home-Suits-Analysis of the story of Andreev's big helmet. Analysis of the work

Analysis of the story of Andreev's big helmet. Analysis of the work

GRAND SLAM
(Story, 1902)
Maslennikov Nikolay Dmitrievich - one of the four participants
card game and, accordingly, one of the four heroes of the story
“Grand Slam”, dedicated to the eternal question of “life and death”. M.
the only hero endowed not only with a name and patronymic, but also
last name “They played screw three times a week: on Tuesdays,
Thursdays and Saturdays” - this is how the story begins. Gathered at
“the youngest of the players,” forty-three-year-old Evpraksiya Vasilievna,
who once upon a time loved a student, but “no one knew, and even she,
She seems to have forgotten why she didn’t have to get married.” Paired with her
played by her brother Prokopiy Vasilyevich, who “lost his wife on the second
a year after the wedding and a whole two months after that he spent in a hospital
for the mentally ill." M.'s (the oldest) partner was Yakov
Ivanovich, in whom one can see similarities with Chekhov’s “man in
case" - "a small, dry old man who walked in winter and summer
wearing a well-worn frock coat and trousers, silent and stern.” Dissatisfied
distribution of pairs (“ice and fire”, in the words of Pushkin), M.
laments that “he will have to<...>quit dreaming big
trumpless helmet." “This is how they played summer and winter, spring and autumn.
The decrepit world obediently bore the heavy yoke of endless existence and
sometimes blushed with blood, sometimes shed tears, announcing his path to
space with the groans of the sick, hungry and offended.” Only M.
brought into the carefully fenced off small world “echoes of this
an alarming and alien life.” It seemed strange to others
was considered a “frivolous and incorrigible person.” Some
for a time he even spoke about the Dreyfus affair, but “they answered him with silence.”
“Cards have long since lost in their eyes the meaning of soulless
matter<...>The cards were combined in infinitely different ways, and
this diversity defied either analysis or rules, but it was
time is natural.” It is for M. “grand slam in trump cards”
became my strongest desire and even dream.” Only sometimes a move
card game was disrupted by events from outside: M. disappeared for two or three
weeks, returning, aged and gray, he reported that his
the son was arrested and sent to St. Petersburg. He did not show up at one of the
Saturdays, and everyone was surprised to learn that he had been suffering from chest pain for a long time
a toad."
But no matter how much the screw players hid from the outside world, he simply and
he rudely rushed in to them. On the fateful Thursday, November 26, M. smiled
luck. However, barely having time to pronounce the cherished “Grand Slam in
no trumps!”, the lucky one suddenly died from “heart paralysis.” When
Yakov Ivanovich looked at the cards of the deceased, then saw: M. “in his hands
<...>there was a surefire grand slam.” And then Yakov Ivanovich, realizing,
that the deceased would never know about it, got scared and realized “what is
death". However, the momentary shock soon passes, and the heroes
they think not about death, but about life: where to get a fourth player? So
Andreev rethought the famous question in an ironic way
the main character from L. N. Tolstoy’s story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”:
“Am I really going to die?” Tolstoy gave Andreeva a “4” for his story.

They met three times a week to play the card game screw. Sundays were left “to all sorts of accidents” - the arrival of guests, going to the theater, so this day was the most boring day of the week for them. But in the summer, at the dacha, it was possible to play on Sundays.

They played in pairs: the fat and gambling Nikolai Dmitrievich Maslennikov - with the elderly Yakov Ivanovich, and Evpraksiya Vasilievna - with her brother, the gloomy Prokopiy Vasilyevich. This distribution of pairs was traditional and remained for many years. Eupraxia Vasilyevna insisted on him, for it was not profitable for her to play separately from her brother.

Evpraxia Vasilievna did not understand the pleasure of playing for the sake of playing and was very happy with every win. The money she won was insignificant, but she valued it more than the large credit cards she used to pay for an expensive apartment. Evpraxia Vasilyevna carefully put her winnings into her piggy bank.

The company was gathering with a brother and sister. Prokopiy Vasilievich was a widower. His wife died a year after their wedding, which forced him to spend two months in a mental hospital. Forty-three-year-old Eupraxia Vasilyevna once had an affair with a student. She had already forgotten why she didn’t marry him, but since then every year she anonymously donated one hundred rubles to needy students. A large white cat lived with his brother and sister.

Maslennikov was very dissatisfied with the distribution into pairs. His partner Yakov Ivanovich, a small and dry old man, was silent, strict, punctual, never took risks and considered Nikolai Dmitrievich incorrigibly frivolous. And Maslennikov dreamed of playing a grand slam, which required taking a risk and collecting a large and rare combination of cards. He always took risks, but he was constantly unlucky in the game.

They played like this for years.

The decrepit world obediently bore the heavy yoke of endless existence and either blushed with blood or shed tears, announcing its path through space with the groans of the sick, hungry and offended.

Only “faint echoes of this alarming and alien life” reached the company. As a rule, Nikolai Dmitrievich brought them, but the others did not want to listen to him. They retired to a high room with upholstered furniture, carpets and curtains that absorbed any sound, and immersed themselves in the game, and the maid, walking silently, served them tea. The silence was broken only by the rustle of her starched skirts, the creaking of a chalk and the sighs of the unlucky Maslennikov.

One day, Nikolai Dmitrievich greatly alarmed his partners by starting to tell them the story of Dreyfus, a French officer falsely accused of spying for Germany, sentenced to hard labor, but then acquitted under public pressure. At first Maslennikov was simply worried and happy for Dreyfus, then he began to bring newspapers and read out loud what seemed to him the most important, and almost quarreled everyone. Eupraxia Vasilievna demanded the immediate release of Dreyfus, and her brother and Yakov Ivanovich believed that formalities should first be observed. Yakov Ivanovich was the first to come to his senses, returned his partners to the game, and they no longer talked about Dreyfus.

From now on, all the excitement in the life of the company was associated only with the game.

Cards had long ago lost the meaning of soulless matter in their eyes, and each suit, and within a suit each card individually, was strictly individual and lived its own separate life.

The combinations in which the cards in their hands were assembled were not amenable to analysis or rules, but they were natural. It seemed that the cards lived their own life, separate from the players, and seemed to have “their own will, their own tastes, likes and whims.” So, the hearts loved Yakov Ivanovich most of all, and Eupraxia Vasilievna only got spades, which she could not stand. Only a small card went to Nikolai Dmitrievich. He was sure that the Cards knew about his dream of hitting a grand slam and were mocking him.

There were events outside the game as well. A white cat died of old age, and Evpraksia Vasilievna, with the permission of the homeowner, buried him in the garden. Then Maslennikov disappeared for two weeks, and it became boring for the three of us to play. Nikolai Dmitrievich returned haggard and gray and reported that his eldest son had been arrested and sent to St. Petersburg. The partners did not even suspect that Maslennikov had a son, and were very surprised. Soon he missed the game again, and everyone was surprised to learn that he was sick with angina pectoris and did not come due to an attack.

Then everything returned to normal again. The game became more serious, as Maslennikov stopped being distracted by extraneous things.

Only the maid's starched skirts rustled and the satin cards silently slid from the players' hands and lived their own mysterious and silent life, separate from the lives of the people who played them.

One Thursday, “a strange change occurred in the cards” - Nikolai Dmitrievich began to have luck. Everything turned out in such a way that for the grand slam he only needed the ace of spades. He extended his hand to take a card from the draw, swayed and, after sitting motionless for a second, fell.

The doctor who arrived soon said that Maslennikov died of cardiac paralysis. Trying not to look at the dead man, Yakov Ivanovich took his cards, then looked at the buy-in - Nikolai Dmitrievich really should have gotten a grand slam, but now he will never know that his old dream has almost come true. Yakov Ivanovich was shocked by this consideration and the “terrible in its simplicity” word “never.”

And it seemed to Yakov Ivanovich that he still did not understand what death was. But now he understood, and what he clearly saw was “senseless, terrible and irreparable.”

Yakov Ivanovich began to cry out of pity for himself and the others, to whom the same “terrible and senselessly cruel” thing would happen as to Maslennikov. Crying, he finished his game for Nikolai Dmitrievich.

Evpraksiya Vasilievna came in and said that her brother had gone to look for Maslennikov’s apartment to inform his family about his death. Recently Nikolai Dmitrievich moved, and now no one knew his exact address.

Yakov Ivanovich thought that they now did not have a fourth player. He decided that Evpraxia Vasilievna was thinking about the same thing, but he was mistaken - she thoughtfully asked if he had changed his apartment.

M. Gorky considered “The Grand Slam” the best story by L.N. Andreeva. The work was highly appreciated by L.N. Tolstoy. In a card game, a “grand slam” is a position in which the opponent cannot take any of his partner’s cards with the highest card or trump card. For six years, three times a week (on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays) Nikolai Dmitrievich Maslennikov, Yakov Ivanovich, Prokopy Vasilyevich and Evpraksiya Vasilievna play screw. Andreev emphasizes that the stakes in the game were insignificant and the winnings were small. However, Evpraxia Vasilievna really valued the money she won and put it separately in her piggy bank.

The behavior of the characters during a card game clearly shows their attitude towards life in general. The elderly Yakov Ivanovich never plays more than four, even if he had a good game on his hands. He is careful and prudent. “You never know what might happen,” he comments on his habit.

His partner Nikolai Dmitrievich, on the contrary, always takes risks and constantly loses, but does not lose heart and dreams of winning back next time. One day Maslennikov became interested in Dreyfus. Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) - an officer of the French general staff who was accused of transferring secret documents to Germany in 1894, and then acquitted. The partners first argue about the Dreyfus case, but soon get carried away by the game and fall silent.

When Prokopiy Vasilievich loses, Nikolai Dmitrievich rejoices, and Yakov Ivanovich advises not to take risks next time. Prokopiy Vasilyevich is afraid of great happiness, since great sorrow follows it.

Evpraksiya Vasilievna is the only woman among the four players. During a big game, she looks pleadingly at her brother, her constant partner. Other partners await her move with chivalrous sympathy and condescending smiles.

The symbolic meaning of the story is that our whole life, in fact, can be represented as a card game. It has partners, and there are rivals. “Cards can be combined in infinitely different ways,” writes L.N. Andreev. An analogy immediately arises: life also presents us with endless surprises. The writer emphasizes that people tried to achieve their own in the game, and the cards lived their own lives, which defied either analysis or rules. Some people go with the flow in life, others rush around and try to change their fate. For example, Nikolai Dmitrievich believes in luck and dreams of playing a “grand slam”. When, finally, the long-awaited serious game comes to Nikolai Dmitrievich, he, fearing to miss it, assigns a “grand slam in no trumps” - the most difficult and highest combination in the card hierarchy. The hero takes a certain risk, since for a sure victory he must also receive the ace of spades in the draw. To everyone's surprise and admiration, he reaches for the purchase and suddenly dies from cardiac paralysis. After his death, it turned out that, by a fateful coincidence, the draw contained the same ace of spades that would have ensured a sure victory in the game.

After the death of the hero, the partners think about how Nikolai Dmitrievich would rejoice at this game played. All people in this life are players. They try to take revenge, win, catch luck by the tail, thereby asserting themselves, count small victories, and think very little about those around them. For many years, people met three times a week, but rarely talked about anything other than the game, did not share problems, and did not even know where their friends lived. And only after the death of one of them, the rest understand how dear they were to each other. Yakov Ivanovich is trying to imagine himself in his partner’s place and feel what Nikolai Dmitrievich must have felt when he played the “grand slam”. It is no coincidence that the hero changes his habits for the first time and begins to play a card game, the results of which his deceased comrade will never see. It is symbolic that the most open person is the first to leave for another world. He told his partners about himself more often than others, and was not indifferent to the problems of others, as evidenced by his interest in the Dreyfus case.

The story has philosophical depth and subtlety of psychological analysis. Its plot is both original and characteristic of works of the “Silver Age” era. At this time, the theme of the catastrophic nature of existence, the ominous fate hanging over human destiny, receives special significance. It is no coincidence that the motive of sudden death brings together the story of L.N. Andreev “Grand Slam” with the work of I.A. Bunin's "Mr. from San Francisco", in which the hero also dies at the very moment when he finally had to enjoy what he had dreamed of all his life.

They played screw three times a week: on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays; Sunday was very convenient for playing, but it had to be left to all sorts of chance: the arrival of strangers, the theater, and therefore it was considered the most boring day of the week. However, in the summer, at the dacha, they played on Sundays. They were placed like this: the fat and hot Maslennikov played with Yakov Ivanovich, and Evpraksiya Vasilyevna played with her gloomy brother, Prokopiy Vasilyevich. This distribution was established a long time ago, about six years ago, and Evpraxia Vasilievna insisted on it. The fact is that it was of no interest to her and her brother to play separately, against each other, since in this case the gain of one was the loss of the other, and in the final result they did not win or lose. And although in monetary terms the game was insignificant and Evpraxia Vasilyevna and her brother did not need money, she could not understand the pleasure of playing for the sake of the game and was happy when she won. She put the money she won separately, in a piggy bank, and it seemed to her much more important and more expensive than those large credit cards that she had to pay for an expensive apartment and issue for housekeeping. For the game they gathered at Prokopiy Vasilyevich's, since in the entire vast apartment only he and his sister lived - there was also a large white cat, but he always slept on an armchair - and the silence necessary for studying reigned in the rooms. Eupraxia Vasilievna's brother was a widow: he lost his wife in the second year after the wedding and spent two whole months after that in a mental hospital; she herself was unmarried, although she once had an affair with a student. No one knew, and she seemed to have forgotten why she did not have to marry her student, but every year, when the usual appeal for help for needy students appeared, she sent to the committee a neatly folded hundred-ruble piece of paper “from an unknown person.” In terms of age, she was the youngest of the players: she was forty-three years old. At first, when the division into pairs was created, the eldest of the players, Maslennikov, was especially dissatisfied with it. He was indignant that he would constantly have to deal with Yakov Ivanovich, that is, in other words, give up the dream of a big, trumpless helmet. And in general, she and her partner were completely unsuited to each other. Yakov Ivanovich was a small, dry old man, who wore a welded frock coat and trousers winter and summer, silent and stern. He always appeared exactly at eight o'clock, not a minute earlier or later, and immediately took the chalk with dry fingers, on one of which a large diamond ring walked freely. But the most terrible thing for Maslennikov about his partner was that he never played more than four, even when he had a big and sure game in his hands. One day it happened that, as Yakov Ivanovich began to move from the deuce, he moved away all the way to the ace, taking all thirteen tricks. Maslennikov angrily threw his cards on the table, and the gray-haired old man calmly collected them and wrote down for the game, as many as four. - But why didn’t you play the grand slam? - Nikolai Dmitrievich (that was Maslennikov’s name) cried out. “I never play more than four,” the old man answered dryly and instructively remarked: “You never know what might happen.” Nikolai Dmitrievich could not convince him. He himself always took risks and, since the card did not suit him, he constantly lost, but did not despair and thought that he would be able to win back next time. Gradually they got used to their position and did not interfere with each other: Nikolai Dmitrievich took risks, and the old man calmly recorded the loss and appointed a game at four. This is how they played summer and winter, spring and autumn. The decrepit world obediently bore the heavy yoke of endless existence and either blushed with blood or shed tears, announcing its path through space with the groans of the sick, hungry and offended. Nikolai Dmitrievich brought faint echoes of this alarming and alien life with him. He was sometimes late and entered at a time when everyone was already sitting at the laid out table and the cards stood out like a pink fan on its green surface. Nikolai Dmitrievich, red-cheeked, smelling of fresh air, hastily took his place opposite Yakov Ivanovich, apologized and said: - There are so many people walking on the boulevard. So they go, so they go... Eupraxia Vasilievna considered herself obliged, as a hostess, not to notice the oddities of her guests. Therefore, she answered alone, while the old man silently and sternly prepared the chalk, and her brother gave orders about the tea. - Yes, probably - the weather is good. But shouldn't we start? And they began. The tall room, which destroyed the sound with its upholstered furniture and curtains, became completely deaf. The maid silently moved along the fluffy carpet, carrying glasses of strong tea, and only her starched skirts rustled, the chalk squeaked and Nikolai Dmitrievich sighed, having set the large heald. Thin tea was poured for him and a special table was set up, since he loved to drink from a saucer and always with toffee. In winter, Nikolai Dmitrievich reported that during the day the frost was ten degrees, and now it had already reached twenty, and in the summer he said: - Now a whole company has gone into the forest. With baskets. Evpraksiya Vasilievna politely looked at the sky - in the summer they played on the terrace - and, although the sky was clear and the tops of the pines were golden, she noticed: - It wouldn't rain. And old man Yakov Ivanovich strictly laid out the cards and, taking out the two of hearts, thought that Nikolai Dmitrievich was a frivolous and incorrigible person. At one time, Maslennikov greatly worried his partners. Every time he came, he began to say one or two phrases about Dreyfus. Making a sad face, he reported: - And things are bad for our Dreyfus. Or, on the contrary, he laughed and joyfully said that the unjust sentence would probably be overturned. Then he began to bring newspapers and read some passages from them all about the same Dreyfus. “We’ve already read it,” Yakov Ivanovich said dryly, but his partner did not listen to him and read what seemed interesting and important to him. Once, in this way, he brought the others to an argument and almost to a quarrel, since Evpraxia Vasilievna did not want to recognize the legal order of legal proceedings and demanded that Dreyfus be released immediately, and Yakov Ivanovich and her brother insisted that first it was necessary to observe some formalities and then release. Yakov Ivanovich was the first to come to his senses and said, pointing to the table:- But isn't it time? And they sat down to play, and then, no matter how much Nikolai Dmitrievich spoke about Dreyfus, they answered him with silence. This is how they played summer and winter, spring and autumn. Sometimes events happened, but more of a funny nature. At times, something seemed to come over Eupraxia Vasilyevna’s brother; he didn’t remember what the partners said about their cards, and with five correct cards he was left without one. Then Nikolai Dmitrievich laughed loudly and exaggerated the significance of the loss, and the old man smiled and said: - If four played, they would have been with their own people. All the players showed particular excitement when Evpraxia Vasilievna called a big game. She blushed, was confused, not knowing which card to put her, and looked pleadingly at her silent brother, and the other two partners, with chivalrous sympathy for her femininity and helplessness, encouraged her with condescending smiles and waited patiently. In general, however, the game was taken seriously and thoughtfully. Cards had long ago lost the meaning of soulless matter in their eyes, and each suit, and within a suit each card individually, was strictly individual and lived its own separate life. There were favorite and unloved suits, happy and unhappy ones. The cards were combined in an infinite variety, and this variety defied either analysis or rules, but at the same time it was natural. And this pattern contained the life of the cards, which was different from the lives of the people who played them. People wanted and got their way from them, and the cards did their own thing, as if they had their own will, their own tastes, likes and whims. Worms especially often came to Yakov Ivanovich, and Eupraxia Vasilievna’s hands were always full of spades, although she did not like them very much. It happened that the cards were capricious, and Yakov Ivanovich did not know what to do with the spades, and Evpraksiya Vasilyevna rejoiced at the hearts, appointed big games and remixed. And then the cards seemed to laugh. All suits came to Nikolai Dmitrievich equally, and not one stayed for long, and all the cards looked like hotel guests who come and go, indifferent to the place where they had to spend several days. Sometimes, for several evenings in a row, only twos and threes would come to him and at the same time they had an impudent and mocking appearance. Nikolai Dmitrievich was sure that the reason he could not play a grand slam was because the cards knew about his desire and deliberately did not go to him in order to annoy him. And he pretended that he was completely indifferent to what kind of game he would have, and tried not to reveal the buy-in for a long time. Very rarely did he manage to deceive the cards in this way; They usually guessed, and when he opened the purchase, three sixes laughed and the king of spades, whom they had dragged in for company, smiled gloomily. Evpraxia Vasilyevna penetrated least of all into the mysterious essence of the cards; old man Yakov Ivanovich had long ago developed a strictly philosophical view and was not surprised or upset, having a sure weapon against fate in his four. Only Nikolai Dmitrievich could not come to terms with the whimsical rights of the cards, their mockery and inconstancy. Going to bed, he thought about how he would play a grand slam with no trumps, and it seemed so simple and possible: here comes one ace, followed by a king, then an ace again. But when, full of hope, he sat down to play, the damned sixes again bared their wide white teeth. There was something fatal and evil in this. And gradually the grand slam in the trump cards became the strongest desire and even dream of Nikolai Dmitrievich. Other events occurred outside of the card game. Eupraxia Vasilievna's large white cat died of old age and, with the permission of the homeowner, was buried in the garden under a linden tree. Then Nikolai Dmitrievich disappeared one day for two whole weeks, and his partners did not know what to think and what to do, since the three of them broke all established habits and seemed boring. The cards themselves clearly recognized this and were combined in unusual forms. When Nikolai Dmitrievich appeared, his rosy cheeks, which were so sharply separated from his gray fluffy hair, turned grey, and he became smaller and shorter in stature. He said that his eldest son had been arrested for something and sent to St. Petersburg. Everyone was surprised because they didn’t know that Maslennikov had a son; maybe he ever spoke, but everyone forgot about it. Soon after this, he failed to show up again, and, as luck would have it, on Saturday, when the game lasted longer than usual, and everyone was again surprised to learn that he had been suffering from angina pectoris for a long time and that on Saturday he had a severe attack of the disease. But then everything settled down again, and the game became even more serious and interesting, since Nikolai Dmitrievich was less amused by extraneous conversations. Only the maid's starched skirts rustled and the satin cards silently slid from the players' hands and lived their own mysterious and silent life, separate from the lives of the people who played them. They were still indifferent to Nikolai Dmitrievich and sometimes maliciously mocking, and there was something fatal in this. But on Thursday, November 26, a strange change occurred in the cards. As soon as the game began, a large crown came to Nikolai Dmitrievich, and he played, and not even five, as he had appointed, but a small helmet, since Yakov Ivanovich had an extra ace, which he did not want to show. Then sixes appeared again for a while, but soon disappeared, and full suits began to arrive, and they came in strict order, as if they all wanted to see how Nikolai Dmitrievich would rejoice. He assigned game after game, and everyone was surprised, even the calm Yakov Ivanovich. The excitement of Nikolai Dmitrievich, whose chubby fingers with dimples on the bends were sweating and dropping cards, was transmitted to other players. “Well, you’re lucky today,” said Eupraxia Vasilievna’s brother gloomily, who was most afraid of too much happiness, followed by an equally great sorrow. Eupraxia Vasilyevna was pleased that Nikolai Dmitrievich had finally received good cards, and in response to her brother’s words, she spat to the side three times to prevent misfortune. - Ugh, ugh, ugh! There is nothing special. The cards come and go, and God grant that more come. The cards seemed to hesitate for a minute, several deuces flashed with an embarrassed look - and again aces, kings and queens began to appear with increased speed. Nikolai Dmitrievich did not have time to collect the cards and set the game and had already failed twice, so he had to retake it. And all the games were successful, although Yakov Ivanovich stubbornly kept silent about his aces: his surprise gave way to disbelief at the sudden change in happiness, and he once again repeated his unchanged decision - not to play more than four. Nikolai Dmitrievich was angry with him, blushed and was out of breath. He no longer thought about his moves and boldly called for a high game, confident that he would find what he needed in the buy-in. When, after the gloomy Prokopiy Vasilievich Maslennikov dealt the cards, he revealed his cards, his heart began to pound and immediately sank, and his eyes became so dark that he swayed - he had twelve tricks in his hands: clubs and hearts from Ace to Ten and an Ace of Diamonds with a King . If he buys the Ace of Spades, he will have a big no-trump helmet. “Two without trumps,” he began, having difficulty controlling his voice. “Three spades,” answered Evpraxia Vasilievna, who was also very excited: she had almost all the spades, starting from the king. “Four worms,” Yakov Ivanovich responded dryly. Nikolai Dmitrievich immediately raised the game to a small slam, but the heated Evpraksiya Vasilievna did not want to give in and, although she saw that she would not play, appointed a large slam in spades. Nikolai Dmitrievich thought for a second and with some solemnity, behind which fear was hidden, slowly said: - Grand slam in no trumps! Nikolai Dmitrievich plays a grand slam in no trumps! Everyone was amazed, and the owner’s brother even grunted:- Wow! Nikolai Dmitrievich extended his hand for the purchase, but swayed and knocked over the candle. Eupraxia Vasilievna grabbed her, and Nikolai Dmitrievich sat motionless and straight for a second, putting the cards on the table, and then waved his hands and slowly began to fall to the left side. Falling, he knocked over the table on which stood a saucer with poured tea, and crushed its crunchy leg with his body. When the doctor arrived, he found that Nikolai Dmitrievich had died of cardiac paralysis, and to console the living he said a few words about the painlessness of such a death. The deceased was placed on a Turkish sofa in the same room where they played, and he, covered with a sheet, seemed huge and scary. One leg, with its toe turned inward, remained uncovered and seemed foreign, taken from another person; On the sole of the boot, black and completely new, a piece of toffee paper stuck to the indentation. The card table had not yet been cleared, and on it lay randomly scattered, face down, the partners' cards and Nikolai Dmitrievich's cards lay in order, in a thin block, as he had laid them out. Yakov Ivanovich walked around the room with small and uncertain steps, trying not to look at the dead man and not to step from the carpet onto the polished parquet floor, where his high heels made a sudden and sharp click. Having walked past the table several times, he stopped and carefully took Nikolai Dmitrievich’s cards, examined them and, folding them in the same pile, quietly put them in place. Then he looked at the buy-in: there was an ace of spades, the same one that Nikolai Dmitrievich lacked for a grand slam. After walking a few more times, Yakov Ivanovich went into the next room, buttoned up his coat more tightly and began to cry, because he felt sorry for the deceased. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine Nikolai Dmitrievich’s face as it was during his life, when he won and laughed. It was especially unfortunate to remember the frivolity of Nikolai Dmitrievich and how he wanted to win the big no-trump slam. The whole of today's evening passed in my memory, starting with the five diamonds that the deceased played, and ending with this continuous influx of good cards, in which something terrible was felt. And then Nikolai Dmitrievich died - he died when he could finally play a grand slam. But one consideration, terrible in its simplicity, shook the thin body of Yakov Ivanovich and made him jump out of his chair. Looking around, as if the thought had not come to him on its own, but someone had whispered it in his ear, Yakov Ivanovich said loudly: - But he will never know that there was an ace in the draw and that he had the right big helmet on his hands. Never! And it seemed to Yakov Ivanovich that he still did not understand what death was. But now he understood, and what he clearly saw was so senseless, terrible and irreparable. He'll never know! If Yakov Ivanovich starts shouting about this right in his ear, crying and showing cards, Nikolai Dmitrievich will not hear and will never know, because there is no Nikolai Dmitrievich in the world. Just one more movement, one second of something that is life, and Nikolai Dmitrievich would see the ace and know that he has a grand slam, but now it’s all over and he doesn’t know and will never know. “Never,” Yakov Ivanovich said slowly, syllable by syllable, to make sure that such a word existed and had meaning. Such a word existed and had meaning, but it was so monstrous and bitter that Yakov Ivanovich again fell into a chair and cried helplessly from pity for the one who would never know, and from pity for himself, for everyone, since the same thing is terrible and senselessly cruel things will happen to him and to everyone. He cried - and played for Nikolai Dmitrievich with his cards, and took bribes one after another, until there were thirteen of them, and thought how much he would have to write down, and that Nikolai Dmitrievich would never know this. This was the first and last time when Yakov Ivanovich stepped back from his four and played a big no-trump slam in the name of friendship. - Are you here, Yakov Ivanovich? - said Evpraxia Vasilievna, who came in, sank down onto a nearby chair and began to cry. - How terrible, how terrible! Both of them did not look at each other and cried silently, feeling that in the next room, on the sofa, a dead man lay, cold, heavy and dumb. - Did you send to say? - asked Yakov Ivanovich, blowing his nose loudly and furiously. - Yes, my brother went with Annushka. But how will they find his apartment - we don’t know the address. - Isn’t he in the same apartment as last year? - Yakov Ivanovich asked absently. - No, I changed it. Annushka says that he hired a cab driver somewhere on Novinsky Boulevard. “They’ll find it through the police,” the old man reassured. - It seems like he has a wife? Eupraxia Vasilievna looked thoughtfully at Yakov Ivanovich and did not answer. It seemed to him that in her eyes he could see the same thought that had occurred to him. He blew his nose again, hid the handkerchief in the pocket of his coat and said, raising his eyebrows questioningly over his reddened eyes: - Where can we get the fourth one now? But Eupraxia Vasilyevna did not hear him, busy with economic considerations. After a pause, she asked: - And you, Yakov Ivanovich, are you still in the same apartment?

We were struck by the strength and sincerity in the author’s desire to share the suffering of a person with an extraordinary, sometimes painful temperament in defending his favorite - sometimes heroic, sometimes darkly decadent - ideas, the desire for an accumulation of effects and dramatic - often melodramatic - situations. His works were unlike “traditional” literature: they captivated or repelled, but never left you indifferent.

The brokenness of a young soul

The grandson of the Oryol leader of the nobility and a peasant woman, the son of a poor land surveyor, the writer experienced the horrors of the city outskirts, half-starved student life, painful discord with himself, hatred of the meaningless existence of the “crowd”. As a sixteen-year-old high school student, he wrote in his diary: “The time will come, I will paint people an amazing picture of their lives.” He experienced attacks of severe mental despair, attempted suicide several times (the palm of his left hand was pierced by a bullet, his fingers were twisted) and at the same time he was overwhelmed by burning, corrosive, ambitious thoughts, a thirst for fame and fame. I once confessed to Gorky: “Even when I was fourteen years old, I told myself that I would be famous, or it wouldn’t be worth living.”

Early creativity

Leonid Andreev entered literature at the very end of the last century (on April 5, 1898, the Easter story “Bargamot and Garaska” was published for the first time under his full signature in the newspaper “Courier”). And his early stories - “Once upon a time”, “Grand Slam”, “Petka at the Dacha”, “Ghost”, “From the life of Staff Captain Kablukov”, etc. - showed us traditional realism, democratic aspirations, noticeable influence Chekhov and Gorky. An example is the story “Petka at the Dacha” (1898), which evokes compassion for a dirty and downtrodden hairdresser “boy” who looks not like a ten-year-old child, but like an “aged dwarf.” However, here the motives familiar from Chekhov’s “Vanka Zhukov” are complicated by the author’s demonstrative intervention in the fate of his heroes. Even in these realistic stories, which are strong in texture, something different and new is noticeable. "It happens; it can be so,” writers of the 19th century asserted in their works. “So be it,” Andreev seems to say. Already in these early works one can feel the beginnings of what Gorky called “the depiction of rebellions within a person.” Over time, Andreev’s work became increasingly dominated by the motifs of “social pessimism”, an attraction to the “abyss” of the human psyche and symbolic generalizations in the depiction of people. This was the difference between Andreev and the writers of traditional realism. He did not proceed from the immediate impressions of life, but with amazing artistic skill he brought the material under a predetermined scheme.

Here is an early story “The Grand Slam” (1899), the hero of which is Nikolai Dmitrievich. Maslennikov dies at the card table at the moment of his highest “gambler” happiness. And then - an unheard of thing - it turns out that Maslennikov’s partners, with whom he whiled away long evenings in a small town for many years, know nothing about him, not even his address... Here everything is subordinated (albeit to the detriment of plausibility) to the idea of ​​​​tragic disunity of people.

Climbing

The literary career of Leonid Andreev was unusually happy. An unknown fellow attorney at law, yesterday's court chronicler for the Kurier newspaper, he quickly rises to the forefront of Russian writers and becomes the ruler of the thoughts of the reading public. His acquaintance with Gorky (in 1898) meant a lot to him, which soon turned into a long, albeit uneven, but very beneficial friendship for him. “...If we talk about people who really influenced my destiny as a writer,” said Andreev, “then I can only point to one Maxim Gorky, an exceptionally loyal friend of literature and writer.”

Following Gorky, Andreev joined the Teleshov literary circle “Sreda” and the democratic publishing house “Znanie”. The collection of his stories, which appeared in 1901, was sold in twelve editions with a total circulation of forty-seven thousand copies that was extraordinary for that time. At this time, he was one of the leading “knowledge” writers, perhaps the brightest star in the “Big Maxim” constellation. But the same force - dependence on time, its ebbs and flows - that made Andreev a comrade-in-arms of Gorky, also alienated him, leading him to the other pole of literature.

Leonid Andreev responded to all changes in social and political life with some kind of, I would like to say, seismographic sensitivity. Caught up in the social upsurge, he is aware of the life-affirming short story “In Spring” (1902) and “La Marseillaise” (1903) - a story about the awakening of heroic feelings under the influence of comradely solidarity in a timid and apolitical man in the street. When the Russo-Japanese War broke out, he responded to it with an accusatory “Red Laughter,” imbued with a pacifist protest against the senseless slaughter. And when the revolution of 1905 flared up, he wrote to V.V. Veresaev: “Believe me, not a single thought is left in my head except revolution, revolution, revolution...” And this was not an empty phrase from Andreev, who offered his apartment for holding a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP in Moscow, they are imprisoned in Tagansk prison. He performs the play “To the Stars”, in which he creates the image of the revolutionary worker Treich, close to Neil from Gorky’s “The Bourgeois”. Then a reaction comes, and the same Andreev turns out to be the author of the anti-revolutionary story “Darkness” (1907), the appearance of which aggravated his differences with Gorky. Andreev himself once said: “Today I am a mystic and an anarchist - okay; tomorrow I will write revolutionary signs... and the day after tomorrow I, perhaps, will go to Iverskaya with a prayer service, and from there to the private bailiff for a pie.”

At the crossroads of realism and modernism

However, behind all these oscillations of the pendulum - to the left, to the right, again to the left, etc. - the general direction of Andreev’s artistic search emerged more and more clearly. A writer sensitive to social contradictions, he quickly overcomes the illusions of sentimental and somewhat complacent humanism and, starting with “Red Laughter,” strives to express in generalized images-symbols all the contradictions in the life of human society in its main, key moments. “The question of individual individuals has somehow been exhausted, gone away,” Andreev admits in a letter to V.V. Veresaev in 1906, “I want to connect all these motley individualities in one way or another, by war or peace, with the general, with the human.” A person “in general” - who finds himself in an exceptional situation - is what attracts his attention. “It doesn’t matter to me who “he” is the hero of my stories: a priest, an official, a good-natured person or a brute, he shares in a letter to. “Only one thing is important to me - that he is a man and as such bears the same hardships of life.”

If we talk about the success of Andreev’s works among the reader, then throughout the 1900s. it's only growing. The response to the massacre of the revolutionaries is the famous “The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men” (1908). However, the writer’s attention is also concentrated here on the “general” experiences of those sentenced to death when they go through the stages of martyrdom: trial, stay in a cell, last meeting with loved ones, execution. Everything concrete has been removed, leaving only the painful sensations of seven people near inexorably approaching death. Man and death - this is the philosophical problem that Andreev poses in “The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men.” Crime and retribution are the essence of the story “The Governor” (1905), where the royal dignitary, who gave the order to shoot at unarmed people, himself understands the inevitability of retribution for what he did and obediently awaits the terrorist’s black revolver eye.

Leonid Andreev's protest, for all its maximalism, carried a deep internal contradiction. Captivated by the gloomy philosophy of Schopenhauer and the psychology of the “underground man” of Dostoevsky, the writer passionately denounces modern culture, the modern city, modern society, and seems to go to the last line in criticizing religion, morality, and reason. However, this trait of his heroes is met with skepticism, disbelief, the idea of ​​the inevitability of suffering and the impossibility of happiness. Father Vasily (“The Life of Basil of Thebes”) suddenly reveals that there is nothing there, and throws a curse at a God who no longer exists for him: “So why did you keep me captive, in slavery, in chains all my life? No thoughts, no freedom! No feelings! Not a breath!” But what awaits him now, in the freedom of unbelief? The despair of a meaningless life, Doctor Kerzhentsev (“Thought”), who committed murder out of jealousy, comprehends the futility of human reason and morality, in a Nietzschean impulse rises above society: “You will say that you cannot steal, kill, but I will tell you that you can kill and to rob, and this is very moral.” However, the weakness of the mind turns against him when, placed in a psychiatric hospital, Kerzhentsev is left alone “with his pitiful, powerless, terribly lonely self.” The anarchist Savva (drama of the same name) recognizes the absurdity of the social structure and dreams of blowing up society, culture and leaving the “naked man” on the “bare earth”. But Sava’s first attempt to break the foundations of society (he blows up an icon in the monastery) only leads to the strengthening of these foundations and the strengthening of faith among the “crowd”.

Revolutionary uprisings lead Andreev to the degeneration of the knights of the idea into robbers, “forest brothers” (the novel “Sashka Zhegulev”, 1911), cause the revelry of primitive instincts, an orgy of senseless murders, the destruction of cultural values, self-destruction (the play “Tsar Famine”) and, as a result, they end with the restoration of despotic power, the triumph of the oppressors (the story “It Was So”, the play “Tsar Famine”). Anarchist protest, maximalist denial of bourgeois society turn into disbelief in man, in his healthy, creative beginning.

L. Andreev and symbolism

Like the Symbolists, Andreev rejected everydayism, “flat description.” He rushed, neglecting reality, “deeply” - to the metaphysical essence of things in order to discover the coveted “secret”. But complete lack of faith led him to a total denial of the meaning of life and the value of man as such. As one of the masters of symbolism, Vyach, noted on this occasion. Ivanov, “the combination of symbolism with atheism dooms a person to forced solitude among the endlessly gaping gaps around him in the horror of non-existence. To the hero of “My Notes” (1908), who spent many years in prison due to a miscarriage of justice, freedom seems worse than imprisonment: he sees the whole world as a huge “immortal prison.” And there is no way out of this prison, no deliverance, according to Andreev.

"Who am I? - Andreev reflected in 1912, - for noble decadents - a despicable realist; for hereditary realists - a suspicious symbolist.” Realizing a certain duality of his ideological position and artistic method, the writer experienced this acutely as a human being, suffering from deep differences with his recent friend Gorky.

Expressionist writer

Who was Leonid Andreev? To which direction does his work belong? He was one of the first, earliest representatives of expressionism and literature (from the French expression - expression, expressiveness) - a direction that emerged during the First World War and the revolutionary upheavals that followed it and conveyed a feeling of crisis in the bourgeois world. “Russian modernists,” notes literary theorist P. V. Palievsky, “purely walked ahead of their Western colleagues, but they were clearly unlucky with international recognition...”

Expressionism, which first emerged in Germany as a movement in painting, has replaced impressionism: “image” is replaced by “expression,” the artist’s screaming “I” displaces the subject; in comparison with previous art, “the ego is not the eyes, but the mouth” (according to the description of the Austrian writer Hermann Bahr). This cry on the highest note, rationalistic symbolism, deliberate schematism in the construction of characters “liberated” from everything non-specific, the accumulation of mysterious and terrible events are extremely characteristic of Andreev’s works.

Under a floating candle held by Someone in Gray, the meaningless life of a Man passes, accompanied by the indifferent words of an ominous reasoner: “In the night of nothingness, a lamp will flash and will burn until a person, limited by vision, not seeing the next stage of life, will go through all of them and return to that the same night from which it came, and will disappear without a trace. And the cruel fate of people will become his fate” (drama “A Man’s Life”). At Duke Lorenzo's magnificent carnival, terrible ghosts appear instead of friends. And, surrounded by black masks advancing on him, the young Duke goes crazy and, mad, dies in the flames of a fire (“Black Masks”, 1908).

However, Leonid Andreev almost simultaneously worked on works of an abstract-symbolic nature and works of a realistic orientation. The same year of 1908 marked the deeply psychological “The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men” and the fantastic drama “Black Masks”; in 1910, the everyday play about students “Gaudeamus” and the purely symbolist “Anatema” appeared. Moreover, in the works themselves, saturated with abstract symbolism, we will also find purely realistic scenes (“The Life of a Man”). Andreev is looking for new forms of representation and strives to expand the possibilities of literature.

Artistic originality

Protest against the suppression of personality is the problem of Andreev’s creativity. All artistic means are subordinated to this goal - elevated rhetoric in plays and prose, exceptional situations, unexpected turns of thought, an abundance of paradoxes, the form of confession, notes, diary, when the soul of a “dissocialized person” is exposed to the limit. Gorky complained in his memoirs that Andreev, who in comrades knew how to “use humor flexibly and beautifully,” in his stories “unfortunately lost this ability.” But even this was associated with Andreev’s concept of an impersonal person, arising even from comical and seemingly harmless situations. A small, timid official of the second department, Kotelnikov, slightly drunk, blurts out: “I really love black women,” causing laughter from his colleagues and superiors (“Original Man”). Everyday joke? But Andreev turns it into a tragicomedy. The phrase that escapes “marks” the official so strongly that it subordinates his entire fate. His faceless colleagues and his faceless boss are proud of him.

In most of Andreev’s works, highly dramatic clashes of thought and will unfold in an environment “cleared” of the outside world, which becomes the restless soul of the hero. The idea of ​​depersonalization of people is embodied in a series of masks devoid of specific and individual features: Man, Father of Man, Neighbors, Doctor, Old Women, etc. (drama “A Man’s Life”). Characters also appear expressing a state of mind or abstract ideas, such as: Evil, Fate, Reason, Poverty, etc. Depersonalized people weakly surrender to the power of mysterious forces operating outside of them. Hence the significant role of fantasy in the work of Andreev, who refers to the legacy of Edgar Allan Poe (“The Masque of the Red Death”, “Feast of the Dead”, “The Pit and the Clock”) or directly rethinks his short story “The Fall of the House of Escher” in the story “He” (1912) . The drama of ideas, which is all of Andreev’s work, leads him to a passion for Dostoevsky, whose influence is felt both in the nervous, tense language, and in the choice of the hero, a self-absorbed fanatic, obsessed with the super-idea of ​​the “underground man.” Long before the German expressionists (E. Geller, G. Kaiser, L. Frank), as well as F. Kafka, who was close to them, Andreev with extraordinary, tragic force expressed the suffering of a lonely person suffering in the conditions of the “machine world”.

Last years

The First World War caused a surge of patriotic aspirations among most Russian writers. Andreev found himself at the forefront of this craze. “Having started the war,” he declared in an interview with the New York Times in September 1914, “we will bring it to the end, to complete victory over Germany; and here there should be no doubts or hesitations.” He wrote dozens of articles, participated in editing the magazine Fatherland, and in 1916 headed the literary department of the organ of the big bourgeoisie, Russian Will. In the play “Law, King and Freedom” Andreev glorifies his ally in the fight against Germany - the Belgian King Albert. On October 18, 1915, he published the article “Let the poets not be silent,” in which he calls for glorifying the war. Reality deceived Andreev's expectations. The February revolution, the collapse on the fronts, devastation, famine, strikes and demonstrations, the approaching new revolution - all this only strengthened Andreev’s previously erupting feeling of confusion and even despair. "I'm scared! - he exclaims in one of the articles published on September 15, 1917 on the pages of the newspaper “Russian Will” (where Andreev headed the literary department). - Like a blind man, I rush around in the dark and look for Russia. Where is my Russia? I'm scared. I can't live without Russia. Give me Russia! I am on my knees begging you who stole Russia: give me Russia, give it back, give it back.” At the height of the revolutionary events, he moves to Finland, to his dacha in Raivolo, and finds himself cut off from Russia, for which he terribly yearns.

In the Bolshevik revolutionaries he saw only “goyite faces and low foreheads,” but Leonid Andreev did not have time to artistically reflect the Russian tragedy and, apparently, could not. He only protested: “One must not know at all the difference between truth and lies, between the possible and the incredible, just as madmen do not know it, in order not to feel the socialist boasting of the Bolsheviks, their inexhaustible lies, sometimes stupid and dead, like the mooing of a drunken man, like the decrees of Lenin, sometimes loud and virtuosic, like the speeches of the bloody jester Trotsky.”

In Finland, Andreev is working on the novel “Satan’s Diary,” which satirically depicts imperialist Europe on the eve of the First World War. He is in the grip of despair and fear. His consciousness sees the death of the familiar, stable Russia and ahead - only chaos and destruction. “Like a telegraph operator on a sinking ship sends out at night, when there is darkness all around, the last call: “Help! Quicker! We're drowning! Save!" - so I, driven by faith in the goodness of man, throw into space and darkness my prayer for drowning people... The night is dark... And the sea is scary! But the telegraph operator believes and stubbornly calls - he calls until the last minute, until the last fire goes out and his wireless telegraph is silent forever,” he writes in one of his most recent works, “Save! (SOS)."

  • Questions

1. What is the fundamental difference between the story “Grand Slam” and the traditions of realism? Why does playing whist become the only meaning in life for four lonely people? Does this activity unite or further divide the heroes?
2. How does Maslennikov’s cherished dream of winning a Grand Slam characterize him?
3. How do the players feel about any intrusion into their closed world (the Dreyfus case, the news of the arrest of Maslennikov’s son)?
4. What is the main sadness of the heroes left after the death of Nikolai Dmitrievich?
5. Describe the play “Tsar Famine” as a phenomenon of symbolist theater.
6. What hero-symbols appear in this play and what is the ideological content of the main symbol - Tsar-Hunger?
7. Using this play as an example, explain the writer’s view of the violent transformation of society. What destructive forces, according to L. Andreev, are capable of awakening the uprising of the people?
8. How did the writer’s deep pessimism manifest itself?
9. What is the concept of life and attitude in L. Andreev’s prose?

M. Gorky considered “The Grand Slam” the best story by L.N. Andreeva. The work was highly appreciated by L.N. Tolstoy. In a card game, a “grand slam” is a position in which the opponent cannot take any of his partner’s cards with the highest card or trump card. For six years, three times a week (on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays) Nikolai Dmitrievich Maslennikov, Yakov Ivanovich, Prokopy Vasilyevich and Evpraksiya Vasilievna play screw. Andreev emphasizes that the stakes in the game were insignificant and the winnings were small. However, Evpraxia Vasilievna really valued the money she won and put it separately in her piggy bank.

The behavior of the characters during a card game clearly shows their attitude towards life in general. The elderly Yakov Ivanovich never plays more than four, even if he had a good game on his hands. He is careful and prudent. “You never know what might happen,” he comments on his habit.

His partner Nikolai Dmitrievich, on the contrary, always takes risks and constantly loses, but does not lose heart and dreams of winning back next time. One day Maslennikov became interested in Dreyfus. Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) - an officer of the French general staff who was accused of transferring secret documents to Germany in 1894, and then acquitted. The partners first argue about the Dreyfus case, but soon get carried away by the game and fall silent.

When Prokopiy Vasilievich loses, Nikolai Dmitrievich rejoices, and Yakov Ivanovich advises not to take risks next time. Prokopiy Vasilyevich is afraid of great happiness, since great sorrow follows it.

Evpraksiya Vasilievna is the only woman among the four players. During a big game, she looks pleadingly at her brother, her constant partner. Other partners await her move with chivalrous sympathy and condescending smiles.

The symbolic meaning of the story is that our whole life, in fact, can be represented as a card game. It has partners, and there are rivals. “Cards can be combined in infinitely different ways,” writes L.N. Andreev. An analogy immediately arises: life also presents us with endless surprises. The writer emphasizes that people tried to achieve their own in the game, and the cards lived their own lives, which defied either analysis or rules. Some people go with the flow in life, others rush around and try to change their fate. For example, Nikolai Dmitrievich believes in luck and dreams of playing a “grand slam”. When, finally, the long-awaited serious game comes to Nikolai Dmitrievich, he, fearing to miss it, assigns a “grand slam in no trumps” - the most difficult and highest combination in the card hierarchy. The hero takes a certain risk, since for a sure victory he must also receive the ace of spades in the draw. To everyone's surprise and admiration, he reaches for the purchase and suddenly dies from cardiac paralysis. After his death, it turned out that, by a fateful coincidence, the draw contained the same ace of spades that would have ensured a sure victory in the game.

After the death of the hero, the partners think about how Nikolai Dmitrievich would rejoice at this game played. All people in this life are players. They try to take revenge, win, catch luck by the tail, thereby asserting themselves, count small victories, and think very little about those around them. For many years, people met three times a week, but rarely talked about anything other than the game, did not share problems, and did not even know where their friends lived. And only after the death of one of them, the rest understand how dear they were to each other. Yakov Ivanovich is trying to imagine himself in his partner’s place and feel what Nikolai Dmitrievich must have felt when he played the “grand slam”. It is no coincidence that the hero changes his habits for the first time and begins to play a card game, the results of which his deceased comrade will never see. It is symbolic that the most open person is the first to leave for another world. He told his partners about himself more often than others, and was not indifferent to the problems of others, as evidenced by his interest in the Dreyfus case.

The story has philosophical depth and subtlety of psychological analysis. Its plot is both original and characteristic of works of the “Silver Age” era. At this time, the theme of the catastrophic nature of existence, the ominous fate hanging over human destiny, receives special significance. It is no coincidence that the motive of sudden death brings together the story of L.N. Andreev “Grand Slam” with the work of I.A. Bunin's "Mr. from San Francisco", in which the hero also dies at the very moment when he finally had to enjoy what he had dreamed of all his life.

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GRAND SLAM
(Story, 1902)
Maslennikov Nikolay Dmitrievich - one of the four participants
card game and, accordingly, one of the four heroes of the story
“Grand Slam”, dedicated to the eternal question of “life and death”. M.
the only hero endowed not only with a name and patronymic, but also
last name “They played screw three times a week: on Tuesdays,
Thursdays and Saturdays” - this is how the story begins. Gathered at
“the youngest of the players,” forty-three-year-old Evpraksiya Vasilievna,
who once upon a time loved a student, but “no one knew, and even she,
She seems to have forgotten why she didn’t have to get married.” Paired with her
played by her brother Prokopiy Vasilyevich, who “lost his wife on the second
a year after the wedding and a whole two months after that he spent in a hospital
for the mentally ill." M.'s (the oldest) partner was Yakov
Ivanovich, in whom one can see similarities with Chekhov’s “man in
case" - "a small, dry old man who walked in winter and summer
wearing a well-worn frock coat and trousers, silent and stern.” Dissatisfied
distribution of pairs (“ice and fire”, in the words of Pushkin), M.
laments that “he will have to<...>quit dreaming big
trumpless helmet." “This is how they played summer and winter, spring and autumn.
The decrepit world obediently bore the heavy yoke of endless existence and
sometimes blushed with blood, sometimes shed tears, announcing his path to
space with the groans of the sick, hungry and offended.” Only M.
brought into the carefully fenced off small world “echoes of this
an alarming and alien life.” It seemed strange to others
was considered a “frivolous and incorrigible person.” Some
for a time he even spoke about the Dreyfus affair, but “they answered him with silence.”
“Cards have long since lost in their eyes the meaning of soulless
matter<...>The cards were combined in infinitely different ways, and
this diversity defied either analysis or rules, but it was
time is natural.” It is for M. “grand slam in trump cards”
became my strongest desire and even dream.” Only sometimes a move
card game was disrupted by events from outside: M. disappeared for two or three
weeks, returning, aged and gray, he reported that his
the son was arrested and sent to St. Petersburg. He did not show up at one of the
Saturdays, and everyone was surprised to learn that he had been suffering from chest pain for a long time
a toad."
But no matter how much the screw players hid from the outside world, he simply and
he rudely rushed in to them. On the fateful Thursday, November 26, M. smiled
luck. However, barely having time to pronounce the cherished “Grand Slam in
no trumps!”, the lucky one suddenly died from “heart paralysis.” When
Yakov Ivanovich looked at the cards of the deceased, then saw: M. “in his hands
<...>there was a surefire grand slam.” And then Yakov Ivanovich, realizing,
that the deceased would never know about it, got scared and realized “what is
death". However, the momentary shock soon passes, and the heroes
they think not about death, but about life: where to get a fourth player? So
Andreev rethought the famous question in an ironic way
the main character from L. N. Tolstoy’s story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”:
“Am I really going to die?” Tolstoy gave Andreeva a “4” for his story.

What is the attitude of the players to the events taking place in life. What do Grand Slam heroes talk about besides the game?

In which episodes is there a clear theme of the characters’ indifference to each other and alienation?

Which scenes most clearly depict the absurdity of the described world, absorbed in the play and play of the meaningless. analyze the reaction of each of Mr. to the death of Mr. Dmitrievich, as evidenced by it

What is the ambiguity of the name?

1.They talk about abstract topics about people walking,

the weather, people walking into the forest with baskets, the fate of a certain Dreyfus, whom no one knows. The conversation is more of a background; it is meaningless. The attitude towards the events taking place in life is almost indifferent; they are more interested in cards that live “their own life”. The world around them worries them insofar as it does not break their established traditions. This shows, for example, the attitude towards Sunday as a “boring day”, because at this time there are usually no games, time is reserved for theaters and guests. For the games, we chose the quietest room possible (shows the importance of the game).

2. Nikolai Dmitrievich began to come later, but no one was interested in why. No one noticed any signs of deterioration in his health either. When he disappeared for two weeks, everyone was worried that the usual flow of the game would be disrupted.

People don’t know who lives where, whether anyone has children, and they are always surprised to learn about something.

3. Cards are endowed with their own life, thoughts, feelings, intentions (spades come to some, worms to others). They are endowed with character traits (twos and threes have a “bold and mocking appearance”). And people begin to live in this imaginary world, shutting themselves off from the real world, their souls harden, they become indifferent (for example, Evpraksiya Vasilievna once had an unhappy love, but no longer remembers why they didn’t get married). This is most clearly seen in the episode of the death of Nikolai Dmitrievich.

Reaction to death. Yakov Ivanovich tries not to look at the dead man. I cried with pity only when I saw that he was literally one ace of spades short of a grand slam. He thinks about where they will get the fourth one.

Nothing is said about the third player; most likely, it is implied that he simply left.

4. The name has two meanings: literal and subtext. Literally: grand slam is a term in a card game. Subtext: the grand helmet is a symbol of what Nikolai Dmitrievich strived for during his life, what he saw as his purpose in life, his meaning. While this is just a card game, it has replaced real life for these people. He almost achieves his dream, but dies almost immediately. Yakov Ivanovich is upset because Nikolai Dmitrievich “didn’t understand” that he practically played a grand slam. While the author is sad rather because the hero died without understanding the value of real life.

Maslennikov Nikolay Dmitrievich- one of the four participants in the card game and, accordingly, one of the four heroes of the story “Grand Slam”, dedicated to the eternal question of “life and death”. M. is the only hero endowed with not only a first name and patronymic, but also a last name. “They played screw three times a week: on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays” - this is how the story begins. They gathered with “the youngest of the players,” forty-three-year-old Eupraxia Vasilievna, who once upon a time loved a student, but “nobody knew, and she seemed to have forgotten why she didn’t have to get married.” She was paired with her brother Prokopiy Vasilyevich, who “lost his wife in the second year after their wedding and spent two whole months after that in a mental hospital.” M.’s partner (the oldest) was Yakov Ivanovich, in whom one can see a resemblance to Chekhov’s “man in a case” - “a small, dry old man, winter and summer, who wore a welded frock coat and trousers, silent and stern.” Dissatisfied with the distribution of couples (“ice and fire,” in the words of Pushkin), M. laments “that he will have to<...>give up the dream of a big trumpless helmet.” “This is how they played summer and winter, spring and autumn. The decrepit world obediently bore the heavy yoke of endless existence and either blushed with blood or shed tears, announcing its path through space with the groans of the sick, hungry and offended.” Only M. brought “echoes of this alarming and alien life” into the carefully fenced-off small world. This seemed strange to others; he was considered a “frivolous and incorrigible person.” For some time he even spoke about the Dreyfus affair, but “he was answered with silence.”

“Cards have long since lost the meaning of soulless matter in their eyes.<...>The cards were combined in an infinite variety, and this variety defied either analysis or rules, but at the same time it was natural.” It was for M. that “a grand slam in no trumps became the strongest desire and even a dream.” Only sometimes the course of the card game was disrupted by events from outside: M. disappeared for two or three weeks, returning, older and grayer, he reported that his son had been arrested and sent to St. Petersburg. He didn’t show up one Saturday either, and everyone was surprised to learn that he had been suffering from “angina pectoris” for a long time.

But no matter how hard the screw players hid from the outside world, he simply and rudely burst into them himself. On the fateful Thursday, November 26, M. luck smiled. However, barely having time to say the cherished “Grand slam in no trumps!”, the lucky one suddenly died from “heart paralysis.” When Yakov Ivanovich looked at the cards of the deceased, he saw: M. “in his hands<...>there was a surefire grand slam.” And then Yakov Ivanovich, realizing that the deceased would never know about this, became frightened and understood “what death is.” However, the momentary shock soon passes, and the heroes think not about death, but about life: where to get a fourth player? So Andreev rethought in an ironic vein the famous question of the protagonist from L. N. Tolstoy’s story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”: “Am I really going to die?” Tolstoy gave Andreeva a “4” for his story.



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