Chekhov Anton Pavlovich - (Theater phonograph). Jumper

When at eight o'clock in the morning Olga Ivanovna, with her head heavy from insomnia, unkempt, ugly and with a guilty expression, left the bedroom, a gentleman with a black beard, apparently a doctor, walked past her into the hallway. It smelled like medicine. Korostelev stood near the door to the office and twirled his left mustache with his right hand. “Sorry, I won’t let you go to him,” he said gloomily to Olga Ivanovna. - You can get infected. Yes, and there is no need for you, in essence. He's still delirious. - Does he have real diphtheria? - Olga Ivanovna asked in a whisper. “Those who get into trouble should really be brought to justice,” muttered Korostelev, without answering Olga Ivanovna’s question. - Do you know why he got infected? On Tuesday, diphtheria films were sucked out of the boy through a tube. Why? Stupid... Yes, stupid... - Dangerous? Very? - Olga Ivanovna asked. - Yes, they say that the form is severe. We should send for Shrek, basically. A small, red-haired man came with long nose and with a Jewish accent, then tall, stooped, shaggy, looking like an archdeacon, then young, very plump, with a red face and glasses. These were the doctors who came to keep vigil around their comrade. Korostelev, having finished his duty, did not go home, but stayed and, like a shadow, wandered through all the rooms. The maid served tea to the doctors on duty and often ran to the pharmacy, and there was no one to clean the rooms. It was quiet and dull. Olga Ivanovna sat in her bedroom and thought that God was punishing her for deceiving her husband. A silent, resigned, incomprehensible creature, depersonalized by its meekness, spineless, weak from excessive kindness, was silently suffering somewhere on her sofa and did not complain. And if it had complained, even in delirium, then the doctors on duty would have known that diphtheria was not the only culprit. They would have asked Korostelev: he knows everything and it’s not for nothing that he looks at his friend’s wife with such eyes as if she were the main one, the real villain, and only her accomplice is diphtheria. She no longer remembered either the moonlit evening on the Volga, or declarations of love, or the poetic life in the hut, but only remembered that out of an empty whim, out of self-indulgence, she had smeared herself, with her hands and feet, in something dirty, sticky , something you can never wash off... “Oh, how terribly I lied! - she thought, remembering the restless love she had with Ryabovsky. “Damn it all!” At four o'clock she dined with Korostelev. He ate nothing, drank only red wine and frowned. She didn't eat anything either. Then she mentally prayed and made a vow to God that if Dymov recovered, then she would love him again and would faithful wife. Then, having forgotten herself for a minute, she looked at Korostelev and thought: “Isn’t it boring to be a simple, unremarkable, unknown person, and even with such a rumpled face and bad manners?” It seemed to her that God would kill her right now because, fearing infection, she had never been in her husband’s office. But in general there was a dull, sad feeling and confidence that life was already ruined and that nothing could fix it... After lunch it got dark. When Olga Ivanovna went out into the living room, Korostelev was sleeping on the couch, placing a silk pillow embroidered with gold under his head. “Khi-pua...” he snored, “khi-pua.” And the doctors who came and went on duty did not notice this disorder. The fact that a stranger was sleeping in the living room and snoring, and the sketches on the walls, and the bizarre furnishings, and the fact that the hostess had no hair and was sloppily dressed - all this did not now arouse the slightest interest. One of the doctors accidentally laughed at something, and somehow this laugh sounded strange and timid, it even became creepy. When Olga Ivanovna went out into the living room another time, Korostelev was no longer sleeping, but was sitting and smoking. “He has diphtheria of the nasal cavity,” he said in a low voice. “Even my heart doesn’t work well anymore.” In essence, things are bad. “And you will send for Shrek,” said Olga Ivanovna. - I was already. It was he who noticed that the diphtheria had spread to the nose. Eh, what about Shrek! Basically, nothing Shrek. He is Shrek, I am Korostelev - and nothing more. Time dragged on terribly long. Olga Ivanovna lay dressed in a bed that had not been made in the morning and dozed. It seemed to her that the entire apartment, from floor to ceiling, was occupied by a huge piece of iron and that as soon as the iron was taken out, everyone would feel happy and at ease. When she woke up, she remembered that it was not iron, but Dymov’s disease. “Nature morte, port...” she thought, falling into oblivion again, “sport... resort... And what about Shrek? Shrek, Greek, vrek... crack. Where are my friends now? Do they know that we are in trouble? Lord, save... deliver. Shrek, the Greek..." And again iron... Time dragged on, and the clock on the lower floor struck often. And every now and then calls were heard; doctors came... A maid came in with an empty glass on a tray and asked: “Mistress, would you like me to make the bed?” And, having received no answer, she left. The clock struck downstairs, I dreamed of rain on the Volga, and again someone entered the bedroom, it seemed like a stranger. Olga Ivanovna jumped up and recognized Korostelev. - What time is it now? she asked.- About three. - Well? - What! I came to say: it's ending... He sobbed, sat down on the bed next to her and wiped his tears with his sleeve. She didn’t understand right away, but she became completely cold and began to slowly cross herself. “It’s ending...” he repeated in a thin voice and sobbed again. - He dies because he sacrificed himself... What a loss for science! - he said bitterly. - This, if we compare all of us with him, was great, extraordinary person! What talents! What hope he gave us all! - Korostelev continued, wringing his hands. “Lord my God, he would be such a scientist as you won’t find nowadays.” Oska Dymov, Oska Dymov, what have you done! Ay-ay, my God! Korostelev covered his face with both hands in despair and shook his head. - Which one? moral strength! - he continued, becoming more and more angry with someone. - Kind, pure, loving soul- not a person, but glass! He served science and died from science. And he worked like an ox, day and night, no one spared him, and the young scientist, future professor, had to look for an internship and do translations at night in order to pay for these... vile rags! Korostelev looked at Olga Ivanovna with hatred, grabbed the sheet with both hands and angrily pulled, as if it were her fault. “And he didn’t spare himself, and they didn’t spare him.” Eh, yes, really! - Yes, rare person! - someone said in a deep voice in the living room. Olga Ivanovna remembered her entire life with him, from beginning to end, with all the details, and suddenly realized that he was truly extraordinary, rare and, in comparison with those she knew, great person. And remembering how her late father and all his fellow doctors treated him, she realized that they all saw him as a future celebrity. The walls, ceiling, lamp and carpet on the floor blinked at her mockingly, as if wanting to say: “I missed it! missed !» She rushed out of the bedroom crying, dashed into the living room past some stranger and ran into her husband’s office. He lay motionless on the Turkish sofa, covered to the waist with a blanket. His face was terribly haggard, thinner and had a grayish-yellow color, which never happens to the living; and only by the forehead, by the black eyebrows and by the familiar smile could one recognize that it was Dymov. Olga Ivanovna quickly felt his chest, forehead and arms. The chest was still warm, but the forehead and hands were unpleasantly cold. And half-open eyes looked not at Olga Ivanovna, but at the blanket. - Dymov! - she called loudly. - Dymov! She wanted to explain to him that it was a mistake, that not everything still lost that life can still be beautiful and happy, that he is a rare, extraordinary, great person and that she will reverence him all her life, pray and experience sacred fear... - Dymov! - she called him, tugging at his shoulder and not believing that he would never wake up. - Dymov, Dymov! And in the living room Korostelev said to the maid: - What is there to ask? You go to the church gatehouse and ask where the almshouses live. They will wash the body and clean it up - they will do everything that is needed.

VII

It was a most hectic day.

Dymov had a severe headache; he didn’t drink tea in the morning, didn’t go to the hospital, and spent the entire time lying in his office on a Turkish sofa. Olga Ivanovna, as usual, went to Ryabovsky at one o’clock to show him her nature morte sketch and ask him why he didn’t come yesterday. The sketch seemed insignificant to her, and she wrote it only to have an extra excuse to go to the artist.

She came to him without ringing the bell, and when she was taking off her overshoes in the hall, she thought she heard something quietly running through the workshop, rustling her dress like a woman, and when she hurried to look into the workshop, she saw only a piece of a brown skirt, which flashed for a moment and disappeared behind big picture, curtained along with the easel to the floor with black calico. There was no doubt, it was a woman hiding. How often Olga Ivanovna herself found refuge behind this picture! Ryabovsky, apparently very embarrassed, seemed surprised at her arrival, extended both hands to her and said, smiling tightly:

- Ah-ah-ah! I am very glad to see you. What can you say that's nice?

Olga Ivanovna’s eyes filled with tears. She was ashamed, bitter, and she would not have agreed for a million to speak in the presence of a stranger, a rival, a liar, who now stood behind the picture and was probably giggling maliciously.

“I brought you a sketch...” she said timidly, in a thin voice, and her lips trembled, “nature morte.”

- A-ah-ah... a sketch?

The artist took the sketch in his hands and, looking at it, as if mechanically he walked into another room.

Olga Ivanovna obediently followed him.

“Nature morte... first class,” he muttered, searching for a rhyme, “resort... damn... port...”

Hasty steps and the rustling of a dress were heard from the workshop. Means, she left. Olga Ivanovna wanted to scream loudly, hit the artist on the head with something heavy and leave, but she couldn’t see anything through her tears, she was crushed by her shame and no longer felt like Olga Ivanovna or an artist, but like a little booger.

“I’m tired...” the artist said languidly, looking at the sketch and shaking his head to overcome drowsiness. - This is nice, of course, but today there is a sketch, and last year there will be a sketch, and in a month there will be a sketch... How can you not get bored? If I were you, I would give up painting and take up music or something seriously. After all, you are not an artist, but a musician. However, you know how tired I am! I’ll tell you now to give me some tea... Eh?

He left the room, and Olga Ivanovna heard him order something to his footman. In order not to say goodbye, not to explain, and most importantly, not to burst into tears, she quickly ran to the hallway before Ryabovsky returned, put on her galoshes and went out into the street. Here she sighed lightly and felt forever free from Ryabovsky, from painting, and from the heavy shame that weighed so heavily on her in the studio. Everything is over!

She went to the dressmaker, then to Barnay, who had only arrived yesterday, from Barnay to the music store, and all the time she was thinking about how she would write a cold, harsh letter to Ryabovsky, full of dignity, and how in the spring or summer she would go with Dymov to Crimea, there he will finally free himself from the past and start a new life.

Returning home late in the evening, without changing her clothes, she sat down in the living room to compose a letter. Ryabovsky told her that she was not an artist, and in revenge she would now write to him that he writes the same thing every year and says the same thing every day, that he is frozen and that nothing will come of him except which has already come out. She also wanted to write that he owed her a lot good influence, and if he acts badly, it is only because her influence is paralyzed by various ambiguous persons, like the one who was hiding behind the picture today.

- Mother! - Dymov called from the office without opening the door. - Mother!

- What do you want?

- Mom, don’t come to me, just come to the door. Here's what... The day before yesterday I contracted diphtheria in the hospital, and now... I don't feel well. Let's quickly go get Korostelev.

Olga Ivanovna always called her husband, like all the men she knew, not by his first name, but by his last name; She didn’t like his name Osip because it reminded her of Gogol’s Osip and the pun: “Osip was hoarse, and Arkhip was hoarse.” Now she screamed:

- Osip, this can’t be!

- Went! “I don’t feel well...” Dymov said behind the door, and you could hear him go to the sofa and lie down. “Let’s go,” his voice was muffled.

"What is it? - thought Olga Ivanovna, growing cold with horror. “It’s dangerous!”

Unnecessarily, she took a candle and went to her bedroom and then, wondering what she needed to do, she accidentally looked at herself in the dressing table. With a pale, frightened face, in a jacket with high sleeves, with yellow flounces on her chest and with the unusual direction of the stripes on her skirt, she seemed scary and disgusting. She suddenly felt painfully sorry for Dymov, his boundless love for her, his young life and even this orphaned bed of his, on which he had not slept for a long time, and she remembered his usual, meek, submissive smile. She cried bitterly and wrote a pleading letter to Korostelev. It was two o'clock in the morning.

VIII

“Sorry, I won’t let you go to him,” he said gloomily to Olga Ivanovna. - You can get infected. Yes, and there is no need for you, in essence. He's still delirious.

– Does he have real diphtheria? – Olga Ivanovna asked in a whisper.

“Those who get into trouble should really be brought to justice,” muttered Korostelev, without answering Olga Ivanovna’s question. – Do you know why he got infected? On Tuesday, diphtheria bacilli were sucked out of the boy through a tube. Why? Stupid... Yes, stupid...

- Dangerous? Very? – asked Olga Ivanovna.

- Yes, they say that the form is severe. We should send for Shrek, basically.

A small, red-haired man with a long nose and a Jewish accent came, then a tall, stooped, shaggy man, looking like an archdeacon; then young, very plump, with a red face and glasses. These were the doctors who came to keep vigil around their comrade. Korostelev, having finished his duty, did not go home, but stayed and, like a shadow, wandered through all the rooms. The maid served tea to the doctors on duty and often ran to the pharmacy, and there was no one to clean the rooms. It was quiet and dull.

Olga Ivanovna sat in her bedroom and thought that God was punishing her for deceiving her husband. A silent, resigned, incomprehensible creature, depersonalized by its meekness, spineless, weak from excessive kindness, was silently suffering somewhere on her sofa and did not complain. And if it had complained, even in delirium, then the doctors on duty would have known that diphtheria was not the only culprit. They would have asked Korostelev: he knows everything and it’s not for nothing that he looks at his friend’s wife with such eyes as if she were the main one, the real villain, and only her accomplice had diphtheria. She no longer remembered either the moonlit evening on the Volga, or declarations of love, or the poetic life in the hut, but only remembered that out of an empty whim, out of self-indulgence, she had smeared herself, with her hands and feet, in something dirty, sticky , something you can never wash off...

“Oh, how terribly I lied! - she thought, remembering the restless love she had with Ryabovsky. “Damn it all!”

At four o'clock she dined with Korostelev. He ate nothing, drank only red wine and frowned. She didn't eat anything either. Then she mentally prayed and made a vow to God that if Dymov recovered, then she would love him again and would be a faithful wife. Then, having forgotten herself for a minute, she looked at Korostelev and thought: “Isn’t it boring to be a simple, unremarkable, unknown person, and even with such a rumpled face and bad manners?” It seemed to her that God would kill her right now because, fearing infection, she had never been in her husband’s office. But in general there was a dull, sad feeling and confidence that life was already ruined and that nothing could fix it...

After lunch it got dark. When Olga Ivanovna went out into the living room, Korostelev was sleeping on the couch, placing a silk pillow embroidered with gold under his head. “Khi-pua...” he snored, “khi-pua.”

And the doctors who came and went on duty did not notice this disorder. The fact that a stranger was sleeping in the living room and snoring, and the sketches on the walls, and the bizarre furnishings, and the fact that the hostess was unkempt and sloppily dressed - all this did not now arouse the slightest interest. One of the doctors accidentally laughed at something, and somehow this laugh sounded strange and timid, it even became creepy.

When Olga Ivanovna went out into the living room another time, Korostelev was no longer sleeping, but was sitting and smoking.

“He has diphtheria of the nasal cavity,” he said in a low voice. – Even the heart doesn’t work well anymore. In essence, things are bad.

“And you will send for Shrek,” said Olga Ivanovna.

- I was already. It was he who noticed that the diphtheria had spread to the nose. Eh, what about Shrek! Basically, nothing Shrek. He is Shrek, I am Korostelev - and nothing more.

Time dragged on terribly long. Olga Ivanovna lay dressed in a bed that had not been made in the morning and dozed. It seemed to her that the entire apartment, from floor to ceiling, was occupied by a huge piece of iron and that as soon as the iron was taken out, everyone would feel happy and at ease. When she woke up, she remembered that it was not iron, but Dymov’s disease.

“Nature morte, port...” she thought, falling into oblivion again, “sport... resort... And how is Shrek? Shrek, Greek, wreck... crack... Where are my friends now? Do they know that we are in trouble? Lord, save... deliver. Shrek, Greek..."

And again iron... Time dragged on, and the clock on the lower floor struck often. And every now and then calls were heard; doctors came... A maid came in with an empty glass on a tray and asked:

- Lady, would you like to make the bed?

And, having received no answer, she left. The clock struck downstairs, I dreamed of rain on the Volga, and again someone entered the bedroom, it seemed like a stranger. Olga Ivanovna jumped up and recognized Korostelev.

- What time is it now? – she asked.

- About three.

- Well?

- What! I came to say: it’s ending...

He sobbed, sat down on the bed next to her and wiped his tears with his sleeve. She didn’t understand right away, but she became completely cold and began to slowly cross herself.

“It’s ending...” he repeated in a thin voice and sobbed again. – He dies because he sacrificed himself... What a loss for science! - he said bitterly. - This, if we compare all of us with him, was a great, extraordinary man! What talents! What hope he gave us all! - Korostelev continued, wringing his hands. “Lord my God, he would be such a scientist as you won’t find with fire these days.” Oska Dymov, Oska Dymov, what have you done! Ay-ay, my God!

Korostelev covered his face with both hands in despair and shook his head.

- And what moral strength! - he continued, becoming more and more angry with someone. – A kind, pure, loving soul is not a person, but glass! He served science and died from science. And he worked like an ox, day and night, no one spared him, and the young scientist, future professor, had to look for an internship and do translations at night in order to pay for these... vile rags!

Korostelev looked at Olga Ivanovna with hatred, grabbed the sheet with both hands and angrily pulled, as if it were her fault.

“And he didn’t spare himself, and they didn’t spare him.” Eh, yes, actually!

- Yes, a rare person! - someone said in a deep voice in the living room.

Olga Ivanovna remembered her entire life with him, from beginning to end, with all the details, and suddenly realized that he was truly an extraordinary, rare and, in comparison with those she knew, a great man. And, remembering how her late father and all his fellow doctors treated him, she realized that they all saw him as a future celebrity. The walls, ceiling, lamp and carpet on the floor blinked at her mockingly, as if wanting to say: “I missed it! I missed it!” She rushed out of the bedroom crying, dashed past some stranger in the living room and ran into her husband’s office. He lay motionless on the Turkish sofa, covered to the waist with a blanket. His face was terribly haggard, thinner and had a grayish-yellow color, which never happens to the living; and only by the forehead, by the black eyebrows and by the familiar smile could one recognize that it was Dymov. Olga Ivanovna quickly felt his chest, forehead and arms. The chest was still warm, but the forehead and hands were unpleasantly cold. And half-open eyes looked not at Olga Ivanovna, but at the blanket.

Current page: 2 (book has 3 pages in total)

Apparently, from the middle of winter, Dymov began to realize that he was being deceived. As if he had a bad conscience, he could no longer look his wife straight in the eyes, did not smile joyfully when meeting her, and, in order to be less alone with her, he often brought his friend Korostelev, a small, short-haired man with a rumpled face, to dinner with him. , who, when talking to Olga Ivanovna, out of embarrassment, unbuttoned all the buttons of his jacket and buttoned them again and then began to pluck his left mustache with his right hand. Over lunch, both doctors talked about how when the diaphragm is high, sometimes there are heart failures, or that multiple neuritis in Lately are observed very often, or that yesterday Dymov, having opened a corpse with a diagnosis of “pernicious anemia,” found pancreatic cancer. And it seemed that both of them were conducting a medical conversation only in order to give Olga Ivanovna the opportunity to remain silent, that is, not to lie. After dinner, Korostelev sat down at the piano, and Dymov sighed and said to him:

- Eh, brother! Well, so what! Play something sad.

Raising his shoulders and spreading his fingers wide, Korostelev struck a few chords and began to sing in tenor “Show me such an abode where a Russian peasant would not moan,” and Dymov sighed again, propped his head on his fist and thought.

Recently, Olga Ivanovna behaved extremely carelessly. Every morning she woke up in the worst mood and with the thought that she no longer loved Ryabovsky and that, thank God, it was all over. But, having drunk coffee, she realized that Ryabovsky had taken her husband away from her and that now she was left without a husband and without Ryabovsky; then she recalled the conversations of her acquaintances that Ryabovsky was preparing something amazing for the exhibition, a mixture of landscape and genre, in the taste of Polenov, which is why everyone who visits his studio is delighted; but, she thought, he created this under her influence, and in general, thanks to her influence, he changed greatly for the better. Her influence is so beneficial and significant that if she leaves him, he may perhaps die. And she also recalled that in last time he came to her in some kind of gray frock coat with sparkles and a new tie and asked languidly: “Am I handsome?” And indeed, he, graceful, with his long curls and blue eyes, was very handsome (or perhaps it seemed so) and was affectionate with her.

Having remembered a lot and realized, Olga Ivanovna got dressed and, in great excitement, went to Ryabovsky’s workshop. She found him cheerful and delighted with her truly magnificent painting; he jumped around, fooled around and answered serious questions with jokes. Olga Ivanovna was jealous of Ryabovsky’s painting and hated it, but out of politeness she stood in front of the painting in silence for about five minutes and, sighing as one sighs before a shrine, said quietly:

- Yes, you have never written anything like this before. You know, it's even scary.

Then she began to beg him to love her, not to abandon her, to take pity on her, poor and unhappy. She cried, kissed his hands, demanded that he swear his love for her, proved to him that without her good influence he would go astray and die. And, spoiling him good mood spirit and feeling humiliated, she went to the dressmaker or to an actress she knew to ask about a ticket.

If she did not find him in the workshop, she left him a letter in which she swore that if he did not come to her today, she would certainly poison herself. He was a coward, came to her and stayed for dinner. Not embarrassed by the presence of her husband, he spoke insolence to her, and she answered him in kind. Both felt that they were tied to each other, that they were despots and enemies, and they were angry, and out of anger they did not notice that both of them were indecent and that even the short-haired Korostelev understood everything. After lunch, Ryabovsky hurried to say goodbye and leave.

- Where are you going? - Olga Ivanovna asked him in the hallway, looking at him with hatred.

He, wincing and squinting his eyes, named some lady, a mutual friend, and it was clear that he was laughing at her jealousy and wanted to annoy her. She went to her bedroom and went to bed; out of jealousy, annoyance, a sense of humiliation and shame, she bit the pillow and began to sob loudly. Dymov left Korostelev in the living room, went into the bedroom and, embarrassed, confused, said quietly:

– Don’t cry loudly, mom... Why? We must remain silent about this... We must not show it... You know what happened, you can’t fix it.

Not knowing how to pacify the severe jealousy within herself, from which even her temples ached, and thinking that the matter could still be improved, she washed herself, powdered her tear-stained face and flew to a lady she knew. Not finding Ryabovsky with her, she went to another, then to a third... At first she was ashamed to drive like that, but then she got used to it, and it happened that one evening she went around to all the women she knew to find Ryabovsky, and everyone understood this.

One day she told Ryabovsky about her husband:

She liked this phrase so much that, meeting with artists who knew about her affair with Ryabovsky, she always spoke about her husband, making an energetic hand gesture:

“This man oppresses me with his generosity!”

The order of life was the same as last year. There were parties on Wednesdays. The artist read artists painted, the cellist played, the singer sang, and invariably at half past eleven the door leading to the dining room opened, and Dymov, smiling, said:

- Please, gentlemen, have a snack.

As before, Olga Ivanovna looked for great people, found them and was not satisfied, and looked again. As before, every day she returned late at night, but Dymov no longer slept, as last year, but sat in his office and worked on something. He went to bed at three o'clock and got up at eight.

One evening, when she was standing in front of the dressing table, getting ready for the theater, Dymov entered the bedroom in a tailcoat and white tie. He smiled meekly and, as before, joyfully looked his wife straight in the eyes. His face was shining.

“I just defended my dissertation,” he said, sitting down and stroking his knees.

- Protected? – asked Olga Ivanovna.

- Wow! – he laughed and craned his neck to see his wife’s face in the mirror, who continued to stand with her back to him and straighten her hair. - Wow! - he repeated. – You know, it is very possible that they will offer me a private assistant professorship in general pathology. This is what it smells like.

It was clear from his blissful, radiant face that if Olga Ivanovna had shared his joy and triumph with him, he would have forgiven her everything, both the present and the future, and would have forgotten everything, but she did not understand what privatdocentur means and general pathology, and besides, she was afraid of being late for the theater and didn’t say anything.

He sat for two minutes, smiled guiltily and left.

It was a most hectic day.

She came to him without ringing the bell, and when she was taking off her overshoes in the hall, she thought she heard something quietly running through the workshop, rustling her dress like a woman, and when she hurried to look into the workshop, she saw only a piece of a brown skirt, which flashed for a moment and disappeared behind a large painting, curtained with black calico along with the easel to the floor. There was no doubt, it was a woman hiding. How often Olga Ivanovna herself found refuge behind this picture! Ryabovsky, apparently very embarrassed, seemed surprised at her arrival, extended both hands to her and said, smiling tightly:

- Ah-ah-ah! I am very glad to see you. What can you say that's nice?

“I brought you a sketch...” she said timidly, in a thin voice, and her lips trembled, “nature morte.”

- A-ah-ah... a sketch?

The artist took the sketch in his hands and, looking at it, as if mechanically he walked into another room.

Olga Ivanovna obediently followed him.

“Nature morte... first class,” he muttered, searching for a rhyme, “resort... damn... port...”

Returning home late in the evening, without changing her clothes, she sat down in the living room to compose a letter. Ryabovsky told her that she was not an artist, and in revenge she would now write to him that he writes the same thing every year and says the same thing every day, that he is frozen and that nothing will come of him except which has already come out. She also wanted to write that he owes a lot to her good influence, and if he acts badly, it is only because her influence is paralyzed by various ambiguous persons, like the one who was hiding behind the picture today.

- Mother! - Dymov called from the office without opening the door. - Mother!

- What do you want?

- Mom, don’t come to me, just come to the door. Here's what... The day before yesterday I contracted diphtheria in the hospital, and now... I don't feel well. Let's quickly go get Korostelev.

- Osip, this can’t be!

- Went! “I don’t feel well...” Dymov said behind the door, and you could hear him go to the sofa and lie down. “Let’s go,” his voice was muffled.

"What is it? - thought Olga Ivanovna, growing cold with horror. “It’s dangerous!”

“Sorry, I won’t let you go to him,” he said gloomily to Olga Ivanovna. - You can get infected. Yes, and there is no need for you, in essence. He's still delirious.

– Does he have real diphtheria? – Olga Ivanovna asked in a whisper.

- Dangerous? Very? – asked Olga Ivanovna.

- Yes, they say that the form is severe. We should send for Shrek, basically.

“Oh, how terribly I lied! - she thought, remembering the restless love she had with Ryabovsky. “Damn it all!”

When Olga Ivanovna went out into the living room another time, Korostelev was no longer sleeping, but was sitting and smoking.

“He has diphtheria of the nasal cavity,” he said in a low voice. – Even the heart doesn’t work well anymore. In essence, things are bad.

“And you will send for Shrek,” said Olga Ivanovna.

- I was already. It was he who noticed that the diphtheria had spread to the nose. Eh, what about Shrek! Basically, nothing Shrek. He is Shrek, I am Korostelev - and nothing more.

And again iron... Time dragged on, and the clock on the lower floor struck often. And every now and then calls were heard; doctors came... A maid came in with an empty glass on a tray and asked:

- Lady, would you like to make the bed?

- What time is it now? – she asked.

- About three.

- Well?

- What! I came to say: it’s ending...

He sobbed, sat down on the bed next to her and wiped his tears with his sleeve. She didn’t understand right away, but she became completely cold and began to slowly cross herself.

Korostelev covered his face with both hands in despair and shook his head.

Korostelev looked at Olga Ivanovna with hatred, grabbed the sheet with both hands and angrily pulled, as if it were her fault.

“And he didn’t spare himself, and they didn’t spare him.” Eh, yes, actually!

- Yes, a rare person! - someone said in a deep voice in the living room.

- Dymov! – she called loudly. - Dymov!

She wanted to explain to him that it was a mistake, that all was not lost, that life could still be beautiful and happy, that he was a rare, extraordinary, great person and that she would reverence him all her life, pray and experience sacred fear...

- Dymov! - she called him, tugging at his shoulder and not believing that he would never wake up. - Dymov, Dymov!

And in the living room Korostelev said to the maid:

- What is there to ask? You go to the church gatehouse and ask where the almshouses live. They will wash the body and clean it up - they will do everything that is needed.

...

All her friends and good acquaintances were at Olga Ivanovna’s wedding.

Look at him: isn't there something in him? - she said

to her friends, nodding at her husband and as if wanting to explain why she came out

for a simple, very ordinary and unremarkable person.

Her husband, Osip Stepanych Dymov, was a doctor and had the rank of titular

advisor. He served in two hospitals: in one as a supernumerary resident, and

in the other - as a dissector. Every day from nine o'clock in the morning until noon he

received patients and studied in his room, and in the afternoon he rode on a horse-drawn horse

to another hospital, where he autopsied dead patients. His private practice was

insignificant, five hundred rubles a year. That's all. What else can you say about him?

say? Meanwhile, Olga Ivanovna and her friends and good acquaintances were not

at all ordinary people. Each of them was remarkable in some way and

a little famous, already had a name and was considered a celebrity, or although not

was still famous, but showed brilliant promise. Artist from

drama theater, big, long ago recognized talent, elegant, smart and

humble person and an excellent reader who taught Olga Ivanovna to read; singer from

opera, a good-natured fat man, who with a sigh assured Olga Ivanovna that she

ruins herself: if she had not been lazy and pulled herself together, she would have gotten out of it

wonderful singer; then several artists and at their head a genre painter,

animal and landscape painter Ryabovsky, very handsome blond young man,

about twenty-five years old, who had success at exhibitions and sold his last

a painting for five hundred rubles; he corrected Olga Ivanovna’s sketches and said,

that perhaps some good will come of it; then a cellist, who

the instrument was crying and who frankly admitted that of all the people he knew

Only Olga Ivanovna knows how to accompany women; then a writer

young, but already famous, writing novels, plays and short stories. Who else? Well,

also Vasily Vasilich, master, landowner, amateur illustrator and vignette artist,

strongly felt the old Russian style, epic and epic; on paper, on

on porcelain and on smoked plates he literally produced miracles. Among

this artistic, free and spoiled by fate company, it’s true

delicate and modest, but remembering the existence of some doctors

only during illness and for whom the name Dymov sounded just as indifferent,

like Sidorov or Tarasov - among this company Dymov seemed a stranger, superfluous

and small, although he was tall and broad in the shoulders. It seemed that on it

someone else's tailcoat and that he has a clerk's beard. However, if he were

writer or artist, they would say that with his beard he resembles

The artist told Olga Ivanovna that with his flaxen hair and in

in her wedding dress she looks very much like a slender cherry tree when

in spring it is completely covered with delicate white flowers.

No, listen! - Olga Ivanovna told him, grabbing him by the

hand. - How could this suddenly happen? Listen, listen... You need

to say that my father served with Dymov in the same hospital. When the poor thing

Father fell ill, then Dymov was on duty at his bedside for whole days and nights.

So much self-sacrifice! Listen, Ryabovsky... And you, writer, listen,

it is very interesting. Come closer. How much self-sacrifice

sincere participation! I, too, did not sleep at night and sat next to my father, and suddenly -

Hello, I won the good fellow! My Dymov fell head over heels.

Really, fate can be so strange. Well, after his father died, he sometimes went

I met him on the street and one fine evening suddenly - bam! did

proposal... out of the blue... I cried all night and fell in love myself

hellishly And so, as you can see, she became a wife. Isn't it true, there's something about him

strong, mighty, bearish? Now his face is turned to us in three quarters,

it's poorly lit, but when he turns around, you look at his forehead. Ryabovsky,

what do you say about this forehead? Dymov, we are talking about you! - she shouted

to my husband. - Come here. Extend your honest hand to Ryabovsky... That's it. Be

friends.

Dymov, smiling good-naturedly and naively, extended his hand to Ryabovsky and

I’m very glad... A certain Ryabovsky also completed the course with me. Is not

is your relative?

Olga Ivanovna was 22 years old, Dymov was 31. They lived together after the wedding

perfect. Olga Ivanovna hung all the walls in the living room with her own and

other people's sketches, framed and unframed, and arranged a beautiful

a crowd of Chinese umbrellas, easels, colorful rags, daggers,

busts, photographs... In the dining room she covered the walls with popular prints,

hung up the bast shoes and sickles, put a scythe and a rake in the corner, and it turned out

dining room in Russian style. In the bedroom she makes it look like a cave,

draped the ceiling and walls with dark cloth, hung it over the beds

Venetian lantern, and at the door she placed a figure with a halberd.

And everyone thought that the young couple had a very nice little corner.

Every day, getting out of bed at eleven o’clock, Olga Ivanovna

played the piano or, if it was sunny, wrote something in oil

paints. Then, at one o'clock, she went to her dressmaker. Since she has

Dymov had very little money, just enough to appear often in

new dresses and amaze with their outfits, she and her dressmaker had to

indulge in tricks. Very often from an old repainted dress, from

worthless pieces of tulle, lace, plush and silk came out simply

miracles, something charming, not a dress, but a dream. From the dressmaker Olga

Ivanovna usually went to some actress she knew to find out

theater news and, by the way, to try to get a ticket to the first

submission new play or to a benefit. The actress had to go to

an artist's studio or to an art exhibition, then to someone

celebrities - invite them to your place, or pay a visit, or just chat.

And everywhere she was greeted cheerfully and friendly and assured her that she was good,

dear, rare... Those whom she called famous and great accepted

her as one of their own, as an equal, and they prophesied to her with one voice that with her talents,

taste and intelligence, if it is not scattered, a great deal will come of it. She sang,

played the piano, painted, sculpted, took part in amateur

performances, but all this not somehow, but with talent; did she make lanterns

for illumination, whether she was dressing up, whether she was tying someone’s tie - she has everything

it came out unusually artistically, gracefully and sweetly. But in nothing of her

talent did not show itself as clearly as in her ability to quickly get acquainted and

meet briefly with famous people. Should someone become famous?

at least a little and force him to talk about himself, as she had already met him, in

The same day she became friends and invited me to her place. Every new acquaintance was for

it's a real holiday. She idolized famous people, was proud of them and

I saw them in my dreams every night. She thirsted for them and could not quench her

thirst. The old ones left and were forgotten, new ones came to replace them, but also

this soon got used to them or became disillusioned with them and began to greedily search for

new and new great people, baited and looked for again. For what?

At five o'clock she had dinner at home with her husband. Its simplicity common sense And

good nature brought her to tenderness and delight. She jumped up every now and then,

impulsively hugged his head and covered it with kisses.

You, Dymov, are smart, noble man, - she said, - but you

there is one very important drawback. You are not at all interested in art.

You deny both music and painting.

“I don’t understand them,” he said meekly. - I've been studying all my life

natural sciences and medicine, and I had no time to be interested

arts.

But this is terrible, Dymov!

Why? Your friends don’t know natural sciences and medicine,

however, you do not reproach them for this. Everyone has their own. I don't understand

landscapes and operas, but I think this: if alone smart people devote all their time to them

life, and other smart people pay huge amounts of money for them, then it means they

needed. I don’t understand, but not understanding does not mean denying.

Let me shake your honest hand!

After lunch, Olga Ivanovna went to see friends, then to the theater or to the

concert and returned home after midnight. So every day.

She had parties on Wednesdays. At these parties the hostess and guests

They didn’t play cards or dance, but entertained themselves with various arts.

An actor from a drama theater read, a singer sang, artists painted in

albums, of which Olga Ivanovna had many, the cellist played, and

the hostess herself also drew, sculpted, sang and accompanied.

In the intervals between reading, music and singing, they talked and argued about

literature, theater and painting. There were no ladies, because Olga Ivanovna

I considered the ladies, except actresses and my dressmaker, boring and vulgar. None

the party was not complete without the hostess flinching at every

call and did not say with a victorious expression on her face: “It’s him!”, meaning by

the word “he” to some new guest celebrity. Dymova in the living room

did not exist, and no one remembered its existence. But exactly half

on the twelfth the door leading to the dining room opened, Dymov appeared with

with his good-natured, gentle smile and said, rubbing his hands:

Everyone went to the dining room and every time they saw the same thing on the table: a dish with

oysters, a piece of ham or veal, sardines, cheese, caviar, mushrooms, vodka and

two decanters of wine.

My dear head waiter! - Olga Ivanovna said, throwing up her hands

with delight. -You are simply charming! Gentlemen, look at his forehead!

Dymov, turn to profile. Gentlemen, look: the face of a Bengal tiger, and

the expression is kind and sweet, like that of a deer. U(darling!

The guests ate and, looking at Dymov, thought: “Indeed, a nice fellow,”

but they soon forgot about him and continued talking about theatre, music and painting.

The young couple were happy, and their life flowed like clockwork.

However, the third week of their honeymoon was not entirely spent

happy, even sad. Dymov contracted erysipelas in the hospital and spent time in

bed for six days and had to cut his beautiful black hair naked.

Olga Ivanovna sat next to him and cried bitterly, but when he felt better,

she put a white scarf on his shorn head and began to write from it

Bedouin. And they both had fun. Three days after he

Having recovered, he began to go to hospitals again, something new happened to him

misunderstanding.

I'm out of luck, mom! - he said one day at dinner. - Today I have

There were four autopsies, and I immediately cut two of my fingers. And I'm only at home

noticed this.

Olga Ivanovna was scared. He smiled and said that it was nothing and

that he often has to make cuts on his hands during autopsies.

I get carried away, Mom, and become absent-minded.

Olga Ivanovna anxiously awaited cadaveric infection at night

I prayed to God, but everything turned out well. And again the peaceful flow began,

happy life without sorrows and worries. The present was wonderful, but in its place

Spring was approaching him, already smiling from afar and promising a thousand joys.

There will be no end to happiness! In April, May and June, the dacha is far outside the city,

walks, sketches, fishing, nightingales, and then, from July until autumn,

artists' trip to the Volga, and on this trip, as an indispensable member of the

[society (French societe)], will be

Olga Ivanovna will also take part. She has already sewn two travel bags for herself.

suit made of canvas, bought paints, brushes, canvas and a new one for the trip

palette Almost every day Ryabovsky came to her to see

what progress she made in painting. When she showed him her

painting, he thrust his hands deep into his pockets, pressed his lips tightly, sniffled and

So, sir... This cloud screams: it is not lit like in the evening.

Foreground somehow chewed up and something, you know, is wrong... And the hut

you are choking on something and squeaking pitifully... I should have taken this corner darker.

But in general, not bad... I praise it.

And the more incomprehensibly he spoke, the easier Olga Ivanovna understood him.

On the second day of Trinity, after lunch, Dymov bought snacks and... sweets and

I went to my wife’s dacha. He had not seen her for two weeks and was very

I miss you. Sitting in the carriage and then looking for his dacha in a large grove, he

I felt hungry and tired all the time and dreamed about being free

will have dinner with his wife and then go to bed. And he had fun

look at your package, in which caviar, cheese and white fish were wrapped.

When he found his dacha and recognized it, the sun had already set. Old woman

the maid said that the lady was not at home and that she must be soon

they will come. At the dacha, very unsightly in appearance, with low ceilings, papered

with writing paper and uneven, cracked floors, there were only three rooms. IN

in one there was a bed, in the other there were canvases and brushes lying on chairs and windows,

greasy paper and men's coats and hats, and in the third Dymov found three

some unknown men. Two were brunettes with beards and the third was completely

shaven and fat, apparently an actor. The samovar was boiling on the table.

What do you want? - the actor asked in a deep voice, looking unsociablely at Dymov. -

Do you need Olga Ivanovna? Wait, she'll come now.

Dymov sat down and began to wait. One of the brunettes, looking sleepily and listlessly

at him, poured himself some tea and asked:

Maybe you'd like some tea? ;

Dymov wanted to drink and eat, but in order not to spoil his appetite, he

refused tea. Soon footsteps and familiar laughter were heard; the door slammed and

Olga Ivanovna ran into the room wide-brimmed hat and with a box in his hand, and

after her, a cheerful man came in with a large umbrella and a folding chair,

red-cheeked Ryabovsky.

Dymov! - Olga Ivanovna screamed and flushed with joy. -

Dymov! - she repeated, placing her head and both hands on his chest. - It's you!

Why didn't you come for so long? From what? From what?

When should I, mom? I'm always busy, and when I'm free, that's it

It happens that the train schedule is not suitable.

But I'm so glad to see you! I dreamed about you all, all night, and I

I was afraid that you would get sick. Oh, if you only knew how sweet you are, how sweet you are

By the way, I've arrived! You will be my savior. You alone can save

me! Tomorrow there will be a pre-original wedding here,” she continued, laughing.

and tying my husband's tie. - A young telegraph operator at the station is getting married, someone

Chikeldeev. A handsome young man, well, not stupid, and in his face,

you know, something strong, bearish... You can write a young Varangian from him.

We, all summer residents, take part in it and gave him our word of honor to be with

him at the wedding... The man is not rich, lonely, timid, and, of course, it would be

it would be a sin to refuse him participation. Imagine, after mass there is a wedding, then from

churches all on foot to the bride's apartment... you know, the grove, Birdsong,

sun spots on the grass and we are all colorful spots on bright green

the background is original, in the taste of the French expressionists. But, Dymov, in

how do I go to church? - Olga Ivanovna said and did crying face. -

I have nothing here, literally nothing! No dress, no flowers, no

gloves... You have to save me. If you came, it means fate itself

tells you to save me. Take the keys, my dear, go home and take

there's mine in the wardrobe pink dress. Do you remember it, it hangs first...

Then in the storage room on the right side on the floor you will see two cardboard boxes. How

you open the top one, and there is all tulle, tulle, tulle and various shreds, and under

them flowers. Take all the flowers out carefully, try, darling, not to crush them, then

I'll choose... And buy gloves.

“Okay,” said Dymov. - I'll go tomorrow and send it.

When is tomorrow? - asked Olga Ivanovna and looked at him with

surprise. - When will you have time tomorrow? The first train leaves tomorrow

nine o'clock, and the wedding is at eleven. No, my dear, we need it today,

definitely today! If you can't come tomorrow, then come with

delivery boy Well, go... The passenger train should arrive now. Not

be late, darling.

Oh, how sorry I am to let you go! - Olga Ivanovna said, and tears

welled up before her eyes. - And why, fool, did I give my word to the telegraph operator?

Dymov quickly drank a glass of tea, took the steering wheel and, smiling meekly, went

to the station. And the caviar, cheese and white fish were eaten by two brunettes and a fat actor.

In the quiet moonlight July night Olga Ivanovna stood on the deck of the Volga

the steamer and looked first at the water, then at the beautiful shores. Standing next to her

Ryabovsky told her that the black shadows on the water were not shadows, but a dream, that in

in sight of this magical water with a fantastic shine, in sight of the bottomless sky

and sad, thoughtful shores, talking about the bustle of our lives and about

existence of something higher, eternal, blissful, it would be good to forget,

die, become a memory. The past is vulgar and uninteresting, the future

insignificant, and this wonderful, unique night in life will soon end, merge

with eternity - why live?

nights and thought that she was immortal and would never die. Turquoise

water like she had never seen before, the sky, the shores, black shadows and

the unaccountable joy that filled her soul told her what would come out of her

great artist Am I somewhere out there, beyond the distance, beyond moonlit night, V

success, glory, love of the people await her in endless space... When

Without blinking, she looked into the distance for a long time, she imagined crowds of people, lights,

solemn sounds of music, cries of delight, she herself in a white dress

flowers that rained down on her from all sides. She also thought that

next to her, leaning on the side, stands a real great man, a genius,

God's chosen one... Everything that he has created so far is beautiful, new and

extraordinary, but what he will create over time, when with maturity

his rare talent will become stronger, it will be amazingly, immeasurably high, and this

visible in his face, in his manner of expression and in his attitude towards nature. ABOUT

shadows, evening tones, moonlight, he speaks somehow especially, with his

language, so that one can involuntarily feel the charm of his power over nature. Myself

he is very handsome, original, and his life, independent, free, alien

everything in life is like the life of a bird.

It’s getting fresh,” Olga Ivanovna said and shuddered.

Ryabovsky wrapped her in his cloak and said sadly:

I feel in your power. I'm a slave. Why are you doing this today?

charming?

He looked at her all the time without stopping, and his eyes were terrible, and

she was afraid to look at him.

“I love you madly...” he whispered, breathing on her cheek. - Tell me

one word, and I won’t live, I’ll give up art... - he muttered in a strong voice

excitement. - Love me, love...

Don’t say that,” Olga Ivanovna said, closing her eyes. - This

scary. And Dymov?

What about Dymov? Why Dymov? What do I care about Dymov? Volga, moon,

beauty, my love, my delight, but there is no Dymov... Oh, I don’t know anything

I know... I don’t need the past, give me one moment... one moment!

Olga Ivanovna’s heart began to beat. She wanted to think about her husband, but everything

the past, with the wedding, with Dymov and with the parties, seemed small to her,

insignificant, dull, unnecessary and far, far away... Really: what about Dymov?

why Dymov? What does she care about Dymov? Does it exist in nature and not

Is he just a dream?

"For him, a simple and ordinary person, that is enough

the happiness that he has already received, she thought, covering her face with her hands. -

Let them condemn there, curse, but out of spite I’ll take it and die, I’ll take it

I’m about to die... You have to experience everything in life. God, it’s so creepy and so good!”

Well? What? - muttered the artist, hugging her and greedily kissing her hands,

with which she weakly tried to push him away from her. - Do you love me? Yes?

Yes? Oh, what a night! Wonderful night!

Yes, what a night! - she whispered, looking at his eyes, shining with

cried, then quickly looked back, hugged him and kissed him firmly on the lips.

We are approaching Kineshma! - said someone on the other side of the deck.

Heavy footsteps were heard. It was the man from the buffet passing by.

Listen,” Olga Ivanovna told him, laughing and crying from

happiness - bring us wine.

The artist, pale with excitement, sat down on the bench and looked at Olga

Ivanovna with adoring, grateful eyes, then closed his eyes and said,

smiling languidly:

I'm tired.

And he leaned his head against the side.

The second of September was a warm and quiet day, but cloudy. Early in the morning on

There was a light fog on the Volga, and after nine o'clock it began to rain. AND

there was no hope that the sky would clear. Over tea Ryabovsky spoke

Olga Ivanovna, that painting is the most thankless and boring thing

art, that he is not an artist, that only fools think that he has

has talent, and suddenly, out of the blue, he grabbed a knife and scratched his

the best sketch. After tea, he sat gloomily by the window and looked at the Volga.

And the Volga was already without shine, dull, matte, cold in appearance. Everything, everything

reminded of the approach of a dreary, gloomy autumn. And it seemed luxurious

green carpets on the banks, diamond reflections of rays, transparent blue distance and

Nature has now taken everything dandy and ceremonial from the Volga and put it in chests

until next spring, and crows flew near the Volga and teased her: “Naked!

naked!" Ryabovsky listened to their croaking and thought that he was already exhausted and

lost his talent, that everything in this world is conditional, relative and stupid, and that

he should not have associated himself with this woman... In a word, he was not in

spirit and moped.

Olga Ivanovna sat behind the partition on the bed and fingered

her beautiful flaxen hair, imagined herself now in the living room, now in

bedroom, then in her husband’s office; her imagination took her to the theater, to the dressmaker and

famous friends. Are they doing anything now? Do they remember her?

The season has already begun, and it's time to think about parties. And Dymov? Dear Dymov!

How meekly and childishly pitifully he asks her in his letters to go quickly

home! Every month he sent her 75 rubles, and when she wrote to him,

that she owed the artists a hundred rubles, he sent her those hundred as well. Which

kind, generous person! The journey tired Olga Ivanovna, she

she was bored, and she wanted to quickly get away from these men, from the smell of the river

dampness and throw off this feeling of physical uncleanness that she

experienced all the time while living in peasant huts and wandering from village to village.

If Ryabovsky had not given honestly artists that he will live with them

here until the twentieth of September, then we could leave today. And how would

it was good!

“My God,” moaned Ryabovsky, “when will there finally be sunshine?”

I can’t continue the sunny landscape without the sun!..

“And you have a sketch under a cloudy sky,” said Olga Ivanovna,

coming out from behind the partition. - Do you remember, on the right plan there is a forest, and on the left -

a herd of cows and geese. Now you could cum.

Eh! - the artist winced. - Cum! Do you really think that I myself

so stupid that I don't know what to do!

How you have changed towards me! - Olga Ivanovna sighed.

Very well.

Olga Ivanovna’s face trembled, she went to the stove and began to cry.

Yes, all that was missing was tears. Stop it! I have a thousand reasons

cry, but I don’t cry.

Thousands of reasons! - Olga Ivanovna sobbed. - The most important

the reason is that you are already burdened with me. Yes! - she said and began to cry. - If

tell the truth, then you are ashamed of our love. You're all trying to

the artists didn’t notice, although it’s impossible to hide it and they’ve already had everything for a long time

known.

Olga, I ask you one thing,” said the artist, pleadingly and applying

hand to heart, about one thing: don’t torture me! I don't need anything more from you

But swear that you still love me!

It's painful! - the artist muttered through his teeth and jumped up. -

It will end with me throwing myself into the Volga or going crazy! Leave me!

Well, kill me, kill me! - Olga Ivanovna shouted. - Kill!

She began to sob again and went behind the partition. On the thatched roof of the hut

the rain rustled. Ryabovsky grabbed his head and walked from the corner to

corner, then with a determined face, as if wanting to prove something to someone,

He put on his cap, threw the gun over his shoulder and left the hut.

After he left, Olga Ivanovna lay on the bed for a long time and cried. At first

she thought that it would be good to poison herself so that the returning Ryabovsky

found her dead, then she was carried away in her thoughts into the living room, into her husband’s office

and imagined how she sat motionless next to Dymov and enjoyed

physical peace and cleanliness and how in the evening he sits in the theater and listens to Masini.

And the longing for civilization, for the city noise and famous people, pinched her

heart. A woman entered the hut and slowly began to light the stove to cook.

dinner. There was a smell of burning, and the air turned blue with smoke. Artists came to

wearing high dirty boots and with faces wet from the rain, they looked at the sketches and

they told themselves as a consolation that the Volga, even in bad weather, has its

lovely. And the cheap clock on the wall: tick-tick-tick... The chilled flies crowded together

in the front corner near the icons they are buzzing, and you can hear how under the benches in thick

Prussians are fiddling with folders...

Ryabovsky returned home as the sun was setting. He threw it on the table

cap and, pale, tortured, in dirty boots, sat down on the bench and

closed his eyes.

“I’m tired...” he said and moved his eyebrows, trying to lift his eyelids.

To cuddle him and show that she is not angry, Olga

Ivanovna went up to him, silently kissed him and ran a comb over his

blond hair. She wanted to comb his hair.

What's happened? - he asked, shuddering, as if he had been touched

something cold, and opened his eyes. - What's happened? Leave me alone please

He pushed her away with his hands and walked away, and it seemed to her that his face

expressed disgust and annoyance. At this time the woman carefully carried him in both

a plate of cabbage soup in her hands, and Olga Ivanovna saw how she dipped it in the cabbage soup

Their thumbs. And a dirty woman with a constricted belly, and cabbage soup that

Ryabovsky began to eat greedily, and the hut, and all this life, which at first she so

loved for the simplicity and artistic disorder, they seemed to her now

terrible. She suddenly felt insulted and said coldly:

We need to separate for a while, otherwise we might get bored

have a serious quarrel. I am tired of this. I'll leave today.

On what? On a stick?

Today is Thursday, which means the ship will arrive at half past nine.

A? Yes, yes... Well, go... - Ryabovsky said softly,

wiping yourself with a towel instead of a napkin. - You're bored here and have nothing to do, and

it takes a lot of selfishness to keep you. Go and then

See you on the twentieth.

Olga Ivanovna was laying down cheerfully, and even her cheeks were flushed with

pleasure. Is it really true, she asked herself, that soon she will be

write in the living room, sleep in the bedroom and dine with a tablecloth? She felt better

from the heart, and she was no longer angry with the artist.

“I’ll leave the paints and brushes to you, Ryabusha,” she said. - What

stay, you’ll bring it... Look, don’t be lazy here without me, don’t be mopey, but

Work. You're a good boy, Ryabusha.

At ten o'clock Ryabovsky kissed her goodbye, because she

I thought about it so as not to kiss on the ship in front of the artists, and escorted

pier. A steamer soon came and took her away.

She arrived home two and a half days later. Without taking off my hat and

waterproof [Waterproof (eng. - waterproof) - waterproof woman coat],

Breathing heavily with excitement, she walked into the living room, and from there into the dining room. Dymov

without a frock coat, in an unbuttoned vest, he sat at the table and sharpened a knife on a fork;

There was hazel grouse lying on a plate in front of him. When Olga Ivanovna entered the apartment,

she was convinced that it was necessary to hide everything from her husband and that she had enough for this

her skills and strength, but now that she saw the broad, meek,

a happy smile and sparkling, joyful eyes, she felt that

hiding from this person is just as vile, disgusting and just as impossible

and she cannot do anything but slander, steal or kill, and in an instant she

I decided to tell him everything that happened. Letting him kiss you and hug you,

she knelt down in front of him and covered her face.

What? What mom? - he asked tenderly. - Are you bored?

She raised her face, red with shame, and looked at him guiltily and

pleadingly, but fear and shame prevented her from telling the truth.

Nothing... - she said. - That's me...

Let’s sit down,” he said, picking her up and sitting her down at the table. - Like this...

Eat hazel grouse. You're hungry, poor thing!

She greedily inhaled her native air and ate hazel grouse, and he... With

He looked at her with emotion and laughed joyfully.

Apparently, from the middle of winter, Dymov began to guess that his

are being deceived. As if he had a bad conscience, he could no longer look

his wife straight in the eyes, did not smile joyfully when meeting her and, to make it less

to be alone with her, often brought his friend to dinner with him

Korostelev, a small, short-haired man with a rumpled face, who, when

I was talking to Olga Ivanovna, then out of embarrassment I unbuttoned all the buttons

his jacket and buttoned them again and then began to pinch with his right hand

your left mustache. Over lunch, both doctors talked about how, with high

when the diaphragm is standing, sometimes there are heart failures, or multiple

neuritis has been observed very often lately, or that yesterday Dymov,

Having opened the corpse with a diagnosis of “pernicious anemia”, cancer was found

pancreas. And it seemed like they were both having a medical conversation

only to give Olga Ivanovna the opportunity to remain silent, i.e. not

lie After dinner, Korostelev sat down at the piano, and Dymov sighed and said

Eh, brother! Well, so what! Play something sad.

Raising his shoulders and spreading his fingers wide, Korostechev took several

chords and began to sing in tenor “Show me such a monastery where the Russian

the man didn’t moan,” and Dymov sighed again, propped his head up with his fist and

thought about it.

Recently, Olga Ivanovna behaved extremely carelessly. Each

morning she woke up in the worst mood and with the thought that she

She no longer loves Ryabovsky and that, thank God, it’s all over. But after getting drunk

coffee, she realized that Ryabovsky had taken her husband away from her and that now she

was left without a husband and without Ryabovsky; then she remembered her conversations

acquaintances that Ryabovsky is preparing something amazing for the exhibition, a mixture

landscape with a genre, in the taste of Polenov, from which everyone who visits his

workshop, they are delighted; but this, she thought, he created for her

influence, and in general thanks to her influence, he changed greatly for the better.

Her influence is so beneficial and significant that if she leaves him, then he,

perhaps he might die. And she also recalled that the last time he

came to her in some kind of gray frock coat with sparkles and a new tie and

asked languidly: “Am I beautiful?” And indeed, he is graceful, with his

with long curls and blue eyes, he was very handsome (or perhaps

it seemed so) and was affectionate with her.

Having remembered a lot and realized, Olga Ivanovna dressed in a strong

Excitedly I went to Ryabovsky’s workshop. She found him cheerful and

delighted with his truly magnificent painting; he was jumping and fooling around

and answered serious questions with jokes. Olga Ivanovna was jealous of Ryabovsky

to the painting and hated it, but out of politeness she stood in front of the painting

in silence for about five minutes and, sighing as one sighs before a shrine, she said quietly:

Yes, you have never written anything like this before. You know, it's even scary.

Then she began to beg him to love her, to leave her, to

felt sorry for her, poor and unhappy. She cried, kissed his hands, demanded

so that he would swear his love to her, prove to him that without her good influence he

will go astray and die. And, spoiling his good mood and

feeling humiliated, she went to see a dressmaker or an actress she knew

to ask about the ticket.

If she did not find him in the workshop, she left him a letter,

whom she swore that if he did not come to her today, then she would certainly

will be poisoned. He was a coward, came to her and stayed for dinner. Don't be shy

presence of her husband, he said insolence to her, she answered him in kind. Both

felt that they were tied to each other, that they were despots and enemies, and

were angry, and out of anger did not notice that both of them were indecent and that even

bobbed Korostelev understands everything. After lunch, Ryabovsky hurried to say goodbye

Where are you going? - Olga Ivanovna asked him in the hall, looking at

him with hatred.

He, wincing and squinting his eyes, named some lady, a mutual acquaintance, and

it was clear that he was laughing at her jealousy and wanted to annoy her.

She went to her bedroom and went to bed; from jealousy, annoyance,

Feeling humiliation and shame, she bit the pillow and began to sob loudly. Dymov

left Korostelev in the living room, went to the bedroom and, embarrassed,

confused, he spoke quietly:

Don't cry loudly, mom... Why? We must remain silent about this... We must not

pretend... You know what happened, you can’t fix it.

Not knowing how to pacify the severe jealousy in oneself, from which even in

her temples ached, and thinking that the matter could still be improved, she washed herself,

powdered her tear-stained face and flew to a familiar lady. Not catching her

Ryabovsky, she was going to another, then to a third... At first she was ashamed

driving like this, but then she got used to it, and it happened that one evening she

I went around to all the women I knew to find Ryabovsky, and everyone understood

One day she told Ryabovsky about her husband:

This man oppresses me with his generosity!

She liked this phrase so much that, meeting with artists who

knew about her affair with Ryabovsky, she always talked about her husband, making

energetic hand gesture:

It's the man oppresses me with his generosity! The order of life was

the same as last year.

There were parties on Wednesdays. The artist read, the artists painted,

the cellist played, the singer sang, and invariably at half past eleven

the door leading to the dining room opened, and Dymov, smiling, said:

Please, gentlemen, have a snack.

As before, Olga Ivanovna was looking for great people, but she didn’t find them.

I was satisfied and looked again. She still came back every day

late at night, but Dymov was no longer sleeping, as last year, but was sitting in his

office and working on something. He went to bed at three o'clock and got up at eight.

One evening, when she was getting ready for the theater, she stood in front of the dressing table,

Dymov entered the bedroom in a tailcoat and white tie. He smiled meekly and, as

before, he joyfully looked his wife straight in the eyes. His face was shining.

“I just defended my dissertation,” he said, sitting down and stroking

Defended? - Olga Ivanovna asked.

Wow! - he laughed and craned his neck to see his face in the mirror

his wife, who continued to stand with her back to him and straighten her hair. -

Wow! - he repeated. - You know, it’s very possible that they’ll offer me

Private Associate Professor of General Pathology. This is what it smells like.

It was clear from his blissful, radiant face that if Olga

Ivanovna shared his joy and triumph with him, then he would forgive her everything,

both the present and the future, and would have forgotten everything, but she did not understand what it meant

privatdocentur and general pathology, besides, she was afraid of being late for the theater and

didn't say anything.

He sat for two minutes, smiled guiltily and left.

It was a most hectic day.

Dymov had a severe headache; he didn't drink tea in the morning, didn't go to

hospital and spent the entire time lying in his office on a Turkish sofa. Olga

Ivanovna, as usual, went to Ryabovsky at one o’clock to

show him your sketch of nature morte [Still life (French) - picturesque

image of flowers, household items, game, fish, etc.] and ask him

why didn't he come yesterday? The sketch seemed insignificant to her, and she wrote it

only to have an extra excuse to go to the artist.

She came into his room without bell ringing, and while she was taking off her galoshes in the hall, she

it sounded as if something was running quietly in the workshop, rustling like a woman

dress, and when she hurried to look into the workshop, she only saw

a piece of brown skirt that flashed for a moment and disappeared behind a large

a painting, along with an easel, curtained to the floor with black calico.

There was no doubt - it was a woman hiding. How often does Olga herself

Ivanovna found refuge behind this picture! Ryabovsky, apparently

very embarrassed, as if surprised by her arrival, he extended both hands to her and

said, smiling tightly:

Ah-ah-ah! I am very glad to see you. What can you say that's nice?

Olga Ivanovna’s eyes filled with tears. She was ashamed, bitter, and

She wouldn't agree for a million to talk in the presence of a stranger

women, rivals, liars, who now stood behind the picture and, probably,

giggled maliciously.

“I brought you a sketch...” she said timidly, in a thin voice, and her lips

she trembled - nature morte.

Aaaaand... a sketch?

The artist took the sketch in his hands and, looking at it, as if mechanically

went into another room.

Olga Ivanovna obediently followed him.

Nature morte... first grade,” he muttered, searching for a rhyme, “

resort... damn... port...

Hasty steps and the rustling of a dress were heard from the workshop. Means,

she left. Olga Ivanovna wanted to shout loudly and hit the artist on the

head with something heavy and leave, but she didn’t see anything through her tears,

was depressed by her shame and felt no longer like Olga Ivanovna or

an artist, but a little booger.

I’m tired... - the artist said languidly, looking at the sketch and shaking

head to fight drowsiness. - This is nice, of course, but today is a sketch, and

last year there was a sketch, and in a month there will be a sketch... How can you not get bored? I would

If I were you, I quit painting and took up music or something seriously.

After all, you are not an artist, but a musician. However, you know how tired I am. I'm now

I'll tell you to give me some tea... Eh?

He left the room, and Olga Ivanovna heard him say something

ordered his footman. So as not to say goodbye, not to explain, and most importantly, not

burst into tears, she quickly ran into the hallway before Ryabovsky returned,

I put on my galoshes and went outside. Then she sighed lightly and felt

myself forever free from Ryabovsky, and from painting, and from heavy

the shame that weighed so heavily on her in the studio. Everything is over!

She went to the dressmaker, then to Barnay, who only arrived yesterday,

from Barnaya to the music store, and all the time she was thinking about how she would write

A cold, tough, dignified letter to Ryabovsky, and how

in the spring or summer she will go with Dymov to the Crimea, she will be free there completely

from the past and start a new life.

Returning home late in the evening, she sat down in the living room without changing clothes.

compose a letter. Ryabovsky told her that she was not an artist, and she

will now write to him in revenge that he writes the same thing every year and

every day he says the same thing, that he is frozen and that he will not get out of it

nothing other than what has already come out. She also wanted to write that he

owes a lot to her good influence, and if he acts badly, then this is only

because her influence is paralyzed by various ambiguous persons, like

the one who was hiding behind the picture today.

Mother! - Dymov called from the office without opening the door. - Mother!

What do you want?

Mom, don’t come to me, just come to the door. That's what...

The day before yesterday I contracted diphtheria in the hospital, and now... I don’t feel well.

Let's quickly go get Korostelev.

Olga Ivanovna always called her husband, like all the men she knew, not by

first name, but by last name; She didn't like his name Osip because it reminded

Gogol's Osip and the pun: "Osip is hoarse, and Arkhip is hoarse." Now she

screamed:

Osip, this cannot be!

Went! I don’t feel well...” Dymov said behind the door, and one could hear

he went to the sofa and lay down. - Went! - his voice was muffled.

“What is this?” thought Olga Ivanovna, growing cold with horror. “After all,

Is it dangerous!"

Unnecessarily, she took the candle and went to her bedroom and then,

wondering what she needed to do, she accidentally looked at herself in the dressing table. WITH

with a pale, frightened face, in a jacket with high sleeves, with yellow ruffles

on the chest and with the unusual direction of the stripes on the skirt, she seemed to herself

scary and disgusting. She suddenly felt painfully sorry for Dymov, his boundless

love for her, his young life and even this orphaned bed of his, on

to whom he had not slept for a long time, and she remembered his usual meek,

submissive smile. She cried bitterly and wrote to Korostelev a begging letter.

letter. It was two o'clock in the morning.

When, at eight o'clock in the morning, Olga Ivanovna, with severe insomnia

head, unkempt, ugly and with a guilty expression, came out of

bedroom, a gentleman with a black beard walked past her into the hallway,

apparently a doctor. It smelled like medicine. Standing near the door to the office

Korostelev twirled his left mustache with his right hand.

“Sorry, I won’t let you in,” he said gloomily to Olga.

Ivanovna. - You can get infected. Yes, and there is no need for you, in essence. He doesn't care

Does he have real diphtheria? - Olga Ivanovna asked in a whisper.

Those who get into trouble should really be brought to justice -

muttered Korostelev, without answering Olga Ivanovna’s question. - You know,

why did he get infected? On Tuesday the boy was sucked through a straw

diphtheritic films. Why? Stupid... Yes, stupid...

Dangerous? Very? - Olga Ivanovna asked.

Yes, they say that the form is severe. We should send for Shrek,

essence.

He came small, red-haired, with a long nose and a Jewish accent;

then tall, stooped, shaggy, looking like an archdeacon; then young

very plump, with a red face and glasses. It was the doctors who came to be on duty around

his comrade. Korostelev, having finished his duty, did not go home, but

remained and, like a shadow, wandered through all the rooms. The maid served

tea for the doctors on duty and often ran to the pharmacy, and there was no one to clean

rooms. It was quiet and dull.

Olga Ivanovna sat in her bedroom and thought that this was her God

punishes her for deceiving her husband. Silent, resigned,

an incomprehensible creature, impersonal in its meekness, spineless, weak

from excessive kindness, dully suffered somewhere there on my sofa and did not

complained. And if it was thirsty, even in delirium, then the duty officers

doctors would know that diphtheria was not the only culprit. They would ask

Korostelev: he knows everything and it’s not for nothing that he looks at his friend’s wife like that

eyes, as if she were the most important, the real villain, and

only her accomplice has diphtheria. She no longer remembered a moonlit evening on the Volga,

no declarations of love, no poetic life in the hut, but I only remembered that

out of an empty whim, out of self-indulgence, all hands and feet, she smeared herself in

something dirty, sticky, that you can never wash off...

“Oh, how terribly I lied!” she thought, remembering the restless

the love she had with Ryabovsky. “Damn it all!”

At four o'clock she dined with Korostelev. He didn't eat or drink anything

only red wine and frowned. She didn't eat anything either. Then she mentally

she prayed and made a vow to God that if Dymov recovered, she would fall in love

will be his faithful wife again. Then, having forgotten for a minute, she looked at

Korosteleva thought: “Isn’t it boring to be simple, to do nothing?”

a wonderful, unknown person, and with such a rumpled face and

bad manners?" It seemed to her that God would kill her right now for

She, afraid of getting infected, had never been in her husband’s office. But in general,

there was a dull, sad feeling and confidence that life was already ruined and that

nothing can fix it...

After lunch it got dark. When Olga Ivanovna came out into the living room,

Korostelev slept on the couch, placing a silk pillow sewn under his head.

gold. “Khi-pua...” he snored, “khi-pua.”

And the doctors who came and went on duty did not notice this

disorder. The fact that a stranger was sleeping in the living room and snoring, and sketches on

walls, and the bizarre furnishings, and the fact that the hostess had no hair and

not sloppily dressed - all this did not arouse the slightest interest now.

One of the doctors accidentally laughed at something, and somehow strangely and timidly

When this laughter sounded, it even became creepy.

When Olga Ivanovna came out into the living room another time, Korostelev no longer

slept, but sat and smoked.

“He has diphtheria of the nasal cavity,” he said in a low voice. - Already and

the heart doesn't work well. In essence, things are bad.

“And you will send for Shrek,” said Olga Ivanovna.

Was already there. It was he who noticed that the diphtheria was coming to the nose. Eh, yeah what

Shrek! In essence, nothing Shrek, He is Shrek, I am Korostelev - and nothing more.

Time dragged on terribly long. Olga Ivanovna was lying dressed in

bed unmade in the morning and dozing. It seemed to her that the whole apartment was from the floor

occupied up to the ceiling by a huge piece of iron and all you have to do is take it out

iron, how it will become fun and easy for everyone. When she woke up, she remembered that it was

not iron, but Dymov's disease,

“Nature morte, port...,” she thought, again falling into oblivion, “

sports... resort... What about Shrek? Shrek, Greek, vrek... crack. And somewhere now

my friends? Do they know that we are in trouble? Lord, save... deliver. Shrek,

And again iron... Time dragged on for a long time, and the clock on the lower floor chimed

often. And every now and then calls were heard: doctors came... A maid came in with

empty glass on a tray and asked:

Lady, would you like me to make the bed?

And, having received no answer, she left. The clock struck below, I dreamed of rain on

Volga, and again someone entered the bedroom, it seemed like a stranger. Olga Ivanovna

jumped up and recognized Korostelev.

What time is it now? - she asked.

About three.

What! I came to say: it's ending...

He sobbed, sat down on the bed next to her and wiped his tears with his sleeve. She

I didn’t understand right away, but I became completely cold and slowly began to cross myself.

He dies because he sacrificed himself... What a loss for science! - said

he is bitter. - This, if we compare all of us with him, was great

extraordinary person! What talents! What hope did he give us?

everyone! - Korostelei continued, wringing his hands. - Oh my God, that would be

such a scientist who is hard to find these days. Oska Dymov. Oska Dymov,

what have you done! Ay-ay, my God!

In despair, Korostelev covered the line with both hands and shook his head.

And what moral strength! - he continued, more and more

being angry with someone. - A kind, pure, loving soul is not a person, but

glass! He served science and died from science. And he worked like an ox, day and night, no one

he was not spared, and the young scientist, the future professor, had to look for himself

practice and translating at night to pay for these...

vile rags!

Korostelev looked with hatred at Olga Ivanovna, grabbed hold of

the sheet with both hands and angrily pulled it away, as if it were her fault.

And he did not spare himself and he was not spared. Eh, yes, actually!

Yes, a rare person! - someone said in a deep voice in the living room.

Olga Ivanovna remembered her whole life with him, from beginning to end, from

with all the details, and suddenly realized that it was really

extraordinary, rare and in comparison with those she knew, great

Human. And, remembering how her late father and everyone treated him

fellow doctors, she realized that they all saw him as a future celebrity.

The walls, ceiling, lamp and carpet on the floor blinked at her mockingly, as if wishing

say: “I missed it! I missed it!” She rushed out of the bedroom crying,

dashed past some stranger in the living room and ran into the office

to my husband. He lay motionless on the Turkish sofa, covered to the waist with a blanket.

His face was terribly haggard, thinner and had a grayish-yellow color, like

never happens to the living; and only on the forehead, on the black eyebrows and on the familiar

a smile revealed that it was Dymov. Olga Ivanovna quickly felt him

chest, forehead and arms. The chest was still warm, but the forehead and hands were unpleasant

cold. And half-open eyes looked not at Olga Ivanovna, but at the blanket.

Dymov! - she called loudly. - Dymov!

She wanted to explain to him that it was a mistake, that all was not lost,

that life can still be beautiful and happy, that he is rare,

an extraordinary, great man and that she will be in awe of

him, pray and experience sacred fear...

Dymov! - she called him, tugging at his shoulder and not believing that he

will never wake up again. - Dymov, Dymov!

And in the living room Korostelev said to the maid:

So what is there to ask? You go to the church gatehouse and ask,

where the almshouses live. They will wash the body and clean it up - they will do everything that is needed.

On our website you can read a summary of the story “The Jumper”. Links to texts and summary other works by A.P. Chekhov - see below in the block “More on the topic...”

I

All her friends and good acquaintances were at Olga Ivanovna’s wedding.

- Look at him: isn’t it true, there’s something in him? - she said to her friends, nodding at her husband and as if wanting to explain why she married a simple, very ordinary and in no way remarkable man.

Her husband, Osip Stepanych Dymov, was a doctor and had the rank of titular councilor. He served in two hospitals: in one as a supernumerary resident, and in the other as a dissector. Every day from nine o'clock in the morning until noon he received patients and studied in his room, and in the afternoon he rode a horse-drawn horse to another hospital, where he opened up dead patients. His private practice was insignificant, about five hundred rubles a year. That's all. What else can you say about him? Meanwhile, Olga Ivanovna and her friends and good acquaintances were not entirely ordinary people. Each of them was remarkable in some way and a little famous, already had a name and was considered a celebrity, or, although he was not yet famous, he showed brilliant hopes. An artist from the drama theater, a great, long-recognized talent, an elegant, intelligent and modest person and an excellent reader who taught Olga Ivanovna to read; an opera singer, a good-natured fat man, who with a sigh assured Olga Ivanovna that she was ruining herself: if she had not been lazy and pulled herself together, she would have made a wonderful singer; then several artists and at their head the genre, animal and landscape painter Ryabovsky, a very handsome blond young man, about twenty-five, who had success at exhibitions and sold his last picture for five hundred rubles; he corrected Olga Ivanovna’s sketches and said that perhaps some sense would come out of her; then the cellist, whose instrument was crying and who openly admitted that of all the women he knew, only Olga Ivanovna knew how to accompany; then a writer, young but already famous, who wrote novels, plays and short stories. Who else? Well, also Vasily Vasilich, a gentleman, a landowner, an amateur illustrator and vignette artist, who had a strong feeling for the old Russian style, epics and epics; on paper, on porcelain and on finished plates he produced literal miracles. Among this artistic, free and fate-spoiled company, which, it is true, was delicate and modest, but remembered the existence of some doctors only during illness and for which the name Dymov sounded as indifferent as Sidorov or Tarasov - among this company Dymov seemed a stranger, overweight and small, although he was tall and broad in the shoulders. It seemed that he was wearing someone else's tailcoat and that he had a clerk's beard. However, if he were a writer or an artist, they would say that with his beard he resembles Zola.

Chekhov. Jumper. Audiobook

The artist told Olga Ivanovna that with her flaxen hair and in her wedding dress she looked very much like a slender cherry tree when in spring it is completely covered with delicate white flowers.

- No, listen! - Olga Ivanovna told him, grabbing his hand. - How could this suddenly happen? Listen, listen... I must tell you that my father served with Dymov in the same hospital. When the poor father fell ill, Dymov was on duty at his bedside for whole days and nights. So much self-sacrifice! Listen, Ryabovsky... And you, writer, listen, this is very interesting. Come closer. How much self-sacrifice, sincere participation! I, too, did not sleep at night and sat next to my father, and suddenly - hello, I defeated the good fellow! My Dymov fell head over heels. Really, fate can be so strange. Well, after my father’s death, he sometimes visited me, met me on the street, and one fine evening suddenly - bam! – made an offer... out of the blue... I cried all night and fell in love like hell. And so, as you can see, she became a wife. Isn't it true that there is something strong, powerful, bearish about him? Now his face is facing us at three quarters, poorly lit, but when he turns around, you look at his forehead. Ryabovsky, what can you say about this forehead? Dymov, we are talking about you! - she shouted to her husband. - Come here. Extend your honest hand to Ryabovsky... That's it. Be friends.

Dymov, smiling good-naturedly and naively, extended his hand to Ryabovsky and said:

- I am glad. A certain Ryabovsky also completed the course with me. Isn't this your relative?

II

Olga Ivanovna was twenty-two years old, Dymov thirty-one. They healed wonderfully after the wedding. Olga Ivanovna in the living room hung all the walls with her own and other people’s sketches, framed and unframed, and near the piano and furniture she arranged a beautiful crowd of Chinese umbrellas, easels, colorful rags, daggers, busts, photographs... In the dining room she covered the walls with popular prints and hung bast shoes and sickles, put a scythe and a rake in the corner, and it turned out to be a dining room in Russian taste. In the bedroom, to make it look like a cave, she draped the ceiling and walls with dark cloth, hung a Venetian lantern over the beds, and placed a figure with a halberd at the door. And everyone thought that the young couple had a very nice little corner.

Every day, getting out of bed at eleven o’clock, Olga Ivanovna played the piano or, if it was sunny, wrote something oil paints. Then, at one o'clock, she went to her dressmaker. Since she and Dymov had very little money, just enough, in order to often appear in new dresses and amaze with their outfits, she and her dressmaker had to resort to tricks. Very often, from an old repainted dress, from worthless pieces of tulle, lace, plush and silk, simply miracles came out, something charming, not a dress, but a dream. Olga Ivanovna usually went from the dressmaker to some acquaintance of an actress to find out theater news and, incidentally, to inquire about a ticket to the first performance of a new play or to a benefit performance. The actress had to go to an artist’s studio or to an art exhibition, then to one of the celebrities - to invite them to her place, or pay a visit, or just chat. And everywhere she was greeted cheerfully and friendly and assured her that she was good, sweet, rare... Those whom she called famous and great, accepted her as one of their own, as an equal and prophesied to her with one voice that with her talents, taste and intelligence , if it doesn’t get scattered, a lot of good will come of it. She sang, played the piano, painted, sculpted, took part in amateur performances, but all this not somehow, but with talent; whether she was making lanterns for illumination, whether she was dressing up, or tying someone’s tie - everything with her came out extraordinarily artistically, gracefully and sweetly. But in nothing was her talent reflected so clearly as in her ability to quickly meet and briefly become friends with famous people. As soon as someone became even a little famous and made people talk about themselves, she would get to know him, become friends with him that same day and invite him to her place. Every new acquaintance was a real holiday for her. She idolized famous people, was proud of them and saw them in her dreams every night. She craved them and could not quench her thirst. The old ones left and were forgotten, new ones came to replace them, but she soon got used to these too or became disillusioned with them and began to greedily look for new and new great people, found them and looked again. For what?

At five o'clock she had dinner at home with her husband. His simplicity, common sense and good nature brought her to tenderness and delight. She jumped up every now and then, impulsively hugged his head and showered it with kisses.

“You, Dymov, are an intelligent, noble person,” she said, “but you have one very important flaw.” You are not at all interested in art. You deny both music and painting.

“I don’t understand them,” he said meekly. “I have been studying natural sciences and medicine all my life, and I had no time to be interested in the arts.

- But this is terrible, Dymov!

- Why? Your friends do not know natural sciences and medicine, but you do not reproach them for this. Everyone has their own. I don’t understand landscapes and operas, but I think this: if some smart people devote their whole lives to them, and other smart people pay huge amounts of money for them, then that means they are needed. I don't understand, but not understanding doesn't mean denying.

- Let me shake your honest hand!

After lunch, Olga Ivanovna went to visit friends, then to the theater or concert, and returned home after midnight. So every day.

She had parties on Wednesdays. At these parties, the hostess and guests did not play cards or dance, but entertained themselves with various arts. An actor from the drama theater read, a singer sang, artists drew in albums, of which Olga Ivanovna had many, a cellist played, and the hostess herself also drew, sculpted, sang and accompanied. In the intervals between reading, music and singing, they talked and argued about literature, theater and painting. There were no ladies, because Olga Ivanovna considered all ladies, except actresses and her dressmaker, boring and vulgar. Not a single party was complete without the hostess flinching at every call and saying with a triumphant expression on her face: “It’s him!”, meaning by the word “he” some new invited celebrity. Dymov was not in the living room, and no one remembered his existence. But exactly at half past eleven the door leading to the dining room opened, Dymov appeared with his good-natured, gentle smile and said, rubbing his hands:

Everyone went to the dining room and every time they saw the same thing on the table: a dish of oysters, a piece of ham or veal, sardines, cheese, caviar, mushrooms, vodka and two carafes of wine.

- My dear head waiter! - Olga Ivanovna said, throwing up her hands with delight. – You are simply charming! Gentlemen, look at his forehead! Dymov, turn to profile. Gentlemen, look: the face of a Bengal tiger, and the expression is kind and sweet, like a deer. Uh, honey!

The guests ate and, looking at Dymov, thought: “Indeed, a nice fellow,” but they soon forgot about him and continued talking about the theater, music and painting.

The young couple were happy, and their life flowed like clockwork. However, the third week of their honeymoon was not spent entirely happily, even sadly. Dymov contracted erysipelas in the hospital, lay in bed for six days and had to cut his beautiful black hair bare. Olga Ivanovna sat next to him and cried bitterly, but when he felt better, she put a white scarf on his shorn head and began to write a Bedouin from it. And they both had fun. Three days after he, having recovered, began going to hospitals again, a new misunderstanding occurred to him.

- I'm unlucky, mom! - he said one day over lunch. “Today I had four autopsies, and I cut two of my fingers at once. It was only at home that I noticed it.

Olga Ivanovna was scared. He smiled and said that it was nothing and that he often had to make cuts on his hands during autopsies.

“I get carried away, Mom, and become absent-minded.”

Olga Ivanovna was anxiously awaiting cadaveric infection and prayed to God at night, but everything turned out well. And again a peaceful, happy life flowed without sorrows and worries. The present was beautiful, and in its place spring was approaching, already smiling from afar and promising a thousand joys. There will be no end to happiness! In April, May and June, a dacha far outside the city, walks, sketches, fishing, nightingales, and then, from July until the fall, a trip of artists to the Volga, and in this trip, as an indispensable member of the Société, will take part Olga Ivanovna. She had already made herself two travel suits from canvas, bought paints, brushes, canvas and a new palette for the trip. Almost every day Ryabovsky came to her to see what progress she had made in painting. When she showed him her painting, he would put his hands deep in his pockets, press his lips tightly together, sniffle and say:

- Well, sir... This cloud screams: it is not lit like in the evening. The foreground is somehow chewed up and something, you know, is not right... And your hut is choking on something and squeaks pitifully... you should take this corner darker. But in general it’s not bad... I praise it.

And the more incomprehensibly he spoke, the easier Olga Ivanovna understood him.

III

On the second day of Trinity, after lunch, Dymov bought snacks and sweets and went to his wife’s dacha. He had not seen her for two weeks and missed her greatly. Sitting in the carriage and then looking for his dacha in a large grove, he constantly felt hungry and tired and dreamed of how he would have dinner with his wife in freedom and then go to bed. And he had fun looking at his bundle, in which caviar, cheese and white fish were wrapped.

When he found his dacha and recognized it, the sun had already set. The old maid said that the lady was not at home and that they must be coming soon. In the dacha, which was very unsightly in appearance, with low ceilings covered with writing paper and uneven, cracked floors, there were only three rooms. In one there was a bed, in another there were canvases, brushes, greasy paper and men's coats and hats lying on chairs and windows, and in the third Dymov found three unknown men. Two were dark-haired with beards, and the third was completely shaven and fat, apparently an actor. The samovar was boiling on the table.

-What do you want? – the actor asked in a deep voice, looking unsociablely at Dymov. – Do you need Olga Ivanovna? Wait, she'll come now.

Dymov sat down and began to wait. One of the brunettes, looking at him sleepily and listlessly, poured himself some tea and asked:

- Maybe you would like some tea?

Dymov wanted to drink and eat, but in order not to spoil his appetite, he refused tea. Soon footsteps and familiar laughter were heard; the door slammed, and Olga Ivanovna ran into the room wearing a wide-brimmed hat and holding a box in her hand, and after her, a cheerful, red-cheeked Ryabovsky entered with a large umbrella and a folding chair.

- Dymov! - Olga Ivanovna screamed and flushed with joy. - Dymov! – she repeated, placing her head and both hands on his chest. - It's you! Why didn't you come for so long? From what? From what?

- When should I, mom? I'm always busy, and when I'm free, things happen that the train schedule doesn't work.

– But I’m so glad to see you! I dreamed about you all night, and I was afraid that you would get sick. Oh, if you only knew how sweet you are, how opportunely you came! You will be my savior. You alone can save me! Tomorrow there will be a pre-original wedding here,” she continued, laughing and tying her husband’s tie. – A young telegraph operator at the station, a certain Chikeldeev, is getting married. He’s a handsome young man, well, not stupid, and there’s, you know, something strong, bearish in his face... You could paint him as a young Varangian. We, all summer residents, take part in it and gave him our word of honor to be at his wedding... The man is not rich, lonely, timid, and, of course, it would be a sin to refuse him participation. Imagine, after mass there is a wedding, then from the church everyone walks to the bride’s apartment... you know, a grove, birdsong, sun spots on the grass, and we are all multi-colored spots on a bright green background - very original, in the taste of the French expressionists. But, Dymov, what will I wear to church? - Olga Ivanovna said and made a crying face. “I have nothing here, literally nothing!” No dress, no flowers, no gloves... You must save me. If you came, then it means that fate itself is telling you to save me. Take the keys, my dear, go home and take my pink dress from the wardrobe there. You remember it, it hangs first... Then in the pantry on the right side on the floor you will see two cardboard boxes. When you open the top one, there is all tulle, tulle, tulle and various shreds, and underneath there are flowers. Take out all the flowers carefully, try, darling, not to crush them, then I will choose... And buy gloves.

“Okay,” said Dymov. - I’ll go tomorrow and send it.

- When is tomorrow? – Olga Ivanovna asked and looked at him in surprise. - When will you have time tomorrow? Tomorrow the first train leaves at nine o'clock, and the wedding at eleven. No, my dear, it’s necessary today, definitely today! If you can’t come tomorrow, then come with a delivery boy. Well, go... The passenger train should arrive now. Don't be late, darling.

- Fine.

“Oh, how sorry I am to let you go,” said Olga Ivanovna, and tears welled up in her eyes. - And why, fool, did I give my word to the telegraph operator?

Dymov quickly drank a glass of tea, took the steering wheel and, smiling meekly, went to the station. And the caviar, cheese and white fish were eaten by two brunettes and a fat actor.

IV

On a quiet, moonlit July night, Olga Ivanovna stood on the deck of a Volga steamer and looked first at the water, then at the beautiful shores. Ryabovsky stood next to her and told her that the black shadows on the water were not shadows, but a dream, that in view of this witchcraft water with a fantastic shine, in view of the bottomless sky and sad, pensive shores, speaking about the vanity of our lives and the existence of something - the highest, eternal, blissful, it would be nice to forget, die, become a memory. The past is vulgar and uninteresting, the future is insignificant, and this wonderful, unique night in life will soon end, merge with eternity - why live?

And Olga Ivanovna listened first to Ryabovsky’s voice, then to the silence of the night and thought that she was immortal and would never die. The turquoise color of the water, which she had never seen before, the sky, the shores, the black shadows and the unaccountable joy that filled her soul, told her that she would become a great artist and that somewhere out there, beyond the moonlit night, in endless space success, fame, and the love of the people await her... When she looked into the distance without blinking for a long time, she imagined crowds of people, lights, solemn sounds of music, cries of delight, she herself in a white dress and flowers that fell on her from all sides. She also thought that next to her, leaning on the side, stood a real great man, a genius, God’s chosen one... Everything that he has created so far is beautiful, new and extraordinary, and what he will create over time, when with maturity his rare talent will become stronger, it will be amazingly, immeasurably high, and this can be seen in his face, in his manner of expression and in his attitude towards nature. He speaks about shadows, evening tones, and moonlight in a special way, in his own language, so that you can’t help but feel the charm of his power over nature. He himself is very handsome, original, and his life, independent, free, alien to everything worldly, is similar to the life of a bird.

“It’s getting fresh,” Olga Ivanovna said and shuddered.

Ryabovsky wrapped her in his cloak and said sadly:

- I feel in your power. I'm a slave. Why are you so charming today?

He looked at her all the time without stopping, and his eyes were scary, and she was afraid to look at him.

“I love you madly...” he whispered, breathing on her cheek. “Tell me one word, and I won’t live, I’ll give up art...” he muttered in great excitement. - Love me, love me...

“Don’t say that,” said Olga Ivanovna, closing her eyes. - This is scary. And Dymov?

- What about Dymov? Why Dymov? What do I care about Dymov? Volga, the moon, beauty, my love, my delight, but there is no Dymov... Oh, I don’t know anything... I don’t need the past, give me one moment... one moment!

Olga Ivanovna’s heart began to beat. She wanted to think about her husband, but her whole past with the wedding, with Dymov and with the parties seemed to her small, insignificant, dull, unnecessary and far, far away... Really: what about Dymov? why Dymov? What does she care about Dymov? does it exist in nature, and is it not just a dream?

“For him, a simple and ordinary person, the happiness that he has already received is enough,” she thought, covering her face with her hands. “Let them condemn and curse there, but to spite everyone I’ll take it and die, I’ll take it and I’ll die... You have to experience everything in life.” God, how creepy and how good!”

- Well? What? - the artist muttered, hugging her and greedily kissing her hands, with which she weakly tried to push him away from her. - Do you love me? Yes? Yes? Oh, what a night! Wonderful night!

- Yes, what a night! – she whispered, looking into his eyes, shining with tears, then quickly looked back, hugged him and kissed him firmly on the lips.

- We’re approaching Kineshma! - said someone on the other side of the deck.

Heavy footsteps were heard. It was the man from the buffet passing by.

“Listen,” Olga Ivanovna told him, laughing and crying with happiness, “bring us some wine.”

The artist, pale with excitement, sat down on the bench, looked at Olga Ivanovna with adoring, grateful eyes, then closed his eyes and said, smiling languidly:

- I'm tired.

And he leaned his head against the side.

V

The second of September was a warm and quiet day, but cloudy. Early in the morning there was a light fog on the Volga, and after nine o'clock it began to rain. And there was no hope that the sky would clear. Over tea, Ryabovsky told Olga Ivanovna that painting was the most thankless and boring art, that he was not an artist, that only fools thought he had talent, and suddenly, out of the blue, he grabbed a knife and scratched his own with it. the best sketch. After tea, he sat gloomily by the window and looked at the Volga. And the Volga was already without shine, dull, matte, cold in appearance. Everything, everything reminded us of the approach of a dreary, gloomy autumn. And it seemed that the luxurious green carpets on the banks, the diamond reflections of the rays, the transparent blue distance and everything that was dandy and ceremonial had now been taken from the Volga by nature and put in chests until next spring, and the crows flew near the Volga and teased it: “Naked! Naked! Ryabovsky listened to their croaking and thought that he was already exhausted and had lost his talent, that everything in this world is conditional, relative and stupid, and that he should not associate himself with this woman... In a word, he was out of sorts and moping.

Olga Ivanovna sat behind the partition on the bed and, running her fingers through her beautiful flaxen hair, imagined herself now in the living room, now in the bedroom, now in her husband’s office; her imagination took her to the theater, to the dressmaker and to famous friends. Are they doing anything now? Do they remember her? The season has already begun, and it's time to think about parties. And Dymov? Dear Dymov! How meekly and childishly pitifully he asks her in his letters to go home as soon as possible! Every month he sent her seventy-five rubles, and when she wrote to him that she owed the artists one hundred rubles, he sent her those hundred as well. What a kind, generous man! The journey tired Olga Ivanovna, she was bored, and she wanted to quickly get away from these men, from the smell of river dampness and to throw off this feeling of physical uncleanness that she experienced all the time, living in peasant huts and wandering from village to village. If Ryabovsky had not given his word of honor to the artists that he would live with them here until the twentieth of September, then he could have left today. And how good that would be!

“My God,” moaned Ryabovsky, “when will there finally be sunshine?” I can’t continue the sunny landscape without the sun!..

“And you have a sketch under a cloudy sky,” said Olga Ivanovna, coming out from behind the partition. – Do you remember, on the right plan there is a forest, and on the left – a herd of cows and geese. Now you could cum.

- Eh! – the artist winced. - Cum! Do you really think that I myself am so stupid that I don’t know what I need to do!

- How you have changed towards me! – Olga Ivanovna sighed.

- Very well.

Olga Ivanovna’s face trembled, she went to the stove and began to cry.

- Yes, all that was missing was tears. Stop it! I have thousands of reasons to cry, but I don’t cry.

- Thousands of reasons! – Olga Ivanovna sobbed. - The most main reason that you are already burdened with me. Yes! - she said and began to sob. - To tell the truth, you are ashamed of our love. You are all trying not to let the artists notice, although this cannot be hidden and they have known everything for a long time.

“Olga, I ask you one thing,” the artist said pleadingly and putting his hand to his heart, “one thing: don’t torture me!” I don't need anything more from you!

“But swear that you still love me!”

- This is painful! – the artist muttered through his teeth and jumped up. “I’ll end up throwing myself into the Volga or going crazy!” Leave me!

- Well, kill me, kill me! – Olga Ivanovna shouted. - Kill!

She began to sob again and went behind the partition. The rain rustled on the thatched roof of the hut. Ryabovsky grabbed his head and walked from corner to corner, then with a determined face, as if wanting to prove something to someone, he put on his cap, threw the gun over his shoulder and left the hut.

After he left, Olga Ivanovna lay on the bed for a long time and cried. At first she thought that it would be good to poison herself so that Ryabovsky would find her dead when he returned, then her thoughts were carried away into the living room, into her husband’s office and imagined how she sat motionless next to Dymov and enjoyed physical peace and cleanliness and how in the evening she sat in theater and listens to Mazini. And longing for civilization, for city noise and famous people pinched her heart. A woman entered the hut and slowly began to light the stove to cook dinner. There was a smell of burning, and the air turned blue with smoke. Artists came in high, dirty boots and with faces wet from the rain, looked at the sketches and told themselves for consolation that the Volga, even in bad weather, has its own charm. And the cheap clock on the wall: tick-tick-tick... The chilled flies have crowded in the front corner near the icons and are buzzing, and you can hear the Prussians fiddling around in thick folders under the benches...

Ryabovsky returned home as the sun was setting. He threw his cap on the table and, pale, exhausted, in dirty boots, sat down on the bench and closed his eyes.

“I’m tired...” he said and moved his eyebrows, trying to lift his eyelids.

To caress him and show that she was not angry, Olga Ivanovna came up to him, silently kissed him and ran a comb through his blond hair. She wanted to comb his hair.

- What's happened? - he asked, shuddering, as if someone had touched him with something cold, and opened his eyes. - What's happened? Leave me alone, please.

He pushed her away with his hands and walked away, and it seemed to her that his face expressed disgust and annoyance. At this time, the woman carefully brought him a plate of cabbage soup in both hands, and Olga Ivanovna saw how she wet her thumbs in the cabbage soup. And the dirty woman with her constricted belly, and the cabbage soup that Ryabovsky began to greedily eat, and the hut, and this whole life, which at first she loved so much for its simplicity and artistic disorder, now seemed terrible to her. She suddenly felt insulted and said coldly:

“We need to separate for a while, otherwise we could seriously quarrel out of boredom.” I am tired of this. I'll leave today.

- On what? On a stick?

- Today is Thursday, which means the ship will arrive at half past nine.

- A? Yes, yes... Well, go ahead... - Ryabovsky said softly, wiping himself with a towel instead of a napkin. “You’re bored here and have nothing to do, and you have to be a big egoist to keep you.” Go, and I'll see you after the twentieth.

Olga Ivanovna was laying down cheerfully, and even her cheeks flushed with pleasure. Is it really true, she asked herself, that soon she will write in the living room, sleep in the bedroom and dine with a tablecloth? Her heart was relieved, and she was no longer angry with the artist.

“I’ll leave the paints and brushes for you, Ryabusha,” she said. “You can bring what’s left... Look, don’t be lazy here without me, don’t be mopey, but work.” You're a good boy, Ryabusha.

At nine o'clock Ryabovsky kissed her goodbye, so as not to kiss her on the ship in front of the artists, as she thought, and escorted her to the pier. A steamer soon came and took her away.

She arrived home two and a half days later. Without taking off her hat and waterproof, breathing heavily with excitement, she walked into the living room, and from there into the dining room. Dymov, without a frock coat, in an unbuttoned vest, sat at the table and sharpened a knife on a fork; There was hazel grouse lying on a plate in front of him. When Olga Ivanovna entered the apartment, she was convinced that it was necessary to hide everything from her husband and that she had enough skill and strength to do this, but now, when she saw a wide, meek, happy smile and sparkling, joyful eyes, she felt that hiding from this person is just as vile, disgusting and just as impossible and beyond her power as to slander, steal or kill, and she in an instant decided to tell him everything that happened. Letting him kiss her and hug her, she knelt down in front of him and covered her face.

- What? What mom? – he asked tenderly. - Are you bored?

She raised her face, red with shame, and looked at him guiltily and pleadingly, but fear and shame prevented her from telling the truth.

“Nothing...” she said. - That's me...

“Let’s sit down,” he said, picking her up and seating her at the table. - That's it... Eat hazel grouse. You're hungry, poor thing.

She greedily inhaled her native air and ate hazel grouse, and he looked at her with emotion and laughed joyfully.

VI

Apparently, from the middle of winter, Dymov began to realize that he was being deceived. As if he had a bad conscience, he could no longer look his wife straight in the eyes, did not smile joyfully when meeting her, and, in order to be less alone with her, he often brought his friend Korostelev, a small, short-haired man with a rumpled face, to dinner with him. , who, when talking to Olga Ivanovna, out of embarrassment, unbuttoned all the buttons of his jacket and buttoned them again and then began to pluck his left mustache with his right hand. Over lunch, both doctors talked about how when the diaphragm is high, sometimes heart failure occurs, or that multiple neuritis has been observed very often lately, or that yesterday Dymov, having opened a corpse with a diagnosis of “pernicious anemia,” found pancreatic cancer. And it seemed that both of them were conducting a medical conversation only in order to give Olga Ivanovna the opportunity to remain silent, that is, not to lie. After dinner, Korostelev sat down at the piano, and Dymov sighed and said to him:

- Eh, brother! Well, so what! Play something sad.

Recently, Olga Ivanovna behaved extremely carelessly. Every morning she woke up in the worst mood and with the thought that she no longer loved Ryabovsky and that, thank God, it was all over. But, having drunk coffee, she realized that Ryabovsky had taken her husband away from her and that now she was left without a husband and without Ryabovsky; then she recalled the conversations of her acquaintances that Ryabovsky was preparing something amazing for the exhibition, a mixture of landscape and genre, in the taste of Polenov, which is why everyone who visits his studio is delighted; but, she thought, he created this under her influence, and in general, thanks to her influence, he changed greatly for the better. Her influence is so beneficial and significant that if she leaves him, he may perhaps die. And she also recalled that the last time he came to her in some kind of gray frock coat with sparkles and a new tie and asked languidly: “Am I handsome?” And in fact, he, graceful, with his long curls and blue eyes, was very handsome (or perhaps it seemed so) and was affectionate with her.

- Yes, you have never written anything like this before. You know, it's even scary.

Then she began to beg him to love her, not to abandon her, to take pity on her, poor and unhappy. She cried, kissed his hands, demanded that he swear his love for her, proved to him that without her good influence he would go astray and die. And, having spoiled his good mood and feeling humiliated, she went to the seamstress or to an actress friend to inquire about a ticket.

- Where are you going? - Olga Ivanovna asked him in the hallway, looking at him with hatred.

– Don’t cry loudly, mom... Why? We must remain silent about this... We must not show it... You know what happened, you can’t fix it.

One day she told Ryabovsky about her husband:

She liked this phrase so much that, meeting with artists who knew about her affair with Ryabovsky, she always spoke about her husband, making an energetic hand gesture:

“This man oppresses me with his generosity!”

The order of life was the same as last year. There were parties on Wednesdays. The artist read, the artists drew, the cellist played, the singer sang, and invariably at half past eleven the door leading to the dining room opened, and Dymov, smiling, said:

- Please, gentlemen, have a snack.

“I just defended my dissertation,” he said, sitting down and stroking his knees.

- Protected? – asked Olga Ivanovna.

He sat for two minutes, smiled guiltily and left.

VII

It was a most hectic day.

She came to him without ringing the bell, and when she was taking off her overshoes in the hall, she thought she heard something quietly running through the workshop, rustling her dress like a woman, and when she hurried to look into the workshop, she saw only a piece of a brown skirt, which flashed for a moment and disappeared behind a large painting, curtained with black calico along with the easel to the floor. There was no doubt, it was a woman hiding. How often Olga Ivanovna herself found refuge behind this picture! Ryabovsky, apparently very embarrassed, seemed surprised at her arrival, extended both hands to her and said, smiling tightly:

- Ah-ah-ah! I am very glad to see you. What can you say that's nice?

“I brought you a sketch...” she said timidly, in a thin voice, and her lips trembled, “nature morte.”

- A-ah-ah... a sketch?

The artist took the sketch in his hands and, looking at it, as if mechanically he walked into another room.

Olga Ivanovna obediently followed him.

“Nature morte... first class,” he muttered, searching for a rhyme, “resort... damn... port...”

Hasty steps and the rustling of a dress were heard from the workshop. So she left. Olga Ivanovna wanted to scream loudly, hit the artist on the head with something heavy and leave, but she couldn’t see anything through her tears, she was crushed by her shame and no longer felt like Olga Ivanovna or an artist, but like a little booger.

Returning home late in the evening, without changing her clothes, she sat down in the living room to compose a letter. Ryabovsky told her that she was not an artist, and in revenge she would now write to him that he writes the same thing every year and says the same thing every day, that he is frozen and that nothing will come of him except which has already come out. She also wanted to write that he owes a lot to her good influence, and if he acts badly, it is only because her influence is paralyzed by various ambiguous persons, like the one who was hiding behind the picture today.

- Mother! - Dymov called from the office without opening the door. - Mother!

- What do you want?

- Mom, don’t come to me, just come to the door. Here's what... The day before yesterday I contracted diphtheria in the hospital, and now... I don't feel well. Let's quickly go get Korostelev.

- Osip, this can’t be!

- Went! “I don’t feel well...” Dymov said behind the door, and you could hear him go to the sofa and lie down. “Let’s go,” his voice was muffled.

"What is it? - thought Olga Ivanovna, growing cold with horror. “It’s dangerous!”

VIII

“Sorry, I won’t let you go to him,” he said gloomily to Olga Ivanovna. - You can get infected. Yes, and there is no need for you, in essence. He's still delirious.

– Does he have real diphtheria? – Olga Ivanovna asked in a whisper.

- Dangerous? Very? – asked Olga Ivanovna.

- Yes, they say that the form is severe. We should send for Shrek, basically.

“Oh, how terribly I lied! - she thought, remembering the restless love she had with Ryabovsky. “Damn it all!”

When Olga Ivanovna went out into the living room another time, Korostelev was no longer sleeping, but was sitting and smoking.

“He has diphtheria of the nasal cavity,” he said in a low voice. – Even the heart doesn’t work well anymore. In essence, things are bad.

“And you will send for Shrek,” said Olga Ivanovna.

- I was already. It was he who noticed that the diphtheria had spread to the nose. Eh, what about Shrek! Basically, nothing Shrek. He is Shrek, I am Korostelev - and nothing more.

And again iron... Time dragged on, and the clock on the lower floor struck often. And every now and then calls were heard; doctors came... A maid came in with an empty glass on a tray and asked:

- Lady, would you like to make the bed?

- What time is it now? – she asked.

- About three.

- Well?

- What! I came to say: it’s ending...

He sobbed, sat down on the bed next to her and wiped his tears with his sleeve. She didn’t understand right away, but she became completely cold and began to slowly cross herself.

Korostelev covered his face with both hands in despair and shook his head.

Korostelev looked at Olga Ivanovna with hatred, grabbed the sheet with both hands and angrily pulled, as if it were her fault.

“And he didn’t spare himself, and they didn’t spare him.” Eh, yes, actually!

- Yes, a rare person! - someone said in a deep voice in the living room.

- Dymov! – she called loudly. - Dymov!

- Dymov! - she called him, tugging at his shoulder and not believing that he would never wake up. - Dymov, Dymov!

And in the living room Korostelev said to the maid:

- What is there to ask? You go to the church gatehouse and ask where the almshouses live. They will wash the body and clean it up - they will do everything that is needed.