Leonov's golden carriage summary. The main characters of the play The Golden Carriage
Title: A Thousand Splendid Suns
Writer: Khaled Hosseini
Year: 2008
Publisher: Phantom Press
Age limit: 16+
Volume: 310 pages.
Genres: Contemporary foreign literature
About the book “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini
Khaled Hosseini is a famous Afghan writer, a person who, in addition to writing books, is also involved in charitable activities, in particular helping Afghan children. His novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns” won the love of readers around the world.
“For men, it’s always the woman’s fault for everything,” these were the words 15-year-old Mariam, the main character of Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, heard from her mother before she committed suicide, unable to tolerate the betrayal of a girl who had gone to visit her home. her own father, against her will. All her life Nana endured the humiliating role of the mistress and kept woman of the man whom she allowed to touch her body. Gradually love feelings this woman turned into hatred and contempt for the cowardice and stupid prejudices of the person she once loved...
Fate, as if mocking the main character, does not give her female happiness. The shadow of her mother hangs over her and not everything is simple in life for this already young woman. She gets married, but this marriage cannot be called successful. The husband becomes rude and hot-tempered due to the fact that all attempts to get Mariam pregnant end in miscarriages. But once upon a time, Rashid was so affectionate and helpful, showering her with gifts...
However, Khaled Hosseini’s book “A Thousand Splendid Suns” is also a story of mutual, sincere love, unfolding against the backdrop of a troubled and extremely difficult time for Afghanistan - after the April Revolution of 1978, during civil war between government forces and the Mujahideen. A touching story Layla and Tariq is a story about how love does not depend on external circumstances. Either it exists or it doesn’t, there is no third option. The boy and the girl have been friends and love each other since school; their feelings are not hampered by the political situation in the country. Mortal danger, constant shelling of Kabul, only brings these children even closer together. They have different nationalities, their peoples are at war with each other, events occur that separate them from each other, but nothing has power if love lives in the heart...
“A Thousand Splendid Suns” - that’s what he calls his hometown father main character. Long-suffering Kabul, exhausted and suffered by many years of struggle between the Mohahideen and the Taliban, hunger, cold, cruel morals and the orders established by the militants. A place where people were publicly shot without trial, where women had no rights, where husbands could beat their wives to death, and they had nothing for it... This city, after decades of savagery and obscurantism, slowly began to thaw from the bloody, merciless slaughter, whose terrible name is war...
On our literary website you can download the book “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini for free in formats suitable for different devices - epub, fb2, txt, rtf. Do you like to read books and always keep up with new releases? We have big choice books of various genres: classics, modern fiction, literature on psychology and children's publications. In addition, we offer interesting and educational articles for aspiring writers and all those who want to learn how to write beautifully. Each of our visitors will be able to find something useful and exciting for themselves.
“Although written entirely on the very real impressions of our post-war existence, this play is openly and deliberately built by analogy with a fairy tale, that is, according to the laws of the search and affirmation of the ideal. " Golden carriage", in which the poor beauty leaves to her happiness, the lost and found shoe from her foot, good wizard, predicting her happiness as a reward for beauty and kindness - all these allegories used by Leonov in the play are quite transparent and widely known, and guessing the new, modern and sometimes unexpected meaning with which they are filled at the hand of the writer gives us a unique and additional pleasure, as always, is delivered by a new artistic reincarnation of old myths" (E. Starikova. Leonid Leonov. Essays on creativity. M., " Fiction", 1972, p. 288 – 289).
The Golden Carriage (play in four acts)
Characters
SHCHELKANOV SERGEY ZAKHAROVICH.
MARYA SERGEEVNA is his wife, chairman of the city council.
MARKA is their daughter.
BEREZKIN - Colonel, passing through the city.
NEPRYAKHIN PAVEL ALEXANDROVICH – local resident.
DASHENKA is his wife.
TIMOSH is his son.
KAREEV NIKOLAY STEPANOVICH – visiting scientist.
JULIUS is his son accompanying him.
RAHUMA - fakir.
TABUN-TURKOVSKAYA - madam.
RAYECHKA - secretary.
MASLOV is a tractor driver.
MAKARYCHEV ADRIAN LUKYANYCH, GALANTSEV IVAN ERMOLAEVICH - chairmen of collective farms.
FATHERS with BRIDES, BUSINESS TRAVELERS and others.
The action takes place in a former front-line town during the day, immediately after the war,
Act one
A room on the second floor of a provincial hotel in a former monastery compound. In one of the windows, expanded by the current owners in relation to modern times, as well as in the opening of the glass door to the balcony, bare trees sway and the autumn sky fades behind the battlement. The sunset clouds burn smoky and dimly, like damp firewood. From below comes a monotonous, cheerful rattle of unknown origin... The door lock and switch click; in the light of a dim lamp one can see a vaulted room furnished with objects from bygone times. There is a patterned stove with wonderful blue tiles, a chair with a high back and a birch prosthetic log, then a carved icon case gaping with emptiness and, finally, two modern-made iron beds with thin blankets. Hotel director old man in a cotton quilt, NEPRYAKHIN invites in new guests with rich, yellow skin, suitcases, KAREEVS - father and son.
NEPRYAKHIN. Then it remains last number, citizens, there is no better way. Note that the glass in the windows is solid, the view is of antiquity, and again the sanitary facilities are just a stone's throw away.
JULIUS (pulled his nose). I believe... (Father.) Here it is, your desired one dense forests Kitezh-grad. Abyss, darkness, cold... and, as far as I understand, the ceilings are leaking on top of that?
NEPRYAKHIN. Maybe they read in the newspapers, citizen: there was war in this world. The whole town lay on its face! (Hold back.) So, make up your mind, citizens, and submit your passport for registration.
The elder Kareev puts his suitcase in the middle and sits down on a chair.
KAREEV. Okay, we'll get through the day somehow. (To my son.) Don’t grumble, but rather take some kind of intoxicating pill out of your suitcase. Shivering from the road...
From below comes an inaudible ditty cry and the rhythmic clinking of window glass accompanied by the dancing of a dozen boots.
Have fun, not on time!
NEPRYAKHIN. Downstairs, in the collective farm restaurant, the men are walking: a noble tractor driver has returned from the war. And for every marriageable bride, it’s a matter of everyday life. (With a sigh.) Oh, one night, on the tenth of July, our beauty was dispelled by orphan ashes... They bombed the whole night.
KAREEV. What were they flattered by? I remember that the entire industry you have is a match factory and a tannery.
Kareev shows Nepryakhin a place opposite him, but he remains on his feet.
NEPRYAKHIN. And I'll tell you why. The main thing in a fruit is the seed... and it was desirable for them to peck that golden grain. People are being exterminated from holy places.
Nepryakhin’s familiar spiritual intonations and his birdlike manner of clicking his tongue make Kareev look more closely at the old man.
There is no Russian chronicle where there is not a word about us, or even two! In our river catfish are just like whales hanging around; in former years they were taken away on carts. The richest places! And on the eve of the war, the water below us was discovered - three and a half times more healing than the waters of the Caucasus. That's how it is, dears!
Julius casually opened the water tap above the sink in the corner; nothing was flowing from there; he felt the ice stove and shook his head sadly.
JULIUS. Judging by the housekeeping, you also have a catfish with a huge mustache in the city council.
NEPRYAKHIN. There were people like that everywhere! Our chairman, Marya Sergevna, was lured to other cities: with trams. But the workers didn’t let us go.
KAREEV (without turning around). What kind of Marya Sergeevna is this?.. isn’t Mashenka Poroshina?
NEPRYAKHIN. That's enough!.. She was, like, powder, about twenty-five years ago. Shchelkanova is now the match director’s wife. (On guard.) I apologize, did you live with us or did it happen while passing through?
JULIUS. We are geologists, an inquisitive old man. It’s Kareev himself, the academician, who came to see you... have you heard of this?
NEPRYAKHIN. I won’t take any sin on my soul, I haven’t heard of it. There are a lot of Kareevs in the world. I had a friend, also Kareev. They caught catfish together and died in the Pamir Mountains. As far as I understand, they came to rummage in our depths?.. We’ve been waiting for a long time. We wouldn’t rather have gold, but at least some mica, some kerosene, or some other useful thing we could find. The war is painfully worn out; I feel sorry for the children, and there is nothing to repair the shrines.
JULIUS. No, we’re passing through... Well, register our passports and take care of the firewood.
Muttering something under his breath, not feeling Kareev’s gaze on him, Nepryakhin goes to the door with the passports, but returns halfway.
NEPRYAKHIN. My eyesight has weakened greatly over the years. Allow comrade academician to look into his face.
They look at each other, the fog of two decades clears. To Yuliy’s great surprise, a silent embrace follows, and somewhat prolonged due to Nepryakhin’s fault.
KAREEV. Well, that's enough, that's enough, Pavel... you've completely crushed me. Besides, beware: I caught a cold on the road.
NEPRYAKHIN. My friend, my friend!.. And every autumn I mentally run around the Pamir Mountains, calling out to you, my brother... and there is no echo to me. After all, I’m so stupefied, just from the wine: I don’t know what to say to you to celebrate... Mikolai Stepanovich!
KAREEV. Okay... stop it, buddy, stop it. Everything will pass and become equal... And call me as before: am I really so important and old?
NEPRYAKHIN. Where, you are still a complete eagle. Here I am... As my Vlasyevna ordered me to live long, out of longing I married a young girl, Call me Dashenka. From the outside looking in, it’s like life and get better: I’m in place, surrounded by posts... the museum is also entrusted to me. Again, I became more keen on sewing shoes during the war, and it’s also worth a pretty penny. And there is a roof, and my son, thank God, returned alive from the battlefield... Do you hear how he operates below?
JULIUS. Is he the famous tractor driver?
NEPRYAKHIN. Why, then another. The guys hired me to play the accordion as a tractor driver. My head was in the city of Leningrad, studying to be an astrologer. They published it five or seven times in foreign newsletters... Call me Timofey. Old Nepryakhin ascended with pride - then his fate first hit Dashenka, looked into his eyes - not enough!.. Timosha added. Whoever has an arm or a leg has had his eyes taken away, war, from my astrologer!
Pause of silence.
Damn, there was no money for a stamp: haven’t you sent any news for so many years?
KAREEV. There were special reasons for this, Palisanych.
NEPRYAKHIN. Back then, it’s clear: he saved up and hid in the dead for the time being. Mashenka Poroshina is alive, alive. Pierce her with your glory, Mikolai Stepanych, pierce her to the very heart! Why firewood... I’ll get you some boiling water to warm up!
Julius takes off his father's coat. Nepryakhin runs to fulfill his promise. I looked back from the threshold.
Our area is windy, the horde is noisy all day long, and don’t close the door - the stove in the corridor was lit in the morning...
Again, mixed with the wind, is the heavy hum of selfless dancing. For some time, the elder Kareev looks at something in the impenetrable space outside the window, if not for the dawn at the edge of the sky.
KAREEV. Once upon a time I walked these forty kilometers as a matter of routine... in bad weather I spent the night with Makarychev in Glinki. He was an epic hero... he wasn’t beaten in the war, and he must have also become lurid. It happens before the sunset: youth will pass with a farewell March, the meadows will be filled with heat and breath... and then into the pit!
JULIUS. Isn’t it a fever in your lyrics, parent? Come on, I’ll give you a rough job for now!
He seats his father in a chair, pours a glass from the camp glass, yellow skin, flasks, then gives two large white pills. In the semi-darkness of the corridor behind the open door, vague figures of locals and business travelers float by.
KAREEV. In this very town, one day, a very young teacher fell in love with a girl... the likes of which don’t exist in the world these days. Her father was an important official with the cruelest gray sideburns and the same mother... if memory serves, without sideburns. So, exactly twenty-six years ago this poor dreamer went with them on a tour of a visiting fakir. I adored these naive provincial miracles for the poor!.. but that evening I saw only the flickering profile of my neighbor. During the intermission, the eccentric dared to ask the old man for his daughter’s hand in marriage... and I still imagine, my friend, his loud, indignant bass and this kind of rotating movement of his angry sideburns... And having received an affront, he set off on that same homeless night to seek his fortune...
JULIUS (in tune with him, from the darkness). To the Pamirs, as the legend says. Amen! Sorry, I'll bother you a little more...
The son covers his father’s feet with a checkered blanket and arranges the food he brought. Suddenly the intensity in the light bulb drops, which forces the younger Kareev to light two candles from the suitcase.
And here are these spasms of a dying war. Isn’t it blowing from nowhere?.. Was that Mashenka Poroshina?
KAREEV. Don't even think about including this in my academic biography!
JULIUS. And all the way I was wondering: why did you get into such a shaking place? Dream of youth!
KAREEV. My youth passed joylessly, but I don’t complain... Each age contains its own wine, but it’s not recommended to interfere... to avoid heartburn and disappointment!
As far as one can make out in the darkness, an unfamiliar COLONEL stands on the threshold, tall and thin, with gray temples. A stuffed field bag hangs over his shoulder, and a captured bottle of an unexpected shape is in his hand. He pronounces his words slowly, with stern dignity, and from time to time he loses the thread of the story. It seems that the black post-war silence is coming here on his heels. Julius raises the candle high with the flame slanting to the side.
JULIUS. Come in... do you want?
BEREZKIN. First of all, some brief descriptive information. Colonel Berezkin, former commander of the Guards brigade... retired. I accidentally stayed here for a day.
He shows the block of orders, which then returns to his pocket with a pewter sound. Julius bows his head in a half-bow.
I don’t wear it out of delicacy in front of this charred city.
JULIUS. Clear. And we Kareevs, in terms of geology, are also passing through. So, what can I do... Colonel?
BEREZKIN. Maybe just be silent together for an hour and, if you find good reasons, take a sip of this entertaining drink.
JULIUS (trying to ease the strange embarrassment in front of the guest with a joke). However, yours is greenish. As far as I understand in chemistry, is this an aqueous solution of copper sulfate?
BEREZKIN. The appearance of things is deceptive, just like with people. (Throwing the bottle up into the light.) This composition contains a little-known emollient vitamin “U”. Indispensable for colds and loneliness.
Julius motions for the colonel to come to the table, where he lays out his supplies in addition to those laid out. For some reason, he, like the elder Kareev, is drawn to the glass door.
It’s remarkable that he and his brigade walked across Europe diagonally... and left an instructive trail. But I came back, looked at this, dear, and stood like a boy, and my knees were shaking. Hello, my first love...
JULIUS. Who do you mean, Colonel?
BEREZKIN. Russia.
He opens the door to the balcony, the wind blows the curtain away, swings the light bulb on the cord, extinguishes the flame of one candle, which Julius did not manage to cover with his palm. You can hear the rooks screaming angrily and the rumble of a torn roof somewhere.
JULIUS. I'll ask you to close the door, Colonel. My father caught a cold on the road, and I didn’t want to remain an orphan prematurely.
KAREEV (from his corner). Nothing, it doesn’t blow here.
Having closed the door, Berezkin takes a candle from the table and finds Kareev’s chair with his eyes. Apparently the colonel is being misled long hair the person sitting in front of him.
BEREZKIN. I apologize, comrade artist, I couldn’t see it in the darkness. (Clicking his heels dryly.) Former military man Berezkin.
KAREEV. Nice... but, as my son has already said, I am not an artist, but a geologist.
BEREZKIN. I ask for forgiveness for my bad memory: I was fired due to shell shock. They said: you won yours, now go and rest, Berezkin. Then Berezkin took the suitcase and walked into the space in front of him...
Something happens to him; With eyes closed he painfully searches for the broken thread. The Kareevs look at each other.
Sorry, where did I stop?
JULIUS. You took your suitcase and went somewhere...
BEREZKIN. That's right, I went to rest. So I walk and rest. (Suddenly hot.) I loved my army! Around her campfires, the still very young and still poor, desired world matured and grew stronger... Then I found out in passing what exactly a person needs most of all in life.
KAREEV. We are also in the mood for the weather, Colonel, Good case check the effect of your drink...,
They sit down. All three look at the hotly blazing candle. A long minute flows, uniting them.
So what, in your opinion, does a person need first of all in life?
BEREZKIN. First, what not to do. A person does not need palaces with a hundred rooms and orange groves by the sea. He does not need either glory or respect from his slaves. A man needs to come home... and his daughter looks out the window towards him, and his wife cuts the black bread of happiness. Then they sit with their hands clasped, the three of them. And the light from them falls on an unpainted wooden table. And to the sky.
KAREEV. Are you in great trouble, Colonel?.. family?..
BEREZKIN. Yes sir. At the beginning of the war, I transported them here from the border - Olya the big and Olya the little. Such a neat house with geraniums, twenty-two on Marx. Last letter It was from the ninth, tenth they were bombed all night. I’ve been sitting in my room for three days now, fighting off the memories. It's just twilight, they go on the attack. (Rubbing his forehead.) It broke again... do you remember where it broke on me?
JULIUS. It doesn’t matter... We’ll open our pharmacy too. We have a great memory thing here.
BEREZKIN (putting his bottle aside). Blame seniority for the war!
He pours it, and at first Kareev covers his glass with his palm, then gives in to the colonel, unable to withstand his gaze.
I regret that I am deprived of the opportunity to show you my Olya’s card. Lost it on the way to the hospital. This was the only thing that could separate us.
He gets up and, with a glass in his hand, not feeling the burn, he either teases or crushes the long, crackling flame of the candle with his fingers. The Kareevs do not dare to interrupt his thoughts.
Well, they don’t drink to the dead... then to everything we fought for for four years: for this sleepless wind, for the sun, for life!
They snack by simply picking up food with their hands.
KAREEV. In my opinion, you have a lot of vitamin “U” here... (Wrinkling from the drink.) Big wounds require crude medicine, Colonel!
BEREZKIN. If I am not deceived by a painful premonition, you are about to pour balm on my wound.
KAREEV. Perhaps. The injuries of war can only be cured by oblivion... By the way, have you already been there... on Marx, twenty-two?
BEREZKIN. Sorry, bad head, I don't understand the maneuver. Why: to make sure, to rummage through the firebrands... or what?
JULIUS. Father wants to say: This You should look at enough of it once and go to the ends of the world. Wounds that are looked at do not heal.
Again, from somewhere in the dungeon, the frenzied stomping of many feet.
BEREZKIN. In order to prevent the laughter of children on earth from falling silent, I set a lot on fire and suppressed it without a shudder. The little ones will not reproach Berezkin for cowardice... (with the wind from inside and placing your hand on your chest) and let them take whatever is good for them in this uninhabited house!.. But how did you decide, comrade artist, to stretch out your hand for my last, for hope? (Quiet.) What if I go out to Marks, twenty-two, and there is a house and my daughter is waving a handkerchief at me from the window? Not all is dead on the battlefield. Do not touch human hearts, they explode.
He goes back to the balcony. In the sky behind the glass door there was only a yellow strip of wild pre-winter dawn.
What depth of defense! Not a single stronghold can stand if you move from all over these continental distances...
KAREEV. But then you went to such a wilderness to visit your... dear Olya?
BEREZKIN. Not certainly in that way. I came here with another task - to punish a local person.
JULIUS. Curious, were you sent by the court, the law, the command?
BEREZKIN. The war sent me.
He paces around the room, sharing Shchelkanov’s story with the Kareevs. After two initial phrases, he closes the door, first looking outside.
I had a captain in my battalion who did not like being shot at. The soldiers laughed, sometimes quite loudly. And as an opportunity, he sent a letter to a lady: ask if they would recall me somewhere to do selfless, without shedding blood, rear work. But the opportunity fell ill, the letter went by mail, bumped into the censorship, and ricocheted to me.
He listens to something at the door and grins. The light goes out almost completely.
I summoned these eighty-six kilograms of male beauty to me. “Here, my dear,” I ask him, “are you a Canadian Doukhobor or someone else? Are you generally against bloodshed or only against fighting with the fascists?” Well, he gets confused, sheds a long tear: his wife, they say, and daughter... both Mashas, notice how I have both Olyas. “I don’t sleep at night thinking about how they will survive without me!” - “And if they find out, I ask how their dad hid behind a woman’s skirt from the war, then how?” I give him a blotter from the table: “Wipe yourself, captain. Tomorrow at seven zero-zero you will lead the lead echelon into the operation and do not spare yourself... even shed blood, damn you, so that the soldiers can see! Then he ordered the door bracket he was holding to be wiped with a rag.
JULIUS. Cowardice is only a disease... a disease of the imagination.
BEREZKIN. Perhaps!.. That same evening, our hero gets drunk with a visiting correspondent, goes to get some air on a motorcycle, and an hour later the night patrol takes him home with broken ribs. In a word, he turned out. I visited him in the medical battalion. “Goodbye,” I told him, “torso with a mustache. They don’t beat those who are lying down, and we go further to the west. But if Berezkin does not anchor somewhere in the grave, he will visit you after the war... and then we will talk in private about exploits, about valor, about glory!
KAREEV. Does he live in this city?
BEREZKIN. He’s in charge of a match factory... For three whole days I’ve been following his trail, but as soon as I stretch out my hand, he slips through my fingers like sand. That means he's watching my every move. And now: while we are sitting here, I ran past him twice, along the corridor.
The Kareevs looked at each other. Noticing this, Berezkin gestures for Yuli to stay in the same place, by the door, where he accidentally ended up.
Are you inclined to attribute this to my shell shock, young man? (Lowering his voice.) Come on, pull the door open: he’s standing here!
A silent struggle of wills; Having shaken off the stranger, Julius returns to his place at the table.
KAREEV. Calm down, Colonel, there's no one there.
BEREZKIN. OK. (Loud.) Hey, behind the door, come in, Shchelkanov... and I will return your low letter!
He takes a blue envelope folded in half from his breast pocket. Leaning out of his chair, the elder Kareev looks at the door. There is an insinuating knock from outside,
JULIUS. Sign in...
A handsome YOUNG WOMAN in a tanned sheepskin coat, with an armful of charred trim and carved porch posts, sidles through the door. Next, noticeably tipsy, NEPRYAKHIN appears with a kerosene lamp, a kettle and two glasses raised on his fingers. The electrical intensity in the lamp increases slightly.
NEPRYAKHIN. The seagulls have arrived, warm up. (To his wife.) Throw the knitting away by the stove, little sweet, I’ll heat it later. (Picking up a turned baluster from the floor, with intense pain.) Look how rich you have become, Mikolai Stepanych: we are drowning the stoves with human nests! So it dances, woe is it...
DASHENKA. Eh, you’re such a little liquid: you only drank a penny, and your bast shoes are already unraveling!
NEPRYAKHIN. And you can’t help but drink, little sweetie, since Makarychev himself orders: drink and drink in honor of the tractor driver. Refuse, and then how can you go to him for potatoes: thunderstorm! And you judge me...
DASHENKA. Go away, I'm tired, living with you.
NEPRYAKHIN (pushing her towards the Kareevs). My mistress, a glorious butterfly... she was rinsing her laundry in the river, she was a little chilled, and was angry. Let me give you a sip for health, she takes me in bad weather. My name is Dasha.
Yuliy goes to her with a poured glass and a cucumber on his fork.
JULIUS. Don’t disdain with us, beauty, otherwise we’ll get bored alone... well, just like catfish!
BEREZKIN. And don’t forget about the debt, the debt is yours, Daria.
NEPRYAKHIN. Hey, little weasel, no way, is your name?.. just begging. Give me your pen here.
DASHENKA. Where are you dragging me like this, unkempt and unkempt?
NEPRYAKHIN. Educated people will not judge.
DASHENKA. Then... well, in the box on the chest I have a yellow scarf - a leg here, the other there. Don't break anything blindly, motherfucker!
Nepryakhin, like an old man, rushes to carry out the orders of his young wife. Dashenka takes off her sheepskin coat, unwinds her shawl from her shoulders and becomes a stately, round-faced young woman with hand-thick red braids braided around her head; a real aspiring witch. Recovering, she swims to the table.
I can’t imagine what I could wish for you... And without me, apparently, they are rich and happy. Let's wish you at least a change in the weather!
She drinks her glass in leisurely sips and with a clear face, like water. Yuliy quacks respectfully, the colonel prepares a treat for her, but Dashenka herself takes turns paying attention to all the food displayed on the table.
What kind of debt have you calculated on me?.. I certainly wouldn’t have borrowed from you.
BEREZKIN. Well, yesterday I promised to tell you about the thief who came... They say, she drove all the legitimate husbands in the city crazy.
DASHENKA. Oh, this is our neighbor, Fimochka, she lives alone with her old lady. A sort of snake, flexible, twenty-eight years old. I washed with her in the bathhouse: her body is white, pretty, thin, you can thread it through a needle, but it’s a pity. The gentlemen are hovering around like flies over a cheesecake... Your brother is drawn to something sinful!
BEREZKIN. What do they live on with the old woman?
DASHENKA. She spent the war as a cashier on the railway. But everyone needs to go - some to buy some bread, some to bury their mother. Well, she took it: out of grief, bit by bit, a pie for the holiday. (Taking a bite.) Our chairman, Marya Sergeevna, has no idea what kind of storm is hanging over her. Fimka had her sights set on Shchelkan himself, her husband. Maybe they are lying, who knows, but she seems to have saved him from the war. And he forgot about his matches, marrying her is fine.
KAREEV. With his wife alive?
DASHENKA. They'll leave!.. They're looking for the premises in secret. But she has no idea, poor Marya Sergeevna. At night he dozes for an hour or two on a government-issued hard bed and again rustles paper until daylight. It was because of the current affairs that the grief crawled up!
JULIUS (for father). Unhappy, then?
DASHENKA. She made a mistake. She comes from a rich house, my father was in charge of our entire telegraph office... the teacher falls in love with her! She seemed to like him too, but he was poor: no knife in the house, no image, no way to pray, no way to kill himself. In my younger years, they caught catfish with mine!.. Well, they told the teacher bluntly: why are you, bitter arithmetic, wandering around the porch, trampling the grass, teasing our dogs? What can you give our princess, besides poverty and consumption? And you go out into the world, woo her and come for her in a golden carriage. Then let's see what kind of prince he is - look!.. And out of grief he went to the country of the Pamirs, and he sank: either he tumbled into the abyss, or he withered away from alcohol. And on the third, it seems, Shchelkan turned up... to the grave for that guilt to execute her!
BEREZKIN. You gossip deliciously. (Pours it for her.) What is her fault, since he left her himself?
DASHENKA. It’s not her fault that he left, but that she didn’t run after him.
JULIUS (hard and vindictive, for the father). It’s precisely that she didn’t run after him barefoot in the snow in the dead of night!
DASHENKA. My zhizhik said: she kept writing letters to him after that time... (with the delight of envy) to the Pamirs, on demand.
NEPRYAKHIN, who returned with a scarf, waves his hand at her from the side,
Why did you wave, ah eavesdrop again?
NEPRYAKHIN. Go home, you red boa!.. Don’t trust her, Mikolai Stepanych: the family is friendly, they live without mutual reproach. And whatever your heart desires, they have a full table!
DASHENKA (ominously). It's true: everything is in the house, except need and happiness.
The music becomes louder and closer, and a ringing ditty can be heard. Dashenka looks out into the corridor,
Well, hold on now. Makarychev led the men around. And our astrologer is with them...
An impressive procession of collective farm people is shown in the corridor: BRIDES and FATHERS. A BOY about sixteen years old looks into the room first, reconnaissance - is it possible? Yuliy makes an inviting gesture with his hand. Suddenly the light bulb begins to glow with obvious overvoltage. THE FRONT enter holding a banner on poles with the inscription: “Fiery greetings to the hero tractor driver L. M. Maslov!” Most of the REST, standing up as they had to, look one on top of the other into the room. Ahead are the old chairmen of the collective farms: one - powerful and shaven, with only a mustache, an old man with a black tavern tray, on which, as if wriggling, narrow glasses, not for the drink, are ringing - MAKARYCHEV ADRIAN LUKYANYCH. The other is of a smaller build, with a leaner face, GALANTSEV, with a whiskered beard and with a huge enamel teapot, which, one must think, contains the fuel of the party. The stocky, fair-haired hero of the occasion with a gold star on his tunic, unbuttoned at the collar for relief, the tractor driver MASLOV himself, squeezes forward. Everyone looks expectantly at the colonel.
BEREZKIN. Why are you, brothers, staring at me, exactly at the diver?
- Speak up, Adrian Lukyanovich!..
- Why, let him start, and we will support. Come on, Maslov!
BEREZKIN. Please... but I’m not the boss here.
MAKARYCHEV. We have enough for everyone, feel free to contact us, tractor driver!
MASLOV. I am here for demobilization of the second stage, senior sergeant Maslov, Maslov Larion... (looking sideways at his star) Larion Maksimych. So I am fulfilling this vow, Comrade Colonel, to take a week off as a sign of victory over damned fascism.
BEREZKIN.. Why, we hear... for the second day the whole house has been trembling. Well, brothers, isn't it time to get to work?
Two people stand out from the crowd; they love to talk.
FIRST. Lord, will you celebrate such a victory in two days? Seven pairs of boots aren't enough for her!
SECOND (inspired). Today we walk, tomorrow we unanimously rush to restore peaceful life.
GALANTSEV (turning around). Quiet... they started making noise. Why did you stop talking, come on, Maksimych.
MASLOV. I just can’t, I can’t be with them, Ivan Ermolaich, with such noise... I lost all my voice. Do you hear what notes are in your throat? He’s already not himself, and yet he’s not even allowed to say a word.
NEPRYAKHIN. Don't be angry, sergeant, they are celebrating. (About the Kareevs.) People out of the way, don’t detain people, explain to them clearly why your condition is happening.
MASLOV. This is the hesitation in me, Comrade Colonel. Since, as a result of the enemy’s military actions, I lost my own corner, two collective farms willingly want to assign me, so to speak, for eternal use. What causes the difficulty? (pointing alternately to Makarychev and Galantsev): to the right - complete prosperity, but to the left - beauty!
GALANTSEV. Our areas are extremely artistic!
BEREZKIN. Well, wealth is a gainful thing. Choose beauty, Sergeant.
GALANTSEV. And I tell him the same. For now, you won’t even get a nail, but wait, how will we rebuild in a year... Did you see that they brought the horses to us just now for fire relief?
MAKARYCHEV (disdainfully). A German horse will not do well in a Russian meadow.
And immediately a murmur of long-standing competition arises between the men behind.
FIRST. You, Adrian Lukyanich, don’t fear our horses too early!
SECOND. You need to understand: the German horse has a short neck, he was raised to eat from the feeder, he should be lost in the Russian meadow.
FIRST. And this, my dears, you need to get used to - poisoning a field and a young forest with a horse. It's time to start the mower, dear friends...
GALANTSEV. Quiet, I said!.. What a crowd. Contact us, tractor driver!
Maslov hopelessly points to his throat and waves his hand.
In a word, our fellow countrymen earnestly ask for refreshments for our general meeting. (Shaking the kettle.) Isn’t it possible for us to finish here?.. Grishechka, give us our long-range gun here!
From the depths appears a gigantic, unamused butler with a spare, unopened bottle. However, Makarychev dismisses him with a black tray.
MAKARYCHEV. I apologize, citizens, it’s our turn... Well, for now, promote Timosha to the forefront!
THE GIRLS are brought in and seated on the black accordion box of TIMOSH NEPRYAKHIN. Under the overcoat thrown over his shoulders is a poor black satin shirt with glass buttons. My heart involuntarily aches when I look at his young, windless, smiling face, in which I remember his open, unblinking eyes. He's blind.
Warm up for now, Timosha... We'll wait.
He looks around the room with his sightless gaze, as if looking for something to rely on, then begins with slow variations on a semi-familiar theme: the softness of the sound of his instrument resembles a concertina. Meanwhile, the collective farm butler walks around the meeting with a tray. Each one, with fingers that are huge compared to a glass, takes his own - as if by the waist, and even Academician Kareev joins in the simple and honest triumph of his fellow countrymen. Suddenly the melody explodes into a ditty, high note, brute force, and then with a quiet recitative Galantsev notifies everyone that
GALANTSEV.
...lives in this world
at one end of Siberia
my darling...
MAKARYCHEV (stomping).
I'm yearning for another!
And immediately, smoothing the comb over his forehead and as if touched to the quick, Maslov hoarsely remembers with a concerned look about what
like at the Kievsky railway station
two foundlings lay:
one is forty-eight years old,
and the other is fifty!
Just to get the ball rolling, he makes a dance entrance, waves his handkerchief, and immediately the girls, all eight of them, silently, mermaid-like, glide around the eligible groom. Yuliy, Berezkin and Nepryakhin are watching the party from the foreground, near the chair with Kareev, for whom, in essence, this whole parade of memories began.
NEPRYAKHIN (above the ear, about the accordion player). Look, Mikolai Stepanych, this is my son, a former astrologer, Timofey Nepryakhin. They were going to become related to Marya Sergeevna through her daughter, not fate!.. Nothing, she silently endures her fate.
BEREZKIN. What troops did your son fight in?
NEPRYAKHIN. There was a tank driver.
BEREZKIN. So, our iron breed!
With a gesture he invites everyone to silence, and the most difficult thing to stop is the dancer in rubber boots, who selflessly performs ballet compositions across the entire stage own composition. Everything is quiet. Berezkin goes to Timosha.
Hello, Nepryakhin. Where did you get so caught up in fire?
TIMOSH (sitting). Near Prokhorovka, at the crossing, on Kursk Bulge.
BEREZKIN. Oh, yes, we are also related to you. And I, brother, am from there... Your former commander, Berezkin, is in front of you.
Timosha stands up sharply.
TIMOSH. Hello, Comrade Colonel!
BEREZKIN. It’s okay, sit down, rest... you and I are supposed to rest now. I remember the Kursk Bulge, I remember this, in two passes, across the flowering grass, a tank quadrille.
MASLOV (patter). And we, Comrade Colonel, were standing there, on the Thirty-eighth Height, in reserve... And how they attacked us, I apologize for the expression, like iron bugs, so, would you believe it, the grass turned pale with fear!
BEREZKIN. Wait, Maslov, no one doubts your glory. (Timosha.) How are you resting, soldier?
GALANTSEV. And what does he need: warm, shod, people don’t offend him. He is at home!
TIMOSH. That's right, Comrade Colonel, people love me for my fun. I live well.
MAKARYCHEV. So I’m persuading you to move to Glinka with me: you’ll be second after me. Everyone here knows me, my word is true - I am Makarychev!
And from everywhere, hints to visitors begin that this is the same Makarychev, “who was in the Kremlin, who was all over the newspapers, whose nephew was nominated to be a general...”.
I even have my own barber in Glinki. At the Metropol Hotel, all sorts of real ambassadors had their hair cut, and I took him away... (Laughing.) You see: the shaved ones are mine, and those with wool are his, Galantseva!
Everyone laughs, except for the Galantsevites, who sadly shake their heads at such a reproach.
I found my butt - gasp: in pre-revolutionary hair. I’m taking it to the old women, they’ve eaten Makarychev... But as far as music is concerned, I’m rather weak, the girls have nothing to suffer. Give him instructions, Colonel, to go.
BEREZKIN. I'll talk already. (Looking at his watch.) Well, I still have to get to one more place before midnight... I’m glad to know that even in peacetime life can’t do without my tankman. Today I will visit you, Nepryakhin, at way back... to see your life, soldier.
Everyone makes way: the colonel leaves, followed by an approving roar: “Ruthless commander... with someone like that, you’re not afraid to go to hell!”
MASLOV. Let's go somewhere, brothers. I'm bored here. (Nepryakhin.) Who do you have there in the last room?
NEPRYAKHIN. The old man is alone and doesn't drink. Go to bed.
MAKARYCHEV. Doesn't matter. Who is this?
NEPRYAKHIN. There is only one fakir. Rakhuma, Mark Semenych. From India.
MASLOV. What is he doing?
NEPRYAKHIN. Usually: he cuts a woman into pieces in a box, after which she cooks him scrambled eggs in a hat.
Silence, the men looked at each other.
GALANTSEV. It’s doubtful... Listen, Adrian Lukyanovich, the fakir is still left. What should we do with it?
MAKARYCHEV. Well, let’s put the fakir to bed and go home: that’s enough. (About Kareev.) Look, the citizen has become ruffled... Come to us for recovery: the village of Glinka in the local area. As soon as you roll out of the station up the hill, here we are, all five hundred yards, above the river and showing off... You’ll become fatter than me! (Nepryakhin.) Come on, take me to the fakir!
Timosha is allowed forward. The room becomes empty, and the intensity in the lamp drops to its previous level. A girl’s song is fading: “Don’t look at me, beware of the fire...” Now, instead of the wind, you can only hear the whistling of the rain through the window. While the younger Kareev is laying out the brought beds, the older one lights the candles.
KAREEV. How many dawns lay in the hut hunting, but Makarychev did not recognize me... (Lyrically.) Visions of youth... One last thing left.
Yuli's muffled swearing follows.
What do you have there?
JULIUS. He took a tablecloth instead of a sheet.
KAREEV. It's time for you to get married, Julius... it's time for you to get charred, burn to the ground from a gentle flame. You keep fluttering like a moth among the flowers of pleasure...
JULIUS. That means I’m fireproof... That means I wasn’t born yet to be charred for her sake.
There's a knock on the door.
Who the hell is... Enter!
Shyly, a GIRL of about nineteen enters the room, wearing an old cape with a hood over her coat, from which it is flowing - it’s raining in the yard. She is very good: some kind of pure flamboyance in her face and voice does not allow you to take your eyes off her. When she lifts the hood from her face, Yuliy lowers his hands, and his father exclaims: “Masha!” - and in fulfillment of an inexplicable need, he will make a movement towards you and cover his face with his palms.
YOUNG WOMAN. Am I right?.. excuse me, I’m looking for Colonel Berezkin.
JULIUS. He will be back now, he forgot his things here.
End of introductory fragment.
The play takes place in a former front town a few months after the war and takes 24 hours.
Act one
A hotel built in a former monastery. The autumn sunset is visible through the windows of the vaulted room. The room is lit by a dim light bulb that flares up and then goes out. The elderly hotel director Nepryakhin shows the room to new guests - geologists: Academician Kareev and his son Yuli.
Nepryakhin persuades the Kareevs to take this room, but Yuliy doesn’t like it - it’s too cold, the ceilings are leaking, it smells like a toilet. Nepryakhin makes an excuse: at the beginning of the war the town was bombed, no stone was left unturned. Kareev agrees to take the room - anyway, he only came for a day.
On the way, Kareev caught a cold and was shivering. He asks his son to get the alcohol he brought with him to warm up. Below, from the collective farm restaurant, the noise of a party can be heard - they are greeting a noble tractor driver who has returned from the war.
Nepryakhin feels sorry for his town, which was destroyed by the Germans in one night. Kareev is perplexed: why would the Germans bomb a city where there is not a single large plant. Nepryakhin believes that they wanted to destroy the ancient monastery, which is mentioned in many chronicles.
People are being exterminated from holy places.
Nepryakhin’s voice and his manner of speaking seem familiar to Kareev. Julius, meanwhile, discovers that the water from the tap is not flowing and complains to the city authorities. Nepryakhin stands up for the chairman Marya Sergeevna, the wife of the director of the match factory Shchelkanov.
It turns out that Kareev knows maiden name chairwoman Nepryakhin wonders if he has been to these places. It turns out that Kareev is an old friend of Nepryakhin, who once left the town and disappeared in the Pamirs.
Nepryakhin talks about himself. Having been widowed, he married young Dashenka. His son from his first marriage, Timofey, studied in Leningrad “to become an astrologer” before the war. Nepryakhin believes that fate punished him for his happiness: Dashenka is always dissatisfied with her husband, and his son returned from the war blind. Now he has been hired to play the accordion in honor of the famous tractor driver.
Nepryakhin leaves to get some firewood and boiling water for his dear guests. Julius begins to care for his father, and he tells him about his youth. Once he worked in this town as a mathematics teacher, fell in love with Masha, his daughter important official and asked her father for her hand during the presentation of a visiting fakir. The official did not want a poor teacher as his son-in-law, and Kareev went “to seek his fortune.” Julius begins to understand that his father was carried into this wilderness for the memories of his youth.
A gray-haired Colonel Berezkin enters the room with a bottle of “unexpected shape” in his hands and offers to drink “a cure for loneliness.” Due to the shell shock, the colonel speaks slowly and sometimes loses the thread of the conversation.
All three sit down at the table, and Berezkin talks about his grief: in this town, during the bombing, his wife and daughter, whom he himself brought here from the border, were killed. Kareev advises the colonel to go to the place where they died, see enough and leave forever.
Wounds that are looked at do not heal.
But the colonel came here to “punish one local person.” There was a captain in his battalion who “didn’t like being shot at.” He sent a letter to a certain lady asking her to arrange for his transfer to the rear. The letter reached Berezkin, and he sent him into battle in the “first echelon.”
Before the battle, the cowardly captain got drunk and returned to the unit with broken ribs - he turned out. Berezkin promised to visit him after the war. For three days now the colonel has been chasing the coward, now the director of a match factory, and cannot catch him. Berezkin is sure that Shchelkanov is watching him and at that moment is listening at the door.
There's a knock on the door. Nepryakhin enters with his wife Dashenka, a stately, round-faced young woman. Dashenka is not affectionate with her husband. The men invite her to the table. While drinking and eating, Dashenka talks about her neighbor Fima, for whom Shchelkanov wants to leave his wife. Rumor has it that Fima Shchelkanova “pulled her out of the war.”
At this time, an “impressive procession of collective farm people” led by a noble tractor driver is shown in the corridor. They go around the hotel rooms and treat all the guests. along with them is blind Timothy. Berezkin recognizes the guy - he served under his command, fought as a tanker on the Kursk Bulge. The colonel promises to visit Timosha later. The collective farmers go to the last room, where the “fakir from India” Rakhum is staying.
Julius begins to make the beds and discovers that he took a tablecloth instead of a sheet. Kareev says that it’s time for his son to get married - “to be charred, to burn to the ground from a gentle flame.” Julius replies that he is fireproof and the one for whom it is worth charring has not yet been born.
At this moment there is a knock on the door. Comes in unusually beautiful girl, very similar to Kareev’s beloved. This is Marka, daughter of Marya Sergeevna. She is looking for the colonel. Marka's father passed by the room, heard a conversation about the letter, and sent his daughter after him, who naively considers her father a war hero.
Berezkin does not return. Marka is about to leave. “Fireproof” Julius, fascinated by the beauty and provincial grace of the girl, undertakes to accompany her.
Act two
The Nepryakhins live in a former boiler room - a damp, but in its own cozy semi-basement room “with thick pipes for sanitary purposes.” Two closets on the sides are separated from the central part by chintz curtains. The Nepryakhina spouses are placed in one, and Timofey in the other.
Evening. Dashenka sets dinner on the table, Nepryakhin repairs neighbor Fimochka’s beautiful shoe. The slipper was brought by Tobun-Turkovskaya, “an elderly, colorful and curvaceous lady.” Once upon a time she picked up Fimochka on the street and raised her. Now Tobun-Turkovskaya is trying to arrange the future of her pupil - to find her a suitable groom.
Dashenka asks Tobun-Turkovskaya about Fimochka’s suitors. She does not hide that their goal is Shchelkanov, and says that his current wife Marya Sergeevna is “ worthy woman, but slightly outdated." Nepryakhin cannot hear gossip about a woman he respects and drives Tobun-Turkovskaya out without taking money from her.
Dashenka is angry, a family quarrel is brewing, but then there is a knock on the door and Marya Sergeevna comes in with a heavy package in her hands. Before Tobun-Turkovskaya had time to leave, she tries to talk to her about Fimochka, but Marya Sergeevna resolutely refuses the conversation, repeating that she receives visitors at the City Council on weekdays. Having achieved nothing, Tobun-Turkovskaya leaves.
Dashenka flatteringly speaks to Marya Sergeevna. She offers Nepryakhin to help with the repairs, but he refuses. Then the chairman unwraps the package, which contains a gift for Timosha - a very expensive accordion. Nepryakhin guesses that the accordion is “compensation” for Marka. Before the war, the girl was considered Timofey's bride, but now Marya Sergeevna does not want only daughter connected her life with a blind man.
Nepryakhin resolutely refuses the gift and says that nothing happened between Timofey and Marka. Timofey enters. The Nepryakhins leave him alone with Marya Sergeevna. Timofey also refuses an expensive gift, which upsets the chairman.
A good instrument in the hands of an artist is already half of his success.
Timofey says that he will not need the accordion. He has not come to terms with his situation and is going to change everything - choose a slower night and leave the city, where everyone pities him. He has no eyes, now his main tool- the brain, and it will help him rise. Timofey hopes that the girl, “who had the imprudence to get used to” him since childhood, will wait ten years, and then he will show “what a person who has love and purpose is capable of.”
Marya Sergeevna is tormented by her conscience, but she accepts Timofey’s sacrifice, warmly supports his decision and again tries to hand over the accordion. The inappropriate insistence of the chairman and the flattering notes in her voice offend the guy. He again rejects the “expensive toy” for which Marya Sergeevna is trying to exchange her daughter’s heart.
After returning from the hospital, Timofey avoids meeting with Marka; she herself comes running every evening, trying to find him at home. The guy is afraid to “falter, weaken,” give in to the girl’s pressure and ask Marya Sergeevna to protect him from meetings with Marya.
There's a knock on the door. Timofey thinks it is Marka and hides behind the curtain. Colonel Berezkin enters. He is looking for Timofey, but Marya Sergeevna says that he has left. Having learned that Shchelkanov’s wife is in front of him, the colonel gives her the letter.
Marya Sergeevna knows perfectly well that her husband is a womanizer, but now she learns about his cowardice and Fimochka’s participation in his fate. The colonel's goal is to deprive Shchelkanov of the love and respect of his loved ones.
War cannot be pitied. ‹…› Steel is forged in advance. When the blade is swung, any shell tears it in half...
The wife has not loved Shchelkanov for a long time, but the daughter still doesn’t know anything and is still attached to her father.
Marka enters the boiler room - she is looking for Timofey. The girl happily meets Berezkin and invites him, as an old friend of her father, to her name day. The colonel is silent, and Marka feels something is wrong.
Marya Sergeevna leaves, giving the colonel the opportunity to talk with his daughter alone. Then Timofey comes out from behind the curtain, asks Berezkin to give him the letter and tears it up - so he wants to protect Marka from disappointment.
Berezkin says that he intends to intervene in Timofey’s fate, promises to come in the morning and leaves. Timofey refuses to tell Marka what was in that letter and asks her to leave.
The Nepryakhins are returning. Pavel Aleksandrovich reports that in the yard, in the rain, Markim’s “boy”, Yuli, is getting wet. Timofey becomes gloomy. Marka invites everyone to the name day and leaves.
Dashenka appears from behind the curtain, dissatisfied with the fact that her husband does not take money for the work and refuses free repairs, and her stepson turns his nose up at expensive gifts and starts a scandal.
Act three
Marya Sergeevna's office, located in the former monastery refectory. The chairman receives visitors. The secretary reports that the fakir Rakhum and a certain lady are waiting in the reception room. The phone rings. Flushing up, Marya Sergeevana recognizes her former lover Kareev in her interlocutor. Stealthily looking into the mirror, she invites him to come in.
Sadly putting the mirror down, Marya Sergeevna receives the lady, who turns out to be Tobun-Turkovskaya. Brazenly looking into the eyes of the chairman, she reports that her pupil Fimochka is getting married soon. Since “the groom lives in his wife’s apartment” and does not have his own living space, and they cannot live with the newlyweds, Tobun-Turkovskaya demands that the Nepryakhins be evicted from the boiler room and the room be given to her. She emphasizes that this will not last long - Fimochka’s “groom” will be promoted and moved to the regional center.
It gradually dawns on Marya Sergeevna that Fima is going to marry Shchelkanov, and she directly tells Tobun-Turkovskaya about this. The chairman's direct move disrupts Madame's insidious game, and all she can do is take revenge. She demands that Marya Sergeevna make room and give way to her young rival. Having curbed her rage, the chairman promises to provide Tobun-Turkovka with housing and visit her after the housewarming.
Having sent Tobun-Turkovskaya out, Marya Sergeevna answers her husband’s call, reproaches him for the fact that he gave the white shoes that Marya got for her name day to his mistress, asks him not to dirty his daughter with his dirt and disappear from their life forever. Then she receives Rahuma, a provincial, old-fashioned old man. He presents the chairman with evidence of his worldwide fame and begs for financial assistance.
A trick is a temporary deception of the senses, a fakir is forever.
Marya Sergeevna gives him a jar of honey and a new plywood suitcase. Finally, the fakir undertakes to “conjure” any famous person. She “orders” Academician Kareev. Rakhuma makes passes with his hands towards the door, and Kareev enters. The fakir leaves, feeling that they were playing a joke on him.
The conversation between Marya Sergeevna and Kareev is not going well. He reports that he is heading with his son to a southern sanatorium and stopped in his hometown while passing through, for one night, and asks if Marya Sergeevna is happy. She talks about her difficult and nervous work, and then shows his only consolation - the plan of the new city.
Kareev notices that Marya Sergeevna has hardly changed, only the “dust of a long journey” has sprinkled her face and hair.
On roads with great historical movement, like ours in particular, there is always a lot of such dust.
Then the academician begins to talk in detail about his successes - books written, discoveries, students. This looks like a belated suit “for a once rejected feeling.”
Under the gaze of Marya Sergeevna, the mask of the famous scientist escapes from Kareev, and he kisses her hand in gratitude for the long-standing resentment that prompted him to reach such heights. Then Kareev again turns into a noble guest, and they try to establish a new relationship.
Marka and Yuliy enter the office. Timofey and Berezkin can be seen talking animatedly through the window. Marka introduces her mother to her companion. In the conversation it turns out that Julius is not a geologist, but a lawyer. This discovery is a bit disappointing for mother and daughter. Kareev invites Marka, delighted by Yuli’s stories, to the Pamirs. Julius declares that there is no need to postpone the trip, and invites Marka to go with him to the sea.
Marka hesitates “between temptation and conscience,” but in the end almost agrees. Marya Sergeevna supports her daughter’s decision and invites everyone to her name day. The Kareevs leave, and the chairman looks after them with a dull gaze.
Act four
The Shchelkanovs’ apartment, furnished with government-issued furniture. In the living room, Rakhuma is dozing by the stove, Kareev and Nepryakhin are playing chess, in the next room young people are tuning the radio, Marka is sitting on the ottoman and absent-mindedly listening to Yuli’s stories about the Pamirs. All her thoughts are about her mother, who is still not at home. Yuliy constantly reminds Marka how much time is left before their departure, but she just shakes her head negatively. From time to time she calls the city council, but Marya Sergeevna is still busy.
Dashenka enters the room and invites everyone to the table. Seeing Marka's confusion, she asks her not to feel sorry for Timoshka - he is busy and well-fed. Berezkin lures him with him, promising support in his new life.
Then Marya Sergeevna calls. Marka tells her mother that her father didn’t come, he only sent a “painted one” with white shoes, Berezkin also deceived her, and the Kareevs are going to leave. She doesn’t know what to do, she begs her mother to come and bring Timofey.
Dashenka again begins to tempt the girl, asking to free Timofey from herself. Fate sends Maryka a prince in a golden carriage - there is no need to refuse him, it is better to let the girl put a ring on his finger.
One is not enough - throw two, three, and don’t let the devil out of the noose. He's going to the royal palace - and you're wrapped around his neck, he's going to fly into the sky - and you're on him.
Dashenka would have put on the ring herself, but the prince did not look in her direction. Marka is frightened by Dashenka’s passionate pressure.
After lunch they wake up Rakhuma. Preparing for his performance, the fakir sees Tobun-Turkovskaya, with whom he sat for several hours in Marya Sergeevna’s waiting room, and perceives her as a personal enemy. Marka asks the fakir to get her a flower, and he promises a rose.
Marya Sergeevna arrives, followed by Timofey with a gift - a scarlet rose on a long stem. Timosha is ready to play, but the dances are canceled and the guests begin to leave. Marya Sergeevna persuades them to stay and watch the fakir’s performance - “the psychological experience of cutting up a living citizen.”
Without waiting for a volunteer, Haruma chooses Tobun-Turkovskaya, who, in turn, strives to expose the fakir. Haruma hides Madame behind the curtain, makes several passes, and she disappears with a squeak. The guests believe that Haruma turned her into a midge.
The guests leave. Marya Sergeevna says goodbye to Kareev. Yuliy promises to remind Marka with a phone call “about every bit” of the time remaining before departure. Then the mother and daughter remember the old fakir, whom the Kareevs could give a ride, and rush to look for him.
Timofey appears from the far corner of the room. Berezkkinn is already waiting for him. They leave without saying goodbye.
Except for a handful of ashes - nothing with me. You must travel light on your journey to the stars.
Seeing Rakhuma off, Marya Sergeevna admits: it was during his speech that Kareev asked for her hand in marriage and was refused. The fakir talks about the children and grandchildren who survived the war, and about those who died at Babi Yar. After saying goodbye ceremoniously, Haruma leaves.
Marka finally refuses to go to the sea. She is ready to sacrifice herself for the sake of love for Timofey and believes that he will achieve everything, “because he is strong and is not afraid of anything now... neither darkness, nor war, nor death.” The last one is heard phone call, and suddenly Marka decides that it would be nice to get away at least for a while and see the world, because this is the last opportunity, and Timofey probably won’t be angry if she leaves for a month.
Mother and daughter hastily pack their suitcase, but the phone no longer rings. Marka decides that the Kareevs left without her, but then Yuliy enters the apartment, reports that the carriage is at the entrance, grabs a suitcase and quickly disappears.
Marka asks her mother to explain to Timofey that she is not to blame for anything, and runs out into the darkness and snow. Marya Sergeevna takes a glass of champagne and raises it to her daughter, to her “high mountains.”
The play "The Golden Carriage", which is one of the most significant dramatic works Leonid Leonov, has three fundamentally different editions.
The first version was published in 1946, the second in 1955. The performance premiered on November 6, 1957 at the Moscow Art Theater. The play was performed on the stage of Leningrad and other cities of the USSR, as well as in a number of countries - Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, etc. In 1964, Leonov published the third, final version of The Golden Carriage, which is presented on this website.
Starting from the first version, Colonel Berezkin is at the center - the embodied “conscience of war”. “I wanted to make this image very high and noble,” L. Leonov shared his plan. “Berezkin is a man who went through wars, lost a lot, almost everything, and understood some main and essential meaning that was revealed to him during the war” (“The Golden Carriage.” Materials for the production of L. Leonov’s play.” M., VTO , 1946, p. 3). But what if, wanting to fulfill a sacred duty to the fallen, driven by a high sense of self-sacrifice and retribution, Berezkin comes to the destroyed town to punish the deserter Shchelkanov (in the first version - Cherkanov), but must bring grief to his innocent wife and daughter cowards - Marya Sergeevna and Marka, young soul which can be crushed by the revealed truth? At the same time, the appearance in the town of a prominent scientist, academician Kareev (Karev) with his son further complicates the psychological multi-layeredness of the play: Kareev Sr. was once in love with Marya Sergeevna, just as Kareev Jr. falls in love with her daughter, the named bride of the tankman Timosha, who was blinded in the war.
How to live? What to live with? And why should heroes live? - all these questions of enormous moral fullness fluctuate in variants, sometimes acquiring tones of extreme self-sacrifice, sometimes, on the contrary, bringing to the surface how highest value“black bread of happiness,” then, finally, as if reconciling both extremes, avoiding categoricalness in deciding people’s destinies, their future, their paths to happiness.
In the first edition, Marka leaves, and Berezkin calls Timosha, whom she abandoned, with her: “I will take you wherever you say. I'll be your eyes. You will still thunder in this universe, too small for such love and pain.” In one of the conversations, L. Leonov mentioned that among the numerous responses to the play there was a letter from a disabled war veteran with a reproach: “How are you taking away my last joy?”, which influenced the temporary change in the ending. In the second option, Marka remains in her hometown in fulfillment of an imaginary obligation to Timosha. The writer recalled that after this he once watched the last scene at the Art Theater and suddenly thought about the future of Marka, an eighteen-year-old girl, whom two real heroes - Berezkin and young Nepryakhin - doom to a difficult position, almost asceticism, with a blind man. And in the third version of the play, it was no longer Marka who refused to share her fate with Timosha, but it was he who did not accept the extreme sacrifice of the girl, for whose happiness, in the end, he fought in the war...
Famous Russian and Soviet writer Leonid Leonov left a significant mark on literature. Many of his works are highly appreciated by critics and loved by readers. One of them is the play "The Golden Carriage". A brief summary of this dramatic work is given in this article. From it you can understand what this author was like and whether his other books are worth reading.
History of the play
Leonid Leonov's play "The Golden Carriage" summary which is in the proposed material is one of his most significant dramatic works. It is noteworthy that it has reached us in three editions.
The first was written in 1946, immediately after the end of the Great Patriotic War. Then the author rethought a lot and presented the second version to the public in 1955. Soon after this, its premiere took place on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater. The production was successfully staged on other stages in Soviet cities, and foreigners also paid attention to it. theater directors. In particular, in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania. Final version Leonov presented his work in 1967. It is published in all modern publications anthology by this author.
Writer Leonid Leonov
Leonid Leonov himself was born in Moscow in 1899. Significant role in Soviet literature played for almost 60 years. He is considered one of the main masters socialist realism. Modern researchers noted it big interest to issues of morality in the traditions of Christianity, as well as in the continuation of the traditions of Dostoevsky in Russian literature.
The author's bibliography consists of several novels, which he wrote at regular intervals, often very long. His most famous major works are “Badgers”, “The Thief”, “Sot”, “Skutarevsky”, “Road to the Ocean” and “Russian Forest”. Last piece became one of the first in Russia to directly address ecological problems, which threaten the country and humanity in the near future.
He also owns a huge, one and a half thousand page, mystical and philosophical novel “The Pyramid”, on which he worked for about 40 years. He managed to publish it only in the year of his death - in 1994.
Dramatic experience
Since the 30s, Leonov actively wrote dramatic works. His plays "Untilovsk", "The Wolf, or Sandukov's Escape", "Invasion", "Mr. McKinley's Escape" enjoyed success in theatres. The latter was even filmed in 1975 by director Mikhail Schweitzer.
And, of course, the play "The Golden Carriage". A brief summary, of course, will not allow you to understand the whole essence of this work, but it will be enough to get acquainted with Leonov’s work in general terms.
The first act of the play
The events of the play "The Golden Carriage", a summary of the actions is presented below, unfold in a front-line town, just a few months after the end of the Great Patriotic War. It's 1945. Soviet Union Fascism won, but the joy that filled everyone in the first days subsided. It was replaced by an awareness of the consequences and destruction that the war left behind.
The action of the play begins in a hotel, which is located in a former monastery. New guests arrive there - academician geologist Kareev and his own son Yuliy. The owner of the hotel, Nepryakhin, shows them to their room, but the guests do not like him. The only excuse he can make is that after the war, almost the entire housing stock is in this condition.
While Kareev is talking about his first love, Colonel Berezkin appears in the room and offers him a drink. Starting from the first edition of the play "The Golden Carriage", a summary of the chapters of which is given in this article, this person was one of the key characters. In this city, the front-line soldier’s family died, but he returned to it to punish the cowardly captain who served under his command.
At the end of the evening, Marka, the daughter of Kareev’s first lover, comes to visit them. She captivates Yuli with her beauty.
Second act
The second act of Leonov's play "The Golden Carriage", a brief summary of which is presented here, takes place at the home of the hotel owner Nepryakhin. He lives with his wife and blind son Timofey.
Before dinner, Tobun-Turkovskaya comes to visit them and begins to gossip about Shchelkanov, the very captain whom Berezkin is looking for. He is now the director of the factory. Everyone around is trying to arrange his personal life, because they believe that he current wife, ex-lover Kareeva is already old. Tired of gossip, Nepryakhin kicks her out.
Then Shchelkanov’s wife Marya Sergeevna appears, who is now presiding. She brings an expensive accordion. Everyone understands that this is a gift so that Timofey will abandon her daughter. Before the war they were considered a couple, but now no one needs a blind accordion player. The family refuses the gift, and Timofey declares that he will leave the city.
The next guest is Colonel Berezkin, who gives the chairman a letter from her husband, in which he declares his love for their common neighbor and asks them to arrange for his transfer to the rear. He found this letter while still at the front. Then the whole essence of Shchelkanov became clear.
The chairman already knew that her husband was cheating on her, but now it turned out that he was also a coward. Berezkin strives for the family to hate Shchelkanov. His wife has long been disappointed in him, but his daughter is only now finding out what kind of person he really is.
Third act
The third act of L. Leonov's play "The Golden Carriage", a brief summary of which is in front of you, moves to the chairwoman's office. Tobun-Turkovskaya comes to her and explains her problem: her pupil Fimochka is going to get married, and the groom lives in his wife’s apartment and does not have his own apartment. Therefore, she asks the Nepryakhins to be evicted and the young people to settle in their place.
It dawns on the chairman that we're talking about about her husband. She calls her husband and asks him to disappear from her life forever. Kareev appears, who talks about his successes, and then Marka with his son. The Kareevs call the girl to the sea, she almost agrees. They part, making a promise to come to Marka’s name day.
Fourth and final act
The final action of the play "The Golden Carriage", a brief summary of which is presented here, takes place on the name day of the chairman's daughter. All the guests showed up, except for her mother, who is busy with the city council.
At this time, Nepryakhin’s wife persuades Marka not to miss her chance, her prince in a golden carriage, meaning Julia. However, Marka ultimately refuses the trip to the sea. She decides to sacrifice herself for the sake of love for a person like Timofey. However, Julius calls her again, and she suddenly changes her mind, believing that it is time to see the world. She rushes after Julius, asking her mother to explain to Timofey that she is not to blame for anything.
The play ends with the chairman ceremoniously raising a glass of champagne to her daughter.
Idea of the play
So, we got acquainted with the summary. Leonov's in the "Golden Carriage" the main idea lies in the problem of choice that faces every person. And also that the actions of the past affect our present.
Much of the play is devoted to the concept of "self-sacrifice." All the main characters of the work live not for themselves, but for the sake of their family and friends. In one version of the play, Marka remained with her blind fiancé.
