Lavretsky's footman rose on his box. AND

The small house where Lavretsky arrived and where Glafira Petrovna died two years ago was built in the last century, from durable pine forest; it looked dilapidated, but could stand for another fifty years or more. Lavretsky went around all the rooms and, to the great concern of the old, lethargic flies with white dust on their backs, sitting motionless under the lintels, he ordered the windows to be opened everywhere: since Glafira Petrovna’s death no one had unlocked them. Everything in the house remained as it was: the thin-legged white sofas in the living room, upholstered in glossy gray damask, worn and dented, vividly reminiscent of Catherine’s times; in the living room there was the hostess’s favorite chair, with a high and straight back, against which she did not lean even in her old age. Hanged on the main wall vintage portrait Fedorov's great-grandfather, Andrei Lavretsky; the dark, bilious face was barely distinguishable from the blackened and warped background; small evil eyes looked gloomily from under drooping, swollen eyelids; black hair, without powder, rose like a brush over a heavy, pitted forehead. On the corner of the portrait hung a wreath of dusty immortels. “Glafira Petrovna themselves deigned to weave,” Anton reported. In the bedroom there was a narrow bed, under a canopy of old, very good striped fabric; a pile of faded pillows and a quilted thin blanket lay on the bed, and at the head of the head hung the image of “The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary into the Temple” - the same image to which the old maid, dying alone and forgotten by everyone, last time she kissed her with already cooling lips. A dressing table made of pieced wood, with copper plaques and a crooked mirror, with blackened gilding, stood by the window. Next to the bedroom there was a figurative, small room, with bare walls and a heavy icon case in the coal; on the floor lay a worn, wax-stained rug; Glafira Petrovna bowed to the ground on it. Anton went with Lavretsky's footman to unlock the stable and barn; in his place appeared an old woman, almost the same age as him, tied with a scarf up to her eyebrows; her head was shaking and her eyes looked dull, but they expressed zeal, a long-standing habit of serving unrequitedly, and at the same time - some kind of respectful regret. She went up to Lavretsky's handle and stopped at the door, awaiting orders. He absolutely did not remember what her name was, he did not even remember whether he had ever seen her; it turned out that her name was Apraxea; about forty years ago the same Glafira Petrovna exiled her from the master's courtyard and ordered her to be a poultry worker; however, she said little, as if she had lost her mind, and looked servilely. In addition to these two old men and three pot-bellied children in long shirts, Antonov’s great-grandchildren, there also lived in the manor’s courtyard a one-armed, neckless little man; he muttered like a black grouse and was incapable of anything; Not much more useful than him was the decrepit dog that greeted Lavretsky’s return with a bark: for ten years she had been sitting on a heavy chain, bought by order of Glafira Petrovna, and was barely able to move and carry her burden. After examining the house, Lavretsky went out into the garden and was pleased with it. It was all overgrown with weeds, burdocks, gooseberries and raspberries; but there was a lot of shadow in it, a lot of old linden trees, which amazed with their enormity and strange arrangement of branches; they were planted too closely and once - a hundred years ago - they were cut. The garden ended in a small, bright pond bordered by tall reddish reeds. Footprints human life They are going deaf very soon: Glafira Petrovna’s estate did not have time to go wild, but already seemed immersed in that quiet slumber that everything on earth slumbers, wherever there is no human, restless infection. Fyodor Ivanovich also walked around the village; the women looked at him from the threshold of their huts, resting their cheeks with their hands; the men bowed from a distance, the children ran away, the dogs barked indifferently. He finally felt hungry; but he expected his servant and cook only in the evening; the convoy with provisions from Lavriki had not yet arrived, so I had to turn to Anton. Anton now gave orders: he caught, slaughtered and plucked an old chicken; Apraxea scrubbed and washed it for a long time, washing it like linen before she put it in the pan; when it was finally cooked, Anton set and cleared the table, placed in front of the device a blackened aplique salt shaker with three legs and a cut decanter with a round glass stopper and a narrow neck; then he reported to Lavretsky in a melodious voice that the food was ready, and he himself stood behind his chair, wrapping his right fist in a napkin and spreading some kind of strong, ancient smell, like the smell of cypress wood. Lavretsky tasted the soup and took out the chicken; her skin was all covered with large pimples; a thick vein ran down each leg, the meat smelled like wood and lye. After lunch, Lavretsky said that he would drink tea if... “I’ll give it to you in a minute,” the old man interrupted him, and kept his promise. A pinch of tea was found, wrapped in a piece of red paper; a small, but prairie and noisy samovar was found, and sugar was also found in very small, as if melted pieces. Lavretsky drank tea from a large cup; he remembered this cup from childhood: gambling cards were depicted on it, only guests drank from it, and he drank from it like a guest. In the evening the servants arrived; Lavretsky did not want to lie in his aunt’s bed; he ordered his bed to be made in the dining room. Having extinguished the candle, he looked around him for a long time and thought a sad thought; he experienced a feeling familiar to every person who has to spend the night for the first time in a long-uninhabited place; It seemed to him that the darkness that surrounded him on all sides could not get used to the new tenant, that the very walls of the house were perplexed. Finally he sighed, pulled the blanket over himself and fell asleep. Anton stayed on his feet the longest; He whispered for a long time with Apraxea, groaned in a low voice, crossed himself twice; They both did not expect the master to settle with them in Vasilyevskoye, when he had such a glorious estate with a well-organized estate nearby; they did not even suspect that this very estate was disgusting to Lavretsky; it aroused painful memories in him. Having whispered enough, Anton took a stick, beat it on the hanging, long-silent board by the barn, and immediately took a nap in the yard, not covering his white head with anything. May night she was quiet and affectionate, and the old man slept sweetly.

XX

The next day Lavretsky got up quite early, talked with the headman, visited the threshing floor, ordered the chain to be removed from the yard dog, which only barked a little, but did not even move from its kennel - and, returning home, plunged into a kind of peaceful stupor. from which I did not leave all day. “That’s when I got to the very bottom of the river,” he said to himself more than once. He sat under the window, did not move, and seemed to listen to the flow of the quiet life that surrounded him, to the rare sounds of the village wilderness. Somewhere behind the nettles someone is humming in a thin, thin voice; the mosquito seems to echo him. So he stopped, and the mosquito kept squeaking; through the friendly, annoyingly plaintive buzzing of flies, the hum of a fat bumblebee can be heard, which every now and then knocks its head on the ceiling; a rooster on the street crowed, hoarsely drawing out the last note, a cart knocked, the gates of the village creaked. "What?" - a woman’s voice suddenly began to tremble. “Oh, my sir,” Anton says to the two-year-old girl he is nursing in his arms. “Bring the kvass,” repeats the same woman’s voice, “and suddenly there is a dead silence; nothing will knock or move; the wind does not move the leaf; swallows rush without a cry, one after another, across the earth, and their silent raid makes one’s soul sad. “When I’m at the bottom of the river,” Lavretsky thinks again. “And always, at all times, life here is quiet and unhurried,” he thinks, “whoever enters its circle, submit: there’s no need to worry, there’s nothing to stir up; here’s the only one good luck who makes his path slowly, like a plowman plowing a furrow. And what strength is all around, what health is in this inactive silence! Here, under the window, a stocky burdock climbs out of the thick grass; above it the dawn stretches out its succulent stem, the tears of the Virgin Mary higher up they throw out their pink curls; and there, further, in the fields, the rye is shiny, and the oats have already grown into a tube, and every leaf on every tree is spreading to its full width, every grass on its stem. My best years“,” Lavretsky continues to think, “let boredom sober me up here, let me calm me down, prepare me so that I too can do things slowly,” And he again begins to listen to the silence, not expecting anything - and at the same time as if constantly expecting something; silence embraces him from all sides, the sun rolls quietly across the calm blue sky, and the clouds float quietly over it; they seem to know where and why they are sailing. At that very time, in other places on earth life was in full swing, in a hurry, and roaring; here the same life flowed silently, like water through marsh grass; and until the very evening Lavretsky could not tear himself away from the contemplation of this passing, flowing life; sorrow for the past melted in his soul like spring snow, and - strange thing! - never had the feeling of homeland been so deep and strong in him.

“Here,” he thought, “a new creature is just entering life. A nice girl, will something come of her? She’s pretty too. Pale, fresh face, the eyes and lips are so serious, and the look is honest and innocent. It's a pity, she seems a little enthusiastic. He is tall, he walks so easily, and his voice is quiet. I really love it when she suddenly stops, listens with attention, without smiling, then thinks and throws back her hair. Exactly, it seems to me that Panshin is not worth it. However, why is he bad? But why was I daydreaming? She will also run along the same path that everyone else runs on. I’d rather sleep.” And Lavretsky closed his eyes.

He could not sleep, but sank into a drowsy road numbness. Images of the past still, slowly, rose and surfaced in his soul, getting mixed up and confused with other ideas. Lavretsky, God knows why, began to think about Robert Peel... about French history... about how he would have won the battle if he had been a general; he imagined shots and screams... His head slid to the side, he opened his eyes... The same fields, the same steppe views; the worn-out horseshoes of the tie-downs sparkle alternately through the wavy dust; The driver's shirt, yellow, with red gussets, is inflated by the wind... “It's good that I'm returning to my homeland,” flashed through Lavretsky's head, and he shouted: “Get off!” – he wrapped himself in his overcoat and pressed himself closer to the pillow. The Tarantas was pushed: Lavretsky straightened up and opened his eyes wide. In front of him, on a hillock, stretched a small village; a little to the right one could see a dilapidated manor house with closed shutters and a crooked porch; across the wide yard, right from the gate, nettles grew, green and thick, like hemp; right there stood an oak barn, still strong. It was Vasilyevskoye.

The coachman turned to the gate and stopped the horses; Lavretsky’s footman stood up on the box and, as if preparing to jump off, shouted: “Hey!” A hoarse, muffled bark was heard, but not even a dog appeared; The footman again prepared to jump off and again shouted: “Hey!” The decrepit barking was repeated, and a moment later, out of nowhere, a man in a nankeen caftan, with a head as white as snow, ran out into the yard; He looked, protecting his eyes from the sun, at the carriage, suddenly hit himself on the thighs with both hands, at first thrashed around a little, then rushed to open the gate. The Tarantas drove into the yard, wheels rustling through the nettles, and stopped in front of the porch. The white-headed man, apparently very nimble, was already standing with his legs spread wide and crooked on the last step, unfastened the front, convulsively jerking his skin upward, and, helping the master down to the ground, kissed his hand.

“Hello, hello, brother,” said Lavretsky, “I think your name is Anton?” Are you still alive?

The old man bowed silently and ran for the keys. While he was running, the coachman sat motionless, leaning on his side and looking at the locked door; and Lavretsky’s footman jumped off and remained in a picturesque pose, throwing one arm over the box. The old man brought the keys and, unnecessarily bending like a snake, raising his elbows high, unlocked the door, stood aside and again bowed at the waist.

“Here I am at home, here I am back,” thought Lavretsky, entering the tiny hallway, while the shutters opened one after another with a knock and squeal and daylight penetrated into the empty chambers.

The small house where Lavretsky arrived and where Glafira Petrovna died two years ago was built in the last century from solid pine forest; it looked dilapidated, but could stand for another fifty years or more. Lavretsky went around all the rooms and, to the great concern of the old, lethargic flies with white dust on their backs, sitting motionless under the lintels, he ordered the windows to be opened everywhere: since Glafira Petrovna’s death no one had unlocked them. Everything in the house remained as it was. The thin-legged white sofas in the living room, upholstered in glossy gray damask, worn and dented, vividly recalled Catherine's times; in the living room there was the hostess’s favorite chair, with a high and straight back, against which she did not lean even in her old age. On the main wall hung an old portrait of Fedorov’s great-grandfather, Andrei Lavretsky; the dark, bilious face was barely distinguishable from the blackened and warped background; small evil eyes looked gloomily from under drooping, swollen eyelids; black hair, without powder, rose like a brush over a heavy, pitted forehead. On the corner of the portrait hung a wreath of dusty immortels. “They deigned to weave,” Anton reported. In the bedroom there was a narrow bed, under a canopy of old, very good striped fabric; a pile of faded pillows and a quilted thin blanket lay on the bed, and at the head of the head hung the image of the "Introduction into the Temple" Holy Mother of God ", - the same image to which the old maid, dying alone and forgotten by everyone, pressed her already cooling lips for the last time. A dressing table made of pieced wood, with copper plaques and a crooked mirror, with blackened gilding, stood by the window. Next to the bedroom there was a figurative, small room, with bare walls and a heavy icon case in the corner; on the floor lay a worn, wax-stained carpet; Glafira Petrovna was making prostrations on it. Anton went with Lavretsky's footman to unlock the stable and barn; an old woman appeared in his place, almost not the same age as him, tied with a scarf up to her eyebrows; her head was shaking and her eyes looked dull, but expressed zeal, a long-standing habit of serving unrequitedly, and at the same time - some kind of respectful regret. She went up to Lavretsky’s handle and stopped at the door, waiting orders. He absolutely did not remember what her name was, he did not even remember whether he had ever seen her; it turned out that her name was Apraxea; about forty years ago the same Glafira Petrovna exiled her from the master’s courtyard and ordered her to be a poultry-keeper; however, she said little, as if she had lost her mind, and looked servilely. In addition to these two old men and three pot-bellied children in long shirts, Antonov’s great-grandchildren, there also lived in the manor’s courtyard a one-armed, neckless little man; he muttered like a black grouse and was incapable of anything; Not much more useful than him was the decrepit dog that greeted Lavretsky’s return with a bark: for ten years she had been sitting on a heavy chain, bought by order of Glafira Petrovna, and was barely able to move and carry her burden. After examining the house, Lavretsky went out into the garden and was pleased with it. It was all overgrown with weeds, burdocks, gooseberries and raspberries; but there was a lot of shadow in it, a lot of old linden trees, which amazed with their enormity and strange arrangement of branches; they were planted too closely and had been cut short a hundred years ago. The garden ended in a small, bright pond bordered by tall reddish reeds. Traces of human life fade away very quickly: Glafira Petrovna’s estate had not yet gone wild, but already seemed immersed in that quiet slumber that everything on earth slumbers, wherever there is no human, restless infection. Fyodor Ivanovich also walked around the village; the women looked at him from the threshold of their huts, resting their cheeks with their hands; the men bowed from a distance, the children ran away, the dogs barked indifferently. He finally felt hungry; but he expected his servant and cook only in the evening; the convoy with provisions from Lavriki had not yet arrived, so I had to turn to Anton. Anton now gave orders: he caught, slaughtered and plucked an old chicken; Apraxia scrubbed and washed it for a long time, washing it like laundry, before she put it in the pan; when it was finally cooked, Anton set and cleared the table, placed in front of the device a blackened aplique salt shaker with three legs and a cut decanter with a round glass stopper and a narrow neck; then he reported to Lavretsky in a melodious voice that the food was ready, and he himself stood behind his chair, wrapping his right fist in a napkin and spreading some kind of strong, ancient smell, like the smell of cypress wood. Lavretsky tasted the soup and took out the chicken; her skin was all covered with large pimples; a thick vein ran down each leg, the meat smelled like wood and lye. After lunch, Lavretsky said that he would drink tea if... “I’ll give it to you in a minute,” the old man interrupted him, and kept his promise. A pinch of tea was found, wrapped in a piece of red paper; a small, but prairie and noisy samovar was found, and sugar was also found in very small, as if melted pieces. Lavretsky drank tea from a large cup; He remembered this cup from childhood: gambling cards were depicted on it, only guests drank from it, and he drank from it like a guest. In the evening the servants arrived; Lavretsky did not want to lie in his aunt’s bed; he ordered his bed to be made in the dining room. Having extinguished the candle, he looked around him for a long time and thought a sad thought; he experienced a feeling familiar to every person who has to spend the night for the first time in a long-uninhabited place; It seemed to him that the darkness that surrounded him on all sides could not get used to the new tenant, that the very walls of the house were perplexed. Finally he sighed, pulled the blanket over himself and fell asleep. Anton stayed on his feet the longest; He whispered for a long time with Apraxea, groaned in a low voice, crossed himself twice; They both did not expect the master to settle with them in Vasilyevskoye, when he had such a glorious estate with a well-organized estate nearby; they did not even suspect that this very estate was disgusting to Lavretsky; it aroused painful memories in him. Having whispered enough, Anton took a stick, beat it on the hanging, long-silent board by the barn, and immediately took a nap in the yard, not covering his white head with anything. The May night was quiet and gentle, and the old man slept sweetly.

The next day Lavretsky got up quite early, talked with the headman, visited the threshing floor, ordered the chain to be removed from the yard dog, which only barked a little, but did not even move from its kennel - and, returning home, plunged into a kind of peaceful stupor. from which I did not leave all day. “That’s when I got to the very bottom of the river,” he said to himself more than once. He sat under the window, did not move, and seemed to listen to the flow of the quiet life that surrounded him, to the rare sounds of the village wilderness. Somewhere behind the nettles someone is humming in a thin, thin voice; the mosquito seems to echo him. Now he has stopped, and the mosquito is still squeaking: through the friendly, annoyingly plaintive buzz of flies, the hum of a fat bumblebee can be heard, which every now and then knocks its head on the ceiling; a rooster on the street crowed, hoarsely drawing out the last note, a cart knocked, the gates of the village creaked. "What?" – suddenly a woman’s voice began to tremble. “Oh, my sir,” Anton says to the two-year-old girl he is nursing in his arms. “Bring the kvass,” repeats the same woman’s voice, “and suddenly there is dead silence; nothing will knock or move; the wind does not move the leaf; swallows rush without a cry, one after another, across the earth, and their silent raid makes one’s soul sad. “When I’m at the bottom of the river,” Lavretsky thinks again. “And always, at all times, life here is quiet and unhurried,” he thinks, “whoever enters its circle, submit: there’s no need to worry, there’s nothing to stir up; here’s the only one good luck who makes his path slowly, like a plowman plowing a furrow. And what strength is all around, what health is in this inactive silence! Here, under the window, a stocky burdock climbs out of the thick grass; above it the dawn stretches out its succulent stem, The Virgin's tears still higher up they throw out their pink curls; and there, further, in the fields, the rye shines, and the oats have already grown into a tube, and every leaf on every tree, every grass on its stem, is spreading to its full width. My best years have been spent on a woman’s love, - Lavretsky continues to think, “let boredom sober me up here, let it calm me down, prepare me so that I too can do things slowly.” And he again begins to listen to the silence, expecting nothing - and at the same time, as if constantly expecting something; silence embraces him from all sides, the sun rolls quietly across the calm blue sky, and the clouds quietly float across it; they seem to know where and why they are sailing. At that very time, in other places on earth life was in full swing, in a hurry, and roaring; here the same life flowed silently, like water through marsh grass; and until the very evening Lavretsky could not tear himself away from the contemplation of this passing, flowing life; sorrow for the past melted in his soul like spring snow, and - strange thing! - Never before had he had such a deep and strong sense of homeland.

Within two weeks, Fyodor Ivanovich put Glafira Petrovna’s house in order, cleared the yard and garden; they brought him comfortable furniture from Lavriki, wine, books, magazines from the city; horses appeared in the stables; in a word, Fyodor Ivanovich acquired everything he needed and began to live - either as a landowner or as a hermit. His days passed monotonously; but he was not bored, although he saw no one; He diligently and attentively took care of the household, rode horseback around the surrounding area, and read. However, he read little: he was more pleased to listen to the stories of old Anton. Lavretsky usually sat down with a pipe of tobacco and a cup of iced tea at the window; Anton stood at the door, clasping his hands back, and began his leisurely stories about ancient times, about those fabulous times when oats and rye were sold not by the measure, but in large bags, for two and three kopecks per bag; when impenetrable forests and untouched steppes stretched in all directions, even under the city. “And now,” complained the old man, who was already over eighty years old, “everything has been cut down and plowed up so that there is nowhere to pass.” Anton also told a lot about his mistress, Glafira Petrovna: how reasonable and thrifty they were; how a certain gentleman, a young neighbor, was approaching them, often began to visit them, and how they even deigned to put on their festive cap for him, with massac-colored ribbons and a yellow dress made of tru-tru-Levantine; but how then, angry with the neighbor for an indecent question: “What, madam, should you have capital?” - They ordered him to be refused leave from the house, and as they then ordered, that everything after their death, down to the smallest rag, should be presented to Fyodor Ivanovich. And sure enough, Lavretsky found all his aunt’s belongings intact, not including the festive cap with massac-colored ribbons and yellow dress from tru-tru-levantine. There were no ancient papers and curious documents that Lavretsky was counting on, except for one old book in which his grandfather, Pyotr Andreich, wrote down the “Celebration in the city of St. Petersburg of the peace concluded with the Turkish Empire by His Excellency Prince Alexander Alexandrovich Prozorovsky.” ; then a recipe for breast dekokht with the note: “This instruction was given to General Praskovya Fedorovna Saltykova from the protopresbyter of the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity Theodore Avksentievich”; then political news of the following kind: “Something has gone silent about the French tigers,” and right next to it: “The Moscow Gazette shows that Mr. Prime Minister Mikhail Petrovich Kolychev has died. Isn’t that Peter Vasilyevich Kolychev’s son?” Lavretsky also found several old calendars and dream books and a mysterious work by Mr. Ambodik; The long-forgotten but familiar “Symbols and Emblems” aroused many memories in him. In Glafira Petrovna's dressing table, Lavretsky found a small package, tied with a black ribbon, sealed with black sealing wax and shoved into the very depths of the drawer. In the bag lay face to face a pastel portrait of his father in his youth, with soft curls scattered across his forehead, with long languid eyes and a half-open mouth, and an almost erased portrait of a pale woman in a white dress, with a white rose in her hand, his mother. Glafira Petrovna never allowed her portrait to be taken off. “I, Father Fyodor Ivanovich,” Anton used to say to Lavretsky, “even though I didn’t live in the master’s mansions then, but I remember your great-grandfather, Andrei Afanasyevich: when they died, I was eighteen years old. Since I was in their garden met, - so even the veins began to shake; however, they nothing, just asked what the name was, and sent to their chambers for a handkerchief. The master was, needless to say, and did not know the eldest over him. Therefore, I will tell you, I was with your great-grandfather such a wonderful incense; a monk gave them that incense from Mount Athos. And this monk said to him: “For yours, boyar, I give you this hospitality; wear it - and don’t be afraid of judgment." Well, then, father, we know what times were like: whatever the master wanted, he did. It happened that even one of the gentlemen would think of contradicting them, so they would just look at him and say: “ You swim shallowly,” that’s what they had favorite word. And he lived, your great-grandfather of blessed memory, in small wooden mansions; and what good things he left behind, silver and all sorts of supplies, all the cellars were jam-packed. The owner was there. That decanter that you deigned to praise was theirs: they drank vodka from it. But your grandfather, Pyotr Andreich, built stone chambers for himself, but did not make any money; everything went wrong with them; and they lived worse than daddy’s, and didn’t give themselves any pleasure, but the money was all over, and there’s nothing to remember him with, there’s not a silver spoon left of them, and thanks to Glafira Petrovna too.”

“Is it true,” Lavretsky interrupted him, “they called her an old beater?”

- But who called! – Anton objected with displeasure.

“And what, father,” the old man decided to ask one day, “what is our lady, where does she deign to stay?”

“I divorced my wife,” Lavretsky said with an effort, “please don’t ask about her.”

“I’m listening, sir,” the old man objected sadly.

After three weeks, Lavretsky rode horseback to Ok... to the Kalitins and spent the evening with them. Lemm was with them; Lavretsky liked him very much. Although, by the grace of his father, he did not play any instrument, he passionately loved music, practical, classical music. Panshin was not at the Kalitins’ that evening. The governor sent him somewhere out of town. Lisa played alone and very clearly; Lemm perked up, dispersed, rolled up the piece of paper and conducted. Marya Dmitrievna first laughed, looking at him, then went to bed; according to her, Beethoven worried her nerves too much. At midnight Lavretsky escorted Lemm to his apartment and sat with him until three o’clock in the morning. Lemm talked a lot; his stoop straightened, his eyes widened and sparkled; the very hair rose above the forehead. It had been so long since no one had taken part in it, but Lavretsky was apparently interested in him and questioned him carefully and attentively. The old man was touched by this; He ended up showing the guest his music, playing and even singing in a deathly voice some excerpts from his compositions, among other things, the entire Schiller ballad “Fridolin” he set to music. Lavretsky praised him, made him repeat something and, leaving, invited him to stay with him for a few days. Lemm, who accompanied him to the street, immediately agreed and shook his hand firmly; but, left alone in the fresh and damp air, with the dawn just breaking, he looked around, squinted, shrank, and, as if guilty, wandered off to his room. “Ich bin wohl nicht klug” (I’m out of my mind), he muttered, lying down in his hard and short bed. He tried to say he was sick when, a few days later, Lavretsky picked him up in a carriage, but Fyodor Ivanovich came into his room and persuaded him. What had the strongest effect on Lemm was the fact that Lavretsky, in fact, ordered a piano to be brought to his village from the city for him. The two of them went to the Kalitins and spent the evening with them, but it was not as pleasant as the last time. Panshin was there, talked a lot about his trip, very funnyly imitated and introduced the landowners he saw; Lavretsky laughed, but Lemm did not leave his corner, was silent, moved quietly all over, like a spider, looked gloomy and dull, and perked up only when Lavretsky began to say goodbye. Even sitting in the carriage, the old man continued to act wild and cower; but the quiet, warm air, a light breeze, light shadows, the smell of grass, birch buds, the peaceful glow of the moonless starry sky, the friendly clatter and snorting of horses - all the charms of the road, spring, night descended into the soul of the poor German, and he himself was the first to speak to Lavretsky .

He began talking about music, about Lisa, then again about music. He seemed to say his words more slowly when he talked about Lisa. Lavretsky referred to his work and, half jokingly, invited him to write a libretto for it.

- Hm, libretto! - Lemm objected, - no, this is not for me: I no longer have that liveliness, that play of imagination that is necessary for opera; I have already lost my strength... But if I could do anything else, I would be content with a romance; Of course, I would like good words...

He fell silent and sat motionless for a long time, raising his eyes to the sky.

“For example,” he finally said, “something like this: you stars, oh you pure stars!”

Lavretsky turned slightly to face him and began to look at him.

“You, stars, pure stars,” Lemm repeated... “you look equally at the right and at the guilty... but only those who are innocent at heart, - or something like that... they understand you, that is, they don’t,” you are loved. However, I’m not a poet, what should I do? But something like that, something high.

Lemm pushed his hat back on his head; in the thin twilight of the bright night his face seemed paler and younger.

“And you too,” he continued in a gradually fading voice, “you know who loves, who knows how to love, because you, pure ones, you alone can comfort... No, this is not the same!” “I’m not a poet,” he said, “but something like that...

“I’m sorry that I’m not a poet either,” Lavretsky remarked.

- Empty dreams! - Lemm objected and went deeper into the corner of the stroller. He closed his eyes, as if about to fall asleep.

A few moments passed... Lavretsky listened... “Stars, pure stars, love,” the old man whispered.

“Love,” Lavretsky repeated to himself, became thoughtful—and his soul felt heavy.

“You wrote wonderful music for Fridolin, Christopher Fedorych,” he said loudly, “and what do you think about this Fridolin, after the count brought him to his wife, because that’s when he became her lover, huh?”

“You think so,” Lemm objected, “because, probably, experience...” He suddenly fell silent and turned away in embarrassment. Lavretsky laughed forcedly, also turned away and began to look at the road.

The stars were already beginning to fade and the sky was turning grey, when the carriage drove up to the porch of the house in Vasilyevskoye. Lavretsky escorted his guest to the room assigned to him, returned to the office and sat down in front of the window. In the garden the nightingale sang its last, pre-dawn song. Lavretsky remembered that a nightingale sang in the Kalitins’ garden; he also remembered quiet movement Lisa's eyes, when, at the first sounds of it, they turned to the dark window. He began to think about her, and his heart calmed down. " Pure girl“,” he said in an undertone, “pure stars,” he added with a smile and calmly went to bed.

And Lemm sat for a long time on his bed with a music book on his lap. It seemed that an unprecedented, sweet melody was about to visit him: he was already burning and worried, he already felt the languor and sweetness of its approach... but he did not wait for it...

– Not a poet or a musician! – he finally whispered... And his tired head sank heavily onto the pillow.

The next morning, the owner and guest were drinking tea in the garden under an old linden tree.

- Maestro! - said Lavretsky, among other things, - you will soon have to compose a solemn cantata.

- On what occasion?

- It will not happen! - Lemm exclaimed.

- Why?

- Because it is impossible. However,” he added a little later, “everything is possible in the world.” Especially here in Russia,

– We will leave Russia aside for now; but what bad do you find in this marriage?

- Everything is bad, everything. Lizaveta Mikhailovna is a fair, serious girl, with lofty feelings, and he... he is a di-le-tant, in a word.

- But she loves him, doesn’t she?

Lemm got up from the bench.

- No, she doesn’t love him, that is, she is very pure in heart and doesn’t know what it means to love. Madame von Kalitin tells her that he is a good young man, and she obeys Madame von Kalitin, because she is still just a child, even though she is nineteen years old: she prays in the morning, she prays in the evening - and this is very commendable; but she doesn't love him. She can love one thing that is beautiful, but he is not beautiful, that is, his soul is not beautiful.

Lemm delivered this entire speech coherently and passionately, walking with small steps back and forth in front of the tea table and running his eyes along the ground.

- Dear maestro! - Lavretsky suddenly exclaimed, “it seems to me that you yourself are in love with my cousin.”

Lemm suddenly stopped.

Lavretsky felt sorry for the old man; he asked him for forgiveness. After tea, Lemm played him his cantata, and at dinner, summoned by Lavretsky himself, he again started talking about Liza. Lavretsky listened to him with attention and curiosity.

“What do you think, Christopher Fedorych,” he said finally, “after all, now everything seems to be in order with us, the garden is in in full bloom... Shouldn't we invite her here for the day along with her mother and my old aunt, huh? Will this please you?

Lemm tilted his head over his plate.

“Invite me,” he said barely audibly.

- Don’t you need Panshin?

“No need,” the old man objected with an almost childish smile.

Two days later, Fyodor Ivanovich went to the city to visit the Kalitins.

He found everyone at home, but he did not immediately announce his intention to them; he wanted to talk privately with Lisa first. Chance helped him: they were left alone in the living room. They started talking; She had already managed to get used to him - and she wasn’t shy at all. He listened to her, looked into her face and mentally repeated Lemm’s words, agreed with him. It sometimes happens that two people who are already familiar, but not close to each other, suddenly and quickly become close within a few moments - and the consciousness of this closeness is immediately expressed in their glances, in their friendly and quiet smiles, in their very movements. This is exactly what happened to Lavretsky and Lisa. “That’s what he is like,” she thought, looking at him tenderly; “That’s what you are like,” he thought. Therefore, he was not very surprised when she, not without a slight hesitation, however, announced to him that she had long had something on her heart to tell him, but was afraid of angering him.

“Don’t be afraid, speak up,” he said and stopped in front of her.

Lisa raised her clear eyes to him.

“You are so kind,” she began and at the same time thought: “Yes, he’s definitely kind...” “Excuse me, I shouldn’t dare talk about this with you... but how could you...” why did you break up with your wife?

Lavretsky trembled, looked at Liza and sat down next to her.

“My child,” he said, “please don’t touch this wound; Your hands are tender, but it will still hurt me.

“I know,” Lisa continued, as if she hadn’t heard him, “she’s to blame for you, I don’t want to justify her; but how can you separate what God has united?

“Our beliefs on this matter are too different, Lizaveta Mikhailovna,” Lavretsky said rather sharply, “we will not understand each other.”

Lisa turned pale; Her whole body trembled slightly, but she did not remain silent.

“You must forgive,” she said quietly, “if you want to be forgiven.”

- Forgive me! - Lavretsky picked up. – You should first find out who you are asking for. Forgive this woman, accept her back into your home, her, this empty, heartless creature! And who told you that she wants to come back to me? For mercy's sake, she is completely happy with her position... But what is there to interpret! Her name should not be pronounced by you. You are too pure, you are not even able to understand such a being.

- Why insult! – Lisa said with effort. The trembling of her hands became visible. “You left her yourself, Fyodor Ivanovich.”

“But I’m telling you,” Lavretsky objected with an involuntary outburst of impatience, “you don’t know what kind of creature this is!”

- So why did you marry her? – Lisa whispered and lowered her eyes.

Lavretsky quickly rose from his chair.

- Why did I get married? I was young and inexperienced then; I was deceived, I was carried away by beautiful appearance. I didn't know women, I didn't know anything. May God grant you more happy marriage! but believe me, you can’t guarantee anything in advance.

“And I can also be unhappy,” said Lisa (her voice began to break), “but then I will have to submit; I can't speak, but if we don't submit...

Lavretsky clenched his hands and stamped his foot.

“Don’t be angry, forgive me,” Lisa said hastily.

At that moment Marya Dmitrievna entered. Lisa stood up and wanted to leave.

“Wait,” Lavretsky suddenly shouted after her. “I have a great request for your mother and you: visit me at my housewarming party.” You know, I started the piano; Lemm is visiting me; the lilacs are now blooming; you will breathe the country air and can return the same day, do you agree?

Liza looked at her mother, and Marya Dmitrievna took on a painful look; but Lavretsky did not let her open her mouth and immediately kissed both her hands. Marya Dmitrievna, always sensitive to affection and no longer expecting such kindness from the “seal,” was touched at heart and agreed. While she was wondering what day to set; Lavretsky went up to Liza and, still excited, secretly whispered to her: “Thank you, you kind girl; I’m to blame..." And her pale face lit up with a cheerful and bashful smile; her eyes also smiled - until that moment she was afraid that she had offended him.

– Can Vladimir Nikolaich come with us? – asked Marya Dmitrievna.

“Of course,” Lavretsky objected, “but wouldn’t it be better for us to be in our family circle?”

“But, it seems...” Marya Dmitrievna began... “However, as you wish,” she added.

It was decided to take Lenochka and Shurochka. Marfa Timofeevna refused the trip.

“It’s hard for me, light,” she said, “to break old bones; and you have nowhere to spend the night, tea; Yes, I can’t sleep in someone else’s bed. Let these youth ride.

Lavretsky was no longer able to be alone with Liza; but he looked at her in such a way that she felt good, and a little ashamed, and felt sorry for him. As he said goodbye to her, he shook her hand firmly; she thought, left alone.

When Lavretsky returned home, he was met on the threshold of the living room by a man tall and thin, in a shabby blue frock coat, with a wrinkled but lively face, with disheveled gray sideburns, a long straight nose and small bloodshot eyes. It was Mikhalevich, his former university friend. Lavretsky did not recognize him at first, but embraced him warmly as soon as he identified himself. They haven't seen each other since Moscow. Exclamations and questions rained down; long-dead memories came to the light of day. Hastily smoking pipe after pipe, taking a sip of tea and waving long arms, Mikhalevich told Lavretsky his adventures; there was nothing very cheerful in them, he could not boast of success in his undertakings, but he constantly laughed with a hoarse, nervous laugh. A month ago he received a position in the private office of a wealthy tax farmer, three hundred miles from the city of O..., and, having learned about Lavretsky’s return from abroad, he turned off the road to see an old friend. Mikhalevich spoke as impetuously as in his youth, he was noisy and seething as before. Lavretsky was about to mention his circumstances, but Mikhalevich interrupted him, hastily muttering: “I heard, brother, I heard—who could have expected that?” – and immediately turned the conversation into the area of ​​general reasoning.

“I, brother,” he said, “must go tomorrow; Today, if you'll excuse me, we'll go to bed late. I definitely want to know who you are, what are your opinions, beliefs, what have you become, what has life taught you? (Mikhalevich still adhered to the phraseology of the thirties.) As for me, I have changed in many ways, brother: the waves of life fell on my chest - who, I mean, said that? - although in important, essential ways I have not changed; I still believe in goodness, in truth; but I not only believe, I believe now, yes, I believe, I believe. Listen, you know I write poetry; there is no poetry in them, but there is truth. I’ll read you my last play: in it I expressed my most sincere convictions. Listen.

I surrendered to new feelings with all my heart, Like a child in soul, I became: And I burned everything that I worshiped, I bowed to everything that I burned.

While pronouncing the last two verses, Mikhalevich almost cried; mild cramps are a sign strong feeling- ran over his wide lips, ugly face he became enlightened. Lavretsky listened to him, listened... the spirit of contradiction stirred in him: he was irritated by the always ready, constantly ebullient enthusiasm of the Moscow student. A quarter of an hour had not passed before a dispute broke out between them, one of those endless disputes that only Russian people are capable of. With Onika, after many years of separation, spent in two different worlds, not clearly understanding either other people's or even their own thoughts, clinging to words and objecting with words alone, they argued about the most abstract subjects - and argued as if it was a matter of life and death for both: they wailed and screamed so that all the people were alarmed in the house, and poor Lemm, who had locked himself in his room since Mikhalevich’s arrival, felt bewildered and even began to be vaguely afraid of something.

- What are you doing after that? disappointed? - Mikhalevich shouted at one o'clock in the morning.

– Are there such people who are disappointed? - Lavretsky objected, - they are all pale and sick - but do you want me to lift you with one hand?

– Well, if not _disappointment_, then _skepticism_, this is even worse (Mikhalevich’s reprimand was echoed by his homeland, Little Russia). What right do you have to be a skeptic? You were unlucky in life, let’s assume it wasn’t your fault: you were born with a passionate, loving soul, and you were forcibly taken away from women; the first woman you came across was supposed to deceive you.

“She deceived you too,” Lavretsky remarked gloomily.

- Let’s put it down, let’s put it down; I was here an instrument of fate - however, I’m lying - there is no fate here; old habit of inaccurate expression. But what does this prove?

– It proves that I have been dislocated since childhood.

- And you should straighten yourself out! That's why you're a man, you're a man; You won't have enough energy! - But be that as it may, is it possible, is it permissible to elevate a private, so to speak, fact into common law, an immutable rule?

-What is the rule here? - Lavretsky interrupted, - I don’t recognize...

“No, this is your rule, the rule,” Mikhalevich interrupted him in turn.

- You're selfish, that's what! - he thundered an hour later, - you wanted self-pleasure, you wanted happiness in life, you wanted to live only for yourself...

– What is self-pleasure?

- And everything deceived you; everything collapsed under your feet.

“What is self-pleasure, I ask you?”

“And it had to collapse.” For you sought support where it could not be found, for you built your house on shifting sand...

- Speak more clearly, without comparisons, because I don’t understand you.

“For,” perhaps, laugh, “for there is no faith in you, no warmth of heart; mind, all just a penny mind... you're just a pathetic, backward Voltairean - that's who you are!

-Who, am I a Voltairian?

- Yes, just like your father, and you don’t even suspect it.

“After this,” exclaimed Lavretsky, “I have the right to say that you are a fanatic!”

- Alas! - Mikhalevich objected with contrition, - unfortunately, I have not yet deserved such a high name...

“I have now found what to call you,” the same Mikhalevich shouted at three o’clock in the morning, “you are not a skeptic, not disappointed, not a Voltairian, you are a bobak, and you are a malicious bobak, a bobak with consciousness, not a naive bobak.” Naive boibaks lie on the stove and do nothing, because they don’t know how to do anything; they don't think anything, but you thinking person- and you lie down; you could do something - and you do nothing; you lie with your full belly up and say: this is how it should be, lie there, because everything that people do is all nonsense and nonsense leading nowhere.

He could not sleep, but sank into a drowsy road numbness. Images of the past still, slowly, rose and surfaced in his soul, getting mixed up and confused with other ideas. Lavretsky, God knows why, began to think about Robert Peel... about French history... about how he would have won the battle if he had been a general; he imagined shots and screams... His head slid to the side, he opened his eyes... The same fields, the same steppe views; the worn-out horseshoes of the tie-downs sparkle alternately through the wavy dust; The driver's shirt, yellow, with red gussets, is inflated by the wind... “It's good that I'm returning to my homeland,” flashed through Lavretsky's head, and he shouted: “Get off!” – he wrapped himself in his overcoat and pressed himself closer to the pillow. The Tarantas was pushed: Lavretsky straightened up and opened his eyes wide. In front of him, on a hillock, stretched a small village; a little to the right one could see a dilapidated manor house with closed shutters and a crooked porch; across the wide yard, right from the gate, nettles grew, green and thick, like hemp; right there stood an oak barn, still strong. It was Vasilyevskoye.

The coachman turned to the gate and stopped the horses; Lavretsky’s footman stood up on the box and, as if preparing to jump off, shouted: “Hey!” A hoarse, muffled bark was heard, but not even a dog appeared; The footman again prepared to jump off and again shouted: “Hey!” The decrepit barking was repeated, and a moment later, out of nowhere, a man in a nankeen caftan, with a head as white as snow, ran out into the yard; He looked, protecting his eyes from the sun, at the carriage, suddenly hit himself on the thighs with both hands, at first thrashed around a little, then rushed to open the gate. The Tarantas drove into the yard, wheels rustling through the nettles, and stopped in front of the porch. The white-headed man, apparently very nimble, was already standing with his legs spread wide and crooked on the last step, unfastened the front, convulsively jerking his skin upward, and, helping the master down to the ground, kissed his hand.

“Hello, hello, brother,” said Lavretsky, “I think your name is Anton?” Are you still alive?

The old man bowed silently and ran for the keys. While he was running, the coachman sat motionless, leaning on his side and looking at the locked door; and Lavretsky’s footman jumped off and remained in a picturesque pose, throwing one arm over the box. The old man brought the keys and, unnecessarily bending like a snake, raising his elbows high, unlocked the door, stood aside and again bowed at the waist.

“Here I am at home, here I am back,” thought Lavretsky, entering the tiny hallway, while the shutters opened one after another with a knock and squeal and daylight penetrated into the empty chambers.

XIX

The small house where Lavretsky arrived and where Glafira Petrovna died two years ago was built in the last century from solid pine forest; it looked dilapidated, but could stand for another fifty years or more. Lavretsky went around all the rooms and, to the great concern of the old, lethargic flies with white dust on their backs, sitting motionless under the lintels, he ordered the windows to be opened everywhere: since Glafira Petrovna’s death no one had unlocked them. Everything in the house remained as it was. The thin-legged white sofas in the living room, upholstered in glossy gray damask, worn and dented, vividly recalled Catherine's times; in the living room there was the hostess’s favorite chair, with a high and straight back, against which she did not lean even in her old age. On the main wall hung an old portrait of Fedorov’s great-grandfather, Andrei Lavretsky; the dark, bilious face was barely distinguishable from the blackened and warped background; small evil eyes looked gloomily from under drooping, swollen eyelids; black hair, without powder, rose like a brush over a heavy, pitted forehead. On the corner of the portrait hung a wreath of dusty immortels. “Glafira Petrovna themselves deigned to weave,” Anton reported. In the bedroom there was a narrow bed, under a canopy of old, very good striped fabric; a pile of faded pillows and a quilted thin blanket lay on the bed, and at the head of the bed hung the image of “The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary into the Temple” - the same image to which the old maid, dying alone and forgotten by everyone, pressed her already cooling lips for the last time. A dressing table made of pieced wood, with copper plaques and a crooked mirror, with blackened gilding, stood by the window. Next to the bedroom there was a figurative, small room, with bare walls and a heavy icon case in the corner; on the floor lay a worn, wax-stained rug; Glafira Petrovna bowed to the ground on it. Anton went with Lavretsky's footman to unlock the stable and barn; in his place appeared an old woman, almost the same age as him, tied with a scarf up to her eyebrows; her head was shaking and her eyes looked dull, but they expressed zeal, a long-standing habit of serving unrequitedly, and at the same time - some kind of respectful regret. She went up to Lavretsky's handle and stopped at the door, awaiting orders. He absolutely did not remember what her name was, he did not even remember whether he had ever seen her; it turned out that her name was Apraxea; about forty years ago the same Glafira Petrovna exiled her from the master's courtyard and ordered her to be a poultry worker; however, she said little, as if she had lost her mind, and looked servilely. In addition to these two old men and three pot-bellied children in long shirts, Antonov’s great-grandchildren, there also lived in the manor’s courtyard a one-armed, neckless little man; he muttered like a black grouse and was incapable of anything; Not much more useful than him was the decrepit dog that greeted Lavretsky’s return with a bark: for ten years she had been sitting on a heavy chain, bought by order of Glafira Petrovna, and was barely able to move and carry her burden. After examining the house, Lavretsky went out into the garden and was pleased with it. It was all overgrown with weeds, burdocks, gooseberries and raspberries; but there was a lot of shadow in it, a lot of old linden trees, which amazed with their enormity and strange arrangement of branches; they were planted too closely and had been cut short a hundred years ago. The garden ended in a small, bright pond bordered by tall reddish reeds. Traces of human life fade away very quickly: Glafira Petrovna’s estate had not yet gone wild, but already seemed immersed in that quiet slumber that everything on earth slumbers, wherever there is no human, restless infection. Fyodor Ivanovich also walked around the village; the women looked at him from the threshold of their huts, resting their cheeks with their hands; the men bowed from a distance, the children ran away, the dogs barked indifferently. He finally felt hungry; but he expected his servant and cook only in the evening; the convoy with provisions from Lavriki had not yet arrived, so I had to turn to Anton. Anton now gave orders: he caught, slaughtered and plucked an old chicken; Apraxia scrubbed and washed it for a long time, washing it like laundry, before she put it in the pan; when it was finally cooked, Anton set and cleared the table, placed in front of the device a blackened aplique salt shaker with three legs and a cut decanter with a round glass stopper and a narrow neck; then he reported to Lavretsky in a melodious voice that the food was ready, and he himself stood behind his chair, wrapping his right fist in a napkin and spreading some kind of strong, ancient smell, like the smell of cypress wood. Lavretsky tasted the soup and took out the chicken; her skin was all covered with large pimples; a thick vein ran down each leg, the meat smelled like wood and lye. After lunch, Lavretsky said that he would drink tea if... “I’ll give it to you in a minute,” the old man interrupted him, and kept his promise. A pinch of tea was found, wrapped in a piece of red paper; a small, but prairie and noisy samovar was found, and sugar was also found in very small, as if melted pieces. Lavretsky drank tea from a large cup; He remembered this cup from childhood: gambling cards were depicted on it, only guests drank from it, and he drank from it like a guest. In the evening the servants arrived; Lavretsky did not want to lie in his aunt’s bed; he ordered his bed to be made in the dining room. Having extinguished the candle, he looked around him for a long time and thought a sad thought; he experienced a feeling familiar to every person who has to spend the night for the first time in a long-uninhabited place; It seemed to him that the darkness that surrounded him on all sides could not get used to the new tenant, that the very walls of the house were perplexed. Finally he sighed, pulled the blanket over himself and fell asleep. Anton stayed on his feet the longest; He whispered with Apraxea for a long time, groaned in an undertone, twice

XVII

The next morning, after the day we described, at about ten o’clock, Lavretsky went up to the porch of the Kalitin house. Lisa came out to meet him wearing a hat and gloves.

- Where are you going? - he asked her.

- To mass. Today is Sunday.

- Do you go to mass?

Lisa silently looked at him in amazement.

“Excuse me, please,” said Lavretsky, “I... that’s not what I wanted to say, I came to say goodbye to you, I’m going to the village in an hour.”

- It’s not far from here, is it? – asked Lisa.

- Twenty-five versts.

Lenochka appeared on the threshold of the door, accompanied by a maid.

“Look, don’t forget us,” said Lisa and went down the porch.

- And don't forget me. “Listen,” he added, “you are going to church: by the way, pray for me too.”

Lisa stopped and turned to him.

“If you please,” she said, looking straight into his face, “I will pray for you too.” Let's go, Lenochka.

Lavretsky found Marya Dmitrievna alone in the living room. She smelled of cologne and mint. She said she had a headache and spent the night restless. She received him with her usual languid courtesy and gradually began to talk.

“Isn’t it true,” she asked him, “what a nice young man Vladimir Nikolaich is!”

– Who is this Vladimir Nikolaich?

- Yes, Panshin, that’s what I was here yesterday. He liked you terribly; I’ll tell you a secret, mon cher cousin, he’s just crazy about my Lisa. Well! He has a good family name, serves well, is smart, well, a chamber cadet, and if it is God’s will... I, for my part, as a mother, will be very happy. The responsibility is, of course, great; Of course, the happiness of the children depends on the parents, but even then, to say: for better or for worse, I’m all alone, everywhere I am, as is: I raised the children and taught them, that’s all me... I’m and now Mamzel from Mrs. Bolus has written out...

Marya Dmitrievna launched into a description of her worries, efforts, her maternal feelings. Lavretsky listened to her in silence and turned his hat in his hands. His cold, heavy gaze embarrassed the chattering lady.

– How do you like Lisa? – she asked.

“Lizaveta Mikhailovna is a most beautiful girl,” Lavretsky objected, stood up, took his leave and went to see Marfa Timofeevna. Marya Dmitrievna looked after him with displeasure and thought: “What a seal, man! Well, now I understand why his wife couldn’t remain faithful to him.”

Marfa Timofeevna was sitting in her room, surrounded by her staff. He consisted of five creatures, almost equally close to her heart: of a thick -to -be scientist bullfinch, whom she loved for stopping whistent and dragging water, a small, very shy and humble dog of grumbling, an angry cat's cat, a black -haired swing girl of about nine years old, a black man, with huge eyes and a sharp nose, whose name was Shurochka, and an elderly woman of about fifty-five, in a white cap and a brown short katsaveik on a dark dress, named Nastasya Karpovna Ogarkova. Shurochka was a tradeswoman, an orphan, Marfa Timofeevna took her in out of pity, just like Roska: she found both the dog and the girl on the street; both were thin and hungry, both were wet by the autumn rain; no one chased after Roska, and Shurochka was even willingly given up to Marfa Timofeevna by her uncle, a drunken shoemaker, who himself was malnourished and did not feed his niece, but beat him on the head with a shoe. Marfa Timofeevna met Nastasya Karpovna on a pilgrimage in the monastery; she approached her in church (Marfa Timofeevna liked her because, in her words, she prayed very well), spoke to her and invited her to her place for a cup of tea. From that day on, she never left her side. Nastasya Karpovna was a woman of the most cheerful and meek disposition, a widow, childless, one of the poor noblewomen; she had a round, gray head, soft white hands, a soft face with large, kind features and a somewhat funny, upturned nose; She was in awe of Marfa Timofeevna, and she loved her very much, although she made fun of her tender heart: she felt a weakness for all young people and involuntarily blushed like a girl at the most innocent joke. Its entire capital consisted of one thousand two hundred rubles in banknotes; she lived at the expense of Marfa Timofeevna, but on an equal footing with her: Marfa Timofeevna would not have tolerated servility.

- A! Fedya! - she began as soon as she saw him. – You didn’t see my family last night: just admire it. We all gathered for tea; This is our second, festive tea. You can caress everyone; Only Shurochka won’t give in, and the cat will scratch her. Are you going today?

- Today. - Lavretsky sat down on a low stool. – I have already said goodbye to Marya Dmitrievna. I saw Lizaveta Mikhailovna too.

- Call her Liza, my father, what kind of Mikhailovna is she to you? Sit still, otherwise you’ll break Shurochka’s chair.

“She was going to mass,” Lavretsky continued. - Is she a religious person?

- Yes, Fedya, very much. More than you and me, Fedya.

- Aren’t you religious? – Nastasya Karpovna noted, lisping. “And today you didn’t go to early mass, but you will go to late mass.”

“But no, you’ll go alone: ​​I’m lazy, my mother,” objected Marfa Timofeevna, “I really spoil myself with tea.” - She said “you” to Nastasya Karpovna, although she lived with her on an equal footing - it was not for nothing that she was Pestova: three Pestovs are listed in the synod of Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible; Marfa Timofeevna knew this.

“Tell me, please,” Lavretsky began again, “Marya Dmitrievna just told me about this... what do you call it?.. Panshina.” Who is this gentleman?

“What a chatterbox she is, God forgive me!” - Marfa Timofeevna grumbled, - tea, I told you in secret that this is how the groom is turning out. I would whisper with my priest; no, apparently she doesn’t have enough. And there is nothing yet, and thank God! and she's already chatting.

- Why thank God? - asked Lavretsky.

- But because I don’t like the fellow; and what is there to be happy about?

– Don’t you like him?

- Yes, he can’t captivate everyone. He will also benefit from the fact that Nastasya Karpovna is in love with him.

The poor widow was all alarmed.

- What are you saying, Marfa Timofeevna, you’re not afraid of God! - she exclaimed, and a blush instantly spread across her face and neck.

“And he knows, the rogue,” Marfa Timofeevna interrupted her, “he knows how to seduce her: he gave her a snuff box.” Fedya, ask her to smell the tobacco; you will see what a nice snuffbox: on the lid there is a hussar on horseback. You better, my mother, don’t make excuses.

Nastasya Karpovna only waved her hands.

“Well, and Liza,” asked Lavretsky, “is she not indifferent to him?”

“She seems to like him, but God knows!” Someone else's soul, you know, a dark forest, and even more so a girl's. Here's Shurochka's soul - go and take it apart! Why has she been hiding instead of leaving since you came?

Shurochka snorted with suppressed laughter and ran out, and Lavretsky rose from his seat.

“Yes,” he said deliberately, “you can’t guess a girl’s soul.”

He began to say goodbye.

- Well? will we see you soon? – asked Marfa Timofeevna.

– As necessary, auntie: it’s not far from here.

- Yes, you are going to Vasilyevskoye. You don’t want to live in Lavriki - well, that’s your business; Just go and bow to your mother’s coffin, and your grandmother’s coffin, by the way. You have gained all sorts of intelligence there, abroad, and who knows, maybe they will feel in their graves that you have come to them. Don’t forget, Fedya, to also serve a panafida for Glafira Petrovna; here's a ruble for you. Take it, take it I I want to serve a panafida for her. I didn’t love her during my life, but there’s nothing to say, she was a girl with character. She was smart; Well, I didn’t offend you either. Now go with God, otherwise you’ll get tired of me.

And Marfa Timofeevna hugged her nephew.

– And Liza won’t be behind Panshin, don’t worry; This is not the kind of husband she is worth.

“Yes, I’m not worried at all,” Lavretsky answered and left.

XVIII

About four hours later he was driving home. His carriage rolled quickly along a soft country road. There had been a drought for two weeks; a thin fog poured like milk into the air and covered the distant forests; he smelled of burning. Many dark clouds with vaguely outlined edges crawled across the pale blue sky; a rather strong wind rushed in a dry, continuous stream, without dispersing the heat. Leaning his head against the pillow and crossing his arms on his chest, Lavretsky looked at the fields running like a fan, at the slowly flashing willows, at the stupid crows and rooks, looking sideways with dull suspicion at the passing carriage, at the long borders overgrown with Chernobyl, wormwood and field ash; he looked... and this fresh, steppe, fat wilderness and wilderness, this greenery, these long hills, ravines with squat oak bushes, gray villages, thin birches - all this Russian picture, which he had not seen for a long time, brought sweet and At the same time, almost mournful feelings pressed on his chest with some kind of pleasant pressure. His thoughts wandered slowly; their outlines were as unclear and vague as the outlines of those tall clouds, which also seemed to be wandering. He remembered his childhood, his mother, remembered how she was dying, how they brought him to her and how she, pressing his head to her chest, began to weakly wail over him, and looked at Glafira Petrovna - and fell silent. He remembered his father, at first cheerful, dissatisfied with everything, with a copper voice, then blind, whiny, with an unkempt gray beard; I remembered how once at the table, after drinking an extra glass of wine and pouring sauce on his napkin, he suddenly laughed and began, blinking his eyes that saw nothing and blushing, to talk about his victories; I remembered Varvara Pavlovna - and involuntarily squinted, like a person squints from instant internal pain, and shook his head. Then his thought settled on Lisa.

“Here,” he thought, “a new creature is just entering life. Nice girl, will anything come of her? She's pretty too. A pale, fresh face, eyes and lips so serious, and an honest and innocent look. It's a pity, she seems a little enthusiastic. He is tall, he walks so easily, and his voice is quiet. I really love it when she suddenly stops, listens with attention, without smiling, then thinks and throws back her hair. Exactly, it seems to me that Panshin is not worth it. However, why is he bad? But why was I daydreaming? She will also run along the same path that everyone else runs on. I’d rather sleep.” And Lavretsky closed his eyes.

He could not sleep, but sank into a drowsy road numbness. Images of the past still, slowly, rose and surfaced in his soul, getting mixed up and confused with other ideas. Lavretsky, God knows why, began to think about Robert Peel... about French history... about how he would have won the battle if he had been a general; he imagined shots and screams... His head slid to the side, he opened his eyes... The same fields, the same steppe views; the worn-out horseshoes of the tie-downs sparkle alternately through the wavy dust; The driver's shirt, yellow, with red gussets, is inflated by the wind... “It's good that I'm returning to my homeland,” flashed through Lavretsky's head, and he shouted: “Get off!” – he wrapped himself in his overcoat and pressed himself closer to the pillow. The Tarantas was pushed: Lavretsky straightened up and opened his eyes wide. In front of him, on a hillock, stretched a small village; a little to the right one could see a dilapidated manor house with closed shutters and a crooked porch; across the wide yard, right from the gate, nettles grew, green and thick, like hemp; right there stood an oak barn, still strong. It was Vasilyevskoye.

The coachman turned to the gate and stopped the horses; Lavretsky’s footman stood up on the box and, as if preparing to jump off, shouted: “Hey!” A hoarse, muffled bark was heard, but not even a dog appeared; The footman again prepared to jump off and again shouted: “Hey!” The decrepit barking was repeated, and a moment later, out of nowhere, a man in a nankeen caftan, with a head as white as snow, ran out into the yard; He looked, protecting his eyes from the sun, at the carriage, suddenly hit himself on the thighs with both hands, at first thrashed around a little, then rushed to open the gate. The Tarantas drove into the yard, wheels rustling through the nettles, and stopped in front of the porch. The white-headed man, apparently very nimble, was already standing with his legs spread wide and crooked on the last step, unfastened the front, frantically jerking his skin upward, and, helping the master down to the ground, kissed his hand.

“Hello, hello, brother,” said Lavretsky, “I think your name is Anton?” Are you still alive?

The old man bowed silently and ran for the keys. While he was running, the coachman sat motionless, leaning on his side and looking at the locked door; and Lavretsky’s footman jumped off and remained in a picturesque pose, throwing one arm over the box. The old man brought the keys and, unnecessarily bending like a snake, raising his elbows high, unlocked the door, stood aside and again bowed at the waist.

“Here I am at home, here I am back,” thought Lavretsky, entering the tiny hallway, while the shutters opened one after another with a knock and squeal and daylight penetrated into the empty chambers.

XIX

The small house where Lavretsky arrived and where Glafira Petrovna died two years ago was built in the last century from solid pine forest; it looked dilapidated, but could stand for another fifty years or more. Lavretsky went around all the rooms and, to the great concern of the old, lethargic flies with white dust on their backs, sitting motionless under the lintels, he ordered the windows to be opened everywhere: since Glafira Petrovna’s death no one had unlocked them. Everything in the house remained as it was: the thin-legged white sofas in the living room, upholstered in glossy gray damask, worn and dented, vividly reminiscent of Catherine’s times; in the living room there was the hostess’s favorite chair, with a high and straight back, against which she did not lean even in her old age. On the main wall hung an old portrait of Fedorov’s great-grandfather, Andrei Lavretsky; the dark, bilious face was barely distinguishable from the blackened and warped background; small evil eyes looked gloomily from under drooping, swollen eyelids; black hair, without powder, rose like a brush over a heavy, pitted forehead. On the corner of the portrait hung a wreath of dusty immortels. “Glafira Petrovna themselves deigned to weave,” Anton reported. In the bedroom there was a narrow bed under a canopy made of old-fashioned, very good-quality striped fabric; a pile of faded pillows and a quilted thin blanket lay on the bed, and at the head of the bed hung the image of the Presentation of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple, the same image to which the old maid, dying alone and forgotten by everyone, pressed her already cooling lips for the last time. A dressing table made of pieced wood, with copper plaques and a crooked mirror, with blackened gilding, stood by the window. Next to the bedroom there was a figurative, small room, with bare walls and a heavy icon case in the corner; on the floor lay a worn, wax-stained rug; Glafira Petrovna bowed to the ground on it. Anton went with Lavretsky's footman to unlock the stable and barn; in his place appeared an old woman, almost the same age as him, tied with a scarf up to her eyebrows; her head was shaking, and her eyes looked dull, but expressed zeal, a long-standing habit of serving unrequitedly, and at the same time - some kind of respectful regret. She went up to Lavretsky's handle and stopped at the door, awaiting orders. He absolutely did not remember what her name was, he did not even remember whether he had ever seen her; it turned out that her name was Apraxea; about forty years ago the same Glafira Petrovna exiled her from the master's courtyard and ordered her to be a poultry worker; however, she said little, as if she had lost her mind, and looked servilely. In addition to these two old men and three pot-bellied children in long shirts, Antonov’s great-grandchildren, there also lived in the manor’s courtyard a one-armed, neckless little man; he muttered like a black grouse and was incapable of anything; Not much more useful than him was the decrepit dog that greeted Lavretsky’s return with a bark: for ten years she had been sitting on a heavy chain, bought by order of Glafira Petrovna, and was barely able to move and carry her burden. After examining the house, Lavretsky went out into the garden and was pleased with it. It was all overgrown with weeds, burdocks, gooseberries and raspberries; but there was a lot of shadow in it, a lot of old linden trees, which amazed with their enormity and strange arrangement of branches; they were planted too closely and had been cut short a hundred years ago. The garden ended in a small, bright pond bordered by tall reddish reeds.

Traces of human life fade away very quickly: Glafira Petrovna’s estate had not yet gone wild, but already seemed immersed in that quiet slumber that everything on earth slumbers, wherever there is no human, restless infection. Fyodor Ivanovich also walked around the village; the women looked at him from the threshold of their huts, resting their cheeks with their hands; the men bowed from a distance, the children ran away, the dogs barked indifferently. He finally felt hungry; but he expected his servant and cook only in the evening; the convoy with provisions from Lavriki had not yet arrived, so I had to turn to Anton. Anton now gave orders: he caught, slaughtered and plucked an old chicken; Apraxia scrubbed and washed it for a long time, washing it like laundry, before she put it in the pan; when it was finally cooked, Anton set and cleared the table, placed in front of the device a blackened aplique salt shaker with three legs and a cut decanter with a round glass stopper and a narrow neck; then he reported to Lavretsky in a melodious voice that the food was ready, and he himself stood behind his chair, wrapping his right fist in a napkin and spreading some kind of strong, ancient smell, like the smell of cypress wood. Lavretsky tasted the soup and took out the chicken; her skin was all covered with large pimples; a thick vein ran down each leg, the meat smelled like wood and lye. After lunch, Lavretsky said that he would drink tea if... “I’ll give it to you in a minute,” the old man interrupted him, and kept his promise. A pinch of tea was found, wrapped in a piece of red paper; a small, but prairie and noisy samovar was found, and sugar was also found in very small, as if melted pieces. Lavretsky drank tea from a large cup; He remembered this cup from childhood: gambling cards were depicted on it, only guests drank from it, and he drank from it like a guest. In the evening the servants arrived; Lavretsky did not want to lie in his aunt’s bed; he ordered his bed to be made in the dining room. Having extinguished the candle, he looked around him for a long time and thought a sad thought; he experienced a feeling familiar to every person who has to spend the night for the first time in a long-uninhabited place; It seemed to him that the darkness that surrounded him on all sides could not get used to the new tenant, that the very walls of the house were perplexed. Finally he sighed, pulled the blanket over himself and fell asleep. Anton stayed on his feet the longest; He whispered for a long time with Apraxea, groaned in a low voice, crossed himself twice; They both did not expect the master to settle with them in Vasilyevskoye, when he had such a glorious estate with a well-organized estate nearby; they did not even suspect that this very estate was disgusting to Lavretsky; it aroused painful memories in him. Having whispered enough, Anton took a stick, beat it on the hanging, long-silent board by the barn, and immediately took a nap in the yard, not covering his white head with anything. The May night was quiet and gentle, and the old man slept sweetly.

XX

The next day Lavretsky got up quite early, talked with the headman, visited the threshing floor, ordered the chain to be removed from the yard dog, which only barked a little, but did not even move from its kennel - and, returning home, plunged into a kind of peaceful stupor. from which I did not leave all day. “That’s when I got to the very bottom of the river,” he said to himself more than once. He sat under the window, did not move, and seemed to listen to the flow of the quiet life that surrounded him, to the rare sounds of the village wilderness. Somewhere behind the nettles someone is humming in a thin, thin voice; the mosquito seems to echo him. So he stopped, and the mosquito kept squeaking; through the friendly, annoyingly plaintive buzzing of flies, the hum of a fat bumblebee can be heard, which every now and then knocks its head on the ceiling; a rooster on the street crowed, hoarsely drawing out the last note, a cart knocked, the gates in the village creaked. "What?" – suddenly a woman’s voice began to tremble. “Oh, my sir,” Anton says to the two-year-old girl he was nursing in his arms. “Bring the kvass,” repeats the same woman’s voice, “and suddenly there is dead silence; nothing will knock or move; the wind does not move the leaf; swallows rush without a cry, one after another, across the earth, and their silent raid makes one’s soul sad. “That’s when I’m at the bottom of the river,” Lavretsky thinks again. “And always, at all times, life here is quiet and unhurried,” he thinks, “whoever enters its circle, submit: there is no need to worry, there is no need to stir things up; here only the one who succeeds is the one who plows his path slowly, like a plowman plows a furrow with a plow. And what strength is all around, what health is in this inactive silence! Here, under the window, a stocky burdock climbs out of the thick grass, above it the dawn stretches out its juicy stem, the Virgin's tears throw out their pink curls even higher; and there, further, in the fields, the rye is shining, and the oats have already grown into a tube, and every leaf on every tree, every grass on its stem, is spreading to its full width. “My best years were spent on a woman’s love,” Lavretsky continues to think, “let boredom sober me up here, let it calm me down, prepare me so that I too can do things slowly.” And he again begins to listen to the silence, not expecting anything - and at the same time, as if constantly expecting something: silence embraces him from all sides, the sun rolls quietly across the calm blue sky, and clouds quietly float across it; they seem to know where and why they are sailing. At that very time, in other places on earth life was in full swing, in a hurry, and roaring; here the same life flowed silently, like water through marsh grass; and until the very evening Lavretsky could not tear himself away from the contemplation of this passing, flowing life; grief over the past melted in his soul like spring snow - and a strange thing! - Never before had he had such a deep and strong sense of homeland.