Chekhov Anton Pavlovich. Chekhov Volume Five
And vests; on them is an unopened pack of tobacco, a dozen pill boxes, a crimson scarf, a piece of glycerin soap in a yellow wrapper and a lot of other goodies, and along the edges of the chest stacks of written paper are timidly huddled, and then two or three numbers of “Our Gubernia” ", where the stories and correspondence of Makar Denisych are published. The whole district considers him a writer, a poet, everyone sees something special in him, they don’t like him, they say that he speaks wrong, walks wrong, smokes wrong, and he himself once at a world congress, where he was summoned as a witness, inappropriately let slip that he was studying literature, and he blushed as if he had stolen a chicken.
Here he is, in a blue coat, in a plush hat and with a cane in his hand, quietly walking along the alley... He will take five steps, stop and stare at the sky or at the old rook who is sitting on a spruce tree.
The gardener stands with his arms akimbo, the hunter has a stern look on his face, and Makar Denisych is bent over, coughing timidly and looking sourly, as if spring is pressing and strangling him with its fumes, its beauty!.. His soul is full of timidity. Instead of delight, joy and hope, spring gives rise to in him only some vague desires that disturb him, and so he walks around and does not understand what he needs. Really, what does he need?
Hello, Makar Denisych! - he suddenly hears the voice of General Stremoukhov. - What, you haven’t come from the post office yet?
“Not yet, Your Excellency,” Makar Denisych answers, looking around the stroller in which the healthy, cheerful general sits with his little daughter.
Wonderful weather! It's completely spring! - says the general. -Are you walking? Tea, are you inspired?
And in his eyes it is written:
“Mediocrity! Mediocre!"
Oh, my friend! - says the general, taking the reins. - What a wonderful thing I read today over coffee! A trifle, two pages long, but what a delight! It's a pity that you don't own French, I would give it to you to read...
The general quickly, five to ten, tells the contents of the story he read, and Makar Denisych listens and feels awkward, as if it were his fault that he didn’t French writer, who writes little things.
“I don’t understand what good he found there? - he thinks, looking after the disappearing carriage. “The content is vulgar, hackneyed... My stories are much more meaningful.”
And Makara begins to suck the worm. The author's pride is pain, it is a catarrh of the soul; whoever suffers from it can no longer hear the singing of birds, can’t see the shine of the sun, can’t see spring... You just need to touch this sore a little for the whole body to shrink painfully. The poisoned Makar goes further and comes out through the garden gate onto a dirt road. Here, bouncing his whole body on a high chaise, Mr. Bubentsov hurries somewhere.
Ah, Mr. Writer! - he shouts. - Ours for you!
If Makar Denisych had only been a clerk or a junior manager, no one would have dared to speak to him in such a condescending, careless tone, but he is a “writer”, he is mediocrity, mediocrity!
People like Mr. Bubentsov understand nothing about art and have little interest in it, but when they have to encounter mediocrity and mediocrity, they are inexorable, merciless. They are ready to forgive anyone, but not Makar, this loser-eccentric who has manuscripts in his chest. The gardener broke an old ficus and rotted many expensive plants, the general does nothing and eats up other people’s property, Mr. Bubentsov, when he was a magistrate, heard cases only once a month and, while sorting them out, he stuttered, confused the laws and talked nonsense, but that’s all
But now look at Makar Denisych, young man, who serves for General Stremoukhov as either a clerk or a junior manager. He earns twice as much as a gardener, wears white shirtfronts, smokes two-ruble tobacco, is always well-fed and dressed, and always, when meeting the general, has the pleasure of shaking a plump white hand with a large diamond ring, but, nevertheless, how unhappy he is! He is always with books, he subscribes to twenty-five rubles worth of magazines, and writes, writes... He writes every evening, every afternoon, when everyone is sleeping, and hides everything he writes in his big chest. In this chest at the very bottom lie neatly folded trousers and vests; on them is an unopened pack of tobacco, a dozen pill boxes, a crimson scarf, a piece of glycerin soap in a yellow wrapper and a lot of other goodies, and along the edges of the chest stacks of written paper are timidly huddled, and then two or three numbers of “Our Province” ", where the stories and correspondence of Makar Denisych are published. The whole district considers him a writer, a poet, everyone sees something special in him, they don’t like him, they say that he speaks wrong, walks wrong, smokes wrong, and he himself once at a world congress, where he was summoned as a witness, inappropriately let slip that he was studying literature, and he blushed as if he had stolen a chicken.
Here he is, in a blue coat, in a plush hat and with a cane in his hand, quietly walking along the alley... He will take five steps, stop and stare at the sky or at the old rook who is sitting on a spruce tree.
The gardener stands with his arms akimbo, the hunter has a stern look on his face, and Makar Denisych is bent over, coughing timidly and looking sourly, as if spring is pressing and strangling him with its fumes, its beauty!.. His soul is full of timidity. Instead of delight, joy and hope, spring gives rise to only some vague desires in him that disturb him, and so he walks around and does not understand what he needs. Really, what does he need?
Hello, Makar Denisych! - he suddenly hears the voice of General Stremoukhov. - What, haven’t come from the post office yet?
“Not yet, Your Excellency,” Makar Denisych answers, looking around the stroller in which the healthy, cheerful general sits with his little daughter.
Wonderful weather! It's completely spring! - says the general. -Are you walking? Tea, are you inspired?
And in his eyes it is written:
"Mediocrity! Mediocrity!"
Oh, my friend! - says the general, taking the reins. - What a wonderful thing I read today over coffee! A trifle, two pages long, but what a delight! It’s a pity that you don’t speak French, I would let you read...
The general quickly, five to ten, tells the contents of the story he read, and Makar Denisych listens and feels awkward, as if it was his fault that he is not a French writer who writes little things.
“I don’t understand what good he found there?” he thinks, looking after the disappearing stroller. “The content is vulgar, hackneyed... My stories are much more meaningful.”
And Makara begins to suck the worm. The author's pride is pain, it is a catarrh of the soul; whoever suffers from it can no longer hear the singing of birds, can’t see the shine of the sun, can’t see spring... You just need to touch this sore a little for the whole body to shrink painfully. The poisoned Makar goes further and comes out through the garden gate onto a dirt road. Here, bouncing his whole body on a high chaise, Mr. Bubentsov hurries somewhere.
Ah, Mr. Writer! - he shouts. - Ours for you!
If Makar Denisych had only been a clerk or a junior manager, no one would have dared to speak to him in such a condescending, careless tone, but he is a “writer”, he is mediocrity, mediocrity!
People like Mr. Bubentsov understand nothing about art and have little interest in it, but when they have to encounter mediocrity and mediocrity, they are inexorable, merciless. They are ready to forgive anyone, but not Makar, this loser-eccentric who has manuscripts in his chest. The gardener broke an old ficus and rotted many expensive plants, the general does nothing and eats up someone else’s property, Mr. Bubentsov, when he was a magistrate, heard cases only once a month and, while sorting them out, he stuttered, confused the laws and talked nonsense, but all this is forgiven, not noticed; but it’s impossible not to notice and pass in silence past the mediocre Makar, writing unimportant poems and stories, without saying something offensive. That the general’s sister-in-law slaps the maids on the cheeks and scolds at cards like a washerwoman, that the priest never pays his losses, that the landowner Flyugin stole the landowner Sivobrazov’s dog, no one cares about this, but the fact that Makar was recently returned from “Our Province” is bad the story is known throughout the district and causes ridicule, long conversations, indignation, and Makar Denisych is already called Makarka.
If someone writes incorrectly, they do not try to explain why it is “wrong”, but simply say:
This one again Son of a bitch I wrote nonsense!
What prevents Makar from enjoying spring is the thought that they don’t understand him, don’t want to, and can’t understand him. For some reason, it seems to him that if he were understood, then everything would be fine. But how can they understand whether he is talented or not if in the entire district no one reads anything or reads so much that it would be better not to read at all. How to explain to General Stremoukhov that that French little thing is insignificant, flat, banal, hackneyed, how to explain to him if he has never read anything else besides such flat little things?
And how women irritate Makar!
Ah, Makar Denisych! - they usually tell him. - What a pity that you weren’t at the market today! If you saw how funny two men fought, you would probably describe it!
All this, of course, is nonsense, and the philosopher would not pay attention, would neglect it, but Makar feels like he’s on coals. His soul is full of feelings of loneliness, orphanhood, melancholy, that same melancholy that only very lonely people and great sinners experience. Never, not once in his life, had he stood so akimbo as a gardener stands. Occasionally, maybe once every five years, meeting somewhere in the forest, or on the road, or in a carriage with the same loser-eccentric like himself, and looking into his eyes, he suddenly comes to life for a minute, and he too comes to life. They talk for a long time, argue, admire, delight, laugh, so that, looking from the outside, both of them can be mistaken for madmen.
But usually even these rare moments are not without poison. As if to laugh, Makar and the loser with whom he met deny each other’s talents, do not recognize each other, envy, hate, get irritated, and part as enemies. And so their youth wears out and melts away without joys, without love and friendship, without peace of mind and without everything that the gloomy Makar so loves to describe in the evenings in moments of inspiration.
And with youth comes spring.
Lots of paper*
(Archival research)
“I have the honor to humbly announce on the 8th of November that an illness was noticed on two boys, the guys who came explained that at school and other children were sick with a fever and a rash all over their bodies, they went to the Zharovsky Zemstvo School. November 19th day 1885 Headman Efim Kirilov."
"M.V.D. N-District Zemstvo Government. Zemsky Doctor G. Radushny. Following the statement of the headman of the village of Kurnosovo on November 19, I suggest you, M.G., go to Kurnosovo and take care according to the rules of science about the speedy cessation epidemics of the disease, by all indications, scarlet fever. From the above statement it is clear that the diseases began at the Zharov school, to which I ask you to pay attention. December 4th 1885 For the chairman: S. Parkin."
"To the bailiff of the 2nd camp of the N-sky district. Due to the attitude of the district zemstvo government No. 102 dated December 4th, which I am enclosing herewith, I ask you, M.G., to make an order to close the school in the village of Zharovo until ending the scarlet fever epidemic. December 13th 1885 Zemstvo doctor Radushny."
"M.V.D. Bailiff of the 2nd camp of the N-district. No. 1011. To the Zharovsky Zemstvo School. Zemsky Doctor G. Radushny on December 13th of this year informed me that in the village of Zharov he saw an epidemic of scarlet fever in children (or, as people call it, diphtheria). In order to avoid the manifestation of more sad results from the mentioned disease, which is progressively increasing, and being concerned about the need to take measures established by law to prevent and suppress cases of the developing disease, I, for my part, am forced to humbly ask: Do you consider it possible to dismiss the students at the Zharovsky Zemstvo School until the complete cessation of the rampant disease and then notify me for further orders? January 2nd day 1886. Bailiff Podprunin.
"To the directorate of public schools of the X-th province. G. Inspector of public schools. Teachers of the Zharovsky school of Fortyansky statement. I have the honor to bring to the attention of Your Eminence that, as a result of the attitude of the Bailiff of the 2nd camp, No. 1011 dated January 2, appeared There is an epidemic of scarlet fever in the village of Zharovo, which I have the honor to inform you about. January 12th 1886 Teacher Fortyansky".
"To the bailiff of the 2nd camp of the N-district. In view of the fact that the scarlet fever epidemic stopped a month ago, the opening is temporarily closed school in the village of Zharovo there are no obstacles on my part, about which I have already written to the council twice, and now I am writing to you and humbly asking you to contact the district doctor with your papers in the future, but one zemstvo council is enough for me. I am busy from morning to evening and I do not have time to respond to all your clerical fabrications. January 26th. Zemstvo doctor Radushny.
IN SPRING
The snow has not yet melted from the ground, but spring is already asking for the soul. If you have ever recovered from a serious illness, then you know the blissful state when you freeze with vague premonitions and smile for no reason. Apparently, nature is now experiencing the same state. The ground is cold, the mud and snow squelch underfoot, but how cheerful, affectionate, and welcoming everything is! The air is so clear and transparent that if you climb a dovecote or a bell tower, you seem to see the entire universe from edge to edge. The sun is shining brightly, and its rays, playing and smiling, bathe in the puddles along with the sparrows. The river swells and darkens; She has already woken up and will not start crying today or tomorrow. The trees are bare, but they already live and breathe.
At such times it is good to drive with a broom or shovel dirty water in ditches, launching boats on the water or chiseling stubborn ice with your heels. It’s also good to chase pigeons to the very heights of heaven or climb trees and tie birdhouses there. Yes, everything is fine at this happy time of year, especially if you are young, love nature, and if you are not capricious, not hysterical, and if your job does not require you to sit within four walls from morning to evening. It’s not good if you’re sick, if you’re wasting away in the office, if you know muses.
Yes, in the spring you should not communicate with the muses.
Look how good, how wonderful they feel ordinary people. Here is the gardener Panteley Petrovich, dressed up early in the wide-brimmed straw hat and just can’t part with the small cigar butt that he picked up in the morning on the alley; look: he stands with his hands akimbo in front of the kitchen window and tells the cook what kind of boots he bought himself yesterday. His entire long and narrow figure, for which all the servants call him “strutskiy,” expresses self-satisfaction and dignity. He looks at nature with the consciousness of his superiority over it, and in his gaze there is something masterful, commanding and even contemptuous, as if, sitting there in his greenhouse or digging in the garden, he learned about plant kingdom something that no one knows.
It would be in vain to explain to him that nature is majestic, formidable and full of wonderful charms, before which a proud man should bow his neck. It seems to him that he knows everything, all the secrets, enchantments and miracles, and beautiful spring for him, she is the same slave as that narrow-breasted, emaciated woman who sits in the outbuilding near the greenhouse and feeds his children with lean cabbage soup.
And the hunter Ivan Zakharov? This one, in a tattered drape jacket and galoshes on his bare feet, sits near the stable on an overturned barrel and makes wads out of old corks. He's getting ready to pull. In his imagination he pictures the path he will follow, with all the paths, jams, and streams; closing his eyes, he sees a long, straight row of tall, slender trees, under which he will stand with a gun, shivering from the evening cool, from sweet excitement and straining his delicate hearing; he imagines the sounds made by a croaking woodcock; he already hears all the bells ringing in the monastery next door, after the all-night vigil, while he is standing on the pull-up... He feels good, he is immensely, stupidly happy.
But now look at Makar Denisych, a young man who serves as either a clerk or a junior manager for General Stremoukhov. He earns twice as much as a gardener, wears white shirtfronts, smokes two-ruble tobacco, is always well-fed and dressed, and always, when meeting the general, has the pleasure of shaking a plump white hand with a large diamond ring, but, nevertheless, how unhappy he is! He is always with books, he subscribes to twenty-five rubles worth of magazines, and writes, writes... He writes every evening, every afternoon, when everyone is sleeping, and hides everything he writes in his big chest. In this chest at the very bottom lie neatly folded trousers and vests; on them is an unopened pack of tobacco, a dozen pill boxes, a crimson scarf, a piece of glycerin soap in a yellow wrapper and a lot of other goodies, and along the edges of the chest stacks of written paper are timidly huddled, and then two or three numbers of “Our Province” ", where the stories and correspondence of Makar Denisych are published. The whole district considers him a writer, a poet, everyone sees something special in him, they don’t like him, they say that he speaks wrong, walks wrong, smokes wrong, and he himself once at a world congress, where he was summoned as a witness, inappropriately let slip that he was studying literature, and he blushed as if he had stolen a chicken.
Here he is, in a blue coat, in a plush hat and with a cane in his hand, quietly walking along the alley... He will take five steps, stop and stare at the sky or at the old rook who is sitting on a spruce tree.
The gardener stands with his arms akimbo, the hunter has a stern look on his face, and Makar Denisych is bent over, coughing timidly and looking sourly, as if spring is pressing and strangling him with its fumes, its beauty!.. His soul is full of timidity. Instead of delight, joy and hope, spring gives rise to in him only some vague desires that disturb him, and so he walks around and does not understand what he needs. Really, what does he need?
- Oh, hello, Makar Denisych! - he suddenly hears the voice of General Stremoukhov. - What, you haven’t come from the post office yet?
“Not yet, Your Excellency,” Makar Denisych answers, looking at the stroller in which the healthy, cheerful general sits with his little daughter.
- Wonderful weather! It's completely spring! - says the general. -Are you walking? Tea, are you inspired?
And in his eyes it is written:
“Mediocrity! Mediocre!"
- Oh, my friend! - says the general, taking the reins. - What a wonderful thing I read today over coffee! A trifle, two pages long, but what a delight! It’s a pity that you don’t speak French, I would let you read...
The general quickly, five to ten, tells the contents of the story he read, and Makar Denisych listens and feels awkward, as if it was his fault that he is not a French writer who writes little things.
“I don’t understand what good he found there? - he thinks, looking after the disappearing carriage. “The content is vulgar, hackneyed... My stories are much more meaningful.”
And Makara begins to suck the worm. The author's pride is pain, it is a catarrh of the soul; whoever suffers from it can no longer hear the singing of birds, can’t see the shine of the sun, can’t see spring... You just need to touch this sore a little for the whole body to shrink painfully. The poisoned Makar goes further and comes out through the garden gate onto a dirt road. Here, bouncing his whole body on a high chaise, Mr. Bubentsov hurries somewhere.
- Ah, Mr. Writer! - he shouts. - Ours for you!
If Makar Denisych had only been a clerk or a junior manager, no one would have dared to speak to him in such a condescending, careless tone, but he is a “writer”, he is mediocrity, mediocrity!
People like Mr. Bubentsov understand nothing about art and have little interest in it, but when they have to encounter mediocrity and mediocrity, they are inexorable, merciless. They are ready to forgive anyone, but not Makar, this loser-eccentric who has manuscripts in his chest. The gardener broke an old ficus and rotted many expensive plants, the general does nothing and eats up someone else’s property, Mr. Bubentsov, when he was a justice of the peace, heard cases only once a month and, while sorting them out, he stuttered, confused the laws and talked nonsense, but all this is forgiven, not noticed; but it’s impossible not to notice and pass in silence past the mediocre Makar, who writes unimportant poems and stories, without saying something offensive. That the general’s sister-in-law slaps the maids on the cheeks and scolds at cards like a washerwoman, that the priest never pays a loss, that the landowner Flyugin stole the landowner Sivobrazov’s dog, no one cares about this, but the fact that Makar was recently returned from “Our Province” is bad the story is known throughout the district and causes ridicule, long conversations, indignation, and Makar Denisych is already called Makarka.
If someone writes incorrectly, they do not try to explain why it is “wrong”, but simply say:
- Again this son of a bitch wrote nonsense!
What prevents Makar from enjoying spring is the thought that they don’t understand him, don’t want to, and can’t understand him. For some reason it seems to him that if he were understood, then everything would be fine. But how can they understand whether he is talented or not if in the entire district no one reads anything or reads so much that it would be better not to read at all. How to explain to General Stremoukhov that that French little thing is insignificant, flat, banal, hackneyed, how to explain to him if he has never read anything else besides such flat little things?
And how women irritate Makar!
- Oh, Makar Denisych! - they usually tell him. - What a pity that you weren’t at the market today! If you saw how funny two men fought, you would probably describe it!
All this, of course, is nonsense, and the philosopher would not pay attention, would neglect it, but Makar feels like he is on coals. His soul is full of feelings of loneliness, orphanhood, melancholy, that same melancholy that only very lonely people and great sinners experience. Never, not once in his life, had he stood so akimbo as a gardener stands. Occasionally, maybe once every five years, meeting somewhere in the forest, or on the road, or in a carriage with the same loser-eccentric like himself, and looking into his eyes, he suddenly comes to life for a minute, and he too comes to life. They talk for a long time, argue, admire, delight, laugh, so that, looking from the outside, both of them can be mistaken for madmen.
But usually even these rare moments are not without poison. As if to laugh, Makar and the loser with whom he met deny each other’s talents, do not recognize each other, envy, hate, get irritated, and part as enemies. And so their youth wears out and melts away without joys, without love and friendship, without peace of mind and without everything that the gloomy Makar so loves to describe in the evenings in moments of inspiration.
And with youth comes spring.
A LOT OF PAPER
(ARCHIVED RESEARCH)
“I have the honor to humbly announce on the 8th of November that an illness was noticed in two boys, the guys who came explained that at school and other children were sick with a fever and a rash all over their bodies, they went to the Zharovsky Zemstvo School. November 19th day, 1885. Headman Efim Kirilov.”"M. V. D. N-District Zemstvo Administration. Zemsky Doctor G. Radushny. Following the statement of the headman of the village of Kurnosovo dated November 19, I suggest that you, m.g., go to Kurnosovo and take care, according to the rules of science, about the speedy cessation of the epidemic of the disease, by all indications, scarlet fever. From the said statement it is clear that the illnesses began at the Zharov school, to which I ask you to pay attention. December 4, 1885 For the chairman: S. Parkin.”
"G. Bailiff of the 2nd camp of the N-district. Due to the attitude of the district zemstvo government No. 102 dated December 4th, which I am enclosing herewith, I ask you, M.G., to make an order to close the school in the village of Zharove until the end of the scarlet fever epidemic. December 13, 1885 Zemstvo doctor Radushny.”
"M. V. D. Bailiff of the 2nd camp of the N-district. No. 1011. To the Zharovsky Zemstvo School. On December 13th of this year, Zemsky Doctor G. Radushny informed me that in the village of Zharovo he saw an epidemic of scarlet fever (or, as people call it, diphtheria) among children. In order to avoid the manifestation of more sad results from the mentioned disease, which is progressively increasing, and being concerned about the need to take measures established by law to prevent and suppress cases of developing disease, I, for my part, have to humbly ask: do you consider it possible to disband students at the Zharovsky Zemstvo School until the complete cessation of the rampant disease and then notify me for further instructions. January 2nd day, 1886. Bailiff Podprunin."
“To the directorate of public schools of the X-th province. G. To the inspector of public schools. Teacher of the Zharovsky Fortyansky School statement. I have the honor to bring to the attention of Your Eminence that, as a result of the attitude of the Bailiff of the 2nd camp on No. 1011 of January 2, an epidemic of scarlet fever appeared in the village of Zharovo, of which I have the honor to inform you. January 12, 1886 Teacher Fortyansky.
"G. Bailiff of the 2nd camp of the N-district. In view of the fact that the scarlet fever epidemic stopped a month ago, there are no obstacles on my part to the opening of a temporarily closed school in the village of Zharovo, about which I have already written to the council twice, and now I am writing to you and humbly asking you to continue with your papers to the district doctor, but one zemstvo council is enough for me. I am busy from morning to evening and I do not have time to respond to all your clerical fabrications. January 26th. Zemstvo doctor Radushny.”
"M. V.D. To His Eminence Mr. N-sky Chief Officer of the 2nd Camp. Report. I have the honor to forward with this the attitude of Mr. Zemsky Doctor Radushny dated January 26, No. 31 for the consideration of Your Eminence on bringing the doctor Radushny to trial for inappropriate and highest degree offensive expressions he used in official official papers, such as “clerical fabrications.” February 8, 1886. Bailiff Podprunin.”
From a private letter from the city police officer to the bailiff of the 2nd camp: “Alexey Manuilovich, I am returning your report to you. Please stop your constant displeasure with Dr. Radushny. Such antagonism is at least inconvenient in the position of a police official, who is obliged to maintain, above all, tact and moderation in relations. As for Radushny’s paper, I don’t find anything special in it. About scarlet fever in the village. I have already heard Zharov and will report to the nearest school council about the incorrect actions of teacher Fortyansky, whom I consider the main culprit of all this unpleasant correspondence.”
"M. N.P. Inspector of public schools of the X-province, No. 810. G. To the teacher of the Zharovsky school. In response to your submission dated January 12th of this year, I inform you that classes at the school entrusted to you must be immediately stopped and the students dismissed in disgust of the further spread of scarlet fever. February 22nd day, 1886. Inspector of public schools I. Zhiletkin.”
After reading all the documents relating to the epidemic in the village of Zharovo (and there are twenty-eight more, in addition to those printed here), the reader will understand much of the following description, placed in No. 36 of the X-Provincial Gazette:
“...having finished with excessive child mortality, let’s now move on to something more fun and joyful. Yesterday, in the church of St. Michael the Archangel, the solemn marriage of the daughter of the famous paper manufacturer M. with the hereditary honorary citizen K. took place. The wedding was performed by Archpriest Fr. Kliopa Gvozdev in concelebration with other cathedral clergy. Krasnoperov's choir sang. Both young people shone with beauty and youth. They say that Mr. K. receives about a million as a dowry and, in addition, also the Blagodushnoye estate with a horse farm and greenhouses in which pineapples and flowering palm trees grow, taking your imagination far to the south. The newlyweds immediately after the wedding went abroad.”
What a pleasure it is to be a paper manufacturer!
NIGHTMARE
An indispensable member of the presence for peasant affairs, Kunin, a young man of about thirty, having returned from St. Petersburg to his Borisovo, first sent a horseman to Sinkovo for the local priest, Father Yakov Smirnov.
About five hours later, Father Yakov appeared.
- Nice to meet you! - Kunin met him in the hallway. - I’ve been living and serving here for a year now, it seems like it’s time to become acquaintances. Welcome! But, however... how young you are! - Kunin was surprised. - How old are you?
“Twenty-eight, sir...” said Father Yakov, weakly shaking the outstretched hand and, for some unknown reason, blushing.
Kunin led the guest into his office and began to examine him.
“What a tawdry, woman’s face!” - he thought.
Indeed, there was a lot of “womanishness” in Father Yakov’s face: an upturned nose, bright red cheeks and large grey-blue eyes with thin, barely noticeable eyebrows. Long red hair, dry and smooth, hung down onto her shoulders in straight sticks. The mustache was just beginning to form into a real, masculine mustache, and the beard belonged to that type of worthless beard that seminarians for some reason call “growing”: sparse, very translucent; you can’t stroke it or scratch it with a comb, you can only pinch it... All this scanty vegetation sat unevenly, in bushes, as if Father Yakov, having decided to put on his priestly makeup and began to glue on his beard, was interrupted halfway through the job. He was wearing duckweed, the color of liquid chicory coffee, with large patches on both elbows.
“A strange subject...” thought Kunin, looking at his floors, splattered with dirt. “He comes to the house for the first time and cannot dress decently.”
“Sit down, father,” he began more casually than affably, moving a chair towards the table. - Sit down, please!
Father Yakov coughed into his fist, awkwardly sat down on the edge of the chair and put his palms on his knees. Short, narrow-chested, with sweat and color on his face, at first he made a most unpleasant impression on Kunin. Previously, Kunin could not possibly think that in Rus' there were such undignified and pitiful-looking priests, and in the pose of Father Yakov, in this holding of his palms on his knees and in sitting on the edge, he saw a lack of dignity and even sycophancy.
“Father, I invited you on business...” Kunin began, leaning back in his chair. - I had the pleasant responsibility of helping you in one of your useful enterprises... The fact is that, having returned from St. Petersburg, I found a letter from the leader on my desk. Yegor Dmitrievich invites me to take under my guardianship the parish school that is opening in Sinkovo. I, father, am very happy, with all my heart... Even more: I accept this offer with delight!
Kunin got up and walked around the office.
- Of course, both Yegor Dmitrievich and, probably, you know that I do not have large funds. My estate is mortgaged, and I live solely on the salary of an indispensable member. Therefore, on great help you can’t count on it, but I’ll do everything I can... And when, father, do you think you’ll open a school?
“When there is money...” answered Father Yakov.
- Now do you have any funds?
- Almost none, sir... At the meeting, the men decided to pay thirty kopecks annually from each male soul, but this is only a promise! And for the first acquisition you need, at least, two hundred rubles...
- Hmmm... Unfortunately, I don’t have this amount now... - Kunin sighed. - I spent everything on the trip and... even went into debt. Let's joint forces we'll come up with something.
Kunin began to think out loud. He expressed his thoughts and watched Father Yakov’s face, looking for approval or consent. But this face was impassive, motionless and did not express anything except shy timidity and anxiety. Looking at him, one might think that Kunin was talking about such sophisticated things that Father Yakov did not understand, he listened only out of delicacy and, moreover, was afraid that he would not be caught in misunderstanding.
“The fellow, apparently, is not very smart...” thought Kunin. “Too timid and stupid.”
The snow has not yet melted from the ground, but spring is already asking for the soul. If you have ever recovered from a serious illness, then you know the blissful state when you freeze with vague premonitions and smile for no reason. Apparently, nature is now experiencing the same state. The ground is cold, the mud and snow squelch underfoot, but how cheerful, affectionate, and welcoming everything is all around! The air is so clear and transparent that if you climb a dovecote or a bell tower, you seem to see the entire universe from edge to edge. The sun is shining brightly, and its rays, playing and smiling, bathe in the puddles along with the sparrows. The river swells and darkens; She has already woken up and will not start crying today or tomorrow. The trees are bare, but they already live and breathe. At such times, it is good to push dirty water in ditches with a broom or shovel, launch boats on the water, or break stubborn ice with your heels. It’s also good to chase pigeons to the very heights of heaven or climb trees and tie birdhouses there. Yes, everything is fine at this happy time of year, especially if you are young, love nature, and if you are not capricious, not hysterical, and if your job does not require you to sit within four walls from morning to evening. It’s not good if you’re sick, if you’re wasting away in the office, if you know muses. Yes, in the spring you should not communicate with the muses. Just look how good, how wonderful ordinary people feel. Here is the gardener Panteley Petrovich, dressed up early in the wide-brimmed straw hat and just can’t part with the small cigar butt that he picked up in the morning on the alley; look: he stands with his hands akimbo in front of the kitchen window and tells the cook what kind of boots he bought himself yesterday. His entire long and narrow figure, for which all the servants call him “strutskiy,” expresses self-satisfaction and dignity. He looks at nature with the consciousness of his superiority over it, and in his gaze there is something masterful, commanding and even contemptuous, as if, sitting there in his greenhouse or digging in the garden, he learned something about the plant kingdom that he no one knows. It would be in vain to explain to him that nature is majestic, formidable and full of wonderful charms, before which a proud man should bow his neck. It seems to him that he knows everything, all the secrets, enchantments and miracles, and the beautiful spring is for him the same slave as that narrow-breasted, emaciated woman who sits in the outbuilding near the greenhouse and feeds his children with Lenten cabbage soup. And the hunter Ivan Zakharov? This one, in a tattered drape jacket and galoshes on his bare feet, sits near the stable on an overturned barrel and makes wads out of old corks. He's getting ready to pull. In his imagination he pictures the path he will follow, with all the paths, jams, and streams; closing his eyes, he sees a long, straight row of tall, slender trees, under which he will stand with a gun, shivering from the evening cool, from sweet excitement and straining his delicate hearing; he imagines the sounds made by a croaking woodcock; he can already hear all the bells ringing in the monastery next door, after the all-night vigil, while he is standing on the draft... He feels good, he is immensely, stupidly happy. But now look at Makar Denisych, a young man who serves as either a clerk or a junior manager for General Stremoukhov. He earns twice as much as a gardener, wears white shirtfronts, smokes two-ruble tobacco, is always well-fed and dressed, and always, when meeting the general, has the pleasure of shaking a plump white hand with a large diamond ring, but, nevertheless, how unhappy he is! He is always with books, he subscribes to twenty-five rubles worth of magazines, and writes, writes... He writes every evening, every afternoon, when everyone is asleep, and hides everything he writes in his big chest. In this chest at the very bottom lie neatly folded trousers and vests; on them is an unopened pack of tobacco, a dozen pill boxes, a crimson scarf, a piece of glycerin soap in a yellow wrapper and a lot of other goodies, and along the edges of the chest stacks of written paper are timidly huddled, and then two or three numbers of “Our Province” ", where the stories and correspondence of Makar Denisych are published. The whole district considers him a writer, a poet, everyone sees something special in him, they don’t like him, they say that he speaks wrong, walks wrong, smokes wrong, and he himself once at a world congress, where he was summoned as a witness, inappropriately let slip that he was studying literature, and he blushed as if he had stolen a chicken. Here he is, in a blue coat, in a plush hat and with a cane in his hand, quietly walking along the alley... He will take five steps, stop and stare at the sky or at the old rook who is sitting on a spruce tree. The gardener stands with his arms akimbo, the hunter has a stern look on his face, and Makar Denisych is bent over, coughing timidly and looking sourly, as if spring is pressing and strangling him with its fumes, its beauty!.. His soul is full of timidity. Instead of delight, joy and hope, spring gives rise to only some vague desires in him that disturb him, and so he walks around and does not understand what he needs. Really, what does he need? - Oh, hello, Makar Denisych! - he suddenly hears the voice of General Stremoukhov. - What, haven’t come from the post office yet? “Not yet, Your Excellency,” Makar Denisych answers, looking at the stroller in which the healthy, cheerful general sits with his little daughter. - Wonderful weather! It's completely spring! - says the general. -Are you walking? Tea, are you inspired? And in his eyes it is written: “Mediocrity! Mediocrity!” - Oh, my friend! - says the general, taking the reins. - What a wonderful thing I read today over coffee! A trifle, two pages long, but what a delight! It’s a pity that you don’t speak French, I’d like to let you read... The general quickly, five to ten, tells the contents of the story he read, and Makar Denisych listens and feels awkward, as if his fault is that he is not a French writer, who writes little things. “I don’t understand what good he found there?” he thinks, looking after the disappearing stroller. “The content is vulgar, hackneyed... My stories are much more meaningful.” And Makara begins to suck the worm. The author's pride is pain, it is a catarrh of the soul; whoever suffers from it can no longer hear the singing of birds, cannot see the shine of the sun, cannot see spring... You just need to touch this sore a little for the whole body to shrink painfully. The poisoned Makar goes further and comes out through the garden gate onto a dirt road. Here, bouncing his whole body on a high chaise, Mr. Bubentsov hurries somewhere. - Ah, Mr. Writer! - he shouts. - Ours for you! If Makar Denisych had only been a clerk or a junior manager, no one would have dared to speak to him in such a condescending, careless tone, but he is a “writer”, he is mediocrity, mediocrity! People like Mr. Bubentsov understand nothing about art and have little interest in it, but when they have to encounter mediocrity and mediocrity, they are inexorable, merciless. They are ready to forgive anyone, but not Makar, this loser-eccentric who has manuscripts in his chest. The gardener broke an old ficus and rotted many expensive plants, the general does nothing and eats up someone else’s property, Mr. Bubentsov, when he was a magistrate, heard cases only once a month and, while sorting them out, he stuttered, confused the laws and talked nonsense, but all this is forgiven, not noticed; but it’s impossible not to notice and pass in silence past the mediocre Makar, who writes unimportant poems and stories, without saying something offensive. That the general’s sister-in-law slaps the maids on the cheeks and scolds at cards like a washerwoman, that the priest never pays his losses, that the landowner Flyugin stole the landowner Sivobrazov’s dog, no one cares about this, but the fact that Makar was recently returned from “Our Province” is bad the story is known throughout the district and causes ridicule, long conversations, indignation, and Makar Denisych is already called Makarka. If someone writes incorrectly, they do not try to explain why it is “wrong”, but simply say: “Again, this son of a bitch wrote nonsense!” What prevents Makar from enjoying spring is the thought that they don’t understand him, don’t want to, and can’t understand him. For some reason, it seems to him that if he were understood, then everything would be fine. But how can they understand whether he is talented or not if in the entire district no one reads anything or reads so much that it would be better not to read at all. How to explain to General Stremoukhov that that French little thing is insignificant, flat, banal, hackneyed, how to explain to him if he has never read anything else besides such flat little things? And how women irritate Makar! - Oh, Makar Denisych! - they usually tell him. - What a pity that you weren’t at the market today! If you saw how funny two men fought, you would probably describe it! All this, of course, is nonsense, and the philosopher would not pay attention, would neglect it, but Makar feels like he’s on coals. His soul is full of feelings of loneliness, orphanhood, melancholy, that same melancholy that only very lonely people and great sinners experience. Never, not once in his life, had he stood so akimbo as a gardener stands. Occasionally, maybe once every five years, meeting somewhere in the forest, or on the road, or in a carriage with the same loser-eccentric like himself, and looking into his eyes, he suddenly comes to life for a minute, and he too comes to life. They talk for a long time, argue, admire, delight, laugh, so that, looking from the outside, both of them can be mistaken for madmen. But usually even these rare moments are not without poison. As if to laugh, Makar and the loser with whom he met deny each other’s talents, do not recognize each other, envy, hate, get irritated, and part as enemies. And so their youth wears out and melts away without joys, without love and friendship, without peace of mind and without everything that the gloomy Makar so loves to describe in the evenings in moments of inspiration. And with youth comes spring.
The snow has not yet melted from the ground, but spring is already asking for the soul. If you have ever recovered from serious illness, then you know the blissful state when you freeze from vague premonitions and smile for no reason. Apparently, nature is now experiencing the same state. The ground is cold, the mud and snow squelch underfoot, but how cheerful, affectionate, and welcoming everything is all around! The air is so clear and transparent that if you climb a dovecote or a bell tower, you seem to see the entire universe from edge to edge. The sun is shining brightly, and its rays, playing and smiling, bathe in the puddles along with the sparrows. The river swells and darkens; she has already woken up and will begin to roar today or tomorrow. The trees are bare, but they already live and breathe.
At such times, it is good to push dirty water in ditches with a broom or shovel, float boats on the water, or break stubborn ice with your heels. It’s also good to chase pigeons to the very heights of heaven or climb trees and tie birdhouses there. Yes, everything is fine at this happy time of year, especially if you are young, love nature, and if you are not capricious, not hysterical, and if your job does not require you to sit within four walls from morning to evening. It’s not good if you’re sick, if you’re wasting away in the office, if you know muses.
Yes, in the spring you should not communicate with the muses.
Just look how good, how wonderful ordinary people feel. Here is the gardener Panteley Petrovich, dressed up early in the wide-brimmed straw hat and cannot part with the small cigar butt that he picked up in the morning on the alley; look: he stands with his hands akimbo in front of the kitchen window and tells the cook what kind of boots he bought himself yesterday. His entire long and narrow figure, for which all the servants call him “strutskiy,” expresses self-satisfaction and dignity. He looks at nature with the consciousness of his superiority over it, and in his gaze there is something masterful, commanding and even contemptuous, as if, sitting there in his greenhouse or digging in the garden, he learned something about the plant kingdom that he no one knows.
It would be in vain to explain to him that nature is majestic, formidable and full of wonderful charms, before which a proud man should bow his neck. It seems to him that he knows everything, all the secrets, enchantments and miracles, and the beautiful spring is for him the same slave as that narrow-breasted, emaciated woman who sits in the outbuilding near the greenhouse and feeds his children with Lenten cabbage soup.
And the hunter Ivan Zakharov? This one, in a tattered drape jacket and galoshes on his bare feet, sits near the stable on an overturned barrel and makes wads out of old corks. He's getting ready to pull. In his imagination he pictures the path he will follow, with all the paths, jams, and streams; closing his eyes, he sees a long, straight row of tall, slender trees, under which he will stand with a gun, shivering from the evening cool, from sweet excitement and straining his delicate hearing; he imagines the sounds made by a croaking woodcock; he already hears all the bells ringing in the monastery next door, after the all-night vigil, while he is standing on the pull-up... He feels good, he is immensely, stupidly happy.
But now look at Makar Denisych, a young man who serves as either a clerk or a junior manager for General Stremoukhov. He earns twice as much as a gardener, wears white shirtfronts, smokes two-ruble tobacco, is always well-fed and dressed, and always, when meeting the general, has the pleasure of shaking a plump white hand with a large diamond ring, but, nevertheless, how unhappy he is! He is always with books, he subscribes to twenty-five rubles worth of magazines, and writes, writes... He writes every evening, every afternoon, when everyone is sleeping, and hides everything he writes in his big chest. In this chest at the very bottom lie neatly folded trousers and vests; on them is an unopened pack of tobacco, a dozen pill boxes, a crimson scarf, a piece of glycerin soap in a yellow wrapper and a lot of other stuff, and along the edges of the chest timidly huddled stacks of written paper, and then two or three numbers of “Our Province” ", where the stories and correspondence of Makar Denisych are published. The whole district considers him a writer, a poet, everyone sees something special in him, they don’t like him, they say that he speaks wrong, walks wrong, smokes wrong, and he himself once at a world congress, where he was summoned as witness, inappropriately let slip that he was studying literature, and he blushed as if he had stolen a chicken.
Here he is, in a blue coat, in a plush hat and with a cane in his hand, quietly walking along the alley... He will take five steps, stop and stare at the sky or at the old rook who is sitting on a spruce tree.
The gardener stands with his arms akimbo, the hunter has a stern look on his face, and Makar Denisych is bent over, coughing timidly and looking sourly, as if spring is pressing and strangling him with its fumes, its beauty!.. His soul is full of timidity. Instead of delight, joy and hope, spring gives rise to in him only some vague desires that disturb him, and so he walks around and does not understand what he needs. Really, what does he need?
Hello, Makar Denisych! - he suddenly hears the voice of General Stremoukhov. - What, you haven’t come from the post office yet?
Not yet, Your Excellency,” answers Makar Denisych, looking around the stroller in which a healthy, cheerful general sits with his little daughter.
Wonderful weather! It's completely spring! - says the general. - Are you walking? Tea, are you inspired?
And in his eyes it is written:
“Mediocrity! Mediocre!"
Oh, my friend! - says the general, taking the reins. - What a wonderful thing I read today over coffee! A trifle, two pages long, but what a delight! It’s a pity that you don’t speak French, I would let you read...
The general quickly, five to ten, tells the contents of the story he read, and Makar Denisych listens and feels awkward, as if it was his fault that he is not a French writer who writes little things.
“I don’t understand what good he found there? - he thinks, looking after the disappearing stroller. “The content is vulgar, hackneyed... My stories are much more meaningful.”
And Makara begins to suck the worm. The author's pride is pain, it is a catarrh of the soul; whoever suffers from it can no longer hear the singing of birds, can’t see the shine of the sun, can’t see spring... You just need to touch this sore a little for the whole body to shrink painfully. The poisoned Makar goes further and comes out through the garden gate onto a dirt road. Here, bouncing his whole body on a high chaise, Mr. Bubentsov hurries somewhere.
Ah, Mr. Writer! - he shouts. - Ours to you!
If Makar Denisych had only been a clerk or a junior manager, no one would have dared to speak to him in such a condescending, careless tone, but he is a “writer”, he is mediocrity, mediocrity!
People like Mr. Bubentsov understand nothing about art and have little interest in it, but when they have to encounter mediocrity and mediocrity, they are inexorable, merciless. They are ready to forgive anyone, but not Makar, this loser-eccentric who has manuscripts in his chest. The gardener broke the old ficus and rotted many expensive plants, the general does nothing and eats up someone else’s property, Mr. Bubentsov, when he was a magistrate, he examined cases only once a month and, while sorting them out, he stuttered, confused the laws and spoke nonsense, but all this is forgiven, not noticed; but it’s impossible not to notice and pass in silence past the mediocre Makar, who writes unimportant poems and stories, without saying something offensive. That the general’s sister-in-law slaps the maids on the cheeks and scolds at cards like a washerwoman, that the priest never pays his losses, that the landowner Flyugin stole a dog from the landowner Sivobrazov, no one cares about this, but the fact that Makar was recently returned from “Our Province” is bad the story is known throughout the district and causes ridicule, long conversations, indignation, and Makar Denisych is already called Makarka.
If someone writes incorrectly, they do not try to explain why it is “wrong”, but simply say:
Again this son of a bitch wrote nonsense!
What prevents Makar from enjoying spring is the thought that they don’t understand him, don’t want to, and can’t understand him. For some reason, it seems to him that if he were understood, then everything would be fine. But how can they understand whether he is talented or not if in the entire district no one reads anything or reads so much that it would be better not to read at all. How to explain to General Stremoukhov that that French little thing is insignificant, flat, banal, hackneyed, how to explain to him if he has never read anything else besides such flat little things?
And how women irritate Makar!
Ah, Makar Denisych! - they usually tell him. “What a pity that you weren’t at the market today!” If you saw how funny two men fought, you would probably describe it!
All this, of course, is nonsense, and the philosopher would not pay attention, would neglect it, but Makar feels like he is on coals. His soul is full of feelings of loneliness, orphanhood, melancholy, that same melancholy that only very lonely people and great sinners experience. Never, not once in his life, had he stood so akimbo as a gardener stands. Occasionally, maybe once every five years, meeting somewhere in the forest, or on the road, or in a carriage with the same loser-eccentric like himself, and looking into his eyes, he suddenly comes to life for a minute, and he too comes to life. They talk for a long time, argue, admire, delight, laugh, so that, looking from the outside, both of them can be mistaken for madmen.
But usually even these rare moments are not without poison. As if to laugh, Makar and the loser with whom he met deny each other’s talents, do not recognize each other, envy, hate, get irritated, and part as enemies. And so their youth wears out and melts away without joys, without love and friendship, without peace of mind and without everything that the gloomy Makar so loves to describe in the evenings in moments of inspiration.
And with youth comes spring.
Stryutsky- a vile, trashy, despicable person (obsolete). F. M. Dostoevsky, who wrote about the meaning of this word in the “Diary of a Writer for 1877” (November, Chapter I), believed that it “may be included in literature.”