Current page: 1 (book has 1 pages in total)

Font:

100% +

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin
Lenochka

While traveling from St. Petersburg to Crimea, Colonel of the General Staff Voznitsyn deliberately stopped for two days in Moscow, where he spent his childhood and youth. They say that intelligent animals, anticipating death, go around all the familiar, favorite places in their homes, as if saying goodbye to them. Near death did not threaten Voznitsyn - at forty-five years old he was still a strong, well-preserved man. But in his tastes, feelings and attitudes towards the world there was some kind of imperceptible deviation leading to old age. The circle of joys and pleasures naturally narrowed, circumspection and skeptical mistrust appeared in all actions, the unconscious, wordless animal love for nature disappeared, being replaced by a refined relish of beauty, the charming charm of a woman ceased to excite with alarming and acute excitement, and most importantly, the first sign of spiritual decline! – thought about own death began to come not with the same carefree and light fleetingness with which it came before - as if sooner or later it was not he himself who was supposed to die, but someone else, by the name of Voznitsyn - but in a heavy, sharp, cruel, irrevocable and a merciless clarity that made the hair on your head turn cold at night and your heart sag fearfully. And so he was drawn to visit last time in the same places, to revive in your memory the dear, painfully tender memories of childhood, wreathed in such poetic sadness, to poison your soul with the sweet pain of the forever-gone, irretrievable purity and brightness of the first impressions of life.

He did just that. For two days he drove around Moscow, visiting old nests. I went to a boarding school on Gorokhovoye Pole, where I had once been brought up from the age of six under the guidance of classy ladies according to the Froebelian system. Everything there was redone and rebuilt: the boys' section no longer existed, but in the girls' classrooms there was still a pleasant and tempting smell of the fresh varnish of ash tables and benches and the wonderful mixed smell of gifts, especially apples, which were kept as before in a special cabinet with a key. Then he turned into the cadet corps and military school. He also visited Kudrin, in a house church, where as a cadet boy he served at the altar, serving the censer and going out in a surplice with a candle to the Gospel at mass, but also stole wax cinders, finished off the “warmth” after the communicants and made them sprinkle with various grimaces a laughing deacon, for which he was once solemnly expelled from the altar by the priest, a majestic, corpulent old man, strikingly similar to the altar god of hosts. He deliberately walked past all the houses where he had once experienced the first naive and half-childish yearnings of love, went into the courtyards, climbed the stairs and recognized almost nothing - so everything was rebuilt and changed over a whole quarter of a century. But Voznitsyn noticed with surprise and bitterness that his life-devastated, hardened soul remained cold and motionless and did not reflect the old, familiar sadness for the past, such a bright, quiet, thoughtful and submissive sadness...

“Yes, yes, yes, this is old age,” he repeated to himself and nodded his head sadly. “Old age, old age, old age... Nothing can be done...”

After Moscow, business forced him to stop for a day in Kyiv, and he arrived in Odessa at the beginning of Holy Week. But a long spring storm broke out at sea, and Voznitsyn, who was seasick in the slightest swell, did not dare to board the ship. Only on the morning of Holy Saturday did the weather become calm and calm.

At six o'clock in the afternoon the steamer " Grand Duke Alexey" moved away from the Practical Harbor pier. No one saw Voznitsin off, and he was very pleased with this, because he could not stand this always slightly hypocritical and always painful comedy of farewell, when God knows why you stand for half an hour at the side and tensely smile at the people standing sadly below on the pier, shouting out occasionally in a theatrical manner. in your voice aimless and meaningless phrases, as if intended for the surrounding public, you blow air kisses and finally breathe a sigh of relief, feeling how the ship begins to fall away heavily and slowly.

There were very few passengers that day, and even then third-class passengers predominated. In first class, besides Voznitsyn, as the footman reported to him, only a lady and her daughter were traveling. “And great,” the officer thought with relief.

Everything promised a calm and comfortable journey. The cabin we got was excellent - large and bright, with two sofas standing at right angles and no overhead seats above them. The sea, which had calmed overnight after a dead swell, was still boiling with small, frequent ripples, but no longer rocked. However, by evening it became fresh on deck.

That night Voznitsyn slept with the porthole open, and as soundly as he had not slept for many months, if not years. In Evpatoria, he was awakened by the roar of steam winches and running around the deck. He quickly washed his face, ordered himself some tea and went upstairs.

The steamer stood on the roads in a translucent milky-pink fog, permeated with gold rising sun. In the distance, the flat banks were faintly yellowing. The sea quietly splashed against the sides of the ship. It smelled wonderful of fish seaweed and resin. Some bales and barrels were being unloaded from a large longboat that had moored close to the Alexey. “Myna, vira, vira little by little, stop!” - rang loudly in the morning clean air command words.

When the longboat left and the ship set off, Voznitsyn went down to the dining room. A strange sight awaited him there. The tables, arranged along the walls in a large pattern, were cheerfully and colorfully decorated with fresh flowers and laden with Easter dishes. Whole-roasted lambs and turkeys raised their ugly bare skulls high up on long necks reinforced from the inside with invisible wire rods. These thin necks, curved in the shape of question marks, swayed and shuddered from the jolts of the moving steamship, and it seemed as if some strange, unprecedented antediluvian animals, like brontosaurs or ichthyosaurs, as they are depicted in paintings, were lying on large dishes, with their legs tucked under them, and with fussy and comical caution they look around, bending their heads down. And the sun's rays flowed from the portholes in round bright columns, gilding the tablecloth in places, transforming the colors easter eggs in purple and sapphire and lit hyacinths, forget-me-nots, violets, lacfioli, tulips and pansies with living lights.

For tea, the only lady traveling in first class came out into the cabin. Voznitsin quickly glanced at her in passing. She was not beautiful and not young, but with a well-preserved tall, slightly plump figure, simply and well dressed in a spacious light gray sak with silk embroidery on the collar and sleeves. Her head was covered with a light blue, almost transparent, gauze scarf. She was simultaneously drinking tea and reading a book, most likely a French one, as Voznitsyn decided, judging by its compactness, small size, format and binding in canary color.

Something terribly familiar, very old, flashed to Voznitsyn not so much in her face as in the turn of her neck and the lifting of her eyelids when she turned to look at him. But this unconscious impression immediately dissipated and was forgotten.

Soon it became hot, and we were drawn to the deck. The passenger went upstairs and sat down on the bench, on the side where there was no wind. She was either reading, or, lowering the book onto her lap, looking at the sea, at the tumbling dolphins, at the distant reddish, layered and steep shore, covered with sparse greenery on top.

Voznitsyn walked along the deck, along the sides, around the first class cabin. Once, when he passed by a lady, she again looked at him carefully, looked with some kind of questioning curiosity, and again it seemed to him that they had met somewhere. Little by little this feeling became restless and persistent. And most importantly, the officer now knew that the lady was experiencing the same thing as him. But his memory did not obey him, no matter how hard he strained it.

And suddenly, having caught up with the seated lady for the twentieth time, he suddenly, almost unexpectedly for himself, stopped near her, put his fingers to his cap in a military manner and, slightly clinking his spurs, said:

- Forgive my insolence... but I am constantly haunted by the thought that we know each other, or, rather... that once, a very long time ago, we knew each other.

She was completely ugly - an eyebrowless blonde, almost red, with gray hair, noticeable thanks to her blond hair only from a distance, with white eyelashes over blue eyes, with fading freckled skin on her face. Only her mouth was fresh, pink and full, outlined in charmingly curved lines.

- And me too, imagine. “I keep sitting and wondering where we met,” she answered. – My last name is Lvova. Does this mean anything to you?

– Unfortunately, no... And my last name is Voznitsyn.

The lady’s eyes suddenly sparkled with a cheerful and so familiar laugh that Voznitsyn thought he was about to recognize her.

- Voznitsyn? Kolya Voznitsyn? – she exclaimed joyfully, holding out her hand to him. - Don’t you recognize it now? Lvova is my married name... But no, no, remember finally!.. Remember: Moscow, Povarskaya, Borisoglebsky Lane - church house... Well? Remember your corps comrade... Arkasha Yurlov...

Voznitsyn’s hand, holding the lady’s hand, trembled and clenched. The instant light of memory seemed to blind him.

- Lord... Is it really Lenochka?.. It’s my fault... Elena... Elena...

- Vladimirovna. Forgot... And you - Kolya, the same Kolya, clumsy, shy and touchy Kolya?.. How strange! What a strange meeting!.. Sit down, please. I am so glad…

“Yes,” Voznitsyn uttered someone else’s phrase, “the world is, after all, so small that everyone will certainly meet everyone.” Well, tell me, tell me about yourself. What about Arkasha? What about Alexandra Milievna? What about Olechka?

In the building, Voznitsyn became close friends with one of his comrades, Yurlov. Every Sunday, unless he was left without vacation, he went to his family, and on Easter and Christmas he spent the entire holiday there. Before entering military school, Arkasha became seriously ill. The Yurlovs had to leave for the village. From then on, Voznitsyn lost sight of them. Many years ago he had heard in passing from someone that Lenochka for a long time was the bride of an officer and that this officer with the strange surname Zhenishek - with an emphasis on the first syllable - somehow absurdly and unexpectedly shot himself.

“Arkasha died in our village in 1990,” said Lvova. – He turned out to have a sarcoma of the head. His mother survived him by only a year. Olechka completed medical courses and is now a zemstvo doctor in Serdobsky district. And before she was a paramedic in Zhmakin. I never wanted to get married, although there were matches, and very decent ones. “I’ve been married for twenty years,” she smiled with sadly compressed lips, one corner of her mouth, “I’m already an old woman... My husband is a landowner, a member of the zemstvo council. There aren’t enough stars in the sky, but he’s an honest man, a good family man, not a drunkard, not a gambler or a libertine, like everyone else around him... and thank God for that...

– And remember, Elena Vladimirovna, how I was in love with you once! - Voznitsyn suddenly interrupted her.

She laughed, and her face immediately seemed younger. Voznitsyn managed for a moment to notice the golden sparkle of numerous fillings in her teeth.

- What nonsense. So... boyish courtship. And it's not true. You were not in love with me at all, but with the Sinelnikov ladies, all four of them in turn. When the eldest got married, you cast your heart at the feet of the next one...

- Yeah! Were you a little jealous of me after all? - Voznitsyn noted with playful complacency.

– Not at all... You were like Arkasha’s brother to me. Then, later, when we were already seventeen years old, then, perhaps... I was a little annoyed that you cheated on me... You know, it’s funny, but girls also have a woman’s heart. We may not love the silent admirer at all, but we are jealous of others... However, all this is nonsense. Tell us better how you are and what you are doing.

He talked about himself, about the academy, about his staff career, about the war, about his current service. No, he didn’t get married: before he was afraid of poverty and responsibility to his family, but now it’s too late. There were, of course, different hobbies, there were also serious novels.

Then the conversation broke off, and they sat in silence, looking at each other with tender, clouded eyes. The past, separated by thirty years, quickly flashed through Voznitsyn’s memory. He met Lenochka at a time when they were not yet eleven years old. She was a thin and capricious girl, a bully and a sneak, ugly with her freckles, long arms and legs, light eyelashes and red hair, from which straight thin braids always separated and hung along the cheeks. She had quarrels and reconciliations with Voznitsyn and Arkasha ten times a day. Sometimes it happened to get scratched... Olechka kept aloof: she was always distinguished by her good behavior and prudence. During the holidays, everyone went together to dance at the Noble Assembly, to theaters, to the circus, and to skating rinks. Together they organized Christmas trees and children's performances, painted eggs for Easter and dressed up for Christmas. They often fought and fussed like young dogs.

Three years passed like this. Lenochka, as always, went to live with her family in Zhmakino for the summer, and when she returned to Moscow in the fall, Voznitsyn, seeing her for the first time, opened his eyes and mouth in amazement. She still remained ugly, but there was something more beautiful in her than beauty, that pink, radiant flowering of the original girlhood, which, God knows by what miracle, comes suddenly and in a few weeks suddenly turns yesterday’s clumsy, like a growing Great Dane, big-armed , a big-legged girl into a charming girl. Helen's face was still covered with a strong rustic blush, under which one could feel the hot, cheerfully flowing blood, the shoulders were rounded, the hips and precise, firm outlines of the breasts were outlined, the whole body became flexible, dexterous and graceful.

And somehow the relationship immediately changed. They changed after one Saturday evening, before the all-night vigil, Lenochka and Voznitsyn, having become naughty in a dimly lit room, began to fight. The windows were still open then, the clear autumn freshness and subtle wine smell of fallen leaves came from the front garden, and slowly, blow after blow, floated the rare, melancholic ringing of the large bell of the Boris and Gleb Church.

They tightly wrapped their arms around each other crosswise and, connecting them behind, behind their backs, pressed their bodies closely, breathing into each other's faces. And suddenly, blushing so brightly that it was noticeable even in the blue twilight of the evening, lowering her eyes, Lenochka whispered abruptly, angrily and embarrassedly:

- Leave me... let me in... I don’t want...

And she added with an evil look from her wet, shining eyes:

- Ugly boy.

The ugly boy stood with his trembling hands down and absurdly outstretched. However, his legs were trembling, and his forehead became wet from the sudden perspiration. He had just felt her thin, obedient, feminine waist under his hands, so wonderfully expanding towards slender hips, he felt the elastic and supple touch of her strong, high girlish breasts on his chest and heard the smell of her body - that joyful drunken smell of blossoming poplar buds and young shoots of black currant, with which they smell on clear but wet spring evenings, after a momentary rain, when the sky and puddles are glowing from the dawn and cockchafers are buzzing in the air.

Thus began for Voznitsyn this year of love languor, wild and bitter dreams, isolated ones and secret tears. He went wild, became awkward and rude from painful shyness, every minute he dropped chairs with his feet, hooked his hands on all shaky objects like a rake, and knocked over glasses of tea and milk at the table. “Our Kolenka is completely overwhelmed,” Alexandra Milievna said good-naturedly about him.

Helen mocked him. And for him there was no greater torment and no greater happiness than to stand quietly behind her when she was drawing, writing or embroidering something, and looking at her bowed neck with wonderful white skin and curly light golden hair at the back of her head, to see like the brown school corsage on her chest, it wrinkles with thin oblique folds and becomes spacious, when Lenochka exhales air, then it fills again, becomes tight and so elastic, so fully rounded. And the sight of the naive wrists of her girlish fair hands and the fragrance of the blossoming poplar haunted the boy’s imagination in the classroom, in the church and in the punishment cell.

Voznitsyn inscribed all his notebooks and bindings with the beautifully intertwined initials E. and Yu. and cut them out with a knife on the lid of his desk in the middle of a pierced and flaming heart. The girl, of course, with her feminine instinct guessed his silent worship, but in her eyes he was too personal, too daily. For him, she suddenly turned into some kind of blooming, dazzling, fragrant miracle, and Voznitsin remained for her the same whirlwind boy, with a bass voice, with calloused and rough hands, in a narrow uniform and wide trousers. She flirted innocently with schoolchildren she knew and with young priests from the churchyard, but, like a cat sharpening its claws, she sometimes had the amusement of burning Voznitsyn with a quick, hot and sly glance. But if, having forgotten himself, he shook her hand too tightly, she would threaten with a pink finger and say meaningfully:

- Look, Kolya, I’ll tell my mother everything.

And Voznitsyn froze with unfeigned horror.

Of course, Kolya stayed for the second year in the sixth grade this season, and, of course, that same summer he managed to fall in love with the eldest of the Sinelnikov sisters, with whom he danced in Bogorodsk at the dacha circle. But on Easter, his heart, overflowing with love, recognized a moment of heavenly bliss...

He celebrated Easter Matins with the Yurlovs in the Boris and Gleb Church, where Alexandra Milievna even had her own place of honor, with a special rug and a folding soft chair. But for some reason they did not return home together. It seems that Alexandra Milievna and Olechka stayed to bless Easter cakes and Easter, and Lenochka, Arkasha and Kolya were the first to leave the church. But on the way, Arkasha suddenly and, probably diplomatically, disappeared - as if he had fallen through the ground. The teenagers were left alone.

They walked arm in arm, quickly and deftly dodging in the crowd, overtaking passers-by, stepping easily and in rhythm with their young, obedient feet. Everything intoxicated them on this beautiful night: joyful singing, many lights, kisses, laughter and movement in the church, and on the street there were many unusually awake people, a dark warm sky with large blinking spring stars, the smell of wet young leaves from the gardens behind the fences, this unexpected closeness and being lost on the street, among the crowd, in the late pre-dawn hour.

Pretending to himself that he was doing this by accident, Voznitsyn pressed Lenochka’s elbow to himself. She responded with a barely noticeable squeeze. He repeated this secret caress, and she responded again. Then he barely audibly felt the ends of her thin fingers in the darkness and gently stroked them, and the fingers did not resist, did not get angry, did not run away.

So they approached the gate church house. Arkasha left the gate open for them. To get to the house it was necessary to walk along narrow wooden walkways, laid, for the sake of dirt, between two rows of wide hundred-year-old linden trees. But when the gate slammed behind them, Voznitsin caught Lenochka’s hand and began to kiss her fingers - so warm, tender and alive.

- Helen, I love, love you...

He hugged her around the waist and in the darkness kissed her somewhere, it seemed, below her ear. This caused his hat to move and fall to the ground, but he did not look for it. He kept kissing the girl’s cold cheeks and whispering, as if in delirium:

- Helen, I love, I love...

“Don’t,” she said, also in a whisper, and he used this whisper to find her lips. - No need... Let me go... empty...

Cute, so flaming, half-childish, naive, inept lips! When he kissed her, she did not resist, but she did not respond to the kisses and sighed somehow especially touchingly - often, deeply and submissively. And tears of delight ran down his cheeks, cooling them. And when he, tearing away from her lips, raised his eyes upward, the stars that showered the linden branches danced, doubled and blurred like silver spots, refracting through the tears.

- Helen... I love...

- Leave me…

- Helen!

And suddenly she exclaimed unexpectedly angrily:

- Let me in, you nasty boy! You'll see, I'll tell my mother everything, everything, everything. Definitely!

She didn’t tell her mother anything, but from that night she was never left alone with Voznitsyn again. And then summer came...

– Do you remember, Elena Vladimirovna, how on one beautiful Easter night two young people kissed near the gate of the church house? – Voznitsyn asked.

“I don’t remember anything... Ugly boy,” she answered, laughing sweetly. “But look, here comes my daughter.” I’ll introduce you now... Lenochka, this is Nikolai Ivanovich Voznitsyn, my old, old friend, my childhood friend. And this is my Lenochka. She is now exactly the same age as I was on Easter night...

“Lenochka is big and Lenochka is small,” said Voznitsyn.

- No. Lenochka is old and Lenochka is young,” Lvova objected calmly, without bitterness.

Helen was very similar to her mother, but taller and more beautiful than she was in her girlhood. Her mother's red hair turned into the color of roasted walnut with a metallic tint, her dark eyebrows were thin and bold in design, but her mouth had a sensual and rough tint, although it was fresh and charming.

The girl became interested in floating lighthouses, and Voznitsyn explained to her their structure and purpose. Then he started talking about motionless lighthouses, about the depths of the Black Sea, about diving work, about shipwrecks. He knew how to talk beautifully, and the girl listened to him, breathing with her mouth half-open, not taking her eyes off him.

And he... the more he looked at her, the more his heart was clouded with soft and bright sadness - compassionate towards himself, joyful towards her, towards this new Lenochka, and quiet gratitude towards the old one. This was exactly the same feeling that he so craved in Moscow, only bright, almost completely purified of selfishness.

And when the girl moved away from them to look at the Chersonesos monastery, he took the hand of Lenochka Sr. and carefully kissed it.

“No, life is still wise, and we must obey its laws,” he said thoughtfully. “And besides, life is wonderful.” She is the eternal resurrection from the dead. So we will leave with you, we will collapse, we will disappear, but from our mind, inspiration and talent, a new Lenochka and a new Kolya Voznitsyn will grow, as if from dust... Everything is connected, everything is linked. I'll leave, but I'll stay. You just need to love life and submit to it. We all live together - both the dead and the resurrected.

He leaned down again to kiss her hand, and she gently kissed his heavily silvered temple. And when they looked at each other after that, their eyes were wet and smiled affectionately, tiredly and sadly.

A young circus performer is seduced by a famous clown. Soon he becomes interested in someone else, and the girl throws herself out of the window in despair.

Hello! (French allez!) - a command in the speech of circus performers, meaning “forward!”, “march!”

Allez! - this is the first word that Nora remembers from childhood. She grew up in the circus, did horse riding, trapeze acrobatics, walked on a tightrope, and all the time, overcoming the pain, she heard: “Allez!”

At the age of sixteen, Nora attracts the attention of the famous clown Menotti. He invites the girl to dinner and then to his room, whispering “Allez!” For almost a year, Nora travels with Menotti to cities, helps him, believes in his global greatness.

Menotti soon becomes tired of the girl, and the clown turns his attention to the trapeze artist Wilson. Menotti frequently beats Nora and at one point kicks her out, shouting "Allez!" Despite the rough treatment, Nora is still drawn to him. Entering Menotti's room one day, the girl finds him with Wilson. Nora rushes at her, and Menotti barely manages to separate the women. Humiliatingly kissing his boots, Nora begs Menotti not to leave her, but he throws the girl out. Nora leaves the room and sees an open window. Her fingers grow cold, her heart stops beating. With the last of her strength she shouts “Allez!” and jumps down.

While traveling from St. Petersburg to Crimea, Colonel of the General Staff Voznitsyn deliberately stopped for two days in Moscow, where he spent his childhood and youth. They say that intelligent animals, anticipating death, go around all the familiar, favorite places in their homes, as if saying goodbye to them. Voznitsyn was not threatened with imminent death - at forty-five years old he was still a strong, well-preserved man. But in his tastes, feelings and attitudes towards the world there was some kind of imperceptible deviation leading to old age. The circle of joys and pleasures naturally narrowed, circumspection and skeptical mistrust appeared in all actions, the unconscious, wordless animal love for nature disappeared, being replaced by a refined relish of beauty, the charming charm of a woman ceased to excite with alarming and acute excitement, and most importantly, the first sign of spiritual decline! - the thought of his own death began to come not with the same carefree and easy fleetingness with which it came before - as if sooner or later it was not he himself who would die, but someone else, by the name of Voznitsyn - but in a heavy, sharp , cruel, irrevocable and merciless clarity, from which at night the hair on the head turned cold and the heart fearfully sank. And so he was drawn to visit the same places for the last time, to revive in his memory the dear, painfully tender memories of his childhood, wreathed in such poetic sadness, to poison his soul with the sweet pain of the forever-gone, irretrievable purity and brightness of the first impressions of life.

He did just that. For two days he drove around Moscow, visiting old nests. I went to a boarding school on Gorokhovoye Pole, where I had once been brought up from the age of six under the guidance of classy ladies according to the Froebelian system. Everything there was redone and rebuilt: the boys' section no longer existed, but in the girls' classrooms there was still a pleasant and tempting smell of the fresh varnish of ash tables and benches and the wonderful mixed smell of gifts, especially apples, which were kept as before in a special cabinet with a key. Then he joined the cadet corps and the military school. He also visited Kudrin, in a house church, where as a cadet boy he served at the altar, serving the censer and going out in a surplice with a candle to the Gospel at mass, but also stole wax cinders, finished off the “warmth” after the communicants and made them sprinkle with various grimaces a laughing deacon, for which he was once solemnly expelled from the altar by the priest, a majestic, corpulent old man, strikingly similar to the altar god of hosts. He deliberately walked past all the houses where he had once experienced the first naive and half-childish yearnings of love, went into the courtyards, climbed the stairs and recognized almost nothing - so everything was rebuilt and changed over a whole quarter of a century. But Voznitsyn noticed with surprise and bitterness that his life-devastated, hardened soul remained cold and motionless and did not reflect the old, familiar sadness for the past, such a bright, quiet, thoughtful and submissive sadness...

“Yes, yes, yes, this is old age,” he repeated to himself and nodded his head sadly. “Old age, old age, old age... Nothing can be done...”

At six o'clock in the afternoon the steamship "Grand Duke Alexei" departed from the Practical Harbor pier. No one saw Voznitsin off, and he was very pleased with this, because he could not stand this always slightly hypocritical and always painful comedy of farewell, when God knows why you stand for half an hour at the side and tensely smile at the people standing sadly below on the pier, shouting out occasionally in a theatrical manner. in your voice aimless and meaningless phrases, as if intended for the surrounding public, you blow air kisses and finally breathe a sigh of relief, feeling how the ship begins to fall away heavily and slowly.

The steamer stood in the roadstead in a translucent milky-pink fog, permeated with the gold of the rising sun. In the distance, the flat banks were faintly yellowing. The sea quietly splashed against the sides of the ship. There was a wonderful smell of fish, seaweed and resin. Some bales and barrels were being unloaded from a large longboat that had moored close to the Alexey. “Myna, vira, vira little by little, stop!” – the command words rang loudly in the clear morning air.

When the longboat left and the ship set off, Voznitsyn went down to the dining room. A strange sight awaited him there. The tables, arranged along the walls in a large pattern, were cheerfully and colorfully decorated with fresh flowers and laden with Easter dishes. Whole-roasted lambs and turkeys raised their ugly bare skulls high up on long necks reinforced from the inside with invisible wire rods. These thin necks, bent in the shape of question marks, swayed and shuddered from the jolts of the moving steamship, and it seemed that some strange, unprecedented antediluvian animals, like brontosaurs or ichthyosaurs, as they are depicted in paintings, were lying on large dishes with their legs tucked under them , and with fussy and comical caution they look around, bending their heads down. And the sun's rays flowed from the portholes in round bright pillars, gilding the tablecloth in places, turning the colors of Easter eggs into purple and sapphire and lighting hyacinths, forget-me-nots, violets, lacfioli, tulips and pansies with living lights.

For tea, the only lady traveling in first class came out into the cabin. Voznitsin quickly glanced at her in passing. She was not beautiful and not young, but with a well-preserved tall, slightly plump figure, simply and well dressed in a spacious light gray sak with silk embroidery on the collar and sleeves. Her head was covered with a light blue, almost transparent, gauze scarf. She was simultaneously drinking tea and reading a book, most likely French, as Voznitsyn decided, judging by its compactness, small size, format and canary-colored binding.

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin

Lenochka

The text is verified with the edition: A. I. Kuprin. Collected works in 9 volumes. Volume 5. M.: Khud. Literature, 1972. pp. 193 - 203.

While traveling from St. Petersburg to Crimea, Colonel of the General Staff Voznitsyn deliberately stopped for two days in Moscow, where he spent his childhood and youth. They say that intelligent animals, anticipating death, go around all the familiar, favorite places in their homes, as if saying goodbye to them. Voznitsyn was not threatened with imminent death - at forty-five years old he was still a strong, well-preserved man. But in his tastes, feelings and attitudes towards the world there was some kind of imperceptible deviation leading to old age. The circle of joys and pleasures naturally narrowed, circumspection and skeptical mistrust appeared in all actions, the unconscious, wordless animal love for nature disappeared, being replaced by a refined relish of beauty, the charming charm of a woman ceased to excite with alarming and acute excitement, and most importantly, the first sign of spiritual decline! - the thought of his own death began to come not with the same carefree and easy fleetingness with which it came before - as if sooner or later it was not he himself who would die, but someone else, by the name of Voznitsyn - but in a heavy, sharp , cruel, irrevocable and merciless clarity, from which at night the hair on the head turned cold and the heart fearfully sank. And so he was drawn to visit the same places for the last time, to revive in his memory the dear, painfully tender memories of his childhood, wreathed in such poetic sadness, to poison his soul with the sweet pain of the forever-gone, irretrievable purity and brightness of the first impressions of life.

He did just that. For two days he drove around Moscow, visiting old nests. I went to a boarding school on Gorokhovoye Pole, where I had once been brought up from the age of six under the guidance of classy ladies according to the Froebelian system. Everything there was redone and rebuilt: the boys' section no longer existed, but in the girls' classrooms there was still a pleasant and tempting smell of the fresh varnish of ash tables and benches and the wonderful mixed smell of gifts, especially apples, which were kept as before in a special cabinet with a key. Then he joined the cadet corps and the military school. He also visited Kudrin, in a house church, where as a cadet boy he served at the altar, serving the censer and going out in a surplice with a candle to the Gospel at mass, but also stole wax cinders, finished off the “warmth” after the communicants and made them sprinkle with various grimaces a laughing deacon, for which he was once solemnly expelled from the altar by the priest, a majestic, corpulent old man, strikingly similar to the altar god of hosts. He deliberately walked past all the houses where he had once experienced the first naive and half-childish yearnings of love, went into the courtyards, climbed the stairs and recognized almost nothing - so everything was rebuilt and changed over a whole quarter of a century. But Voznitsyn noticed with surprise and bitterness that his life-devastated, hardened soul remained cold and motionless and did not reflect the old, familiar sadness for the past, such a bright, quiet, thoughtful and submissive sadness...

“Yes, yes, yes, this is old age,” he repeated to himself and nodded his head sadly. “Old age, old age, old age... Nothing can be done...”

The steamer stood in the roadstead in a translucent milky-pink fog, permeated with the gold of the rising sun. In the distance, the flat banks were faintly yellowing. The sea quietly splashed against the sides of the ship. There was a wonderful smell of fish, seaweed and resin. Some bales and barrels were being unloaded from a large longboat that had moored close to the Alexei. "Myna, vira, vira little by little, stop!" - the command words rang loudly in the clear morning air.

When the longboat left and the ship set off, Voznitsyn went down to the dining room. A strange sight awaited him there. The tables, arranged along the walls in a large pattern, were cheerfully and colorfully decorated with fresh flowers and laden with Easter dishes. Whole-roasted lambs and turkeys raised their ugly bare skulls high up on long necks reinforced from the inside with invisible wire rods. These thin necks, bent in the shape of question marks, swayed and shuddered from the jolts of the moving steamship, and it seemed that some strange, unprecedented antediluvian animals, like brontosaurs or ichthyosaurs, as they are depicted in paintings, were lying on large dishes with their legs tucked under them , and with fussy and comical caution they look around, bending their heads down. And the sun's rays flowed from the portholes in round bright pillars, gilding the tablecloth in places, turning the colors of Easter eggs into purple and sapphire and lighting hyacinths, forget-me-nots, violets, lacfioli, tulips and pansies with living lights.

For tea, the only lady traveling in first class came out into the cabin. Voznitsin quickly glanced at her in passing. She was not beautiful and not young, but with a well-preserved tall, slightly plump figure, simply and well dressed in a spacious light gray sak with silk embroidery on the collar and sleeves. Her head was covered with a light blue, almost transparent, gauze scarf. She was simultaneously drinking tea and reading a book, most likely French, as Voznitsyn decided, judging by its compactness, small size, format and canary-colored binding.

Forgive my insolence... but I am constantly haunted by the thought that we know each other, or, rather... that once, a very long time ago, we knew each other.

She was not at all beautiful - an eyebrowless blonde, almost red, with gray hair, noticeable thanks to her blond hair only from a distance, with white eyelashes over blue eyes, with fading freckled skin on her face. Only her mouth was fresh, pink and full, outlined in charmingly curved lines.

And me too, imagine. “I keep sitting and wondering where we met,” she answered. - My last name is Lvova. Does this mean anything to you?

Unfortunately, no... And my last name is Voznitsyn.

The lady's eyes suddenly sparkled with a cheerful and so familiar laugh that Voznitsyn thought he was about to recognize her.

Voznitsyn? Kolya Voznitsyn? - she exclaimed joyfully, holding out her hand to him. - Don’t you recognize it now? Lvova is my married name... But no, no, remember finally!.. Remember: Moscow, Povarskaya, Borisoglebsky Lane - a church house... Well? Remember your corps comrade... Arkasha Yurlov...

Voznitsyn’s hand, holding the lady’s hand, trembled and clenched. The instant light of memory seemed to blind him.

Lord... Is it really Lenochka?.. It's my fault... Elena... Elena...

Vladimirovna. Forgot... And you - Kolya, the same Kolya, clumsy, shy and touchy Kolya?.. How strange! What a strange meeting!.. Sit down, please. I am so glad...

Yes,” Voznitsyn uttered someone else’s phrase, “the world is, after all, so small that everyone will certainly meet everyone.” Well, tell me, tell me about yourself. What about Arkasha? What about Alexandra Milievna? What about Olechka?

In the building, Voznitsyn became close friends with one of his comrades, Yurlov. Every Sunday, unless he was left without vacation, he went to his family, and on Easter and Christmas he spent the entire holiday there. Before entering military school, Arkasha became seriously ill. The Yurlovs had to leave for the village. From then on, Voznitsyn lost sight of them. Many years ago, he heard in passing from someone that Lenochka had been the bride of an officer for a long time and that this officer with the strange surname J e nishek - with the emphasis on the first syllable - somehow absurdly and unexpectedly shot himself.

Arkasha died in our village in 1990,” said Lvova. - He turned out to have a sarcoma of the head. His mother survived him by only a year. Olechka completed medical courses and is now a zemstvo doctor in Serdobsky district. And before she was a paramedic in Zhmakin. I never wanted to get married, although there were matches, and very decent ones. I’ve been married for twenty years,” she smiled with sadly compressed lips, one corner of her mouth, “I’m already an old woman... My husband is a landowner, a member of the zemstvo council. There aren’t enough stars in the sky, but he’s an honest man, a good family man, not a drunkard, not a gambler or a libertine, like everyone else around him... and thank God for that...

And remember, Elena Vladimirovna, how I was in love with you once! - Voznitsyn suddenly interrupted her.

She laughed, and her face immediately seemed younger. Voznitsyn managed for a moment to notice the golden sparkle of numerous fillings in her teeth.

What nonsense. So... boyish courtship. And it's not true. You were not in love with me at all, but with the Sinelnikov ladies, all four of them in turn. When your eldest got married, you laid your heart at the feet of the next one...

Yeah! Were you a little jealous of me after all? - Voznitsyn noted with playful complacency.

Not at all... You were like Arkasha’s brother to me. Then, later, when we were already seventeen years old, then, perhaps... I was a little annoyed that you cheated on me... You know, it’s funny, but girls also have a woman’s heart. We may not love the silent admirer at all, but we are jealous of others... However, all this is nonsense. Tell us better how you are and what you are doing.

Then the conversation broke off, and they sat in silence, looking at each other with tender, clouded eyes. The past, separated by thirty years, quickly flashed through Voznitsyn’s memory. He met Lenochka at a time when they were not yet eleven years old. She was a thin and capricious girl, a bully and a sneak, ugly with her freckles, long arms and legs, light eyelashes and red hair, from which straight thin braids always separated and hung along her cheeks. She had quarrels and reconciliations with Voznitsyn and Arkasha ten times a day. Sometimes it happened to get scratched... Olechka kept aloof: she was always distinguished by her good behavior and prudence. During the holidays, everyone went together to dance at the Noble Assembly, to theaters, to the circus, and to skating rinks. Together they organized Christmas trees and children's performances, painted eggs for Easter and dressed up for Christmas. They often fought and fussed like young dogs.

Leave me... let me go... I don't want...

And she added with an evil look from her wet, shining eyes:

Ugly boy.

Look, Kolya, I’ll tell my mother everything.

And Voznitsyn froze with unfeigned horror.

So they approached the gate of the church house. Arkasha left the gate open for them. To get to the house it was necessary to walk along narrow wooden walkways, laid, for the sake of dirt, between two rows of wide hundred-year-old linden trees. But when the gate slammed shut behind them, Voznitsin caught Lenochka’s hand and began kissing her fingers - so warm, tender and alive.

Helen, I love, love you...

Helen, I love, I love...

“Don’t,” she said, also in a whisper, and he used this whisper to find her lips. - No need... Let me go... empty...

Helen... I love...

No. Lenochka is old and Lenochka is young,” Lvova objected calmly, without bitterness.

And when the girl moved away from them to look at the Chersonesos monastery, he took the hand of Lenochka Sr. and carefully kissed it.

No, life is still wise, and we must obey its laws,” he said thoughtfully. - And besides, life is wonderful. She is the eternal resurrection from the dead. So we will leave with you, we will collapse, we will disappear, but from our mind, inspiration and talent, a new Lenochka and a new Kolya Voznitsyn will grow, as if from dust... Everything is connected, everything is linked. I'll leave, but I'll stay. You just need to love life and submit to it. We all live together - both the dead and the resurrected.

Anar Rysakova - 11th grade student, school at the Kazakh-American University, Almaty. Teacher - Zinaida Naumovna Polyak.

Comparative analysis of stories by I.A. Bunin and A.I. Kuprina

The two stories that I want to compare in terms of plot, character system and author’s position are “Lenochka” (1910) by Kuprin, and “Dark Alleys” (1938) by Bunin. Although there is a large gap between the dates when the stories were written, the time of action in them is approximately the same.

The first thing that catches your eye when comparing the stories “Lenochka” and “Dark Alleys” is the similarity of the plot situation. The main event of both works is the meeting of former lovers after many years of separation. This is where not only similarities, but also differences between the two stories are revealed.

The episodes of the meeting of the main characters have something in common. At the first moment they do not yet recognize each other, but Voznitsyn already sees something familiar in Elena’s movements (“Lenochka”). And by the way Nikolai Alekseevich suddenly became inattentive and absent-minded, one can sense that he, too, sensed something old and familiar in Nadezhda’s appearance (“Dark Alleys”). But they don’t want to admit it; they doubt it. When Nadezhda reveals herself to Nikolai Alekseevich, he is shocked. Even horror, like a micro-infarction - the last thing in the world he wanted and thought about was meeting Nadezhda. He understands well the severity of his guilt towards her. And he is afraid of this meeting, afraid of being exposed as weak. The antithesis is Voznitsyn’s reaction: for him this meeting is simply happiness. He expresses his delight with gentle, sincere words.

In Bunin’s story “Dark Alleys,” the characters meet in the fall, in bad, cloudy weather, when the roads are muddy, and it’s cold and damp outside. An old military man runs into the inn for twenty minutes to drink tea and warm up, and stumbles upon the woman he loved in his youth. They communicate for about five minutes, with each complaining about their difficult fate. Nadezhda accuses, Nikolai makes excuses. In the end, Nikolai, who is afraid of seeming vulgar and banal - this meets the requirements of the society in which he lives - stops the conversation and leaves. From their conversation we learn that Nikolai Alekseevich got married - his wife left him, he loved his son - his son grew up to be a scoundrel. At the end of the story, he realizes that the happiest moments of his life were given to him by Nadezhda. But the tragedy of life is that they still couldn’t be together.

The plot of Kuprin's story is different. Voznitsyn does not get from the ship to the ball, like Nikolai Alekseevich; he himself has long been looking for a meeting with something that will evoke in his aging mind a feeling of bright, quiet, thoughtful sadness. It must be said that Voznitsyn began to think often and with fear about death. And so, on board the ship in clear, fresh weather, he meets his childhood friend Elena. They were friends as teenagers, and when youth came and with it the charm of Elena's girlish blossoming, he fell in love with her. Then he began to fall in love with all the girls he knew in turn, but it was the feeling he experienced for Lenochka that was remembered and remained in his soul forever. And it turns out that she too remembers the first kiss on Easter night at the gate. So, having seen Elena, Voznitsyn was imbued with the belief that one must love life and submit to it.

In both stories there is a motif of memories. But how different is the intonation of this appeal to the past! The memories of Nikolai Alekseevich and Nadezhda are expressed in a couple of phrases, from which it is clear that they passionately loved each other and both were remarkably beautiful. But Nadezhda returns to reality, explaining to him how cruelly he treated her. She reproaches and denounces Nikolai Alekseevich. And he, in turn, admires her former beauty and justifies himself by the fact that he abandoned Nadezhda, having fallen in love with his future wife. For Nadezhda, their love story became a tragedy, a grief that can be felt in her words. And for Nikolai Alekseevich - a bright memory and eternal guilt.

For Voznitsyn and Elena, the joy of meeting was mixed with nostalgia for their past youth - after all, they were just children in love. It’s fun and pleasant for them to remember their pranks, they just get younger from it. Voznitsyn half-jokingly reminds Elena of his boyish love, Elena half-seriously evaluates their relationship. Memories amuse them and evoke light sadness. It seems that in the present they do not have such joyful moments as they had in their youth.

Comparing the heroines, we are convinced that they represent two opposites: Nadezhda, a serf peasant woman who received her freedom, harbored a grudge against Nikolai Alekseevich all her life, but continued to love him, and therefore did not marry. She lives modestly, but is able to independently run a profitable business; She is dressed simply, in a country style, has grown fat, but has retained her beauty. Elena is an aristocrat, a married lady, well dressed, with a preserved figure, ugly and middle-aged. Elena already seems to have given up on her life, constantly calling herself an old woman, while Nadezhda is struggling with all her might for existence. Elena lived a boring life and married not for love, but simply for a decent person, and this depresses her in old age. Nadezhda, on the contrary, gave all “her passion” to her loved one and, after the passions of her youth, began to look at life wiser.

It is interesting to compare the farewell scenes of the heroes in both stories. Saying goodbye, Nikolai Alekseevich kissed Nadezhda’s hand, and this kiss evoked in him a mixed feeling of gratitude and shame. After all, remembering happiness mutual love, he does not forget about Nadezhda’s low social status. Then he was ashamed of his shame, he realized that he had succumbed to prejudice, forgetting about his feelings for the woman herself, that he had lost everything that was most sacred. Voznitsyn and Elena experienced other feelings. Having kissed each other, they were filled with affection and sadness that life was ending, but they had not lived it in vain. They were imbued with tender, caring love and are glad that they met. Because the meeting made them appreciate the brightest sides of their lives. It is no coincidence that the appearance of a young daughter, Elena, so reminiscent of her mother in her youth. Life goes on, youth is eternal, as the author tells us. (Let’s compare: the son of Nikolai Alekseevich mentioned by Bunin is perceived only in the context of the hero’s life failures.)

I. Bunin “Dark Alleys”	A. Kuprin “Lenochka”
The visitor glanced briefly at her rounded shoulders and light legs in worn red Tatar shoes and answered abruptly, inattentively...	Something terribly familiar, very old, flashed to Voznitsyn not so much in her face as in the turn of her neck and in the lifting of her eyelids when she turned to look at him. But this unconscious impression immediately dissipated and was forgotten.
He quickly straightened up, opened his eyes and blushed. Hope! You? - he said hastily.	Voznitsyn’s hand, holding the lady’s hand, trembled and clenched. The instant light of memory seemed to blind him. Lord... Is it really Lenochka?.. It's my fault... Elena... Elena...
Immediately after that, a dark-haired woman, also black-browed and also still beautiful beyond her age, entered the room, looking like an elderly gypsy woman, with dark fluff on her upper lip and along her cheeks, light on her feet, but plump, with large breasts under a red blouse, with a triangular, goose-like belly under a black woolen skirt.	For tea, the only lady traveling in first class came out into the cabin. Voznitsin quickly glanced at her in passing. She was ugly and not young, but with a well-preserved tall, slightly plump figure, simply and well dressed in a spacious light gray sak with silk embroidery on the collar and sleeves.
- You say you weren’t married? No, I wasn't.	“I’ve been married for twenty years,” she smiled with sadly compressed lips, one corner of her mouth, “the old woman is already...
- What is there to explain? You probably remember how much I loved you. He blushed to the point of tears and, frowning, walked off again. “Everything passes, my friend,” he muttered.	- And remember, Elena Vladimirovna, how I was in love with you once! - Voznitsyn suddenly interrupted her. She laughed, and her face immediately seemed younger.
- Oh, how good you were! - he said, shaking his head. - How hot, how beautiful! What a figure, what eyes! Do you remember how everyone looked at you? I remember, sir. You were also excellent. And it was I who gave you my beauty, my passion. How can you forget this?	- Do you remember, Elena Vladimirovna, how on one beautiful Easter night two young people kissed near the gate of the church house? - asked Voznitsyn. I don’t remember anything... Ugly boy,” she answered, laughing sweetly.
“Everything passes, my friend,” he muttered. - Love, youth - everything, everything. The story is vulgar, ordinary. Over the years everything goes away. How does the Book of Job say this? “You will remember how water flowed through.” Yes, blame yourself. Yes, sure, best moments. And not the best, but truly magical!	But Voznitsyn noticed with surprise and bitterness that his devastated life, hardened soul remained cold and motionless and did not reflect the old, familiar sadness for the past, such a bright, quiet, thoughtful and submissive sadness... “Yes, yes, yes, this is old age,” he repeated to himself and nodded his head sadly. “Old age, old age, old age... Nothing can be done...”
She came up and kissed his hand, and he kissed hers. With shame he remembered his last words and the fact that he had kissed her hand, and was immediately ashamed of his shame.	He leaned down again to kiss her hand, and she tenderly kissed his heavily silvered temple. And when they looked at each other after that, their eyes were wet and smiled affectionately, tiredly and sadly.

As we see, the plots of the stories and the characters of the characters, which at first glance seem similar, actually differ primarily due to differences in the author’s position. The outlook on life that became the core of Bunin’s story is deep sadness and hopelessness, disbelief in the possibility of happiness. Kuprin’s story, on the contrary, exudes a light sadness (I remember Pushkin’s: “my sadness is bright”) and a joyful feeling that life is eternal and beautiful.