home › Cooling system › Turgenev "Asya". N.G

Turgenev "Asya". N.G

Source: Chernyshevsky N. G. Russian man on rendez-vous // Chernyshevsky N. G. Complete works: In 15 vol. pp. 156–174.

RUSSIAN MAN ON RENDEZ-VOUS

Reflections on reading the story of Mr. Turgenev "Asya" 1

“Stories in a businesslike, revealing manner leave a very heavy impression on the reader; therefore, recognizing their usefulness and nobility, I am not entirely satisfied that our literature has taken such an exclusively gloomy direction.

Quite a few of the people, apparently not stupid, say so, or, to put it better, they spoke until the peasant question became the sole subject of all thoughts, of all conversations. Whether their words are fair or unfair, I do not know; but I happened to be under the influence of such thoughts when I began to read almost 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 rogues, 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 nasty people. The action is abroad, away from all the bad atmosphere of our domestic life. All the characters in the story are among the best 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, the soul will rest and refresh. And indeed, she was refreshed by these poetic ideals, while the story reached the decisive moment. But the last pages of the story are not like the first, and after reading the story, the impression left from it is even more bleak than from the stories about nasty bribe-takers with their cynical robbery 2 . They do bad things, but they are recognized by each of us as bad people; we do not expect them to improve our lives. There are, we think, forces in society that will put a barrier to their harmful influence,

who will change the character of our life with their nobility. This illusion is rejected in the most bitter way in the story, which awakens the brightest expectations with its first half.

Here is a man whose heart is open to all lofty feelings, whose honesty is unshakable, whose thought has taken into itself everything for which our age is called the age of noble aspirations. And what does this person do? He makes a scene that the last bribe-taker would be ashamed of. He feels the strongest and purest sympathy for the girl who loves him; he cannot live an hour without seeing this girl; his thought all day, all night draws her beautiful image to him, it has come for him, you think, that time of love, when the heart is drowning in bliss. We see Romeo, we see Juliet, whose happiness is not hindered by anything, and the moment is approaching when their fate will be forever decided - for this, Romeo has only to 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 is not given to us by the author of the story) do, appearing on a date with Juliet? With a thrill of 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 hardly bearable for the earthly organism. People died of less joy. She sits like a frightened bird, hiding her face from the radiance of the sun of love that appears before her; she breathes quickly, she trembles all over; she lowers her eyes even more tremulously when he enters, 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 speak to him, and her voice breaks. Both of them are silent for a long time - and, as he himself says, his heart melted, and now Romeo speaks to his Juliet ... and what does he say to her? “You are guilty before me,” he says to her; - you have entangled me in trouble, I am dissatisfied with you, you are compromising me, and I must stop my relationship with you; it is very unpleasant for me to part with you, but if you please, go away from here. What it is? What is her fault? Is it that she considered him a decent person? Compromised his reputation by going on a date with him? It's amazing! Every line in her pale face says that she is waiting for the decision of her fate from his word, that she has irrevocably given her whole soul to him and now only expects him to say that he accepts her soul, her life, and he reprimands her for that she compromises him! What kind of ridiculous cruelty is this? What is this low rudeness? And this person

the century that acts so vilely has been shown to be noble up to now! He deceived us, deceived the author. Yes, the poet made a very gross mistake in imagining that he was telling us about a decent man. This man is worse than a notorious scoundrel.

Such was the impression made upon many by the quite unexpected turn of the relations between our Romeo and his Juliet. We heard from many that the whole story is spoiled by this outrageous scene, that the character of the main person is not consistent, that if this person is what he appears in the first half of the story, then he could not act with such vulgar rudeness, and if he could do so, then from the very beginning he should have presented himself to us as a completely trashy person.

It would be very comforting to think that the author really made a mistake, but the sad merit of his story lies in the fact that the character of the hero is true to our society. Perhaps if this character were what 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 had taken possession of him, the story would have won in an ideally poetic sense. The enthusiasm of the first meeting 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 like Romeo and Juliet, or at least one of George Sand's novels. Whoever is looking for a poetically integral impression in the story should really condemn the author, who, having lured him with sublimely sweet expectations, suddenly showed him some vulgarly absurd vanity of petty-timid egoism in a man who began like Max Piccolomini and ended like some Zakhar Sidorych, playing a penny preference.

if it hadn't come across a tree to lean against. As soon as the man has recovered, the woman whom he loves, who has 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 a behavior of a loved one (otherwise, as "behavior", one cannot call the image of the actions of this gentleman), the poor woman became nervous fever; it is even more natural that he then began to weep at his own fate. It's in Faust; almost the same in Rudin. Rudin at first behaves somewhat more decently for a man than the former heroes: he is so determined that he himself tells Natalya about his love (although he does not speak out of good will, but because he is forced to this conversation); he himself asks her a date. But when Natalya tells him on this date that she will marry him, with the consent and without the consent of her mother, it doesn’t matter, if only he only loves her, when he says the words: “Know, I will be yours,” Rudin only finds an exclamation in response : "Oh my God!" - the exclamation is more embarrassing than enthusiastic, - and then he acts so well, that is, he is so cowardly and lethargic that Natalya herself is forced to invite him on a date to decide what to do. Having received the note, "he saw that the denouement was approaching, and was secretly embarrassed in spirit." Natalya says that her mother announced to her that she would rather agree to see her daughter dead than Rudin's wife, and again interrogates Rudin what he now intends to do. 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 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 case ends with the offended girl turning away from him, almost ashamed of her love for a coward.

But perhaps this pitiful trait in the character of the heroes is a feature of Mr. Turgenev's stories? Perhaps it is the nature of his talent that inclines him to depict such faces? Not at all; the nature of talent, it seems to us, means nothing here. Think of any good, true-to-life story by any of our contemporary 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 Mr. Turgenev's faces. For example, the nature of Mr. Nekrasov's talent is not at all the same as Mr. Turgenev's; You can find any flaws in him, but no one will say that Mr. Nekrasov's talent lacked energy and firmness. What does the hero do in his poem "Sasha"? He told Sasha that, he says, “one should not weaken in soul”, because “the sun of truth will rise over the earth” and that it is necessary to act

to fulfill his aspirations, and then, when Sasha gets down to business, he says that all this is in vain and will not lead to anything, that he "talked empty". Let us recall how Beltov acts: he likewise prefers retreat to every decisive step. There could be many such examples. Everywhere, whatever the character of the poet, whatever his personal ideas about the actions of his hero, the hero acts in the same way with all other decent people, like him, derived from other poets: while there is no talk of business, but you just need to take up idle time , to fill an idle head or an idle heart with conversations and dreams, the hero is very lively; when things come to expressing their feelings and desires directly and accurately, most of the characters begin to hesitate and feel slowness in their language. A few, the bravest, somehow still manage to gather all their strength and inarticulately express something that gives a vague idea of their thoughts; but think of someone seizing on their desires, showing: “You want this and that; we are very happy; start acting, and we will support you, ”with such a remark, one half of the bravest heroes faints, others begin to very rudely reproach you for putting them in an awkward position, they begin to say that they did not expect such proposals from you that they are completely losing their heads, they cannot figure anything out, because “how is it possible so soon”, and “moreover, they are honest people”, and not only honest, but very meek and do not want to put you in trouble, and that in general is it really possible to bother about everything that is said to be done, and what is best 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 "did not wait and did not expect at all" and so on.

These are our "best people" - they all look 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; whether this is a lot of trouble for Asya, we do not know. The first thought comes that she has very little trouble from this; on the contrary, and thank God that the wretched 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 forget everything and can surrender to a new feeling, the subject of which will be more worthy of her. So, but that's the trouble, that she will hardly meet a more worthy person; that is the sad comic of our Romeo's relationship with Asa, that our Romeo is really one of the best people in our society, that there are almost no people better than him. Only then will Asya be satisfied with her relations with people, when, like others, she begins to confine herself to beautiful reasoning, until

there is no opportunity to take up the performance of speeches, but as soon as an opportunity presents itself, he bites his tongue and folds his hands, as everyone does. Only then will they be satisfied with it; and now, at first, 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 one cannot help but love, before whom one cannot but revere; but all this will be said only as long as the character of Asya is shown 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 somehow justifies the expectations inspired by her character, hundreds of voices will immediately cry out: “Have mercy, how can this be, because this is madness! Assign rendez-vous to a young man! After all, she is ruining herself, ruining it completely uselessly! For nothing can come of it, absolutely nothing, except that she will lose her reputation. Is it possible to risk yourself so insanely? "Risk yourself? that would be nothing, add others. “Let her do what she wants with herself, but why put others in trouble? In what position did she put this poor young man? Did he think she would want to take him this far? What should he do now with her recklessness? If he goes after her, he will ruin 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 seem to have given no special reason for such incongruous acts. No, it's not exactly noble. And the poor brother? What is its role? What bitter pill had his sister given him? For the rest of his life he could not digest this pill. Nothing to say, dear sister borrowed! I do not argue, all this is very good in words - both noble aspirations, and 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 up for half a year in her room. For her own good, she should be locked up. She, you see, deigns to be carried away by high feelings; but what is it like to disentangle others what she deigned to boil? No, I will not call her deed, I will not call her character noble, because I do not call noble those who frivolously and boldly harm others. Thus the general cry will be lazy with the reasoning of reasonable people. We are somewhat ashamed to admit it, but nevertheless we have to admit that these arguments seem to us to be sound. In fact, Asya harms not only herself, but also everyone who had the misfortune of kinship or the occasion of being close to her; and those who, for their own pleasure, harm all their loved ones, we cannot but condemn.

By condemning Asya, we justify our Romeo. Indeed, what is his fault? did he give her a reason to act recklessly? did he incite her to an act that cannot be

11 N. G. Chernyshevsky, vol.

approve? didn't he have the right to tell her that she shouldn't have entangled him into an unpleasant relationship? You resent the fact that his words are harsh, call them rude. But the truth is always harsh, and who will condemn me if even a rude word escapes me, when I, who am not guilty of anything, are entangled in an unpleasant business, and they pester me, so that I rejoice in the misfortune into which I have been drawn?

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 an unfounded impression that was preserved in you. You have read a lot about how people in other countries acted and are acting. But consider that it is other countries. You never know what is being done in the world in other places, but it is not always and everywhere possible that which is very convenient in a certain situation. In England, for example, the word “you” does not exist in the spoken language: the manufacturer to his worker, the landowner to the digger hired by him, the master to his lackey will certainly say “you” and, where it happens, they insert sir in a conversation with them, that is, it’s all the same that French monsieur, but in Russian there is no such word, but courtesy comes out in the same way as if the master were saying 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 condemn 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 ideologue, that is, the funniest and, to put it in your ear, 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 yourself even with our Romeo, by the way, we are already talking about him. I am ready to tell you the way in which I reached this result, not only in relation to the scene with Asya, but also in relation to everything in the world, that is, I became pleased 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 condemn nothing and no one in the world (except for people who violate my personal interests), I do not want anything (except for my own benefit), - in a word, I will tell you how I became a man from a bilious melancholic so practical and well-intentioned that I would not even be surprised if I received an award for my good intentions.

Sir. — Ed.

in which he was brought up and lives, and in the most energetic person there is his own dose of apathy, sufficient so that in his actions he does not deviate much from the 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, there are pancakes at Shrovetide, and everyone does it, although some do not eat painted eggs at all, and almost everyone complains about the heaviness of pancakes. So not in some trifles, and in everything so. It is accepted, for example, that boys should be kept freer than girls, and every father, every mother, no matter how convinced they are of the unreasonableness of such a distinction, brings up children according to this rule. It is accepted that wealth is a good thing, and everyone is satisfied if, instead of ten thousand rubles a year, he begins to receive twenty thousand thanks to a happy turn of affairs, although, rationally speaking, every smart person knows that those things that, being inaccessible at the first income , become available at 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 be no 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 at 20,000 income is satisfied with very little more than at 10,000; as for pleasures, which can be called positive, the difference is quite imperceptible in them. For himself personally, a man with 10,000 income has exactly the same table, exactly the same wine, and an armchair in the same row at the opera as a man with twenty thousand. The first is called a fairly rich person, and the second is not considered extremely rich in the same way - there is no significant difference in their position; and yet each, according to the routine of society, will rejoice at the increase in his income from 10 to 20 thousand, although in fact he will notice almost no increase in his pleasures. People are generally terrible routines: one has only to look deeper into their thoughts to discover this. For the first time, some gentleman will extremely puzzle you 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 person without class prejudices, etc., and he himself, like his acquaintances, imagines himself to be so from a pure soul. But observe the cosmopolitan more precisely, 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 assigned according to his passport, he will turn out to be a landowner or an official, a merchant or a professor with all the shades of the way of thinking that belong to his estate. I am sure that the multitude of people who have the habit of being angry with each other, blaming each other, depends solely on the fact that

too few make observations of this kind; but just try to start peering at people in order to check whether this or that person, who at first seems different from others, really differs in something important from other people of the same position with him, just try to engage in such observations, and this analysis will entice you so much , will so interest your mind, will constantly deliver such soothing impressions to your spirit that you will never leave it behind and will very soon come to the conclusion: “Every person is like all people, in everyone is exactly the same as in others” . And the further, the more firmly you will become convinced of this axiom. Differences seem important only because they lie on the surface and are striking, and under the visible, apparent difference lies a perfect identity. And why, in fact, would man be a contradiction to all the laws of nature? Indeed, in nature, cedar and hyssop feed and bloom, elephant and mouse 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 beings of the same class, but also different classes of beings are arranged and live according to the same principles, that the organisms of a mammal, a bird and a fish are the same, that the worm breathes like a mammal, although it has no nostrils, no windpipe, no lungs. Not only would the analogy with other beings be violated by the non-recognition of the sameness of the basic rules and springs in the moral life of each person, the analogy with his physical life would also be violated. Of two healthy people of the same age in the same frame of mind, the pulse of one beats, of course, somewhat stronger and more often than that of the other; but is this difference great? It is so insignificant that science does not even pay attention to it. It’s another matter 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 much more often or less often than a healthy one, someone who drank a glass of champagne more often than someone who 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 the same pulse as the child you compare him to; and in a healthy person the pulse would weaken, as in a sick person if he fell ill with the same disease; and if Peter drank a glass of champagne, his pulse would increase in the same way as Ivan's.

you will become angry and upset, you will cease to be indignant and accusing, 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 everyone would do in his place? An imperturbable meek silence settles in your soul, sweeter than which can only be a Brahmin's contemplation of the tip of the nose, with a quiet incessant repetition of the words “om-mani-pad-me-hum” 4 . I'm not talking about this inestimable spiritual and practical benefit, I'm not even talking about how many monetary benefits a wise indulgence towards people will bring you: you will absolutely cordially meet a scoundrel whom you would drive away from you before; and this scoundrel, perhaps, is a person of importance in society, and your own affairs will improve by good relations with him. Not to mention that you yourself will then be less embarrassed by false doubts about conscientiousness in using the benefits that will be turned up at your fingertips: why will you be embarrassed by excessive delicacy if you are convinced that everyone would have acted in your place in exactly the same way , just like you? I do not expose all these benefits, aiming only to indicate 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? In striving to reach the main truth, we have already found, in passing, the conclusion from it that serves as an answer to this question. It is now clear to us that everything depends on social habits and circumstances, that is, in the final result, everything depends exclusively on circumstances, because social habits, in their turn, also originated from circumstances. You blame a person—look first to see if 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 discussing others, we are too inclined to regard every misfortune as guilt—this is the true misfortune for practical life, because guilt and misfortune are completely different things and require one to be treated differently from the other. Guilt causes censure or even punishment against the person. The trouble requires help to the person through the elimination of circumstances stronger than his will. I knew a tailor who poked his apprentices in the teeth with a red-hot iron. He, perhaps, can be called guilty, and you can punish him; but on the other hand, not every tailor sticks a hot iron in the teeth, examples of such frenzy are very rare. But almost every craftsman happens, having drunk on a holiday, to fight - this is no longer a fault, but simply a misfortune. What is needed here is not the punishment of an individual, but a change in the conditions of life for an entire class. The sadder is the harmful mixing of guilt and misfortune, that to distinguish between these two things

very easy; We have already seen one sign of difference: guilt is a rarity, it is an exception to the rule; trouble is an epidemic. Deliberate arson is guilt; but out of millions of people there is one who decides on this matter. 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, bringing benefits to the guilty. This last sign is extremely accurate. The robber stabbed a man to rob him, and finds it useful for himself - this is guilt. A careless hunter accidentally wounded a man, and the first one himself is tormented by the misfortune that he did - this is no longer a fault, but simply a misfortune.

The sign is true, but if we accept it with some insight, with a careful analysis of the facts, it turns out that guilt almost never exists in the world, but only misfortune. Now we have mentioned the robber. Is life good for him? If it were not for the special, very difficult circumstances for him, would he have taken up his craft? Where will you find a man who would rather hide in lairs in cold and bad weather and wander through the deserts, often endure hunger and constantly tremble behind his back, waiting for the whip - who would be more pleasant than smoking a cigar comfortably in quiet armchairs or play jumble at the English Club like decent people do?

It would also be much more pleasant for our Romeo to enjoy the mutual pleasures of happy love than to remain in the cold and cruelly scold himself for his vulgar rudeness with Asya. From the fact that the cruel trouble that Asya undergoes brings him not benefit or pleasure, but shame in front of himself, that is, the most painful of all moral sorrows, we see that he did not fall into guilt, but into trouble. The vulgarity he did would have been done by very many others, the so-called decent people, or the best people in our society; therefore, it is nothing but a symptom of an epidemic disease that has taken root in our society.

The symptom of a disease is not the disease itself. And if the matter consisted only in the fact that some or, it would be better to say, almost all the “best” people offend a girl when she has more nobility or less experience than they do, this matter, we confess, would be of little interest to us. God bless them, with erotic questions - the reader of our time, busy with questions about administrative and judicial improvements, about financial reforms, about the emancipation of the peasants, is not up to them. But the scene made by our Romeo Asa, as we have noticed, is only a symptom of an illness that spoils all our affairs in exactly the same vulgar way, and we only need to look closely at why our Romeo got into trouble, we will see what we all, like him, to expect from oneself and to expect for oneself and in all other matters.

To begin with, the poor young man does not understand at all the business in which he takes part. The point is clear, but he is possessed by such stupidity that the most obvious facts are unable to reason with. To what to liken such blind stupidity, we absolutely do not know. The girl, incapable of any pretense, unaware of any trick, says to him: “I myself don’t know what is 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 is this story about Lorelei? Is it her rock that you can see? They say that she was the first to drown everyone, and when she fell in love, she herself threw herself into the water. I love this story." It seems clear what feeling awakened in her. Two minutes later, with excitement, reflected even by pallor on her face, she asks if he liked that lady, whom, somehow jokingly, was mentioned in a conversation many days ago; then he asks what he likes in a woman; when he notices how good the shining sky is, she says, “Yes, good! If you and I were birds, how we would soar, how we would fly! .. We would have drowned in this blue ... but we are not birds. “But we can grow wings,” I objected. - "How so?" “Live and you will know. There are feelings that lift us off the ground. Don't worry, you will have wings." - "Did you have any?" - "How can I tell you? .. it seems that until now I have not yet flown." The next day, when he came in, Asya blushed; wanted to run out of the room; was sad, and finally, remembering yesterday's conversation, said to him: “Remember, you talked about wings yesterday? My wings have grown."

These words were so clear that even the slow-witted Romeo, returning home, could not help but reach the thought: does she really love me? With this thought, I fell asleep and, waking up the next morning, asked myself: “does she really love me?”

identity is expressed in itself 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 astonishes him: he, you see, did not foresee this at all. Wonderful; but be that as it may, whether he foresaw or did not foresee that Asya loves him, it makes no difference: now he knows positively: Asya loves him, he now sees it; Well, what does he feel for Asya? He definitely does not know how to answer this question. Poor thing! in his thirtieth year, in his youth, he should have had an uncle who would tell him when to wipe his nose, when to go to bed, and how many cups of tea he should eat. At the sight of such a ridiculous inability to understand things, it may seem to you that you are either a child or an idiot. Neither one nor the other. Our Romeo is a very intelligent man, who, as we have noticed, is under thirty years old, has experienced a lot in life, and is rich in observations of himself and others. Where does his incredible ingenuity come from? Two circumstances are to blame for it, from which, however, one follows from the other, so that everything comes down to one thing. He was not accustomed to understanding anything great and living, because his life was too shallow and soulless, all the relationships and affairs to which he was accustomed were shallow and soulless. This is the first. Secondly, he becomes 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 skillful player in a game in which the gain or loss is not a hryvnia, 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 absurd moves, perhaps he will not even 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 cleverly knew how to guide his little steamer by pointing milestones between countless shoals in semi-fresh water; what if suddenly this experienced swimmer in a glass of water sees himself in the ocean?

sex, growing up, becomes a male being of middle, and then older years, but he does not become a man, or at least does not become a man of a noble character. It is better for a person not to develop than to develop without the influence of thoughts about social affairs, without the influence of feelings awakened by participation in them. If from the circle of my observations, from the sphere of action in which I move, ideas and motives that have an object of general utility are excluded, that is, civic motives are excluded, what remains for me to observe? What is left for me to participate in? What remains is the troublesome turmoil of individual personalities with narrow personal concerns about their pocket, their belly, 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 is formed in me? Hoffmann was once loved among us, and his story was once translated about how, by a terrible accident, the eyes of Mr. Peregrinus Thiss 6 received the power of a microscope, and about what were the results of this quality of his eyes for his concepts of 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 a vile coward or an insidious intriguer, every woman a coquette, all people are liars and selfish, petty and low to the last degree. This terrible story could only be created in the head of a person who has seen enough of what is called in Germany Kleinstädterei, who has seen enough of the life of people who are deprived of any participation in public affairs, limited to a closely measured circle of their private interests, who have lost all thought of anything of the highest penny preference. (which, however, was not yet known at the time of Hoffmann). Remember what conversation becomes in any society, how soon it ceases to talk about public affairs? No matter how clever and noble the interlocutors, if they do not talk about matters of public interest, they begin to gossip or idle talk; slanderous vulgarity or dissolute vulgarity, in both cases senseless vulgarity—this is the character inevitably assumed by conversation that moves away from public interests. By the nature of the conversation, you can judge the people who are talking. If even the highest in the development of their concepts people fall into empty and dirty vulgarity when their thought deviates from public interests, then it is easy to figure out what a society must be like living in complete alienation from these interests. Imagine a person who has been brought up by life in such a society: what will be the conclusions from his experiments? what are the results of his observations on people? He understands everything vulgar and petty perfectly well, but, apart from this, he does not understand anything, because

did not see or experience anything. He could read God knows what beautiful things in books, he could find pleasure in thinking about these beautiful 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 to be served under the name of champagne a wine that has never seen the vineyards of Champagne, but, incidentally, a very good fizzy wine, how do you want me, when I am suddenly served really champagne wine, to be able to say for sure: yes is it really fake anymore? If I say this, I will be fat. My taste senses only that this wine is good, but have I ever drunk a good counterfeit wine? Why do I know that this time, too, they brought me, not fake wine? No, no, I am a connoisseur of fakes, I can distinguish good from bad; but I cannot appreciate genuine wine.

We would be happy, we would be noble, if only the unpreparedness of the look, the inexperience of thought prevented us from guessing and appreciating the lofty and great when it comes across to us in life. But no, and our will participates in this gross misunderstanding. Not only concepts have narrowed in me from the vulgar narrow-mindedness in which I live; this character passed into my will: what is the breadth of the view, such is the breadth of decisions; and besides, it is impossible not to get used, finally, to act as everyone else does. The contagiousness of laughter, the contagiousness of yawns are not exceptional cases in social physiology—the same contagiousness belongs to all phenomena that are found among the masses. There is someone's fable about how some healthy person got into the realm of the lame and crooked. The fable says that everyone attacked him, why did he have both eyes and both legs intact; the fable lied, because it did not finish everything: the stranger was attacked only at first, and when he settled down in a new place, he screwed up one eye himself and began to limp; it already seemed to him that it was more convenient, or at least more decent, to look and walk, and soon he even forgot that, in fact, he was neither lame nor crooked. If you are a fan of melancholy effects, you can add that when our visitor finally needed to take a firm step and look sharply with both eyes, he could no longer do this: it turned out that the closed eye no longer opened, the twisted leg no longer straightened; the nerves and muscles of the poor deformed joints had lost the power to act in the right way from long coercion.

Whoever touches the resin will turn black - as a punishment to himself, if he touched it voluntarily, to his own misfortune, if not voluntarily. It is impossible not to be saturated with the drunken smell of someone who lives in a tavern, even if he himself has not drunk a single glass; it is impossible not to

one who lives in a society that does not have any aspirations, except for petty everyday calculations, should be indulged in the pettiness of the will. Involuntarily, timidity creeps into my heart at the thought that, perhaps, I will have to make a high decision, boldly take a brave step not along the beaten path of daily exercise. That is why you try to assure yourself that no, the need has not yet come for anything so unusual, until the last fateful minute, you purposely convince yourself that everything that seems to emerge from habitual pettiness is nothing more than seduction. A child who is afraid of beeches closes his eyes and shouts as loudly as possible that there is no beech, that beech is nonsense - by this, you see, he encourages himself. We are so clever that we try to convince ourselves that everything we are cowardly is cowardly only from the fact that we have no strength for anything lofty - we try to assure ourselves that all this is nonsense, that they only frighten us with this, like a child with a beech. but in reality there is nothing like it and never will be.

And if it does? Well, then the same thing will happen to us as in the story of Mr. Turgenev with our Romeo. He, too, did not foresee anything and did not want to foresee; he also screwed up his eyes and backed away, but time passed - he had to bite his elbows, but you couldn’t get it.

And how short was the time in which both his fate and Asya's fate were decided - only a few minutes, and a whole life depended on them, and, having missed them, nothing could have corrected the mistake. As soon as he entered the room, he barely had time to utter a few thoughtless, almost unconscious, reckless words, and everything was already decided: a break forever, and there is no return. We do not regret Asa in the least; it was hard for her to hear the harsh words of refusal, but it was probably for the best for her that a reckless person brought her to a break. If she had remained connected with him, for him, of course, it would have been a great happiness; but we do not think that it would be good for her to live in close relations with such a gentleman. Whoever sympathizes with Asya should rejoice at the difficult, outrageous scene. Sympathizing with Asya, he is absolutely right: he has chosen the subject of his sympathies as a dependent being, a being offended. But although with shame, we must confess that we take part in the fate of our hero. We have no honor to be his relatives; there was even dislike between our families, because his family despised all those close to us. But we still cannot tear ourselves away from the prejudices that have piled into our heads from false books and lessons by which our youth was brought up and ruined, we cannot tear ourselves away from the petty concepts inspired by the surrounding society; it seems to us all the time (an empty dream, but still an irresistible dream for us) as if he had rendered some service to our society, as if he were the representative of our enlightenment, as if he were the best among us, as if

We would be worse off without him. The thought develops more and more strongly in us 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 without him it would be better for us to live, but at the present moment we are still not sufficiently accustomed to this idea, we have not completely broken away from the dream on which we were brought up; therefore, we still wish well to our hero and his colleague. 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 position; they are not able to act prudently and generously at the same time - 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 still do not want to apply the words of the prophet to them: “They will see and not see, they will hear and not hear, because the sense in these people has become coarsened, and their ears have become deaf, and they closed their eyes so as not to see,” no , we still want to consider 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 a 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 figure out their position in time and take advantage of the benefits that a fleeting hour represents. Against our will, hope is weakening in us every day in the insight and energy of people whom we exhort to understand the importance of the present circumstances and act in accordance with common sense, but at least let them not say that they did not hear prudent advice, which was not explained to them by them. position.

Between you, gentlemen (we will address these honorable people with a speech), there are quite a lot of literate people; they know how happiness was depicted in ancient mythology: it was presented as a woman with a long plait, blown in front of her by the wind carrying this woman; it is easy to catch her while she flies up to you, but miss one moment - she will fly by, and you would have rushed to catch her in vain: you cannot catch her, left behind. A happy moment is irretrievable. You will not wait until a favorable combination of circumstances repeats, just as that conjunction of the heavenly bodies, which coincides with the present hour, will not be repeated. Do not miss a favorable moment - this is the highest condition of worldly prudence. Happy circumstances exist for each of us, but not everyone knows how to use them, and in this art almost the only difference consists between people whose lives are arranged well or badly, And for you, although perhaps you were not worthy

Moreover, circumstances have developed happily, so happily that your fate at the decisive moment depends solely on your will. Will you understand the demand of the time, will you be able to take advantage of the position in which you are now placed - that is the question for you of happiness or unhappiness forever.

What are the ways and rules in order not to miss the happiness offered by circumstances? How 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 guilty all around. Suppose also that my adversary, who is completely right, is so accustomed to the injustices of fate that he already hardly believes in the possibility of waiting for the decision of our lawsuit: it has dragged on for several decades; he asked many times in court when the report would be made, 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 still not resolved. Why it dragged on so long, I do not know, I only know that for some reason the chairman of the court favored me (he seemed to think that I was devoted to him with all my heart). But now he received an order to solve the matter without delay. Out of his friendship, he called me to me and said: “I cannot delay the decision of your process; 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; the verdict of our civil court will reveal circumstances for which you will be liable under criminal laws, and you know how severe they are; what will be the decision of the criminal chamber, I do not know, but I think that you will get rid of her too easily if you are sentenced only to the deprivation of the rights of the state - between us, be it said, you can expect much worse. Today is Saturday; on Monday your lawsuit will be reported and decided; I do not have the strength to postpone it further, with all my disposition towards you. Do you know what I would advise you? Take advantage of the day you have left: offer peace to your opponent; he does not yet know how urgent is the necessity in which I am placed by the order I have received; he had heard that the case was settled on Monday, but he had heard so many times that it was close to being decided that he lost faith in his hopes; now he will still agree to an amicable deal, which will be very beneficial for you in terms of money, not to mention the fact that you will get rid of it from the criminal process, you will acquire the name of a condescending, generous person who, as if he himself felt the voice of conscience and humanity . Try to end the litigation with an amicable deal. I ask you this as your friend."

What am I to do now, let each of you say: will it be wise for me to rush to my opponent to conclude a peace? Or will it be smart to lie on your sofa the only one

what day is left for me? Or would it be wise to lash out with rude abuse at the judge favoring me, whose friendly forewarning gave me the opportunity to end my litigation with honor and profit?

From this example the reader will see how easy it is in this case to decide what prudence requires.

“Try to reconcile with your opponent until you have reached the court with him, otherwise the opponent will give you to the judge, and the judge will give you to the executor of sentences, and you will be thrown into prison and will not come out of it until you pay for everything to the last detail ”(Matt., chapter V, verses 25 and 26).

N. G. Chernyshevsky begins his article “Russian Man on 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 business-like, revealing 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 atmosphere 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 from it is even more bleak than from stories about nasty bribe-takers with their cynical robbery. The whole point, N. G. Chernyshevsky notes, is in the character of the protagonist (he gives the name Romeo), who is a pure and noble person, but commits a shameful act at the decisive moment of explaining to the heroine. The critic argues with the opinion of some readers who claim that the whole 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 of Russian life, when the hero talks a lot and beautifully about high aspirations, captivating enthusiastic girls capable of deep feelings and decisive actions, but as soon as “it comes to expressing their feelings and desires directly and accurately, most of the characters begin to hesitate and feel slowness in the language.”

“These are our“ best people ”- they all look 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 brought them up: “their life was too shallow, soulless, all the relationships and affairs to which he was accustomed were shallow and soulless,” “life taught them only to pale pettiness in everything.” Thus, N. G. Chernyshevsky shifts the focus from the guilt of the hero to the guilt of society, which has excommunicated such noble people from civic interests.

Turgenev's girls are heroines whose minds, richly gifted natures are not spoiled by the light, they retained the purity of feelings, simplicity and sincerity of the heart; they are dreamy, spontaneous natures without any falsehood, hypocrisy, strong in spirit and capable of difficult accomplishments. T. Vinynikova I. S. Turgenev calls his story by the name of the heroine. However, the real name of the girl is Anna. Let's think about the meanings of the names: Anna - "grace, good looks", and Anastasia (Asya) - "born again". Why is the author […]
The story of I. S. Turgenev "Asya" is sometimes called the elegy of an unfulfilled, missed, but such a close happiness. The plot of the work is simple, because the author is not interested in external events, but in the spiritual world of the characters, each of which has its own secret. In revealing the depths of the spiritual states of a loving person, the landscape also helps the author, which in the story becomes the “landscape of the soul”. Here we have the first picture of nature, introducing us to the scene, a German town on the banks of the Rhine, given through the perception of the protagonist. […]
I. S. Turgenev’s story “Asya” tells how the acquaintance of the protagonist, Mr. N. N., with the Gagins develops into a love story, which turned out to be a source for the hero of both sweet romantic languor and bitter torment, which later, over the years, lost their sharpness, but doomed the hero to the fate of a bean. Interesting is the fact that the author refused the name of the hero, and there is no portrait of him. There are different explanations for this, but one thing is certain: I. S. Turgenev shifts the emphasis from the external to the […]
In the novel by I.S. Turgenev “Fathers and Sons”, the main character is Yevgeny Bazarov. He proudly says that he is a nihilist. The concept of nihilism means a kind of belief based on the denial of all cultural and scientific experience accumulated over many centuries, all traditions and ideas about social norms. The history of this social movement in Russia is connected with the 60-70s. 19th century, when there was a turning point in society in traditional social views and […]
Two mutually exclusive statements are possible: “Despite Bazarov’s outward callousness and even rudeness in dealing with his parents, he dearly loves them” (G. Byaly) and “Is not that spiritual callousness that cannot be justified manifested in Bazarov’s attitude towards his parents.” However, in the dialogue between Bazarov and Arkady, the dots over the i are dotted: “- So you see what kind of parents I have. The people are not strict. - Do you love them, Eugene? - I love you, Arkady! Here it is worth recalling the scene of Bazarov's death, and his last conversation with […]
The inner world of Bazarov and its external manifestations. Turgenev draws a detailed portrait of the hero at the first appearance. But strange thing! The reader almost immediately forgets individual facial features and is hardly ready to describe them in two pages. The general outline remains in memory - the author presents the hero's face as repulsively ugly, colorless in colors and defiantly wrong in sculptural modeling. But he immediately separates facial features from their captivating expression (“Livened up with a calm smile and expressed self-confidence and […]
Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons" appears in the February book of the Russkiy Vestnik. This novel, obviously, constitutes a question ... addresses the younger generation and loudly asks them the question: "What kind of people are you?" This is the true meaning of the novel. D. I. Pisarev, Realists Yevgeny Bazarov, according to I. S. Turgenev’s letters to friends, “the cutest of my figures”, “this is my favorite brainchild ... on which I spent all the paints at my disposal.” "This smart girl, this hero" appears before the reader in kind […]
Dueling test. Bazarov and his friend again pass through the same circle: Maryino - Nikolskoye - the parental home. Outwardly, the situation almost literally reproduces the one on the first visit. Arkady is enjoying his summer vacation and, having barely found an excuse, returns to Nikolskoye, to Katya. Bazarov continues natural science experiments. True, this time the author expresses himself in a different way: "The fever of work came upon him." The new Bazarov abandoned intense ideological disputes with Pavel Petrovich. Only occasionally throws enough […]
Arkady and Bazarov are very different people, and the friendship that has arisen between them is all the more surprising. Despite belonging to the same era, young people are very different. It must be taken into account that they initially belong to different circles of society. Arkady is the son of a nobleman, from early childhood he absorbed what Bazarov despises and denies in his nihilism. Kirsanov's father and uncle are intelligent people who value aesthetics, beauty and poetry. From the point of view of Bazarov, Arkady is a soft-hearted "barich", a weakling. Bazarov does not want […]
Ivan Sergeevich Turgeny is a famous Russian writer who gave Russian literature works that have become classics. The story "Spring Waters" refers to the late period of the author's work. The skill of the writer is manifested mainly in the disclosure of the psychological experiences of the characters, their doubts and searches. The plot is based on the relationship between a Russian intellectual, Dmitry Sanin, and a young Italian beauty, Gemma Roselli. Revealing the characters of his heroes throughout the story, Turgenev brings […]
Tolstoy in his novel "War and Peace" presents us with many different heroes. He tells us about their life, about the relationship between them. Already almost from the first pages of the novel, one can understand that of all the heroes and heroines, Natasha Rostova is the writer's favorite heroine. Who is Natasha Rostova, when Marya Bolkonskaya asked Pierre Bezukhov to talk about Natasha, he replied: “I don’t know how to answer your question. I absolutely do not know what kind of girl this is; I can't analyze it at all. She is charming. And why, […]
The disputes between Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich represent the social side of the conflict in Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons. Here, not just different views of representatives of two generations collide, but also two fundamentally different political points of view. Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich find themselves on opposite sides of the barricades in accordance with all parameters. Bazarov is a raznochinets, a native of a poor family, forced to make his own way in life on his own. Pavel Petrovich is a hereditary nobleman, keeper of family ties and […]
The image of Bazarov is contradictory and complex, he is torn apart by doubts, he is experiencing mental trauma, primarily due to the fact that he rejects the natural principle. The theory of life of Bazarov, this extremely practical person, physician and nihilist, was very simple. There is no love in life - this is a physiological need, there is no beauty - this is just a combination of the properties of the body, there is no poetry - it is not needed. For Bazarov, there were no authorities, and he weightily proved his point of view until life convinced him. […]
The most prominent female figures in Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons" are Anna Sergeevna Odintsova, Fenechka and Kukshina. These three images are extremely unlike each other, but nevertheless we will try to compare them. Turgenev was very respectful of women, perhaps that is why their images are described in detail and vividly in the novel. These ladies are united by their acquaintance with Bazarov. Each of them contributed to changing his worldview. The most significant role was played by Anna Sergeevna Odintsova. She was destined to […]
The novel "Fathers and Sons" was created in an extremely difficult and conflict period. The sixties of the nineteenth century had several revolutions at once: the spread of materialistic views, the democratization of society. The impossibility of returning to the past and the uncertainty of the future have become the cause of an ideological and value crisis. The positioning of this novel as “acutely social”, characteristic of Soviet literary criticism, also affects today's readers. Of course, this aspect is necessary […]
I. S. Turgenev is a perceptive and perspicacious artist, sensitive to everything, able to notice and describe the most insignificant, small details. Turgenev perfectly mastered the skill of description. All his paintings are alive, clearly rendered, filled with sounds. Turgenev's landscape is psychological, connected with the experiences and appearance of the characters in the story, with their way of life. Undoubtedly, the landscape in the story "Bezhin Meadow" plays an important role. We can say that the whole story is permeated with artistic sketches that determine the […]
In 1852, I.S. Turgenev wrote the story "Mumu". The main character of the story is Gerasim. He appears before us as a man with a kind, sympathetic soul - simple and understandable. Such characters are found in Russian folk tales and are distinguished by their strength, prudence and sincerity. For me, Gerasim is a vivid and accurate image of the Russian people. From the first lines of the story, I treat this character with respect and compassion, which means that I treat all the Russian people of that era with respect and compassion. Peering […]
"Notes of a Hunter" is a book about the Russian people, the serfs. However, Turgenev's stories and essays also describe many other aspects of Russian life at that time. From the first sketches of his "hunting" cycle, Turgenev became famous as an artist with an amazing gift to see and draw pictures of nature. Turgenev's landscape is psychological, it is associated with the experiences and appearance of the characters in the story, with their way of life. The writer managed to translate his fleeting, random "hunting" meetings and observations into […]
Kirsanov N.P. Kirsanov P.P. Appearance A short man in his early forties. After an old fracture of the leg, he limps. Facial features are pleasant, the expression is sad. Handsome well-groomed middle-aged man. He dresses smartly, in the English manner. Ease in movements betrays a sporty person. Marital status Widower for over 10 years, very happily married. There is a young mistress Fenechka. Two sons: Arkady and six-month-old Mitya. Bachelor. Has been popular with women in the past. After […]
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev is a remarkable Russian writer of the 19th century, who already during his lifetime gained a reading vocation and world fame. His work served the cause of the abolition of serfdom, inspired the struggle against the autocracy. In the works of Turgenev, pictures of Russian nature are poetically captured, the beauty of genuine human feelings. The author was able to deeply and subtly comprehend modern life, truthfully and poetically reproducing it in his works. He saw the true interest of life not in the sharpness of its external […]

Reflections on reading the story of Mr. Turgenev "Asya"

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 brought up real revolutionaries with censored articles, had in mind, in particular, this brilliant political pamphlet. Describing the cowardly and treacherous behavior of a Russian liberal during the first Russian revolution, Lenin in 1907 recalled the ardent Turgenev hero who had fled from Asya, a "hero" about whom Chernyshevsky wrote: "A Russian man on rendez-vous."

Examining the main character of the story exactly 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 to "superfluous people" was not unequivocal. Until about 1858, when the raznochintsy-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, contrasted them with inert and self-satisfied "existents". However, the progressive significance of "superfluous people" was limited; it had exhausted itself long before the beginning of the revolutionary situation in the 1960s. In the new historical conditions, the 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. Actionable solutions were needed. And the "superfluous people", having inherited from their predecessors of the 1930s and 1940s a tendency to endlessly analyze their inner experiences, proved unable to move from words to deeds, remained "everyone in the same position." This explains the sharpness of tone and causticity of Chernyshevsky's speech against the traditional idealization of imaginary "heroes". And this is the historical significance of his reflections on "our Romeo", the hero of the story "Asya", who "was not used to understanding anything great and living, because his life was too small and soulless, all relationships and affairs to which he is accustomed ... he becomes shy, he powerlessly retreats from everything that requires broad determination and noble risk ... ". Meanwhile, after all, this “slow-witted” person is smart, he has experienced a lot in life, he is rich in a reserve of observations on himself and others.

The critic-publicist in the article "A Russian Man on Rendez-Vous" addresses the liberal intelligentsia of the nobility with a serious warning: whoever does not take into account the demands of the peasantry, does not go towards revolutionary democracy, which upholds the vital rights of the working people, will eventually 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 most subtle analysis contained in Chernyshevsky's article of the behavior of "our Romeo," who was frightened by the girl's self-sacrificing love and abandoned it.)

"Stories in a business *, incriminating manner leave a very difficult impression on the reader; therefore, recognizing their usefulness and nobility, I am not entirely satisfied that our literature has taken such an exclusively gloomy direction."

* (The critic ironically refers to the works of the so-called "accusatory literature" as "stories in a businesslike" kind (see the notes to the "Provincial Essays").)

Quite a few of the people, apparently not stupid, say so, or, to put it better, they spoke until the peasant question became the sole subject of all thoughts, of all conversations. Whether their words are fair or unfair, I do not know; but I happened to be under the influence of such thoughts when I began to read almost 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 rogues, 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 nasty people. The action is abroad, away from all the bad atmosphere of our home life. All the characters in the story are among the best 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, the soul will rest and refresh. And indeed, she was refreshed by these poetic ideals, while the story reached the decisive moment. But the last pages of the story are not like the first, and after reading the story, the impression of it remains even more bleak than from the stories about nasty bribe-takers with their cynical robbery. They do bad things, but they are recognized by each of us as bad people; we do not expect them to improve our lives. There are, we think, forces in society that will put up a barrier to their harmful influence, that will change the character of our life with their nobility. This illusion is rejected in the most bitter way in the story, which awakens the brightest expectations with its first half.

Here is a man whose heart is open to all lofty feelings, whose honesty is unshakable, whose thought has taken into itself everything for which our age is called the age of noble aspirations. And what does this person do? He makes a scene that the last bribe-taker would be ashamed of. He feels the strongest and purest sympathy for the girl who loves him; he cannot live an hour without seeing this girl; his thought all day, all night draws her beautiful image to him, it has come for him, you think, that time of love, when the heart is drowning in bliss. We see Romeo, we see Juliet, whose happiness is not hindered by anything, and the minute is approaching when their fate will be decided forever - for this, Romeo has only to say: "I love you, do you love me?" And Juliet whispers: "Yes ..." And what does our Romeo do (as we will call the hero of the story, whose last name is not given to us by the author of the story), appearing on a date with Juliet? With a thrill of 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 hardly bearable for the earthly organism. People died of less joy. She sits like a frightened bird, hiding her face from the radiance of the sun of love that appears before her; she breathes quickly, she trembles all over; she lowers her eyes even more tremulously when he enters, 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 speak to him, and her voice breaks. Both of them are silent for a long time - and, as he himself says, his heart melted, and now Romeo speaks to his Juliet ... and what does he say to her? “You are to blame for me,” he says to her; “you have entangled me in trouble, I am dissatisfied with you, you compromise me, and I must stop my relationship with you; it is very unpleasant for me to part with you, but if you please, go away from here” . What it is? What is her fault? Is it that she considered him a decent person? Compromised his reputation by going on a date with him? It's amazing! Every line in her pale face says that she is waiting for the decision of her fate from his word, that she has irrevocably given her whole soul to him and now only expects him to say that he accepts her soul, her life, and he reprimands her for that she compromises him! What kind of ridiculous cruelty is this? What is this low rudeness? And this man, acting so vilely, has been shown to be noble up to now! He deceived us, deceived the author. Yes, the poet made a very gross mistake in imagining that he was telling us about a decent man. This man is worse than a notorious scoundrel.

It would be very comforting to think that the author really made a mistake, but the sad merit of his story lies in the fact that the character of the hero is true to our society. Perhaps if this character were what 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 had taken possession of him, the story would have won in an ideally poetic sense. The enthusiasm of the first meeting 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 like Romeo and Juliet, or at least one of George Sand's novels. Whoever seeks a poetically integral impression in a story must really condemn the author, who, having enticed him with sublimely sweet expectations, suddenly showed him some vulgar, absurd vanity of petty-timid egoism in a man who began like Max Piccolomini ** and ended like some or Zakhar Sidorych, playing a penny preference.

* (...something... similar... to one of George Sand's novels. - This refers to the novels "Indiana", "Jacques", "Consuelo" and others by the French writer George Sand (Aurora Dudevant's pseudonym, 1804-1876).)

** (Max Piccolomini is the hero of Schiller's dramas "Piccolomini" and "The Death of Wallenstein", a noble romantic dreamer.)

But is the author definitely mistaken in his hero? If he made a mistake, then 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 got out of these situations only by being completely embarrassed in front of us. In "Faust" * the hero tries to encourage himself by the fact that neither he nor Vera have a serious feeling 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 already gone on in such a way that he should certainly have said this, but, you see, he did not guess and did not dare to tell her this; and when a woman, who must accept an explanation, is finally forced to make an explanation herself, he, you see, "froze", but felt that "bliss like a wave runs through his heart", only, however, "at times", but actually speaking, he “completely lost his head” - it’s only a pity that he didn’t faint, and even that would have been if it hadn’t happened by the way a tree to which he could lean. As soon as the man has recovered, the woman he loves, who has expressed her love to him, approaches him, and asks what he intends to do now? He... he was "embarrassed." It is not surprising that after such a behavior of a loved one (otherwise, as "behavior", one cannot call the image of the actions of this gentleman), the poor woman became nervous fever; it is even more natural that he then began to weep at his own fate. It's in Faust; almost the same in Rudin. Rudin at first behaves somewhat more decently for a man than the former heroes: he is so determined that he himself tells Natalya about his love (although he does not speak out of good will, but because he is forced to this conversation); he himself asks her a date. But when Natalya tells him on this date that she will marry him, with the consent and without the consent of her mother, it doesn’t matter, if only he only 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 embarrassing than enthusiastic, - and then he acts so well, that is, he is so cowardly and lethargic to such an extent 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 embarrassed in spirit." Natalya says that her mother announced to her that she would rather agree to see her daughter dead than 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 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 remarks that this is not what she should now hear from him, replies that he did not expect such decisiveness.The case ends with the offended girl turning away from him, almost ashamed of her love for a coward.

* ("Faust". - This refers to the story in nine letters of I. S. Turgenev, originally published in the journal Sovremennik (1856, No. 10).)

But perhaps this pathetic trait in the character of the heroes is a feature of Mr. Turgenev's stories? Perhaps it is the nature of his talent that inclines him to depict such faces? Not at all; the nature of talent, it seems to us, means nothing here. Think of any good, true-to-life story by any of our contemporary 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 faces 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 flaws in him, but no one will say that Mr. Nekrasov's talent lacked energy and firmness. What does the hero do in his poem "Sasha"? He told Sasha that, he says, "one should not weaken in soul," because "the sun of truth will rise over the earth" and that one must act in order to fulfill one's aspirations, and then, when Sasha gets down to business, he says that all this is in vain and it will not lead to anything that he "talked empty." Let us recall how Beltov acts*: and in the same way he prefers retreat to every decisive step. There could be many such examples. Everywhere, whatever the character of the poet, whatever his personal ideas about the actions of his hero, the hero acts in the same way with all other decent people, like him derived from other poets: while there is no talk of business, but you just need to take up idle time, to fill an idle head or an idle heart with conversations and dreams, the hero is very lively; when things come to expressing their feelings and desires directly and accurately, most of the characters begin to hesitate and feel slowness in their language. A few, the bravest, somehow still manage to gather all their strength and inarticulately express something that gives a vague idea of their thoughts; but if someone thinks of seizing on their desires, saying: "You want this and that; we are very glad; start acting, and we will support you," - with such a remark, one half of the bravest heroes faints, others they 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 can it be so soon", and "moreover, they are honest people," and not only honest, but very meek and do not want to put you in trouble, and that in general, is it really possible to bother about everything that is said to have nothing to do, and best of all - not for what not to be accepted, because everything is connected with troubles and inconveniences, and nothing good can happen yet, because, as already said, they "didn't wait and didn't expect at all" and so on.

* (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.)

Such are our "best people" - they all look 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; whether this is a lot of trouble for Asya, we do not know. The first thought comes that she has very little trouble from this; on the contrary, and thank God that the wretched 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 forget everything and can surrender to a new feeling, the subject of which will be more worthy of her. So, but that's the trouble, that she will hardly meet a more worthy person; this is the sad comic of our Romeo's relationship with Asa, that our Romeo is really one of the best people in our society, that there are almost no people better than him. Only then will Asya be satisfied with her relationship with people, when, like others, she begins to confine herself to excellent reasoning, until there is an opportunity to start performing speeches, and as soon as an opportunity presents herself, she bites her tongue and folds her hands, as everyone does. Only then will they be satisfied with it; and now, at first, 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 one cannot help but love, before whom one cannot but revere; but all this will be said only as long as the character of Asya is shown 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 cry out: nothing can come of it, absolutely nothing, except that she will lose her reputation. Can one risk oneself so madly?" “Risking herself? That would be nothing,” others add. “Let her do with herself what she wants, but why put others in trouble? In what position did she put this poor young man? Did he think she would want to lead him so far away? What should he do now with her recklessness? If he goes after her, he will ruin himself; if he refuses, he will be called a coward and he will despise himself. I do not know whether it is noble to put people who have not submitted in such unpleasant situations there seems to be no particular reason for such incongruous acts. No, it's not exactly noble. And the poor brother? What is its role? What bitter pill had his sister given him? For the rest of his life he could not digest this pill. Nothing to say, dear sister borrowed! I do not argue, all this is very good in words - both noble aspirations, and 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 up for half a year in her room. For her own good, she should be locked up. She, you see, deigns to be carried away by high feelings; but what is it like to disentangle others what she deigned to boil? No, I will not call her deed, I will not call her character noble, because I do not call noble those who frivolously and boldly harm others. "Thus the common cry will be explained by the reasoning of sensible people. We are partly ashamed to admit, but still we have to admit, that these arguments seem to us sound.In fact, Asya harms not only herself, but also all those who had the misfortune of kinship or the occasion of being close to her; and those who, for their own pleasure, harm all their loved ones, we cannot but condemn .

By condemning Asya, we justify our Romeo. Indeed, what is his fault? did he give her a reason to act recklessly? did he incite her to an act that cannot be approved? didn't he have the right to tell her that she shouldn't have entangled him into an unpleasant relationship? You resent the fact that his words are harsh, call them rude. But the truth is always harsh, and who will condemn me if even a rude word breaks out of me when I, innocent of anything, are entangled in an unpleasant business; moreover, they pester me so that I would rejoice at the misfortune into which they dragged me?

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 an unfounded impression that was preserved in you. You have read a lot about how people in other countries acted and are acting. But consider that it is other countries. You never know what is being done in the world in other places, but it is not always and everywhere possible that which is very convenient in a certain situation. In England, for example, the word "you" does not exist in colloquial language: a manufacturer to his worker, a landowner to a digger hired by him, a master to his footman always says "you" and, where it happens, they insert sir in a conversation with them, that is, it is all the same that French monsieur, but in Russian there is no such word, but courtesy comes out in the same way as if the master were saying 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 condemn 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 put it in your ear, 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 yourself even with our Romeo, by the way, we are already talking about him. I am ready to tell you the way in which I reached this result, not only in relation to the scene with Asya, but also in relation to everything in the world, that is, I became pleased 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 condemn nothing and no one in the world (except for people who violate my personal interests), I do not want anything (except for my own benefit), - in a word, I will tell you how I became a man from a bilious melancholic so practical and well-intentioned that I would not even be surprised if I received an award for my good intentions.

I 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 share of limitations, sufficient so that in his way of thinking he could not go far from the society in which he was brought up and lives, and in the most energetic person there is his own dose of apathy, sufficient so that in his actions he does not deviate much from the 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, there are pancakes at Shrove Tuesday - and everyone does this, although some do not eat painted eggs at all, and almost everyone complains about the heaviness of pancakes. So not in some trifles, and in everything so. It is accepted, for example, that boys should be kept freer than girls, and every father, every mother, no matter how convinced they are of the unreasonableness of such a distinction, brings up children according to this rule. It is accepted that wealth is a good thing, and everyone is satisfied if, instead of ten thousand rubles a year, he begins to receive twenty thousand thanks to a happy turn of affairs, although, rationally speaking, every smart person knows that those things that, being inaccessible at the first income , become available at 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 be no 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 at 20,000 income is satisfied with very little more than at 10,000; as for pleasures, which can be called positive, the difference is quite imperceptible in them. For himself personally, a man with 10,000 income has exactly the same table, exactly the same wine, and an armchair in the same row at the opera as a man with twenty thousand. The first is called a rather rich person, and the second is not considered extremely rich in the same way - there is no significant difference in their position; and yet each, according to the routine of society, will rejoice at the increase in his income from 10 to 20 thousand, although in fact he will notice almost no increase in his pleasures. People are generally terrible routinists: one has only to look deeper into their thoughts to discover this. For the first time, a certain gentleman will extremely puzzle you 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 person without class prejudices, etc. etc., and he himself, like his acquaintances, imagines himself so from a pure soul. But observe the cosmopolitan more precisely, 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 assigned according to his passport, he will turn out to be a landowner or an official, a merchant or a professor with all the shades of the way of thinking that belong to his estate. 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 at people in order to check whether this or that person, who at first seems different from others, really differs in something important from other people of the same position with him, just try to engage in such observations, and this analysis will entice you so much , will so interest your mind, will constantly deliver such soothing impressions to your spirit that you will never leave it behind and will very soon come to the conclusion: "Every person is like all people, in everyone - exactly the same as in others" . And the further, the more firmly you will become convinced of this axiom. Differences seem important only because they lie on the surface and are striking, and under the visible, apparent difference lies a perfect identity. And why, in fact, would man be a contradiction to all the laws of nature? Indeed, in nature, cedar and hyssop feed and bloom, elephant and mouse 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 beings of the same class, but also different classes of beings are arranged and live according to the same principles, that the organisms of a mammal, a bird and a fish are the same, that the worm breathes like a mammal, although it has no nostrils, no windpipe, no lungs. Not only would the analogy with other beings be violated by the non-recognition of the sameness of the basic rules and springs in the moral life of every person, the analogy with his physical life would also be violated. Of two healthy people of the same age in the same frame of mind, the pulse of one beats, of course, somewhat stronger and more often than that of the other; but is this difference great? It is so insignificant that science does not even pay attention to it. Another thing is when you compare people of different years or in different circumstances; in a child, the pulse beats twice as fast as in an old man, in a sick person much more often or less often than in a healthy person, in someone who has drunk a glass of champagne more often than in someone who has drunk 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 the same pulse as the child you compare him to; and in a healthy person the pulse would weaken, as in a sick person if he fell ill with the same disease; and if Peter drank a glass of champagne, his pulse would increase in the same way as Ivan's.

You have almost reached the limits of human wisdom when you have established yourself in this simple truth that every person is a person like everyone else. Not to mention the gratifying consequences of this conviction for your worldly happiness; you will cease to be angry and upset, you will cease to be indignant and accusing, 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 everyone would do in his place? An unperturbed meek silence settles in your soul, sweeter than which can only be the Brahmin's contemplation of the tip of the nose, with a quiet incessant repetition of the words "om-mani-padmehum". I'm not talking about this inestimable spiritual and practical benefit, I'm not even talking about how many monetary benefits a wise indulgence towards people will bring you: you will absolutely cordially meet a scoundrel whom you would drive away from you before; and this scoundrel, perhaps, is a person of importance in society, and your own affairs will improve by good relations with him. Not to mention that you yourself will then be less embarrassed by false doubts about conscientiousness in using the benefits that will be turned up at your fingertips: why will you be embarrassed by excessive delicacy if you are convinced that everyone would have acted in your place in exactly the same way , just like you? I do not expose all these benefits, aiming only to indicate 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? In striving to reach the main truth, we have already found, in passing, the conclusion from it that serves as an answer to this question. It is now clear to us that everything depends on social habits and circumstances, that is, in the final result, everything depends exclusively on circumstances, because social habits, in their turn, also originated from circumstances. You blame a person - look first, whether he is to blame for what you blame him for, or the circumstances and habits of society are to blame, look carefully, perhaps it is not his fault at all, but only his misfortune. When discussing others, we are too inclined to regard every misfortune as guilt - this is the true misfortune for practical life, because guilt and misfortune are completely different things and require one to be treated differently from the other. Guilt causes censure or even punishment against the person. The trouble requires help to the person through the elimination of circumstances stronger than his will. I knew a tailor who poked his apprentices in the teeth with a red-hot iron. He, perhaps, can be called guilty, and you can punish him; but on the other hand, not every tailor sticks a hot iron in the teeth, examples of such frenzy are very rare. But almost every craftsman happens, having drunk on a holiday, to fight - this is no longer a fault, but simply a misfortune. What is needed here is not the punishment of an individual, but a change in the conditions of life for an entire class. The sadder is the harmful confusion of guilt and misfortune, because it is very easy to distinguish between these two things; we have already seen one sign of difference: guilt is a rarity, it is an exception to the rule; trouble is an epidemic. Deliberate arson is the fault; but out of millions of people there is one who decides on this matter. 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, bringing benefits to the guilty. This last sign is extremely accurate. The robber stabbed a man to rob him, and finds it useful for himself - this is guilt. A careless hunter accidentally wounded a man, and the first one himself is tormented by the misfortune that he did - this is no longer a fault, but simply a misfortune.

The sign is true, but if we accept it with some insight, with a careful analysis of the facts, it turns out that guilt almost never exists in the world, but only misfortune. Now we have mentioned the robber. Is life good for him? If it were not for the special, very difficult circumstances for him, would he have taken up his craft? Where will you find a man who would rather hide in lairs in cold and bad weather and stagger through the deserts, often endure hunger and constantly tremble behind his back, waiting for the whip - who would be more pleasant than smoking a sitar comfortably in quiet armchairs or play jumble at the English Club like decent people do?

The symptom of a disease is not the disease itself. And if the matter consisted only in the fact that some, or rather, almost all the "best" people offend a girl when she has more nobility or less experience than they do, this matter, we confess, would be of little interest to us. God bless them, with erotic questions - the reader of our time, busy with questions about administrative and judicial improvements, about financial transformations, about the emancipation of the peasants, is not up to them. But the scene made by our Romeo Asa, as we noticed, is only a symptom of an illness that spoils all our affairs in exactly the same vulgar way, and we only need to look closely at why our Romeo got into trouble, we will see what we all, like him, to expect from oneself and to expect for oneself and in all other matters.

To begin with, the poor young man does not understand at all the business in which he takes part. The point is clear, but he is possessed by such stupidity that the most obvious facts are unable to reason with. To what to liken such blind stupidity, we absolutely do not know. The girl, incapable of any pretense, ignorant of any trick, tells him: “I myself don’t know what is happening to me. Sometimes I feel like crying, but I laugh. You should not judge me ... by what I do Oh, by the way, what kind of tale about Lorelei is this? * Is it her rock that you can see? They say that she was the first to drown everyone, but when she fell in love, she threw herself into the water. I like this tale. " It seems clear what feeling awakened 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 he asks what he likes in a woman; when he notices how good the shining sky is, she says: “Yes, good! If we were birds, how we would soar, how we would fly! .. We would drown in this blue ... but we are not birds ". “But we can grow wings,” I objected. - "How so?" - "Live - you will know. There are feelings that lift us from the ground. Do not worry, you will have wings." - "And you were?" - "How can I tell you?., it seems that until now I have not yet flown." The next day, when he came in, Asya blushed; wanted to run out of the room; was sad, and finally, remembering yesterday's conversation, she said to him: "Remember, you talked about wings yesterday? My wings have grown."

* (The story of Lorelei. - The legend of the beautiful Rhine mermaid Lorelei, who lured fishermen and shipbuilders 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 (1797-1856).)

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 first two meetings with Asya, he feels jealousy at the sight of her gentle treatment of her brother and from 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, because he, like an 18-year-old boy, runs away from the village in which she lives, wanders around the surrounding fields for several days . Finally 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," he feels at the same time that this delight is all concentrated on thoughts about Asa, and, finally, it comes to the point that he cannot think of anything but her. It seems that a person who has loved several times should understand what feeling is expressed in him 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 astonishes him: he, you see, did not foresee this at all. Wonderful; but be that as it may, he foresaw or did not foresee that Asya; loves him, all the same: now he knows positively: Asya loves him, he now sees it; Well, what does he feel for Asya? He definitely does not know how to answer this question. Poor thing! in his thirtieth year, in his youth, he should have had an uncle who would tell him when to wipe his nose, when to go to bed, and how many cups of tea he should eat. At the sight of such a ridiculous inability to understand things, it may seem to you that you are either a child or an idiot. Neither one nor the other. Our Romeo is a very intelligent man, who, as we have noticed, is under thirty years old, has experienced a lot in life, and is rich in observations of himself and others. Where does his incredible ingenuity come from? Two circumstances are to blame for it, from which, however, one follows from the other, so that everything comes down to one thing. He was not accustomed to understanding anything great and living, because his life was too shallow and soulless, all the relationships and affairs to which he was accustomed were shallow and soulless. This is the first. Secondly, he becomes 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 skillful player in a game in which the gain or loss is not a hryvnia, 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 Petersburg and was very cleverly able to guide his little steamer by pointing milestones between countless shoals in semi-fresh water; what if suddenly this experienced swimmer in a glass of water sees himself in the ocean?

My God! Why do we analyze our hero so severely? Why is he worse than others? Why is he worse than all of us? When we enter society, we see people around us in uniform and informal frock coats or tailcoats; these people are five and a half or six, and some more than a foot tall; they grow or shave the 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 civil affairs, without acquiring the feelings of a citizen, a male child, growing up, becomes a male being of middle and then 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 social affairs, without the influence of feelings awakened by participation in them. If from the circle of my observations, from the sphere of action in which I move, ideas and motives that have an object of general utility are excluded, that is, civic motives are excluded, what remains for me to observe? What is left for me to participate in? What remains is the troublesome turmoil of individual personalities with narrow personal concerns about their pocket, their belly, 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 is formed in me? Hoffmann was once loved among us, and his story was once translated about how, by a strange accident, the eyes of Mr. Peregrinus Thiss received the power of a microscope, and about what were the results of this quality of his eyes for his concepts of 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 a vile coward or an insidious intriguer, every woman a coquette, all people are liars and selfish, petty and low to the last degree. This terrible story could only be created in the head of a person who has seen enough of what is called in Germany Kleinstadterei **, who has 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 have lost any thought of anything the highest penny preference (which, however, was not yet known at the time of Hoffmann). Remember what conversation becomes in any society, how soon it ceases to talk about public affairs? No matter how clever and noble the interlocutors, if they do not talk about matters of public interest, they begin to gossip or idle talk; malicious vulgarity or dissolute vulgarity, in both cases senseless vulgarity—this is the character inevitably assumed by conversation that moves away from public interests. By the nature of the conversation, you can judge the people who are talking. If even the highest in the development of their concepts people fall into empty and dirty vulgarity when their thought deviates from public interests, then it is easy to figure out what a society must be like living in complete alienation from these interests. Imagine a person who has been brought up by life in such a society: what will be the conclusions from his experiments? what are the results of his observations on people? He understands everything vulgar and petty perfectly, but, apart from this, he does not understand anything, because he has not seen or experienced anything. He could read God knows what beautiful things in books, he could find pleasure in thinking about these beautiful 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 to be served under the name of champagne a wine that has never seen the vineyards of Champagne, but, incidentally, a very good fizzy wine, how do you want me, when I am suddenly served really champagne wine, to be able to say for sure: yes is it really fake anymore? If I say this, I will be fat. My taste senses only that this wine is good, but have I ever drunk a good counterfeit wine? How do I know that this time, too, it was not a counterfeit wine that was brought to me? No, no, I am a connoisseur of fakes, I can distinguish good from bad; but I cannot appreciate genuine wine.

* (We used to love Hoffmann. - We are talking about the German romantic writer E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) and his novel "Lord of the Fleas".)

** (Outback (German).)

We would be happy, we would be noble, if only the unpreparedness of the look, the inexperience of thought prevented us from guessing and appreciating the lofty and great when it comes across to us in life. But no, and our will participates in this gross misunderstanding. Not only concepts have narrowed in me from the vulgar narrow-mindedness in which I live; this character passed into my will: what is the breadth of the view, such is the breadth of decisions; and besides, it is impossible not to get used to finally doing what everyone else does. The contagiousness of laughter, the contagiousness of yawns are not exceptional cases in social physiology—the same contagiousness belongs to all phenomena that are found among the masses. There is someone's fable about how some healthy person got into the realm of the lame and crooked. The fable says that everyone attacked him, why did he have both eyes and both legs intact; the fable lied, because it did not finish everything: the stranger was attacked only at first, and when he settled down in a new place, he screwed up one eye himself and began to limp; it already seemed to him that it was more convenient, or at least more decent, to look and walk, and soon he even forgot that, in fact, he was neither lame nor crooked. If you are a fan of melancholy effects, you can add that when our visitor finally needed to take a firm step and look sharply with both eyes, he could no longer do this: it turned out that the closed eye no longer opened, the twisted leg no longer straightened; the nerves and muscles of the poor deformed joints had lost the power to act in the right way from long coercion.

He who touches the resin will turn black - as a punishment to himself, if he touched it voluntarily, to his own misfortune, if not voluntarily. It is impossible not to be saturated with the drunken smell of someone who lives in a tavern, even if he himself has not drunk a single glass; one cannot but be imbued with the pettiness of the will to one who lives in a society that has no aspirations other than petty worldly calculations. Involuntarily, timidity creeps into my heart at the thought that, perhaps, I will have to make a high decision, boldly take a brave step not along the beaten path of daily exercise. That is why you try to assure yourself that no, the need has not yet come for anything so unusual, until the last fateful minute, you purposely convince yourself that everything that seems to emerge from habitual pettiness is nothing more than seduction. A child who is afraid of beeches closes his eyes and shouts as loudly as possible that there is no beech, that beech is nonsense - you see, he encourages himself with this. We are so smart that we try to convince ourselves that everything we are cowardly is cowardly only because we have no strength for anything lofty - we try to assure ourselves that all this is nonsense, that they only frighten us with this, like a child with a beech but in reality there is nothing like it and never will be.

And if it does? Well, then the same thing will happen to us as in the story of Mr. Turgenev with our Romeo. He, too, did not foresee anything and did not want to foresee; he also screwed up his eyes and backed away, and time passed - he had to bite his elbows, but you can’t get it.

And how short was the time in which both his fate and the fate of Asya were decided - only a few minutes, and a whole life depended on them, and, having missed them, it was already impossible to correct the mistake. As soon as he entered the room, he barely had time to utter a few thoughtless, almost unconscious, reckless words, and everything was already decided: a break forever, and there is no return. We do not regret Asa in the least; it was hard for her to hear the harsh words of refusal, but it was probably for the best for her that a reckless person brought her to a break. If she had remained connected with him, for him, of course, it would have been a great happiness; but we do not think that it would be good for her to live in close relations with such a gentleman. Whoever sympathizes with Asya should rejoice at the difficult, outrageous scene. Sympathizing with Asya, he is absolutely right: he has chosen the subject of his sympathies as a dependent being, a being offended. But although with shame, we must confess that we take part in the fate of our hero. We have no honor to be his relatives; there was even dislike between our families, because his family despised all those close to us *. But we still cannot tear ourselves away from the prejudices that have piled into our heads from false books and lessons by which our youth was brought up and ruined, we cannot tear ourselves away from the petty concepts inspired by the surrounding society; it always seems to us (an empty dream, but still an irresistible dream for us) as if he had rendered some services to our society, as if he were the representative of our enlightenment, as if he were the best among us, as if without him it would be worse for us. The thought develops more and more strongly in us 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 without him it would be better for us to live, but at the present moment we are still not sufficiently accustomed to this idea, we have not completely broken away from the dream on which we were brought up; therefore we still wish well to our hero and his brethren. 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 position; they are not able to act prudently and magnanimously at the same time - 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 still do not want to apply the words of the prophet to them: “They will see and not see, they will hear and not hear, because the sense in these people has become coarsened, and their ears have become deaf and they closed their eyes so as not to see,” no, we still want to consider 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 a 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, not those who know how to figure out their situation in time and take advantage of the benefits that a fleeting hour represents. Against our will, hope is weakening in us every day in the insight and energy of people whom we exhort to understand the importance of the present circumstances and act in accordance with common sense, but at least let them not say that they did not hear prudent advice, which was not explained to them by them. position.

* (... his family despised everyone close to us. - Chernyshevsky allegorically points to the antagonism between the nobility and the raznochintsy-democratic intelligentsia. The pathos of the article lies in the assertion of the idea of a delimitation of forces occurring in the course of the historical process: the "people of the forties" were replaced by the generation of revolutionaries of the sixties, who led the people's liberation movement.)

Between you, gentlemen (we will address these honorable people with a speech), there are quite a lot of literate people; they know how happiness was depicted in ancient mythology: it was presented as a woman with a long plait, blown in front of her by the wind carrying this woman; it is easy to catch her while she flies up to you, but miss one moment - she will fly by, and you would have rushed to catch her in vain: you cannot grab her, left behind. A happy moment is irretrievable. You will not wait until a favorable combination of circumstances repeats, just as that conjunction of the heavenly bodies, which coincides with the present hour, will not be repeated. Do not miss a favorable moment - this is the highest condition of worldly prudence. Happy circumstances exist for each of us, but not everyone knows how to use them, and in this art there is almost the only difference between people whose lives are arranged 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 demand of the time, will you be able to take advantage of the position in which you are now placed - that is the question for you of happiness or unhappiness forever.

What are the ways and rules in order not to miss the happiness offered by circumstances? How 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 guilty all around. Suppose also that my adversary, who is completely right, is so accustomed to the injustices of fate that he already hardly believes in the possibility of waiting for the decision of our lawsuit: it has dragged on for several decades; many times he asked in court when the report would be, 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 still not resolved. Why it dragged on so long, I do not know, I only know that for some reason the chairman of the court favored me (he seemed to think that I was devoted to him with all my heart). But now he received an order to solve the matter without delay. In his friendship, he called me to me and said: “I can’t delay the decision of your process; it cannot end in your favor by judicial procedure, the laws are too clear; you will lose everything; the case will not end for you with the loss of property: by the verdict of our civil court circumstances will come to light 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 do not know, but I think that you will get rid of it too easily if you are sentenced only to deprivation of the rights of the state "Be it said between us, you can expect much worse still. Today is Saturday; on Monday your lawsuit will be reported and decided; I have no power to postpone it further with all my disposition towards you. Do you know what I would advise you? Take advantage of day remaining with you: offer peace to your adversary; he still does not know how urgent the need is, in which I am placed by the order I received; he heard that the lawsuit was decided on Monday, but he heard about its close solution so many times that he lost faith in his hopes ; now he will still agree to an amicable deal, which will be very beneficial for you in terms of money, not to mention the fact that you will get rid of the criminal process with it, acquire the name of a condescending, generous person who, as if he himself felt the voice of conscience and humanity . Try to end the litigation with an amicable deal. I ask you this as your friend."

What am I to do now, let each of you say: will it be wise for me to rush to my opponent to conclude a peace? Or will it be smart to lie on my couch the only day left for me? Or would it be wise to lash out with rude abuse at the judge favoring me, whose friendly forewarning gave me the opportunity to end my litigation with honor and profit?

From this example the reader will see how easy it is in this case to decide what prudence requires.

"Try to reconcile with your adversary until you have reached the court with him, otherwise your adversary will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the executor of sentences, and you will be thrown into prison and will not come out of it until you pay for everything to the last detail. "(Mat., chapter V, verses 25 and 26).

According to I. Turgenev's story "Spring Waters", duration: 2 hours 40 minutes with 1 intermission, premiere October 21, 2011
Ticket price from 100 to 10,000 rubles.

Author - Ivan Turgenev
Idea and musical arrangement - Dmitry Zakharov, Serafima Ogaryova, Ekaterina Smirnova, Artyom Tsukanov
Teacher - Yuri Butorin
Artist - Vladimir Maksimov
Lighting designer - Vladislav Frolov
Costume designer - Anna Belan
Artistic selection of costumes - Valeria Kurochkina
Make-up - Anna Meleshko, Larisa Gerasimchuk, Svetlana Guguchkina, Marina Mikhalochkina, Victoria Starikova
Assistant director - Elena Lukyanchikova
Music teacher - Marina Raku
Speech teacher - Vera Kamyshnikova
Italian teacher - Monica Santoro
Editor - Maria Kozyar

Available subtitles

Upcoming execution dates

A young man carelessly walks through an unfamiliar city, walks without looking back, winds, often turns “in the wrong direction” - but it seems that this does not entail any consequences. Life revolves around him, at first like a colorful carousel, a round dance of theatrical masks, deafens him with multilingual chirping, and there is no strength to stop, to come to his senses. “Here, now life has begun to spin! Yes, and it spun so much that my head was spinning ... ”Dmitry Sanin only manages to exhale.

The Russian man is weak and inert, the Russian man is on a rendez-vous with life, in a situation where his own destiny is being decided, he is not able to make decisions, he is not able to take an independent step. He just goes with the flow, looking around, not looking back, but not trying to see what lies ahead. This is how N. Chernyshevsky formulates in his famous article, by the title of which the play “Pyotr Fomenko's Workshop” is named, the terrible diagnosis that Turgenev makes to Russian society.

The work on Ivan Turgenev's story "Spring Waters" was undertaken by the second generation of interns at the suggestion of Pyotr Naumovich Fomenko. Gradually, from the excerpts shown at the traditional "Evenings of Trial and Error", the performance grew. The director of the production was Evgeny Borisovich Kamenkovich. Working on the performance was, of course, a “difficult experience” for the trainees - not only professional, but also internal, human. Young actors are hooligans and fooling around, they “play theater” from the heart, but this mischief only sets off bitter reflections about a person more strongly. And yet there is such a ringing, contagious youth in this performance - you involuntarily succumb to its charm and want to believe that this young force will be able to somehow preserve itself in the "big water" of life.

Music in the play: Bayrischer Landler (Bavarian Waltz), Yma Sumak Tumpa (Earthquacke), Rene Aubry Dare-dard, A. Alyabiev. "String Quartet No. 1 Es-dur, I. Allegro con spirito", excerpts from G. Donizetti's opera "Love Potion", G. Rossini's "Otello", C. Weber's opera "The Magic Shooter" and G. Purcell's opera "Dido and Aeneas”, romances “Sarafan” (A. Varlamov, N. Tsyganov), “I remember a wonderful moment” (M. Glinka, A. Pushkin), “The night is bright” (N. Shishkin, M. Yazykov), Italian folk songs , Russian folk song "On a dirty week"

ATTENTION! During the performance, performing the creative tasks set by the director and the author's remarks, the actors smoke on stage, and a smoke machine is also used to create various stage effects. Please consider this information when planning your visit to this performance.

In The Russian Man on Rendez-Vous, there are all new faces, there are neither the first nor the second generation of "fomens", and the performance based on Turgenev's "Spring Waters" grew out of the sketches of a new - second in a row - recruitment of a trainee group at the theater. However, both seriously and for a long time, the program printed on durable cardboard and the very first minutes of the performance dispel possible doubts: this is “the same theater”, these are “fomenki”. Their recognizable style, manner, spirit of the game, born from the spirit of music.
[…]
This whole story, which with Turgenev is tied up in Germany, in Frankfurt, from which in a few hours Sanin should already leave for Berlin, is played out at the “fomenki” on their old stage, with that ease, at the same time - with elegance, ingenuity and simplicity, which in the memory of many, of course, the performances of the very first generation of “fomenok” evoke. Ah, not always, as in those verses, spring waters fly by irrevocably. And here - not a mechanical repetition, not an attempt to unlock new locks and other prose with the same keys - no, everyone is alive, and the joy from their game is real. And when you look at the clock in the finale and see that it is already half past eleven, you are left wondering: in our time, in order to spend more than three hours in the theater for so long and without getting bored and waiting already for the denouement to happen! ..
[…]
You catch yourself thinking: “fomenki” know how to play in such a way that you are carried away by history, like a child who suffers when he learns that a fairy tale, against his expectations, does not end with a happy ending. Grigory Zaslavsky, "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" In the play "Workshop" both Turgenev's restless hero and the fateful summer of 1840 for him are seen with sympathetic and understanding eyes. The love intonation of the story, slightly tinged with irony, the exact distance between the author and the audience - all these trademark "skills" of the fomenok actors are presented in the performance.
[…]
It seems that Polozova's words about Sanina became the tuning fork of the production: “But this is lovely! It's a miracle! I already thought that there were no more young people like you in the world. ” Young people who are able to live with love alone, for the sake of it, instantly abandon all other plans and goals, were considered a rarity in Turgenev's time, and now they have completely grown out. Olga Egoshina, Novye Izvestia The performance is literally insisted on the very vital energy that is so lacking in academic theaters. At the play "Russian Man on Rendez-Vous" you can easily imagine how cheerfully the performance was rehearsed, how much they joked, how joyfully they came up with certain tricks.
[…]
It seems that a small stage (the performance is played in the old premises of the "Workshop", but thanks to the artist Vladimir Maksimov, the uncomfortable space is very cleverly folded and unfolded into different scenes) is not enough for the entire invented game. With the first love, Sanin hangs in the air, in the doorway, with the second - he flies on ropes and presses on a narrow bridge hanging directly above the heads of the spectators. It seems that the actors are simply bursting with pranks and that the performance itself wants to take off all the time, like a balloon. Roman Dolzhansky, Kommersant But the story of a 22-year-old Tula landowner who passionately fell in love with an Italian Gemma in Frankfurt, ready to fight a duel because of her, ready to sell his estate and stand at the counter of a confectionery, a story of great love that absurdly collapsed a week later, when Sanina seduced Mary Nikolaevna, a millionaire lady who is bored on the waters and does not know how to restrain herself ... the love story that Sanin could not forget all his life is played with jewelry precision.
Everything came to life: morocco bindings and silver shandals, babbling about Goethe and Garibaldi, early morning in the city garden, a gray mantilla and a pomegranate cross, backhanded by a Catholic to an Orthodox bridegroom: “If I am yours, then your faith is my faith!” Even Pushkin came to life! How can Sanin go to a duel without a couple of stanzas of Onegin?! Elena Dyakova, Novaya Gazeta

A hero on a rendezvous with the only true love in his life (Fyodor Malyshev and Serafima Ogareva)
Photo by Vladimir Lupovsky

Anna Gordeeva. . Pyotr Fomenko's Workshop presented the first premiere of the season ( MN, 27.10.2011).

Maria Sedykh. . Why did two Moscow theaters immediately turn to the old-fashioned Turgenev ( Results, 11/14/2011).

Elena Dyakova. . "Fomenki" and "Satyricon": two premieres as two mindsets ( Novaya Gazeta, 10/26/2011).

Olga Egoshina. . The capital's theaters turned to the yearning heroes of Turgenev ( Novye Izvestiya, 7.11.2011).

Olga Fuchs. . New faces in the "Workshop of Pyotr Fomenko" ( Vedomosti, 11/30/2011).

Grigory Zaslavsky. . "Russian man on rendez-vous" in the Workshop of Pyotr Fomenko ( NG, 12.12.2011).

Roman Dolzhansky. . Performance based on the story "Spring Waters" in the "Workshop of Pyotr Fomenko" ( Kommersant, 12/15/2011).

Russian man on rendez-vous. Workshop of Pyotr Fomenko. Press about the play

MN, October 27, 2011

Anna Gordeeva

Rendezvous with Turgenev

The first premiere of the season was presented at Pyotr Fomenko's Workshop

"A Russian Man at a Rendezvous" is Turgenev's "Spring Waters", retold in the cheerful language of student sketches. The title, of course, was borrowed from Chernyshevsky (and the fact that this was the title of his article about another story by Turgenev seems unprincipled to the authors). A year ago, Pyotr Naumovich Fomenko suggested that the theater's trainees take up Spring Waters - and this performance grew out of a series of local acting works, united into a whole by director Yuri Butorin (Evgeny Kamenkovich became the artistic director of the production).

The sad story of how a 22-year-old poor Russian nobleman fell in love with the daughter of the owner of a confectionery in Germany and quickly betrayed her when he was taken by storm by a married compatriot, is told on stage without that “remembering” intonation that is characteristic of Turgenev's story. Yes, the performance begins with a 52-year-old man finding a cross given to him 30 years ago in a table, and ends with a return to the year 1870, when Sanin travels to Germany to find Gemma again. But in the middle - almost three hours in a row - the year 1840 takes place, and in it everything (the hero, his beloved, the girl's official fiance whom she leaves for the sake of the hero, the Russian seductress and her submissive husband) are young. And this feeling of youth, the brightness of life is broadcast in a series of scenes, each of which is equipped with some kind of cute gag.

If the owner of the confectionery tells the hero about her late husband, then here he is, the husband - a mustachioed physiognomy crawls out above the door and sticks out there motionlessly (sort of like a portrait). If Sanin in Frankfurt examines the sculpture of Ariadne created by Johann Dannecker, then, having heard that he “didn’t like her much,” the sculpture unfolds and slaps the tourist. The artists, who are themselves young and enthusiastic about their profession, master the space of the theater - not only moving around the stage, but also passing over the heads of the audience on a metal structure (a trip to the mountains) and taking off above the stage on the ropes (an excellent episode of Sanin's horse ride and Mrs. Polozova, who “took him into work” - the actors sway above the ground, the instability of such a journey is conveyed, and the precariousness of the hero’s love, which is now being tested). Another important “educational” and brightly theatrical moment of the performance is that the Italians who settled in Germany speak with classical southern expression, periodically switching to their native language, the Germans retain their intonations and return to Russian. All in all a polish of professional craftsmanship and a source of wonderful comedy.

Each of the artists (except Fedor Malyshev, who was given the role of Sanin) plays several roles. Ekaterina Smirnova becomes both Gemma's mother, and Mrs. Polozova, Serafima Ogareva - and Gemma, and the very Ariadne who was indignant at the spectator who did not appreciate her, Ambartsum Kabanyan - and the self-satisfied fiancé of the heroine, and the portrait of her dad. The transformations are instantaneous, and one can only imagine what a thrill the actors experienced at the moment when all this was thought up at rehearsals, when ideas flew like fireworks - how now energy flies into the hall, which the artists have not yet learned how to save. Have not learned to want to save - so more precisely.

And the ending of the story - when the already 52-year-old hero begins to look for youthful love and finds out that she has been married in America for a long time, quite happy with her husband and five children - is done simply and very accurately. Gemma “writes” a letter to Sanin about this (the actress stands and says the text aloud), but she is interrupted all the time: a Christmas tree falls into the circle of light, garlands fall, and the male bass “behind the scenes” addresses her in English: “Mom, where (do not disassemble further). An elementary image of a happy home, a fulfilled life - what was lost by Sanin. A quiet lyrical note at the end of a full-blown performance. The season in the "Workshop" began very nicely.

Results, November 14, 2011

Maria Sedykh

Classic game

Why two Moscow theaters at once turned to the old-fashioned Turgenev

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, despite a very rich dramatic and prose heritage, has never been a repertoire author. Even in the last century, he seemed to be an outdated and patriarchal author. And the current century, it would seem, has forever thrown him off the ship of modernity. Well, just like in the sad old joke about a drunk who complains that Turgenev wrote Mumu, but a monument to Pushkin was erected. Great directors neglected him. And indeed, Chekhov, who is listed among the heirs, turned out to be closer with his rigidity. Dostoevsky, who devoted many pages to poor people, is deeper and more tragic. Ostrovsky's life writing is more picturesque.

In fairness, we note that even during his lifetime, Turgenev considered himself obsolete and put up with lack of demand without anguish and moaning, moreover, he was even sincerely surprised when performances based on his plays aroused the delight of the public. As a rule, success was brought not by performances, but by brilliant beneficiaries. And this season, two theaters turned to Turgenev's legacy at once. The Mayakovsky Theater opened its, in all respects, new season with "A Month in the Village", "P. Fomenko's Workshop" - a staging of "Spring Waters". We note in brackets that interest in the premiere of "The Month ..." was fueled by another scandal: the artistic director of "Mayakovka" Mindaugas Karbauskis refused to trust the director. Fomenkovtsy christened the performance "Russian Man on Rendez-Vous", borrowing the title from Chernyshevsky, who dedicated the famous article to Turgenev's story "Asya". A reference to a very unfashionable social-democratic critic can only be afforded by the Fomenkovites, who are not without reason confident in the loyalty of their viewer, who cannot be scared off by anything. But, to be honest, the title somewhat disorients the audience with its pretensions to generalizations and social poignancy. One has only to open an article that has not been read by anyone for a long time after the performance, and one can easily be convinced that its first lines are much more relevant to the production than all thoughtful discussions about the mentality of a Russian person: “Stories in a businesslike, incriminating way leave a very difficult impression on the reader; therefore, recognizing their usefulness and nobility, I am not entirely satisfied that our literature has taken such an exclusively gloomy direction. The performances of the “P. Fomenko Workshop” are always strong because they oppose a gloomy direction in our life today.

However, in our audience memory, there was still one production based on Turgenev, which became, if not a classic, then a standard. This is "A Month in the Village" by Anatoly Efros. Then, in 1977, it also seemed strange to many why the master of poignantly modern performances suddenly turned to the pastoral. Why do we, languishing under the burden of problems, need a gentleman's gift set, which always relies on this author's load: psychological lace, Turgenev's girls, extra people ... We find the answer in the director's notes "Rehearsal - my love." Turgenev begins to “sound” when people of the theater get tired of “storm and onslaught”, from endless irritation and loud overthrows, when in the nervousness of the recent theatrical past they already discern “a heightened susceptibility of a poor nature”, when the maturity of the spirit comes, there is a need for stability, objectivity , restlessness. It seems that the mentality of the stagnant 77th year of the last century and the 11th year of the current one is somewhat similar. In any case, feeling tired. And then we recall the statement of another classic director - Nemirovich-Danchenko, who considered "A Month in the Country" an excellent material for practicing artistic subtlety.

Both Moscow premieres are exercises in theatricality, in each case in its own way. The only difference is that the Mayakovites laughingly part with their past, and the Fomenkovites smilingly swear allegiance to themselves. And if there is something that unites both performances, it is the charming, truly French sense of humor discovered in Turgenev, almost unnoticed by either our theater or our cinema. Both theaters ignored the social status of the characters. Both directors and artists absolutely do not care who they are - landowners, petty bourgeois, philistines or servants. Only their sensory world, the ability or inability to love is interesting. Both here and there we are talking about the properties of passion, to which not eight lines are devoted, but two full-fledged acts each.

The artists of the performances are not at all concerned with the signs of the times, they turn both the large stage of the Mayakovsky Theater (Tatiana Vidanova) and the small one in the old hall of the "Workshop" (Vladimir Maksimov) into a space for the game. But both theaters did not forget that the great Russian writer loved his homeland from afar for most of his life and was a European, therefore they play with foreign languages cheerfully and naturally.

But the main game, of course, is around passions, and there are so many people, so many shades of feelings. In "A Month in the Country" everything revolves around Natalia Petrovna, who is delightfully played by Evgenia Simonova. I don’t even know what is more in her performance - female experience or acting insatiability. As diverse as her relationship with her husband, old friend, young lover and young rival-pupil, so are her circus-variety steps reckless and elegant. The performance staged by Alexander Ogarev seems to me a cleansing one for this theater, which is mired in the theatrical routine. It has the very thing that Natalya Petrovna says: "Lace is a wonderful thing, but a sip of fresh water on a hot day is much better." Clean and modern. And not at all because the heroes fly on lounges, appear from a huge suitcase, do synchronized swimming, getting out of the water dry, and “dance” to the tune of clown servants, but because the psychological reactions, the manner of behaving in all characters without exception modern. Moreover, they do not inject, do not sniff cocaine, are not seen in non-traditional orientation and do not even swear. Therefore, the debutante Polina Lazareva (Verochka) is not a muslin Turgenev young lady, but a girl to match her teacher. The palette of colors used by director Yuri Butorin (stage director Yevgeny Kamenkovich) is softer and, probably, closer to Turgenev. "Spring Waters" is played not by the permanent actors of the troupe, but by trainees who did not deceive the expectations of the admirers of the "Workshop", brought up on Tolstoy's theater performances. And although the Yasnaya Polyana hermit laughed at the Lutovin Frenchman: “He plays with life,” on this stage they are authors from the same reserve. It may be unbearably stuffy in this small hall, but fresh air blows from the stage, as always. With this "as always" the Fomenkovites even began to be reproached. Thank God, they do not pay attention to these reproaches, but continue to open with their key both authors and actors. This time, Ekaterina Smirnova, who performed several roles in the play, but the main one was Madame Polozova. Most likely, these Turgenev performances will not become the main hits of the season, but, of course, they will enrich the sensual (not sensitive) experience of the audience.

Novaya Gazeta, October 26, 2011

Elena Dyakova

Spring waters during the plague

"Fomenki" and "Satyricon": two premieres as two mindsets

In the "Workshop of Pyotr Fomenko" Yevgeny Kamenkovich staged Turgenev's "Spring Waters", almost forgotten by heroic modernity. The performance is named after Chernyshevsky's article "The Russian Man on Rendez-Vous". In "Satyricon" Viktor Ryzhakov staged "Pushkin's Little Tragedies". Plays Konstantin Raikin, surrounded by young actors. The performance has an epigraph from Brodsky's Nobel speech: "In a real tragedy, it is not the hero who perishes, but the choir."

Premieres coincided in time by accident. But they have two strategies. Two ways of a Russian person to hold on to a rendezvous with life.

In Ryzhakov's Satyricon, boys and girls in tattered gray replace each other at the microphone. They endlessly repeat, as if passing the test according to the script: “Oh, poverty, poverty! How she humiliates our hearts!” Or, for example: "But you know, this black cart has the right to go everywhere." And all without meaning. Including the most diamond stanzas.

One happened. Mozart and Salieri are played by Konstantin Raikin and Odin Byron, a native of Minnesota, a graduate of the Moscow Art Theater School in 2009.

The reader of Little Tragedies usually thinks: Mozart is young, Salieri is old. In the "Satyricon" Mozart is menacingly, slovenly, hopelessly gray-haired, and the polished Salieri is very young. The victim is wearing a tattered tweed jacket with tkemali spots. The killer follows an office dress code. His "What's the use if Mozart lives" with a slight English accent is so reasonable, as if talking about a corporate takeover with the closure of a couple of factories. Yes, and the entire text of Salieri sits on a young yuppie, like a glove.

And there is a lot of psychological truth in this distribution of roles today.

Mozart at Ryzhakov's is tired of living. He knows his worth and knows that his time is over. Uncomfortable, loud, completely out of place "in the world of measures" - in the final Mozart - Raikin is similar to the line of David Samoilov: "Arap Hannibal is the negative of the aged Pushkin." In the brilliance of dark mirrors, in the best outfit - a red camisole, gold shoes, sleeves in lace - he makes faces at the audience, perfectly understanding Salieri. With formidable sarcasm, the genius manipulates the "young wolf". Itself leads to the "cup of friendship."

Other noise on the stage can be explained only through a hypothesis: the most worthy director Ryzhakov in the most worthy theater "Satyricon" staged not Pushkin, but precisely the epigraph chosen by him. He illustrated the conviction - humanly understandable, common to many today: the choir for which A.S.P. was the main character, died long ago. Whatever you call this choir (at least the Russian intelligentsia), the plague has mowed it down, the fashionable disease has finished it off.

Therefore, no one can read either the "Song of Mary" or the "Song of Walsingam" in a way. Therefore, Mozart and Salieri are greeted with the same fan howl: after all, both are stars.

Black-and-white computer graphics are dancing on the background: some kind of Uryupinsk City is collapsing into nowhere with all its skyscrapers, then a gilded frame pops up, in sovereign curlicues of gypsum laurels. It's empty. Mozart, drink some poison...

Hmmm... And three days later, a new generation of "fomenok" played Turgenev.

… At first the viewer is vigilant: well, the classic “fomenki”, the Grand style of the “Workshop”, already a little ossified in its charm. But after half an hour, the precision and tenderness of the performance win.

Are there any overkill here? I don’t know… But the story of a 22-year-old Tula landowner who fell passionately in love with the Italian Gemma in Frankfurt, was ready to fight a duel because of her, was ready to sell his estate and stand at the counter of a confectionery, a story of great love that absurdly collapsed a week later, when Sanina was seduced by a bored woman on the waters , the millionaire mistress Mary Nikolaevna, who does not know how to hold back ... the love story that Sanin could not forget all his life is played with jewelry precision.

Everything came to life: morocco bindings and silver shandals, babbling about Goethe and Garibaldi, early morning in the city garden, a gray mantilla and a pomegranate cross, backhanded by a Catholic to an Orthodox bridegroom: “If I am yours, then your faith is my faith!” Even Pushkin came to life! How can Sanin go to a duel without a couple of stanzas of Onegin?! And how does Fedor Malyshev, a 2011 RATI graduate, read these stanzas ...

In "Fomenko's Workshop", as always, it seems: first people are brought up here - and only then actors. It would be impossible to play this ancient ardor without understanding it.

They are all good: gentle Gemma (Serafima Ogareva) and greedy for life Mar Nikolaevna (Ekaterina Smirnova), capable of such a lion's tongue to tighten on the promenade "In the muddy week-barely Rus-alks were sitting ..." that the decorous public of Wiesbaden almost falls off the steep in Main. And the polished businessman groom Klyuber (Hambartsum Kabanyan). And the husband of Mary Nikolaevna (Dmitry Zakharov), who is sane to the point of cynicism, is also (in other scenes) the exalted old actor Pantaleone.

And all these faces are new to the viewer. All the actors of "Spring Waters" in the "Workshop of Pyotr Fomenko" are graduates of the Russian Academy of Theater Arts in 2010 (workshop of Oleg Kudryashov). Or - 2011 RATI graduates (workshop of Evgeny Kamenkovich and Dmitry Krymov).

...While one theater revels in the thought of the complete death of the choir, which for more than two centuries has voiced the best in the life of Russia, another theater is showing another half a dozen new, finely carved faces. Half a dozen new, fully staged voices from this same weeping-inveterate choir.

The holy place is empty, the school is deafly locked? The hypothesis, as Woland said, is solid and witty. But those who adhere to the opposite, no less solid and witty hypothesis, school their Turgenev girls and Pushkinian duelists. Extracting them from boys and girls born in the 1980s. Where else?

Novye Izvestia, November 7, 2011

Olga Egoshina

extra people

Capital theaters turned to the yearning heroes of Turgenev

It has long been noted that the demand for certain authors is directly proportional to their consonance with the moment being experienced. So perestroika brought back Ostrovsky's comedies to the posters, giving relevance to his poor brides, crazy money, debts of honor, suddenly rich nouveaux riches. But the opposite is also true. Theaters often choose authors contrary to the spirit of today. Turgenev's heroes, with their feelings as tender as flowers, with their maniacal concentration on the slightest changes in their spiritual life, are so untimely that the desire of theaters to show these types that have fallen out of life is understandable. Almost simultaneously in Mayakovka they showed "A Month in the Village", and in the "Workshop of P. Fomenko" they turned to "Spring Waters".

The name of the Fomenok performance “Russian Man on Rendez-Vous” was given by Chernyshevsky’s article devoted to several stories and novels by Turgenev, primarily “Ase” (“Spring Waters” was not included in the analysis, since they were written many years later). Fortunately, in their production, the new trainees of the Workshop (recent graduates of the course of Dmitry Krymov - Yevgeny Kamenkovich) did not take as a basis the point of view of the famous critic, who considered Turgenev's heroes the embodiment of mental flabbiness. “Well, Nikolai Gavrilovich, you, of course, are a snake, yes, thank God, a simple snake, but Dobrolyubov is a spectacled snake,” Turgenev joked sadly, while the two “snakes”, united, successfully survived him from Sovremennik.

In the play "The Workshop" both the restless hero of Turgenev and the fatal summer of 1840 for him are seen with sympathetic and understanding eyes. The love intonation of the story, slightly tinted with irony, the exact distance between the author and the audience - all these signature "skills" of the fomenok actors are presented in the performance. How musical skills are presented (heroes now and then sing their soul in a song) and linguistic skills (heroes easily equip their speech with German, Italian, Ukrainian language). Those who state that “these are just old fomens” are right, and those who shrug their shoulders in disappointment are wrong. The ability to weave stage lace is a rare skill (to say the least, unique), and it's great that it is passed on from older to younger. How is the ability to be light, contagious on the stage, to maintain an easy distance between yourself and the role, no man's territory. To maintain the well-being of the 3rd person in relation to his hero: “At six o'clock in the evening, tired, with dusty feet, Sanin found himself in one of the most insignificant streets of Frankfurt. He could not forget this street for a long time later. Fyodor Malyshev (Sanin) sings out the phrases of the introduction with a light patter, slightly raising their shoulders, as if inviting them to be amazed at such impressionability of their hero.

Actors play almost the same age. Sanin is 22 years old, Gemma is 17, Marya Nikolaevna Polozova is 26. But the performers are not looking for what brings them closer to Turgenev's heroes, but what separates them. It seems that Polozova's words about Sanina became the tuning fork of the production: “But this is lovely! It's a miracle! I already thought that there were no more young people like you in the world. ” Young people who are able to live with love alone, for the sake of it, instantly abandon all other plans and goals, were considered a rarity in Turgenev's time, and now they have completely grown out.

Maybe that's why young actors are so enthusiastic about recreating all the nuances of a long history. How Sanin's heart flared up when he looked at Gemma (Seraphim Ogarev), and how suddenly he wanted to chat and sing. And before he had time to look back, in two days the groom was already ready to sell his only estate and live forever next to the confectionery in Frankfurt. And just as quickly, in two days, he falls victim to skillful coquetry - and not only parted with his adored bride, but all his life throws at the feet of a woman with an amazing body, ardent character and melodious Moscow speech.

Ekaterina Smirnova plays Marya Polozova with such a brio that the heat from the sensual antics of the farmer's daughter reaches the very last row of the auditorium. Change of intonation, fast movements, fire in every vein, like that of a stagnant horse - all this is conveyed easily, boldly and gracefully. And the unexpected low notes of the voice, the sung musical phrase will suddenly remind you of the fatal love of the author himself - the seductive Pauline Viardot (“I feel the good weight of your beloved hand on my head and am so happy with the consciousness that I belong to you that I could be destroyed in incessant worship,” - lines from Turgenev's letter to the main woman of his life).

However, the theater is not at all interested in the fact that Spring Waters is autobiographical. The performance is generally free from any conceptual overloads. However, this impetuous and joyful performance makes you think about things that are not at all joyful: about the impoverishment of life, from which such Dmitry Sanina and Marya Polozkova left. The fact that "superfluous people" (the definition given by the author himself) turned out to be so irreplaceable. The fact that it turns out to be "Turgenev's youth" is a concept as real as the Turgenev's girls. Well, finally, about the fact that it is much more difficult to pass the exam for "rendez-vous" than in any duel or debate.

Vedomosti, November 30, 2011

Olga Fuchs

What is great for a Russian

New faces in the "Workshop of Pyotr Fomenko"

The Pyotr Fomenko Workshop staged the performance “Russian Man on Rendez-Vous” (staged by Yuri Butorin under the direction of Evgeny Kamenkovich). The faces in it are new, and the techniques have long been familiar.

Chernyshevsky placed the heading "Russian Man on Rendez-Vous" above "Reflections on Reading Mr. Turgenev's Asya." The trainees of the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop borrowed this name for the dramatization of "Spring Waters", written later by "Asia": they probably just like it better.

The faces are all new (and came from different masters: some from the course of Oleg Kudryashov, others from Yevgeny Kamenkovich and Dmitry Krymov), and the generic signs of the "Workshop" are right there. Whispers, light breathing, trills of a nightingale (more precisely, a finch performed by Dmitry Zakharov), plucking of guitar strings, a fresh breeze of a piano passage, scrupulous work with intonations and accents from almost all of Europe (Serafima Ogareva was especially successful in this: she imitates an Italian in Russian, speaking German, but breaking into her native Italian in a fit of emotion). A few circus tricks and, of course, the famous psychological lace: “fomenki” of any convocation can skillfully weave them, but they will never get tangled in them themselves, they will accurately indicate the distance between themselves and the stage “needlework”. They do not try to bring their own experience into the role (although they play peers), but delicately emphasize: we, nothing can be done, others.

This handmade work is also visible in the scenography. In an underlined rejection of technical innovations, super-expensive machinery. Portals and columns are moved manually. Under the mountain steeps, for example, the crossbars above the heads of the spectators are adapted.

The prose text is divided into roles and organized around the main character, the young Russian nobleman Dmitry Sanin: Fyodor Malyshev in this role is light and charming. The rest of the actors get several opposite characters - a technique as theatrical as it is pedagogical: it requires the accuracy of impersonation, actor's flexibility, and has already been tested more than once within the walls of the "Workshop".

This theater does not like didactics, but prefers the romantic ideal to everyday life: unlike today's tourist, a Russian abroad of the 19th century. - a tuning fork of nobility and dignity, and its main sin is hypertrophied sensuality. It seems that for a reminder of this almost lost human and acting breed, the public comes to the Fomenko Workshop.

NG , December 12, 2011

Grigory Zaslavsky

Not like in a fairy tale

"Russian man on rendez-vous" in the Workshop of Pyotr Fomenko

In the December playbill of the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop, the recent premiere based on Turgenev will be played four more times, in January - five more performances. Here it is, probably, an additional advantage of the trainees, who have not yet been sorted out by serials and films: they are happy to indulge in the joy of theatrical play, playing “fomenok”. And they themselves enjoy, and the public - joy.

In The Russian Man on Rendez-Vous, there are all new faces, there are neither the first nor the second generation of “fomens”, and the performance based on Turgenev’s “Spring Waters” grew out of the sketches of the new – second in a row – recruitment of a trainee group at the theater. However, both seriously and for a long time, the printed program on a durable cardboard and the very first minutes of the performance dispel possible doubts: this is “the same theater”, these are “fomenki”. Their recognizable style, manner, spirit of the game, born from the spirit of music. "Merry years, happy days - they rushed like spring waters ..." - the epigraph of Turgenev's story. There is a lot of music, very different, in the performance, and, contrary to what often happens in other theaters (but not here!), - all very opportunely, she herself is one among the other heroes of the performance, just as frivolous, then suddenly - sad , then again - inspired and ready to carry away on the wings of love. Alyabyev, an excerpt from Donizetti's "Love Potion", from Weber's "Free Arrow", from Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas", "I Remember a Wonderful Moment" - Glinka's romance to Pushkin's poems, Italian folk songs ... Something - German, "their ". It was impossible to do without Pushkin: Turgenev also conducts a dialogue with Pushkin, and keeps returning to Pushkin, appealing to him: “There is no happiness in the world ...”, even Pushkin expertly asserted. Something has to happen." Glinka's romance is also sung in "Spring Waters".

Turgenev has a sad story. The hero, sorting through some old papers, suddenly stumbles upon a pomegranate cross, and he, as in another case, closer in time to ours, a blue cup, drags along a long story. Several decades ago, not afraid of a duel and death itself, he, Dmitri Pavlovich Sanin, betrayed this sudden strong feeling, and even somehow stupidly, senselessly betrayed, if only betrayal can be imagined as reasonable and having a deep meaning.

This whole story, which with Turgenev is tied up in Germany, in Frankfurt, from which in a few hours Sanin should already leave for Berlin, is played out at the “fomenki” on their old stage, with that ease, at the same time - with grace, ingenuity and simplicity, which in the memory of many, of course, the performances of the very first generation of “fomenok” evoke. Ah, not always, as in those verses, spring waters fly by irrevocably. And here - not a mechanical repetition, not an attempt to unlock new locks and other prose with the same keys - no, everyone is alive, and the joy from their game is real. And when you look at the clock in the finale and see that it is already half past eleven, you are left wondering: in our time, in order to spend more than three hours in the theater for so long and without getting bored and waiting already for the denouement to happen! ..

Evgeny Kamenkovich is called the director of the production, the idea and musical arrangement belong to a group of trainees who now play themselves, that is, they tried for themselves. Not in vain. Prose is easily melted into direct speech, and the story “from the author”, “remarks” do not interfere with a deep and detailed living of what is happening, the “one-touch” game does not prevent you from suddenly “dive” into the thick of what is happening and the events described, so that in the next moment - emerge and for some time - to slide on the surface of the European adventure of the Russian hero-traveler.

You catch yourself thinking: “fomenki” know how to play in such a way that you are carried away by history, like a child who suffers when he learns that a fairy tale, against his expectations, does not end with a happy ending. So it is with "Spring Waters": how is it? Why does he abandon this beautiful Italian who believed him, was ready to sell his estate, and so sincerely - so sincerely Fedor Malyshev (Sanin) plays him, it is impossible not to believe him. He went to the duel, he was not afraid. Although he was perplexed: “He fell asleep only in the morning. Instantly, like that whirlwind, love flew over him. A stupid duel ahead! “And suddenly he will be killed or mutilated?” However, it's coming! And suddenly - confused, destroyed by another passion for the wife of his school friend Polozov (Ekaterina Smirnova). Here is a short digression from the plot. Looking at young actors, you see that in several cases the roles are given not only for growth, but with an anticipation of the second and third winds that have not yet opened, forces that are still probably dormant in young talents. So it is clear that in Smirnova these possibilities of the fatal heroine most likely exist. And the reflective Sanin is already what Turgenev's story needs. Many have, as is customary in such prose arrangements, to play two or more roles. Ambartsum Kabanyan has just been Mr. Kluber, and in a duel it’s hard not to recognize him under the hood and sidelocks of a local doctor, who is used to earning his money on duels and other semi-legal “operations”. As in the Italian comedy of masks, young actors easily change roles, running behind the screen-door for a moment, on the other hand they come out in a new guise, changing both their name and plasticity. Dmitry Zakharov - that's just Pantaleone, a servant in an Italian confectionery, and now - the head of the station and, for a second, - Goethe ... And Smirnova, before entering her main role - Polozova, manages to play Gemma's mother, sincere, ingenuous, impulsive and, of course, beauties (Serafima Ogareva). So, about the fairy tale. Suddenly you catch yourself at the performance of "Fomenok" on the most childlike feeling: how is it, why?

But in Turgenev's life, too, everything happens differently than in a fairy tale with a happy ending, although, letting Sanin go under the curtain on a new distant journey, Turgenev gives him forgiveness: Gemma, who lives out her happy life in New York, finds something to say thank you for to his Russian friend. However, even Turgenev is not clear: at the end of his life, but it is quite clear that these 52 years of his are already the end, he has neither strength nor feelings, he sits and “already taught by experience, after so many years, everything is not able to was to understand how he could leave Gemma, so dearly and passionately loved by him, for a woman whom he did not love at all? .. ”I would not have left.

Kommersant, December 15, 2011

Russian man on deja vu

Performance based on the story "Spring Waters" in the "Workshop of Pyotr Fomenko"

Theater "Workshop of Peter Fomenko" played the premiere of the play "Russian man on rendez-vous" based on Turgenev's "Spring Waters". Under the direction of Yevgeny Kamenkovich, the production was staged by a young director, Yuri Butorin, and the performance is also performed by very young artists - workshop trainees. By ROMAN DOLZHANSKY.

When the classics are staged, the age of the characters rarely coincides with the age of the performers: experienced artists often have to get younger, beginners - to imitate life experience. About their years - twenty-two - the main characters of the play, staged according to Turgenev's story "Spring Waters", seem to speak without any pressure, but the numbers sound especially loud, because the studio members themselves are hardly older. The performance is literally insisted on the very vital energy that is so lacking in academic theaters. At the play "Russian Man on Rendez-Vous" you can easily imagine how cheerfully they rehearsed the performance, how much they joked, how joyfully they came up with certain tricks - there were probably more, too many, and only the hand of the master, director and teacher Evgeny Kamenkovich brought in the play in the required order.

As the name of the performance, the studio took the title of a well-known article by Chernyshevsky, born from a furious publicist, however, after reading a completely different story by Turgenev. However, young actors have nothing to do with Chernyshevsky's social pathos. They don’t care much about the important circumstance that all Spring Waters are memoirs of an elderly man who recalls how thirty years ago, traveling around Europe, he fell in love with a girl, the daughter of an Italian confectioner, but then, trying to get money for a wedding , was carried away by another, the wife of his friend, and remembered that love only now, realizing that he himself was at a broken trough. In Turgenev's story, the sadness of withering is mixed with the tension of forgotten feelings - with those very "spring waters". In the play "Fomenko's Workshop" there are no spring waters, no sadness, but there is the joy of stage play.

The transformation of an aging hero into a young one is just the first of a cute gaming metamorphosis. The youth tries not to miss anything, every bast into a line, or rather, every second line of Turgenev is transformed into some kind of stage "bast". Both the statue, which Sanin sees, and Goethe, whose house he enters, come to life. And the Italian family he gets into turns into an inexhaustible storehouse for gags - they speak in unison, quarrel deliciously, slam doors, enjoy the Italian language. Other characters "enjoy" already the German language. Yes, they even enjoy the duel scene, to say nothing of the episode when Sanin and his new hobby, Maria Polozova, go to the theater. Everyone, except Fedor Malyshev (Sanin), plays several roles, changing their appearance with pleasure, however, not so much as to remain unrecognized.

It seems that a small stage (the performance is played in the old premises of the "Workshop", but thanks to the artist Vladimir Maksimov, the uncomfortable space is very cleverly folded and unfolded into different scenes) is not enough for the entire invented game. With the first love, Sanin hangs in the air, in the doorway, with the second - he flies on ropes and presses on a narrow bridge hanging directly above the heads of the spectators. It seems that the actors are simply bursting with pranks and that the performance itself wants to take off all the time, like a balloon. It is not worth talking for a long time about the fact that the "Fomenko Workshop" has its own, special style - pretty and charming, reminiscent of a romantic walk through the autumn forest with leaves rustling underfoot. For some of the spectators, this style has already become pretty boring and seems to have exhausted itself, others will give up all other theatrical joys in the world for it - they come to the "Workshop" to take a break from dangers and surprises. It is important that the next "rendezvous" will not deceive their expectations.

Popular in category: