - "a new man" gives rise to the image of a village predator - the fist of Khrisashka Polushkin.

Both themes "pass" against the background of severely realistic sketches of heavy and dark sides folk-peasant life, which lost its old forms with the abolition of serfdom and has not yet developed new ones.

Page 240. ... on Semitsky Thursday, the girls curled wreaths ...– Semik – folk holiday associated with the commemoration of the dead; celebrated on the seventh week after Easter.

Page 241. Trinity Day - a church holiday on the fiftieth day after Pascha.

... boiled with milk and honey.- An expression from the Bible (Exodus, III, 8).

Page 242. ... drinks with them.- Litki - sprinkles, magarychs, drinking, drinking bouts when buying and selling (V. Dal. Explanatory dictionary ...).

Page 248. french disease - syphilis.

Page 249. ... a mysterious background, the desired "new word ... so many touching speeches have been written and read.- A polemical attack against "pochvennichestvo", Slavophilism and other ideological currents that put forward the thesis that Russia is destined to say a "new word" in history (Ap. Grigoriev's expression) - to renew the "rotten Western world" with its patriarchal identity.

Page 251. Amater - lover, admirer (French - amateur).

Page 253. ... take everything from him: and his wife, and his ox, and his donkey ...- Paraphrase of the tenth of the Moses commandments: "Do not covet your neighbor's wife<…>neither his ox nor his donkey…” (Bible, Exodus, XX, 17).

Page 255. Freemason is a freethinker (distorted freemason).

Page 258. All the same, that in Moscow on Derbenovka ... - We are talking about Derbenevsky lane near Sretenka, there were brothels of the lowest rank.

... surname ... ancient ... Even his grandfathers were cantonists.- A mockery of the noble and genealogical claims of the military bureaucracy. Cantonists are the children of soldiers in the Arakcheev "military settlements".

Page 259. ... trading village K. - That is, Kimry, a large trading village, the center of an old shoe production on the left bank of the Upper Volga. Steamboat communication connected Kimry with Tver.

Page 260. From Selizharov himself...- that is, from the very upper reaches of the Volga.

Page 261. ... the Warsaw boot interrupted the path of your ...- One of the topical responses to the process characteristic of the era of the development of capitalist production: the factory "Warsaw boot" replaced the traditional products of handicraft shoemakers in the Taldom and Kimr districts of the Tver province, which had access to world markets.

Mokryagi - a village twelve miles from Spas-Angle, was part of the estate of the Saltykovs.

Page 264. Tout se lie, tout s "enchalne dans ce monde ...- Apparently, an inaccurate quote from the work of the Swiss philosopher C. Bonnet "La contemplation de la nature" (1764), which, however, Saltykov considered to belong to Lamartine.

Page 266. Concubinage - illegal cohabitation (from Latin - concubinatus).

Page 268. Before us are two expressions: "possession" and "property". To identify them, we need only look at this book...“We are talking about the tenth volume of the Ross Code. imp." (St. Petersburg, 1857), and in it about articles 513–540 of the “Code of Civil Laws”: “On the right of possession and use, separate from the right of ownership.”

Page 276. Attention - attention (from French - attention).

ON THE PART OF THE WOMEN'S ISSUE

For the first time - a magazine. "Domestic Notes", 1873, No. 1.

The women's question - the question of women's equality - arose in Russia in the context of the social and revolutionary movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The attention of the public and the press to him again escalated in the early 70s in connection with a new democratic upsurge in the country. Much attention was paid to the "women's question" just in recent months 1872, when Saltykov wrote his essay, "Notes of the Fatherland". In the December issue of the journal, N. A. Demert dwelled on this issue in the review “Our Public Affairs”. He wrote that “the so-called women’s issue is perhaps the most important and lively at the present time”, that “in our days” a “great migration of the female sex from the backwoods to all those points where there is at least some possibility of something is taking place.” to learn something useful." “In Moscow,” he noted, “higher courses for women have just opened the other day ...” Indeed, in the fall of 1872, the Higher Women's Courses of Professor V. I. Guerrier were opened in Moscow, and in St. (mentioned more than once by Saltykov in this essay).

The essay "On the Part of the Women's Question" is a direct statement by Saltykov in this controversy. Without denying the need to fight for the enlightenment and education of women, as well as for their emancipation from inequality with men in the sphere of morality and family relations, Saltykov was skeptical about raising all these issues "in a private house", severely condemned the elements of frivolity and frivolity in the interpretation of these topics in a liberal - conservative press.

For Saltykov, the "women's issue" was inseparable from the "masculine issue" and, more broadly, "that eternal question of universal ideals that keeps humanity in alarm." In other words, Saltykov interpreted the "women's issue" as a social issue and saw the possibility of solving it in a country paralyzed by political lack of rights, only through a common struggle for a "radical change in life forms."

"On the part of the women's issue" - one of the most poisonous speeches of the writer against Russian liberalism in its various ideological and practical directions, personified in the figures of the "narrator" - the "Russian frondeur" or "Russian Gambetta" (noble-bourgeois liberalism) and Tebenkov - " pillar of Russian liberalism" (the direction of government, or "bureaucratic" liberalism). These images are “opposed” by the figure of Prince Ivan Semenych, who symbolizes a tougher and more repressive course of government policy.

Page 279–280. If only they would be allowed to enter the Medical-Surgical Academy! .. oh, Suslova! – Women were not admitted to higher educational institutions; the programs of the Women's Medical and Higher Women's Courses, opened in 1872, were at that time elementary and could not provide a serious special education. As proof of a woman's ability to work independently, the example of N. P. Suslova, who graduated from the University of Zurich in 1867 and became the first Russian woman doctor, was often cited.

Page 280. ... I am Gambetta, translated into Russian manners!- Gambetta Leon (1838-1882) - French politician who made his way from the leader of the left wing of the republican opposition during the years of Napoleon III's empire to the ideologist and conductor of the policy of bourgeois opportunism in the seventies and eighties.

Page 281. ... home Ruer ... - that is, the leaders of the conservative-conservative party, by the name of Eugène Rouer (1814-1884), one of the leaders of the Bonapartists, senator and president State Council in the empire of Napoleon III.

Diatribe - accusatory speech with caustic personal attacks (from the Greek - diatribe).

Page 283. Parasha Siberian- Loyal drama N. A. Polevoy (1796-1846).

"With white Borey hair" - the first line of G. R. Derzhavin’s (1743–1816) ode “On the birth of a porphyry child in the North.”

Je suis gai! - words from the aria of Paris in the operetta by J. Offenbach (1819-1880) "Beautiful Elena".

... not away from the "saint" ...- that is, from religion.

Page 285. ... bent into a ram's horn, wiped off the face of the earth, uprooted, thrown where Makar did not drive calves ... - Aesop's synonyms for Shchedrin's satire to designate political repression autocratic power in relation to opponents of the regime.

"... bend into a ram's horn" - est une expression de nationalgarde, a peu pres vide de sens.- The National Guard, first created in France by Lafayette (1757-1834) as a revolutionary force, was reorganized by Napoleon III during the Second Empire and turned into a protective-reactionary force, which is what Saltykov means.

Franklin, for example, had very many and very harmful delusions, but ... he was a man of no use ... -"Harmful delusions" B. Franklin (1706-1790) - his democratic and republican convictions and the struggle to abolish the slavery of Negroes; "usefulness" - his natural science works, in particular the invention of a lightning rod.

Page 286–287. ... voices ... like actresses in Alexandrinka! .. Paska says - what a voice!- The Alexandria Theater in St. Petersburg was considered democratic, the Mikhailovsky Theater - aristocratic. Pasca played in the French troupe of the Mikhailovsky Theater in 1870–1876.

Page 288. Myasnikov business- a well-known criminal trial of the 70s.

Page 289. “Who steals ... or destroys” ... “If as a result of compiling ... a different paper” ...- For satirical purposes, Saltykov quotes from memory, inaccurately, “The Code of Laws of Ross. imp." (Vol. XV, St. Petersburg, 1857, Book 1. “The Code of Criminal and Correctional Punishments”, Section XII - “On Crimes and Misdemeanors Against the Property of Private Individuals”, Articles 2240, 2242; section IV - “On crimes and misdemeanors against the order of government”, Article 338).

Page 290. Tatersal - a place where horses and carriages are sold.

Page 291. You are by nature a translator...- that is, in this case, the performers of others, and not their own plans.

Escamot - discreetly remove (from French - escamoter).

Page 292. Arquebus - shoot (from French - arquebuser).

Page 294. “The subordination of a woman ... as Mill says ...” - His book "The Subjection of Women" is implied - "The Subordination of Women", in which D. S. Mill (1806-1873) advocated the economic and political equality of women; in 1869-1871 it was translated into Russian three times.

... this, as the poet says, "Lada and Lada" ... - Further, the anti-nihilistic satire of A. K. Tolstoy “Ballad with a trend” is parodied, in which folklore images are artificially combined with the topic of the day: “two Ladas”, walking in a grove, talk about the fight against nihilism.

Page 295. "La critique est aisee, mais l" art est difficile ... "- a proverbial line from the comedy "Le glorieux" by F. Detouches (1680-1754) ("Proud"; act. II, scene 5).

Page 296. ... je m "en lave les mains! - A popular expression that goes back to the Gospel (Matthew, XXVII, 24).

Page 298. ... here you were waiting for the holiday over your shoulder ...- that is, he was waiting for the awarding of the Order of St. Anna or St. Stanislav of the first degree, which were worn on a ribbon worn over the shoulder.

Page 299. Menandr Prelestnov… in the “Oldest Russian Foam Skimmer”!- One of the most important images of the liberal writer and the liberal press in Shchedrin's satire, partly prototypically connected with V. F. Korsh (1828–1883) and his newspaper St. Petersburg Vedomosti.

Page 300–301. Pastrop de zele, messieurs… sur-tout pas trop de zele!- A popular expression that goes back to Talleyrand's advice to young diplomats: "Pas trop de zele" - "Do not be zealous!"

Page 301. ... God's whips ... - an expression from the Bible (Book of the prophet Isaiah, X, 5, 26).

Page 303. ... in the "sad moment of life" ...- From the poem by M. Yu. Lermontov "Prayer" (Lermontov: "difficult").

Page 304. If the trifle fades into the background ... there will be no romance!- Trifle - love relationships and frivolous, frivolous interpretation of love in life and in literature.

Challenge the Russian origin of Mikula Selyaninovich ...- A hint at V. V. Stasov (1824-1906), who proved the foreign origin of the Russian heroic epic by borrowing.

Page 306. ... to protest in the manner of "Belle Helene"- that is, to deceive her husband, like the heroine of this Offenbach operetta.

Page 307. All these Phrynes, Laisas, Aspasias, Cleopatras- what is this if not a direct solution of the women's question? - The famous getters of antiquity are listed.

... the original Taut alphabet ... - the oldest written language allegedly created by the Egyptian god Taut. Here is a symbol of the most important principles of social morality created by mankind, formally recognized by all, but not really existing in a disharmonious class society.

Page 309. Palladium - protection, protection (lat. - palladium).

Page 311. Parure - a precious decoration (from the French - parure).

... listen to a course in physiology ... which Mr. Sechenov will read to us.– I. M. Sechenov (1829–1905) taught at the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy in 1860–1870 and at the same time gave public lectures outside its walls, of which the course of lectures read at the St. Petersburg Club had a particularly great success in the circles of democratic youth artists in 1869. Saltykov's name Sechenov symbolizes advanced materialistic science.

Page 313. Tolerate - endure (from French - tolerer).

…our time is not the time of broad tasks!- One of the phraseological units of the post-reform liberal press, turned by Saltykov into a formula for satirical criticism of Russian liberalism and its policy of "moderation and accuracy."

Page 314. ... fredoned: "J" ai un pied qui r "mue"- Lines of the song "Wine and Dance" from the repertoire of the French chansonnet singer Louise Filippo. Fredonirovat - hum (from French - fredonner).

... against the Elysee windows ...- that is, against the windows of Eliseev's grocery store.

FAMILY HAPPINESS

For the first time - a magazine. "Contemporary", 1863, No. 8.

The subject of consideration in "Family Happiness" is the same as in the "Golovlev" chapters excluded from the cycle "Well-meaning Speeches", That is, later included in the novel "Lord Golovlevs" - "Family Court", "In a Kindred Way", "Family Results", "Before Extortion"- a family, the traditional foundations of which turn out to be imaginary ("ghostly"), long ago divided by possessive self-interest, covered with "well-intentioned" morality.

Page 316. ... Marya Petrovna Volovitinova ...- In the images of the landowner Volovitinova and her children, the portrait features of the members of the Saltykov family clearly appear.

Page 319. ... School of Law- together with the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum and the Corps of Pages, the most privileged educational institution in Russia for noble children (founded in 1835 in St. Petersburg).

Page 327. ... in the Suzdal-monastery took away! ..- The Spaso-Evfimevsky Monastery in Suzdal was a place of imprisonment for religious and secular "disobedient", as well as children who violated the will of their parents.

Page 332. ... luminary ... - Coryphaeuses are the leading actresses in the corps de ballet.

MORE CORRESPONDENCE

For the first time the journal "Domestic Notes", 1874, No. 10.

In this essay, Saltykov continues to develop the theme of the collapse of the "family union", the vulgarization of the basis of this "union" - love, reduced in theory and practice to the cult of "trifle".

At the same time, "Still Correspondence" is the first essay of "Well-meaning Speeches", in which Saltykov refers to the satirical criticism of France by Louis Bonaparte - Napoleon III. The political life of the Second Empire most fully corresponds to the credo of bourgeois society, which, according to Victor Hugo, boiled down to the formula: "To govern is to enjoy life." V. Hugo. The story of a crime. - Collection. op. in 15 volumes, v. 5, Goslitizdat, M., 1954, p. 620

Page 344. ... "l" amour - se n "est que fa!"- From the frivolous song "L" amour" from the repertoire of the French chansonette Filippo, who toured in St. Petersburg.

... sent to the police for "punishment on the body" (the "liberty" has not yet penetrated here ...).- Corporal punishment without trial was abolished in the army by decree of April 17, 1863.

Page 345. ...repaired by pretty women.- Repair - replenishment of the cavalry regiment with horses.

Chislehurst philosopher - the ironic nickname of Napoleon III, who settled after the deposition in the estate of Chislehurst near London. He led a deliberately modest life there, flaunting his "poverty" and demonstrating "reconciliation" with his fate. In fact, the “Chiselhurst Martyr,” as the Bonapartists called him, had millions in bank accounts and did not lose hope of restoring the empire.

Page 349. To vegetate - to vegetate (from the French - vegeter).

Page 350. Clichy - Clichy's Parisian prison.

Page 351. ... Villemessent ... said: "Vous etes une saint el with" est Villemessent que vous le dit! .. "- The richest businessman newspaperman, owner of the Le Figaro newspaper, Wilmessan was extremely unscrupulous, speculated on the political situation and relied on the basest tastes of readers.

... the Chislehurst philosopher has died! .. The Sedan hero, sir ... Napoleon III died on January 9, 1873. The hero of Sedan is a mockery of his surrender after unsuccessful attempts to get out of the encirclement near Sedan with the army on the eve of the end of the Franco-Prussian war.

Page 352. First Morny ... finally HE !! ... "ah, j" ai un pied qui r "mue"- the motif of the quadrille, which then decided my fate. - HE is Napoleon III. This repeated exclamation in the essay parodies the title and line from Hugo's poem "Lui", dedicated to Napoleon I: Toujours lui! Lui partout!" (Always he! Everywhere he is!).

Page 353. ... Bazin ... on some island ...- Marshal Bazin, who capitulated near Metz, was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment, which he served on the island of St. Margaret off the southern coast of France.

Page 355. Maltreat- neglect, be rude (from French - maltraiter).

Inobilno - vile (from French - ignoble).

Page 357. "Tout pour le peuple et par le peuple!"- One of the demagogic slogans of Napoleon III (their samples are given by Hugo in the pamphlet "Napoleon the Small", 1852).

... they talk about the Fenian question, about the International, about the Old Catholics ... In 1874, newspapers constantly wrote about the revived struggle of Ireland for independence, led by the Fenian Union, about the activities of the First International, about the persecution of Catholics in Alsace-Lorraine.

Page 358. …la belle echauffouree du 2 December.– Coup on December 2, 1852, when President Louis Napoleon Bonaparte declared himself Emperor Napoleon III.

...he mixed le chevalier de Bayard with le chevalier de Faublas!– The ignorant Butor “confused” the French medieval knight “without fear or reproach” with the character of Louvet de Couvre’s erotic novel “The Adventures of the Chevalier Faublaze”.

National Guard - officer of the National Guard of the Second Empire.

Page 359. We are positivists (il me semble avoir lu quelque part ce mot), we know that time is money...– The positive philosophy of Auguste Comte aroused keen interest in Russian society in the early 70s. The ignorant Prokaznin shifts one of the definitions of this worldview - "practical philosophy" - into the language of bourgeois-philistine morality, the motto of which is B. Franklin's saying "time is money", which has become a saying of "business people".

Page 360. "Midnight whirlwind, the hero flies."- From the ode of G. R. Derzhavin (1743-1816) "On the capture of Warsaw."

"Let's leave it to the astronomers to prove" - the opening words of the welcoming speech of Archbishop George of Konn addressed to Catherine II on the occasion of her arrival in Mogilev (Mstislavl) in 1787.

Page 367. … tout jusqu "a l" oubli du 7-me commandement inclusivement.- The seventh commandment of Moses says: "Do not commit adultery" (Bible, Exodus, XX, 14).

Page 370. To brusque - to be rude (from French - brusquer).

Page 371. A surprise is being prepared for Gambetta ... Everyone is cheerful, cheerful, ready ...- After the death of Napoleon III, the Bonapartists claimed the rights to the throne of his son, who received the name of Napoleon and the title of "imperial prince" (prince imperial). By the day of the prince's coming of age - March 16, 1874 - the former ministers of Napoleon III, officers of his army, gathered in Chislehurst, and an "imaginary national manifestation" was held, organized "with the most shameless loudness" ("Notes of the Fatherland", 1874, No. 4), which aroused the hopes of the Bonapartists for a restoration.

Page 372. …is Plon-Plon resigned?– Here and below in this paragraph we are talking about the Bonapartists and their intrigues. Plon-Plon is the nickname of Joseph Bonaparte (cousin of Napoleon III), the founder of the neo-Bonapartist party. By refusing to attend the demonstration on March 16, 1874, he finally confirmed the gap between the two branches of the Bonaparte family.

Arenenberg is the castle of Napoleon III in Switzerland, a nest of Bonapartist intrigues. General E. F. Fleury (1815–1884) – lived in Chislehurst after the fall of the Second Empire.

... l "Ecolier de Woolwich. - Woolwich Artillery School, where Prince Napoleon studied.

…casse-tetes and sorties de bal…- here they denote the police: brass knuckles were in service with the police, capes (or capes) were part of their uniform.

Page 373. ... les fines reparties de Jocrisse dans le "Jeu du hasard et de l "amour".– Jocris is a traditional character of the French comic theater of the 18th-19th centuries, a stupid servant who, with his ridiculous antics, puts the master in an awkward position. However, in the comedy of P. K. Marivo (1688–1763) (her accurate name: "Le jeu de l "Amour et de Hasard" - "The Game of Love and Chance") this character does not exist.

... you cannot speak ... without resorting to the anthology of Noel and Chapsalle? This popular two-volume grammar book ("Nouvelle grammaire franàise") went through more than sixty editions in the 19th century.

Page 375. …Bazin fled?.. And he had to swim for a long time?!- Bazin's wife and her nephew Rühl prepared an escape, and on August 10, 1874, Bazin fled.

Page 376. ... got a garbucha?- According to Ukrainian custom, in case of refusal to the groom, the matchmakers were presented with a pumpkin (garbuz).

Page 379. Closerie des lilas - a place of entertainment in Paris on the Boulevard Montparnasse; later - a well-known literary and artistic cafe, which still exists today.

KUZINA MASHENKA

For the first time - a magazine. "Domestic Notes", 1875, No. 1.

"Cousin Mashenka" is one of the most artistically developed essays in Well-Intentioned Speeches. The image of a “doll” girl created here from a noble nest, which turned into a landowner-fist and a predator, is a kind of “female” parallel to the image of Osip Derunov and to the story of his transformation from a small village predator into a big capitalist businessman. The image of “cousin Masha” will reach the final fullness of its development in the next story - about the “irrespectful Coronat”.

Page 384. ... the saying: "loving punishes."- Goes back to the Bible (Revelation of John the Theologian, III, 19).

Page 389. ...taught "us uplifting deceptions."- From the poem by A. S. Pushkin "Hero" ("The darkness of low truths is dearer to me // The deception that elevates us").

Page 390. ... in the middle of a flat valley ...- The first line of the Song of A. F. Merzlyakov, which has become popular.

Page 392. ... Christianity directly points to the birds of the sky!- Gospel reminiscence: “Look at the birds of the air: they do not sow, they do not reap<…>and your heavenly father feeds them” (Matthew, VI, 26).

Page 398. ... then this essay came out ... "Les miserables" ... - Les Misérables by Hugo came out in 1862.

Page 405. To tell the truth to kings with a smile ... - From the "Monument" of G. R. Derzhavin.

Page 410. Fontanelle - suppuration artificially created for medicinal purposes.

Page 411. ... Kantemir ... Pyotr Alekseevich deigned to take him out of Moldova.- The father of A. D. Cantemir, the Moldavian ruler D. K. Cantemir, concluded a secret agreement with Peter I on the joint struggle for the liberation of Moldova from the Turkish yoke, and after the unsuccessful Prut campaign of Peter (1711), he moved to Russia with his family and several thousand subjects.

Page 412. And here is a simple fisherman ...- Here: in the gospel meaning - a simple, unlearned person (Matthew, IV, 19).

IRREGULAR CORONATE

For the first time - a magazine. "Domestic Notes", 1875, No. 11.

The story about the "irreverent Coronate" was written and published at the end of the second year of the "heyday of effective populism" - "going to the people", V. I. Lenin. Full coll. cit., vol. 22, p. 304 when all the might of the police machine of the autocracy fell upon this movement and it was crushed.

The democratic upsurge of the 1970s broadened and deepened the problem of "fathers and sons" posed by the 1960s. There were many conservative-patriarchal noble and raznochinsk families in which the "children" chose their own paths and broke with the "fathers". The image of one of such conflicts typical of the era and the clarification of the position that the generation of "fathers" should take in relation to the decisions of the "children" is the subject of the story "The Irreverent Coronation".

Page 416. Six years have passed ... since I ... visited my native Chemezovo ...- Here and further there are a number of chronological inconsistencies in the presentation of "events" within the story and between this story and the previous one - "Cousin Masha".

Page 418. And I, uncle, want to go to the Medical Academy!- The Medical Academy (the exact name is the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy) was one of the centers of attraction for democratic forces and served in the 60s and 70s as a forum for opposition actions and the revolutionary movement of students.

... I have relatives between them ... - Here and below we are talking about young participants in the revolutionary movement and about the fates awaiting them: arrest, exile, emigration.

... the women's issue, from the point of view of Lantern Lane, is allowed! - In Lantern Lane of St. Petersburg there were Voronin's brothels and baths with "family rooms" essentially of the same purpose.

Page 420. And Koronatushka would have become a lawyer...- About lawyers - "tribune taxpayers", see the essay "Correspondence". Further, Saltykov mentions two high-profile trials of the 70s: the Myasnikovsky case - the trial of the Myasnikov brothers, who were accused of forging the spiritual will of the merchant Belyaev, and the case of setting fire to the Ovsyannikov mill in order to obtain an insurance premium for the tenant.

Call out - call witnesses.

Page 424. ... the first cholera year ...- 1830, when a cholera epidemic swept European Russia, which resumed in subsequent years.

Page 427. "Worthy" - the prayer "It is worthy to eat ...", the most important part of the liturgy (Christian mass).

The proskomidia is the initial part of the liturgy.

Page 433. ... I lied "in a kindred way."- Reminiscence from the essay "In a Kindred Way" ("Lord Golovlevs"), originally included in "Well-meaning Speeches". With the "Golovlev" essays, "The Irreverent Coronatus" is also associated with "The Golovlyat".

Page 437. Here is Ham: what was it to him for condemning his own father! and still a boorish tribe ... only recently they have been given mercy! - Mashenka refers to biblical legend about the forefather Noah and his irreverent son Ham (Genesis, IX, 18-29) and speaks of the peasant reform.

Page 443. Anpetov. - See the essays "Guardians" and "Father and Son".

Page 447. The result will be dead if the Spirit is not invested in it… – A hint at the gendarmerie zeal of the officials of the investigation unit and the extreme bias of the accusers in the political trials of the 70s. “The spirit is alive” (or “spirit of life”) is a biblical expression (Genesis, II, 7; Epistle to the Romans, VIII, 2, 10).

Page 449. Litany - the name of a series of prayer petitions that were part of the Orthodox divine service. One of the litanies, which is meant here, includes a prayer "for the sovereign and his house."

Page 450. Athos charter. - Mount Athos in Greece was the focus of male Orthodox monasteries with a particularly strict charter.

IN FRIENDLY CIRCLE

For the first time - a magazine. "Domestic Notes", 1874, No. 3.

The main "subject" of this essay is the criticism of another of the "well-intentioned speeches" - about "love for the fatherland."

The reason for the dispute between Tebenkov and Pleshivtsev about "love of the fatherland" is the protest of the Alsatian deputy Teich in the German Reichstag against the forcible separation of Alsace and Lorraine from France.

The opening pages of the essay are of autobiographical interest. They include Saltykov’s memoirs and assessments related to his stay at the Tsarskoye Selo (since 1844 – Alexander) Lyceum, to the first years after leaving the “institution”, to the moment of the collision with the world of “practical activity” in Vyatka and to the period of the “liberal spring” mid to late 50s.

Page 456. Uniform days are the days of great church holidays and the so-called "royal days" (name day of the sovereign, anniversaries of his coronation, etc.), when senior officials were obliged to appear at solemn services, and then at receptions with the authorities, in full dress uniforms.

Is the Russian peasant good-natured? Is he bound to… the basics… What dose of freedom can he endure…” Some of the “issues” that confronted the government of the new tsar, Alexander II, are listed in connection with the need, forced after the Crimean defeat, to take up close preparations for the abolition of serfdom and other reforms.

Page 461. Tebenkov's ancestors ... one was a sleeping bag, the other a bowler ... grandfather<Плешивцева>... sent ... by Potemkin for ... stellate sturgeon ...- One of the many places in Saltykov's satire where the genealogical legends of Russian aristocratic families are ridiculed, mostly of noble-serving, and not princely-boyar origin.

Page 462–463. Tebenkov stands on the ground of the state religion… Pleshivtsev… sees in the latter not a “help”, but a basis… he regrets the times of the patriarchs.- Tebenkov's point of view coincides with the official one, the essence of which Chicherin formulated as follows: “Acting on the soul, religion restrains self-will and inspires a person with respect for the highest demands of power and order. Therefore, religion in society should be revered and the church should enjoy the proper protection of the state ”(B.N. Chicherin. On the representation of the people, M., 1866, p. 470). Pleshivtsev shares the Slavophile-soil concept of the Russian folk character, according to which religious feeling determines such traits as "humility" and "loyalty" to monarchical power. The times of the patriarchs - XVI-XVII centuries, when the Russian church, headed by the patriarch, exerted in his person a significant influence on the policy of the monarchy. Peter I, replacing the rule of the patriarch with the Synod, destroyed the dominant role of the church.

Page 463. But not fear for the sake of the Jews ...- a reminiscence of the gospel text: "a disciple of Jesus, but secret - out of fear from the Jews" (John, XIX, 38), here - out of fear of those in power.

... the requirement of the charter of improvement and deanery ... - The police section in the Ross Code. imp." (vols. XI-XV) was called: "The laws of state improvement and deanery."

Page 465. ... the speech of one of the Alsace-Lorraine deputies, Teitch ... - On February 4, 1874, the deputies of Alsace-Lorraine demanded in the Reichstag that the population of these provinces, "attached without his consent to the composition of the German Empire,<…>was invited to comment on this accession. On February 18, Teich, an Alsatian deputy, spoke on this subject, referring to the patriotic feelings that "draw his compatriots to their common homeland." His speech was interrupted by derisive remarks from deputies and calls for order by the president.

Page 466. ... the general a tous les coeurs bien nes property to love one's fatherland. - An expression from Voltaire's tragedy "Tancred" (act. III, yavl. 1), repeatedly used in Saltykov's satire to expose the false patriotism of the ruling classes.

Page 467. They are more likely to be reconciled with Archbishop Res…” After Teich's speech, the Alsatian MP, Bishop Res, declared, to the "noisy approval of the Reichstag", in which the Protestant MPs were in the majority, that the Catholics of Alsace-Lorraine did not intend to challenge the Frankfurt peace treaty of 1871 (by which these provinces were ceded to Germany).

Pure in heart - gospel expression (Matthew, V, 8).

“Let my right hand be forgotten if I forget you, Jerusalem!”- From the biblical psalm (Psalter, CXXXVI, 5).

"On the rivers of Babylon, tamo sedoh and plakah."– See note. to page 21.

Page 467–468. ... Bismarck, refreshing a heated ... head with a mockery, gleaned from the charter on improvement ... - On February 8/20, 1874, Bismarck declared in the Reichstag that the prohibition of the Catholic newspaper Germania was due to the moral and political interests of the empire.

Page 471. Paid five billion to the German...- Indemnity after the defeat of France in the war of 1870-1871.

"The life of the spirit, the spirit of life"! - Ascending to the Gospel (Epistle to the Romans, VIII, 2), the Slavophile formula of religious and moral feeling.

Page 472. ... Alsace ... Lorraine were once German provinces?- Alsace and Lorraine in the 16th-17th centuries were objects of struggle between France and the Habsburg Empire; finally became part of France after the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648).

Page 474. Remember the pilgrimages of Lourdes, remember the parais-le-monial dedication to the heart of Jesus!- The demonstrative actions of the monarchical majority of the French National Assembly are implied, associated with the fall of the republican-conservative government of Thiers on May 24, 1873: pilgrimage to Lourdes and prayers of thanksgiving in Paray-le-Monial.

Page 475. Thanks - didn't expect it!- A popular expression launched in the 60s by V. A. Sollogub (1813–1882); found in the poems of P. A. Vyazemsky (1792–1878).

Remember the specific period ... Tver, Novgorod, Pskov ... - The feuds of the appanage princes in the 12th-16th centuries and the wars of Moscow in the 15th-16th centuries for the subordination of the Tver principality, Novgorod and Pskov are implied.

Page 479. ... are discussing a new law on printing, undertaking the reorganization of armies and navies ... - These bills were discussed by the German Reichstag in February 1874.

Page 480. After all, geographic boundaries are a thing to come! After all, in this way Vetluga, Malmyzh, Cheboksary ...- In the context of the dispute about “love for the fatherland”, depending on its changing geographical (actually state) borders, this unfinished phrase recalls that both the Vetluga rivers and the cities of Malmyzh and Cheboksary became part of Russia in the 16th century, after the capture of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible and liquidation of the Kazan Khanate.

IN CHASING IDEALS

For the first time - a magazine. "Domestic Notes", 1876, No. 4.

The article “In pursuit of ideals” is devoted to the kind of “well-intentioned speeches” that were made in modern Saltykov society about the state, “... the question of the state,” V. I. Lenin pointed out, “is one of the most complex, difficult and almost most confused by bourgeois scientists, writers and philosophers. V. I. Lenin. Full coll. cit., vol. 39, p. 64 Saltykov touched on this issue more than once, both on the pages of Well-Intentioned Speeches (see the essays “In a Friendly Circle” and “A Hard Year”), and in other works.

Saltykov was alien to the anarchist worldview. He recognized the state as a necessary "common order of things." The vagueness of concepts about the state and the absence of a "living sense of statehood" were, in his eyes, deeply negative indicators of the civic immaturity of the masses and society. Theoretical definitions, which the writer gave to the concept of "state", relied on idealistic, ahistorical ideas that he learned from the rationalistic and socio-ethical ideology of the Enlighteners and utopian socialists (for example, the position that the state implements " the highest idea truth" and "outside the state there is neither justice, nor security, nor civilization").

When Saltykov turns to concrete phenomena in the life of contemporary states, he rises to a surprisingly clear understanding of the essence of the matter, coming very close to defining the class essence of the facts under consideration. This is precisely the artistic and journalistic analysis to which the statehood of monarchist Germany united in 1871 on a Prussian-militarist basis, the French "republic without republicans" and, in a more veiled (for censorship reasons) form, the tsarist autocracy was subjected to in the commented article. In Pursuit of Ideals, together with the book Abroad, belong to the highest achievements in this field of Russian social thought at its pre-Marxist stage.

The facts and observations used in the article, relating to the socio-political life of "really Europe", are largely taken by Saltykov from personal experience: more than a year, from the beginning of April 1875 to the end of May 1876, he spent for medical purposes abroad, in Baden - Baden, Paris and Nice.

Page 483. It was a bitter time...- The Crimean War of 1854-1856 (see "A Hard Year").

Page 484. ... had no idea either about the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, or about the mouths of the Danube ... - that is, about the external causes of the Crimean War, one of which was the refusal of the Turkish government to recognize the rights of the Orthodox Church to possess "holy places" in Palestine, including the Church of St. Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem (hence the expression "the keys to the Holy Sepulcher"). The real reason for the war was Russia's desire to gain access from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean through the Dardanelles and gain a foothold in the Middle East and the Balkans. Military operations began on the outskirts of the Balkans, near the mouth of the Danube.

Cleaning pay slips payment of salaries (taxes).

Page 485. ... the Alpine coast of the Mediterranean, Schleswig and finally Alsace and Lorraine ... are teeming with people who ... cannot understand ...- Alpine coast - Savoy and Nice; since 1720 they were part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, in 1860 they were transferred to France in exchange for Lombardy, Schleswig and Holstein - Danish provinces annexed to Prussia as a result of the wars of 1864-1866 under the Prague Peace, which obliged the victorious country to hold a plebiscite on accession in those the lands of Schleswig, dominated by the Danes. Failure to comply with this decision caused active discontent there. On the fate of Alsace and Lorraine, see the essay "In a circle of friends."

…the exception is Tashkent… – Russia's conquest of Central Asia in the 19th century had twofold consequences for it. On the one hand, it meant the transformation of the Central Asian khanates into colonies of the tsarist empire, on the other hand, it attached the peoples and the economy of the feudal khanates, where slavery still existed, to a higher socio-economic system. In the commented text, Saltykov has in mind the second of these historical consequences of the annexation of Central Asia to Russia. The words "in the person of autobachis" mean, in their nominal generalization, the figure of the Kokand dignitary Abdurakhman Aftobachi, one of the leaders of the Kokand uprising of 1874-1876. This uprising was directed not only against the khan, but also against tsarism, the suppression of the uprising led to the liquidation of the Kokand Khanate.

As long as people lived "without melancholy, without fatal thoughts" ... - A line from A. N. Maikov's (1821–1897) poem "Fortunata" is used here to characterize the social and political stagnation in the reign of Nicholas I.

… the separatists were talking… But the conservatives were the first to notice… something was wrong, and, of course, they attributed it to the intrigues of malicious people. - We are talking about the strengthening in the post-reform period of separatist tendencies in Ukraine, the Baltic states, Moldavia, Siberia, and especially in Poland, and about the systematic speeches against the "separatism" of M. N. Katkov (1818-1887) in "Moskovskie Vedomosti" and I. S. Aksakov (1823-1886) in The Day, about the depiction by the authors of "anti-nihilistic" works of the actions of revolutionaries as a result of malicious intrigues of agents of the "Polish intrigue".

Page 487. ... in Scripture it is said: to the one who has it will be increased, and from the one who does not have, the last thing will be taken away! -"Venerable Old Woman" literally understands the allegorical gospel text: “To everyone who has it will be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away” (Matthew, XXV, 29).

Page 489. Code - here: brooch or bow with the monogram of the Empress, an award to those who successfully graduated from the Institute of Noble Maidens.

Department of Obstacles- one of the many names in Saltykov's satire, indicating the bureaucratic nature of the state institutions of tsarism.

Page 493. ... women ... from Adam's rib?– Reference to biblical myth (Genesis, II, 22).

Page 495. ... southern Germany is the sore spot of the empire created by the war of 1870 - 71 ...- We are talking about the mood of separatism in the states of southern Germany (Baden, Bavaria, Württemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt), as well as Alsace and Lorraine, which were annexed to it after the same war.

Page 496. Schaumburg-Lippe - one of the dwarf German states (principalities).

Page 497. ... expectation of production, in the form of five billion.– See note. to p. 471.

Page 498. "Wacht am Rhein", "Kriegers Mörgenlied" - German chauvinist songs.

Page 500. ...Legitimists, Orléanists and Bonapartists...- Legitimists - supporters of the "legitimate" (legitimate - from the French - legitime) Bourbon monarchy. Orleanists are adherents of the descendants of Louis-Philippe of Orleans. In 1873, both parties merged, forming a majority in the National Assembly. The Bonapartists defended the rights to the throne of the son of Napoleon III.

... scandals ... of the National Assembly that has sunk into oblivion ... - The fierce struggle of the monarchists with the republicans marked the activity of the National Assembly of the convocation of 1871-1875, which was engaged in the development of forms of government in France. This period falls: the resignation of Prime Minister Thiers, the change of cabinets, attempts to restore the monarchy, disagreements when discussing a constitution adopted by a majority of one vote, etc.

Page 501. ... hit the commune ... - This refers to the Paris Commune of 1871.

... France was covered with a whole network of committees, whose goal was to capture the masses ... - Elections to the National Assembly took place on February 20, 1876. To organize the election campaign, the parties created their own committees, for example, the "Legitimist Electoral Committee", the Bonapartist "Committee of National Conservatives", etc.

HARD YEAR

In the original edition for the first time - the journal. "Domestic Notes", 1874, No. 5, under the title "Well-meaning speeches. IX". By decree of the Committee of Ministers of July 30, 1874, the magazine's booklet was banned and destroyed on September 2. In a censored, softened edition for the first time - "New Time", 1876, Nos. 112, 113, 114, under the title "A difficult year. (More than twenty years ago)."

The essay "A Hard Year" is devoted to the theme of genuine patriotism and imaginary patriotism, covering up the most vile self-interest - social and personal - with "well-intentioned speeches" about love for the fatherland.

The essay is based on the writer's direct impressions of the "great militia drama" of the "mournful time" of the Crimean War. The formation of the militia, accompanied by an "unheard of orgy" of embezzlement, fraud and bribery, Saltykov observed in 1855 in Vyatka and a little later, upon returning to St. Petersburg, in 1856, as an official for special assignments of the Ministry of the Interior, auditing the records management of the Tver and Vladimir militia committees.

Page 504. Accidents - a term of the time of Peter the Great, meaning the then legalized voluntary donations of petitioners to clerks who did not receive official salaries. Accidents were destroyed under Catherine II. Here the term refers to all kinds of bribes and requisitions.

God hasn't let his bonds yet!- That is, he did not give moral freedom. Paraphrase of a line of a psalm from the Psalter (CXV, 7).

Page 505. ... neither about "internal enemies" nor about "unreliable elements" then there was not even a trace. - Phraseological units of protective-reactionary journalism, introduced into use in the conditions of the rise of the revolutionary-democratic movement of the 60s.

Page 506. ...there were only swinging ones.- Information from the theater of operations went to the capital by means of the "manual telegraph" used in the navy: machinaries placed within line of sight transmitted dispatches with conditional gestures, with the help of flags.

Page 507. Shvalnaya - tailor's.

... who remained the winner under Chernaya ... - The failed Russian offensive at the Chernaya River near Sevastopol on August 16, 1855 is implied.

Page 509. Finally came the manifesto. - The manifesto, announcing the call to the people's militia, was signed by the king on January 29, 1855, over 364,000 people joined the militia.

Page 512. Netzii (Church Slavonic) - some. Further - the text of the usual signboard above the entrance to the barbershop.

Page 513. Pioneer - in Saltykov's satire, one of the definitions of the young, more civilized generation of the provincial bureaucracy, which was replacing the bureaucracy of the Nikolaev era.

Tambourmajor - chief regimental drummer; he was always tall and walked in front of the ranks.

…ess-bouquet is the name of an expensive French perfume.

Page 515. ... it was especially expensive in these "notes" - this is their complete coincidence with ... general patronizing tone ... - such a tone, for example, was expressed in Samarin’s widely circulated note in 1856 “On serfdom and on the transition from it to civil freedom”, which cites a number of projects proving the need for guardianship over peasants “to prevent wastefulness”, “to prevent reckless marriages” and other "foolishness" to which the peasants are allegedly prone.

It was somehow reminiscent of Ippolit Markelich Udushyev, about whom ... Repetilov spoke. - Probably, the lines from Repetilov's monologue in Griboedov's "Woe from Wit" (act. IV, yavl. 4) are meant, beginning with the words: "But if you order a genius to be named: // Udushyev Ippolit Markelych !!!"

Page 516. Fisk - state treasury; here are the officials in charge of the collection of duties.

Page 518. ... already at that time I saw the "Transatlantic Friends".- Under this name, the American diplomatic mission appeared in the Russian press, which arrived in St. Petersburg on July 25, 1866 to express “sympathy” in connection with the assassination attempt by Karakozov.

Page 520. Doubting Thomas!- An expression that goes back to the Gospel (John, XX, 24-29).

HELLO

For the first time - a magazine. "Domestic Notes", 1876, No. 6.

The essay “Hi” that concludes “Well-meaning Speeches” was written by Saltykov immediately upon his return to his homeland after an almost fourteen-month stay abroad.

The title of the essay is ironic and ambiguous. This is the writer’s greeting to his homeland after a long separation from her, this is also the “hello” that official Russia- gendarmes and customs police - meet compatriots returning home at the border, waiting for this meeting, like the "Last Judgment".

Page 531. Paktragers, dinstmans- porters, messengers (from German - Packtrager, Dienstmann).

Page 532. The late Mikhailo Petrovich himself told me...- that is, MP Pogodin.

Page 533. Turbot - Kalkan fish (French - turbol).

Page 534. Salt, barbu - flounder (French sole, barbuo).

Page 535. Entremet - seasoning for roast (French - entremets).

Bouille abesse - fish stew with garlic and spices (French - bouilleabaisse).

Tradesman in the nobility - the hero of the comedy of the same name by Molière.

Page 536. Pule - chicken (French - poulet).

Jardin daclimation - zoological garden in Paris (French - jardin d "acclimation).

Poulard - fattened chicken (from French - poularde).

Saver - taste (French - saveur).

Page 537. Filet de canneton- duck fillet (French - filet de caneton).

Perdro - a young partridge (French - perdreau).

... so lovingly, as if the prodigal son was found.- Gospel reminiscence (Luke, XV, 11-32).

Page 538. ... during the siege ... - In 1871 Franco-Prussian troops laid siege to Paris to crack down on the Commune.

Lapin - rabbit (French - lapin).

Page 539–540. ... lyamura or lyashozu ... McMahonsha does not like lyamura ... If only ... as under Eugene ...- Lamour, lyashoz - love, something (French - l "amour, la chose), here - the same as "strawberry", "trinket", McMahonsha - wife of the President of the Republic of McMahon; Evgenia - wife Napoleon III. The licentiousness that distinguished the ruling elite of the Second Empire (see the essay "More Correspondence") was replaced by a certain severity, determined by the clerical orientation of MacMahon.

Page 540. Je lonner - I have the honor (French - j "ai l" honneur).

... amnesty was discussed.- On May 17, 1876, the French Chamber of Deputies rejected a draft law on amnesty for members of the Paris Commune. Saltykov, apparently, was present at this meeting.

... Napoleon will come ... - they will be sent to Cayenne.- Despite the victory of the Republicans in the elections, the Bonapartists did not lose hope for the restoration and put forward Prince Napoleon as a legitimate contender for the throne. Cayenne is a city in French Guiana (South America), a place of exile for political prisoners, in particular many communards.

... the Turks also requested a constitution! - In May 1876, demonstrations were held in Istanbul demanding a constitution.

Page 541. ... they are chasing him in the district ... it is necessary to give votes! - During the electoral campaign in France, electoral "committees" (see note on page 501) sought to maximize the participation of voters in order to secure a majority of votes for their parties.

Will they drive out with a supply ... - According to the Zemstvo "underwater" duty, each village was obliged to put up a certain number of carts for traveling officials.

Page 543 ... they will determine the shepherds, together with Makar they will graze the calves. - That is, subjected to exile or exile.

Well-Intentioned Speeches is an artistic study of modern society by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. He turned to the family, to the state and to property, making it clear that their lives are dominated by principles that restrict freedom. The author also showed how lies and hypocrisy in officials are hidden under the mask of good intentions and honesty, and also appears in the story as the narrator himself.

In his chapter "To the Reader" the author appears as a front man who shakes hands with representatives of the party and camps. These representatives often talk about the same thing, and each is preoccupied with the ways of his "restraint". The author in his story stated what good intentions people have. He also reveals that the Russian people are becoming weak in modern society.

In the story, readers will learn about the difficult public service of Nikolai Batishchev. He reveals these frank confessions in his letters to his mother. In the service, you must always know when to stop. He dreams of becoming a prosecutor, but first becomes an assistant. Nikolai writes cases against innocent people and always maintains strong indictments. One day he is asked to sort out one case, where you need to submit a list of fifteen people who can endure the disasters of the present. But Batishchev enters a hundred people on this list, which causes embarrassment for the general. So Nikolai realized that he was not fit to serve in the prosecutor's office and resigned. Also in one of his letters to his mother, he writes about the success of his friend Erofeev, who became a lawyer and earns money, which he puts into the right circulation.

The author asks a question about modern society, where are their roots and how they manage money. And he cited the example of Osip Ivanovich Derunov, who had an inn. By doing this, he accumulated a considerable fortune for himself, which helped him open a factory and keep the economy. The narrator met him in St. Petersburg, and Derenov invited him to visit him to please his wife. The writer could not believe how Osip had changed. From a blue frock coat, he moved into a fur coat of sable fur. Now he resorts to robbery, squeezing money from guests and partners.

Further, the author had to talk with a former classmate Tebenkov, on the women's issue. His classmate became an official and considers himself a liberal. He says that in a woman, her ignorance and good intentions are dearest to him. He believes that a woman does a job worse than a man, but if they get into politics, then write, it's gone. Tebenkov is ready to make a decision about them: never directly allow anything, but never prohibit women either. He believes that they are not allowed to talk about Sechenov's theory, otherwise it will seem "ill-intentioned." Therefore, the author tells the story of Maria Petrovna Volovitinova, who, despite the other children, wants to leave all her wealth to her youngest son Fedenka. He does not work anywhere and simply wastes his time.

The reader will also learn about the correspondence between Sergei Prokazin and his mother Natalie de Prokaznik, in which women are insightful and able to instruct their sons. And the story also describes the story of Maria Petrovna Promptova, the cousin of a certain Mashenka, from which we can conclude that marriage with older men is not good for young girls. They are from good girls turn into smart ladies. Such a life made Mashenka a monster who ruined the life of her son.

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, in search of an ideal, calls on all people to have a clear idea of ​​the state and why it is needed at all. The author also believes that the people are a kind and smart child who is easy to cheat, and Russia is overflowing with well-meaning officials.

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin

"Good Words"

In the preface chapter "To the Reader" the author is presented as a frondeur shaking hands with representatives of all parties and camps. He has a lot of people he knows, but he does not look for anything from them, except for “good intentions”, it would be nice to understand them. Let them hate each other, but they often talk the same thing. Everyone is concerned about ways to "bridle". The outlook of the vast majority of people rests solely on this idea, although it has not been sufficiently studied and even slandered by fanatics and hypocrites. Therefore, the urgent need of modern society is liberation from liars, because true heroes"bridles" are not theorists at all, but simpletons. Like lunatics, these latter decide to overcome any obstacles and sometimes even perform feats without intending to perform them.

Why is the story being written? — asks the author in the first chapter, which is a travel sketches. “Ah, if only then, gracious sovereigns, in order to ascertain what well-intentioned speeches are.”

The Russian people have become weak at all levels of modern society. The peasant is weak, but the enlightened master is no better, the German overcomes him everywhere. Painfully we are simple! “But, as often happens, Russians are cheated when buying, not because they are stupid, but because it doesn’t occur to them that in a country where there are police everywhere, fraud is possible. "Do not be an idiot!" This foul and insolent word "fool" directly and indirectly pursues the author as a panegyric to the fraud that appropriates the name of the mind.

A good administrative official, on whom big bosses rely, is distinguished by innate conservative convictions and combat readiness to go where they are sent at the first sound of the trumpet. The bureaucrat of the newest temper is Derzhimorda, “a cleaned, smoothed, straightened joker, ready to eat his own father with porridge.” It is impossible to imagine a single Russian boss who would treat himself with irony, with reservations, this is a pompadour, who is always serious or recklessly amok.

Russia needs spies to administer well. But for some reason the Russian spy is dead, it is said about him: "He dries onuchi in water." He never knows what he needs, and therefore eavesdrops in vain. And once overheard, everything falls into one heap. He is ignorant, amazed at trifles and frightened by ordinary things, passing them through the crucible of his unbridled imagination.

The candid confessions of Nikolai Batishchev in letters to his mother allow you to learn that in the public service you need to be zealous, but know when to stop. Wishing to become a prosecutor, under whose name criminals will tremble, Batishev, as an assistant, sincerely cooks cases against the innocent and categorically supports all strict indictments. When he is asked to deal with the "Society for the Anticipation of the Harmony of the Future", on the lists of which there are fifteen people calling for patiently enduring the disasters of the present, Batishev attracts up to a hundred people in this case. His zeal confuses even a sophisticated general. Realizing his unsuitability for the prosecutor's case, the young man, cursing fate and his "honesty", resigns. In the postscript of letters addressed to his mother, Batishchev, parallel to the history of his administrative failure, talks about the successes of a friend who became a lawyer, a certain Erofeev, who learned how to make good money and put it into circulation.

Who are the pillars of modern society? Where are their roots, what is their origin, how is the money that they own accumulated? Here is an example, Osip Ivanovich Derunov, who kept an inn through which hundreds of people passed and passed. Derunov accumulated a considerable fortune on a hryvnia, on a five-kaltyn, which allowed him to open his own large farm, to acquire a factory. At the last meeting with him in St. Petersburg, the narrator hardly recognizes him in a fur coat trimmed with light sable fur. Assuming a proud pose of an aristocrat, he holds out two fingers in a slurred motion as a sign of greeting. Having invited a writer, who, unfortunately, is not Turgenev, he wants to please his languid, white-bodied wife, who is reclining in the living room in an expensive negligee of four "Kalegvards". Assessing the society in which he found himself, the writer fantasized about the “incident in the Abuzza mountains”, a story quite worthy of a Russian novelist who charms a lady with his adventures. Despite the luxury and richness of the new environment, the narrator recalls with regret that Derunov, who did not take off the old-fashioned blue frock coat, which helped him convince the German merchant of his thoroughness. True, with the disappearance of the former situation that surrounded Derunov, the mystery of squeezing a penny out of a guest, partner and interlocutor also disappears. Now he brazenly lusts for robbery, and this cannot be hidden in any way.

The author, nicknamed Gambetta, that is, "an inveterate man who does not recognize anything sacred," has to talk on the women's issue with a responsible official from former schoolmates Tebenkov, who calls himself a Westerner and a liberal. However, he is not even a liberal, but a conservative. Most dear to him in a woman is her ignorance, he sees in him good intentions. Can a woman derive any real benefit from all kinds of permissions, permits, knowledge? He is convinced that a woman cannot do a better job than a man. Well, if women get involved in reforms and revolution, then it’s all gone. All their "dignities", manifested at the family level, will come out. We will have to change all ideas about virtue, about the magnificent victories of women over adultery, about maintaining family ties, about raising children. “And what will become of us, who cannot exist without pampering a woman?” The pillar of Russian liberalism, Tebenkov, is ready to accept not just any, but an arbitration decision on their matter. “My system is very simple: never directly allow anything and never directly prohibit anything,” he says. From his point of view, a woman, especially a pretty one, has the privilege of being capricious, desiring diamond jewelry and furs, but should not talk about amniotic fluid and Sechenov's theories, otherwise she will appear "ill-intentioned."

Maria Petrovna Volovitinova has three sons: Senichka, Mitenka and Fedenka. Senichka is a general, Mitenka is a diplomat, and Fedenka does not serve, he is just "an empty little and positive erga." And only the last child-loving mother wants to leave a large inheritance, so she is annoyed by other children and relatives. She really likes the "robber" beginning in her last son, and she forgives him everything and is ready to give, to the fear and horror of the eldest son-general, who unsuccessfully dreams of receiving at least something from her as a gift during her lifetime.

Sergei Prokaznin's correspondence with his mother Natalie de Prokaznik testifies to how perceptive women can be, how to correctly instruct their sons and positively be intelligent. Sergey Prokaznin, wandering with his regiment, in his free time from exercises, has the pleasure of falling in love, and dragging himself, and even having a third older lady, a widow, showing remarkable interest in him. A subtle observer and psychologist, the mother, not without knowledge of female nature, instructs her son in his heart politics, telling something about her French lovers. She doesn't particularly like her son's intention without long conversations to "make "Thrah!" and end it once and for all." The salon of a true secular woman is not an arena and not a refuge for miserable pleasures. The son’s correspondence with his mother could have continued for a very long time if it had not been stopped by a short letter from Semyon Prokaznin, in which he reports that he had read all the letters of his son, from which he learned that the son was “inclined to commit adultery”, like his mother , who fled with the Frenchman to Paris, and therefore if he wants to somehow save the location of his father, then let him return to his parental estate and begin to herd pigs.

The story of Maria Petrovna Promptova, Masha's cousin, allows us to draw a sad conclusion that the marriages of young girls with elderly slow-witted husbands do not benefit them. From smart and pretty, benevolent and interested, they turn into prudent and sleepy-patriarchal, closed to kind speeches. The stubborn observance of all the Old Testament prescriptions of the spouse, the assimilation of the passion for hoarding makes the once cheerful cousin Masha a monster, crippling the fate of his own son. The air creature has turned into a hypocrite, a hypocrite, a miser.

In search of an ideal and an opportunity to lay the foundations of a new "not careless Russian life," it would be good for fellow citizens to have a clear idea about the state, about why it is needed at all. “To the question: what is a state? Some confuse it with the fatherland, others with the law, still others with the treasury, and still others, the vast majority, with the authorities. Public feelings are often absent, everyone is busy observing their own interest, their own benefit, so other suppliers can dress the Russian army in boots with cardboard soles, keep them starving and send them with an incompetent boss to where there will be no return. There is a lot of noise in conversations about serving the fatherland, but in reality patriotism turns into a gross betrayal, and those responsible for it are transferred to another job. The people are a child, kind, intelligent, but it costs nothing to deceive them, to fool them. Russia is overflowing with “well-intentioned” officials who undermine its forces and means.

Well-Intentioned Speeches is an artistic study of modern society by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. He turned to the family, to the state and to property, making it clear that their lives are dominated by principles that restrict freedom. The author also showed how lies and hypocrisy in officials are hidden under the mask of good intentions and honesty, and also appears in the story as the narrator himself.

In his chapter "To the Reader" the author appears as a front man who shakes hands with representatives of the party and camps. These representatives often talk about the same thing, and each is preoccupied with the ways of his "restraint". The author in his story stated what good intentions people have. He also reveals that the Russian people are becoming weak in modern society.

In the story, readers will learn about the difficult public service of Nikolai Batishchev. He reveals these frank confessions in his letters to his mother. In the service, you must always know when to stop. He dreams of becoming a prosecutor, but first becomes an assistant. Nikolai writes cases against innocent people and always maintains strong indictments. One day he is asked to sort out one case, where you need to submit a list of fifteen people who can endure the disasters of the present. But Batishchev enters a hundred people on this list, which causes embarrassment for the general. So Nikolai realized that he was not fit to serve in the prosecutor's office and resigned. Also in one of his letters to his mother, he writes about the success of his friend Erofeev, who became a lawyer and earns money, which he puts into the right circulation.

The author asks a question about modern society, where are their roots and how they manage money. And he cited the example of Osip Ivanovich Derunov, who had an inn. By doing this, he accumulated a considerable fortune for himself, which helped him open a factory and keep the economy. The narrator met him in St. Petersburg, and Derenov invited him to visit him to please his wife. The writer could not believe how Osip had changed. From a blue frock coat, he moved into a fur coat of sable fur. Now he resorts to robbery, squeezing money from guests and partners.

Further, the author had to talk with a former classmate Tebenkov, on the women's issue. His classmate became an official and considers himself a liberal. He says that in a woman, her ignorance and good intentions are dearest to him. He believes that a woman does a job worse than a man, but if they get into politics, then write, it's gone. Tebenkov is ready to make a decision about them: never directly allow anything, but never prohibit women either. He believes that they are not allowed to talk about Sechenov's theory, otherwise it will seem "ill-intentioned." Therefore, the author tells the story of Maria Petrovna Volovitinova, who, despite the other children, wants to leave all her wealth to her youngest son Fedenka. He does not work anywhere and simply wastes his time.

The reader will also learn about the correspondence between Sergei Prokazin and his mother Natalie de Prokaznik, in which women are insightful and able to instruct their sons. And the story also describes the story of Maria Petrovna Promptova, the cousin of a certain Mashenka, from which we can conclude that marriage with older men is not good for young girls. They turn from kind girls into prudent ladies. Such a life made Mashenka a monster who ruined the life of her son.

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, in search of an ideal, calls on all people to have a clear idea of ​​the state and why it is needed at all. The author also believes that the people are a kind and smart child who is easy to cheat, and Russia is overflowing with well-meaning officials.

Benevolent speeches. XII. Correspondence *

“Dear mother. I am delighted. Only now am I beginning to understand the diversity of Petersburg life. Until now I pored, now I live. The occupation is easy for me: an hour or two in the morning I devote to clients; two or three hours in court; then the rest of the day is free. Money is enough.

I confess that I was not without timidity when I joined the lawyers' guild. I thought: "There are so many of them that, perhaps, you will have to endure a whole scuffle until you get to the piece." It turns out, however, that the world of human greed is so boundless that if whole masses of lawyers were to appear, even then this yawning abyss would not be filled with them.

But before talking about myself and my occupations, I would like to introduce you to the typical varieties of the estate to which I now belong. Imagine a theatrical troupe in which each actor has a certain role. Samoilov - Proteus, Leonidov - king of great stature, Stepanov - king vertically challenged, Nilsky - an actor from the role of "bliss of madness." You will find the same with us. The barrister class has its own "noble fathers", its own "villains" (of course, only in appearance), its own "comedians", "lovers", "eccentrics", "braggarts", "frivolous", "guests", etc. In addition, there are several special roles that you will not find in any theater and which constitute the exclusive affiliation of the lawyer's craft, such as, for example: the "spider" lawyer, the "hound" lawyer, the "libre penseur" lawyer, etc. It's hard to believe , but I know a lawyer, at the sight of whom one involuntarily breaks off the tongue: “This is he, this is a noble father from a house of brothel.”

First of all, I will deal with the group of so-called solid lawyers, to which belong the "noble fathers", "villains", "spiders" and "hounds", and then I will move on to another group, the distinguishing feature of which is a certain degree of talent.

The position of the "noble fathers" is not brilliant, but advantageous: of them, for the most part, competitive chairmen are chosen * . Moreover, they willingly occupy the positions of legal advisers in joint-stock companies and in reputable private trading firms. Four or five good competitions and the same number of legal advisory places - and the position of a person is ensured. But this kind of activity also has the advantage that very strong ties are established with the help of it with the commercial world. Merchants are delighted with the "noble fathers", firstly, because they, passing by the church, take off their hats and cross themselves, and secondly, because appearance theirs they resemble civilian generals. Therefore, almost every more or less solid merchant has a “noble father” who rubs himself into the house of his client, manages his financial affairs, writes spiritual wills, various records and gives advice on what measures to take regarding recalcitrant children. In court, the "noble father" is rarely and, moreover, the representative only of such large interests, regarding which the use of expressions like "theft" or "fraud" is tantamount to a shock to authorities and foundations. These are, for example: forgery of bills of exchange for a significant amount, embezzlement of entrusted amounts in significant amounts, significant malicious bankruptcy, etc. Taking up such a case, the “noble father” prudently pronounces for himself so much in case of winning, so much in case of loss -That. Then, appearing at the competitive process, he speaks abundantly and dimly, speaks in such a solidly self-satisfied tone, which innocently fallen generals usually ask for poverty, not forgetting that they once knew better times. Not a single living movement, not a single living word, neither raising or lowering the voice - one hopeless rigmarole. The judges secretly gnash their teeth, the opposing side feels that it is attacked by tetanus, even flies beat against the glass windows, trying to fly away. And he, clear, radiant all over, noble, pumps out one word after another, stops with love at the roundabouts, proves that virtue is beautiful, and vice is disgusting; here he will estimate the spool, there he will reduce the half spool and, apparently, does not suspect in the least that the other side, driven to a frenzy, is barely refraining from the desire to put a complete collection of Anisimov's publications into it. And will you believe it - so great is the power of the mass of trifles that he releases from himself that the "noble father" * almost always achieves the result that he assumed for himself. I won’t say that all the cases he takes on end in his favor, but he certainly always bargains for something and always always stocks up on a cassation reason, which gives him the opportunity to drag out the case for an infinite number of years. Therefore, the "noble father" is often also called a "Jesuit" and a bloodsucker. Not later than these days, a merchant comes to me, against whom I undertook to conduct a civil case, and when I did not agree to the conditions of the world peace that he proposed, he said to me: “So listen, sir, I am such a bloodsucker now I will find against you, who will not only pay you money, but exhaust your whole soul. And I am sure that he will find one of our "noble fathers".

In private life, the “noble father” is an adherent of protective principles. He goes to mass on Sundays, celebrates his name days, and if he has children, he keeps rods at home. He lives warmly and satisfyingly, and sometimes even has a metress on the side (mostly a widow-popadyu), which he visits at dusk for a short time. He loves money, but he does not let it into risky transactions, but, for the most part, sticks to the notes of the state bank. Before going to bed, he locks himself in his office and counts whether all the tickets are available.

A special variety in the family of "noble fathers" is the "noble father from the house of brothel." He deals exclusively with divorce cases, arranging scenes and settings appropriate for this purpose, and hiring false witnesses. But outside this specialty, in everything else, he behaves in exactly the same way as other "noble fathers." Namely: he supports the protective principles, goes to mass and calls for the coming sleep: “I live fornication, I feed on shame, but I don’t blame God.” Moreover, he has an extensive acquaintance among the archpriests and on holidays he eats pies from one or the other, after which he certainly suffers from heartburn.

Immediately behind the "noble fathers" are the "villains". These are the same “noble fathers”, in the sense of lack of talent, good intentions and a great thirst for acquisition, but they did not have time to get a single competition, and therefore became embittered. The thirst for acquisition, always tenacious and very rarely satisfied, inflames the whole being of the “villain” to such an extent that it often makes him commit acts of a very frivolous nature. So, for example, some, having taken a case from a client, enter into secret relations with the opposite side; others, by making a recovery, appropriate the recovered amount to themselves. Therefore, as soon as a lawyer acquires a reputation as a “villain”, no one (except perhaps some inexperienced provincial) no longer entrusts him with any cases, for everyone understands that entrusting his interests to the defense of a “villain” is the same as donating to charitable institutions . On the same basis, the court almost always refuses the “villain”. And this habit of acting to the detriment of one's trustee is so deeply rooted in a person that all measures against it turn out to be invalid. They tried to attach one "villain" to the competition, in the expectation that his heart would soften - and so what? - less than a month later, he had already undermined the bankruptcy estate with counterfeit bills.

The "spider" lawyer * is the core of the modern advocacy. Most of these gentlemen never appear in real courts, and therefore, in the eyes of the masses of the public, this type remains unknown. But it can be said with certainty that the most valuable things go to them and the best pieces are swallowed up by them. The fact is that they contain entire offices and they have several acting lawyers on a salary. But in addition, each "spider" is supported by several secret lawyers, so that from all this a kind of commercial legal enterprise is formed, the head of which is often both a plaintiff and a defendant in the same case. For the most part, lawyers of the old courts are engaged in this case, of the young ones only those who suspect themselves of being slightly defamed. Among the latter is Erofeev, whom I know, who has now left the specialty of eunuchs and has taken up en grand legal pandering. This activity is difficult and, moreover, dangerous. The “spiders” are mainly the products of the modern feverish mood of society. Everything that revolves around camellias, the railway company, the exchange, the bill of exchange charter, discounts * - everything flocks here. Everything that trades in dark goods, fishes in troubled waters, everything for which publicity is tantamount to death - everything is looking for salvation and advice here. It is clear that these are the kind of ulcers about which you need to have special delicacy so as not to call them by name, and a special kind of philosophy in order to deal with their healing. Of the hundreds of cases flowing into these receivers of public filth, barely a twentieth part reaches the court; everything else is developed and courted by the "spider" and his henchmen, and then forever drowns in the abyss of the embroidered and covered. Occasionally, only in some high-profile case, a scandalous episode suddenly pops up and illuminates for a minute some incredible machination. But no matter how successful the courtship process is, the person engaged in this business must have an enormous reserve of resourcefulness so as not to get into trouble and not be exposed to very serious dangers. Therefore, "spiders" are always hiding behind a whole myriad of henchmen who prepare material for transactions. And since the main part of the risk is associated precisely with this preparation, it is clear that the assistants bear all the consequences of these risks. The world of henchmen is a special world, extremely curious. In former times, something similar occurred in the field of fake card players and developed in the type of Rasplyuev ("Krechinsky's Wedding") * - on the one hand, and young Glov ("Players") - on the other. Now all this has been united in the face of an assistant "spider", with the only difference being that Rasplyuev and Glov have reached their assistant position de chute en chute, while the modern assistant comes to his post without any past and performs his duty with the composure and calculation of a completely sophisticated crook. These are a kind of detectives, agile and tireless, who from morning till night look for grounds for forgeries, bankrupts and adulteries and almost always cover their tracks so skillfully that the most watchful detective police get lost and retreat before them. They tirelessly dart around in all directions of St. Petersburg, find out, get acquainted with the watchmen of government offices, with lackeys and maids, pour in small sums, listen in taverns and restaurants, collect information, savvy - and by a certain hour, everything collected is carried to the "spider".

Then the "spider" itself comes forward. He thinks and weighs the collected material; He pushes one detail forward, puts another in the background, completely hides the third. Then he draws up a plan of action. He knows how much, where and for whom it is necessary, and therefore proceeds to business boldly and almost always without error.

The "snoop" lawyer is a craftsman par excellence. He is unusually diligent, leads a hermit life, during the day, while it is light, he petitions for the issuance of writ of execution and is present at inventories and sales of property, in the evening he examines documents and composes petitions. And he devotes any free minutes remaining from the slander to reviewing the list of lawyers and envies those of them who have more cases than him. In most cases, he is on the salary of the "spider", receiving cases from him and pledging to lay down his soul for them before the court; but he also has his own small-scale practice, for which he also puts his soul in the government offices of the Russian Empire. In general, this is a novice lawyer, from whom a good-looking "noble father" should be developed.

These four varieties exhaust the group of respectable lawyers. It is followed by another group, which is not so solid, but incomparably more talented. This includes: "comedians", "first lovers" and so on.

The specialty of a “comedian” lawyer is to make judges laugh. The quality is precious, because laughter puts the judge in a good mood, and often puts the other side in the most stupid position. Being an opponent of the "comedian" is very unpleasant, because he does not so much refute as blackmail. In particular, "noble fathers" who cannot stand to be fooled often fall into this trap. Therefore, they generally avoid processes in which "comedians" participate; only the lure of a significant reward causes them to change this rule. However, "comedians" are strong only in such processes in which interests are not too serious; in cases where so-called "persons" are involved or where in question about jackpots more or less significant, the judges already find the humor inappropriate. What to do? That's the way the world works, dear mother. And we are allowed to console ourselves only at the expense of very small people and very small sums.

The role of the “first lover” falls into two types: “serious lover” and “merry lover”.

A "serious lover" is always sad. He speaks in a Karamzin style, quotes from Shakespeare and Dante, assumes beautiful poses, and almost always delivers the conclusion of his speech in an inspired voice and with tears in his eyes, even if it was about breaking a window in the wall of a house into someone else's yard. “My client thought that he was a complete master in his yard,” he says in a trembling voice, “and now he is haunted every minute by the thought that his actions are not free, that an outside eye is watching him, who does not care about any reasons or to the motives of his action, but who seeks only to comment on them and, perhaps, finds in them food for his slander.

Or vice versa: “My client thought that, cutting through the wall of his house a window to someone else’s yard, he was performing a completely innocent action that met the requirements of his personal life comforts - and now there are people who claim that he did this with the aim of peeping behind the actions of his neighbor and ridicule them. Isn't it sad that in our society there is such distrust towards its members?

The "serious lover", despite his young years, is almost always married; excessive sensitivity early makes him decide on this important step, chaining him to family life. His wife adores him, she attends court during his defense days and at the same time takes care of household expenses. As a result, they have many children, the apartment smells of diapers and the kitchen. With regard to remuneration, the "serious lover" is very picky, or, to put it more directly, expresses a taste for large sums rather than small ones. One client told me the other day, "These are sensitive - they'll skin you." Yes, however, it is understandable. Only a sensitive person can understand how sensitive his case is for the client, and, consequently, only he can determine to the subtlety how much remuneration can be reached in this case. I knew one "first sensitive lover" who ran the business of a sausage-maker and, in addition to the lump-sum reward, reprimanded himself to death for a ham ham every week. Imagine, then, that this man's practice is varied, that he runs the business of grocers, wine merchants, butchers, green merchants - because that way he will have all the provisions for free.

A variation of the "serious lover" is represented by the "frivolous" lawyer. He is just as sensitive, but the main characteristic feature of his activity is selfless courage. When he makes a defensive speech, it seems as if someone single-handedly was going to take the fortress by storm, and just about a minute later all that would be left of him was wet. In civil cases, the "frivolous" does not understand anything and therefore appears only in the most complex processes, and then in the second pair; in criminal cases, he certainly reaches the aggravation of the fate of the accused.

"Jeune premier-merry fellow" - first of all, a kind fellow and an excellent comrade. He picks things up quickly and, for the most part, comes to the defense unprepared. Lawyer practice has developed well-known oratorical frameworks that need only be filled in order for a brilliant speech to come out. Then, if a person has the ability to grasp the essence of the matter on the fly, if he has a known brio, and if at the same time he knows how to insert some kind of surprise by the way, his success is guaranteed. The comic "jeune premier" is a man of ability par excellence. He is no worse than a "comedian" knows how to console the judge, but at the same time, if necessary, he will be able to cause tears no worse than his brother, the serious "jeune premier". His speech can be likened to a waterfall sparkling in the sun. Words fly out quickly, almost crowding out each other. Attention does not have time to follow him: this is a cascade, this is lightning. Everything is here: idyll, indignation, and invisible tears through laughter visible to the world * . And in the end - certainly some kind of pointe, which decides the matter. He does not even need to be au courant du sujet - he only needs to catch something, some awkward phrase from his opponent, and build a whole fireworks display on this awkward phrase. Sometimes he even allows himself a small whim: to completely ignore his opponent or treat him like a passer-by who has entered the court for the sake of idle curiosity. The "noble fathers" are terribly offended. Being idle talkers by nature, they demand that the enemy savor their verbal rigmarole with due respect, and if they admit that one can disagree with them, it is not because they were wrong, but because the other side received a certain reward for to disagree. And suddenly not only no objection, but even - not a single word. The comic "jeune premier" always has so much practice that he has no time to deal with a competitor. He is too young to think of decorating the bankruptcy estate with counterfeit bills, and even without that he always has a lot of money, which he manages like a real grand seigneur. Camellias bloom at his sight, restaurant porters rush headlong to open the doors of his carriage, at the circus and at Buffa * he gives his fur coat to the first watchman he meets, without needing any number. In a word, it is almost a cavalry guard.

When he settles down, he will become a lawyer "libre penseur", that is, a man without any prejudice. home distinguishing feature of this group - a taste for the elegant. Luxurious apartment, Nellis carriages, bloody horses, fine dinners, the best cigars and wines, a box at the opera and with the French, and finally a lovely wife, une femme à se lécher les doigts - this is the environment in which the "libre penseur" lives. While retaining techniques close to the “jeune premier-merry fellow”, he differs from him only in a family atmosphere and the foresight that follows from this situation and does not allow competitions to be neglected anymore.

Nice family *

(On the question of "Well-intentioned speeches")

Never have I had such a pleasant time as in P***. Arriving with an assignment to find out at hand where the source of the pernicious ideas that shook Western Europe, the dissemination of which acted with particular force among the pupils of the local gymnasium, was hidden, I spent a whole month in this city - and still did not learn anything. Although later it turned out that, in fact, there was nothing to learn, because the P -skaya gymnasium, by mistake of a scribe, was named instead of the K -skaya (where the dissemination of ideas was really organized on the most extensive scale), nevertheless I believe that I would still have managed to learn at least something if my research was carried out not in P ***, but in some other city. But here, from the first minute of arrival to the last minute of departure, I was a prisoner of all kinds of entertainment, which literally did not let me come to my senses. From morning to evening I felt as if embraced by a continuous holiday, which in the morning took me from the hands of Morpheus and late at night again handed me over to Morpheus in the arms, well-fed, slightly hazy and sweetly tormented ...

At that time, the city of P*** stood aloof from busy communications and was completely populated by retired cornets, among whom there was only one respectable retired general, who had godchildren in almost all cornet families, who were jokingly called his children. But the remoteness of the city further contributed to its animation. It’s too lazy to go to the capitals, and there’s no need, since even during the state in the rank of cadet, every cornet had already drunk the whole cup of metropolitan pleasures to the bottom. Therefore, cornets from the whole province rushed to P *** and here, in their native city, among home penates, they tried to have fun in the way that only cornets know how to have fun. As educated people, all these gentlemen kept the most excellent cooks and ordered wines directly from Raoul and Despres, and canned food from Eliseev * . Ancestral and acquired estates delivered well-fed turkeys, calves, piglets and other living creatures, but for other provisions, the spirit of the time worked out a whole caste of merchants who supplied juicy roast beef, the best game and absolutely vital fish, although the river on which P *** stands, abounded only loaches and piskars. Every day, in five or six places, there is a dinner party, and everywhere something extraordinary, grandiose, which neither Borel nor Dussault even dreamed about * . One flaunts a sterlet's ear, in which burbot livers float; the other strikes with a two-pood sturgeon brought by mail from C *** * ; the third serves veal, in which all the meat fibers are overgrown with tender fat; the fourth offers a pig that just doesn't speak. I will never forget pike perch under Provence, which was once served as an appetizer at the cornet Zagibalov - it was something so melting, elegant, pleasing to taste, smell, and vision that I involuntarily thought: “If this dish put before me and demanded in his name that I renounce my fatherland, then of course I would not refuse - saperlotte! but at the same time, I would probably say to myself: an, tu es donc blen douce, chère patrie, pour être préféré à ce délicieux ragoût!” Another time, at the house of cornet Golopyatov, I was served roast beef... well, such roast beef that I instinctively kissed a piece before placing it on my plate!

At first, this day, all dedicated to food, seems incredible. I myself am not averse to eating and, thanks to the maintenance I receive and participation in certain industrial enterprises, I can do this very satisfactorily, nevertheless it just somehow does not occur to my head to see every minute what kind of food is coming in the next minute. In P *** you are immediately mistaken by the smell of food, and you unwittingly become a champion of some special religion, which can be called the religion of food. But when the cornet Shilokhvostov tells you that he first flogs the burbot intended for the fish soup, so that his liver enlarges from chagrin, that he first sews up the passage for the turkey intended for roasting in order to arouse unbearable thirst in it, which is immediately satisfied with whole milk, and when he serves this burbot sufferer and this turkey sufferer to you at dinner, I swear you will not stand it and say: “Mamon, I am yours! I am yours forever!

But naturally, with such a plentiful meal, the cornets soon become heavy, and this cannot but have an effect on their relations with the ladies. These relationships are the most calm, so to speak, sleepy. In the eyes of a heavy cornet, a wife is one of the comforts, especially valuable in the sense that she attracts a more or less diverse society to the house. A cornet cannot do without society, because it is unthinkable for him to eat alone. And it is not the conversation that seduces him, not the desire to enliven the food with any kind of conversation in which he himself can take part. No, he sits at the table and most of the time just snorts and blinks his eyes in some kind of half-drowse. But he is glad that someone is also sitting next to him, chewing and gradually becoming heavier, that no one finds a single flaw in his piglet, and that at a glance at the sturgeon, a quiet approving neighing will probably escape from all the wombs. This is the only form of hostel he appreciates. He is the happier the more he sees himself chewing and devouring around him, and if his wife serves as a magnet, attracting an extra number of mouths to the house, if, moreover, she knows how to arrange around her husband some kind of party that can deliver an honorary position in the elections, then this alone is quite enough for him, and outside this sphere his wife interests him very little.

For us, visitors from the capitals, for officials traveling on official business, for cornet sons coming on a visit, and in general for all those who have not had time to eat yet, this general Cornet burden is a true find. This is also a godsend for those local young officials who know how to put themselves within the limits of two or three dishes out of the six or seven offered. All these people can safely count on cornet weighting and have a very pleasant time without fear that anyone will bother them.

Life in P*** is some kind of continuous, half-drunk carnival, in which everything is mixed up, in which no one can understand why he fell asleep here, and not in another place. The visitor is caught, groomed, introduced into all secrets.

There are special retired cornets who have forgotten to marry and who have absolutely nothing to do. Having caught a visitor, they take him from house to house from morning to evening and tell the ins and outs of each house along the way. You have not yet been introduced to the mistress of the house, and you already know her and her lawful cornet, everything in every detail. The cornet invariably loves to lie, the cornet invariably loves to amaze you with hospitality. This is very convenient, because, having barely managed to introduce yourself to the hostess, you are already starting to lie and feel that there is actually nothing else left but to lie, lie and lie. Anecdotes of the most scandalous nature are not only remembered, but even born here, on the spot. It's all seen the sights, it all knows how to appreciate the salt of a joke, it all feels at ease. From the cornet you go to half the cornet and, having learned from him in which regiment he served, you can be sure that you are forever insured against talking with him. For the future, he will silently give you a hand, or, pointing to a table covered with snacks, will say: “You are welcome!” - and then, having hung a napkin over his chest, he will fix his eyes on the plate.

P-sky ladies are lovely. They are a little full, but so much so that this fullness never turns into vagueness. They are flirtatious, but so much so that they never completely deprive a person of hope. They love to lie, but so much so that they never lose their dignity in front of les domestiques. Softer, more pleasant manners cannot be desired.