Galina Dobrozrakova

Galina Aleksandrovna Dobrozrakova (1953) - teacher of Russian language and literature at the Samara secondary school with in-depth study of individual subjects “Day boarding school-84”.

Pushkin's theme in the story “Reserve” by Sergei Dovlatov

The novel by Sergei Dovlatov belongs to the emigrant literature of the “third wave”. Seeing the meaning of his existence in writing and seeking creative freedom, Dovlatov was forced to leave the Soviet Union, but constantly dreamed of returning to his homeland, dreamed of “a real reader, a Russian audience, the atmosphere of his native language.”

“The main thing is that emigration is the greatest misfortune of my life and at the same time the only real way out, the only opportunity to do my chosen business... What protects me from extreme forms of depression is the confidence that sooner or later I will return home, either as a living person, or as a living writer. Without this confidence, I would simply go crazy,” wrote Sergei Dovlatov in a letter to T. Zibunova from New York.

Now that the writer’s works have finally returned to their homeland, it seems that Russian readers know everything or almost everything about him - he himself provided them with this opportunity, being both the author and the character of his books.

But, unfortunately, short-term interest on the part of domestic literary scholars, observed after the death of Sergei Dovlatov and the publication of his works in Russia in the late 1990s, gave way to indifference (except for the monograph by I. Sukhikh “Sergei Dovlatov: time, place, fate”, how many no serious works devoted to the phenomenon of his creativity appeared in his homeland).

In textbooks and teaching aids, as a rule, one can find the same type of phrases about the simplicity and brevity of Dovlatov’s style of narration and that “Dovlatov’s prose combines humor and bitterness, mischief and sentimentality, the convention of an anecdote and a photograph of a document” (this is how the writer himself characterizes his style in a letter to a friend I. Efimov).

And sometimes it is forgotten that the work of Sergei Dovlatov is in line with the best traditions of Russian literature of the 19th century-XX centuries, which he knew well (“reading is also my literary business!” - said the writer). Close relatives and friends of Sergei Dovlatov noted in their memoirs how freely he could quote the works of Pushkin, Goncharov, Chekhov, Zoshchenko, and Platonov.

Today I would like to present the writer’s work in the context of the traditions of Russian classics of the 19th century and “against this background, respecting the scale... to determine the place occupied by Dovlatov” (T. Volskaya).

It is advisable to conduct lessons on the works of Sergei Dovlatov for 11th grade students at the end of the school year in order not only to familiarize graduates with the works of this author, but also to simultaneously repeat and generalize the material learned while studying the works of A.S. Pushkina, M.Yu. Lermontova, N.V. Gogol. To get acquainted with the legacy of Sergei Dovlatov, students are invited to read his stories “The Zone” (1982) and “The Reserve” (1983).

The purpose of the lesson. To acquaint students with the features of Sergei Dovlatov’s story “The Reserve” in the context of the traditions of A.S. Pushkin.

The following individual assignments are given before the lesson.

1. Report on the biography of S.D. Dovlatova.

2. A message about the history of the creation of the story “The Reserve”.

Additional materials. Photo of Dovlatov in Mikhailovsky (1977) from the photo archive of V. Karpov (see: Sukhikh I. Sergey Dovlatov: time, place, fate. St. Petersburg, 1996. P. 193).

Lesson vocabulary

Autobiographical story- a literary genre based on a description of one’s own life; The narration in an autobiographical story is usually told in the first person and is focused on the psychological experiences, thoughts and feelings of the author.

Allusion- a stylistic figure, a hint through a similar-sounding word or mention of a well-known real fact, historical event, literary work.

Epigone- a follower of any scientific, political, artistic movement, mechanically repeating the outdated ideas of his predecessors. (When explaining the meaning of this word from Sergei Dovlatov’s letter, it is necessary to draw students’ attention to the self-irony sounding in it.)

During the classes

Among Russians there are many followers of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Bulgakov, Zoshchenko, but the epigon of Pushkin the prose writer is one...
(Sergei Dovlatov in a letter to I. Efimov. November 8, 1984)

Brief introduction teachers

Sergei Dovlatov (1941–1990) is a significant figure among Russian fiction writers of the last decade of the 20th century. The writer developed creatively in Leningrad in the 60s and 70s and realized himself as an artist in New York in the 80s. His books have been translated into major European languages, as well as Japanese.

Now that all of Sergei Dovlatov’s works have been published in his homeland, the opportunity has arisen to consider them in the context of the traditions of Russian classical literature XIX century, especially Pushkin, Lermontov and Gogol. Dovlatov himself dreamed of being talked about as a follower of Pushkin the prose writer.

In the story “Reserve” by Sergei Dovlatov, the Pushkin theme sounds especially clearly, which is why the first lesson on Dovlatov’s work is dedicated to this topic.

Student message about the biography of Sergei Dovlatov

Materials for the message

Sergei Donatovich Dovlatov was born on September 3, 1941 in Ufa. Since 1944, the Dovlatov family lived in Leningrad, the father was an administrator in the theater, the mother was an actress. But the parents soon divorced, and mother Nora Sergeevna began working as a proofreader. Through his mother's sister Mara Dovlatova, one of the best literary editors in Leningrad, the Dovlatov family was closely connected with the literary environment.

After graduating from school, Sergei worked for some time at a factory, and then entered Leningrad State University, where he studied Finnish. He was expelled from the university (officially for poor academic performance) from his second year. Once in the army, he served as a guard in the Komi camps. This period of life is described in the first collection of stories “Zone”.

After returning from the army, Sergei Dovlatov worked as a correspondent for the large-circulation newspaper of the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute “For Shipyard Personnel” and continued to write stories, gaining samizdat popularity. He was saved from reproaches and accusations of an antisocial lifestyle by Vera Panova, who appointed Dovlatov as her literary secretary.

At the end of the 1960s, Dovlatov joined the Leningrad literary group “Citizens”, whose members were B. Vakhtin, V. Gubin, I. Efimov, V. Maramzin. These authors were united by an acceptance of urban civilization and the desire to return literature to the original dignity of verbal art, a festive sense of the power of the word.

“Perhaps the strongest thing that binds us is hatred of insipid language...” - written in the manifesto “Citizens about themselves.”

In 1974, Sergei Dovlatov moved to Tallinn, where he collaborated in the newspapers “Soviet Estonia” and “Evening Tallinn”. He wrote reviews for the magazines “Neva” and “Zvezda”. The works of Dovlatov the prose writer were not published in the USSR.

In 1978, at the height of anti-dissident actions by the authorities, Dovlatov was forced to leave the Soviet Union and emigrate first to Vienna, then to the USA, where he became one of the founders of the Russian-language weekly “New American”. From 1980 to 1982 he was its editor-in-chief; At the peak of its popularity, the newspaper's circulation reached 11 thousand copies.

In the United States, Sergei Dovlatov’s prose received wide recognition and was published in the most famous newspapers and magazines. He became the second Russian writer after V. Nabokov to be published in the New Yorker magazine.

Literally five days after his death, the story “The Reserve” was put into print in Russia, becoming the first significant work of the writer published in his homeland.

The main works of Sergei Dovlatov: “Zone” (1964–1982), “ Invisible book"(1978), "Solo on Underwood. Notebooks" (1980), "Compromise" (1981), "Reserve" (1983), "Ours" (1983), "March of the Lonely" (1985), "Craft" (1985), "Suitcase" (1986), "Foreigner" (1986).

All of Dovlatov’s works are based on facts and events from the writer’s biography.

Student’s message about the history of the creation of the story “Reserve”

Materials for the message

The story “Reserve” (1983) - the first work of Sergei Dovlatov with a single plot - has all the signs of autobiographical prose with its inherent type of first-person narration and an emphasis on authenticity, which is confirmed by the fact that in 1976–1977 S.D. . Dovlatov actually worked as a guide at the A.S. Museum-Reserve. Pushkin in the Pskov region. This was the impetus for the creation of a work in which the Pushkin Nature Reserve is presented by the author as a miniature model of Russia during the Soviet period.

As is known, in our country, since the existence of the Soviet Union, when veneration of selected classics was a policy and a duty, several museums of A.S. have been preserved. Pushkin: in Moscow, in St. Petersburg, in Boldin, in Mikhailovskoye and in Tsarskoye Selo.

Back in 1961, D. Samoilov’s poem “House Museum” appeared, in which the poet writes with irony that guides are preoccupied with showing things, and not with the desire to talk about the poet’s work.

Come in, please. This
Poet's desk. Poet's couch.
Bookshelf. Wash basin. Bed.
This is a curtain to cover the window...
........................................
Here he died. On that canapé
Before I whispered a saying
Incomprehensible: “I don’t want to...”
Or songs? Or maybe cookies?
Who knows what he wanted
This old poet in front of the coffin!
The death of the poet is the last section.
Don't crowd in front of the wardrobe...

Thus, D. Samoilov anticipates one of the main motives of Dovlatov’s work - the motive of replacing real spiritual values ​​with unnecessary fake things. But the same Samoilov writes in his diary: “...We spent half a day... wandering around Mikhailovskoye, went to Trigorskoye and Petrovskoye. It brought me to tears several times.”

Ancestral Mikhailovskoe and Pushkin Mountains have always had a special place in the system of nature reserves. The almost unchanged landscape, the house restored after destruction during the Great Patriotic War, and the relative proximity to both Russian capitals made the Pushkin Mountains a place of pilgrimage.

Much had been written about these places even before the appearance of Sergei Dovlatov’s story. Since the beginning of the 70s, the book “At Lukomorye. Stories from the keeper of the Pushkin Nature Reserve" S.S. Geichenko. In 1981, his work “Pushkinogorye” was published.

Semyon Stepanovich wrote poetically about the reserve: “Without Pushkin’s things, without the nature of Pushkin’s places, it is difficult to fully understand his life and work... Today, Pushkin’s things are in reserves and museums. Here they live a special, mysterious life, and the guardians read the letters hidden in them... When you are in Mikhailovsky, be sure to go one evening to the outskirts of the estate, stand facing the small lake and shout loudly: “Alexander Sergeevich!” I assure you, he will definitely answer: “Awww! I'm coming!"

Yu.M. Nagibin, having visited the family estate of A.S. in 1964. Pushkin, also left an enthusiastic note: “How good, gentle and authentic it is there [in the Pushkin Mountains]!.. Again an overgrown pond surrounded by tall mast pines... Again quiet flat lakes and unafraid wild ducks and pearl-earth ducks swimming on their surface, the dear distances into which Pushkin looked achingly.”

But fifteen years later (July 20, 1979) his view changes: “We were in Trigorskoye and in the newly rebuilt Petrovsky: the patrimony of the Hannibals. The latter left an ambivalent impression: the building itself is quite convincing, but it’s stuffed like commission shop, anything at all: charming Pavlovian chairs and a modern bookcase, a great variety of sideboards, even in the corridors; there are almost no genuine things.”

This theme is continued by Sergei Dovlatov in the story “Reserve”. In letters written to his friend I. Efimov from New York while working on the work, Sergei Dovlatov reflected all the stages of this work, right down to the design of the cover. In one of the letters, the author himself explained that the title used a metaphor: “reserve, Russia, village, farewell to the homeland.”

Research

Students' answers to questions about the text of the story with comments from the teacher.

Based on the statement of Sergei Dovlatov (“...I... am inclined to a more general... metaphor - a reserve, Russia, a village, farewell to the homeland”), explain the meaning of the title of the work.

We find out that the title of the story “Reserve” has the following meanings.

• Pushkinskiye Gory - family estate of A.S. Pushkin, the place where the author of the work and his hero Boris Alikhanov worked as a guide.
• Miniature model of Russia.

- What is life like in Pushkin’s places? How does it reflect the Russian reality of that time?

The vulgarity of life in the reserve is manifested in the false perception of A. Pushkin. And although the cult of the poet’s personality reigns throughout the protected space, there is no true understanding of him and no real knowledge of his work.

Thus, the poet’s appearance is recognizable only by the famous sideburns, cane and top hat. Images of Pushkin are found at every step, “even near the mysterious booth with the inscription “Flammable!” The similarity ended with the sideburns. Their sizes varied arbitrarily.” This quote, where “sideburns” appear as the main feature of Pushkin’s appearance, echoes a quote from A. Tertz’s essay “Walking with Pushkin”, in which the irony towards Pushkin sounds quite clearly: “In addition to greatness, which predisposes to respectful titles, behind which his face blurs into a solid popular spot with sideburns - the difficulty lies in the fact that he is absolutely accessible and impenetrable, mysterious in the obvious accessibility of the truths he proclaimed, which, it seems, do not contain anything special ... "

On the one hand, as Dovlatov notes, the prophecy was fulfilled: “The people’s path will not be overgrown!..” On the other hand, “Where can she, poor thing, be overgrown. It was trampled down long ago by squadrons of tourists.” The huge number of tourists has not yet testified to their love for the personality and work of Pushkin. “Tourists came to relax... The local committee imposed cheap trips on them. These people are generally indifferent to poetry... What is important to them is the feeling - I was here.” The excursionists are distinguished by their blatant ignorance: they ask stupid questions about why there was a duel between Pushkin and Lermontov, cannot figure out what the middle name of Alexander Sergeevich’s sons was, and mistake S. Yesenin’s poem for a poem by A.S. Pushkin.

As E. Rein tells in her memoirs “I Miss Dovlatov”, published in the magazine “Ogonyok” in August 1995, a similar scene actually took place: “We went to Mikhailovskoye, a group of excursionists was already waiting for him, as it turned out, teachers from the Moscow region . Dovlatov led them to the nanny’s house, and I settled in at the tail.

He stopped in front of Arina Rodionovna’s house and tourists surrounded him. “Pushkin loved his nanny very much,” Dovlatov began. - She told him fairy tales and sang songs, and he composed poems for her. Among them there are well-known ones, you probably know them by heart.” "What do you have in mind?" - someone asked timidly. “Well, for example, this... “Are you still alive, my old lady?”” And Sergei with expression read Yesenin’s poem to the end. I looked at him in horror. Quite imperceptibly, slightly lowering his eyelid, he winked at me. The sightseers were silent.”

The workers of the reserve constantly repeat: “Pushkin is our pride!.. He is not only a great poet, but also a great citizen...” “Love for Pushkin was the most popular currency here.” “All the ministers of the Pushkin cult were surprisingly jealous. Pushkin was their collective property, their adored lover, their tenderly cherished brainchild,” but the workers of the reserve themselves were, as a rule, flawed people in some ways: “accountant, methodologist, tour guides” - lonely girls dreaming only of how get married, the lazy Mitrofanov is an erudite man, but weak-willed, the pseudo-literary Pototsky is a mediocrity and a drunkard.

The second side of life in the reserve is that lies and deception reign all around: “Tourists want to see Hannibal. They pay money for this. What do they care about Zakomelsky? So our director hanged Hannibal... More precisely, Zakomelsky under the guise of Hannibal!”; “...Kern Alley is an invention of Geichenko. That is, of course, there is an alley. An ordinary linden alley. And Kern has nothing to do with it. Maybe she didn’t come close to this alley.”

So, vulgarity and deception reign in the reserve. The reserve is the personification of the Soviet Union, which means that there is vulgarity and deception in the entire country.

- Follow how the motive of replacing genuine values ​​with counterfeit ones develops in the story.

The motif of replacing real spiritual values ​​with unnecessary things develops gradually and runs through the entire work: first it appears in the author’s internal monologue (“...passion for inanimate objects irritates me”), then an “illustration” is given to the author’s reasoning (a meeting with a Tyrolean philocartist who compares the “Pskov distances” depicted on the postcard with the real “distances”), and finally, the deception is exposed.

"- May I ask one question? Which museum exhibits are authentic?

Is it important?

I think so. After all, a museum is not a theater<...>

What exactly are you interested in? What did you want to see?

Well, personal things... If there are any...

Personal belongings of Pushkin?.. The museum was created decades after his death...

This is how it always works out, I say. First they kill a person, and then they start looking for his personal belongings...”

- How is the period of life in the reserve connected with the fate of the autobiographical hero?

Boris Alikhanov comes to Pushkin's places to earn extra money and think about his future life, which “spreads around like an endless minefield” (his stories, which he has been writing for twenty years, are not published, his family is destroyed).

Despite the autobiographical nature of the events described, Dovlatov combines documentary with fiction. Thus, it is known that the author was 36 years old when he worked in the Pushkin Mountains, but in the story Boris Alikhanov is 31 years old (he appears in the reserve after his “thirtieth birthday, vigorously celebrated in the Dnepr restaurant”). As we remember, Pushkin was exactly 31 years old during the famous Boldino autumn. This coincidence is not accidental. This is how a parallel arises: Alikhanov - Pushkin.

Alikhanov acts as an artist whose talent is not recognized by his contemporaries, but he constantly repeats to himself: “Pushkin also had debts and unimportant relations with the state. And something bad happened to my wife. Not to mention the difficult character...

And nothing. A nature reserve has been opened. There are forty guides. And everyone loves Pushkin madly... The question is, where were you before?.. And who do you all despise now?..”

In the story, as we see, another literary motive develops - the motive of the attitude of contemporaries and descendants towards the writer; Reflecting on the tragic fate and loneliness of a genius not recognized during his lifetime, Sergei Dovlatov guesses his posthumous fate.

In the Pushkin Mountains, B. Alikhanov reads rare literary books about Pushkin and tries to understand the peculiarities of his work. “What interested me most was Pushkin’s Olympic indifference. His willingness to accept and express any point of view. His constant desire for the final highest objectivity”; “His literature is higher than morality. It defeats morality and even replaces it. His literature is akin to prayer, nature...”

In these lines of Sergei Dovlatov there is a Pushkin quote, written by the poet’s hand in the margins of Vyazemsky’s article “On the life and writings of V.A. Ozerov”, where the author states: “A tragedian is not a criminal judge.” And Pushkin writes in the margin: “Wonderful!” But then the critic continues in an edifying tone: “The duty of him and every writer is to warm with love for virtue and inflame with hatred of vice.” And Pushkin responds: “Not at all! Poetry is higher than morality - or, at least, a completely different matter... Lord Jesus! What does a poet care about virtue and vice? Is their poetic side the same?”

When asked what the purpose of poetry is, Pushkin replies: “Here! The purpose of poetry is poetry.”

Pushkin's quotes are repeatedly heard in Dovlatov's text. Unable to imagine his existence without literary creativity, the hero comes to the conclusion: “But your business is the word,” repeating the words of Pushkin, known in Gogol’s program: “The words of a poet are the essence of his business.”

- What allusions to Pushkin’s texts are found in the narrative?

A. Genis, in his article “Pushkin,” writes that Dovlatov’s story “is all permeated with Pushkin’s allusions, but they are found in deliberately unexpected places.” For example, the remark of the tour guide Natella, flirting with the hero: “You are a dangerous person,” literally repeats the words of Dona Anna from “The Stone Guest.” “From there, his future brother-in-law came to Dovlatov’s book. The scene of meeting him parodies Don Guan’s meeting with the commander: “A brown brick face rose above the cliffs of the shoulders<...>The molded arches of the ears were lost in the twilight<...>The bottomless mouth, like a crack in a rock, concealed a threat<...>I almost groaned when the iron vice squeezed my palm."

Literary critic I. Sukhikh notes the similarities between Michal Ivanovich and Arkhip the blacksmith from Dubrovsky. “The archipelago blacksmith mercilessly, “with an evil smile,” burns clerks in a locked house, but, risking his life, saves a cat running on the burning roof (“God’s creature dies”). In Michal Ivanovich this strange combination of cruelty and kindness is repeated in the same details (locked house, cat), but with a variable sign. Having hung cats and praised the Germans who shot Jews and Gypsies during the war (“By God, they didn’t do anything bad. Jews and Gypsies are as it should be...”), he delicately does not want to wake up a worthy tenant in his own house.”

Female names, according to I. Sukhikh, were also chosen by Dovlatov not by chance: Masha (daughter) - the name of the heroine of the story “The Captain's Daughter”; Tanya (wife) is the name of the heroine of the novel “Eugene Onegin”.

Teacher's final words

Reflections on the fate of Pushkin, the peculiarities of his work and its significance for Russian literature worried Sergei Dovlatov throughout his life. In his speech “The Splendor and Poverty of Russian Literature,” the writer appreciated the role of Pushkin: “...If we consider that Russian literature began with Pushkin, then this beginning was extremely promising and successful.” Pushkin’s “pure aestheticism” was one of the main guidelines for the writer Sergei Dovlatov.

Sponsor of the publication of the article: the Maxlevel company, which, through its own network of plumbing stores in Moscow, sells a wide range of products designed to make your bathroom modern, stylish and comfortable. In Maxlevel salons located in different parts of the city, as well as on the company’s website at: santech.maxlevel.ru, there is always a huge selection of bathtubs and showers, faucets and heated towel rails, furniture and accessories for bathrooms. The company's managers and consultants are always ready to assist in choosing necessary equipment and answer all customer questions, and service center specialists will install and connect baths, showers, saunas and mini pools, install bathroom furniture and other plumbing fixtures with their subsequent warranty and post-warranty service.

Literature for teachers

1. Genis A. Pushkin // Sergei Dovlatov. The last book. St. Petersburg, 2001, pp. 323–340.
2. Dovlatov S. The brilliance and poverty of Russian literature. Collection cit.: In 4 vols. St. Petersburg, 2004. T. 4. P. 351–366.
3. Sergey Dovlatov - Igor Efimov. Epistolary novel. M., 2001.
4. Sukhikh I.N. Sergey Dovlatov: time, place, fate. St. Petersburg, 1996.
5. Tudorovskaya E.A. Guide to the “Reserve” // Zvezda. 1994. No. 3. P. 193–199.

The story “Reserve” by Sergei Dovlatov is rightly called one of the most significant works author. This book was the first among Dovlatov’s published works in Russia, and it also turned out to be the most sincere, the deepest of all that he wrote. “The Reserve” became available to the Russian reader after the author’s death, in 1983, while the book was written several years earlier.

The superficial glance of a modern reader can see that today it is no longer relevant - they say, the average citizen has more freedoms, and our life is less and less absurd. However, in reality this is not the case - Russian reality practically does not change under the influence of time. Those brightest, characteristic features that were noticed by Dovlatov at one time are invisibly present in our lives today.

"Reserve" tells about the main character who gets a job in Pushkin Museum in Mikhailovsky. The museum, which is the largest reserve of outstanding Russian talent, is served by people who remain deaf to the genius of the poet. Seeing this main character builds an analogy between the reality that surrounds him in the museum, the fate of Pushkin himself and his own life. As a result, a complex interweaving is born, built more on emotions and sensations than on real facts. At the same time, Dovlatov shows the “museum” reality in many seemingly insignificant manifestations, which make obvious the absurdity and illogicality of our life.

Like most of Dovlatov’s works, “The Reserve” turns out to be a little autobiographical - the author himself was once a museum worker and observed everything that his hero sees. At the same time, many say that in “The Reserve” the prototype of the main character was Brodsky, who at one time tried to get a job as a librarian at Mikhailovskoye. However, this is not important, but the fact that in any case, Dovlatov wrote not about fiction, but about what actually existed and, probably,
still exists.

Here one of the most characteristic features author - to tell people the truth so that they listen to it with interest. In “The Reserve” he undoubtedly succeeds. Dovlatov writes vividly and simply, tells stories in an interesting way, and uses irony where there is simply no other weapon left against the lack of logic. And, apparently, this is precisely why readers love “The Reserve” and other works of the author - for the ability to talk about sad things with a slight smile, for the ability to infect the audience with a love of life, for the opportunity to look at things that have long been familiar to us from a position of optimism.

The story of the ordeal of an uncensored Soviet writer in the Pushkin reserve in Mikhailovsky, which Dovlatov becomes a metaphor for the entire Soviet society.

comments: Polina Ryzhova

What is this book about?

Mid 1970s. Boris Alikhanov, a drinking and unsuccessful writer from Leningrad, comes to Pushkin Mountains for the summer to work as a tour guide. A story based on personal experience Dovlatov, looks like a series of anecdotal stories, but at the center of it is the painful existential crisis of a person stuck in problems with family, alcohol and self-esteem. For the author himself, this book became a farewell to the Soviet Union.

Sergei Dovlatov in front of the Printing House in Tallinn. 1974

When was it written?

Dovlatov made the first sketches of “The Reserve” in Leningrad in 1976-1977, following his work at the Pushkinogorsk excursion bureau. By that time he was semi-banned Soviet writer with dubious journalistic prospects (in 1976 he was expelled from the Union of Journalists of the USSR). But Dovlatov’s texts appear in emigrant magazines, and in 1977 the American publishing house Ardis Publishing An American publishing house that published Russian literature in the original language and in English translation. It was founded by Slavists Karl and Ellendea Proffer in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1971. The publishing house published both modern uncensored literature (Joseph Brodsky, Sasha Sokolov, Vasily Aksenov) and texts that were not published in the USSR (Mikhail Bulgakov, Marina Tsvetaeva, Andrei Platonov). In 2002, part of the catalog and the rights to the name Ardis were sold; since that time, books in Russian have not been published in it. ⁠ releases his debut collection “The Invisible Book”. Dovlatov continued working on “The Reserve” while in exile—the bulk of the text was written in Vienna, where he lived from August 1978 to February 1979, before moving to the United States. In New York, Dovlatov rewrote the story several times; in June 1983, its final version was ready. At this time, the writer was experiencing literary success in America (three of his stories had already been published in The New Yorker magazine), but at the same time he was unsettled by the legal battle related to the closure of the newspaper "New American" A weekly newspaper published in New York in Russian from 1980 to 1982. The editor-in-chief of the newspaper was Sergei Dovlatov; Alexander Genis and Pyotr Weil also worked in the editorial office. The circulation reached 11 thousand copies. The New American was forced to close due to financial problems - the publishers were unable to repay the loan taken out to open the newspaper. ⁠ and failure to repay the loan taken out for her.

House of Sergei Dovlatov in the village of Berezino, Pskov region

How is it written?

The style of the story is conversational and unpretentious. However, the external simplicity of Dovlatov’s prose and the feeling of “linguistic” it gives rise to comfort" 1 Sukhikh I. N. Sergei Dovlatov: time, place, fate. St. Petersburg: Azbuka, 2010. P. 8. ⁠ - a consequence of painstaking work. It is known that Dovlatov artificially limited himself to achieve stylistic grace: for example, he did not use words starting with the same letter in the same sentence. There is a lot of air in the text of “The Reserve”, in many ways this effect is achieved thanks to the peculiarities of the author’s punctuation - Dovlatov prefers ellipses to dots, blurring any certainty 2 Genis A. Dovlatov and the surrounding area. M.: Corpus, 2011. P. 183. ⁠ . Joseph Brodsky noted that Dovlatov, contrary to popular belief, is not, first of all, a talented storyteller, but a wonderful stylist. His texts are based on the “rhythm of the phrase”, “the cadence of the author’s speech” and are written in the manner of poems: “This is more singing than storytelling.”

It is clear to everyone that geniuses must have acquaintances. But who will believe that his friend is a genius?!

Sergey Dovlatov

What influenced her?

This includes American prose popular among the sixties (O. Henry, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Dos Passos, John Updike, Thomas Wolfe), and Russian feuilleton (Arkady Averchenko, Yuri Olesha, Mikhail Bulgakov), and OBERIU (Daniil Kharms, Alexander Vvedensky, Nikolai Zabolotsky), and the underground Leningrad school ( Vladimir Maramzin Vladimir Rafailovich Maramzin (born 1934) - writer. Member of the Leningrad literary group “Citizens”, one of the authors of the typewritten collection of the same name. Together with Mikhail Kheifetz and Efim Etkind, he worked on the samizdat collected works of Brodsky, because of which in 1974 he was arrested, given a suspended sentence, and then received permission to emigrate. Lived in Paris, published the literary magazines Continent and Echo. Maramzin’s Leningrad friend Sergei Dovlatov called him “Karamzin of the era of insanity.” ⁠ , Vladimir Uflyand Vladimir Iosifovich Uflyand (1937-2007) - poet, writer, artist and translator. He worked as a loader and graphic designer in the Hermitage, and did dubbing for Lenfilm. He was published in Soviet samizdat and abroad - in the magazines “Obvodny Kanal”, “Clocks”, “Mitin Magazine”, “Syntax”. Together with the poets Mikhail Eremin, Leonid Vinogradov and Sergei Kulle, he was part of a poetic association that became known as the philological school. Uflyand's first book of poems was published in the USA in 1978. ⁠ , Sergey Wolf Sergei Evgenievich Wolf (1935-2005) - poet, prose writer and children's writer. In the 60s, Wolf wrote stories and poems that were distributed in samizdat, and was close to the circle of Andrei Bitov, Valery Popov, and Sergei Dovlatov. At the same time, Wolf wrote prose for teenagers. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he published two books of poetry, Little Gods and The Rosy-Cheeked Peacock. ⁠ ). The stories of Mikhail Zoshchenko and Anton Chekhov are closest to Dovlatov. Dovlatov’s world is related to Zoshchenko’s prose by absurd domestic dramas, outwardly unremarkable ordinary heroes and an equal narrator, with Chekhov's - the anecdotal nature of plot collisions, love for simple one-part sentences, an abundance of dialogues. Dovlatov himself pointed to Chekhov in his Notebooks: “One can be in awe of Tolstoy’s mind. Admire the grace of Pushkin. Appreciate Dostoevsky's moral quest. Gogol's humor. And so on. However, I only want to be like Chekhov.”

“The Reserve” was first published in 1983 by the American publishing house Hermitage Publishers, founded Igor Igor Markovich Efimov (1937) - writer, philosopher, publicist. In the USSR he was a member of the Writers' Union, publishing novels and short stories for children. Together with Boris Vakhtin, Vladimir Gubin and Vladimir Maramzin, he was a member of the Leningrad literary group “Citizens”. In 1978, Efimov emigrated to America. In exile, he first worked at Ardis Publishing, then together with his wife he opened his own publishing house, Hermitage Publishers, which published uncensored Soviet literature. Efimov is the author of novels, philosophical works, memoirs about Joseph Brodsky, Sergei Dovlatov, and a book about the assassination of John Kennedy. ⁠ And Marina Efimova Marina Mikhailovna Efimova (née Rachko; 1937) - writer, radio presenter. She worked at Leningrad Radio. In 1978, together with her husband Igor Efimov, she emigrated to America; in 1981, the couple opened their own publishing house, Hermitage Publishers, in Michigan. Since the late 1980s, Efimova has been broadcasting on Radio Liberty, one of which she did together with Sergei Dovlatov. In 1990, Efimova’s story “I Can’t Through It” was published. ⁠ , friends of Dovlatov and former editors of Ardis Publishing. In the USSR, “The Reserve” was published by the Vasilievsky Island publishing house in 1990, almost immediately after the author’s death: it was Dovlatov’s first book published in his homeland. In 1993, the story was included in the three-volume collected works of Dovlatov, prepared by the writer Andrei Aryev and designed by one of the founders of the Leningrad art group "Mitki" An informal creative association that formed in the 1980s in Leningrad. It was named after one of its participants, Dmitry Shagin. Among the main principles of the art group are kindness, extreme simplicity, love of diminutive suffixes and strong alcohol. In 1984, a member of the association, Vladimir Shinkarev, published a book about the Mitkas in samizdat, which brought them wide popularity. In 1992, a cartoon about Mitki was released, and Mitki-Gazeta began publishing. ⁠ Alexander Florensky. Over the course of several years, the collection was reprinted three times (and expanded to four volumes), and its total circulation was 150 thousand copies. Writer Valery Popov Valery Georgievich Popov (1939) - writer, screenwriter. He worked as an engineer and began publishing in 1965. IN Soviet time was known primarily as a children's writer. Popov is the author of several dozen novels and stories, film scripts, books about Likhachev, Dovlatov and Zoshchenko. Chairman of the Writers' Union of St. Petersburg, president of the St. Petersburg branch of the Russian PEN Club, member of the editorial board of the magazines "Zvezda" and "Aurora". ⁠ recalled that from modern writers in the 1990s, only Dovlatov had such circulations: “He replaced everyone us" 3 Popov V. G. Dovlatov. M.: Young Guard, 2010. ⁠ .

Illustration by Alexander Florensky in the three-volume collected works of Dovlatov. Publishing house "Limbus-Press". Moscow, 1993

First edition of the "Reserve". Hermitage Publishers. Ann Arbor, 1983

How was she received?

In emigration, "Reserve" was perceived primarily as Dovlatov's attempt to explain why he left the USSR, and also as another evidence of his rapidly growing literary influence - in the same year with "Reserve" the collections "Ours", "March of the Lonely", supplemented re-release of “Solo on Underwood”, “Zone” published a year earlier is still making noise. In a letter to Dovlatov, the matriarch of Russian literary emigration, the writer, warmly praises the story Nina Berberova Nina Nikolaevna Berberova (1901-1993) - writer, poet. She emigrated with Vladislav Khodasevich in 1922, ten years later the couple separated. Berberova wrote for the emigre publications Latest News and Russian Thought, and published novels and short story cycles. In 1936 she published a literary biography of Tchaikovsky that became popular. In 1950 she moved to the USA, where she taught Russian language and literature at universities. In 1969, Berberova’s book of memoirs, “My Italics,” was published. ⁠ : “...In its own way, “The Reserve” is a masterpiece: I’m so glad that I’m not Pushkin!” In 1985, the emigrant magazine Grani published the first large article about Dovlatov, written by a literary critic Ilya Serman Ilya Zakharovich Serman (1913-2010) - literary critic. Participated in the Great Patriotic War, taught literature at the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute. Herzen. In 1949, he was convicted of anti-Soviet propaganda and served a prison term in the Magadan region. In 1954 he was amnestied and was able to return to Leningrad. After his daughter emigrated, he was fired from the Institute of Russian Literature, and Serman was forced to leave for Israel, where he became a professor in the department of Russian and Slavic philology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. ⁠ . Referring to fellow critics, Serman noted that Dovlatov is “like a chervonets. Everyone like" 4 ⁠ .

In Russia literary heritage Dovlatov returned in the early 1990s, immediately and almost entirely. Writer Lyudmila Stern ⁠ compared his popularity at the turn of the century with the popularity of Vysotsky in the 1960s and 70s, and called the number of memoirs published in a short period after the writer’s death “almost unprecedented in Russian history.” literature" 5 Stern L. Dovlatov is my good friend. St. Petersburg: Azbuka, 2005. P. 12. ⁠ . Over the years, interest in Dovlatov, which at first seemed fleeting, did not fade away - in the words of literary critic Igor Sukhikh, the “flash” of interest rather turned into “even burning.” In 2015, Stanislav Govorukhin released the film “The End of a Beautiful Era,” based on several stories from “Compromise,” and a few years later, a film about Dovlatov was presented by Alexey German Jr. In 2018 alone, a play based on the “Reserve” was staged at the Studio theatrical arts Sergei Zhenovach and a film by Anna Matison with Sergei Bezrukov was shot in leading role, in it the action of the story is transferred to the present day. The Dovlatov arts festival, organized in the Pskov region by director Dmitry Meskhiev, is named after the “Reserve”. In Mikhailovskoye, where Dovlatov worked, a separate excursion route dedicated to the “Reserve” has been launched. In St. Petersburg, on Rubinstein Street, a monument was erected to Dovlatov.

Film "Dovlatov". Director Alexey German Jr. 2018

How accurately does “The Reserve” depict the Pushkin Museum-Reserve?

Dovlatov ended up in the museum-reserve thanks to writers Andrey Ariev Andrey Yurievich Ariev (1940) - literary critic, prose writer. He worked in Lenizdat, as a guide at the Mikhailovskoye Museum-Reserve, was a consultant in the prose department of the Zvezda magazine, and later as deputy editor-in-chief. In 1991, together with Yakov Gordin, he headed the magazine. Ariev is the compiler of Dovlatov’s collected works and the author of a book of memoirs about him. ⁠ and - Mikhailovskoe at that time often served as a refuge for Leningrad intellectuals, where one could earn good money (about 8 rubles per excursion, approximately 200-250 rubles per month) and spend the summer in nature. Dovlatov's hero Boris Alikhanov comes to the reserve for similar reasons, but instead of the virgin world of Russian classics he discovers theater scenery, where the felt sideburns of the station waiter are responsible for the spirit of “Pushkin’s places”. When asked by Alikhanov what is genuine in the reserve, the museum curator answers evasively (“Everything here is genuine. The river, the hills, the trees are Pushkin’s peers. His interlocutors and friends. All the amazing nature of these places...”), which is why Alikhanov gives her a small comic interrogation.

The Mikhailovskoye Nature Reserve really couldn’t boast of authentic museum items: the estates of Mikhailovskoye, Petrovskoye and Trigorskoye were looted and burned during the revolution; on the 100th anniversary of Pushkin’s death, the house-museum was restored, but during the war the reserve again suffered losses - estate buildings, parks, buildings of the Svyatogorsk monastery were damaged, Pushkin’s grave was damaged . Renaissance museum complex after the war, Pushkinist Semyon Stepanovich Geichenko studied - the Petrovskoye estate, the family estate of the Hannibals, could only be restored in 1977, just at that time Dovlatov was working in the reserve.

I think love for birches triumphs at the expense of love for humans. And develops as a surrogate of patriotism

Sergey Dovlatov

In “The Reserve,” Alikhanov learns that “Kern Alley” has nothing to do with Pushkin’s beloved Anna Petrovna, and the portrait of Pushkin’s great-grandfather Abram Petrovich Hannibal, hanging in the museum, actually depicts a heavily tanned Russian general. Dovlatov’s contemporaries also had a feeling of fakery - the incident with the painting, for example, is described in Yuri Nagibin’s “Diary”: “And the linden tree around Geichenko is growing and expanding. Here it was established for certain that the famous portrait of the arap Peter the Great, the original of which hangs in the Tretyakov Gallery, actually depicts some Russian general sunbathed in the southern sun.<…>Geichenko wants to have a portrait of the arap Peter the Great in Petrovsky, and that’s all! However, one more linden, one less in a prostituted memorial - what does it matter?

In Dovlatov’s story, the director of the museum-reserve is also mentioned (“this is Geichenko’s invention”; “comrade Geichenko’s stupid ideas”), but he is not the only one to blame for the surrounding falsehood: it is practically spilled in the air here. AND museum workers, both guides and tourists, when talking about Pushkin, speak in quotes from bad school essays, the place of living speech is taken by cliches about the “great poet” and “great citizen”. Dovlatov, who, according to the recollections of his friends, was boiling over the most innocent truisms, turns the banalities of the inhabitants of the Pushkin reserve into material for numerous caustic jokes. It is natural that the sardonic Alikhanov, soon after arriving at the reserve, gives up interrogating poor museum workers and also becomes infected with intellectual apathy (“I mechanically played my role, receiving a good reward for it”). Artificiality is felt not only in the reserve - the Pskov Kremlin reminds the main character of a model; in the nearby village of Sosnovo, where he lives, “cows of the same color, flat, like theatrical scenery,” roam. The Dovlatovsky Reserve, which is not accidentally included in the title of the story, does not fit within the boundaries of the real Pushkin Reserve. It becomes a metaphor for the entire Soviet country.

Semyon Geichenko, director of the Mikhailovskoye Museum-Reserve of A. S. Pushkin. 1983

Rudolf Kucherov/RIA Novosti

Is Boris Alikhanov Sergei Dovlatov?

Boris Alikhanov came to the “Reserve” from Dovlatov’s “Zone”, he is also mentioned as minor character“Compromise”: “But the other day a philologist came with a journalist he knew... Or even, it seems, a translator. He served, he says, as a supervisor in convoy units... He told terrible stories... The non-Russian surname is Alikhanov. Undoubtedly an interesting person...<…>He was a huge young man with a low forehead and a flabby chin. Something falsely Neapolitan shimmered in his eyes.” Alikhanov, as we see, partially repeats the biography of Dovlatov (the writer served as a security guard for three years penal colony in the Komi Republic), and his appearance. noticed that all the main characters of Dovlatov’s texts are similar to the author: “We always remember that the narrator is afraid to hit his head chandelier" 6 Genis A. Dovlatov and the surrounding area. M.: Corpus, 2011. P. 157. ⁠ . In “The Reserve” Alikhanov seems to reproduce in detail real story Dovlatov, but there are significant differences in their experience: Alikhanov, for example, spends only a few summer months in the Pushkin Mountains, while Dovlatov came to work there for two years in a row, Alikhanov in the story is 31 years old, Dovlatov in his first summer in Mikhailovsky was 34. According to one version, Dovlatov deliberately made his hero the same age as Pushkin during the Boldino autumn.

Almost all of Dovlatov’s main books are written in the first person, many of them on behalf of Sergei Dovlatov (for example, “Compromise”, “Ours”, “Craft”, “Suitcase”), but even in this case we are not talking about the author himself, but about the author-character, a kind of artistically rounded image. The fact that Dovlatov gives the hero of “The Reserve” the surname Alikhanov, and not his own, may indicate the author’s desire to distance himself from the narrator and give the story of a cornered writer a more universal character. In a letter to the publisher of the Reserve, Igor Efimov, Dovlatov wrote: “I would willingly portray Brodsky, but I can’t reach his inner world, so I’ll limit myself to the average young author.” In “The Reserve,” Dovlatov does not write about himself; he rather conveys his own experience to a character similar to him.

Why is the status of a writer so important for the hero?

Alikhanov is tormented not by the pangs of creativity, but by experiences of a different kind: he is not published in the Soviet Union, just as Dovlatov was not published. He wants to make a living from literature, and not to entertain tourists with memorized facts about Pushkin, but it is almost impossible for Alikhanov (as well as for Dovlatov) to break into the echelon of officially recognized writers. “The Reserve” sarcastically surveys the state of modern Soviet literature: success is achieved either by hacks whose texts are protected from censorship by the “reliable armor of literary secondaryness” (“In the writer Volin you discovered: “...It became extremely clear to me...” And on that same page: “...With boundless clarity, Kim felt...”), or pathetic villagers (“In between, I read Likhonosov.<…>...At the core is a hopeless, sad, annoying feeling. A thin and boring motive: “Where are you, Rus'?!” Where did it all go?"). Alikhanov intuitively tries to try on both roles, but, like a pedant and a cynic, he fails.

The lack of official status as a writer, on the one hand, torments the hero and forces him to constantly doubt his own abilities, on the other hand, this is precisely what serves as a kind of guarantee of his talent. Anatoly Naiman recalled that the Soviet literary underground suffered not only from political pressure, but also from a lack of understanding of who really deserved what: “As a rule, according to Hamburg, that is, independent of circumstances and motives outside art, the net result was that you are a genius and that your closest friends are geniuses, because you, your company, are a company of geniuses. At moments, however, an icy breeze of despair blew in, arising from doubt: what if your talent is not appreciated, not because genius is inaccessible to the public, but because you are mediocrity? There was no other choice: genius or mediocrity. Nobody knew who was worth what, because there was no open market. There was the appearance of literature, music, painting, which appeared in the form of books, symphonies, paintings that fulfilled a number of conditions that were in no way related to art. So there was some starting point: what is recognized is not art. And this, naturally, followed by an illogical conclusion: what is not recognized is genius.”

We live in an amazing era. “A good person” sounds like an insult to us. “But he’s a good man,” they say about the groom, who looks like an obvious nonentity

Sergey Dovlatov “Reserve”

Dovlatov desperately wanted to be published, but the set of his debut collection “Five Corners,” which was supposed to be published in Tallinn in 1974, was scattered for censorship reasons. After this, the chance of publishing his books in the USSR was practically reduced to zero. Having met the publisher Karl Proffer in Leningrad, Dovlatov gave him the manuscript of “The Invisible Book” (later it will be included in the memoirs “The Craft”), where he outlined his literary biography in an ironic manner. Ardis Publishing published it in 1977. The title of the debut looks doubly symbolic: Dovlatov’s books were invisible in his homeland, and the writer, living in the Soviet Union, could not see his first book either. For Dovlatov, it was printed books that were indisputable, material evidence of his literary status, but instead of them he only had a pile of constantly revised manuscripts. Alexander Genis, in a philological novel about Dovlatov, noted that for a writer to live for a long time with a book manuscript is “unhygienic, spiritually untidy.” A manuscript is like fingernails, “an intimate part of the author, which over time begins to burden" 7 Genis A. Dovlatov and the surrounding area. M.: Corpus, 2011. P. 78. ⁠ . Boris Alikhanov in “The Reserve” reproduces Dovlatov’s neurotic desire to finally publish his texts. Even in the dramatic scene of separation from his wife, he does not forget to ask her to find Karl Proffer and hurry him to publish the book.

According to the recollections of friends, Dovlatov, as a young unrecognized author, attached great importance to literature: “I must tell you that literature, or rather, my stories, is the only thing that matters to me... Nothing and no one else interests me in life.<…>Apart from literature, I am no longer fit for anything - neither for political speeches, nor for love, nor for friendship" 8 ⁠ . In exile, when Dovlatov was finally able to quench his thirst for literary recognition, he discovered that the importance of literature in his life was greatly overestimated: “Now I am no longer young, and it turned out that neither Leo Tolstoy nor Faulkner came out of me, although everything what I write is published. And some strange things came to the fore: it turned out that I had a family...” Alexander Genis believed that if it weren’t for early death, the theme of disappointment in literature could capture Dovlatov as much as the fascination by her 9 Genis A. Dovlatov and the surrounding area. M.: Corpus, 2011. P. 80. ⁠ .

The outskirts of the village of Mikhailovskoye. State Museum-Reserve A.S. Pushkin "Mikhailovskoe". 1969

Lev Ustinov/RIA Novosti

Why is the “married” Alikhanov constantly surrounded by women?

The reserve looks like a kingdom of lonely ladies: attentive Galina, touchy Marianna, ardent Natella, romantic Victoria Albertovna, young Aurora. They all want Alikhanov’s love: “It’s been a long time since I’ve been the object of such intense female care. In the future it will manifest itself even more persistently. And it will even develop into pressure.” Dovlatov himself could boast of the attention of women. “He used his spectacular appearance in his tail and mane, outright defeating saleswomen, hairdressers and waitresses. But not only representatives of these professions, and not only in Leningrad, fell under his “Martiniden” charm. I myself witnessed how lonely, middle-aged literary editors in New York fell into a trance when he appeared,” recalled Lyudmila Stern 10 Stern L. Dovlatov is my good friend. St. Petersburg: Azbuka, 2005. ⁠ . However, immediately upon arriving at the reserve, Alikhanov is explained that women are not interested in him specifically, they are interested in men as such. This obsession with male attention in “The Reserve” becomes the basis for numerous absurd and even frightening situations in their absurdity:

A bow-legged local tractor driver with the locks of a train station whore was surrounded by annoying, rosy-cheeked fans.

- I'm dying, beer! - he said sluggishly.

And the girls ran for beer...

In this context, the only “normal” character appears to be Tanya, Alikhanov’s wife, who comes to the reserve to inform him that she is emigrating with their daughter. Formally, the characters are divorced, but their divorce, as Alikhanov puts it, has lost its power “like exhausted meth.” The prototype of Tanya can be considered Elena Dovlatova, the writer’s second wife. She, according to the memoirs of Andrei Ariev, also visited her husband in the reserve: “September 3, 1976 - on Seryozha’s birthday - having arrived from Leningrad to the Pushkin Mountains, I immediately went to the village of Berezino, where he then lived and should have - in my opinion calculations - have fun. In the hut I found his wife Lena, wandering alone over her husband who had already passed out. During my absence, the sparse interior of the low room was noticeably decorated... On the wall, next to the cloudy, cracked mirror, stood out a piece of paper with a large inscription, pinned with a knife. “35 years of shit and shame!” It seems that Lena left the next day.”

Unlike numerous women of the reserve, Tanya no longer really wants anything from Alikhanov. Silent, calm “like the ocean,” she decided to leave, and this firm decision becomes an almost existential shock for her husband. The turning point of the story is not the hero’s arrival at the reserve, the center of the absurd, but the extremely rational decision of his wife to leave this “reserve”. It is this decision that triggers an invisible, at first glance, spiritual movement in the hero. Having felt it, Alikhanov goes on a drinking binge, but later it will certainly force him to follow his wife, as Dovlatov did in reality. Only five words in the story’s dedication allow one to come to this conclusion: “To my wife, who was right.”

Elena Dovlatova. 1981

The heroes of “The Reserve” drink constantly. Was it all like that?

If all the women of the “Reserve” are obsessed with finding a man, then all of its men are obsessed with finding a bottle. Stasik Pototsky drinks, Mitrofanov drinks, photographer Markov is a “complete drunkard”, it is mentioned that Tanya’s brother has liver problems. The most striking expression of the general alcoholic delirium is the village resident Michal Ivanovich, in whose house the narrator rents a room. During the entire summer, he saw his owner sober only twice (“He drank continuously. To the point of amazement, paralysis and delirium. And he delirious exclusively with obscenities”). Major Belyaev, explaining the political situation in the country to the dissident Alikhanov, concludes: “Do you want to know where the khan of Soviet power will come from? I will tell you. Hana will come from vodka. Now, I think, sixty percent of workers get drunk by the evening. And the numbers are growing. The day will come when everyone without exception will get drunk.” This conversation, of course, also takes place under vodka. Belyaev is not far from the truth - during the era of Brezhnev’s stagnation, alcohol consumption in the USSR reached record levels. If in the 1960s soviet man consumed on average 4.6 liters of alcohol per year, by the early 1980s this figure was 14.2 liters. For one adult man there were 180 half-liter bottles of vodka per year, that is, 1 bottle for two days.

Alikhanov, the main character of “The Reserve,” doesn’t just drink, he’s a chronic alcoholic. In fact, the entire plot of the story can be reduced to the story of his short remission between two binges. “The Reserve” begins with a scene in which the hero is looking for a buffet at the station to soothe his hangover. His hands are shaking, so he has to take the glass of beer with both. Alcohol tremor usually occurs due to prolonged intoxication: alcohol toxins disrupt the functioning of the central nervous system. nervous system, a person experiences uncontrolled muscle contraction. Before arriving at the reserve, Alikhanov, apparently, drank a lot and for a long time. After leaving the reserve, he drinks even more, leading himself to hallucinations.

Ask the person a question: “Do you have binges?” - and the person will calmly answer - no. Or maybe he will willingly agree. But the question “Did you sleep?” most experience it almost as an insult

Sergey Dovlatov

Binges also affect Alikhanov’s psychological state: he suffers from bouts of desperate self-flagellation (he chooses an unsuitable room for living in the village, as if specially punishing himself) and almost a split personality. Pototsky says about him: “Borka is sober and Borka is so drunk different people that they don’t even know each other...” The drinking characters of “The Reserve” are like a reflection of the main character - while he’s in the mood, they seem to be drinking for him. By giving Michal Ivanovich a ruble every day “to help him get drunk,” Alikhanov not only pays money for renting a room, he symbolically buys off fate, trying to delay the inevitable onset of a new binge.

Dovlatov, like his hero, suffered from alcoholism. Lyudmila Stern Lyudmila Yakovlevna Stern (née Davidovich; born 1935) - writer, journalist, translator. Before emigrating, she worked as a geologist. In 1976, she and her husband moved to America. She was friends with Sergei Dovlatov, Joseph Brodsky, and wrote books of memoirs about them. Lives in Boston and is a research fellow at Brandeis University. ⁠ described the influence of heavy drinking on his character: “His “Niagara” mood swings reflected a certain period associated with alcohol. Pre-drinking - anticipation and nervousness, the epicenter of the binge - anger and rudeness, post-drinking - meekness, vows and bitter self-contempt. This feeling of guilt, the constant self-flagellation of the narrator can be seen in many of Dovlatov’s texts. For example, in “Branch”: “I cursed and hated only myself. I experienced all misfortunes as retribution for my own sins. Any offense was perceived as the result of my own sin.<…>The feeling of guilt began to take on the character of mental illness in me.”

Lev Losev's farewell party before leaving for emigration. Leningrad, January 1976

How does Dovlatov make “Reserve” funny?

The central plot of “The Reserve” looks ponderous, slowly developing, devoid of sharp turns, but thanks to the small anecdotal short stories strung on its axis or, in the words of Viktor Toporov, “microabsurdities”, the story leaves a feeling of lightness. Igor Sukhikh noted that “Dovlatov is easy to read avidly... but difficult to read diagonally. The text bursts with plots, micro-climaxes, a key phrase can flash at any point in the plot space" 11 Sukhikh I. N. Sergei Dovlatov: time, place, fate. St. Petersburg: Azbuka, 2010. P. 59. ⁠ . The anecdotal nature of Dovlatov’s prose grew out of late Soviet speech practices: telling jokes was an important part of informal communication. “We are so accustomed, when we get together in close company, to tell jokes like the latest news, or at least remember who remembers what, that we ourselves do not see, we do not notice our happiness: that we live with jokes - in the era of oral folk art, in the era of prosperity of the huge folklore genre,” wrote Andrei Sinyavsky in 1978 in the essay “Anecdote in joke" 12 Sinyavsky A.D. Literary process in Russia. M.: Russian State University for the Humanities, 2003. pp. 232-243. ⁠ .

Dovlatov tried to bring the joke out of the folklore ghetto into great literature, while he did not invent jokes, but rather knew how to find them where no one thought to look. He, for example, assured that Dostoevsky is one of the funniest authors in Russian literature, and believed that it was necessary to write about this research work. Dovlatov, as Genis put it, “guarded the word, which did not hears" 13 Genis A. Dovlatov and the surrounding area. M.: Corpus, 2011. P. 50. ⁠ . What's funny in Dovlatov's prose is usually associated with incorrect word usage, lexical inconsistency, and most often with the impossibility of communication as such. Most of the anecdotal micronovels of the “Reserve” are due to the fact that people do not hear and understand each other, as in the literal sense (for example, in the scene in which Mitrofanov cannot speak clearly due to a wasp sting: “- Y-y-ah, - he said. - What? - my wife asked. For example, in Alikhanov’s conversation with a tourist:

A man in a Tyrolean hat approached me shyly:
- Excuse me, can I ask a question?
- I'm hearing you.
- Was this given?
- That is?
- I ask, was this given? “The Tyrolean took me to the open window.
- In what sense?
- In direct. I would like to know if this was given or not? If you don't give it, say so.
- I don't understand.
The man blushed slightly and began to hastily explain:
- I had a postcard... I am a philocartist...
- Who?
- Philocartist. I collect postcards... Philos - love, cards...
- Clear.
- I have a color postcard - “Pskov distances”. And so I ended up here. I want to ask - was this given?
“In general, they did,” I say.
- Typically Pskov?
- Not without it.

All of Dovlatov’s “microabsurdities” develop according to one scenario - the expectation in them never corresponds to the result: calm quiet conversation can turn into an outburst of anger, and the build-up of tension can turn into unexpected reconciliation. Dovlatov’s lyrical hero, on the one hand, avoids absurd situations, even perceives them as danger, constantly yearning for normality, on the other hand, he admires them and involuntarily becomes part of them (“I always listen to the outpourings of some monsters. This means that there is something in me something conducive to madness..."). wrote that the originality of Dovlatov’s prose lies in the combination of absurdity and epic, fragmentation and monumentality. If the epic usually establishes connections between man and the universe, then the absurd demonstrates their fragmentation, complete incoherence. However, Dovlatov’s absurdity “has a special “hidden warmth” that reveals (or confirms) human kinship.” Dovlatov unites his heroes with absurdity, makes it the basis of order, and this omnipresent illogicality paradoxically makes the world clearer and safer 14 Lipovetsky M. “And the broken mirror...” Rewriting the autobiography of Sergei Dovlatov // ARSS // http://magazines.russ.ru/project/arss/ezheg/lipovec.html ⁠ .

Sergei Dovlatov in the Pushkin Mountains. 1977

Trigorsky Park. State Museum-Reserve A.S. Pushkin "Mikhailovskoe". 1970

Vladimir Savostyanov/TASS

The characters in “The Reserve” are based on real people. Are the situations they find themselves in real too?

All characters in the story have real prototypes- from the drunkard Michal Ivanovich to the former informer Lenya Gribanov. In some cases, Dovlatov pointed them out, in others - the writer’s relatives and friends, in others - the residents of the reserve and the surrounding area looked for them themselves. Dovlatov, using real people as characters (albeit under fictitious names), creates such a believable world that readers unwittingly accept fiction for biographical However, at the first approach, it turns out that Dovlatov handles facts freely, and situations associated with very specific people can be completely invented. For example, the writer’s acquaintance with his wife Elena has three different artistic interpretations: in “Reserve” they meet at the party of the painter Lobanov, in “Suitcase” - Lena comes to his home as an election agitator, in “Ours” - Dovlatov’s hero discovers her sleeping at home after the party (“Gurevich forgot me”). At the same time, according to the writer’s sister Ksenia Mechik-Blank, none of these dating options is true. Pointing out factual inconsistencies, Mechik-Blank also noted that in Dovlatov’s story about his son Nicholas, the date of his birth was changed by two days, and in one of the stories, for some reason, her husband was called Lenya and a Zionist, although neither one nor the other corresponds reality 15 Mechik-Blank K. From Dovlatov’s letters to his father // Zvezda. 2008. No. 1. P. 98-114. ⁠ .

People who recognized themselves in Dovlatov’s characters often took offense at the writer. Many offended people remained in the Pushkin Nature Reserve, and in the Tallinn newspaper, described in the “Compromise”, and in the American editorial office of Radio Liberty, which ended up in the “Branch”. Pyotr Weil recalled: “Stylistic truth was much more precious to him. The same is true in oral stories. Sergei wrote a lot and willingly about his friends. Moreover, I more than once watched him tell tales about people who were sitting right there, hanging their ears no worse than others, as if it was not about them. About one solid, self-satisfied person, with a slow, weighty speech, Sergei reported: “Venya told me yesterday: “Klara and I decided ... what we have in the refrigerator ... will always be for friends ... mineral water" Dovlatov maintained that verisimilitude that was truer than the facts - that’s why his slander was believed unconditionally.”

Are there positive and negative characters in The Reserve?

If there is, then Dovlatov does not reveal his attitude towards them; for him they are all the same - funny, crazy and somehow cute. The graphomaniac and scoundrel Stasik Pototsky is no worse and no better than the “fantastic lazy man” Mitrofanov, and the “Russian dissident” photographer Markov is the gendarme and security officer Belyaev. It is surprising that Dovlatov, a writer banned in the USSR, who emigrated to America and moved among dissidents, was not at all interested in politics. Instead of “patriots” and “democrats,” he saw, first of all, people who were captive of ideological cliches. From "Solo on Underwood":

“Tolya,” I call Naiman, “let’s go visit Leva Druskin.”
“I won’t go,” he says, “he’s some kind of Soviet.”
- So how is it Soviet? You are wrong!
- Well, anti-Soviet. Who cares.

In the story “Branch” there is a characteristic dialogue between the journalist Dalmatov and Barry Tarasovich, the head of the Third Wave radio, the prototype of which was Radio Liberty:

Barry Tarasovich continued:
— Don’t write that Moscow is frantically rattling its weapons. That the Kremlin gerontocrats are holding a sclerotic finger...
I interrupted him:
- On the trigger of war?
- How do you know?
“I wrote this in Soviet newspapers for ten years.
— About the Kremlin gerontocrats?
- No, about the hawks from the Pentagon.

The presumption of not only ideological, but also any other guilt has been removed from the world of Dovlatov’s prose. All its weight is transferred to the narrator. Dovlatov, although he is ironic about his characters, never judges them, presenting them as something like “illustrations for a textbook natural history" 17 Genis A. Dovlatov and the surrounding area. M.: Corpus, 2011. P. 221. ⁠ . Critic Nikita Eliseev connected this author’s view directly with the atmosphere of the Soviet 1970s: “Dovlatov’s KGB major Belyaev and the writer Boris Alikhanov are equally sympathetic. Two drunken idiots who have given up any ideology and talk to each other like human beings. In fact, it was a short moment when Yesterday was gone and Tomorrow had not yet come. Therefore, now Dovlatov’s stories are read as historical stories about the past, for his world, the world of charming funny eccentrics, lazy people, scoundrels, harmless cynics, drunkards, is this world religion 19 Serman I. Theater of Sergei Dovlatov // Facets. 1985. No. 136. pp. 138-162.⁠. It is no coincidence that Abram Tertz’s ironic literary essay “Walking with Pushkin,” a fragment of which was first published in the USSR in 1989, was perceived by many critics as a violation of sacred objects.

Alikhanov does not speak directly about his love for Pushkin, but Pushkin’s influence can be detected at many levels of the text of the “Reserve”. For example, in the description of the controversial image of Michal Ivanovich, who once hung cats on a rowan tree, but was so delicate that he sat on the porch until the morning, afraid to wake up the guest, one can detect an allusion to Pushkin’s story “Dubrovsky” (the blacksmith Arkhip burns people in a locked house, but at the same time, risking his life, he saves a cat running on a burning roof). In a conversation with Natella (“— And you are a dangerous person.” — That is? — I felt it right away. You are terribly a dangerous person") - a quote from Pushkin's "The Stone Guest" ("Dona Anna: Go away - you are a dangerous person. Don Guan: Dangerous! What? Dona Anna: I'm afraid to listen to you"). The names of Alikhanov’s wife and daughter do not seem accidental: wife Tanya is in honor of Tatyana from Eugene Onegin, and daughter Masha is in honor of Masha Mironova from The Captain daughters" 20 Sukhikh I. N. Sergei Dovlatov: time, place, fate. St. Petersburg: Azbuka, 2010. P. 153. ⁠ . Tormented by self-doubt, Alikhanov in his own words retells Pushkin’s maxim “The words of a poet are already his business” (“You must either live or write. Either the word or the deed. But your business is the word”), and he himself compares himself with Pushkin ( “I kept repeating to myself: “Pushkin also had debts and an unimportant relationship with the state, and trouble happened to his wife.”

Alexander Genis concluded that Dovlatov’s “Reserve” is sculpted in Pushkin’s image and likeness, even if this is not noticeable at first glance: “The smart one hides a leaf in the forest, a man in the crowd, Pushkin in the Pushkin Reserve.” The hero of “The Reserve” does not bow to the poet, but he metaphorically lives his fate: “If the Reserve guards the letter of Pushkin’s myth, the other one, the one described by Dovlatov, preserves it spirit" 21 Genis A. Dovlatov and the surrounding area. M.: Corpus, 2011. P. 217. ⁠ .

bibliography

• Genis A. A. Dovlatov and the surrounding area. M.: Corpus, 2011.
• Zernova R. A. Dacha neighbors // Neva. 2005. No. 10. P. 115–126
• Eliseev N. L. Human voice // New World. 1994. No. 11. pp. 212–225.
• Efimov I.M. Epistolary novel with Sergei Dovlatov. M.: Zakharov, 2001.

• Kovalova A., Lurie L. Dovlatov. St. Petersburg: Amphora, 2009.
• Kurganov E. Ya. Anecdote as a genre of Russian literature. M.: ArsisBooks, 2015.
• Kurganov E. Ya. Sergei Dovlatov and the line of anecdote in Russian prose // Word\Word. 2009. No. 62. pp. 492–507.
• Lipovetsky M. N. “And the broken mirror...” Rewriting the autobiography of Sergei Dovlatov // ARSS // http://magazines.russ.ru/project/arss/ezheg/lipovec.html
• Losev L. Alexander Genis. Dovlatov and the surrounding area // Banner. 1999. No. 11. pp. 222–223.
• Mechik-Blank K. From Dovlatov’s letters to his father // Zvezda. 2008. No. 1. P. 98–114.
• Little-known Dovlatov: collection. St. Petersburg: JSC Zvezda Magazine, 1999.
• Naiman A. Characters in search of an author // Zvezda. 1994. No. 3. P. 125–128.
• Pekurovskaya A. When S. D. and I happened to sing: Sergei Dovlatov through the eyes of his first wife. St. Petersburg: Symposium, 2001.
• Correspondence between Sergei Dovlatov and Nina Berberova // Zvezda. 2016. No. 9. pp. 34–44.
• Popov V. G. Dovlatov. M.: Young Guard, 2010.
• Semkin A. Why Sergei Dovlatov wanted to be like Chekhov // Neva. 2009. No. 12. pp. 147–159.
• Serman I.Z. Theater of Sergei Dovlatov // Grani. 1985. No. 136. pp. 138–162.
• Sinyavsky A.D. Literary process in Russia. M.: RSUH, 2003.
• Sukhikh I. N. Sergey Dovlatov. Time. place, destiny. St. Petersburg: Azbuka, 2010.
• Stern L. Ya. Dovlatov is my good friend. St. Petersburg: Azbuka, 2005.

Full list of references

To my wife who was right

Published with the kind permission of Elena and Ekaterina Dovlatov

© S. Dovlatov (heirs), 2001, 2012

© A. Ariev, afterword, 2001

© Publishing Group “Azbuka-Atticus” LLC, 2013

Publishing house AZBUKA®

At twelve we arrived at Luga. We stopped at the station square. The girl guide changed her elevated tone to a more earthly one:

- There's a place on the left...

My neighbor sat up with interest:

- You mean the restroom?

All the way he pestered me: “A six-letter whitening product?.. An endangered artiodactyl?.. An Austrian skier?..”

Tourists came out into the light-filled square. The driver slammed the door and squatted down by the radiator.

Station... A dirty yellow building with columns, a clock, trembling neon letters discolored by the sun...

I crossed the lobby with a newsstand and massive cement trash cans. Intuitively identified the buffet.

“Through the waiter,” the barmaid said languidly. A corkscrew dangled from her sloping chest.

I sat down by the door. A minute later a waiter with huge felt sideburns appeared.

-What do you want?

“I want,” I say, “for everyone to be friendly, modest and kind.”

The waiter, satiated with the variety of life, was silent.

- I would like one hundred grams of vodka, beer and two sandwiches.

- With sausage, probably...

I took out cigarettes and lit a cigarette. My hands were shaking ugly. “I wouldn’t drop the glass...” And then two intelligent old women sat down next to me. It seems to be from our bus.

The waiter brought a decanter, a bottle and two sweets.

“The sandwiches are out,” he said with false tragedy.

I paid. He raised and immediately lowered the glass. My hands were shaking like an epileptic. The old women looked at me with disgust. I tried to smile:

- Look at me with love!

The old women shuddered and moved. I heard indistinct critical interjections.

To hell with them, I think. He grabbed the glass with both hands and drank. Then he unwrapped the candy with a rustling sound.

It became a little easier. A deceptive elation was emerging. I put the beer bottle in my pocket. Then he stood up, almost knocking over his chair. Or rather, a duralumin chair. The old women continued to look at me in fear.

I went out to the square. The park's fence was covered with warped plywood panels. The diagrams promised mountains of meat, wool, eggs and other intimate items in the near future.

The men were smoking near the bus. The women sat down noisily. The girl tour guide was eating ice cream in the shade. I stepped towards her:

- Let's get acquainted.

“Aurora,” she said, holding out her sticky hand.

“And I,” I say, “are the tanker Derbent.”

The girl was not offended.

- Everyone laughs at my name. I'm used to it... What's wrong with you? You are red!

“I assure you, it’s only outside.” Inside I am a constitutional democrat.

- No, really, are you feeling bad?

– I drink a lot... Would you like some beer?

- Why are you drinking? – she asked.

What could I answer?

“It’s a secret,” I say, “a little secret...

– Have you decided to work in the reserve?

- That's it.

– I understood right away.

– Do I look like a philologist?

– Mitrofanov saw you off. An extremely erudite Pushkin scholar. Do you know him well?

“Okay,” I say, “on the bad side...

- Like this?

– Don’t attach any importance.

– Read Gordin, Shchegolev, Tsyavlovskaya... Memoirs of Kern... And some popular brochure about the dangers of alcohol.

– You know, I read so much about the dangers of alcohol! I decided to quit... reading forever.

- It’s impossible to talk to you...

The driver looked in our direction. The tourists took their seats.

Aurora finished her ice cream and wiped her fingers.

“In the summer,” she said, “they pay quite well in the reserve.” Mitrofanov earns about two hundred rubles.

“And that’s two hundred rubles more than it’s worth.”

– And you’re also evil!

“You will be angry,” I say.

The driver honked his horn twice.

“We’re going,” said Aurora.

The Lviv bus was crowded. The calico seats heated up. The yellow curtains added to the stuffy feeling.

I was leafing through Alexei Vulf's Diaries. They talked about Pushkin in a friendly, sometimes condescending manner. Here it is, proximity that is detrimental to vision. It is clear to everyone that geniuses must have acquaintances. But who will believe that his friend is a genius?!

I dozed off. Some extra information about Ryleev’s mother was indistinctly heard...

They woke me up already in Pskov. The newly plastered walls of the Kremlin were depressing. Above the central arch, the designers strengthened an ugly, Baltic-looking forged emblem. The Kremlin resembled a huge model.

In one of the outbuildings there was a local travel agency. Aurora certified some papers, and we were taken to “Gera” - the most fashionable local restaurant.

I hesitated - to add or not to add? If you add, tomorrow it will be very bad. I didn’t want to eat...

I went out onto the boulevard. The linden trees made a heavy and low noise.

I was convinced long ago that when you think about it, you immediately remember something sad. For example, the last conversation with my wife...

“Even your love for words, crazy, unhealthy, pathological love, is false.” This is just an attempt to justify the life you lead. Do you lead a lifestyle famous writer, without having the most minimal prerequisites for this... With your vices you need to be at least Hemingway...

– Do you really think he is a good writer? Maybe Jack London is a good writer too?

- My God! What does Jack London have to do with it?! The only boots I have are from the pawn shop... I can forgive anything. And poverty doesn’t scare me... Everything except betrayal!

- What do you mean?

- Your eternal drunkenness. Yours... I don’t even want to say... You can’t be an artist at the expense of another person... This is vile! You talk so much about nobility! And he himself is a cold, cruel, resourceful person...

– Don’t forget that I’ve been writing stories for twenty years.

– Do you want to write a great book? One in a hundred million succeeds!

- So what? Spiritually, such a failed attempt is equal to the greatest book. If you want, morally she is even higher. Because it excludes remuneration...

- These are words. Endless beautiful words... I'm tired... I have a child for whom I am responsible...

– I also have a child.

“The one you’ve been ignoring for months.” We are strangers to you...

(There is one painful moment in a conversation with a woman. You present facts, reasons, arguments. You appeal to logic and common sense. And suddenly you discover that she is disgusted by the very sound of your voice...)

“I didn’t do any harm intentionally,” I say.

I sat down on a shallow bench. He took out a pen and notepad. A minute later he wrote down:

Darling, I'm in the Pushkin Mountains,
Here without you there is despondency and boredom,
I wander around the reserve like a bitch.
And a terrible fear torments my soul...

My poems were somewhat ahead of reality. There were a hundred kilometers left to the Pushkin Mountains.

I went into a hardware store. I purchased an envelope with a picture of Magellan. I asked for some reason:

– You don’t know what Magellan has to do with it?

The seller thoughtfully replied:

- Maybe he died... Or they gave him a hero...

I pasted the stamp, sealed it, lowered it...

At six we arrived at the tourist base building. Before this there were hills, a river, a vast horizon with a jagged edge of forest. In general, the Russian landscape is without frills. Those everyday signs of him that cause an inexplicably bitter feeling.

This feeling always seemed suspicious to me. In general, the passion for inanimate objects irritates me... (I mentally opened my notebook.) There is something flawed in numismatists, philatelists, avid travelers, lovers of cacti and aquarium fish. The sleepy long-suffering of a fisherman, the fruitless unmotivated courage of a climber, the proud confidence of the owner of a royal poodle is alien to me...

They say that Jews are indifferent to nature. This is one of the reproaches addressed to the Jewish nation. Jews, they say, do not have their own nature, but they are indifferent to someone else’s. Well, maybe so. Obviously, I have an admixture of Jewish blood in me...

In short, I don’t like enthusiastic contemplators. And I don’t really trust their enthusiasm. I think love for birches triumphs at the expense of love for humans. And it develops as a surrogate for patriotism...

I agree, you pity and love a sick, paralyzed mother more keenly. However, admiring her suffering and expressing it aesthetically is baseness...

We arrived at the tourist base. Some idiot built it four kilometers from the nearest body of water. Ponds, lakes, a famous river, and the base is in the sun. True, there are rooms with showers... Occasionally - hot water...

We go to the tour desk. There's this lady sitting there, a retiree's dream. Aurora slipped it to her waybill. I signed and received lunch vouchers for the group. I whispered something to this curvaceous blonde, who immediately looked at me. The look contained an unyielding, cursory interest, business-like concern and slight anxiety. She even straightened up somehow. The papers rustled more sharply.

-You don’t know each other? – Aurora asked.

I came closer.

– I want to work in a nature reserve.

“People are needed,” said the blonde.

There was a noticeable ellipsis at the end of this remark. That is, we need good, qualified specialists. But random people, they say, are not required...

– Do you know the exhibition? – the blonde asked and suddenly introduced herself: “Galina Aleksandrovna.”

- I've been here three times.

- This is not enough.

- Agree. So I came again...

– We need to prepare properly. Study the manual. There is still so much unexplored in Pushkin’s life... Something has changed since last year...

- In the life of Pushkin? – I was surprised.

“Excuse me,” Aurora interrupted, “tourists are waiting for me.” Good luck…

She disappeared - young, alive, full-fledged. Tomorrow I will hear her clear girlish voice in one of the rooms of the museum:

“...Think about it, comrades!.. “I loved you so sincerely, so tenderly...” Alexander Sergeevich contrasted the world of serfdom with this inspired hymn of selflessness...”

“Not in Pushkin’s life,” the blonde said irritably, “but in the museum’s exhibition.” For example, they took a portrait of Hannibal.

- Why?

- Some figure claims that this is not Hannibal. The orders, you see, do not correspond. Allegedly this is General Zakomelsky.

– Who is this really?

– And in fact – Zakomelsky.

- Why is he so black?

– He fought with the Asians, in the south. It's hot there. So he got tanned. And the colors darken over time.

– So, it’s right that they removed it?

- What difference does it make - Hannibal, Zakomelsky... Tourists want to see Hannibal. They pay money for this. What the hell do they care about Zakomelsky?! So our director hanged Hannibal... More precisely, Zakomelsky under the guise of Hannibal. And some figure didn’t like it... Excuse me, are you married?

Galina Aleksandrovna uttered this phrase suddenly and, I would say, shyly.

“Divorced,” I say, “what?”

– Our girls are interested.

– What girls?

- They are not there now. Accountant, methodologist, tour guides...

- Why are they interested in me?

- They are not by you. They are interested in everyone. We have a lot of singles here. The guys have left... Who do our girls see? Tourists? What about tourists? It’s good if they have an eight-day period. They come from Leningrad for a day. Or for three... How long will you stay?

- Until autumn. If all goes well.

-Where are you staying? Would you like me to call the hotel? We have two of them, good and bad. Which one do you prefer?

“Here,” I say, “we need to think about it.”

“A good one is more expensive,” Galya explained.

“Okay,” I said, “there’s still no money...

She immediately called somewhere. I spent a long time trying to persuade someone. Finally the issue was resolved. My name was written down somewhere.

- I'll accompany you.

It has been a long time since I have been the object of such intense female care. In the future it will manifest itself even more persistently. And it will even develop into pressure.

At first I attributed this to my diminished personality. Then I became convinced of how huge the shortage of males is in these parts. A bow-legged local tractor driver with the locks of a train station whore was surrounded by annoying, rosy-cheeked female fans.

- I'm dying, beer! - he said sluggishly.

And the girls ran for beer...

Galya locked the door of the tour desk. We headed through the forest towards the village.

– Do you love Pushkin? – she asked unexpectedly.

Something trembled in me, but I answered:

- I love… " Bronze Horseman", prose...

- And the poems?

– I really like the later poems.

- And the early ones?

“I love the early ones too,” I gave up.

“Everything here lives and breathes Pushkin,” said Galya, “literally every twig, every blade of grass.” You just expect him to come out around the bend now... A cylinder, a lionfish, a familiar profile...

Meanwhile, Lenya Guryanov, a former university informer, came around the bend.

“Borka, you walrus horseradish,” he yelled wildly, “is that you?!”

I responded with unexpected cordiality. Another bastard took me by surprise. I always have trouble concentrating...

“I knew you would come,” Guryanov continued...

Subsequently they told me the following story. There was a drinking party here at the beginning of the season. Someone's wedding or birthday. A local state security officer was present. They started talking about me. One of our mutual friends said:

- He is in Tallinn.

They objected to him:

- No, it’s been a year since I’ve been in Leningrad.

- And I heard that in Riga at Krasilnikov’s...

More and more versions followed.

The security officer was intently eating stewed duck.

Then he raised his head and spoke briefly:

- There is information - he is going to Pushkin Mountains...

“They’re waiting for me,” Guryanov said, as if I was holding him back.

He looked at Galya:

- And you have become prettier. Did you put your teeth in?

His pockets bulged heavily.

- What an asshole! – Galina said unexpectedly. And a minute later: “It’s so good that Pushkin doesn’t see this.”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s not bad.”

The first floor of the Druzhba Hotel was occupied by three institutions. Grocery store, hairdresser and restaurant "Lukomorye". I think we should invite Galina for all her services. I took negligible money. One sweeping gesture threatened disaster.

I said nothing.

We approached the barrier behind which a female administrator was sitting. Galya introduced me. The woman handed over a heavy key with the number 231.

“Tomorrow, look for a room,” said Galina, “maybe in the village... It’s possible in Voronin, but it’s expensive... It’s possible in one of the nearest villages: Savkino, Gaiki...”

“Thank you,” I say, “they helped me out.”

- Well, I'm off.

The phrase ended with a subtle question mark: “Well, did I go?..”

- Should I escort you?

“I live in a microdistrict,” the girl responded mysteriously.

Then - clearly and clearly, too clearly and clearly:

– You don’t have to see him off... And don’t think that I’m like that...

She left, nodding proudly to the administrator.

I went up to the second floor and unlocked the door. The bed was neatly made. The loudspeaker made intermittent sounds. Hangers dangled from the crossbar of the open closet.

In this room, in this narrow boat, I sailed to the unknown shores of an independent bachelor's life.

I took a shower, washing away the ticklish residue of Galina’s troubles, the patina of the humid crowd of the bus, the scab of a multi-day feast.

My mood improved noticeably. The cold shower acted like a sharp shout.

I dried myself off, pulled on my gymnastics pants and lit a cigarette.

The sound of footsteps could be heard in the corridor. Music was playing somewhere. Trucks and countless mopeds rustled under the windows.

I lay down on top of the blanket and opened the gray volume of Viktor Likhonosov. Finally decided to find out what kind of village prose this is? Get yourself a guidebook of sorts...

While reading, I quietly fell asleep. Woke up at two in the morning. The pre-dawn summer twilight filled the room. It was already possible to count the ficus leaves on the window.

I decided to calmly think things over. Try to dispel the feeling of catastrophe, dead end.

Life spread around like a vast minefield. I was in the center. It was necessary to divide this field into sections and get down to business. Break the chain of dramatic circumstances. Analyze the feeling of collapse. Study each factor separately.

A man has been writing stories for twenty years. I am convinced that I took up my pen with some reason. People he trusts are ready to testify to this.

They don’t publish you, they don’t publish you. They are not accepted into their company. To your bandit gang. But is this what you dreamed about when you muttered the first lines?

Are you seeking justice? Calm down, this fruit doesn't grow here. A few shining truths were supposed to change the world for the better, but what actually happened?..

You have a dozen readers. God grant that there are even fewer of them...

You don't get paid - that's what's bad. Money means freedom, space, whims... Having money makes it so easy to endure poverty...

Learn to earn it without being a hypocrite. Go work as a loader, write at night. Mandelstam said that people will save everything they need. So write...

You have the ability for this - you might not have it. Write, create a masterpiece. Cause emotional shock in the reader. For one single living person... A task for life.

What if it doesn't work out? Well, as you said yourself, morally, a failed attempt is even nobler. If only because it is not rewarded...

Write, since you’ve already taken it, carry this load. The heavier it is, the easier...

Are you depressed by debt? Who didn't have them?! Do not worry. After all, this is the only thing that truly connects you with people...

Looking around, do you see ruins? This was to be expected. He who lives in the world of words does not get along with things.

You're jealous of anyone who calls themselves a writer. Who can pull out the ID and document this.

But what do your contemporaries write? In the writer Volin you discovered:

“...It became extremely clear to me...”

And on the same page:

“...With infinite clarity, Kim felt...”

The word is turned upside down. The contents spilled out of it. Or rather, there was no content. The words piled up intangible, like the shadow of an empty bottle...

Ah, that’s not what we’re talking about!.. How tired of your eternal tricks!..

It's impossible to live. You have to either live or write. Either a word or a deed. But your business is the word. And you hate every Business with a capital letter. There is a zone of dead space around it. Everything that interferes with business perishes there. Hopes, illusions, memories perish there. A wretched, unquestionable, unambiguous materialism reigns there...

And again - not this, not that...

What have you turned your wife into? She was simple-minded, flirtatious, and loved to have fun. You made her jealous, suspicious and nervous. Her constant phrase: “What do you mean by that?” - a monument to your resourcefulness...

Your outrages reached the point of curiosity. Do you remember how you came back around four in the morning and began to unlace your shoes? The wife woke up and moaned:

- Lord, where to go this early?!

“Really, it’s a little early, a little early,” you muttered.

And then he quickly undressed and lay down...

What can I say...

Morning. Footsteps muffled by the scarlet carpet. Sudden intermittent muttering from the loudspeaker. The splash of water behind the wall. Trucks under the windows. Unexpected distant cry of a rooster...

As a child, summer was sounded by the sounds of steam locomotives. Suburban dachas... The smell of station burning and heated sand... Table tennis under the branches... The tight and ringing sound of the ball... Dancing on the veranda (your older brother entrusted you with starting the gramophone)... Gleb Romanov... Ruzhena Sikora... “This song for two soldi, for two pennies... ", "I dreamed of you in Bucharest in reality...”

A sun-scorched beach... Hard sedge... Long underpants and traces of elastic bands on the calves... Sand packed into sandals...

There was a knock on the door:

- On the phone!

“This is a misunderstanding,” I say.

– Are you Alikhanov?

I was taken to the sister-hostess's room. I picked up the phone.

- You slept? – Galina asked.

I objected heatedly.

I have long noticed that people react to this question with excessive vehemence. Ask the person a question: “Do you have binges?” - and the person will calmly answer - no. Or maybe he will willingly agree. But the question “Did you sleep?” most experience it almost as an insult. Like an attempt to convict a person of crime...

– I agreed on the room.

- Well, thank you.

- In the village of Sosnovo. Five minutes from the camp site. Separate entrance.

- This is the main thing.

- The owner really drinks...

- Another trump card.

– Remember the last name – Sorokin. Mikhail Ivanovich... You will go through the camp site along the ravine. From the mountain you can already see the village. The fourth house... Or maybe the fifth. Yes you will find it. There's a landfill nearby...

- Thank you, honey.

The tone changed abruptly:

- How sweet am I to you?! Oh, I’m dying... Darling... Please tell me... I found my dear...

Later, I was more than once amazed at Galina’s instant transformations. Lively participation, cordiality and simplicity were replaced by loud intonations of offended chastity. Normal speech - in a shrill provincial dialect...

– And don’t think anything like that!

- Never like this. And once again - thank you...

I went to the camp site. This time it was crowded. There were colorful cars standing around. Tourists in resort caps wandered around in groups and alone. There was a line at the newsstand. From the open windows of the dining room came the clink of dishes and the squealing of metal stools. Several well-fed mongrels frolicked here.

At every step I saw images of Pushkin. Even near the mysterious brick booth with the sign “Flammable!” The similarity ended with the sideburns. Their sizes varied arbitrarily. I have long noticed: our artists have favorite objects where there is no limit to scope and inspiration. This is, first of all, the beard of Karl Marx and the forehead of Ilyich...

The loudspeaker was turned on at full power:

- Attention! This is the radio station of the Pushkinogorsk tourist base speaking. We announce the order of the day for today...

I went to the tour desk. Galina was besieged by tourists. She waved her hand for me to wait.

I took the brochure “The Pearl of Crimea” from the shelf. I took out cigarettes.

The guides, having received some papers, left. Tourists ran after them to the buses. Several "wild" families were eager to join the groups. They were handled by a tall, thin girl.

A man in a Tyrolean hat approached me shyly:

- Excuse me, can I ask a question?

- I'm hearing you.

- Was this given?

- That is?

- I ask, was this given? “The Tyrolean took me to the open window.

- In what sense?

- In direct. I would like to know if this was given or not? If you don't give it, say so.

- I don't understand.

The man blushed slightly and began to hastily explain:

– I had a postcard... I am a philocartist...

- Philocartist. I collect postcards... Philos - love, cartos...

– I have a color postcard – “Pskov distances”. And so I ended up here. I want to ask - was this given?

“In general, they did,” I say.

– Typically Pskov?

- Not without it.

The man walked away, beaming...

Rush hour has passed. The bureau is empty.

“Every summer the influx of tourists increases,” Galina explained.

– The prophecy has been fulfilled: “The sacred path will not be overgrown!”

It won't overgrow, I think. Where can she, poor thing, get overgrown? It has long been trampled by squadrons of tourists...

“It’s a terrible mess here in the morning,” said Galina.

I was again amazed at the unexpected variety of her vocabulary.

Galya introduced me to the bureau instructor, Lyudmila. I will secretly admire her smooth legs until the end of the season. Luda behaved smoothly and affably. This was explained by the presence of a groom. She was not disfigured by the constant readiness for indignant rebuff. While the groom was in prison...

Then came ugly woman about thirty years old - a methodologist. Her name was Marianna Petrovna. Marianne had a neglected face without defects and an imperceptibly bad figure.

I explained the purpose of my visit. Smiling skeptically, she invited me into a separate office.

– Do you love Pushkin?

I felt a dull irritation.

So, I think, it won’t take long to fall out of love.

– Can I ask – for what?

I caught myself with an ironic look. Obviously, love for Pushkin was the most popular currency here. What if, they say, I’m a counterfeiter...

- So how? - I ask.

– Why do you love Pushkin?

“Let’s,” I couldn’t stand it, “let’s stop this idiotic exam.” I graduated from high school. Then - university. (Here I exaggerated a little. I was kicked out of the third year.) I read something. In general, I understand... And I only pretend to be a tour guide...

Fortunately, my harsh tone went unnoticed. As I later became convinced, elementary rudeness came off easier here than imaginary aplomb...

- And still? – Marianna was waiting for an answer. Moreover, the answer that she knew in advance.

“Okay,” I say, “I’ll try... Well, listen.” Pushkin is our belated Renaissance. As for Weimar - Goethe. They took upon themselves what the West adopted in the 15th–17th centuries. Pushkin found expression of social motives in the form of tragedy characteristic of the Renaissance. He and Goethe lived, as it were, in several eras. “Werther” is a tribute to sentimentalism. “Prisoner of the Caucasus” is a typically Byronic piece. But “Faust,” let’s say, is already the Elizabethans. And “Little Tragedies” naturally continues one of the Renaissance genres. The same is true of Pushkin’s lyrics. And if it is bitter, then not in the spirit of Byron, but in the spirit, it seems to me, of Shakespeare’s sonnets... Am I expressing it in an accessible way?

– What does Goethe have to do with it? – asked Marianne. – And what does the Renaissance have to do with it?

- Nothing to do with it! – I was completely furious. – Goethe has absolutely nothing to do with it! And Don Quixote's horse was called Renaissance. Which also has nothing to do with it! And I obviously have nothing to do with it!..

“Calm down,” Marianna whispered, “how nervous you are... I just asked: “Why do you love Pushkin?”

– Loving in public is bestiality! – I yelled. – There is a special term in sexopathology...

With a trembling hand, she handed me a glass of water. I pushed it away.

-Have you ever loved anyone? Some day?!.

Shouldn't have said that. Now she will burst into tears and shout:

“I’m thirty-four years old, and I’m a lonely girl!..”

– Pushkin is our pride! – she said. – This is not only a great poet, but also a great citizen...

Apparently, this was a deliberately ready answer to her stupid question.

That's all, I think?

- Read the manual. And here is a list of books. They are available in the reading room. And report to Galina Alexandrovna that the interview was successful...

I felt embarrassed.

“Thank you,” I say, “I’m sorry I was intemperate.”

I folded the manual and put it in my pocket.

- Be careful, we only have three copies.

I pulled out the manual and tried to smooth it out.

– You asked about love.

- No, you asked about love... As far as I understand, you are interested in whether I am married? So, I’m married!

“You have deprived me of my last hope,” I said, leaving.

In the corridor, Galina introduced me to the guide Natella. Again, an unexpected flash of interest:

– Will you work for us?

- I'll try.

– Do you have any cigarettes?

We went out onto the porch.

Natella came from Moscow, driven by romantic, or rather adventurous, goals. She is a physics engineer by training and works as a school teacher. I decided to spend a three-month vacation here. She regrets that she came. There is a crowd in the reserve. The guides and methodologists are crazy. Tourists are pigs and ignoramuses. Everyone loves Pushkin. And my love for Pushkin. And love for your love. The only decent person is Markov...

-Who is Markov?

- Photographer. Complete drunkard. I will introduce you. He taught me to drink Agdam. This is something fantastic! He will teach you too...

- Thank you very much. But I’m afraid that in this matter I myself am a professor.

- Let's give in somehow! Right in the bosom...

- Agreed.

- And you are a dangerous person.

- That is?

– I felt it immediately. You are a terribly dangerous person.

- Drunk?

- That's not what I'm talking about.

- Didn't understand.

“Loving someone like you is dangerous.”

And Natella almost painfully pushed me with her knee...

God, I think everyone here is crazy. Even those who consider everyone else abnormal...

“Drink Agdam,” I say, “and calm down.” I want to relax and work. I don’t pose any danger to you...

“We’ll see about that,” Natella laughed hysterically.

Then she flirtatiously waved a canvas bag with a picture of James Bond and walked away.

I headed to Sosnovo. The road stretched to the top of the hill, skirting a dismal field. Boulders darkened in shapeless piles along its edges. To the left was a ravine overgrown with bushes. Going down the mountain, I saw several huts surrounded by birch trees. Monochromatic cows wandered off to the side, flat as theatrical scenery. Dirty sheep with decadent faces languidly browsed the grass. Jackdaws flew over the rooftops.

I walked through the village, hoping to meet someone. The unpainted gray houses looked shabby. The stakes of the rickety fences were topped with clay vessels. Chickens scurried around in pens covered with plastic. Chickens performed a nervous cartoon gait. The shaggy, squat dogs yelped loudly.

I crossed the village and returned. He paused near one of the houses. The door slammed and a man in a washed-out railroad tunic appeared on the porch.

I asked how to find Sorokin.

“My name is Tolik,” he said.

I introduced myself and explained once again that I needed Sorokin.

-Where does he live? – asked Tolik.

- In the village of Sosnovo.

- So this is Sosnovo.

- I know. How can I find him?

- Timokhu, or what, Sorokina?

- His name is Michal Ivanovich.

– Timokha died a year ago. I froze and succumbed...

- I would like to find Sorokin.

- Apparently, he didn’t give in enough. Otherwise he would have survived...

- I would like Sorokina...

- Not Mishka by any chance?

- His name is Michal Ivanovich.

- So this is Mishka. Dolihi son-in-law. Do you know Dolikha, tied crookedly?

- I'm a newcomer.

- Not from Opochka?

- From Leningrad.

- Oh, I know, I heard...

- So how can we find Michal Ivanovich?

- A bear?

- That's it.

Tolik openly and busily urinated from the porch. Then he opened the door and commanded:

- Ale! Goofy Ivanovich! They came to you.

- From the police, for alimony...

Immediately a crimson face poked out, lavishly decorated blue eyes:

- This is... Who?.. Are you talking about a gun?

- I was told that you have a room for rent.

Michal Ivanovich's face expressed extreme confusion. Subsequently, I became convinced that this was his usual reaction to any, even the most harmless statement.

– A room?.. This... Why?

– I work in a nature reserve. I want to rent a room. Temporarily. Until autumn. Do you have an extra room?

- The house is matkin. Registered under his mother's name. And the uterus is in Pskov. Her legs are swollen...

– So you don’t rent out a room?

– Last year Jews lived. I won’t say anything bad, they are cultured people... No polish, no cologne... But only white, red and beer... Personally, I respect Jews.

To my wife who was right

Published with the kind permission of Elena and Ekaterina Dovlatov

© S. Dovlatov (heirs), 2001, 2012

© A. Ariev, afterword, 2001

© Publishing Group “Azbuka-Atticus” LLC, 2013

Publishing house AZBUKA®

At twelve we arrived at Luga. We stopped at the station square. The girl guide changed her elevated tone to a more earthly one:

- There's a place on the left...

My neighbor sat up with interest:

- You mean the restroom?

All the way he pestered me: “A six-letter whitening product?.. An endangered artiodactyl?.. An Austrian skier?..”

Tourists came out into the light-filled square. The driver slammed the door and squatted down by the radiator.

Station... A dirty yellow building with columns, a clock, trembling neon letters discolored by the sun...

I crossed the lobby with a newsstand and massive cement trash cans. Intuitively identified the buffet.

“Through the waiter,” the barmaid said languidly. A corkscrew dangled from her sloping chest.

I sat down by the door. A minute later a waiter with huge felt sideburns appeared.

-What do you want?

“I want,” I say, “for everyone to be friendly, modest and kind.”

The waiter, satiated with the variety of life, was silent.

- I would like one hundred grams of vodka, beer and two sandwiches.

- With sausage, probably...

I took out cigarettes and lit a cigarette. My hands were shaking ugly. “I wouldn’t drop the glass...” And then two intelligent old women sat down next to me. It seems to be from our bus.

The waiter brought a decanter, a bottle and two sweets.

“The sandwiches are out,” he said with false tragedy.

I paid. He raised and immediately lowered the glass. My hands were shaking like an epileptic. The old women looked at me with disgust. I tried to smile:

- Look at me with love!

The old women shuddered and moved. I heard indistinct critical interjections.

To hell with them, I think. He grabbed the glass with both hands and drank. Then he unwrapped the candy with a rustling sound.

It became a little easier. A deceptive elation was emerging. I put the beer bottle in my pocket. Then he stood up, almost knocking over his chair. Or rather, a duralumin chair. The old women continued to look at me in fear.

I went out to the square. The park's fence was covered with warped plywood panels. The diagrams promised mountains of meat, wool, eggs and other intimate items in the near future.

The men were smoking near the bus. The women sat down noisily. The girl tour guide was eating ice cream in the shade. I stepped towards her:

- Let's get acquainted.

“Aurora,” she said, holding out her sticky hand.

“And I,” I say, “are the tanker Derbent.”

The girl was not offended.

- Everyone laughs at my name. I'm used to it... What's wrong with you? You are red!

“I assure you, it’s only outside.” Inside I am a constitutional democrat.

- No, really, are you feeling bad?

– I drink a lot... Would you like some beer?

- Why are you drinking? – she asked.

What could I answer?

“It’s a secret,” I say, “a little secret...

– Have you decided to work in the reserve?

- That's it.

– I understood right away.

– Do I look like a philologist?

– Mitrofanov saw you off.

An extremely erudite Pushkin scholar. Do you know him well?

“Okay,” I say, “on the bad side...

- Like this?

– Don’t attach any importance.

– Read Gordin, Shchegolev, Tsyavlovskaya... Memoirs of Kern... And some popular brochure about the dangers of alcohol.

– You know, I read so much about the dangers of alcohol! I decided to quit... reading forever.

- It’s impossible to talk to you...

The driver looked in our direction. The tourists took their seats.

Aurora finished her ice cream and wiped her fingers.

“In the summer,” she said, “they pay quite well in the reserve.” Mitrofanov earns about two hundred rubles.

“And that’s two hundred rubles more than it’s worth.”

– And you’re also evil!

“You will be angry,” I say.

The driver honked his horn twice.

“We’re going,” said Aurora.

The Lviv bus was crowded. The calico seats heated up. The yellow curtains added to the stuffy feeling.

I was leafing through Alexei Vulf's Diaries. They talked about Pushkin in a friendly, sometimes condescending manner. Here it is, proximity that is detrimental to vision. It is clear to everyone that geniuses must have acquaintances. But who will believe that his friend is a genius?!

I dozed off. Some extra information about Ryleev’s mother was indistinctly heard...

They woke me up already in Pskov. The newly plastered walls of the Kremlin were depressing. Above the central arch, the designers strengthened an ugly, Baltic-looking forged emblem. The Kremlin resembled a huge model.

In one of the outbuildings there was a local travel agency. Aurora certified some papers, and we were taken to “Gera” - the most fashionable local restaurant.

I hesitated - to add or not to add? If you add, tomorrow it will be very bad. I didn’t want to eat...

I went out onto the boulevard. The linden trees made a heavy and low noise.

I was convinced long ago that when you think about it, you immediately remember something sad. For example, the last conversation with my wife...

“Even your love for words, crazy, unhealthy, pathological love, is false.” This is just an attempt to justify the life you lead. And you lead the lifestyle of a famous writer, without having the most minimal prerequisites for this... With your vices, you need to be at least Hemingway...

– Do you really think he is a good writer? Maybe Jack London is a good writer too?

- My God! What does Jack London have to do with it?! The only boots I have are from the pawn shop... I can forgive anything. And poverty doesn’t scare me... Everything except betrayal!

- What do you mean?

- Your eternal drunkenness. Yours... I don’t even want to say... You can’t be an artist at the expense of another person... This is vile! You talk so much about nobility! And he himself is a cold, cruel, resourceful person...

– Don’t forget that I’ve been writing stories for twenty years.

– Do you want to write a great book? One in a hundred million succeeds!

- So what? Spiritually, such a failed attempt is equal to the greatest book. If you want, morally she is even higher. Because it excludes remuneration...

- These are words. Endless beautiful words... I'm tired... I have a child for whom I am responsible...

– I also have a child.

“The one you’ve been ignoring for months.” We are strangers to you...

(There is one painful moment in a conversation with a woman. You present facts, reasons, arguments. You appeal to logic and common sense. And suddenly you discover that she is disgusted by the very sound of your voice...)

“I didn’t do any harm intentionally,” I say.

I sat down on a shallow bench. He took out a pen and notepad. A minute later he wrote down:

My poems were somewhat ahead of reality. There were a hundred kilometers left to the Pushkin Mountains.

I went into a hardware store. I purchased an envelope with a picture of Magellan. I asked for some reason:

– You don’t know what Magellan has to do with it?

The seller thoughtfully replied:

- Maybe he died... Or they gave him a hero...

I pasted the stamp, sealed it, lowered it...

At six we arrived at the tourist base building. Before this there were hills, a river, a vast horizon with a jagged edge of forest. In general, the Russian landscape is without frills. Those everyday signs of him that cause an inexplicably bitter feeling.

This feeling always seemed suspicious to me. In general, the passion for inanimate objects irritates me... (I mentally opened my notebook.) There is something flawed in numismatists, philatelists, avid travelers, lovers of cacti and aquarium fish. The sleepy long-suffering of a fisherman, the fruitless unmotivated courage of a climber, the proud confidence of the owner of a royal poodle is alien to me...

They say that Jews are indifferent to nature. This is one of the reproaches addressed to the Jewish nation. Jews, they say, do not have their own nature, but they are indifferent to someone else’s. Well, maybe so. Obviously, I have an admixture of Jewish blood in me...

In short, I don’t like enthusiastic contemplators. And I don’t really trust their enthusiasm. I think love for birches triumphs at the expense of love for humans. And it develops as a surrogate for patriotism...

I agree, you pity and love a sick, paralyzed mother more keenly. However, admiring her suffering and expressing it aesthetically is baseness...

We arrived at the tourist base. Some idiot built it four kilometers from the nearest body of water. Ponds, lakes, a famous river, and the base is in the sun. True, there are rooms with showers... Occasionally - hot water...

We go to the tour desk. There's this lady sitting there, a retiree's dream. Aurora handed her the waybill. I signed and received lunch vouchers for the group. I whispered something to this curvaceous blonde, who immediately looked at me. The look contained an unyielding, cursory interest, business-like concern and slight anxiety. She even straightened up somehow. The papers rustled more sharply.

-You don’t know each other? – Aurora asked.

I came closer.

– I want to work in a nature reserve.

“People are needed,” said the blonde.

There was a noticeable ellipsis at the end of this remark. That is, we need good, qualified specialists. But random people, they say, are not required...

– Do you know the exhibition? – the blonde asked and suddenly introduced herself: “Galina Aleksandrovna.”

- I've been here three times.

- This is not enough.

- Agree. So I came again...

– We need to prepare properly. Study the manual. There is still so much unexplored in Pushkin’s life... Something has changed since last year...

- In the life of Pushkin? – I was surprised.

“Excuse me,” Aurora interrupted, “tourists are waiting for me.” Good luck…

She disappeared - young, alive, full-fledged. Tomorrow I will hear her clear girlish voice in one of the rooms of the museum:

“...Think about it, comrades!.. “I loved you so sincerely, so tenderly...” Alexander Sergeevich contrasted the world of serfdom with this inspired hymn of selflessness...”

“Not in Pushkin’s life,” the blonde said irritably, “but in the museum’s exhibition.” For example, they took a portrait of Hannibal.

- Why?

- Some figure claims that this is not Hannibal. The orders, you see, do not correspond. Allegedly this is General Zakomelsky.

– Who is this really?

– And in fact – Zakomelsky.

- Why is he so black?

– He fought with the Asians, in the south. It's hot there. So he got tanned. And the colors darken over time.

– So, it’s right that they removed it?

- What difference does it make - Hannibal, Zakomelsky... Tourists want to see Hannibal. They pay money for this. What the hell do they care about Zakomelsky?! So our director hanged Hannibal... More precisely, Zakomelsky under the guise of Hannibal. And some figure didn’t like it... Excuse me, are you married?

Galina Aleksandrovna uttered this phrase suddenly and, I would say, shyly.

“Divorced,” I say, “what?”

– Our girls are interested.

– What girls?

- They are not there now. Accountant, methodologist, tour guides...

- Why are they interested in me?

- They are not by you. They are interested in everyone. We have a lot of singles here. The guys have left... Who do our girls see? Tourists? What about tourists? It’s good if they have an eight-day period. They come from Leningrad for a day. Or for three... How long will you stay?

- Until autumn. If all goes well.

-Where are you staying? Would you like me to call the hotel? We have two of them, good and bad. Which one do you prefer?

“Here,” I say, “we need to think about it.”

“A good one is more expensive,” Galya explained.

“Okay,” I said, “there’s still no money...

She immediately called somewhere. I spent a long time trying to persuade someone. Finally the issue was resolved. My name was written down somewhere.

- I'll accompany you.

It has been a long time since I have been the object of such intense female care. In the future it will manifest itself even more persistently. And it will even develop into pressure.

At first I attributed this to my diminished personality. Then I became convinced of how huge the shortage of males is in these parts. A bow-legged local tractor driver with the locks of a train station whore was surrounded by annoying, rosy-cheeked female fans.

- I'm dying, beer! - he said sluggishly.

And the girls ran for beer...

Galya locked the door of the tour desk. We headed through the forest towards the village.

– Do you love Pushkin? – she asked unexpectedly.

Something trembled in me, but I answered:

– I love... “The Bronze Horseman”, prose...

- And the poems?

– I really like the later poems.

- And the early ones?

“I love the early ones too,” I gave up.

“Everything here lives and breathes Pushkin,” said Galya, “literally every twig, every blade of grass.” You just expect him to come out around the bend now... A cylinder, a lionfish, a familiar profile...

Meanwhile, Lenya Guryanov, a former university informer, came around the bend.

“Borka, you walrus horseradish,” he yelled wildly, “is that you?!”

I responded with unexpected cordiality. Another bastard took me by surprise. I always have trouble concentrating...

“I knew you would come,” Guryanov continued...

Subsequently they told me the following story. There was a drinking party here at the beginning of the season. Someone's wedding or birthday. A local state security officer was present. They started talking about me. One of our mutual friends said:

- He is in Tallinn.

They objected to him:

- No, it’s been a year since I’ve been in Leningrad.

- And I heard that in Riga at Krasilnikov’s...

More and more versions followed.

The security officer was intently eating stewed duck.

Then he raised his head and spoke briefly:

- There is information - he is going to Pushkin Mountains...

“They’re waiting for me,” Guryanov said, as if I was holding him back.

He looked at Galya:

- And you have become prettier. Did you put your teeth in?

His pockets bulged heavily.

- What an asshole! – Galina said unexpectedly. And a minute later: “It’s so good that Pushkin doesn’t see this.”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s not bad.”

The first floor of the Druzhba Hotel was occupied by three institutions. Grocery store, hairdresser and restaurant "Lukomorye". I think we should invite Galina for all her services. I took negligible money. One sweeping gesture threatened disaster.

I said nothing.

We approached the barrier behind which a female administrator was sitting. Galya introduced me. The woman handed over a heavy key with the number 231.

“Tomorrow, look for a room,” said Galina, “maybe in the village... It’s possible in Voronin, but it’s expensive... It’s possible in one of the nearest villages: Savkino, Gaiki...”

“Thank you,” I say, “they helped me out.”

- Well, I'm off.

The phrase ended with a subtle question mark: “Well, did I go?..”

- Should I escort you?

“I live in a microdistrict,” the girl responded mysteriously.

Then - clearly and clearly, too clearly and clearly:

– You don’t have to see him off... And don’t think that I’m like that...

She left, nodding proudly to the administrator.

I went up to the second floor and unlocked the door. The bed was neatly made. The loudspeaker made intermittent sounds. Hangers dangled from the crossbar of the open closet.

In this room, in this narrow boat, I sailed to the unknown shores of an independent bachelor's life.

I took a shower, washing away the ticklish residue of Galina’s troubles, the patina of the humid crowd of the bus, the scab of a multi-day feast.

My mood improved noticeably. The cold shower acted like a sharp shout.

I dried myself off, pulled on my gymnastics pants and lit a cigarette.

The sound of footsteps could be heard in the corridor. Music was playing somewhere. Trucks and countless mopeds rustled under the windows.

I lay down on top of the blanket and opened the gray volume of Viktor Likhonosov. Finally decided to find out what kind of village prose this is? Get yourself a guidebook of sorts...

While reading, I quietly fell asleep. Woke up at two in the morning. The pre-dawn summer twilight filled the room. It was already possible to count the ficus leaves on the window.

I decided to calmly think things over. Try to dispel the feeling of catastrophe, dead end.

Life spread around like a vast minefield. I was in the center. It was necessary to divide this field into sections and get down to business. Break the chain of dramatic circumstances. Analyze the feeling of collapse. Study each factor separately.

A man has been writing stories for twenty years. I am convinced that I took up my pen with some reason. People he trusts are ready to testify to this.

They don’t publish you, they don’t publish you. They are not accepted into their company. To your bandit gang. But is this what you dreamed about when you muttered the first lines?

Are you seeking justice? Calm down, this fruit doesn't grow here. A few shining truths were supposed to change the world for the better, but what actually happened?..

You have a dozen readers. God grant that there are even fewer of them...

You don't get paid - that's what's bad. Money means freedom, space, whims... Having money makes it so easy to endure poverty...

Learn to earn it without being a hypocrite. Go work as a loader, write at night. Mandelstam said that people will save everything they need. So write...

You have the ability for this - you might not have it. Write, create a masterpiece. Cause emotional shock in the reader. For one single living person... A task for life.

What if it doesn't work out? Well, as you said yourself, morally, a failed attempt is even nobler. If only because it is not rewarded...

Write, since you’ve already taken it, carry this load. The heavier it is, the easier...

Are you depressed by debt? Who didn't have them?! Do not worry. After all, this is the only thing that truly connects you with people...

Looking around, do you see ruins? This was to be expected. He who lives in the world of words does not get along with things.

You're jealous of anyone who calls themselves a writer. Who can pull out the ID and document this.

But what do your contemporaries write? In the writer Volin you discovered:

“...It became extremely clear to me...”

And on the same page:

“...With infinite clarity, Kim felt...”

The word is turned upside down. The contents spilled out of it. Or rather, there was no content. The words piled up intangible, like the shadow of an empty bottle...

Ah, that’s not what we’re talking about!.. How tired of your eternal tricks!..

It's impossible to live. You have to either live or write. Either a word or a deed. But your business is the word. And you hate every Business with a capital letter. There is a zone of dead space around it. Everything that interferes with business perishes there. Hopes, illusions, memories perish there. A wretched, unquestionable, unambiguous materialism reigns there...

And again - not this, not that...

What have you turned your wife into? She was simple-minded, flirtatious, and loved to have fun. You made her jealous, suspicious and nervous. Her constant phrase: “What do you mean by that?” - a monument to your resourcefulness...

Your outrages reached the point of curiosity. Do you remember how you came back around four in the morning and began to unlace your shoes? The wife woke up and moaned:

- Lord, where to go this early?!

“Really, it’s a little early, a little early,” you muttered.

And then he quickly undressed and lay down...

What can I say...

Morning. Footsteps muffled by the scarlet carpet. Sudden intermittent muttering from the loudspeaker. The splash of water behind the wall. Trucks under the windows. Unexpected distant cry of a rooster...

As a child, summer was sounded by the sounds of steam locomotives. Suburban dachas... The smell of station burning and heated sand... Table tennis under the branches... The tight and ringing sound of the ball... Dancing on the veranda (your older brother entrusted you with starting the gramophone)... Gleb Romanov... Ruzhena Sikora... “This song for two soldi, for two pennies... ", "I dreamed of you in Bucharest in reality...”

A sun-scorched beach... Hard sedge... Long underpants and traces of elastic bands on the calves... Sand packed into sandals...

There was a knock on the door:

- On the phone!

“This is a misunderstanding,” I say.

– Are you Alikhanov?

I was taken to the sister-hostess's room. I picked up the phone.

- You slept? – Galina asked.

I objected heatedly.

I have long noticed that people react to this question with excessive vehemence. Ask the person a question: “Do you have binges?” - and the person will calmly answer - no. Or maybe he will willingly agree. But the question “Did you sleep?” most experience it almost as an insult. Like an attempt to convict a person of crime...

– I agreed on the room.

- Well, thank you.

- In the village of Sosnovo. Five minutes from the camp site. Separate entrance.

- This is the main thing.

- The owner really drinks...

- Another trump card.

– Remember the last name – Sorokin. Mikhail Ivanovich... You will go through the camp site along the ravine. From the mountain you can already see the village. The fourth house... Or maybe the fifth. Yes you will find it. There's a landfill nearby...

- Thank you, honey.

The tone changed abruptly:

- How sweet am I to you?! Oh, I’m dying... Darling... Please tell me... I found my dear...

Later, I was more than once amazed at Galina’s instant transformations. Lively participation, cordiality and simplicity were replaced by loud intonations of offended chastity. Normal speech - in a shrill provincial dialect...

– And don’t think anything like that!

- Never like this. And once again - thank you...

I went to the camp site. This time it was crowded. There were colorful cars standing around. Tourists in resort caps wandered around in groups and alone. There was a line at the newsstand. From the open windows of the dining room came the clink of dishes and the squealing of metal stools. Several well-fed mongrels frolicked here.

At every step I saw images of Pushkin. Even near the mysterious brick booth with the sign “Flammable!” The similarity ended with the sideburns. Their sizes varied arbitrarily. I have long noticed: our artists have favorite objects where there is no limit to scope and inspiration. This is, first of all, the beard of Karl Marx and the forehead of Ilyich...

The loudspeaker was turned on at full power:

- Attention! This is the radio station of the Pushkinogorsk tourist base speaking. We announce the order of the day for today...

I went to the tour desk. Galina was besieged by tourists. She waved her hand for me to wait.

I took the brochure “The Pearl of Crimea” from the shelf. I took out cigarettes.

The guides, having received some papers, left. Tourists ran after them to the buses. Several "wild" families were eager to join the groups. They were handled by a tall, thin girl.

A man in a Tyrolean hat approached me shyly:

- Excuse me, can I ask a question?