home › Tires and wheels › Integrated paired lesson in Russian language and literature “Analysis of the episode “Rostov's loss at cards” - an essay-reasoning in the USE format. The main sums in Russian literature at the rate of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation Analysis of the meaning of the duel

Integrated paired lesson in Russian language and literature “Analysis of the episode “Rostov's loss at cards” - an essay-reasoning in the USE format. The main sums in Russian literature at the rate of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation Analysis of the meaning of the duel

A.S. Pushkin "The Captain's Daughter"

1773 - 15 rubles | 2015 - 140 000 rubles

Remember Savelich from The Captain's Daughter: it was he who valued the hare sheepskin coat, presented in 1773 by Petrusha Grinev to the robber Pugachev, at 15 rubles. Savelich is a serf serf who simultaneously works as a nanny, security guard, quartermaster, and accountant under Petrush. For him, he was a real economist.

As Grinev himself writes, Savelich was “a protector of money, underwear, and my deeds” (here Pushkin quotes Petrusha’s contemporary, Fonvizin). From the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 21st century, the idea of how long clothes should last has changed dramatically. The hare sheepskin coat of that time, with proper storage and use, served for 20 and 30 years, the uniform - 10 years or more. In any case, it is not a big lie to say that clothes were worn then about ten times longer than they are now.

In the expenses of modern Muscovites (and Grinev, undoubtedly, can navigate the cost of clothing for residents of the capital - although he is a provincial, he is not at all poor) clothing is about 10-15% of expenses, or about 100 thousand modern rubles a year. Now Grinev would have spent about 1 million rubles on everything lost. (you need to buy 10 times more), and a hare sheepskin coat, based on this, would be the equivalent of 140 thousand rubles. And indeed - an expensive gift for a tramp.

Hermann win

A.S. Pushkin "The Queen of Spades"

OK. 1830 - 396,000 rubles | 2015 - 2 500 000 000 rubles

For some reason, it is customary to rank Hermann among the circle of small people who are all completely poor, but Pushkin's joke about the small capital that Hermann inherited from his father, a Russified German, is nothing more than a joke.

Having received from the ghost of the old woman an indication of three correct cards, Hermann in the first game with Chekalinsky puts on the card, in this case a three, a "bank note" - 47 thousand rubles. Obviously, it was not a bill with an incredible denomination, but something like a certificate from the bank on the state of the account. The non-circularity of the sum of the first day of the game is a clear indication that Hermann is putting all his "little capital" at stake.

That is, Hermann is anyone, but not a poor man. Yes, and they would not let the poor man play either in the horse guard barracks, or in the brand new, brand new, salon of the millionaire Chekalinsky - the owner of the house did not have a question about who this Hermann was, Hermann was asked not to stand on ceremony.

On the seven, the hero wins 96 thousand rubles, and if the Pushkin hero did not pull back (dozens of texts have been written about this word of the “Queen of Spades”), his capital on the third night would have been 396 thousand rubles.

From the time of the Middle Ages to the time of Pushkin, the usual interest on capital fell from 10-11% per annum to 4-5%: Hermann, had he given up the idea of sacrificing the necessary in the hope of acquiring the superfluous, he could spend about 2 thousand rubles of income received on capital per year, without even indulging in the risks of commercial ventures. Hermann's dream is to have 15-20 thousand rubles a year: tenths and hundredths of a percent of the population of the Russian Empire could boast of such fortunes.

Today it is not difficult for us to understand Hermann: he wants from a simply rich man who inherited some miserable $4-5 million in a bank to have $40 million, having won it from the multimillionaire Chekalinsky. Or, if we count in rubles, 2.5 billion rubles. Chekalinsky, by the way, was afraid of losing to Hermann on the third day, but if Hermann had won, he certainly would not have gone crazy.

But let's forget for a second about Hermann's crazy dreams, remember his real salary and career. Pushkin says nothing about them; we know, however, that he is an engineer. In his time, this meant - a military engineer, most likely a graduate of the Military Engineering School in St. Petersburg; the annual graduation in those years - no more than 50 officers a year, a rare profession. The issue of a great career for Hermann is just a matter of time. Although in Nikolaev Russia they no longer favor villages, as under Catherine, 20 years after 1830, becoming a general for a military builder with an education and increasing capital, if not ten, but two or three times, is more than usual. Yes, and in modern Russia - too: military construction, the system of Spetsstroy, did not become less profitable: in the 19th century they built bridges, in the 21st - the Vostochny cosmodrome, and no one was left behind. So Hermann would have had his $10 million anyway.

Lefty's fee for work on a flea

N.S. Leskov "Lefty"

1826 - 100 rubles | 2015 - 800 000 rubles

In fact, the Tula oblique Lefty is an engineer at a defense enterprise. The fate of the Russian military-industrial complex did not bother Russian literature, at least before the invention of socialist realism, and Nikolai Leskov did not really think about how much the defense industry costs the Russian budget. But the story created is very relevant to this day.

So, the plot is this. A young employee of a defense enterprise in the city of Tula receives an important task from allies from the group of forces in the North Caucasus: to demonstrate to the top state-party leadership the superiority of domestic technologies in the defense industry over Western ones. The problem is brilliantly solved, and the engineer is sent to the UK for further training. Lefty does not show much interest in British industry (although he notes something important), and on the way back he generally falls into a binge.

It is known that Ataman Platov gave the left-hander 100 rubles for horseshoes attached to this nymphosoria in the Russian arms capital. Therefore, it is interesting how Lefty felt in London with such capital. 100 rubles is about 16 British pounds of that time, that is, the wages of the poorest Britons (more than 50% of the country's population) for 7-8 months. So despite the fact that Albion was then about three times richer than Russia, Lefty in London, drinking with a half-skipper, must have felt like a completely solvent drunkard by world standards.

And what would 100 rubles be for Lefty in Russia? There is no qualitative data on how many workers, and even more so engineers, were in Russia at that time (probably about 150-200 thousand - and 4-5 thousand engineers for the whole country), but, unlike Britain, they income from the peasants did not differ. 100 rubles would have allowed Lefty, if not for his London spree, not to work at home for 3-4 years, keeping the usual expenses.

In terms of the average salary in Tula in 2014 - about 25 thousand rubles - Levsha received about 800 thousand rubles from Platov for shoeing a flea. current rubles.

Bribe to Khlestakov from Gorodnichiy

N.V. Gogol "Inspector"

1831 - 200 rubles | 2015 - 200 000 rubles

The district center is the center of Russian life, and the city run by Anton Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky is the district center. Traditionally in Russia, the status of the city is overestimated, in which Khlestakov finds himself without money in a hotel, but the county in the current sense is a municipal district or district, not a region.

If you understand this, then many things fall into place. In district centers that know how to live in peace with the regional authorities, but are afraid of everything from the federal level to the point of panic, the appearance of a person who is familiar with the heads of departments of the Ministry of Finance, assistant auditors of the Accounts Chamber, and ordinary employees of the Prosecutor General's Office is always a plague on the horizon. But what if he is really an investigator of the Investigative Committee or an employee of the internal policy department of the Presidential Administration? After all, we will all sit down - the Russian Post, the Ministry of Emergencies, and social security.

Therefore, when Khlestakov (now he would, of course, hint at serving in the FSB or the FSO - so the stakes are higher) asks Anton Antonovich for a loan for the first time, he can only breathe a sigh of relief. 200 rubles in banknotes (four times less than in silver) - is this really a big bribe? The food minimum in Russia was then provided with an income of 1.5-2 rubles of silver per month: if we consider this minimum for the regions of the Russian Federation now equal to 7-8 thousand rubles. (this is usually the case), then Khlestakov, who spent money on the road, immediately received a loan for petty expenses of the current 200 thousand rubles.

For people who fictitiously issue building materials for the construction of a city bridge for 20 thousand rubles (now it is 15-20 million rubles), this is, in essence, nonsense. But Khlestakov’s stories about how much he receives in advance from the publisher Smirdin for his writings ($ 700-800 thousand for today’s money, but they wouldn’t give Gogol at Eksmo so much now!), Show that about real money 23- a summer official from St. Petersburg has already heard. Well, as we remember, he borrowed not only from the mayor, so "together it exceeded a thousand."

But even now in the district center you will not receive a bribe of more than 1.5-2 million rubles. It is these amounts that now usually appear in criminal cases on regional bribery. To make a fortune in the provinces, one must be part of the process of regional corruption - the auditor can only count on a week of luxurious life.

For so many Raskolnikov killed the old money-lender

F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment"

1865 - 317 rubles | 2015 - 320 000 rubles

Raskolnikov's extraction - 317 rubles. 60 kopecks: this is exactly how much was in the purse of the old pawnbroker, placed by him under a conspicuous stone after a double murder and robbery.

Accurate statistics on the poorest strata of the population we have only for 1901. Raskolnikov, who previously studied as a lawyer, is included in the lower decile of the population in terms of income: at the beginning of the 20th century, these were artisans, workers, beggars, prisoners. For 50 years, national incomes in Russia have increased by 60%, we are unlikely to be mistaken in saying that from the time of Raskolnikov to the beginning of the new century, the incomes of the poorest segments of the population of Russia increased to a statistically recorded 161 rubles. per year from the amount that he actually had a year is 100 rubles.

So, the old pawnbroker kept Raskolnikov's three-year income in her purse. In 2013, according to a study by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 23% of the poorest people in Russia had a median monthly income of about 8.8 thousand rubles. Raskolnikov's three-year income would now be 320,000 modern rubles.

So much Nastasya Filippovna threw into the fireplace

F.M. Dostoevsky "The Idiot"

1868 - 100,000 rubles | 2015 - 8 000 000 000 rubles

"Idiot" is completely lined with banknotes: "rubles" are mentioned there at random in seven dozen places, and "millions" - in another three dozen. Meanwhile, we are talking about the second half of the 1860s. After the abolition of serfdom, society was mixed up so that the two (supposedly) millions of inheritances of Prince Myshkin, who was treated in Switzerland at a neurological clinic, interfere with either quarters, then four hundredths, then three rubles, then two thousand, and the owners of all these sums are so intermingled with each other, that the price of money is decidedly indeterminate.

It is also impossible to determine the place of Prince Lev Nikolaevich in this new Russia. If what they write about Myshkin in newspaper libels is at least partly true (and they write there that he has about 30 million rubles of fortune), he is one of 1.5 thousand Russian people, who accounted for about 6-7% Russia's national income. Now the annual cash income of the entire 145 millionth Russia is about 40 trillion. rubles, that is, if the rumors are true, the prince is the owner of the equivalent of the current $ 35 billion. However, Myshkin himself says that in reality he actually has eight to ten times less, that is, about $ 4 billion today.

That is, the idiot Myshkin, who is absolutely not interested in money, still knows how much he has. Therefore, the 100,000 rubles that Nastasya Filippovna threw into the fireplace to be burned is a considerable amount, by any consideration, but Myshkin, looking at this fireplace, is not amazing. In a lit pack (as we remember, it was pulled out almost uninjured) about 30 times less than he has: according to the current account - about $ 130 million in cash. Now this would not fit into any fireplace: 8 billion rubles.

So many Nikolai Rostov lost to Dolokhov

L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace"

1806 - 43,000 rubles | 2015 - 70 000 000 rubles

The world of the Rostovs is the world of several hundred families that own and control most of the country. In this circle, for example, Pierre Bezukhov and Prince Vasily are waiting for a large inheritance - "forty thousand souls and millions", this is obviously more than what Nikolai Rostov can ever count on. Between Nikolai and Pierre is the barrier that separates very rich people in Moscow in 2015 from people from the Forbes list. The Rostovs have a maximum of ten thousand souls and hundreds of thousands of rubles in annual income.

Of course, at that time the nobles were richer: the Russian nobility in the early 1800s had a hundred or even two hundred years of history, while the post-Soviet one had at best 30 years. But the principles are the same - marriages within one's own circle, the multiplication of family fortunes by prominent representatives of the family and squandering by ordinary ones. And, of course, we know that by no means every person who made a career in the administration of President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s now has a business worth $150-200 million: more often it is $30-50 million.

Ilya Rostov gives his son Nikolai 2 thousand rubles for several months for expenses - now it would be $ 50 thousand. Nikolai Dolokhov loses 20 times more - that is, about $ 1 million. It is clear that Ilya Andreevich will collect this amount in a few days and finally she will not ruin the Rostov family.

In a bank that would serve the Rostovs in the 21st century, they would know: undoubtedly, these are still very rich people.

So much was promised to the one who remembers the horse's name

A.P. Chekhov "Horse surname"

OK. 1880 - 5 rubles | 2015 - 10 000 rubles

The retired Major General Buldeev in The Horse Family is not at all like the representatives of the brilliant aristocracy of the early 19th century, who threw the bank at thousands of imperials. But Buldeev has a big house, and the five rubles he promises to anyone who remembers the name of a former excise official from Saratov is definitely not money for him. After all, the exciseman knows how to speak his teeth even at a distance!

But what is five rubles for those who follow in droves the clerk Ivan Evseich, who, in fact, should remember the exciseman's horse name? Buldeev's house is a couple of dozen people, a mini-enterprise for servicing a retired high-ranking military man and his family. It's a common thing, it's the same way now with many retired generals in the provinces, maybe a little less servants.

According to Stepanov's "Experience in Calculating the National Income" published in 1906, the average monthly income of servants and day laborers in Russia in 1901, not so far removed from Buldeev's time, was 10 rubles. 43 kop. The salary of a provincial hairdresser or plumber, not the best, is now about 20-25 thousand rubles. Anyone who remembers the name of Yakov Ovsov could get a prize of about 10 thousand rubles.

But he didn’t get it: Buldeev was cured by a zemstvo doctor, whose annual income at the end of the 19th century was 1200-1500 rubles a year.
Now it would be 150-190 thousand rubles. It is not known about the earnings of the Saratov folk healer Ovsov.

So much public money wasted by Lara's brother

B.L. Pasternak "Doctor Zhivago"

1910 - 700 rubles | 2015 - 750 000 rubles

“Rodya! No, you're crazy! Do you understand what you are saying? You lost seven hundred rubles? Rodya! Rodya! Do you know how long it takes an ordinary person like me to earn such a sum with honest labor?

So said young Lara, the future Larisa Antipova, to her brother Rodion, who lost almost this amount of public money in cards. Lara is the daughter of a Belgian engineer and a Russified French woman: if her father were alive, Rodion would not have to frighten his sister that he would shoot himself.

Father, who worked in the Urals, then received no less than foreign drilling specialists in Tyumen today. But the father is no more, and Amalia Guichard, the widowed mother of Rodion and Lara, lives a middle-class life in 1910, having her own sewing workshop in Moscow. Its income is obviously less than the income of 10% of the richest people in Russia at the beginning of the century: on average, they amounted to 934 rubles a year for this group in 1901-1904. In contrast, the poorest 10% earned, on average, a maximum of 214 rubles. Rodion's card debt is 700 rubles, that is, the income of his family (let's forget about alternative sources of funds for Amalia Guichard, because we are talking about honest work) in about two years.

The Guichard family is a fairly typical family of a small entrepreneur: in modern Russia it is called a micro-enterprise (up to 15 employees), its annual turnover is maximum - 60 million modern rubles a year; Let's assume that in the case of the sewing workshop of Lara and Rodi's mother - 5 million rubles. 400 thousand rubles revenue per month, several hired seamstresses. A 15 percent profitability of this business can be considered normal by today's standards: in two years, all Guichard's income would now amount to 750 thousand rubles.

So many Sharikov stole from Professor Preobrazhensky

M.A. Bulgakov "Heart of a Dog"

1924 - 2 chervonets | 2015 - 5 500 rubles

The stolen two chervonets laid the foundation for the grandiose drinking of the main experimental subject in Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog. It is worth asking the true scope of this booze.

The term "Chervonets" is a typical "false friend of the translator": it is not "ten rubles", but the name of the banknote, the same as the ruble or dollar, in any case, the signature of the chairman of the board of the State Bank of the RSFSR in 1922 was put on a bill on which it was written in black and white: "One chervonets". The chervonets was backed by gold and, in essence, was tied to the royal golden ten (for some time it was exchanged for a metal coin similar to the royal “lobanchik”), the ruble was not. The exchange rate of the ruble against the chervonets fluctuated until the following spring, and only in 1925 was a firm and customary rate really established, which remained until the last issue of this hard currency in 1937: for one chervonets - ten ordinary rubles. But by this time Sharikov was already finished.

At least for alcohol and snacks, the prices of 1924 were set in rubles, and not in chervonets. Peasants, the main producers of moonshine and alcohol suppliers in Moscow, had rubles. The state monopoly on vodka was introduced only in 1925. Criticized by Preobrazhensky, the "rykovka" appeared in December 1924, it cost a ruble five kopecks for half a liter - moonshine, according to numerous sources, was half the price. One way or another, Sharikov was able to buy about 15 liters of vodka with an unpretentious snack with the stolen two gold coins. And you can be sure: since he was able, therefore, he acquired it.

The minimum price of vodka (and Sharikov and his friends, of course, used the cheapest) in 2015 is 185 rubles. for a pint. Thus, now, for the same purposes, without five minutes, an employee of the cleaning department of the communal farm at a feast, which cost two chervonets in 1924, would have spent about 5,500 rubles.

The salary of the typist Vasnetsova, who almost married Sharikov, tempted by his wealth, was 4.5 chervonets per month - 12,750 modern rubles. For an operation at home to insert a monkey's ovaries into an elderly lady, Philip Filippovich Preobrazhensky asked, in our opinion, 137,500 rubles.

This is how much Koroviev gave to Nikanor Bosom in foreign currency

M.A. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita"

OK. 1930 - $400 | 2015 - $9 000 rubles

Nikanor Bosoy, Deputy Head of Municipal Unitary Enterprise Management Company "ZhKH-Service" of the Central Administrative District of Moscow. In vain do you think that the head of the housing association Bosoy, to whom Koroviev gives a bribe of 400 rubles in The Master and Margarita (they turn into $ 400 in the toilet ventilation - an excellent rate!), Is a simple and humorous character.

Nikanor is a person who occupies an extremely strong social position. In Moscow in the early 1930s, only those who, in Moscow in the 2010s, were prepared and served by servants, and not by their wife, could afford to dine in the “small dining room” of a separate apartment. We know about the severity of the housing problem in Stalinist Moscow, in particular, from the literary strife described in the novel - non-communal housing was given only to the most trusted. (There were doubts about Osip Mandelstam, the doubt was interpreted in favor of the person under investigation. They gave him an apartment - and how did he repay?

In addition, one must understand: Nikanor is not just the head of a housing association. The house he manages is, in essence, cooperative (this is still normal for the early 30s), and therefore it is possible to rent apartments in it to a foreigner. Therefore, 400 rubles of a bribe (and in fact, not a bribe, but simply a gift to Bosom) is by no means a lot of money. Ordinary. Legal income per month, no more. $400 is another matter. Even the pack comes out solid: in those days, few people in Europe saw a bill with a face value of more than $20, except for bankers, most likely, these were $5 and $10 bills, the most popular among real currency traders. In the North American United States, as a superintendent of a residential condominium, Bosoy would have earned this money in three to four months - in New York, the annual salary of a person in the same occupation was $ 1,500 in 1932. But there is no need to exaggerate. At the rate of $400 of that time, taking into account inflation in the United States, this is now $9 thousand: you cannot buy a house.

How much did Akaky Akakievich’s overcoat cost, what was in the purse of the old pawnbroker, what kind of bribe did Gorodnichiy give to Khlestakov, and Koroviev to Nikanor Bosom, how much Sharikov stole from Professor Preobrazhensky, and Nikolai Rostov lost at cards, and how much Nastasya Filippovna threw into the fireplace - into a year of literature and financial panic Dmitry Butrin counted Russian classics with our money

Russian literature only pretends to be disinterested: it is always interested in money. This can be seen, if only from the brilliant absent-mindedness with which she denies the possibility for her hero, whom the author does not want to show from the bad side, to be materially interested. It is only possible to depend on money, if it is impossible to ignore it. But from the painful discussion by almost every Russian classic of how exactly this dependence works, you can see that both the writer and the reader are interested in money here. The classic will not miss the sound of how it rings and bounces on the pavement nickel, and will unmistakably determine by the ringing: the nickel is ringing, not a five-kopeck piece.

However, sums of money in Russian literature are always not equal to face value, because it is important who pays to whom and for what. And each new generation of readers is forced to solve a problem much more difficult than accounting for the intricacies of monetary rates in the 19th century.

Karamzin's poor Lisa sells lilies of the valley to Erast for five kopecks, and he says - if you don't ask for much, take a ruble for lilies of the valley. It is clear that five kopecks is never good for God knows what, but what is a ruble for Liza and what is a ruble for Erast? Liza's father two years before was a "well-to-do peasant", and Erast is now "a rather rich nobleman". What is the price of a hundred rubles for Lisa, with which Erast pays off her ("... Here's a hundred rubles - take them," he put the money in her pocket, "let me kiss you for the last time - and go home"), it’s understandable: for fifteen rubles a child can be fed for a year, a hundred is enough to grow him up to the age of seven, and then he himself will be able to trade in lilies of the valley. (Of course, raising a child on this alimony will also have to be a peasant, not a hussars.) But does this amount embarrass Erast, how does the current situation embarrass him, is his loss great, will he breathe at least a hundred rubles?

The price of Gogol's overcoat, from which everyone left, these one hundred and fifty rubles - they were converted into contemporary rubles by a host of literary critics. I think that there is no point in counting. Akaki Akakievich's overcoat is the current analogue of an inexpensive foreign car, without which he will inflate a toad on the way to the department in winter. $10,000 is the price, in cash: car loans had not yet been invented, but, alas, there were already car thieves.

Gradually, a relatively acceptable toolkit for such an assessment was developed, which is not alien to the literature itself. It is necessary to find in modern times a more or less adequate analogue of the social role played by a literary hero with a certain amount in his hand. So, in terms of modern rubles, one can roughly imagine what kind of feelings a poor person parting with money of the past experienced (after all, all people are poor, if not insane). On the site of Chekhov's cherry orchard, it is possible, for example, to build a cottage village - its price was estimated even when he was a theater critic Alexander Minkin. Then it came out something like $3 million, but that was back in the 1990s, but what is $3 million now?

Looking for someone. Yes, and the rate jumps daily. Let's recalculate as long as there is no money.

1773
15 rubles So much Savelich asked for a rabbit sheepskin coat
A. S. Pushkin "The Captain's Daughter" 2015
140 000 rubles

Not everyone will remember the name of Savelich from The Captain's Daughter, but the fact that the hare sheepskin coat, presented in 1773 by Petrusha Grinev to the robber Pugachev, was valued at 15 rubles, is well known: Savelich estimated it at this amount. Meanwhile, to find a suitable social role for Petrusha Grinev's companion in modern times, in order to evaluate the sheepskin coat through it in an independent way, is not an easy task. Savelich is a serf who simultaneously works as a nanny, security guard, quartermaster, and accountant. The latter, however, allows one to think that for him there was a hare sheepskin coat - after all, Savelich, unlike Grinev, makes economic calculations all his life.

As Grinev himself writes, Savelich was " and money, and underwear, and my deeds are a caretaker"(here Pushkin quotes a contemporary of Petrusha - Fonvizin). From the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 21st century, the idea of how long clothes should last changes greatly. The hare sheepskin coat of that time, with proper storage and use, served for 20 and 30 years, the uniform - 10 years and more.In any case, it will not be a big lie to say that clothes were worn then about ten times longer than they are now.

Here Savelich climbs in the ninth chapter under the arm of the impostor Pugachev with a register of linen, clothes and bed lost by Grinev during the capture of the Belogorsk fortress. In the total price of all these rags (this is 90.5 rubles), the famous sheepskin coat is one-seventh. In the expenses of modern Muscovites (and Grinev, undoubtedly, can navigate the cost of clothing for residents of the capital - although he is a provincial, he is not at all poor) clothing is about 10-15% of expenses, or about 100 thousand modern rubles a year. Now Grinev would have spent about 1 million rubles on everything lost. (you need to buy 10 times more), and a hare sheepskin coat, based on this, would be the equivalent of 140 thousand rubles. And indeed - a pricey gift to a tramp.

There is a correction to be made here. It is highly probable that Savelich, in evaluating the bed and clothes, did not proceed from their objective value, but simply wanted to return the 100 rubles he had given to Petrusha with tears, which he had lost on the way to billiards. The old serf Arkhip Savelyev, a highly economic man, experiences the loss of money harder than the loss of a wardrobe. And right, of course: with a hard ruble, money is more expensive than rags.

OK. 1830
396,000 rubles How much would Hermann win
A. S. Pushkin "The Queen of Spades" 2015
2,500,000,000 rubles

For some reason, it is customary to rank Hermann among the circle of small people who are all completely poor, but Pushkin's joke about small capital, which Hermann inherited from his father, a Russified German, is nothing more than a joke.

Having received from the ghost of an old woman an indication of three correct cards, Hermann in the first game with Chekalinsky puts on a card, in this case a three, a "bank note" - 47 thousand rubles. Obviously, it was not a bill with an incredible denomination, but something like a certificate from the bank on the state of the account. The non-circularity of the sum of the first day of the game is a clear indication that Hermann is putting all his "little capital" at stake.

That is, Hermann is anyone, but not a poor man. Yes, and they would not let the poor man play either in the horse guard barracks, or in the brand new, brand-new, salon of the millionaire Chekalinsky - the owner of the house did not have a question about who this Hermann was, Hermann was offered don't stand on ceremony.

On the seven, the hero wins 96 thousand rubles, and not turn around Pushkin's hero (dozens of texts have been written about this word "Queen of Spades"), his capital on the third night would have been 396 thousand rubles.

But let's forget for a second about Hermann's crazy dreams, remember his real salary and career. Pushkin says nothing about them; we know, however, that he is an engineer. In his time, this meant - a military engineer, most likely a graduate of the Military Engineering School in St. Petersburg; the annual graduation in those years was no more than 50 officers a year, a rare profession. The issue of a great career for Hermann is just a matter of time. Although in Nikolaev Russia they no longer favor villages, as under Catherine, 20 years after 1830, becoming a general for a military builder with an education and multiplying capital, if not ten, but two or three times, is more than usual. Yes, and in modern Russia - too: military construction, the Spetsstroy system, did not become less profitable: in the 19th century they built bridges, in the 21st - the Vostochny cosmodrome, and no one was left behind. So Hermann would have had his $10 million anyway.

1826
100 rubles That's how much a left-hander got for working on a flea
N. S. Leskov "Lefty" 2015
800 000 rubles

The Tula oblique left-hander is an engineer at a defense enterprise. The fate of the Russian military-industrial complex did not bother Russian literature, at least before the invention of socialist realism, and Nikolai Leskov did not really think about how much the defense industry costs the Russian budget. But the story created is very relevant to this day.

The plot line is like this. A young employee of a defense enterprise in the city of Tula receives an important task from allies from the group of forces in the North Caucasus: to demonstrate to the top state-party leadership the superiority of domestic technologies in the defense industry over Western ones. The problem is brilliantly solved, and the engineer is sent to the UK for further training. The left-hander does not show much interest in British industry (although he notices something important), and on the way back he generally falls into a binge.

An engineer in delirium tremens, with a skull fracture and, apparently, with lobar pneumonia, is sent to the district clinic. His message to the state-party leadership about the unique British know-how, which can significantly improve the accuracy of small arms fire, is not heard by the commander in chief. The result is the lost Crimean War. Oh, and one more thing: the left-hander, whose name with a capital letter - Left-hander - schoolchildren will give only in 70 years, dies in the hospital.

It makes no sense to discuss the "million" in silver, which Tsar Alexander I in 1815 or so gave to the British, who did not know paper money, for a mechanical flea. But ataman Platov gave the left-hander 100 rubles for the horseshoes attached to this nymphosoria in the Russian arms capital. (Do not think, by the way, that Leskov did not know the price of 100 rubles: in the same "Notes of the Fatherland" he began as an economic journalist "Essays on the distillery industry of the Penza province".)

It is interesting to imagine how the lefty felt in London with such capital. 100 rubles is about 16 British pounds of that time, that is, the wages of the poorest Britons (more than 50% of the country's population) for seven to eight months. So, despite the fact that Albion was then about three times richer than Russia, a left-hander in London, drinking with a half-skipper, must have felt like a completely solvent drunkard by world standards.

And what would 100 rubles be for a left-hander in Russia? There is no qualitative data on how many workers, and even more so engineers, were in Russia at that time (probably about 150-200 thousand - and 4-5 thousand engineers for the whole country), but, unlike Britain, they income from the peasants did not differ. 100 rubles would allow the left-hander, if not for his London spree, not to work at home for 3-4 years, while maintaining the usual expenses.

In terms of the average salary in Tula in 2014 - about 25 thousand rubles - the left-hander received about 800 thousand rubles from Platov for shoeing a flea. current rubles.

However, now what the left-hander was doing is called "nanotechnology", and the stakes there are completely different.

1831
200 rubles So many Khlestakov received from the Governor
N. V. Gogol "Inspector" 2015
200 000 rubles

The district center is the center of Russian life, and the city run by Anton Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky is the district center. Traditionally, in Russia, the status of the city is overestimated, in which Khlestakov finds himself without money in a hotel, but the county in the current sense is a municipal district or district, not a region. If you understand this, then many things fall into place. In district centers that know how to live in peace with the regional authorities, but are afraid of everything from the federal level to the point of panic, the appearance of a person who is familiar with the heads of departments of the Ministry of Finance, assistant auditors of the Accounts Chamber, and ordinary employees of the Prosecutor General's Office is always a plague on the horizon. But what if he is really an investigator of the Investigative Committee or an employee of the internal policy department of the Presidential Administration? After all, we will all sit down - the Russian Post, the Ministry of Emergencies, and social security.

For people who fictitiously issue building materials for the construction of a city bridge for 20 thousand rubles (now it is 15-20 million rubles), this is, in essence, nonsense. But Khlestakov's stories about how much he receives in advance from the publisher Smirdin for his writings ($ 700-800 thousand for today's money, but they wouldn't give Gogol at Eksmo so much now!), Show that about real money 23- a summer official from St. Petersburg has already heard. Well, as we remember, he borrowed not only from the mayor, so " over a thousand together".

But even now in the district center you will not receive a bribe of more than 1.5-2 million rubles. It is these amounts that now usually appear in criminal cases on regional bribery. To make a fortune in the provinces, you need to be part of the process of regional corruption - the auditor can only count on a week of luxurious life.

Or at the behest of women. “Yes, my father-in-law is the head of the administration in Michurinsk”: don’t turn your face, at least Khlestakov has already been provided with a good apartment in Moscow.

1865
317 rubles For so many Raskolnikov killed the old money-lender
F. M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment" 2015
320 000 rubles

Raskolnikov's extraction - 317 rubles. 60 kopecks: this is exactly how much was in the purse of the old pawnbroker, placed by him under a conspicuous stone after a double murder and robbery. Accurate statistics on the poorest strata of the population we have only for 1901. Raskolnikov, who previously studied as a lawyer, is included in the lower decile of the population in terms of income: at the beginning of the 20th century, these were artisans, workers, beggars, prisoners. For 50 years, national incomes in Russia have increased by 60%, we are unlikely to be mistaken in saying that from the time of Raskolnikov to the beginning of the new century, the incomes of the poorest segments of the population of Russia increased to a statistically recorded 161 rubles. a year from the amount that he actually had a year - this is 100 rubles.

1868
100 000 rubles So much Nastasya Filippovna threw into the fireplace
F. M. Dostoevsky "The Idiot" 2015
8,000,000,000 rubles

"Idiot" is completely lined with banknotes: "rubles" are mentioned there randomly in seven dozen places, and "millions" - in another three dozen. Meanwhile, we are talking about the second half of the 1860s. After the abolition of serfdom, society has become so mixed up that the two (supposedly) million-dollar inheritances of Prince Myshkin, who was treated in Switzerland at a neurological clinic, mix with quarters, then four hundredths, then three rubles, then two thousand, and the owners of all these sums intermingled with each other, that the price of money is decidedly indeterminate.

It is also impossible to determine the place of Prince Lev Nikolaevich in this new Russia. If what they write about Myshkin in newspaper libels is at least partly true (and they write there that he has about 30 million rubles of wealth), he is one of 1.5 thousand Russian people, who accounted for about 6-7% Russia's national income. Now the annual cash income of the entire 145 millionth Russia is about 40 trillion. rubles, that is, if the rumors are true, the prince is the owner of the equivalent of the current $ 35 billion. However, Myshkin himself says that in fact he actually has eight to ten times less, that is, about $4 billion today.

That is, the idiot Myshkin, who is absolutely not interested in money, still knows how much he has. Therefore, the 100,000 rubles that Nastasya Filippovna threw into the fireplace to be burned—albeit a very considerable sum by any consideration, but Myshkin, looking at this fireplace, is not amazing. In a lit pack (as we remember, it was pulled out almost uninjured) about 30 times less than he has: according to the current account - about $ 130 million in cash. Now this would not fit into any fireplace: 8 billion rubles.

But Nastasya Filippovna could become absolutely independent with this amount: in modern Moscow, you can count on the fingers of women who are so financially free.

1806
43 000 rubles So many Nikolai Rostov lost to Dolokhov
L. N. Tolstoy "War and Peace" 2015
70,000,000 rubles

Of course, Nikolai's father, Count Ilya Andreevich, was in the civil service before retiring - and, based on his environment, now his place of work, similar to the 18th century, would be the administration of the President of the Russian Federation. The world of the Rostovs is the world of several hundred families that own and control most of the country. In this circle, for example, Pierre Bezukhov and Prince Vasily are waiting for a large inheritance - "forty thousand souls and millions", this is obviously more than what Nikolai Rostov can ever count on. Between Nikolai and Pierre is the barrier that separates very rich people in Moscow in 2015 from people from the Forbes list. The Rostovs have a maximum of ten thousand souls and hundreds of thousands of rubles in annual income.

Of course, at that time the nobles were richer: the Russian nobility in the early 1800s had a hundred or even two hundred years of history, while the post-Soviet one had at best 30 years. But the principles are the same - marriages within one's circle, the multiplication of family fortunes by prominent representatives of the family and the squandering of ordinary ones. And, of course, we know that by no means every person who made a career in the administration of President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s now has a business worth $150-200 million: more often it is $30-50 million.

Ilya Rostov gives his son Nikolai 2,000 rubles for expenses for several months—now it would be $50,000. Nikolai Dolokhov loses 20 times more—that is, about $1 million. she will not ruin the Rostov family.

In a bank that would serve the Rostovs in the 21st century, they would know: undoubtedly, these are still very rich people.

OK. 1880
5 rubles So much was promised to the one who remembers the horse's name
A. P. Chekhov "Horse surname" 2015
10 000 rubles

The retired Major-General Buldeev in The Horse Family is not at all like the representatives of the brilliant aristocracy of the early 19th century, who threw the bank at thousands of imperials. Most of the senior officers of the Russian army at the end of the 19th century were already confidently from the ranks - they received hereditary nobility instead of a born bourgeois or merchant rank along with the rank of colonel. There were no generals yet, except perhaps from the peasants (the first will rise to these ranks already in the 20th century). But Buldeev has a big house, and the five rubles he promises to anyone who remembers the name of a former excise official from Saratov is definitely not money for him. After all, the exciseman knows how to speak his teeth even at a distance!

But what is five rubles for those who follow the clerk Ivan Evseich in droves, who, in fact, should remember horse name excise? Buldeev's house is a couple of dozen people, a mini-enterprise for servicing a retired high-ranking military man and his family. It's a common thing, it's the same way now with many retired generals in the provinces, maybe a little less servants.

But he didn’t get it: Buldeev was cured by a zemstvo doctor, whose annual income at the end of the 19th century was 1200-1500 rubles a year.

Now it would be 150-190 thousand rubles. We have no information about the earnings of the Saratov folk healer Ovsov.

1910
700 rubles So much public money wasted by Lara's brother
B. L. Pasternak "Doctor Zhivago" 2015
750,000 rubles

Rodya! No, you're crazy! Do you understand what you are saying? You lost seven hundred rubles? Rodya! Rodya! Do you know how long it takes an ordinary person like me to earn such a sum with honest labor? So said young Lara, the future Larisa Antipova, to her brother Rodion, who lost almost this amount of public money in cards.

Whether he knows is not clear, and we, of course, do not know: between 1910 and 2015, a lot happened not only with the heroes of Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, but even with money. Lara is the daughter of a Belgian engineer and a Russified Frenchwoman: if her father were alive, Rodion would not have to frighten his sister that he would shoot himself. Father, who worked in the Urals, then received no less than foreign drilling specialists in Tyumen today. But the father is no more, and Amalia Guichard, the widowed mother of Rodion and Lara, lives a middle-class life in 1910, having her own sewing workshop in Moscow. Its income is obviously less than the income of 10% of the richest people in Russia at the beginning of the century: on average, they amounted to 934 rubles a year for this group in 1901-1904. In contrast, the poorest 10% earned, on average, a maximum of 214 rubles. Rodion's card debt is 700 rubles, that is, the income of his family (let's forget about alternative sources of funds for Amalia Guichard, because we are talking about honest work) in about two years.

Shoot as many!

1924
2 chervonets So many Sharikov stole from Professor Preobrazhensky
M. A. Bulgakov "Heart of a Dog" 2015
5 500 rubles

The stolen two chervonets marked the beginning of a grandiose booze of the main experimental subject in Bulgakov's "Heart of a Dog". It is worth asking the true scope of this booze.

The term "chervonets" is a typical "false friend of the translator": it is not "ten rubles", but the name of the banknote, the same as the ruble or dollar, in any case, the signature of the chairman of the board of the State Bank of the RSFSR in 1922 was put on a bill on which it was written in black and white: "One chervonets". The chervonets was backed by gold and, in fact, was tied to the royal golden ten (for some time it was exchanged for a metal coin similar to the royal "lobanchik"), the ruble was not. The exchange rate of the ruble against the chervonets fluctuated until the next spring, and only in 1925 was a firm and customary rate really established, which remained until the last issue of this hard currency in 1937: for one chervonets, ten ordinary rubles. But by this time Sharikov was already finished.

At least for alcohol and snacks, the prices of 1924 were set in rubles, and not in chervonets. Peasants, the main producers of moonshine and alcohol suppliers in Moscow, had rubles. The state monopoly on vodka was introduced only in 1925. Criticized by Preobrazhensky, "rykovka" appeared in December 1924, it cost a ruble five kopecks for half a liter - moonshine, according to numerous reports, was half the price. One way or another, Sharikov was able to buy about 15 liters of vodka with an unpretentious snack with the stolen two gold coins. And you can be sure: since he was able, therefore, he acquired it.

Know how much it cost in the winter of 1924 to fix the scarecrow in advance clarified An owl ball, decidedly impossible.

OK. 1930
$400 This is how much Koroviev gave to Nikanor Bosom in foreign currency
M. A. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita" 2015
$9 000

Nikanor Bosoy, deputy head of MUP UK "ZhKH-servis" of the Central Administrative District of Moscow. In vain do you think that the head of the housing association Bosoy, to whom Koroviev gives a bribe of 400 rubles in The Master and Margarita (they turn into $400 in the toilet ventilation - an excellent exchange rate!), Is a simple and humorous character.

Nikanor is a person who occupies an extremely strong social position. In Moscow in the early 1930s, only those who, in Moscow in the 2010s, were prepared and served by servants, and not by their wife, could afford to dine in the "small dining room" of a separate apartment. We know about the severity of the housing problem in Stalinist Moscow, in particular, from the literary strife described in the novel - non-communal housing was given only to the most trusted. (There were doubts about Osip Mandelstam, the doubt was interpreted in favor of the person under investigation. They gave him an apartment - and how did he repay?

In addition, one must understand: Nikanor is not just the head of a housing association. The house he manages is, in essence, cooperative (this is still normal for the early 30s), and therefore it is possible to rent apartments in it to a foreigner. Therefore, 400 rubles of a bribe (and in fact, not a bribe, but simply a gift to Bosom) is by no means a lot of money. Ordinary. Legal income per month, no more. $400 is another matter. Even the pack comes out solid: in those days, few people in Europe saw a bill with a face value of more than $20, except for bankers, most likely, these were $5 and $10 bills, the most popular among real currency traders. In the North American United States, as a superintendent of a residential condominium, Bosoy would have earned this money in three or four months - in New York, the annual salary of a person in the same occupation was $ 1,500 in 1932. But it is not necessary to exaggerate. At the rate of $400 of that time, taking into account inflation in the United States, this is now $9,000: you cannot buy a house.

And of course, Nikanor Bosom is not threatened by either prison or execution. The currency monopoly in the RSFSR will be introduced only in 1937, the currency in Moscow is at every turn - do you really think that Torgsins (the nearest one from his house - a ten-minute walk counterclockwise along Sadovoye, Annushka will not let you lie) are needed in order to to sell for currency and gold food and calico by foreigners? Surrendered to foreigners this chintz.

Of course, in 1926-1927 the OGPU was chasing real money changers with might and main. But there the account went for tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it was about the black exchange - and Bosoy, who was passing through the department of the NKVD (yes, until 1937, the housing and communal services department was located in this very department - nothing surprising, right?), about this exchange except heard in the bazaar. He's definitely not in danger of being shot. Yes, and Siberia too - a maximum house of preliminary detention, DOPR. After all, the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1926 promises Nikanor Bosom in article 59.12 for "violating the rules on foreign exchange transactions" from a year of imprisonment with strict isolation only if it turns out that the dollars in the ventilation are a bribe. But what kind of bribe is this, what kind of abuse of official position, where is Article 109 of the same Criminal Code? So, the code says, Bosom is threatened with the confiscation of dollars (let them burn with fire!) And disciplinary action.

And all? Well, yes. Plus deprivation of a post in ZhAKT, incomes, a small dining room, a borscht; immersion in the social stratum from which Bosoy contrived to jump into the Soviet elite in the 1920s. They say that in the management companies of the Central Administrative District of Moscow, house managers earn by hook or by crook $ 150-200 thousand a year in excess of their salary. Hell, maybe it is.

This episode of the novel describes the moment of "peaceful life" in the Rostov family. We see how the youth of this family spends their time. The main characters in this episode are Natasha Rostova and her older brother Nikolai.
The writer emphasizes that at first these heroes were in a radically opposite disposition, state of mind. Natasha was full of joy, a feeling of fullness of life. Denisov once again came to her, who courted the girl. Natasha felt that this gallant hussar liked it: “Here I am!” - she seemed to be saying, responding to the enthusiastic look of Denisov, who was watching her. All this added joy, happiness, a sense of the charm of life to the heroine.
Nikolai, on the contrary, was in an upset state - he lost a large amount of money in cards, and he saw everything in a pessimistic light. Tolstoy shows that Natasha's joyful state irritates her brother, he sincerely does not understand her, it is hard for him to look at this young delight: “And why is she happy! thought Nicholas, looking at his sister. And how she is not bored and not ashamed!
Tolstoy with great psychological skill conveys the inner state of his hero. Indeed, when you are at one “pole of feelings”, it is simply not possible to understand and share other emotions, especially those that are opposite to yours.
Such was the situation in the room before the main event - Natasha's singing. The basis of this episode, its culmination is the impact of the sister's voice, her singing on the state of Nikolai. At first, he simply absentmindedly noted to himself that his sister's singing had somehow changed. But then ... the whole world focused for him on Natasha's singing. All worries, hardships, sorrows receded back. Moreover, Nikolai suddenly realized all the worthlessness, emptiness, vanity of his worries: “Oh, our stupid life! Nicholas thought. All this, and misfortune, and money, and Dolokhov, and anger, and honor - all this is nonsense ... but here it is real ... "
And, what is most interesting and important, the hero suddenly realized that he was happy. And his happiness lies in correctly taking a note to the beat of Natasha, intensifying her singing, so that it turns out well, so that the melody sounds even more powerfully, beautifully.
In this episode, the writer shows us the power of the impact of art on a person, his emotions, worldview. Art is connected in some close, almost mystical way with the human soul. It can instantly make a person happy. Moreover, art can purify a person's soul, his consciousness, show what is false and what is true, and can direct a person's life in the right direction.
But all this is possible, of course, under two conditions, it seems to me. Firstly, a work of art must be performed sincerely, truly, “with soul”. Natasha Rostova was capable of this. And her singing is a characteristic of the heroine, her inner world, her nature.
Secondly, a person who perceives a work of art must also be pure in soul, sincere, there must be light in him. I don’t think that if Helen or Anatole Kuragin had listened to Natasha’s singing, something would have moved or changed in their soul. And it touched Nicholas.
And one more important thought is conveyed to us by Tolstoy: “You can kill, steal and still be happy ...” An ambiguous judgment, especially from the lips of L.N. Tolstoy, known for his religiosity. I think that with the help of this paradox, the writer wanted to emphasize the role of art in human life, its strength and importance, its ability to outshine everything in the world.
Thus, this episode characterizes Natasha and Nikolai Rostov, their inner world, reveals the skill of Tolstoy as a psychologist, and also shows the role of real art in human life.

Literary characters, like real people, constantly use money. However, we most often determine their financial situation not by monetary amounts, but by some other signs, because if the time of action of a literary work does not coincide with the present, then it is very difficult to understand the real price of money. And it’s quite easy to get confused with this when it comes to classical literature of the 19th century.

Based on a recent publication in, we will convert the ruble used by the heroes of famous works into its modern value.

A peculiar achievement in the symbolic nomination "Contempt for money" belongs to Nastasya Filippovna, which in the novel F.M. Dostoevsky "The Idiot" threw a bundle of money into the fire when Rogozhin wanted to buy her love with them. It is noteworthy that earlier this heroine of the novel was completely bought, but then she suddenly decided to end her venality and ... went with him just like that, and proudly put the money on fire! A lot has been written about the deep meaning of this episode - they say that a depraved society led the girl to a fall, and the positive hero Prince Myshkin helped her spiritually reborn, and the money burning in the fire is a symbol of her purification. Only now, literary critics somehow do not spread very much about the amount thrown into the fireplace. It's a pity! 100 thousand rubles in 1868 is 8 billion in 2015! And just so you know, in 2015, the regions of Russia, taken together, were allocated a little more than one billion from the federal budget for the modernization of vocational education. The money rejected by Nastasya Filippovna would be very useful today for Russian vocational education!

Incidentally, approximately in 1830 Pushkin's Hermann from The Queen of Spades went crazy from a smaller amount. The win he lost 396 thousand rubles equivalent to modern 2.5 billion rubles. And - once again, by the way - even before his card adventure, Hermann was not so poor as we used to think from the words of Pushkin, because his first bet was 47 thousand (300 million rubles with modern money).

But back to Dostoevsky, who seems to have been inclined to downplay the role of money in our lives. Another character of his Rodion Raskolnikov, in 1865 killed an elderly pawnbroker for the sake of "some" three hundred and seventeen rubles! In the novel "Crime and Punishment" it is emphasized several times how insignificant the amount went to the "murderer", that he went to kill not for the sake of money, but "just like that" to check if he could kill a person. Criminals with such motivation today are called frostbitten. However, if you count 317 rub. at the rate of 2015, it turns out 320 thousand- most modern scumbags never dreamed of such a thing.

Remember how much in 1806 Nikolai Rostov lost at cards to Dolokhov? Asking his father for money, he did his best to pretend that the amount was trifling - “only something” 43 thousand. Father, however, was simply dumbfounded by his request, and we are with him, because today it is whole 70 million!

Khlestakov from Gogol's The Government Inspector in 1831. only received from the mayor 400 rub. (400 thousand at the rate of 2015), and in total he collected more than a thousand in cash offerings - over a million, if translated into the current value of the ruble. Compared to today's officials who got burned on bribes, this may be a trifle. But Khlestakov somehow received such a sum in passing, besides, he was not only not an official, he did not fully understand who exactly they took him for! (He writes to Tryapichkin that he was mistaken for the governor-general, although in reality he was mistaken for the auditor.)

In all previous examples, the image of money does not carry a positive: gambling, madness, corrupt love, bribes to an official and three dead old women (Raskolnikov committed a double murder, another death on Hermann's conscience). However, there are episodes in Russian literature where money is not associated with evil.

So, hare sheepskin coat from the story of A.S. Pushkin "The Captain's Daughter", according to Savelich, in 1773 could be sold for 15 rubles, which would be today 140 thousand rubles The tight-fisted Savelich rated a simple sheepskin coat as a good mink coat! And Petya Grinev just took it and gave it to a stranger. It is not surprising that the stranger, who turned out to be the famous rebel Emelyan Pugachev, later rescued the young officer who showed such generosity more than once.

Well, it is unlikely that any of the craftsmen would refuse the modern equivalent of those hundred rubles that they received in 1826 Tula oblique, shoeing a flea. Today it 800 thousand.

Two days after this, Rostov did not see Dolokhov at his home and did not find him at home; on the third day he received a note from him. "Since I no longer intend to visit your house for reasons known to you and I am going to the army, this evening I give my friends a farewell feast - come to the English hotel." Rostov at ten o'clock, from the theater, where he was with his friends and Denisov, arrived on the appointed day at the English Hotel. He was immediately taken to the best room in the hotel, occupied by Dolokhov that night. About twenty people crowded around the table, in front of which Dolokhov sat between two candles. Gold and banknotes lay on the table, and Dolokhov threw the bank. After the proposal and refusal of Sonya, Nikolai had not yet seen him and was confused at the thought of how they would meet. Dolokhov's bright, cold gaze met Rostov at the door, as if he had been waiting for him for a long time. “Long time no see,” he said, “thank you for coming.” That's just home, and Ilyushka will appear with the choir. “I stopped by to see you,” said Rostov, blushing. Dolokhov did not answer him. “You can deliver,” he said. Rostov remembered at that moment a strange conversation he had once had with Dolokhov. “Only fools can play for luck,” Dolokhov said then. Or are you afraid to play with me? Dolokhov said now, as if he had guessed Rostov's thought, and smiled. Because of his smile, Rostov saw in him the mood of the spirit that he had during dinner at the club and in general at those times when, as if bored with everyday life, Dolokhov felt the need to go out by some strange, mostly cruel act. from her. Rostov felt uncomfortable; he searched and did not find in his mind a joke that would answer Dolokhov's words. But before he could do this, Dolokhov, looking straight into Rostov's face, slowly and deliberately, so that everyone could hear, said to him: “Do you remember, we talked about the game with you ... a fool who wants to play for good luck; I should probably play, but I want to try. “Try to play for luck or maybe?” thought Rostov. “Besides, don’t play,” he added, and, cracking a torn deck, said: “A bank, gentlemen!” Pushing the money forward, Dolokhov prepared to throw it. Rostov sat down beside him and at first did not play. Dolokhov looked at him. Why don't you play? Dolokhov said. And strangely, Nikolai felt the need to take a card, put a small sum on it and start the game. “I don’t have any money with me,” said Rostov.— I believe! Rostov put five rubles on the card and lost, put another and lost again. Dolokhov killed, that is, he won ten cards in a row from Rostov. “Gentlemen,” he said, after a few moments, “please put money on cards, otherwise I might get confused in the accounts.” One of the players said that he hoped he could be trusted. - You can believe, but I'm afraid to get confused; I’ll forgive you for putting money on cards,” Dolokhov replied. "Don't be shy, we'll deal with you," he added to Rostov. The game went on; the footman carried the champagne incessantly. All the cards of Rostov were beaten, and up to eight hundred rubles were written on it. He wrote about eight hundred rubles over one card, but while champagne was being served to him, he changed his mind and wrote again the usual kush, twenty rubles. “Let it go,” said Dolokhov, although he did not seem to be looking at Rostov, “you’ll get your revenge sooner.” I give to others, but I beat you. Are you afraid of me? he repeated. Rostov obeyed, left the written eight hundred and placed the seven of worms with a torn off corner, which he picked up from the ground. He remembered her well afterwards. He placed the seven of hearts, writing over it in broken chalk eight hundred, in round, straight numbers; drank the served glass of warmed champagne, smiled at Dolokhov's words and, with bated breath, waiting for the seven, began to look at Dolokhov's hands holding the pack. Winning or losing this seven of hearts meant a lot to Rostov. On Sunday last week, Count Ilya Andreich gave his son two thousand rubles, and he, who never liked to talk about financial difficulties, told him that this money was the last until May, and that therefore he asked his son to be more economical this time. Nikolai said that this was too much for him, and that he gave his word of honor not to take more money until spring. Now, of this money, one thousand two hundred rubles remained. Therefore, the seven of hearts meant not only the loss of one thousand six hundred rubles, but also the need to change this word. With bated breath, he looked at Dolokhov’s hands and thought: “Well, hurry up, give me this card, and I’ll take my cap, go home to dinner with Denisov, Natasha and Sonya, and surely there will never be a card in my hands.” At that moment, his home life—jokes with Petya, conversations with Sonya, duets with Natasha, a picket with his father, and even a quiet bed in the Cook's House—featured to him with such force, clarity, and charm, as if it had all been long gone, lost, and invaluable happiness. He could not allow that a stupid accident, forcing the seven to lie first to the right than to the left, could deprive him of all this newly understood, newly illuminated happiness and plunge him into the abyss of an unexperienced and indefinite misfortune. It could not be, but he still waited with bated breath for the movement of Dolokhov's hands. These broad-boned, reddish hands, with hair visible from under their shirt, laid down a pack of cards and took up the glass and pipe being served. "So you're not afraid to play with me?" repeated Dolokhov, and, as if to tell a merry story, he laid down his cards, leaned over on the back of his chair, and slowly began to tell with a smile: “Yes, gentlemen, I was told that there was a rumor spread in Moscow that I was a cheat, so I advise you to be more careful with me. Well, swords! Rostov said. — Oh, Moscow aunts! Dolokhov said and took up the cards with a smile. — Aaah! Rostov almost shouted, raising both hands to his hair. The seven he needed was already at the top, the first card in the deck. He lost more than he could pay. “However, don’t get carried away,” said Dolokhov, glancing briefly at Rostov and continuing to throw.

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