Reviews about "Russian man at rendez-vous". N.G

N. G. Chernyshevsky

Russian man at rendez-vous
Reflections on reading Mr. Turgenev's story "Asya"

Library of Russian classics N. G. Chernyshevsky. Collected works in five volumes. Volume 3. Literary criticism Library "Ogonyok". M., “Pravda”, 1974 “Stories in a businesslike, incriminating manner leave a very difficult impression on the reader; therefore, while recognizing their usefulness and nobility, I am not entirely satisfied that our literature has taken exclusively such a gloomy direction.” This is what quite a lot of people say, apparently not stupid, or, better to say, they said so until the peasant question became the only subject of all thoughts, all conversations. Whether their words are fair or unfair, I don’t know; but I happened to be under the influence of such thoughts when I began to read perhaps the only good new story, from which, from the first pages, one could already expect a completely different content, a different pathos, than from business stories. There is no trickery with violence and bribery, no dirty swindlers, no official villains explaining in elegant language that they are the benefactors of society, no philistines, peasants and little officials tormented by all these terrible and disgusting people. The action is abroad, far from all the bad surroundings of our home life. All the characters in the story are among the best people among us, very educated, extremely humane: imbued with the noblest way of thinking. The story has a purely poetic, ideal direction, not touching on any of the so-called black sides of life. Here, I thought, my soul will rest and be refreshed. And indeed, she was refreshed by these poetic ideals until the story reached the decisive moment. But the last pages of the story are not similar to the first, and after reading the story, the impression left from it is even more bleak than from the stories about disgusting bribe takers with their cynical robbery. They do bad things, but they are recognized by each of us as bad people; It is not from them that we expect improvements in our lives. There are, we think, forces in society that will put a barrier to their harmful influence, that will change the nature of our life with their nobility. This illusion is most bitterly rejected in the story, which awakens the brightest expectations with its first half. Here is a man whose heart is open to all high feelings, whose honesty is unshakable, whose thought has absorbed everything for which our century is called the century of noble aspirations. So what is this man doing? He makes a scene that would put the last bribe-taker to shame. He feels the strongest and purest sympathy for the girl who loves him; he cannot live an hour without seeing this girl; all day and all night his thoughts draw him a beautiful image of her; the time of love has come for him, you think, when the heart is drowned in bliss. We see Romeo, we see Juliet, whose happiness nothing interferes with, and the moment is approaching when their fate will be decided forever - for this Romeo must only say: “I love you, do you love me?” And Juliet will whisper: “Yes...” And what does our Romeo (as we will call the hero of the story, whose last name was not told to us by the author of the story) do when he goes on a date with Juliet? With trembling love, Juliet awaits her Romeo; she must learn from him that he loves her - this word was not uttered between them, it will now be uttered by him, they will be united forever; bliss awaits them, such a high and pure bliss, the enthusiasm of which makes the solemn moment of decision barely bearable for the earthly organism. People died from less joy. She sits like a frightened bird, covering her face from the radiance of the sun of love appearing before her; she is breathing quickly, trembling all over; she lowers her eyes even more tremblingly when he enters and calls her name; she wants to look at him and cannot; he takes her hand - this hand is cold, lies as if dead in his hand; she wants to smile; but her pale lips cannot smile. She wants to talk to him, and her voice breaks. They both were silent for a long time - and, as he himself says, his heart melted, and now Romeo says to his Juliet... and what does he say to her? “You are to blame for me,” he tells her; “you got me into trouble, I am dissatisfied with you, you are compromising me, and I must end my relationship with you; it is very unpleasant for me to part with you, but if you please, get out of here.” away." What it is? How she guilty? Is it what I thought his a decent person? Compromised his reputation by going on a date with him? This is amazing! Every feature in her pale face says that she is waiting for her fate to be decided by his word, that she has given her whole soul to him irrevocably and now only expects him to say that he accepts her soul, her life, and he reprimands her for that she is compromising him! What kind of ridiculous cruelty is this? What kind of low rudeness is this? And this man, who acts so vilely, has been presented as noble until now! He deceived us, deceived the author. Yes, the poet made a very serious mistake in imagining that he was telling us about a decent person. This man is worse than a notorious scoundrel. Such was the impression made on many by the completely unexpected turn in the relationship of our Romeo to his Juliet. We have heard from many that the whole story is spoiled by this outrageous scene, that the character of the main person is not sustained, that if this person is what he appears to be in the first half of the story, then he could not have acted with such vulgar rudeness, and if he could have acted like that, then From the very beginning he should have appeared to us as a completely crappy person. It would be very comforting to think that the author was really mistaken, but the sad dignity of his story lies in the fact that the character of the hero is true to our society. Perhaps, if this character were such as people would like to see him, dissatisfied with his rudeness on a date, if he were not afraid to give himself to the love that took possession of him, the story would have won in an ideally poetic sense. The enthusiasm of the first date scene would be followed by several other highly poetic minutes, the quiet charm of the first half of the story would rise to pathetic charm in the second half, and instead of the first act from Romeo and Juliet with an ending in the style of Pechorin, we would have something really similar to Romeo and Juliet, or at least one of Georges Sand's novels. Anyone looking for a poetically complete impression in a story should really condemn the author, who, having lured him with sublimely sweet expectations, suddenly showed him some vulgar, absurd vanity of petty, timid egoism in a man who started out like Max Piccolomini and ended up like some Zakhar Sidorich, playing penny preference. But was the author really wrong about his hero? If he made a mistake, this is not the first time he makes this mistake. No matter how many stories he had that led to a similar situation, each time his heroes emerged from these situations in no other way than being completely embarrassed in front of us. In Faust, the hero tries to cheer himself up by the fact that neither he nor Vera have serious feelings for each other; sitting with her, dreaming about her is his business, but in terms of determination, even in words, he behaves in such a way that Vera herself must tell him that she loves him; For several minutes the conversation had been going on in such a way that he should definitely have said this, but he, you see, did not guess and did not dare to tell her this; and when the woman who must accept the explanation is finally forced to make the explanation herself, he, you see, “froze,” but felt that “a wave of bliss was running through his heart,” only, however, “from time to time,” but actually speaking, he “completely lost his head” - it’s only a pity that he didn’t faint, and even that would have happened if he hadn’t come across a tree to lean against. As soon as the man had time to recover, the woman he loves, who expressed her love to him, comes up to him and asks what he intends to do now? He... he was "embarrassed." It is not surprising that after such behavior of a loved one (otherwise, the image of this gentleman’s actions cannot be called “behavior”), the poor woman developed a nervous fever; It’s even more natural that he then began to cry about his fate. It's in Faust; almost the same in "Rudin". Rudin at first behaves somewhat more decently for a man than the previous heroes: he is so decisive that he himself tells Natalya about his love (although he does not speak of his own free will, but because he is forced to this conversation); he himself asks her for a date. But when Natalya on this date tells him that she will marry him, with or without the consent of her mother, it doesn’t matter, as long as he loves her, when he says the words: “Know, I will be yours,” Rudin only finds an exclamation in response : "Oh my God!" - an exclamation more embarrassed than enthusiastic - and then he acts so well, that is, to such an extent he is cowardly and lethargic, that Natalya is forced to invite him on a date herself to decide what to do. Having received the note, “he saw that the denouement was approaching, and was secretly troubled in spirit.” Natalya says that her mother told her that she would rather agree to see her daughter dead than to see Rudin’s wife, and again asks Rudin what he intends to do now. Rudin answers as before, “My God, my God,” and adds even more naively: “So soon! What do I intend to do? My head is spinning, I can’t figure out anything.” But then he realizes that he should “submit.” Called a coward, he begins to reproach Natalya, then lectures her about his honesty, and to the remark that this is not what she should hear from him now, he replies that he did not expect such decisiveness. The matter ends with the offended girl turning away from him, almost ashamed of her love for the coward. But perhaps this pitiful trait in the characters’ characters is a feature of Mr. Turgenev’s stories? Perhaps it is the nature of his talent that inclines him to portray such faces? Not at all; the nature of the talent, it seems to us, means nothing here. Remember any good story true to life by any of our current poets, and if there is an ideal side to the story, be sure that the representative of this ideal side acts exactly the same as the people of Mr. Turgenev. For example, the nature of Mr. Nekrasov’s talent is not at all the same as Mr. Turgenev’s; You can find any shortcomings in him, but no one will say that Mr. Nekrasov’s talent lacks energy and firmness. What does the hero do in his poem "Sasha"? He explained to Sasha that, he says, “you should not weaken in soul,” because “the sun of righteousness will rise above the earth,” and that you need to act to fulfill your aspirations, and then, when Sasha gets down to business, he says that all this is in vain and It won’t lead to anything that he was “talking empty talk.” Let us remember how Beltov acts: in the same way he prefers retreat to any decisive step. There could be a lot of similar examples. Everywhere, whatever the character of the poet, whatever his personal concepts about the actions of his hero, the hero acts in the same way as all other decent people, similar to him, bred from other poets: while there is no talk of business, but you just need to occupy idle time, to fill an idle head or an idle heart with conversations and dreams, the hero is very lively; As the matter approaches to directly and accurately express their feelings and desires, most of the heroes begin to hesitate and feel clumsy in their language. A few, the bravest, somehow still manage to gather all their strength and tongue-tiedly express something that gives a vague idea of ​​​​their thoughts; but if anyone decides to grab hold of their desires, to say: “You want such and such; we are very glad; start acting, and we will support you,” - at such a remark, one half of the bravest heroes faints, others begin to reproach you very rudely for putting them in an awkward position, they begin to say that they did not expect such proposals from you, that they completely lose their heads, cannot figure anything out, because “how is it possible so soon,” and “besides, they are honest people,” and not only honest, but very meek and do not want to expose you to trouble, and that in general, is it really possible to bother about everything that is talked about out of nothing to do, and that the best thing is - - not to take on anything, because everything is connected with troubles and inconveniences, and nothing good can happen yet, because, as already said, they “didn’t expect or expect anything” and so on. These are our “best people” - they are all like our Romeo. How much trouble for Asya is that Mr. N. did not know what to do with her, and was decidedly angry when courageous determination was required of him; We don’t know how much trouble there is in this for Asya. The first thought that comes to her is that this will cause her very little trouble; on the contrary, and thank God that the crappy impotence of character in our Romeo pushed the girl away from him even when it was not too late. Asya will be sad for several weeks, several months and will forget everything and may surrender to a new feeling, the object of which will be more worthy of her. Yes, but that’s the trouble, she’s unlikely to meet a more worthy person; This is the sad comedy of our Romeo’s relationship with Asya, that our Romeo is truly one of the best people in our society, that there are almost no people better than him in our country. Only then will Asya be satisfied with her relationship with people, when, like others, she begins to limit herself to beautiful reasoning, until the opportunity presents itself to start making speeches, and when the opportunity presents itself, she will bite her tongue and fold her hands, as everyone else does. Only then will they be satisfied with it; and now, first of all, of course, everyone will say that this girl is very sweet, with a noble soul, with amazing strength of character, in general a girl whom you cannot help but love, whom you cannot help but revere; but all this will be said only as long as Asya’s character is expressed in words alone, as long as it is only assumed that she is capable of a noble and decisive act; and as soon as she takes a step that in any way justifies the expectations inspired by her character, hundreds of voices will immediately shout: “For mercy, how is this possible, this is madness! To assign a rendez-vous to a young man! After all, she is ruining herself, ruining herself is completely useless! "Nothing can come of this, absolutely nothing except that she will lose her reputation. Is it possible to risk oneself so insanely?" “Risk herself? That would be nothing,” others add. “Let her do with herself what she wants, but why expose others to trouble? What position did she put this poor young man in? Did he really think that she would want lead him so far? What should he do now, given her recklessness? If he follows her, he will destroy himself; if he refuses, he will be called a coward and will despise himself. I do not know whether it is noble to put people in such unpleasant situations, who, it seems, did not give any special reason for such incongruous actions. No, this is not entirely noble. And the poor brother? What is his role? What bitter pill did his sister give him? He won't be able to digest this pill for the rest of his life. Nothing to say, my dear sister borrowed it! I don’t argue, all this is very good in words - noble aspirations, self-sacrifice, and God knows what wonderful things, but I will say one thing: I would not want to be Asya’s brother. I will say more: if I were in her brother’s place, I would lock her in her room for six months. For her own good, she needs to be locked up. She, you see, deigns to be carried away by high feelings; but what is it like to dispense to others what she deigned to brew? No, I will not call her action, I will not call her character noble, because I do not call those noble who frivolously and impudently harm others." Thus the general cry will be explained by the reasoning of sensible people. We are partly ashamed to admit, but still we have to admit, that these reasoning seem to us to be solid. In fact, Asya harms not only herself, but also everyone who had the misfortune of being related or by chance to be close to her; and those who, for their own pleasure, harm all their loved ones, we cannot help but condemn ". By condemning Asya, we justify our Romeo. In fact, what is he to blame for? Did he give her a reason to act recklessly? Did he incite her to an act that could not be approved? Didn't he have the right to tell her that in vain she confused him in unpleasant relationship? You are indignant at the fact that his words are harsh, you call them rude. But the truth is always harsh, and who will condemn me if even a rude word escapes me, when I, innocent of anything, are entangled in an unpleasant matter; and are they pestering me to make me rejoice at the misfortune into which I was dragged? I know why you so unfairly admired Asya’s ignoble act and condemned our Romeo. I know this because I myself for a moment succumbed to the unfounded impression that remained in you. You have read about how people in other countries acted and acted. But realize that these are other countries. You never know what is being done in the world in other places, but what is very convenient in a certain situation is not always and not everywhere possible. In England, for example, the word “you” does not exist in the colloquial language: a manufacturer to his worker, a landowner to the digger he hires, a master to his footman always says “you” and, wherever it happens, they insert sir in a conversation with them, that is, it doesn’t matter what French monsieur, but in Russian there is no such word, but it comes out as politeness in the same way as if a master said to his peasant: “You, Sidor Karpych, do me a favor, come to me for a cup of tea, and then straighten the paths in my garden ". Will you judge me if I speak to Sidor without such subtleties? After all, I would be ridiculous if I adopted the language of an Englishman. In general, as soon as you begin to condemn what you don’t like, you become an ideologist, that is, the funniest and, to tell you the truth, the most dangerous person in the world, you lose the solid support of practical reality from under your feet. Beware of this, try to become a practical person in your opinions and for the first time try to reconcile at least with our Romeo, by the way we are already talking about him. I am ready to tell you the path by which I reached this result, not only regarding the scene with Asya, but also regarding everything in the world, that is, I became happy with everything that I see around me, I am not angry at anything, I am not upset by anything (except for failures in matters that are personally beneficial to me), I do not condemn anything or anyone in the world (except for people who violate my personal benefits), I do not wish for anything (except for my own benefit) - in a word, I will tell you how I turned from a bilious melancholic a man so practical and well-intentioned that I wouldn’t even be surprised if I received a reward for my good intentions. K began with the remark that one should not blame people for anything and for nothing, because, as far as I have seen, the most intelligent person has his own share of limitations, sufficient to ensure that in his way of thinking he cannot stray far from society in which he was brought up and lives, and the most energetic person has his own dose of apathy, sufficient so that in his actions he does not stray too far from routine and, as they say, floats with the flow of the river, where the water carries. In the middle circle, it is customary to paint eggs for Easter; at Shrovetide there are pancakes, and everyone does it, although some people don’t eat colored eggs at all, and almost everyone complains about the weight of pancakes. This is true not just in trifles, but in everything. It is accepted, for example, that boys should be kept more freely than girls, and every father, every mother, no matter how convinced they are of the unreasonableness of such a distinction, raises their children according to this rule. It is accepted that wealth is a good thing, and everyone is happy if, instead of ten thousand rubles a year, thanks to the happy turn of affairs, he begins to receive twenty thousand, although, rationally speaking, every intelligent person knows that those things that, being unavailable at first income that become available in the second cannot bring any significant pleasure. For example, if with ten thousand income you can make a ball of 500 rubles, then with twenty you can make a ball of 1,000 rubles: the latter will be somewhat better than the first, but still there will not be any special splendor in it, it will be called nothing more than a fairly decent ball , and the first one will be a decent ball. Thus, even the feeling of vanity with an income of 20 thousand is satisfied with very little more than with 10 thousand; As for pleasures that can be called positive, the difference in them is completely unnoticeable. Personally, a person with 10 thousand income has exactly the same table, exactly the same wine and a chair in the same row at the opera as a person with twenty thousand. The first is called a fairly rich man, and the second is also not considered an extremely rich man - there is no significant difference in their position; and yet, according to the routine accepted in society, everyone will rejoice when their income increases from 10 to 20 thousand, although in fact they will not notice almost any increase in their pleasures. People are generally terrible routineists: you only have to look deeper into their thoughts to discover this. Some gentleman will puzzle you extremely at first with the independence of his way of thinking from the society to which he belongs; he will seem to you, for example, a cosmopolitan, a man without class prejudices, etc., and he, like his acquaintances, imagines himself to be so from a pure heart. But observe more precisely a cosmopolitan, and he will turn out to be a Frenchman or a Russian with all the peculiarities of concepts and habits belonging to the nation to which he is classified according to his passport, he will turn out to be a landowner or official, a merchant or a professor with all the shades of the way of thinking belonging to his class. I am sure that the large number of people who have the habit of being angry with each other, blaming each other, depends solely on the fact that too few are engaged in observations of this kind; but just try to start peering into people in order to check whether this or that person, who at first seems different from others, really differs in anything important from other people of the same position, just try to engage in such observations, and this analysis will captivate you so much , will so interest your mind, will constantly deliver such calming impressions to your spirit that you will never be left behind and will very soon come to the conclusion: “Every person is like all people, in everyone there is exactly the same thing as in others." And the farther, the harder You you will become convinced of this axiom. Differences seem important only because they lie on the surface and are striking, but beneath the visible, apparent difference, perfect identity is hidden. And why on earth would a person really be a contradiction to all the laws of nature? After all, in nature, cedar and hyssop feed and bloom, elephants and mice move and eat, rejoice and get angry according to the same laws; under the external difference of forms lies the internal identity of the organism of a monkey and a whale, an eagle and a chicken; one has only to delve into the matter even more carefully, and we will see that not only different creatures of the same class, but also different classes of creatures are constructed and live according to the same principles, that the organisms of a mammal, a bird and a fish are the same, that a worm breathes like a mammal, although he has neither nostrils, nor a windpipe, nor lungs. Not only would the analogy with other beings be violated by non-recognition of the identity of the basic rules and springs in the moral life of each person, but the analogy with his physical life would also be violated. Of two healthy people of the same age in the same mood, one’s pulse beats, of course, somewhat stronger and more often than the other’s; but is this difference great? It is so insignificant that science does not even pay attention to it. It's different when you compare people of different years or in different circumstances; a child's pulse beats twice as fast as an old man's, a sick person's pulse beats much more often or less frequently than a healthy person's, someone who drank a glass of champagne beats more often than someone who drank a glass of water. But even here it is clear to everyone that the difference is not in the structure of the organism, but in the circumstances under which the organism is observed. And the old man, when he was a child, had a pulse as fast as the child with whom you compare him; and a healthy person’s pulse would weaken, like a sick person’s, if he fell ill with the same disease; and Peter, if he drank a glass of champagne, his pulse would increase in the same way as Ivan’s. You have almost reached the boundaries of human wisdom when you are established in this simple truth that every person is the same person as all others. Not to mention the gratifying consequences of this conviction for your everyday happiness; you will stop being angry and upset, stop being indignant and blaming, you will meekly look at what you were previously ready to scold and fight for; in fact, how would you become angry or complain about a person for such an act, which would be done by everyone in his place? An undisturbed, gentle silence settles in your soul, sweeter than which can only be the Brahminical contemplation of the tip of the nose, with the quiet, incessant repetition of the words “om-mani-padmekhum.” I’m not even talking about this invaluable spiritual and practical benefit, I’m not even talking about how many monetary benefits wise condescension towards people will bring you: you will completely cordially welcome a scoundrel whom you would have driven away from yourself before; and this scoundrel may be a man of importance in society, and a good relationship with him will improve your own affairs. I’m not even saying that you yourself will then be less embarrassed by false doubts of conscience in taking advantage of those benefits that will come your way: why should you be embarrassed by excessive ticklishness if you are convinced that everyone would act in your place in exactly the same way? , just like you? I do not expose all these benefits, with the goal of pointing out only the purely scientific, theoretical importance of the belief in the sameness of human nature in all people. If all people are essentially the same, then where does the difference in their actions come from? Striving to achieve the main truth, we have already found in passing the conclusion from it that serves as the answer to this question. It is now clear to us that everything depends on social habits and on circumstances, that is, in the final result everything depends exclusively on circumstances, because social habits, in turn, also arose from circumstances. You blame a person - first look at whether he is to blame for what you blame him for, or whether the circumstances and habits of society are to blame, look carefully, perhaps it is not his fault at all, but only his misfortune. When talking about others, we are too inclined to consider every misfortune as guilt - this is the true misfortune for practical life, because guilt and misfortune are completely different things and require treatment, one not at all the same as the other. Guilt causes censure or even punishment against the person. Trouble requires assistance to a person through the elimination of circumstances stronger than his will. I knew a tailor who poked his apprentices in the teeth with a hot iron. Perhaps he can be called guilty, and he can be punished; but not every tailor pokes a hot iron into his teeth; examples of such fury are very rare. But almost every craftsman happens to get into a fight after drinking on a holiday - this is not a fault, but simply a misfortune. What is needed here is not punishment of an individual, but a change in living conditions for the whole class. The harmful confusion of guilt and misfortune is all the sadder because it is very easy to distinguish between these two things; We have already seen one sign of difference: wine is a rarity, it is an exception to the rule; trouble is an epidemic. Deliberate arson is a fault; but out of millions of people there is one who decides to do this. There is another sign needed to complement the first. Trouble falls on the very person who fulfills the condition leading to trouble; guilt falls on others, benefiting the guilty. This last sign is extremely accurate. A robber kills a man in order to rob him, and finds it beneficial for himself - this is guilt. A careless hunter accidentally wounded a man and is the first to suffer from the misfortune he caused - this is not guilt, but simply misfortune. The sign is true, but if you accept it with some insight, with a careful analysis of the facts, it turns out that there is almost never guilt in the world, but only misfortune. Now we have mentioned the robber. Is life sweet for him? If it weren’t for special, very difficult circumstances for him, would he have taken up his craft? Where will you find a person for whom it would be more pleasant to hide in dens in cold and bad weather and wander through the deserts, often endure hunger and constantly tremble for his back, awaiting the lash - for whom this would be more pleasant than comfortably smoking a sitar in quiet armchairs or play jumble at the English Club, as decent people do? It would also be much more pleasant for our Romeo to enjoy the mutual pleasures of happy love than to remain a fool and cruelly scold himself for his vulgar rudeness with Asya. From the fact that the cruel trouble to which Asya is exposed brings him not benefit or pleasure, but shame in front of himself, that is, the most painful of all moral griefs, we see that he is not in guilt, but in trouble. The vulgarity he did would have been done by very many other so-called decent people or the best people of our society; therefore, this is nothing more than a symptom of an epidemic disease that has taken root in our society. A symptom of a disease is not the disease itself. And if the matter were only that some, or, better to say, almost all of the “best” people offend a girl when she has more nobility or less experience than them, this matter, we admit, would interest us little. God be with them, with erotic questions - the reader of our time, busy with questions about administrative and judicial improvements, financial reforms, and the emancipation of the peasants, has no time for them. But the scene made by our Romeo Ace, as we noticed, is only a symptom of a disease that in exactly the same vulgar way spoils all our affairs, and only we need to take a closer look at why our Romeo got into trouble, we will see what we all like on him, to expect from himself and to expect for himself and in all other matters. Let's start with the fact that the poor young man does not understand at all the business in which he is taking part. The point is clear, but he is obsessed with such stupidity that he is unable to reason with the most obvious facts. We absolutely do not know what to compare such blind stupidity to. The girl, incapable of any pretense, not knowing any trick, tells him: “I myself don’t know what’s happening to me. Sometimes I want to cry, but I laugh. You shouldn’t judge me... by what I do.” ". Oh, by the way, what kind of fairy tale is this about Lorelei? After all, this is her rock that can be seen? They say that she was the first to drown everyone, and when she fell in love, she threw herself into the water. I like this fairy tale." It seems clear what feeling awoke in her. Two minutes later, with excitement reflected even by the pallor on her face, she asks if he liked that lady whom, somehow jokingly, was mentioned in a conversation many days ago; then asks what he likes in a woman; when he notices how well the sky shines, she says: “Yes, good! If you and I were birds, how we would soar, how we would fly!.. We would drown in this blue... but we are not birds ".-- “But wings can grow on us,” I objected.-- “How so?” - “As you wait, you will find out. There are feelings that lift us from the ground. Don’t worry, you will have wings.” - “Did you have them?” - “How can I tell you?.., it seems that I haven’t flown yet.” The next day, when he came in, Asya blushed; I wanted to run away from the room; she was sad and finally, remembering yesterday’s conversation, told him: “Remember, yesterday you talked about wings? My wings have grown.” These words were so clear that even the slow-witted Romeo, returning home, could not help but come to the thought: does she really love me? I fell asleep with this thought and, waking up the next morning, asked myself: “Does she really love me?” Indeed, it was difficult not to understand this, and yet he did not understand. Did he at least understand what was going on in his own heart? And here the signs were no less clear. After the very first two meetings with Asya, he feels jealous at the sight of her tender treatment of her brother and, out of jealousy, does not want to believe that Gagin is really her brother. The jealousy in him is so strong that he cannot see Asya, but he could not resist seeing her, so he, like an 18-year-old boy, runs away from the village in which she lives, wanders around the surrounding fields for several days . Having finally become convinced that Asya is really only Gagin’s sister, he is happy as a child, and, returning from them, he even feels that “tears are boiling in his eyes with delight,” and at the same time he feels that this delight is all concentrated on thoughts about Asa, and finally comes to the point that he can’t think about anything but her. It seems that a person who has loved several times should understand what feeling is expressed in himself by these signs. It seems that a person who knew women well could understand what was going on in Asya’s heart. But when she writes to him that she loves him, this note completely amazes him: he, you see, did not foresee this in any way. Wonderful; but be that as it may, whether he foresaw or did not foresee that Asya loves him, it doesn’t matter: now he knows positively: Asya loves him, he now sees it; Well, what does he feel for Asya? He really doesn’t know how to answer this question. Poor thing! in his thirties, due to his youth, he would need to have an uncle who would tell him when he should wipe his nose, when he should go to bed and how many cups of tea he should have. When you see such a ridiculous inability to understand things, you may feel like you are either a child or an idiot. Neither one nor the other. Our Romeo is a very smart man, who, as we noticed, is nearly thirty years old, has experienced a lot in life, and has a rich stock of observations about himself and others. Where does his incredible slow-wittedness come from? Two circumstances are to blame for it, of which, however, one stems from the other, so it all comes down to one thing. He was not used to understanding anything great and living, because his life was too petty and soulless, all the relationships and affairs to which he was accustomed were petty and soulless. This is the first. Second: he is timid, he powerlessly retreats from everything that requires broad determination and noble risk, again because life has accustomed him only to pale pettiness in everything. He looks like a man who all his life played jumble for half a penny in silver; put this skilled player in a game in which the winnings or losses are not hryvnias, but thousands of rubles, and you will see that he will be completely embarrassed, that all his experience will be lost, all his art will be confused - he will make the most ridiculous moves, perhaps , will not be able to hold cards in his hands. He looks like a sailor who all his life made voyages from Kronstadt to St. Petersburg and very deftly knew how to navigate his small steamer according to the indications of milestones between countless shoals in semi-fresh water; what if suddenly this experienced swimmer sees himself in the ocean after a glass of water? My God! Why do we analyze our hero so harshly? Why is he worse than others? Why is he worse than all of us? When we enter society, we see around us people in uniform and non-uniform frock coats or tailcoats; these people are five and a half or six, and others even more, feet tall; they grow or shave hair on their cheeks, upper lip and beard; and we imagine that we see men in front of us, this is a complete delusion, an optical illusion, a hallucination - nothing more. Without acquiring the habit of original participation in civic affairs, without acquiring the feelings of a citizen, a male child, growing up, becomes a male being of middle age, and then of old age, but he does not become a man, or at least does not become a man of noble character. It is better for a person not to develop than to develop without the influence of thoughts about public affairs, without the influence of the feelings awakened by participation in them. If from the circle of my observations, from the sphere of actions in which I move, ideas and motives that have a common benefit are excluded, that is, civic motives are excluded, what remains for me to observe? What remains for me to participate in? What remains is the busy confusion of individuals with their narrow personal concerns about their pockets, their bellies, or their amusements. If I begin to observe people in the form in which they appear to me when I distance myself from participation in civic activities, what concept of people and life will form in me? Once upon a time we loved Hoffmann, and his story was once translated about how, by a strange incident, the eyes of Mr. Perigrinus Thyss received the power of a microscope, and about what the results of this quality of his eyes were for his concepts about people. Beauty, nobility, virtue, love, friendship, everything beautiful and great disappeared from the world for him. Whoever he looks at, every man seems to him to be a vile coward or an insidious intriguer, every woman - a coquette, all people - liars and selfish, petty and base to the last degree. This terrible story could only have been created in the head of a person who had seen enough of what is called in Germany Kleinstadterei (The Outback (German). ), who had seen enough of the life of people deprived of any participation in public affairs, limited to a closely measured circle of their private interests, who had lost all thought about anything higher than penny preference (which, however, was not yet known in the time of Hoffmann). Remember what a conversation becomes in any society, how soon the conversation ceases to be about public affairs? No matter how intelligent and noble the interlocutors are, if they do not talk about matters of public interest, they begin to gossip or talk idle talk; malicious vulgarity or dissolute vulgarity, in both cases senseless vulgarity - this is the character inevitably adopted by a conversation moving away from public interests. The nature of the conversation can be used to judge who is talking. If even people with the highest development of their concepts fall into empty and dirty vulgarity when their thoughts deviate from public interests, then it is easy to imagine what a society must be like if it lives in complete alienation from these interests. Imagine a person who was brought up living in such a society: what will be the conclusions from his experiences? What are the results of his observations of people? He understands everything vulgar and petty perfectly, but besides this, he understands nothing, because he has not seen or experienced anything. He could read God knows what wonderful things in books, he can find pleasure in thinking about these wonderful things; perhaps he even believes that they exist or should exist on earth, and not in books alone. But how do you want him to understand and guess them when they suddenly meet his unprepared gaze, experienced only in classifying nonsense and vulgarity? How do you want me, who was served wine under the name of champagne, which has never seen the vineyards of Champagne, but, however, a very good sparkling wine, how do you want me, when I am suddenly served truly champagne wine, to be able to say for sure: yes , is this really not a fake anymore? If I say this, I will be phat. My taste only feels that this wine is good, but have I drunk enough good fake wine? How do I know that this time they brought me a real wine? No, no, I am an expert in fakes, I can distinguish good from bad; but I cannot evaluate genuine wine. We would be happy, we would be noble, if only the unprepared look, the inexperience of thought prevented us from guessing and appreciating the high and great when it comes our way in life. But no, and our will is involved in this gross misunderstanding. It’s not just the concepts that have narrowed in me because of the vulgar narrow-mindedness in whose vanity I live; this character passed into my will: what is the breadth of vision, such is the breadth of decisions; and, besides, it is impossible not to get used to finally doing as everyone else does. The contagiousness of laughter and the contagiousness of yawning are not exceptional cases in social physiology; the same contagiousness belongs to all phenomena found among the masses. There is someone's fable about how some healthy person ended up in the kingdom of the lame and crooked. The fable says that everyone attacked him, why do he have both eyes and both legs intact; the fable lied because it didn’t finish All: the newcomer was attacked only at first, and when he settled in the new place, he himself squinted one eye and began to limp; It already seemed to him that it was more convenient, or at least more decent, to look and walk this way, and soon he even forgot that, strictly speaking, he was not lame or crooked. If you are a hunter of sad effects, you can add that when our visitor finally needed to walk with a firm step and look vigilantly with both eyes, he could no longer do this: it turned out that the closed eye no longer opened, the crooked leg no longer straightened; from long coercion the nerves and muscles of the poor distorted joints had lost the power to act in the right way. Anyone who touches the resin will turn black - as a punishment for himself, if he touched it voluntarily, to his own misfortune, if not voluntarily. It is impossible for someone who lives in a tavern not to be saturated with the drunken smell, even if he himself has not drunk a single glass; It is impossible not to be imbued with the pettiness of will for someone who lives in a society that has no aspirations other than petty everyday calculations. Shyness involuntarily creeps into my heart from the thought that I may have to make a lofty decision, boldly take a brave step off the beaten path of daily exercise. That’s why you try to assure yourself that no, the need for nothing so extraordinary has not yet come, until the last fateful minute, you deliberately convince yourself that everything that seems to come out of habitual pettiness is nothing more than seduction. A child who is afraid of a beech closes his eyes and shouts as loudly as possible that there is no beech, that the beech is nonsense - by this, you see, he encourages himself. We are so smart that we try to convince ourselves that everything we are afraid of, we are afraid only because we have no strength for anything lofty - we try to convince ourselves that all this is nonsense, that they only scare us with it, like a child beech, but in essence there is nothing like that and never will be. What if it does? Well, then the same thing will happen to us as in Mr. Turgenev’s story with our Romeo. He also did not foresee anything and did not want to foresee anything; He also closed his eyes and backed away, but time passed - he had to bite his elbows, but he couldn’t get it. And how short was the time in which both his and Asya’s fate was decided - just a few minutes, but a whole life depended on them, and having missed them, nothing could be done to correct the mistake. As soon as he entered the room, barely had time to utter a few thoughtless, almost unconscious reckless words, and everything was already decided: the break was forever, and there was no return. We don’t regret Asa at all; It was hard for her to hear the harsh words of refusal, but it was probably for the best for her that it was a reckless person who drove her to the breaking point. If she had remained connected with him, for him, of course, it would have been great happiness; but we don’t think it would be good for her to live in close relations with such a gentleman. Anyone who sympathizes with Asya should rejoice at the difficult, outrageous scene. Asya's sympathizer is absolutely right: he chose the subject of his sympathies as a dependent creature, an insulted creature. But although with shame, we must admit that we take part in the fate of our hero. We do not have the honor of being his relatives; There was even dislike between our families, because his family despised everyone close to us. But we still cannot break away from the prejudices that have crammed into our heads from false books and lessons that educated and ruined our youth, we cannot break away from the petty concepts instilled in us by the surrounding society; It all seems to us (an empty dream, but still an irresistible dream for us) as if he has rendered some service to our society, as if he is a representative of our enlightenment, as if he is the best among us, as if without him we would be worse off. The thought is developing in us more and more strongly that this opinion about him is an empty dream, we feel that we will not be under its influence for long; that there are people better than him, precisely those whom he offends; that it would be better for us to live without him, but at the moment we are still not sufficiently accustomed to this idea, have not completely broken away from the dream on which we were brought up; therefore we still wish well to our hero and his brothers. Finding that in reality the decisive moment is approaching for them, which will determine their fate forever, we still do not want to say to ourselves: at the present time they are not able to understand their situation; are not able to act prudently and at the same time generously - only their children and grandchildren, brought up in other concepts and habits, will be able to act as honest and prudent citizens, and they themselves are now not suitable for the role that is given to them; we do not want to turn the words of the prophet to them: “They will see and will not see, they will hear and will not hear, because the sense in these people has become coarse, and their ears have become deaf and they have closed their eyes so as not to see,” no , we still want to believe them capable of understanding what is happening around them and above them, we want to think that they are able to follow the wise admonition of the voice that wanted to save them, and therefore we want to give them instructions on how to get rid of the troubles that are inevitable for people, those who do not know how to understand their situation in time and take advantage of the benefits that a fleeting hour represents. Against our wishes, our hope for the insight and energy of people weakens every day, whom we beg to understand the importance of present circumstances and act in accordance with common sense, but at least let them not say that they did not hear prudent advice, that it was not explained to them position. Among you, gentlemen (we will address these honorable people), there are quite a lot of literate people; they know how happiness was depicted in ancient mythology: it was represented as a woman with a long braid blown in front of her by the wind carrying this woman; It’s easy to catch her while she’s flying towards you, but miss one moment - she’ll fly by, and you’d run in vain to catch her: you can’t grab her if you’re left behind. A happy moment cannot be returned. You will not wait until the favorable combination of circumstances repeats itself, just as the conjunction of the heavenly bodies that coincides with the present hour will not repeat. Not to miss a favorable moment is the highest condition of everyday prudence. Happy circumstances exist for each of us, but not everyone knows how to use them, and this art is almost the only difference between people whose lives are going well or badly. And for you, although perhaps you were not worthy of it, the circumstances turned out happily, so happily that your fate at the decisive moment depends solely on your will. Will you understand the requirement of the time, will you be able to take advantage of the position in which you are now placed - that is the question of happiness or misfortune for you forever. What are the methods and rules for not missing out on the happiness offered by circumstances? Like in what? Is it difficult to say what prudence requires in any given case? Suppose, for example, that I have a lawsuit in which I am entirely to blame. Let us also assume that my opponent, who is completely right, is so accustomed to the injustices of fate that he can hardly believe in the possibility of waiting for the resolution of our litigation: it has been dragging on for several decades; many times asked He V court, when the report would come, and many times he was answered “tomorrow or the day after tomorrow,” and each time months and months, years and years passed, and the case was not resolved. Why it dragged on so long, I don’t know, I only know that the chairman of the court for some reason favored me (he seemed to believe that I was devoted to him with all my soul). But then he received an order to resolve the matter immediately. Out of his friendship for me, he called me and said: “I cannot hesitate to resolve your case; it cannot end in your favor by judicial procedure - the laws are too clear; you will lose everything; the loss of property will not end for you; with the verdict of our civil court will reveal circumstances for which you will be liable under the criminal laws, and you know how strict they are; what the decision of the criminal chamber will be, I don’t know, but I think that you will get off too easily if you are sentenced only to deprivation of rights state, - be it said between us, we can expect much worse for you. Today is Saturday; on Monday your lawsuit will be reported and decided; I have no power to postpone it further, with all my affection for you. Do you know what I would advise you ? Take advantage of the remaining day you have: offer peace to your opponent; he does not yet know how urgent the need is, which I am placed in by the order I received; he heard that the lawsuit will be resolved on Monday, but he has heard about its imminent solution so many times that he lost faith to your hopes; now he will also agree to an amicable deal, which will be very profitable for you in monetary terms, not to mention the fact that it will get you rid of the criminal process, acquire the name of a forgiving, generous person, who seems to have felt the voice of conscience and humanity . Try to end the litigation with an amicable deal. I ask you about this as your friend." What should I do now, let each of you say: would it be smart for me to rush to my enemy to conclude a peace deal? Or would it be smart to lie on my sofa for the only day remaining to me? Or would it be smart to attack with with rude curses at a judge favoring me, whose friendly advance notice gave me the opportunity to end my litigation with honor and benefit to myself? From this example the reader sees how easy it is in this case to decide what prudence requires. “Try to reconcile with your adversary before you reach You are with him until the trial, otherwise your adversary will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the executor, and you will be thrown into prison and will not come out of it until you have paid for everything down to the last detail" (Matt. , chapter V, verse. 25 and 26).

NOTES

First published in the magazine "Athenaeum", 1858, No. 18. The article was written as a response to Turgenev's story "Asya", which was published in Sovremennik in the same year (No. 1). V.I. Lenin, speaking about the fact that Chernyshevsky raised real revolutionaries with censored articles, had in mind, in particular, this brilliant political pamphlet. Characterizing the cowardly and treacherous behavior of the Russian liberal during the first Russian revolution, Lenin in 1907 recalled the ardent Turgenev hero who escaped from Asya, the “hero” about whom Chernyshevsky wrote: “Russian man on rendez-vous.” Examining the main character of the story as if under a strong microscope, the critic discovers in him a commonality with other literary heroes of Russian literature, with the so-called “superfluous people.” Chernyshevsky’s attitude towards “superfluous people” was not unambiguous. Until about 1858, when the common democrats had not yet completely lost faith in the liberal nobility, the critic took under the protection of “superfluous people” from the attacks of the reactionary-protective press, contrasting them with the inert and complacent “existents.” However, the progressive meaning of “extra people” was limited; it had exhausted itself long before the start of the revolutionary situation in the 60s. In new historical conditions, organic shortcomings of this type of people were revealed both in life and in literature. Russia was seething on the eve of the abolition of serfdom. Effective solutions were required. And the “superfluous people,” having inherited from their predecessors of the 30s and 40s the tendency to endlessly analyze their inner experiences, turned out to be unable to move from words to deeds, and remained “still in the same position.” This explains the harshness of tone and causticity of Chernyshevsky’s speech against the traditional idealization of imaginary “heroes.” And this is the historical significance of his thoughts about “our Romeo,” the hero of the story “Asya,” who “was not used to understanding anything great and living, because his life was too petty and soulless, all the relationships and affairs to which he’s used to it... he’s timid, he powerlessly retreats from everything that requires broad determination and noble risk...". Meanwhile, this “slow-witted” person is smart, he has experienced a lot in life, and is rich in observations of himself and others. The critic-publicist in the article “Russian man on rendez-vous” addresses the noble liberal intelligentsia with a serious warning: whoever does not take into account the demands of the peasantry, does not meet the revolutionary democracy that defends the vital rights of the working people, will ultimately be swept away by the course of history. This is stated in an allegorical form, but quite definitely. The reader was led to this conclusion by the subtle analysis contained in Chernyshevsky’s article of the behavior of “our Romeo,” who was frightened by the girl’s selfless love and abandoned her. Page 398. Stories in a business... kind the critic ironically calls the works of so-called “accusatory literature” (see notes to “Provincial Essays”). Page 401. ...something... similar... on one of Georges Sand's novels.-- This refers to the novels "Indiana", "Jacques", "Consuelo" and others by the French writer Georges Sand (pseudonym of Aurora Dudevant, 1804-1876). Max Piccolomini- the hero of Schiller's dramas "Piccolomini" and "The Death of Wallenstein", a noble romantic dreamer. "Faust".— Here we mean a story in nine letters by I. S. Turgenev, originally published in the magazine Sovremennik (1856, No. 10). Page 403. Beltov- the hero of the novel by A. I. Herzen "Who is to blame?" (1846) sacrifices his love in order not to bring suffering to the husband of the woman he loves. Page 412. The Tale of Lorelei -- The legend of the beautiful Rhine mermaid Lorelei, who lured fishermen and shipmen to dangerous rocks with her singing, was written by the German romantic poet Brentano (1778-1842); this motif was repeatedly used in German poetry. The most famous poem on this subject was written by Heinrich Heine (1797-1836). Page 415. We once loved Hoffmann.— We are talking about the German romantic writer E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) and his novel “The Lord of the Fleas.” Page 418. ...him the family despised everyone close to us.- Chernyshevsky allegorically points to the antagonism between the nobles and the mixed-democratic intelligentsia. The pathos of the article lies in the affirmation of the idea of ​​the disengagement of forces occurring during the historical process: the “people of the forties” were replaced by a generation of sixties revolutionaries who led the people’s liberation movement. Page 421. The end of the article is a detailed allegory. Chernyshevsky was forced to resort to allegories, talk about “litigation,” and turn to the gospel story in order to convey the idea of ​​​​the irreconcilability of the class interests of the Russian peasantry and the serf-owner landowners.

N. G. Chernyshevsky begins his article “Russian man at rendez vous” with a description of the impression made on him by I. S. Turgenev’s story “Asya”. He says that against the backdrop of the business-like, incriminating stories prevailing at that time, which leave a heavy impression on the reader, this story is the only good thing. “The action is abroad, away from all the bad conditions of our home life. All the characters in the story are among the best people among us, very educated, extremely humane, imbued with the noblest way of thinking. The story has a purely poetic, ideal direction... But the last pages of the story are not like the first, and after reading the story the impression left is even more bleak than the stories about disgusting bribe-takers with their cynical robbery.” The whole point, notes N. G. Chernyshevsky, is in the character of the main character (he gives the name Romeo), who is a pure and noble person, but commits a shameful act at the decisive moment of an explanation with the heroine. The critic argues with the opinion of some readers who claim that the entire story is spoiled by “this outrageous scene”, that the character of the main person could not stand it. But the author of the article even gives examples from other works by I. S. Turgenev, as well as N. A. Nekrasov, to show that the situation in the story “Asya” turns out to be typical for Russian life, when the hero speaks a lot and beautifully about high aspirations, captivating enthusiastic girls capable of deep feelings and decisive actions, but as soon as “the matter comes to directly and accurately expressing their feelings and desires, most of the heroes begin to hesitate and feel slow in their language.”

“These are our “best people” - they are all like our Romeo,” concludes N. G. Chernyshevsky. But then he takes the hero of the story under his protection, saying that such behavior is not the fault of these people, but a misfortune. This is how society raised them: “their life was too petty for the soulless, all the relationships and affairs to which he was accustomed were petty and soulless,” “life taught them only to pale pettiness in everything.” Thus, N. G. Chernyshevsky shifts the emphasis from the hero’s guilt to the guilt of society, which excommunicated such noble people from civil interests.

N. G. Chernyshevsky

“Stories of a businesslike, incriminating nature leave a very difficult impression on the reader, therefore, while recognizing their usefulness and nobility, I am not entirely satisfied that our literature has taken exclusively such a gloomy direction.”

This is what quite a lot of people say, apparently not stupid, or, better to say, they said so until the peasant question became the real subject of all thoughts, all conversations. Whether their words are fair or unfair, I don’t know; but I happened to be under the influence of such thoughts when I began to read perhaps the only good new story, from which, from the first pages, one could already expect a completely different content, a different pathos, than from business stories. There is no chicanery with violence and bribery, no dirty swindlers, no official villains explaining in elegant language that they are the benefactors of society, no philistines, peasants and little officials tormented by all these terrible and disgusting people. The action is abroad, away from all the bad surroundings of our home life. All the characters in the story are among the best people among us, very educated, extremely humane, imbued with the noblest way of thinking. The story has a purely poetic, ideal direction, not touching on any of the so-called dark sides of life. Here, I thought, my soul will rest and be refreshed. And indeed, she was refreshed by these poetic ideals until the story reached the decisive moment. But the last pages of the story are unlike the first, and after reading the story, the impression left is even more bleak than the stories about disgusting bribe takers with their cynical robbery. They do bad things, but they are recognized by each of us as bad people; It is not from them that we expect improvements in our lives. There are, we think, forces in society that will put a barrier to their harmful influence, that will change the nature of our life with their nobility. This illusion is most bitterly rejected in the story, which awakens the brightest expectations with its first half.

Here is a man whose heart is open to all high feelings, whose honesty is unshakable, whose thought has absorbed everything for which our century is called the century of noble aspirations. So what is this man doing? He makes a scene that would put the last bribe-taker to shame. He feels the strongest and purest sympathy for the girl who loves him; he cannot live an hour without seeing this girl; all day and all night his thoughts draw him a beautiful image of her; the time of love has come for him, you think, when the heart is drowned in bliss. We see Romeo, we see Juliet, whose happiness nothing interferes with, and the moment is approaching when their fate will be decided forever - for this Romeo must only say: “I love you, do you love me?” - and Juliet will whisper: “Yes...” And what does our Romeo (that’s how we will call the hero of the story, whose last name was not given to us by the author of the story) do when he goes on a date with Juliet? With trembling love, Juliet awaits her Romeo; she must learn from him that he loves her - this word was not uttered between them, it will now be uttered by him, they will unite forever; bliss awaits them, such a high and pure bliss, the enthusiasm of which makes the solemn moment of decision barely bearable for the earthly organism. People died from less joy. She sits like a frightened bird, covering her face from the radiance of the sun of love appearing before her; she is breathing quickly, trembling all over; she lowers her eyes even more tremblingly when he enters and calls her name; she wants to look at him and cannot; he takes her hand - this hand is cold, lies as if dead in his hand; she wants to smile; but her pale lips cannot smile. She wants to talk to him, and her voice breaks. They both were silent for a long time - and, as he himself says, his heart melted, and so Romeo says to his Juliet... and what does he say to her? “You are guilty before me,” he tells her: “you got me into trouble, I am dissatisfied with you, you compromise me, and I must end my relationship with you; It’s very unpleasant for me to part with you, but if you please, go away from here.” What it is? How she guilty? Is it what I thought his a decent person? compromised his reputation by going on a date with him? This is amazing! Every feature in her pale face says that she is waiting for her fate to be decided by his word, that she has given her whole soul to him irrevocably and now only expects him to say that he accepts her soul, her life, and he reprimands her for that she is compromising him! What kind of ridiculous cruelty is this? what kind of low rudeness is this? And this man, who acts so vilely, has been presented as noble until now! He deceived us, deceived the author. Yes, the poet made a very serious mistake in imagining that he was telling us about a decent person. This man is worse than a notorious scoundrel.

Such was the impression made on many by the completely unexpected turn in the relationship of our Romeo to Juliet. We have heard from many that the whole story is spoiled by this outrageous scene, that the character of the main person is not maintained, that if this person is what he appears to be in the first half of the story, then he could not have acted with such vulgar rudeness, and if he could have done so, then From the very beginning he should have appeared to us as a completely crappy person.

It would be very comforting to think that the author was really mistaken; but the sad dignity of his story lies in the fact that the character of the hero is true to our society. Perhaps, if this character were such as people would like to see him, dissatisfied with his rudeness on a date, if he were not afraid to give himself to the love that took possession of him, the story would have won in an ideally poetic sense. The enthusiasm of the first date scene would be followed by several other highly poetic minutes, the quiet charm of the first half of the story would rise to pathetic charm in the second half, and instead of the first act from Romeo and Juliet with an ending in the style of Pechorin, we would have something really similar to Romeo and Juliet, or at least one of Georges Sand's novels. Anyone looking for a poetically complete impression in a story must really condemn the author, who, having lured him with sublimely sweet expectations, suddenly showed him some kind of vulgar, absurd vanity of petty, timid egoism in a man who started out like Max Piccolomini and ended up like some Zakhar Sidorich, playing penny preference.

But was the author really wrong about his hero? If he made a mistake, this is not the first time he makes this mistake. No matter how many stories he had that led to a similar situation, each time his heroes emerged from these situations in no other way than being completely embarrassed in front of us. In Faust, the hero tries to cheer himself up by the fact that neither he nor Vera have serious feelings for each other; sitting with her, dreaming about her is his business, but in terms of determination, even in words, he behaves in such a way that Vera herself must tell him that she loves him; For several minutes the conversation had been going on in such a way that he should definitely have said this, but he, you see, did not guess and did not dare to tell her this; and when the woman who must accept the explanation is finally forced to make the explanation herself, he, you see, “froze,” but felt that “bliss was running like a wave through his heart,” only, however, “from time to time,” but strictly speaking, he “completely lost his head” - it’s just a pity that he didn’t faint, and even that would have happened if he hadn’t come across a tree to lean against. As soon as the man had time to recover, the woman he loves, who expressed her love for him, comes up to him and asks what he intends to do now? He... he was "embarrassed." It is not surprising that after such behavior of a loved one (otherwise the image of this gentleman’s actions cannot be called “behavior”) the poor woman developed a nervous fever; It’s even more natural that he then began to cry about his fate. It's in Faust; almost the same in “Rudin”. Rudin at first behaves somewhat more decently for a man than the previous heroes: he is so decisive that he himself tells Natalya about his love (although he does not speak of his own free will, but because he is forced to this conversation); he himself asks her for a date. But when Natalya on this date tells him that she will marry him, with or without the consent of her mother, it doesn’t matter, as long as he loves her, when he says the words: “Know, I will be yours,” - Rudin only finds an answer exclamation: “Oh God!” - an exclamation more embarrassed than enthusiastic - and then he acts so well, that is, to such an extent he is cowardly and lethargic, that Natalya is forced to invite him on a date herself to decide what to do. Having received the note, “he saw that the denouement was approaching, and was secretly troubled in spirit.” Natalya says that her mother told her that she would rather agree to see her daughter dead than to see Rudin’s wife, and again asks Rudin what he intends to do now? Rudin answers as before: “My God, my God,” and adds even more naively: “So soon!” what am I going to do? My head is spinning, I can’t think of anything.” But then he realizes that he should “submit.” Called a coward, he begins to reproach Natalya, then lectures her about his honesty, and to the remark that this is not what she should hear from him now, he replies that he did not expect such decisiveness. The matter ends with the offended girl turning away from him, almost ashamed of her love for the coward.

“The Workshop of Pyotr Fomenko” is a brilliant example of how to play sentimental classics so that the viewer does not fall asleep in the fifth minute.

Trainees of the best Moscow theater with obvious ease outplay the trendsetters of theatrical fashion. For two and a half hours they practice their stage wit, and “at the same time” they sing brilliantly, speak 5 languages, do somersaults and openly fool around. It is difficult to imagine a better Turgenev.

Many people remember the plot of “Spring Waters” from school, once upon a time there was a nobleman Dmitry Sanin, he went to live abroad, unwind, fell in love with the black-eyed Italian Gemma, upset her wedding with a rich groom, and then fell in love with a Russian lady and drove off with her to Paris. The ending claims human tragedy - no family, no friends, no home.

Playing a sentimental melodrama is not boring, you had to try. However, apparently, the potential “new Fomenki” did not have to try. Although they are far from the performing perfection of their older colleagues, they are obviously talented. With the help of such a team, Evgeny Kamenkovich staged this light and at the same time mandatory performance. “During the process,” the viewer chuckles knowingly or cackles out loud, but leaves the hall puzzled. “Love is love, but is a Russian person capable of action? And if so, which one? The textbook text in this “reading” is a witty answer to the pressing question of Russian self-identification. By the way, despite the fact that Turgenev reigns on stage, the problems of the performance are clearly borrowed from Chernyshevsky’s article (“Russian man on rendez-vous”), in which he exposes the Russian man, who is a priori weak and inert.

“Russian man. Source: “Russian man.

The viewer is free to argue with the classics himself - the actors give him food for thought. They joyfully ignore all the templates - no Turgenev girls and noble gentlemen, everyone famously changes their “masks”, intonations, facial expressions and gestures. The actors feel the imperfection of their characters, reveal the touching truth of their characters, and at the same time deprive them of their old-fashionedness. Vibrations of cheerful eroticism are evident in a performance that is completely innocent at first glance. But the most important thing is that Sanin, and Gemma, and her mother, and Pantaleone, and the German military, and the Polozov couple - all played with love. If you are not used to believing praises, it’s worth coming to the performance if only to hear Fomenkov’s youth sing opera arias and Russian romances, play the piano, speak charmingly in Italian and even more hilariously in German.

The poster of the “Fomenko Workshop” is growing with performances in which there are no “Fomenko” themselves. For several years in a row, the “Workshop” has been recruiting interns, and they are introduced into the repertoire and produce independent works that have a chance to become performances - the staging of Turgenev’s “Spring Waters” is just one of these. It was made by the last generation of trainees, some of them came to the “Workshop” after completing Oleg Kudryashov’s Gitis course, some came from the course of Dmitry Krymov and Evgeniy Kamenkovich, who put together this performance. It was executed in the familiar sketch style, which was born in Fomenko’s Gitis workshop and has spread everywhere, but has not yet become boring. The actors read prose, naturally moving from direct speech to narration, and turn each episode into a complete, imaginatively composed scene. It has long been noticed that studio students, once in the “Workshop”, quite quickly turn into “fomenok”, that is, they seem to be reborn into people of a different, non-existent breed. And this is very beneficial to Turgenev’s history. On the last day of his journey, a young man meets great love, to her he is ready to sacrifice his future and his estate - he urgently needs to be sold in order to improve the affairs of his future wife. Just in time, he meets a classmate with his wife, a rich slacker - she is ready to buy an estate, but asks him to wait a couple of days. This time will be enough for her to turn the hero’s head, and his life, instead of getting better, will go downhill. The title of the play is based on the title of Chernyshevsky’s article, but don’t let this formidable name scare you. Because the play is only secondarily about the fact that the best of the Russians (previously they were called “superfluous people”, now they are called Global Russians) behave cowardly, cowardly and invariably fail at their rendezvous with life. First of all, this is an exciting story full of twists and turns about the properties of passion and those beautiful Russians who have gone into oblivion, with whom the public is so pleased to associate themselves. “There is no chicanery with violence and bribery, no dirty swindlers, no official villains explaining in elegant language that they are the benefactors of society, no philistines, peasants and little officials tormented by all these terrible and disgusting people,” writes Chernyshevsky. - The action is abroad, away from all the bad surroundings of our home life. All the characters in the story are among the best people among us, very educated, extremely humane: imbued with the noblest way of thinking. The story has a purely poetic, ideal direction, not touching on any of the so-called black sides of life. Here, I thought, my soul will rest and be refreshed..."

This is exactly how it is in the “Fomenko Workshop”: the soul rests, the soul is refreshed.