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Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin
Lenochka

On his way from St. Petersburg to the Crimea, Colonel of the General Staff Voznitsyn deliberately stopped for two days in Moscow, where he spent his childhood and youth. They say that smart animals, anticipating death, bypass all the familiar, favorite places in their homes, as if saying goodbye to them. Imminent 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, some imperceptible deviation took place, leading to old age. The circle of joys and pleasures narrowed by itself, a glance and skeptical distrust in all actions appeared, the unconscious, wordless bestial love for nature disappeared, being replaced by a refined savoring of beauty, the charming charm of a woman ceased to excite with anxious and sharp excitement, and most importantly, the first sign of spiritual withering! - the thought of his own death began to come not with the former carefree and light fleetingness with which it had come before - as if sooner or later not he himself, but someone else, by the name of Voznitsyn, had to die - but in a severe, sharp , cruel, irrevocable and merciless clarity, from which at night the hair on the head turned cold and the heart fell fearfully. And now he was drawn to visit the former places for the last time, to revive in his memory dear, painfully tender childhood memories covered with such poetic sadness, to poison his soul with sweet pain for the gone forever, irretrievable purity and brightness of the first impressions of life.

He did just that. For two days he traveled around Moscow, visiting old nests. I stopped at a boarding house on the Gorokhovo Pole, where, from the age of six, I was brought up under the guidance of cool ladies according to the Froebel system. Everything was remade and rebuilt there: the boys’ section no longer existed, but the girls’ classrooms still smelled pleasantly and enticingly of the fresh varnish of ash tables and benches and the wonderful mixed smell of gifts, especially apples, which, as before, were stored in a special locker. Then he turned to the cadet corps and to the military school. He also visited Kudrin, in one house church, where as a cadet boy he served at the altar, serving a censer and going out in a surplice with a candle to the Gospel at Mass, but also stole wax stubs, drank the “warmth” after the communicants and made him sprinkle with various grimaces laughing deacon, for which he was once solemnly expelled from the altar by the priest, a majestic, obese old man, strikingly similar to the altar god Sabaoth. On purpose he passed by all the houses where he had once experienced the first naive and half-childish languor of love, went into the yards, climbed the stairs and recognized almost nothing - so everything was rearranged and changed over a whole quarter of a century. But with surprise and bitterness, Voznitsyn noticed that his hardened soul, devastated by life, remained cold and motionless and did not reflect in itself the former, familiar sadness over the past, such a bright, quiet, thoughtful and submissive sadness ...

"Yes, yes, yes, it's old age," he repeated to himself, nodding his head sadly. “Old age, old age, old age… Nothing can be done…”

After Moscow, business forced him to stay in Kyiv for a day, and he arrived in Odessa at the beginning of Passion Week. But a long spring storm broke out at sea, and Voznitsyn, who was seasick at the slightest swell, did not dare to board the ship. Only by the morning of Passionate Saturday was even, windless weather established.

At six o'clock in the afternoon, the steamer "Grand Duke Alexei" departed from the pier of the Praktichnaya Harbor. Nobody saw Voznitsyn off, and he was very pleased with this, because he could not stand this always a little hypocritical and always painful comedy of farewell, when God knows why you stand for half an hour at the side and smile tensely at people standing drearily below on the pier, occasionally shouting out to the theatrical aimless and meaningless phrases in your voice, as if intended for the surrounding public, you send air kisses and finally breathe a sigh of relief, feeling how the ship begins to slowly and heavily roll off.

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

Everything promised a calm and comfortable journey. The cabin was excellent - large and bright, with two sofas, standing at right angles, and no upper seats above them. The sea, which had calmed down during the night after a dead swell, was still seething with small, frequent ripples, but no longer swaying. By evening, however, it was cool 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 on the deck. He quickly washed himself, ordered himself some tea and went upstairs.

The steamer stood on the roads in a translucent milky-pink fog, pierced by the gold of the rising sun. In the distance, the flat shores turned slightly yellow. The sea gently lapped against the sides of the ship. It smelled wonderfully of fish, seaweed and resin. Some bales and barrels were being loaded from a large longboat, which had docked close to the Alexei. "Maina, vira, vira little by little, stop!" command words resounded loudly in the clear morning air.

When the longboat pulled away and the steamer set off, Voznitsyn went down to the dining room. A strange sight awaited him there. The tables, arranged along the walls in great peace, were cheerfully and colorfully decorated with fresh flowers and filled with Easter dishes. Roasted whole lambs and turkeys raised high their ugly bare skulls on long necks, reinforced from the inside with invisible wire rods. These thin necks, bent in the form of question marks, trembled and shuddered from the jolts of a passing steamer, and it seemed that some strange, unprecedented antediluvian animals, like brontosaurs or ichthyosaurs, as they are depicted in pictures, were lying on large dishes, bending their legs under them. , and look around with fussy and comic caution, bending their heads down. And the sun's rays flowed from the portholes in round bright columns, gilded the tablecloth in places, turned the colors of Easter eggs into purple and sapphire, and lit hyacinths, forget-me-nots, violets, lacfioli, tulips and pansies with live fires.

By tea, the only lady who traveled in first class went into the salon. Voznitsyn glanced quickly 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 sack coat with silk embroidery on the collar and sleeves. Her head was covered with a light blue, almost transparent, gauze scarf. She was drinking tea and reading a book at the same time, most likely a French one, as Voznitsyn decided, judging by its compactness, small size, canary-colored format and binding.

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

It soon became hot, and pulled on deck. The passenger went upstairs and sat down on a bench on the side where there was no wind. She now read, then, putting the book down on her knees, looked at the sea, at somersaulting dolphins, at the distant reddish, layered and steep coast, covered from above with meager greenery.

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

And suddenly, having come abreast of the sitting lady for the twentieth time, he suddenly, almost unexpectedly for himself, stopped beside her, put his fingers in military style to his cap and, with a slight jingle of his spurs, said:

“Forgive my insolence… but the thought haunts me all the time that we know each other, or rather… that we knew each other a long time ago.

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

“Me too, mind you. I’m still sitting and thinking where we saw each other,” she replied. – My last name is Lvova. Doesn't that tell you anything?

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

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

- Voznitsyn? Kolya Voznitsyn? she exclaimed happily, holding out her hand to him. "Don't you even know now?" Lvova is my husband's surname... But no, no, finally remember! Remember your comrade in the corps... Arkasha Yurlov...

Voznitsyn's hand, which held the lady's hand, trembled and tightened. The momentary light of the memory blinded him exactly.

- Lord ... Is Lenochka really? .. Guilty ... Elena ... Elena ...

- Vladimirovna. Forgotten ... 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, “after all, the world is so small that everyone will certainly meet everyone. Well, tell me, tell me about yourself. What is Arkasha? What is Alexandra Milievna? What is Olechka?

In the corps, Voznitsyn became close friends with one of his comrades, Yurlov. Every Sunday, if only he did not go without a vacation, he went to his family, and on Easter and Christmas, it happened that he spent all his holidays there. Before entering the military school, Arkasha fell seriously ill. The Yurlovs had to leave for the village. Since then, Voznitsyn has lost sight of them. Many years ago, he heard in passing from someone that Lenochka had been an officer's fiancée for a long time, 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,” Lvova said. - He had a sarcoma of the head. Mom survived him by only a year. Olechka graduated from medical courses and is now a zemstvo doctor in Serdobsky district. And earlier she was a paramedic in Zhmakino. I didn’t want to get married for anything, although there were parties, and very decent ones. I've been married for twenty years, - she smiled sadly with compressed lips, one corner of her mouth, - the old woman is already ... Her husband is a landowner, a member of the Zemstvo council. There are not enough stars from the sky, but an honest man, a good family man, not a drunkard, not a gambler and not a libertine, like everyone around ... and thank God for this ...

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

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

- What nonsense. So… boyish courtship. Yes, and not true. You were in love not with me at all, but with the young ladies of the Sinelnikovs, with all four of them in turn. When the eldest got married, you threw your heart at the feet of the next after her ...

– Aha! Are you still a little jealous of me? Voznitsyn remarked with playful self-satisfaction.

- That's really 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 adorer at all, but we are jealous of others ... However, all this is nothing. Please tell me how you are and what you are doing.

He spoke about himself, about the academy, about his staff career, about the war, about his current service. No, he did not marry: before, poverty and responsibility before the family were frightening, but now it is 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 affectionate, misty eyes. In Voznitsyn's memory, the past, separated by thirty years, quickly flashed by. 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, fair eyelashes and red hair, from which straight thin tresses always separated and dangled along her cheeks. She had quarrels and reconciliations with Voznitsyn and Arkasha ten times a day. Sometimes it happened and get scratched ... Olechka kept aloof: she was always distinguished by good temper and prudence. On holidays, everyone went dancing together to the Noble Assembly, to theaters, to the circus, to skating rinks. Together they arranged Christmas trees and children's performances, painted eggs for Easter and dressed up for Christmas. Often fought and fussed like young dogs.

So three years passed. Lenochka, as always, left for the summer with her family to her place in Zhmakino, 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 than beauty in her, that pink radiant flowering of the original girlhood, which, God knows by what miracle, comes suddenly and in some weeks suddenly turns yesterday's clumsy, like a growing dog, big-armed , a big-legged girl into a charming girl. Lenochka's face was still covered with a strong rustic blush, under which one felt hot, cheerfully flowing blood, her shoulders were rounded, her hips and precise, firm outlines of her breasts were outlined, her whole body became flexible, dexterous and graceful.

And the relationship somehow changed immediately. They changed after one of the Saturday evenings, before the vigil, Lenochka and Voznitsyn, naughty in a dimly lit room, grabbed to fight. The windows were still open then, from the front garden there was a breath of clear autumn freshness and a delicate wine smell of fallen leaves, and slowly, blow after blow, floated a rare, melancholic ringing of the large bell of the Borisoglebskaya church.

They wrapped their arms tightly 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 go… I don’t want to…”

And she added with an evil look of moist, shining eyes:

- Ugly boy.

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

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

Lenochka mocked him. And for him there was no greater torment and greater happiness than to stand quietly behind her when she was drawing, writing or embroidering something, and looking at her bent neck with wonderful white skin and curly light golden hair at the back of her head, to see like a brown gymnasium bodice on her chest now wrinkling in thin oblique folds and becoming spacious, when Lenochka exhales the air, then again it becomes full, becomes tight and so elastic, so completely rounded. And the sight of the naive wrists of her girlish bright hands and the fragrance of a blossoming poplar haunted the boy's imagination in the classroom, in the church and in the punishment cell.

All his notebooks and bindings were scribbled by Voznitsyn with the beautifully intertwined initials E. and Y. and cut them out with a knife on the lid of the 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 own, too everyday. For him, she suddenly turned into some kind of blooming, dazzling, fragrant miracle, and Voznitsyn remained for her the same swirling boy, with a bass voice, with calloused and rough hands, in a narrow uniform and the widest trousers. She flirted innocently with schoolboys she knew and with young priests from the churchyard, but, like a cat sharpening its claws, it sometimes amused her to burn Voznitsyn with a quick, hot, and crafty look. But if, forgetting himself, he squeezed her hand too tightly, she would threaten with a pink finger and say meaningfully:

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

And Voznitsyn went cold with unfeigned horror.

Of course, Kolya stayed this season for the second year in the sixth grade, 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. But on Easter, his heart overflowing with love recognized the moment of heavenly bliss ...

He celebrated Easter matins with the Yurlovs in the Borisoglebsk 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 celebrate Easter cakes and Easter, and Lenochka, Arkasha and Kolya were the first to leave the church. But along the way, Arkasha suddenly and must have diplomatically disappeared - as if he had fallen through the ground. The teenagers were alone.

They walked hand in hand, quickly and deftly dodging in the crowd, overtaking passers-by, stepping easily and in time with 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 - this is a lot of unusually awake people, a dark warm sky with big twinkling spring stars, the smell of wet young foliage from the gardens behind the fences, this unexpected closeness and lostness on the street, among the crowd, in the late pre-morning hour.

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

So they came to the gate of the church house. Arkasha left the gate open for them. It was necessary to go to the house along narrow wooden walkways, laid, for the sake of dirt, between two rows of wide hundred-year-old lindens. But when the closed gate slammed behind them, Voznitsyn caught Lenochka's hand and began to kiss her fingers - so warm, tender and alive.

- Lenochka, I love, I love you ...

He put his arm around her waist and in the dark kissed her somewhere, it seems, below the ear. From this, his hat moved and fell to the ground, but he did not look for it. He kept kissing the girl's cold cheeks and whispering, as if in delirium:

- Lenochka, I love, I love ...

"Don't," she said in a whisper, too, and he found his lips in that whisper. - No need ... Let me go ... empty ...

Lovely, so flaming, half-childish, naive, inept lips! When he kissed her, she did not resist, but she did not return the kiss either, and sighed in a particularly touching way—often, deeply, and submissively. And tears of delight ran down his cheeks, chilling them. And when, breaking away from her lips, he raised his eyes upward, the stars that showered the linden branches danced, doubled and blurred in silver spots, refracted through tears.

- Lenochka ... I love ...

- Leave me…

- Lenochka!

And suddenly she exclaimed unexpectedly angrily:

“Let me go, you ugly boy!” You'll see, I'll tell everything, everything, everything to my mother. By all means!

She did not tell her mother anything, but from that night she was never 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?” Voznitsin 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, a friend of my childhood. And this is my Lenochka. She is now just as old as I was one Easter night ...

“Helen is big and Lenochka is little,” said Voznitsyn.

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

Lenochka was very similar to her mother, but taller and more beautiful than she was in her maiden years. Her mother's red hair had faded to a metallic, roasted walnut color, her dark eyebrows were delicate and bold, but her mouth was sensual and coarse, though fresh and lovely.

The girl became interested in lightships, and Voznitsyn explained to her their device and purpose. Then he spoke of fixed lighthouses, of the depths of the Black Sea, of diving operations, of shipwrecks. He knew how to talk beautifully, and the girl listened to him, breathing through her half-open mouth, not taking her eyes off him.

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

And when the girl moved away from them to look at the Chersonese monastery, he took the hand of Lenochka Sr. and gently kissed her.

“No, life is still wise, and one must obey its laws,” he said thoughtfully. “Besides, life is beautiful. She is the eternal resurrection from the dead. Here we will leave with you, collapse, 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 dead and resurrected.

He bent down once more to kiss her hand, and she kissed him tenderly on his strongly silvery temple. And when after that they looked at each other, their eyes were moist and smiled kindly, wearily and sadly.

A young circus performer is seduced by a famous clown. Soon he is carried away by another, and the girl in desperation throws herself out of the window.

Hello! (fr. allez!) - a command in the speech of circus performers, meaning "forward!", "March!".

Allez! is the first word that Nora remembers from childhood. She grew up in a circus, was engaged in horse riding, acrobatics on a trapeze, walked on a tightrope and all the time, overpowering the pain, 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 around the cities, helps him, believes in his world greatness.

Soon the girl bothers Menotti, and the clown pays attention to the aerialist Wilson. Menotti often beats Nora and one day kicks her out, shouting "Allez!" Despite the rough treatment, Nora is still drawn to him. Having once entered Menotti's room, the girl finds him with Wilson. Nora rushes at her, and Menotti barely manages to pull the women away. Humiliatingly kissing his boots, Nora begs Menotti not to leave her, but he kicks the girl out. Nora leaves the room and sees an open window. Her fingers go cold, her heart stops beating. With the last of her strength, she shouts out "Allez!" and jumps down.

"Yes, yes, yes, it's old age," he repeated to himself, nodding his head sadly. “Old age, old age, old age… Nothing can be done…”

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin

Lenochka

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

On his way from St. Petersburg to the Crimea, Colonel of the General Staff Voznitsyn deliberately stopped for two days in Moscow, where he spent his childhood and youth. They say that smart animals, anticipating death, bypass all the familiar, favorite places in their homes, as if saying goodbye to them. Imminent 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, some imperceptible deviation took place, leading to old age. By itself, the circle of joys and pleasures narrowed, a glance and skeptical distrust in all actions appeared, the unconscious, wordless animal love for nature disappeared, being replaced by a refined savoring of beauty, the charming charm of a woman ceased to excite with anxious and sharp excitement, and most importantly, the first sign of spiritual withering! - the thought of his own death began to come not with the former carefree and easy fleetingness with which it had come 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 severe, sharp , cruel, irrevocable and merciless clarity, from which at night the hair on the head turned cold and the heart fell fearfully. And now he was drawn to visit the former places for the last time, to revive in his memory dear, painfully tender childhood memories covered with such poetic sadness, to poison his soul with sweet pain for the gone forever, irretrievable purity and brightness of the first impressions of life.

He did just that. For two days he traveled around Moscow, visiting old nests. I stopped at a boarding house on the Gorokhovo Pole, where, from the age of six, I was brought up under the guidance of cool ladies according to the Froebel system. Everything was remade and rebuilt there: the boys’ section no longer existed, but the girls’ classrooms still smelled pleasantly and enticingly of the fresh varnish of ash tables and benches and the wonderful mixed smell of gifts, especially apples, which, as before, were stored in a special locker. Then he turned to the cadet corps and to the military school. He also visited Kudrin, in one house church, where as a cadet boy he served at the altar, serving a censer and going out in surplice with a candle to the Gospel at Mass, but he also stole wax stubs, drank the "warmth" after the communicants and made him squirt with various grimaces laughing deacon, for which he was once solemnly expelled from the altar by the priest, a majestic, obese old man, strikingly similar to the altar god Sabaoth. On purpose he passed by all the houses where he had once experienced the first naive and half-childish languor of love, went into the yards, climbed the stairs and recognized almost nothing - so everything was rearranged and changed over a whole quarter of a century. But with surprise and bitterness, Voznitsyn noticed that his hardened soul, devastated by life, remained cold and motionless and did not reflect in itself the former, familiar sadness over the past, such a bright, quiet, thoughtful and submissive sadness ...

"Yes, yes, yes, it's old age," he repeated to himself and nodded his head sadly. "Old age, old age, old age... There's nothing to be done..."

The steamer stood on the roads in a translucent milky-pink fog, pierced by the gold of the rising sun. In the distance, the flat shores turned slightly yellow. The sea gently lapped against the sides of the ship. It smelled wonderfully of fish, seaweed and resin. Some bales and barrels were being loaded from a large longboat, which had docked close to the Alexei. "Maina, Vira, Vira little by little, stop!" command words rang out loudly in the clear morning air.

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

Forgive my insolence... but the thought haunts me all the time 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 visible only from a distance due to her blond hair, with white eyelashes over blue eyes, with fading freckled skin on her face. Only her mouth was fresh, pink and full, outlined in lovely curved lines.

And so do I, imagine. I'm still sitting and thinking where we met, - she answered. - My last name is Lvova. Doesn't that tell you anything?

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

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

Voznitsyn? Kolya Voznitsyn? she exclaimed happily, holding out her hand to him. "Don't you even know now?" Lvova - this is my husband's surname ... But no, no, finally remember! .. Remember: Moscow, Povarskaya, Borisoglebsky lane - a church house ... Well? Remember your comrade in the corps... Arkasha Yurlov...

Voznitsyn's hand, which held the lady's hand, trembled and tightened. The momentary light of the memory blinded him exactly.

Lord... Is Lenochka really?... To blame... Elena... Elena...

Vladimirovna. Forgotten ... 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 so small after all that everyone will certainly meet everyone. Well, tell me, tell me about yourself. What is Arkasha? What is Alexandra Milievna? What is Olechka?

In the corps, Voznitsyn became close friends with one of his comrades, Yurlov. Every Sunday, if only he did not go without a vacation, he went to his family, and on Easter and Christmas, it happened that he spent all his holidays there. Before entering the military school, Arkasha fell seriously ill. The Yurlovs had to leave for the village. Since then, Voznitsyn has lost sight of them. Many years ago, he casually heard from someone that Lenochka had been the bride of an officer for a long time and that this officer with the strange surname Zh e nishek - with an emphasis on the first syllable - somehow absurdly and unexpectedly shot himself.

Arkasha died in our village in the ninetieth year, - said Lvova. - He had a sarcoma of the head. Mom survived him by only a year. Olechka graduated from medical courses and is now a zemstvo doctor in Serdobsky district. And earlier she was a paramedic in Zhmakino. I didn’t want to get married for anything, although there were parties, and very decent ones. I've been married for twenty years, - she smiled sadly with compressed lips, one corner of her mouth, - the old woman is already ... Her husband is a landowner, a member of the Zemstvo council. There are not enough stars from the sky, but an honest man, a good family man, not a drunkard, not a gambler and not a libertine, like everyone around ... and thank God for this ...

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

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

What nonsense. So... boyish courtship. Yes, and not true. You were in love not with me at all, but with the young ladies of the Sinelnikovs, with all four of them in turn. When the eldest got married, you threw your heart at the feet of the next after her ...

Aha! Are you still a little jealous of me? remarked Voznitsyn with playful self-satisfaction.

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 a silent adorer at all, but we are jealous of others ... However, all this is nothing. Please tell me how you are and what you are doing.

Then the conversation broke off, and they sat in silence, looking at each other with affectionate, misty eyes. In Voznitsyn's memory, the past, separated by thirty years, quickly flashed by. 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, fair eyelashes and red hair, from which straight thin tresses always separated and dangled along her cheeks. She had quarrels and reconciliations with Voznitsyn and Arkasha ten times a day. Sometimes it happened and scratched ... Olechka kept aloof: she was always distinguished by good temper and prudence. On holidays, everyone went dancing together to the Noble Assembly, to theaters, to the circus, to skating rinks. Together they arranged Christmas trees and children's performances, painted eggs for Easter and dressed up for Christmas. Often fought and fussed like young dogs.

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

And she added with an evil look of moist, shining eyes:

Ugly boy.

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

And Voznitsyn went cold with unfeigned horror.

Lenochka, I love, love you...

Honey, I love, I love...

No need, - she said in a whisper, too, and by this whisper he found lips. - Don't... Let me go... empty...

Lenochka... 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 Chersonese monastery, he took the hand of Lenochka Sr. and gently kissed her.

No, life is still wise, and one must obey its laws,” he said thoughtfully. And besides, life is beautiful. She is the eternal resurrection from the dead. So we will leave with you, collapse, 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 dead and resurrected.

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

Comparative analysis of I.A. Bunin and A.I. Kuprin

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 of the writing of the stories, the time of action in them is approximately the same.

The first thing that catches your eye when comparing the stories "Helen" 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 still do not recognize each other, but Voznitsyn already sees something familiar in the movements of Elena (“Helen”). And by the way Nikolai Alekseevich suddenly became inattentive and absent-minded, one can catch that he also felt something long-standing and familiar in Nadezhda's appearance (“Dark Alleys”). But they do not want to be identified, they doubt. When Nadezhda opens up to Nikolai Alekseevich, he is shocked. Even horror, like a micro-infarction - the last thing in the world he wanted and thought to meet Nadezhda. He well understands the gravity of his guilt before her. And he is afraid of this meeting, he is afraid of being convicted of weakness. The antithesis is Voznitsyn's reaction: for him, this meeting is just happiness. He expresses his delight with tender, sincere words.

In Bunin's story "Dark Alleys", the characters meet in autumn, in bad, cloudy weather, when the roads are muddy, it's cold and damp outside. An old military man runs into an inn for twenty minutes to drink tea and warm himself, and stumbles upon a woman whom he loved in his youth. They communicate for about five minutes, while each complains about his plight. Nadezhda accuses, Nikolai justifies himself. In the end, Nikolai, who is afraid to seem vulgar and banal - this meets the requirements of the society in which he lives - stops talking and leaves. From their conversation, we learn that Nikolai Alekseevich got married - his wife left him, loved his son - the son grew up 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 could not 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 cause in his aging mind a feeling of light, quiet, thoughtful sadness. I must say that Voznitsyn began to think about death often and with fear. And 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 flourishing, 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 had for Lenochka that he remembered and remained in his soul forever. And it turns out that she also 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, the motif of memories sounds. But how different is the intonation of this appeal to the past! The memoirs 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 leaving Nadezhda, having fallen in love with his future wife. For Nadezhda, their love story has become a tragedy, grief, which is 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 the past youth - after all, they were just children in love. It is fun and pleasant for them to remember their pranks, they just get younger from this. Voznitsyn half-jokingly reminds Elena of his boyish love, Elena half-seriously assesses their relationship. Memories amuse them and evoke bright 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. Lives modestly, but is able to independently conduct a profitable business; she was dressed simply, in a rustic way, she had grown fat, but she retained her beauty. Elena is an aristocrat, a married lady, well-dressed, with a well-preserved figure, ugly and middle-aged. Elena already seems to have put an end to her life, every minute she calls herself an old woman, while Nadezhda is fighting with might and main 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 fever” to her beloved and, after the passions of her youth, she began to look at life wiser.

It is interesting to compare the farewell scenes of the characters in both stories. Saying goodbye, Nikolai Alekseevich kissed Nadezhda's hand, and this kiss aroused in him a mixed feeling of gratitude and shame. After all, remembering the happiness of mutual love, he does not forget about the low social position of Nadezhda. Then he was ashamed of his shame, he realized that he had succumbed to prejudice, forgetting about 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 caress and sadness that life is ending, but they did not live 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 the young daughter Elena, so reminiscent of her mother in her youth. Life goes on, youth is eternal, as the author tells us. (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 "Helen"
The newcomer glanced briefly at her rounded shoulders and light legs in worn red Tatar shoes and abruptly, inattentively answered ...	Something terribly familiar, very old, flashed through Voznitsyn not so much in her face as in the turn of her neck and in the raising of her eyelids when she turned around at his glance. But this unconscious impression was immediately dispelled and forgotten.
He quickly straightened up, opened his eyes and blushed. Hope! You? he said hastily.	Voznitsyn's hand, which held the lady's hand, trembled and tightened. The momentary light of the memory blinded him exactly. Lord... Is Lenochka really?... To blame... Elena... Elena...
Immediately afterwards, a dark-haired woman, also black-browed and also still beautiful beyond her age, resembling an elderly gypsy, with a dark down on her upper lip and along her cheeks, light in walking, but plump, with large breasts under a red blouse, with triangular, like a goose, belly under a black woolen skirt.	By tea, the only lady who traveled in first class went into the salon. Voznitsyn glanced quickly 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 sack coat with silk embroidery on the collar and sleeves.
- Married, you say, was not? No, it wasn't.	“I’ve been married for twenty years,” she smiled sadly with compressed lips, one corner of her mouth, “the old woman is already ...
- What is there to explain. Remember how much I loved you. He blushed to tears and, frowning, walked 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 instantly looked younger.
- Oh, how good you were! he said, shaking his head. - How hot, how beautiful! What a camp, what eyes! Do you remember how everyone looked at you? I remember, sir. You were also very good. And after all, I gave you my beauty, my fever. How can you forget that.	- 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. Everything goes away with the years. How does it say in the Book of Job? “How will you remember the water that has flowed.” Yes, blame yourself. Yes, of course, the best moments. And not the best, but truly magical!	But with surprise and bitterness, Voznitsyn noticed that his hardened soul, devastated by life, remained cold and motionless and did not reflect in itself the former, familiar sadness over the past, such a bright, quiet, thoughtful and submissive sadness ... “Yes, yes, yes, this is old age,” he repeated to himself and sadly nodded his head. “Old age, old age, old age… There’s nothing to be done…”
She came up and kissed his hand, he kissed hers. With shame he recalled his last words and the fact that he had kissed her hand, and was immediately ashamed of his shame.	He leaned down once more to kiss her hand, and she kissed him tenderly on his strongly silvery temple. And when after that they looked at each other, their eyes were moist and smiled kindly, wearily and sadly.

As you can see, the plots of the stories and the characters of the characters, which at first approximation seem similar, actually differ primarily due to the difference in the author's position. The outlook on life, which became the core of Bunin's story, is deep sadness and hopelessness, disbelief in the possibility of happiness. From Kuprin's story, on the contrary, it breathes with light sadness (I recall Pushkin's: “My sadness is bright”) and a joyful feeling that life is eternal and beautiful.