EASY BREATH
In the cemetery, above a fresh clay mound, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth.
April, gray days; The monuments of the cemetery, spacious, county, are still visible far away through the bare trees, and the cold wind rings and rings the porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross.
Embedded in the cross itself is a rather large, convex porcelain medallion, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.
As a girl, she did not stand out in any way in the crowd of brown school dresses: what could be said about her, except that she was one of the pretty, rich and happy girls, that she was capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions given to her cool lady? Then she began to blossom and develop by leaps and bounds. At the age of fourteen, she had thin waist and slender legs, breasts and all those forms were already clearly outlined, the charm of which has never yet been expressed by human words; at fifteen she was already considered a beauty. How carefully some of her friends combed their hair, how clean they were, how careful they were about their restrained movements! But she was not afraid of anything - not ink stains on her fingers, not a flushed face, not disheveled hair, not a knee that became bare when falling while running. Without any of her worries or efforts, and somehow imperceptibly, everything that had so distinguished her from the entire gymnasium in the last two years came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, the clear sparkle of her eyes... No one danced at balls like Olya Meshcherskaya, no one skated like she did, no one was looked after at balls as much as she was, and for some reason no one was loved so much junior classes like her. Imperceptibly she became a girl, and her high school fame was imperceptibly strengthened, and rumors had already spread that she was flighty, could not live without admirers, that the school student Shenshin was madly in love with her, that she supposedly loved him too, but was so changeable in her treatment of him that he attempted suicide.
During her last winter, Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun, as they said in the gymnasium. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty, the sun set early behind the tall spruce forest of the snowy gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun for tomorrow, a walk on Sobornaya Street, an ice skating rink in the city garden, a pink evening, music and this in all directions the crowd gliding on the skating rink, in which Olya Meshcherskaya seemed the most carefree, the happiest. And then one day, during a big break, when she was rushing around the assembly hall like a whirlwind from the first-graders chasing her and squealing blissfully, she was unexpectedly called to the boss. She stopped running, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar feminine movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders and, her eyes shining, ran upstairs. The boss, young-looking but gray-haired, sat calmly with knitting in her hands at her desk, under the royal portrait.
“Hello, Mademoiselle Meshcherskaya,” she said in French, without raising her eyes from her knitting. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have been forced to call you here to talk to you about your behavior.”
“I’m listening, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered, approaching the table, looking at her clearly and vividly, but without any expression on her face, and sat down as easily and gracefully as only she could.
“You won’t listen to me well, I, unfortunately, am convinced of this,” said the boss and, pulling the thread and spinning a ball on the varnished floor, which Meshcherskaya looked at with curiosity, raised her eyes. “I won’t repeat myself, I won’t speak at length,” she said.
Meshcherskaya really liked this unusually clean and large office, which breathed so well in frosty days the warmth of a shiny Dutch dress and the freshness of lilies of the valley on the desk. She looked at the young king, depicted in full height in the middle of some brilliant hall, at the even parting in the milky, neatly crimped hair of the boss and was silent expectantly.
“You’re not a girl anymore,” the boss said meaningfully, secretly starting to get irritated.
“Yes, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered simply, almost cheerfully.
“But not a woman either,” the boss said even more meaningfully, and her matte face turned slightly red. - First of all, what kind of hairstyle is this? This is a women's hairstyle!
- It’s not my fault, madame, that I have good hair“,” Meshcherskaya answered and slightly touched her beautifully decorated head with both hands.
- Oh, that’s it, it’s not your fault! - said the boss. “It’s not your fault for your hairstyle, it’s not your fault for these expensive combs, it’s not your fault that you’re ruining your parents for shoes that cost twenty rubles!” But, I repeat to you, you completely lose sight of the fact that you are still only a high school student...
And then Meshcherskaya, without losing her simplicity and calmness, suddenly politely interrupted her:
- Excuse me, madame, you are mistaken: I am a woman. And you know who is to blame for this? Dad's friend and neighbor, and your brother Alexey Mikhailovich Malyutin. It happened last summer in the village...
And a month after this conversation, a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance, who had absolutely nothing in common with the circle to which Olya Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her on the station platform, among a large crowd of people who had just arrived by train. And the incredible confession of Olya Meshcherskaya, which stunned the boss, was completely confirmed: the officer told the judicial investigator that Meshcherskaya had lured him, was close to him, vowed to be his wife, and at the station, on the day of the murder, accompanying him to Novocherkassk, she suddenly told him that she and never thought to love him, that all this talk about marriage was just her mockery of him, and she gave him to read that page of the diary that talked about Malyutin.
“I ran through these lines and right there, on the platform where she was walking, waiting for me to finish reading, I shot at her,” said the officer. - This diary, here it is, look what was written in it on the tenth of July last year.
The diary wrote the following:
“It’s two o’clock in the morning. I fell asleep soundly, but woke up immediately... Today I have become a woman! Dad, mom and Tolya all left for the city, I was left alone. I was so happy to be alone! In the morning I walked in the garden, in the field, was in the forest, it seemed to me that I was alone in the whole world, and I thought as well as I had ever thought in my life. I had lunch alone, then played for a whole hour, listening to the music I had the feeling that I would live endlessly and be as happy as anyone. Then I fell asleep in my dad’s office, and at four o’clock Katya woke me up and said that Alexei Mikhailovich had arrived. I was very happy about him, I was so pleased to accept him and keep him busy. He arrived in a pair of his Vyatkas, very beautiful, and they stood by the porch all the time; he stayed because it was raining and he wanted it to dry out by the evening. He regretted that he didn’t find dad, he was very animated and behaved like a gentleman with me, he joked a lot that he had been in love with me for a long time. When we walked around the garden before tea, the weather was again lovely, the sun shone through the entire wet garden, although it had become completely cold, and he led me by the arm and said that he was Faust with Margarita. He is fifty-six years old, but he is still very handsome and always well dressed - the only thing I didn’t like was that he arrived in a lionfish - he smells of English cologne, and his eyes are very young, black, and his beard is gracefully divided into two long parts and completely silver. Over tea we sat on the glass veranda, I felt as if unwell and lay down on the ottoman, and he smoked, then moved to me, began again to say some pleasantries, then examined and kissed my hand. I covered my face with a silk scarf, and he kissed me on the lips through the scarf several times... I don’t understand how this could happen, I’m crazy, I never thought I was like this! Now I have only one way out... I feel such disgust for him that I can’t get over it!..”
City for these April days it became clean, dry, its stones turned white, and it was easy and pleasant to walk on them. Every Sunday, after mass, a small woman in mourning, wearing black kid gloves and carrying an ebony umbrella, walks along Cathedral Street, leading to the exit from the city. She crosses a dirty square along the highway, where there are many smoky forges and the fresh air of the field blows; further, between the monastery and the fort, the cloudy slope of the sky turns white and the spring field turns gray, and then, when you make your way among the puddles under the wall of the monastery and turn left, you will see what looks like a large low garden, surrounded by a white fence, above the gate of which is written the Assumption mother of god. The little woman makes the sign of the cross and walks habitually along the main alley. Having reached the bench opposite the oak cross, she sits in the wind and in the spring cold for an hour or two, until her feet in light boots and her hand in a narrow kid are completely cold. Listening to the spring birds singing sweetly even in the cold, listening to the sound of the wind in a porcelain wreath, she sometimes thinks that she would give half her life if only this dead wreath would not be before her eyes. This wreath, this mound, the oak cross! Is it possible that under him is the one whose eyes shine so immortally from this convex porcelain medallion on the cross, and how can we combine with this pure gaze the terrible thing that is now associated with the name of Olya Meshcherskaya? “But deep down in her soul, the little woman is happy, like all people devoted to some passionate dream.
This woman is the classy lady Olya Meshcherskaya, a middle-aged girl who has long lived in some kind of fiction that replaces her real life. At first, her brother, a poor and unremarkable ensign, was such an invention; she united her entire soul with him, with his future, which for some reason seemed brilliant to her. When he was killed near Mukden, she convinced herself that she was an ideological worker. The death of Olya Meshcherskaya captivated her with a new dream. Now Olya Meshcherskaya is the subject of her persistent thoughts and feelings. She goes to her grave every holiday, does not take her eyes off the oak cross for hours, remembers the pale face of Olya Meshcherskaya in the coffin, among the flowers - and what she once overheard: one day, during a long break, walking through the gymnasium garden, Olya Meshcherskaya quickly, quickly said to her beloved friend, plump, tall Subbotina:
- I'm in one of my dad's books - he has a lot of old ones, funny books, - I read what kind of beauty a woman should have... There, you understand, there is so much said that you can’t remember everything: well, of course, black eyes, boiling with resin - by God, that’s what it says: boiling with resin! - eyelashes black as night, a gentle blush, a thin figure, longer than an ordinary arm - you know, longer than usual! - small leg, in moderation big breasts, correctly rounded calf, shell-colored knees, sloping shoulders - I almost learned a lot by heart, it’s all so true! - but most importantly, you know what? — Easy breath! But I have it,” listen to how I sigh, “I really have it, don’t I?”
Now this light breath has again dissipated in the world, in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind.
1916
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin
Easy breath
In the cemetery, above a fresh clay mound, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth. April, gray days; The monuments of the spacious county cemetery are still visible far away through the bare trees, and the cold wind rings the porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross. A rather large, convex porcelain medallion is embedded in the cross itself, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes. This is Olya Meshcherskaya. As a girl, she did not stand out in any way in the crowd of brown school dresses: what could be said about her, except that she was one of the pretty, rich and happy girls, that she was capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions that the classy lady gave her ? Then she began to blossom and develop by leaps and bounds. At the age of fourteen, with a thin waist and slender legs, her breasts and all those forms, the charm of which had never yet been expressed by human words, were already clearly outlined; at fifteen she was already considered a beauty. How carefully some of her friends combed their hair, how clean they were, how careful they were about their restrained movements! But she was not afraid of anything - not ink stains on her fingers, not a flushed face, not disheveled hair, not a knee that became bare when falling while running. Without any of her worries or efforts, and somehow imperceptibly, everything that had so distinguished her from the entire gymnasium in the last two years came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, the clear sparkle of her eyes. No one danced at balls like Olya Meshcherskaya, no one ran on skates like she did, no one at balls was looked after as much as she was, and for some reason no one was loved by the junior classes like her. Unnoticed, she became a girl, and her high school fame was imperceptibly strengthened, and rumors had already spread that she was flighty, could not live without admirers, that the high school student Shenshin was madly in love with her, that she supposedly loved him, but was so changeable in her treatment of him, that he attempted suicide... During her last winter, Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun, as they said in the gymnasium. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty, the sun set early behind the tall spruce forest of the snowy gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun for tomorrow, a walk on Sobornaya Street, an ice skating rink in the city garden, a pink evening, music and this in all directions the crowd gliding on the skating rink, in which Olya Meshcherskaya seemed the most carefree, the happiest. And then, one day, during a big break, when she was rushing around the assembly hall like a whirlwind from the first-graders chasing her and squealing blissfully, she was unexpectedly called to the boss. She stopped running, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar feminine movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders and, her eyes shining, ran upstairs. The boss, young-looking but gray-haired, sat calmly with knitting in her hands at her desk, under the royal portrait. “Hello, Mademoiselle Meshcherskaya,” she said in French, without raising her eyes from her knitting. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have been forced to call you here to talk to you about your behavior.” “I’m listening, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered, approaching the table, looking at her clearly and vividly, but without any expression on her face, and sat down as easily and gracefully as only she could. “You won’t listen to me well, I, unfortunately, am convinced of this,” said the boss and, pulling the thread and spinning a ball on the varnished floor, which Meshcherskaya looked at with curiosity, she raised her eyes. “I won’t repeat myself, I won’t speak at length,” she said. Meshcherskaya really liked this unusually clean and large office, which on frosty days breathed so well with the warmth of a shiny Dutch dress and the freshness of lilies of the valley on the desk. She looked at the young king, depicted in full height in the middle of some brilliant hall, at the even parting in the milky, neatly crimped hair of the boss and was silent expectantly. “You’re not a girl anymore,” the boss said meaningfully, secretly beginning to get irritated. “Yes, madame,” Meshcherskaya simply answered cheerfully. “But not a woman either,” the boss said even more meaningfully, and her matte face turned slightly red. - First of all, what kind of hairstyle is this? This is a women's hairstyle! “It’s not my fault, madame, that I have good hair,” Meshcherskaya answered and slightly touched her beautifully decorated head with both hands. - Oh, that’s it, it’s not your fault! - said the boss. “It’s not your fault for your hairstyle, it’s not your fault for these expensive combs, it’s not your fault that you’re ruining your parents for shoes that cost twenty rubles!” But, I repeat to you, you completely lose sight of the fact that you are still only a high school student... And then Meshcherskaya, without losing her simplicity and calmness, suddenly politely interrupted her: “Forgive me, madame, you are mistaken: I am a woman.” And you know who is to blame for this? Dad's friend and neighbor, and your brother Alexey Mikhailovich Malyutin. This happened last summer in the village... And a month after this conversation, a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance, who had absolutely nothing in common with the circle to which Olya Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her on the station platform, among a large crowd of people, only that arrived with the train. And the incredible confession of Olya Meshcherskaya, which stunned the boss, was completely confirmed: the officer told the judicial investigator that Meshcherskaya had lured him, was close to him, vowed to be his wife, and at the station, on the day of the murder, accompanying him to Novocherkassk, she suddenly told him that she and never thought to love him, that all this talk about marriage was just her mockery of him, and she gave him to read that page of the diary that talked about Malyutin. “I ran through these lines and right there, on the platform where she was walking, waiting for me to finish reading, I shot at her,” said the officer. - This diary is here, look what was written in it on the tenth of July last year. The following was written in the diary: “It’s now two o’clock in the morning. I fell asleep soundly, but woke up immediately... Today I have become a woman! Dad, mom and Tolya all left for the city, I was left alone. I was so happy that I was alone In the morning I was in the garden, in the field, in the forest, it seemed to me that I was alone in the whole world, and I thought better than ever in my life. I had lunch alone, then I played for a whole hour, listening to music. I have a feeling that I will live forever and will be as happy as anyone. Then I fell asleep in my dad’s office, and at four o’clock Katya woke me up and said that Alexey Mikhailovich had arrived. I was very happy about him, I was so pleased to receive him. and borrow. He arrived in a couple of his Vyatkas, very beautiful, and they stood at the porch all the time, he stayed because it was raining, he wanted it to dry out by the evening. He regretted that he did not find dad, he was very animated and held. He treated me like a gentleman, joked a lot that he had been in love with me for a long time. When we walked through the sala before tea, the weather was again lovely, the sun was shining through the entire wet garden, although it had become completely cold, and he led me by the arm and said that he is Faust with Margarita. He is fifty-six years old, but he is still very handsome and always well dressed - I just didn’t like that he arrived in a lionfish - he smells of English cologne, and his eyes are very young, black, and his beard is elegantly divided into two long parts and completely silver Over tea we sat on the glass veranda, I felt as if unwell and lay down on the ottoman, and he smoked, then moved to me, began again to say some pleasantries, then examined and kissed my hand. I covered my face with a silk scarf, and he kissed me on the lips through the scarf several times... I don’t understand how this could happen, I went crazy. I never thought I was like this! Now I have only one choice. .. I feel such disgust for him that I can’t get over it!..." During these April days, the city became clean, dry, its stones turned white, and it’s easy and pleasant to walk along them. Every Sunday, after mass, along Cathedral Street leading to the exit from the city, a small woman in mourning, in black kid gloves, with an ebony umbrella, walks along the highway, a dirty square, where there are many smoky forges and the fresh air of the field blows further, between the monastery and the prison; the cloudy slope of the sky and the spring field turns gray, and then, when you make your way among the puddles under the wall of the monastery and turn left, you will see what appears to be a large low garden, surrounded by a white fence, above the gate of which is written the Dormition of the Mother of God. A little woman makes the sign of the cross and walks habitually along the main road. alley, reaching the bench opposite the oak cross, she sits in the wind and in the spring cold for an hour or two, until her feet in light boots and her hand in a narrow husky are completely cold, listening to the spring birds singing sweetly in the cold, listening to the sound of the wind. porcelain wreath, she sometimes thinks that she would give half her life if only this dead wreath would not be in front of her eyes. This wreath, this mound, the oak cross! Is it possible that under him is the one whose eyes shine so immortally from this convex porcelain medallion on the cross, and how can we combine with this pure gaze the terrible thing that is now associated with the name of Olya Meshcherskaya? But deep down, the little woman is happy, like all people devoted to some passionate dream. This woman is the classy lady Olya Meshcherskaya, a middle-aged girl who has long lived in some kind of fiction that replaces her real life. At first, her brother, a poor and unremarkable ensign, was such an invention; she united her whole soul with him, with his future, which for some reason seemed brilliant to her. When he was killed near Mukden, she convinced herself that she was an ideological worker. The death of Olya Meshcherskaya captivated her with a new dream. Now Olya Meshcherskaya is the subject of her persistent thoughts and feelings. She goes to her grave every holiday, does not take her eyes off the oak cross for hours, remembers the pale face of Olya Meshcherskaya in the coffin, among the flowers - and what she once overheard: one day, during a big break, walking around the gymnasium, Olya Meshcherskaya quickly , quickly said to her beloved friend, plump, tall Subbotina: “I read in one of my dad’s books,” he has a lot of old funny books, “what kind of beauty a woman should have... There, you know, there’s so much said that You can’t remember everything: well, of course, black eyes boiling with tar - by God, that’s what it says: boiling with tar! - eyelashes as black as night, a gentle blush, a thin figure, longer than an ordinary arm - you know, longer than usual! - a small leg, a moderately large chest, a properly rounded calf, shell-colored knees, sloping shoulders - I almost learned a lot by heart, it’s all so true! - but the main thing is, you know what? -- Easy breath! But I have it, - listen to how I sigh, - I really do, don’t I? Now this light breath has again dissipated in the world, in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind. 1916Easy breath
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin
Easy breath
“A summer evening, a coachman's troika, an endless deserted highway...” Bunin's music of prose writing cannot be confused with any other, colors, sounds, smells live in it... Bunin did not write novels. But he brought the purely Russian genre of short story or short story, which received worldwide recognition, to perfection.
This book includes the most famous novels and short stories of the writer: “ Antonov apples", "Village", "Sukhodol", "Easy Breathing".
Ivan Bunin
Easy breath
In the cemetery, above a fresh clay mound, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth.
April, gray days; The monuments of the cemetery, spacious, county, are still visible far away through the bare trees, and the cold wind rings and rings the porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross.
A rather large, convex porcelain medallion is embedded in the cross itself, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.
This is Olya Meshcherskaya.
As a girl, she did not stand out in any way in the crowd of brown school dresses: what could be said about her, except that she was one of the pretty, rich and happy girls, that she was capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions that the classy lady gave her ? Then she began to blossom and develop by leaps and bounds. At the age of fourteen, with a thin waist and slender legs, her breasts and all those forms, the charm of which had never yet been expressed by human words, were already clearly outlined; at fifteen she was already considered a beauty. How carefully some of her friends combed their hair, how clean they were, how careful they were about their restrained movements! But she was not afraid of anything - not ink stains on her fingers, not a flushed face, not disheveled hair, not a knee that became bare when falling while running. Without any of her worries or efforts and somehow imperceptibly, everything that distinguished her from the entire gymnasium in the last two years came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, the clear sparkle of her eyes... No one danced at balls like Olya Meshcherskaya , no one ran on skates like she did, no one was courted as much at balls as she was, and for some reason no one was loved as much by the junior classes as she was. Imperceptibly she became a girl, and her high school fame was imperceptibly strengthened, and rumors had already spread that she was flighty, could not live without admirers, that the school student Shenshin was madly in love with her, that she supposedly loved him too, but was so changeable in her treatment of him that he attempted suicide...
During her last winter, Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun, as they said in the gymnasium. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty, the sun set early behind the tall spruce forest of the snowy gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun for tomorrow, a walk on Sobornaya Street, an ice skating rink in the city garden, a pink evening, music and this in all directions the crowd gliding on the skating rink, in which Olya Meshcherskaya seemed the most carefree, the happiest. And then one day, during a big break, when she was rushing around the assembly hall like a whirlwind from the first-graders chasing her and squealing blissfully, she was unexpectedly called to the boss. She stopped running, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar feminine movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders and, her eyes shining, ran upstairs. The boss, young-looking but gray-haired, sat calmly with knitting in her hands at her desk, under the royal portrait.
“Hello, Mademoiselle Meshcherskaya,” she said in French, without raising her eyes from her knitting. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have been forced to call you here to talk to you about your behavior.”
“I’m listening, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered, approaching the table, looking at her clearly and vividly, but without any expression on her face, and sat down as easily and gracefully as only she could.
“You won’t listen to me well, I, unfortunately, am convinced of this,” said the boss and, pulling the thread and spinning a ball on the varnished floor, which Meshcherskaya looked at with curiosity, she raised her eyes. “I won’t repeat myself, I won’t speak at length,” she said.
Meshcherskaya really liked this unusually clean and large office, which on frosty days breathed so well with the warmth of a shiny Dutch dress and the freshness of lilies of the valley on the desk. She looked at the young king, depicted in full height in the middle of some brilliant hall, at the even parting in the milky, neatly crimped hair of the boss and was silent expectantly.
“You’re not a girl anymore,” the boss said meaningfully, secretly beginning to get irritated.
“Yes, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered simply, almost cheerfully.
“But not a woman either,” the boss said even more meaningfully, and her matte face turned slightly red. – First of all, what kind of hairstyle is this? This is a women's hairstyle!
“It’s not my fault, madame, that I have good hair,” Meshcherskaya answered and slightly touched her beautifully decorated head with both hands.
- Oh, that’s it, it’s not your fault! - said the boss. - It’s not your fault for your hairstyle, it’s not your fault for these expensive combs, it’s not your fault that you’re ruining your parents for shoes that cost twenty rubles! But, I repeat to you, you completely lose sight of the fact that you are still only a high school student...
And then Meshcherskaya, without losing her simplicity and calmness, suddenly politely interrupted her:
- Excuse me, madame, you are mistaken: I am a woman. And you know who is to blame for this? Dad's friend and neighbor, and your brother Alexey Mikhailovich Malyutin. This happened last summer in the village...
And a month after this conversation, a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance, who had absolutely nothing in common with the circle to which Olya Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her on the station platform, among a large crowd of people who had just arrived by train. And the incredible confession of Olya Meshcherskaya, which stunned the boss, was completely confirmed: the officer told the judicial investigator that Meshcherskaya had lured him, was close to him, vowed to be his wife, and at the station, on the day of the murder, accompanying him to Novocherkassk, she suddenly told him that she and never thought to love him, that all this talk about marriage was just her mockery of him, and she gave him to read that page of the diary that talked about Malyutin.
“I ran through these lines and right there, on the platform where she was walking, waiting for me to finish reading, I shot at her,” said the officer. - This diary is here, look what was written in it on the tenth of July last year.
The diary wrote the following:
“It’s two o’clock in the morning. I fell fast asleep, but immediately woke up... Today I have become a woman! Dad, mom and Tolya all left for the city, I was left alone. I was so happy to be alone! In the morning I walked in the garden, in the field, was in the forest, it seemed to me that I was alone in the whole world, and I thought as well as I had ever thought in my life. I had lunch alone, then played for a whole hour, listening to the music I had the feeling that I would live endlessly and be as happy as anyone. Then I fell asleep in my dad’s office, and at four o’clock Katya woke me up and said that Alexei Mikhailovich had arrived. I was very happy about him, I was so pleased to accept him and keep him busy. He arrived in a pair of his Vyatkas, very beautiful, and they stood by the porch all the time; he stayed because it was raining and he wanted it to dry out by the evening. He regretted that he didn’t find dad, he was very animated and behaved like a gentleman with me, he joked a lot that he had been in love with me for a long time. When we walked around the garden before tea, the weather was again lovely, the sun shone through the entire wet garden, although it had become completely cold, and he led me by the arm and said that he was Faust with Margarita. He is fifty-six years old, but he is still very handsome and always well dressed - the only thing I didn’t like was that he arrived in a lionfish - he smells of English cologne, and his eyes are very young, black, and his beard is gracefully divided into two long parts and completely silver. Over tea we sat on the glass veranda, I felt as if unwell and lay down on the ottoman, and he smoked, then moved to me, began again to say some pleasantries, then examined and kissed my hand. I covered my face with a silk scarf, and he kissed me on the lips through the scarf several times... I don’t understand how this could happen, I’m crazy, I never thought I was like this! Now I have only one way out... I feel such disgust for him that I can’t get over it!..”
During these April days, the city became clean, dry, its stones turned white, and it was easy and pleasant to walk along them. Every Sunday, after mass, a small woman in mourning, wearing black kid gloves and carrying an ebony umbrella, walks along Cathedral Street, leading to the exit from the city. She crosses a dirty square along the highway, where there are many smoky forges and the fresh air of the field blows; further, between the monastery and the fort, the cloudy slope of the sky turns white and the spring field turns grey, and then, when you make your way among the puddles under the wall of the monastery and turn left, you will see what appears to be a large low garden, surrounded by a white fence, above the gate of which is written the Dormition of the Mother of God. The little woman makes the sign of the cross and walks habitually along the main alley. Having reached the bench opposite the oak cross, she sits in the wind and in the spring cold for an hour or two, until her feet in light boots and her hand in a narrow kid are completely cold. Listening to the spring birds singing sweetly even in the cold, listening to the sound of the wind in a porcelain wreath, she sometimes thinks that she would give half her life if only this dead wreath would not be before her eyes. This wreath, this mound, the oak cross! Is it possible that under him is the one whose eyes shine so immortally from this convex porcelain medallion on the cross, and how can we combine with this pure gaze the terrible thing that is now associated with the name of Olya Meshcherskaya? But deep down, the little woman is happy, like all people devoted to some passionate dream.
This woman is the cool lady Olya Meshcherskaya, a middle-aged girl who has long lived in some kind of fiction that replaces her real life. At first, her brother, a poor and unremarkable ensign, was such an invention - she united her whole soul with him, with his future, which for some reason seemed brilliant to her. When he was killed near Mukden, she convinced herself that she was an ideological worker. The death of Olya Meshcherskaya captivated her with a new dream. Now Olya Meshcherskaya is the subject of her persistent thoughts and feelings. She goes to her grave every holiday, does not take her eyes off the oak cross for hours, remembers the pale face of Olya Meshcherskaya in the coffin, among the flowers - and what she once overheard: one day during a big break, walking through the gymnasium garden, Olya Meshcherskaya quickly, quickly said to her beloved friend, plump, tall Subbotina:
“I read in one of my dad’s books—he has a lot of old, funny books—what kind of beauty a woman should have... There, you know, there are so many sayings that you can’t remember everything: well, of course, black eyes boiling with resin—by God.” , as it is written: boiling with resin! - eyelashes as black as night, a gentle blush, a thin figure, longer than an ordinary arm - you know, longer than usual! - small legs, moderately large breasts, properly rounded calves, shell-colored knees, sloping shoulders - I almost learned a lot by heart, it’s all so true! – but most importantly, you know what? Easy breath! But I have it,” listen to how I sigh, “I really have it, don’t I?”
Now this light breath has again dissipated in the world, in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind.
In the cemetery, above a fresh clay mound, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth. April, gray days; The monuments of the cemetery, spacious, county, are still visible far away through the bare trees, and the cold wind rings and rings the porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross. Embedded in the cross itself is a rather large, convex porcelain medallion, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes. This is Olya Meshcherskaya. As a girl, she did not stand out in any way in the crowd of brown school dresses: what could be said about her, except that she was one of the pretty, rich and happy girls, that she was capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions that the classy lady gave her ? Then she began to blossom and develop by leaps and bounds. At the age of fourteen, with a thin waist and slender legs, her breasts and all those forms, the charm of which had never yet been expressed by human words, were already clearly outlined; at fifteen she was already considered a beauty. How carefully some of her friends combed their hair, how clean they were, how careful they were about their restrained movements! But she was not afraid of anything - not ink stains on her fingers, not a flushed face, not disheveled hair, not a knee that became bare when falling while running. Without any of her worries or efforts, and somehow imperceptibly, everything that had so distinguished her from the entire gymnasium in the last two years came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, the clear sparkle of her eyes... No one danced at balls like Olya Meshcherskaya, no one was as good at skating as she was, no one was looked after at balls as much as she was, and for some reason no one was loved as much by the junior classes as she was. Imperceptibly she became a girl, and her high school fame was imperceptibly strengthened, and rumors had already spread that she was flighty, could not live without admirers, that the school student Shenshin was madly in love with her, that she supposedly loved him too, but was so changeable in her treatment of him that he attempted suicide. During her last winter, Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun, as they said in the gymnasium. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty, the sun set early behind the tall spruce forest of the snowy gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun for tomorrow, a walk on Sobornaya Street, an ice skating rink in the city garden, a pink evening, music and this in all directions the crowd gliding on the skating rink, in which Olya Meshcherskaya seemed the most carefree, the happiest. And then one day, during a big break, when she was rushing around the assembly hall like a whirlwind from the first-graders chasing her and squealing blissfully, she was unexpectedly called to the boss. She stopped running, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar feminine movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders and, her eyes shining, ran upstairs. The boss, young-looking but gray-haired, sat calmly with knitting in her hands at her desk, under the royal portrait. “Hello, Mademoiselle Meshcherskaya,” she said in French, without raising her eyes from her knitting. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have been forced to call you here to talk to you about your behavior.” “I’m listening, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered, approaching the table, looking at her clearly and vividly, but without any expression on her face, and sat down as easily and gracefully as only she could. “You won’t listen to me well, I, unfortunately, am convinced of this,” said the boss and, pulling the thread and spinning a ball on the varnished floor, which Meshcherskaya looked at with curiosity, raised her eyes. “I won’t repeat myself, I won’t speak at length,” she said. Meshcherskaya really liked this unusually clean and large office, which on frosty days breathed so well with the warmth of a shiny Dutch dress and the freshness of lilies of the valley on the desk. She looked at the young king, depicted in full height in the middle of some brilliant hall, at the even parting in the milky, neatly crimped hair of the boss and was silent expectantly. “You’re not a girl anymore,” the boss said meaningfully, secretly starting to get irritated. “Yes, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered simply, almost cheerfully. “But not a woman either,” the boss said even more meaningfully, and her matte face turned slightly red. - First of all, what kind of hairstyle is this? This is a women's hairstyle! “It’s not my fault, madame, that I have good hair,” Meshcherskaya answered and slightly touched her beautifully decorated head with both hands. - Oh, that’s it, it’s not your fault! - said the boss. “It’s not your fault for your hairstyle, it’s not your fault for these expensive combs, it’s not your fault that you’re ruining your parents for shoes that cost twenty rubles!” But, I repeat to you, you completely lose sight of the fact that you are still only a high school student... And then Meshcherskaya, without losing her simplicity and calmness, suddenly politely interrupted her: - Excuse me, madame, you are mistaken: I am a woman. And you know who is to blame for this? Dad's friend and neighbor, and your brother Alexey Mikhailovich Malyutin. It happened last summer in the village... And a month after this conversation, a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance, who had absolutely nothing in common with the circle to which Olya Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her on the station platform, among a large crowd of people who had just arrived by train. And the incredible confession of Olya Meshcherskaya, which stunned the boss, was completely confirmed: the officer told the judicial investigator that Meshcherskaya had lured him, was close to him, vowed to be his wife, and at the station, on the day of the murder, accompanying him to Novocherkassk, she suddenly told him that she and never thought to love him, that all this talk about marriage was just her mockery of him, and she gave him to read that page of the diary that talked about Malyutin. “I ran through these lines and right there, on the platform where she was walking, waiting for me to finish reading, I shot at her,” said the officer. - This diary, here it is, look what was written in it on the tenth of July last year. The diary wrote the following: “It’s two o’clock in the morning. I fell asleep soundly, but woke up immediately... Today I have become a woman! Dad, mom and Tolya all left for the city, I was left alone. I was so happy to be alone! In the morning I walked in the garden, in the field, was in the forest, it seemed to me that I was alone in the whole world, and I thought as well as I had ever thought in my life. I had lunch alone, then played for a whole hour, listening to the music I had the feeling that I would live endlessly and be as happy as anyone. Then I fell asleep in my dad’s office, and at four o’clock Katya woke me up and said that Alexei Mikhailovich had arrived. I was very happy about him, I was so pleased to accept him and keep him busy. He arrived in a pair of his Vyatkas, very beautiful, and they stood by the porch all the time; he stayed because it was raining and he wanted it to dry out by the evening. He regretted that he didn’t find dad, he was very animated and behaved like a gentleman with me, he joked a lot that he had been in love with me for a long time. When we walked around the garden before tea, the weather was again lovely, the sun shone through the entire wet garden, although it had become completely cold, and he led me by the arm and said that he was Faust with Margarita. He is fifty-six years old, but he is still very handsome and always well dressed - the only thing I didn’t like was that he arrived in a lionfish - he smells of English cologne, and his eyes are very young, black, and his beard is gracefully divided into two long parts and completely silver. Over tea we sat on the glass veranda, I felt as if unwell and lay down on the ottoman, and he smoked, then moved to me, began again to say some pleasantries, then examined and kissed my hand. I covered my face with a silk scarf, and he kissed me on the lips through the scarf several times... I don’t understand how this could happen, I’m crazy, I never thought I was like this! Now I have only one way out... I feel such disgust for him that I can’t get over it!..” During these April days, the city became clean, dry, its stones turned white, and it was easy and pleasant to walk along them. Every Sunday, after mass, a small woman in mourning, wearing black kid gloves and carrying an ebony umbrella, walks along Cathedral Street, leading to the exit from the city. She crosses a dirty square along the highway, where there are many smoky forges and the fresh air of the field blows; further, between the monastery and the fort, the cloudy slope of the sky turns white and the spring field turns grey, and then, when you make your way among the puddles under the wall of the monastery and turn left, you will see what appears to be a large low garden, surrounded by a white fence, above the gate of which is written the Dormition of the Mother of God. The little woman makes the sign of the cross and walks habitually along the main alley. Having reached the bench opposite the oak cross, she sits in the wind and in the spring cold for an hour or two, until her feet in light boots and her hand in a narrow kid are completely cold. Listening to the spring birds singing sweetly even in the cold, listening to the sound of the wind in a porcelain wreath, she sometimes thinks that she would give half her life if only this dead wreath would not be before her eyes. This wreath, this mound, the oak cross! Is it possible that under him is the one whose eyes shine so immortally from this convex porcelain medallion on the cross, and how can we combine with this pure gaze the terrible thing that is now associated with the name of Olya Meshcherskaya? “But deep down in her soul, the little woman is happy, like all people devoted to some passionate dream. This woman is the classy lady Olya Meshcherskaya, a middle-aged girl who has long lived in some kind of fiction that replaces her real life. At first, her brother, a poor and unremarkable ensign, was such an invention; she united her entire soul with him, with his future, which for some reason seemed brilliant to her. When he was killed near Mukden, she convinced herself that she was an ideological worker. The death of Olya Meshcherskaya captivated her with a new dream. Now Olya Meshcherskaya is the subject of her persistent thoughts and feelings. She goes to her grave every holiday, does not take her eyes off the oak cross for hours, remembers the pale face of Olya Meshcherskaya in the coffin, among the flowers - and what she once overheard: one day, during a long break, walking through the gymnasium garden, Olya Meshcherskaya quickly, quickly said to her beloved friend, plump, tall Subbotina: “I read in one of my dad’s books—he has a lot of old, funny books—what kind of beauty a woman should have... There, you know, there are so many sayings that you can’t remember everything: well, of course, black eyes boiling with resin, - By God, that’s what it says: boiling with resin! - eyelashes black as night, a gentle blush, a thin figure, longer than an ordinary arm - you know, longer than usual! - small legs, moderately large breasts, properly rounded calves, shell-colored knees, sloping shoulders - I almost learned a lot by heart, it’s all so true! - but most importantly, you know what? - Easy breath! But I have it,” listen to how I sigh, “I really have it, don’t I?” Now this light breath has again dissipated in the world, in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind. 1916In the cemetery, above a fresh clay mound, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth.
April, gray days; The monuments of the spacious, provincial cemetery are still visible far away through the bare trees, and the cold wind rings and rings like a porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross.
A rather large, convex porcelain medallion is embedded in the cross itself, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.
This is Olya Meshcherskaya.
As a girl, she did not stand out in any way in the crowd of brown school dresses: what could be said about her, except that she was one of the pretty, rich and happy girls, that she was capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions that the classy lady gave her ? Then she began to blossom and develop by leaps and bounds. At the age of fourteen, with a thin waist and slender legs, her breasts and all those forms, the charm of which had never yet been expressed by human words, were already clearly outlined; at fifteen she was already considered a beauty. How carefully some of her friends combed their hair, how clean they were, how careful they were about their restrained movements! But she was not afraid of anything - not ink stains on her fingers, not a flushed face, not disheveled hair, not a knee that became bare when falling while running. Without any of her worries and efforts and somehow imperceptibly, everything that distinguished her from the entire gymnasium in the last two years came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, the clear sparkle of her eyes... No one danced like Olya Meshcherskaya at balls , no one ran on skates like she did, no one was looked after at balls as much as she was, and for some reason no one was loved as much by the junior classes as she was. She imperceptibly became a girl, and her high school fame was imperceptibly strengthened, and rumors were already spreading that she was flighty, could not live without admirers, that the school student Shenshin was madly in love with her, that she supposedly loved him too, but was so changeable in her treatment of him that he attempted suicide.
During her last winter, Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun, as they said in the gymnasium. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty, the sun set early behind the tall spruce forest of the snowy gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun for tomorrow, a walk on Sobornaya Street, an ice skating rink in the city garden, a pink evening, music and this in all directions the crowd gliding on the skating rink, in which Olya Meshcherskaya seemed the most carefree, the happiest. And then one day, during a big break, when she was rushing around the assembly hall like a whirlwind from the first-graders chasing her and squealing blissfully, she was unexpectedly called to the boss. She stopped running, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar feminine movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders and, her eyes shining, ran upstairs. The boss, young-looking but gray-haired, sat calmly with knitting in her hands at her desk, under the royal portrait.