And Bunin breathes lightly. Analysis of Bunin’s work “Easy Breathing”

Easy breath
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin

Easy breath
“A summer evening, a coachman's troika, an endless deserted highway...” Bunin's music of prose writing cannot be confused with any other, colors, sounds, smells live in it... Bunin did not write novels. But he brought the purely Russian genre of short story or short story, which received worldwide recognition, to perfection.

This book includes the most famous novels and short stories of the writer: “ Antonov apples", "Village", "Sukhodol", "Easy Breathing".

Ivan Bunin

Easy breath

In the cemetery, above a fresh clay mound, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth.

April, gray days; The monuments of the cemetery, spacious, county, are still visible far away through the bare trees, and the cold wind rings and rings the porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross.

A rather large, convex porcelain medallion is embedded in the cross itself, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.

This is Olya Meshcherskaya.

As a girl, she did not stand out in any way in the crowd of brown school dresses: what could be said about her, except that she was one of the pretty, rich and happy girls, that she was capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions given to her cool lady? Then she began to blossom and develop by leaps and bounds. At the age of fourteen, with a thin waist and slender legs, her breasts and all those forms, the charm of which had never yet been expressed by human words, were already clearly outlined; at fifteen she was already considered a beauty. How carefully some of her friends combed their hair, how clean they were, how careful they were about their restrained movements! But she was not afraid of anything - not ink stains on her fingers, not a flushed face, not disheveled hair, not a knee that became bare when falling while running. Without any of her worries or efforts and somehow imperceptibly, everything that distinguished her from the entire gymnasium in the last two years came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, the clear sparkle of her eyes... No one danced at balls like Olya Meshcherskaya , no one ran on skates like she did, no one was courted as much at balls as she was, and for some reason no one was loved as much by the junior classes as she was. Imperceptibly she became a girl, and her high school fame was imperceptibly strengthened, and rumors had already spread that she was flighty, could not live without admirers, that the school student Shenshin was madly in love with her, that she supposedly loved him too, but was so changeable in her treatment of him that he attempted suicide...

During her last winter, Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun, as they said in the gymnasium. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty, the sun set early behind the tall spruce forest of the snowy gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun for tomorrow, a walk on Sobornaya Street, an ice skating rink in the city garden, a pink evening, music and this in all directions the crowd gliding on the skating rink, in which Olya Meshcherskaya seemed the most carefree, the happiest. And then one day, during a big break, when she was rushing around the assembly hall like a whirlwind from the first-graders chasing her and squealing blissfully, she was unexpectedly called to the boss. She stopped running, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar feminine movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders and, her eyes shining, ran upstairs. The boss, young-looking but gray-haired, sat calmly with knitting in her hands at her desk, under the royal portrait.

“Hello, Mademoiselle Meshcherskaya,” she said in French, without raising her eyes from her knitting. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have been forced to call you here to talk to you about your behavior.”

“I’m listening, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered, approaching the table, looking at her clearly and vividly, but without any expression on her face, and sat down as easily and gracefully as only she could.

“You won’t listen to me well, I, unfortunately, am convinced of this,” said the boss and, pulling the thread and spinning a ball on the varnished floor, which Meshcherskaya looked at with curiosity, she raised her eyes. “I won’t repeat myself, I won’t speak at length,” she said.

Meshcherskaya really liked this unusually clean and large office, which on frosty days breathed so well with the warmth of a shiny Dutch dress and the freshness of lilies of the valley on the desk. She looked at the young king, depicted in full height in the middle of some brilliant hall, at the even parting in the milky, neatly crimped hair of the boss and was silent expectantly.

“You’re not a girl anymore,” the boss said meaningfully, secretly beginning to get irritated.

“Yes, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered simply, almost cheerfully.

“But not a woman either,” the boss said even more meaningfully, and her matte face turned slightly red. – First of all, what kind of hairstyle is this? This is a women's hairstyle!

– It’s not my fault, madame, that I have good hair, - Meshcherskaya answered and slightly touched her beautifully decorated head with both hands.

- Oh, that’s it, it’s not your fault! - said the boss. - It’s not your fault for your hairstyle, it’s not your fault for these expensive combs, it’s not your fault that you’re ruining your parents for shoes that cost twenty rubles! But, I repeat to you, you completely lose sight of the fact that you are still only a high school student...

And then Meshcherskaya, without losing her simplicity and calmness, suddenly politely interrupted her:

- Excuse me, madame, you are mistaken: I am a woman. And you know who is to blame for this? Dad's friend and neighbor, and your brother Alexey Mikhailovich Malyutin. This happened last summer in the village...

And a month after this conversation, a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance, who had absolutely nothing in common with the circle to which Olya Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her on the station platform, among a large crowd of people who had just arrived by train. And the incredible confession of Olya Meshcherskaya, which stunned the boss, was completely confirmed: the officer told the judicial investigator that Meshcherskaya had lured him, was close to him, vowed to be his wife, and at the station, on the day of the murder, accompanying him to Novocherkassk, she suddenly told him that she and never thought to love him, that all this talk about marriage was just her mockery of him, and she gave him to read that page of the diary that talked about Malyutin.

“I ran through these lines and right there, on the platform where she was walking, waiting for me to finish reading, I shot at her,” said the officer. - This diary is here, look what was written in it on the tenth of July last year.

The diary wrote the following:

“It’s two o’clock in the morning. I fell fast asleep, but immediately woke up... Today I have become a woman! Dad, mom and Tolya all left for the city, I was left alone. I was so happy to be alone! In the morning I walked in the garden, in the field, was in the forest, it seemed to me that I was alone in the whole world, and I thought as well as I had ever thought in my life. I had lunch alone, then a whole hour played, to the music I had a feeling that I would live endlessly and be as happy as anyone. Then I fell asleep in my dad’s office, and at four o’clock Katya woke me up and said that Alexei Mikhailovich had arrived. I was very happy about him, I was so pleased to accept him and keep him busy. He arrived in a pair of his Vyatkas, very beautiful, and they stood by the porch all the time; he stayed because it was raining and he wanted it to dry out by the evening. He regretted that he didn’t find dad, he was very animated and behaved like a gentleman with me, he joked a lot that he had been in love with me for a long time. When we walked around the garden before tea, the weather was again lovely, the sun shone through the entire wet garden, although it had become completely cold, and he led me by the arm and said that he was Faust with Margarita. He is fifty-six years old, but he is still very handsome and always well dressed - the only thing I didn’t like was that he arrived in a lionfish - he smells of English cologne, and his eyes are very young, black, and his beard is gracefully divided into two long parts and completely silver. Over tea we sat on the glass veranda, I felt as if unwell and lay down on the ottoman, and he smoked, then moved to me, began again to say some pleasantries, then examined and kissed my hand. I covered my face with a silk scarf, and he kissed me on the lips through the scarf several times... I don’t understand how this could happen, I’m crazy, I never thought I was like this! Now I have only one way out... I feel such disgust for him that I can’t get over it!..”

City for these April days it became clean, dry, its stones turned white, and it was easy and pleasant to walk on them. Every Sunday, after mass, a small woman in mourning, wearing black kid gloves and carrying an ebony umbrella, walks along Cathedral Street, leading to the exit from the city. She crosses a dirty square along the highway, where there are many smoky forges and the fresh air of the field blows; further, between the monastery and the fort, the cloudy slope of the sky turns white and the spring field turns grey, and then, when you make your way among the puddles under the wall of the monastery and turn left, you will see what appears to be a large low garden, surrounded by a white fence, above the gate of which is written the Dormition of the Mother of God. The little woman makes the sign of the cross and walks habitually along the main alley. Having reached the bench opposite the oak cross, she sits in the wind and in the spring cold for an hour or two, until her feet in light boots and her hand in a narrow kid are completely cold. Listening to the spring birds singing sweetly even in the cold, listening to the sound of the wind in a porcelain wreath, she sometimes thinks that she would give half her life if only this dead wreath would not be before her eyes. This wreath, this mound, the oak cross! Is it possible that under him is the one whose eyes shine so immortally from this convex porcelain medallion on the cross, and how can we combine with this pure gaze the terrible thing that is now associated with the name of Olya Meshcherskaya? But deep down in her soul, the little woman is happy, like all people devoted to some passionate dream.

This woman is the cool lady Olya Meshcherskaya, a middle-aged girl who has long been living with some kind of fiction that replaces her real life. At first, her brother, a poor and unremarkable ensign, was such an invention - she united her whole soul with him, with his future, which for some reason seemed brilliant to her. When he was killed near Mukden, she convinced herself that she was an ideological worker. The death of Olya Meshcherskaya captivated her a new dream. Now Olya Meshcherskaya is the subject of her persistent thoughts and feelings. She goes to her grave every holiday, does not take her eyes off the oak cross for hours, remembers the pale face of Olya Meshcherskaya in the coffin, among the flowers - and what she once overheard: one day during a big break, walking through the gymnasium garden, Olya Meshcherskaya quickly, quickly said to her beloved friend, plump, tall Subbotina:

- I’m in one of my dad’s books - he has a lot of old ones, funny books- I read what kind of beauty a woman should have... There, you see, so much is said that you can’t remember everything: well, of course, black eyes, boiling with resin - by God, that’s what it says: boiling with resin! - eyelashes as black as night, a gentle blush, a thin figure, longer than an ordinary arm - you know, longer than usual! – small leg, in moderation big breasts, correctly rounded calf, shell-colored knees, sloping shoulders - I almost learned a lot by heart, it’s all so true! – but most importantly, you know what? Easy breath! But I have it,” listen to how I sigh, “I really have it, don’t I?”

Now this light breath has again dissipated in the world, in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind.

Bunin wrote the story “Easy Breathing” in 1916. In the work, the author touches on the themes of love and death characteristic of the literature of this period. Despite the fact that the story is not written in chapters, the narrative is fragmented and consists of several parts arranged in a non-chronological order.

Main characters

Olya Meshcherskaya- a young schoolgirl, was killed by a Cossack officer because she said that she did not love him.

Headmistress of the gymnasium

Other characters

Cossack officer- shot Olya because of unhappy love, “ugly and plebeian in appearance.”

Cool lady Olya Meshcherskaya

“In the cemetery, over a fresh clay mound, there is a new oak cross.” A convex porcelain medallion with a photographic portrait of schoolgirl Olya Meshcherskaya “with joyful, amazingly lively eyes” is embedded in the cross.

As a girl, Olya did not stand out among other schoolchildren; she was “capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions” of the class lady. But then the girl began to develop, to “bloom.” At the age of 14, “with a thin waist and slender legs, her breasts and curves were already well defined.” “At fifteen she was already considered a beauty.” Unlike her prim girlfriends, Olya “wasn’t afraid—no ink stains on her fingers, no flushed face, no disheveled hair.” Without any effort, “grace, elegance, dexterity, and the clear sparkle of her eyes” came to her.

Olya danced the best at balls, skated, was the most looked after at balls, and was loved most by the junior classes. “Unnoticedly she became a girl,” and there were even rumors about her frivolity.

“Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun during her last winter, as they said in the gymnasium.” One day, during a big break, the boss called the girl over and reprimanded her. The woman noted that Olya is no longer a girl, but not yet a woman, so she shouldn’t wear “ women's hairstyle", expensive combs and shoes. “Without losing simplicity and calmness,” Meshcherskaya replied that the madame was mistaken: she was already a woman, and the father’s friend and neighbor, the boss’s brother Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin, was to blame for this - “this happened last summer in the village.”

“And a month after this conversation,” a Cossack officer shot Olya “on the station platform, among a large crowd of people.” And Olya’s confession, which stunned the boss, was confirmed. “The officer told the judicial investigator that Meshcherskaya lured him, was close to him, vowed to be his wife,” and at the station she said that she did not love him and “gave him to read that page of the diary that talked about Malyutin.”

“On the tenth of July last year,” Olya wrote in her diary: “Everyone left for the city, I was left alone.<…>Alexey Mikhailovich arrived.<…>He stayed because it was raining.<…>He regretted that he didn’t find dad, he was very animated and behaved like a gentleman with me, he joked a lot that he had been in love with me for a long time.<…>He is fifty-six years old, but he is still very handsome and always well dressed.<…>Over tea we sat on the glass veranda, he smoked, then moved to me, began again to say some pleasantries, then examined and kissed my hand. I covered my face with a silk scarf, and he kissed me on the lips through the scarf several times... I don’t understand how this could happen, I’m crazy, I never thought I was like this! Now I have only one way out... I feel such disgust for him that I can’t get over it!..”

Every Sunday, after mass, a little woman in mourning comes to the grave of Olya Meshcherskaya - a cool lady girl. Olya became the subject of “her persistent thoughts and feelings.” Sitting at the grave, the woman remembers the pale face of the girl in the coffin and a conversation she accidentally overheard: Meshcherskaya told her friend about what she read in her father’s book, that supposedly the main thing in a woman is “light breathing” and that she, Olya, has it.

“Now this light breath has dispersed again into the world, into this cloudy sky, into this cold spring wind.”

Conclusion

In the story, Bunin contrasts the main character Olya Meshcherskaya with the head of the gymnasium - as the personification of the rules, social norms, and a cool lady - as the personification of dreams that replace reality. Olya Meshcherskaya is completely different female image– a girl who has tried on the role of an adult lady, a seductress who has neither fear of rules nor excessive daydreaming.

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I. Bunin “Easy Breathing” - plot and analysis

The composition of the work is unusual and original. The author's intention is conveyed by violating traditional chronological framework narratives. The text also uses techniques of contrast and antithesis. From the first words, a gloomy and sad picture of the cemetery opens before the reader. “...the monuments of the spacious county cemetery are still visible far away through the bare trees, and the cold wind rings the porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross.” And right there, in contrast with the cemetery landscape, “a photographic portrait of a high school student with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.” Life and death, joy and sadness - all this seems to be a symbol of fate main character novellas.

Next, the author introduces us to the heroine, Olya Meshcherskaya. He describes in sufficient detail her appearance, the extraordinary natural ease with which Olya turns from a girl into a beautiful girl. “Without any of her worries or efforts, and somehow imperceptibly, everything that had so distinguished her in the last two years from the rest of the gymnasium came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, the clear sparkle of her eyes.” The author puts her liveliness and naturalness in contrast with the gray and conventional world. Everyone admires Olya’s beauty and charm, her students like her, and she has many fans. At the same time, everyone considers the girl flighty, many envy her. There were rumors about her that she could not live without fans, but at the same time she treated them very cruelly. The headmistress of the gymnasium made a remark to Olya about her behavior and appearance, accused her of behaving like adult woman, not a student. To which Olya openly stated that she had already become a woman.

The author presents an excerpt from the girl’s diary, which tells how her parents’ friend Malyutin, a man many years older, seduced her. Olya's easy approach to life and carefree attitude led her to a dead end. She didn’t immediately realize what she was losing. Only later, realizing the horror of the situation, did she feel fear, shame and disappointment. “I don’t understand how this could happen, I’m crazy, I never thought I was like this! Now I have only one way out... I feel such disgust for him that I can’t get over it!..”
Olga's life ends tragically. Malyutin shot Olga at the station. He explained this by saying that he was in a state of passion, because she showed him her diary with a description of the events and her attitude to the situation. The author does not give his explanations for Malyutin’s action. Perhaps he simply could not forgive her for her hurt pride.

At the end of the story we again find ourselves in the cemetery. The cool lady Olya Meshcherskaya comes to visit her grave every holiday. This woman lives in a fictional world in which Olya has become for her the ideal of femininity, beauty and at the same time tragedy.
What made Olya Meshcherskaya stand out from the gray everyday world? She radiated cheerfulness and good spirits, courage and happiness. She lived for today and enjoyed every minute of her life. “...But the main thing is, you know what? Easy breath! But I have it,” listen to how I sigh, “I really do?” - Olya said to her friend. The tragedy of Olya’s fate is that while living an easy and carefree life, she forgot about cruel reality a society that crushed all her dreams.

In the cemetery, above a fresh clay mound, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth.

April, gray days; The monuments of the cemetery, spacious, county, are still visible far away through the bare trees, and the cold wind rings and rings the porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross.

A rather large, convex porcelain medallion is embedded in the cross itself, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.

This is Olya Meshcherskaya.

As a girl, she did not stand out in any way in the crowd of brown school dresses: what could be said about her, except that she was one of the pretty, rich and happy girls, that she was capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions that the classy lady gave her ? Then she began to blossom and develop by leaps and bounds. At the age of fourteen, with a thin waist and slender legs, her breasts and all those forms, the charm of which had never yet been expressed by human words, were already clearly outlined; at fifteen she was already considered a beauty. How carefully some of her friends combed their hair, how clean they were, how careful they were about their restrained movements! But she was not afraid of anything - not ink stains on her fingers, not a flushed face, not disheveled hair, not a knee that became bare when falling while running. Without any of her worries or efforts and somehow imperceptibly, everything that distinguished her from the entire gymnasium in the last two years came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, the clear sparkle of her eyes... No one danced at balls like Olya Meshcherskaya , no one ran on skates like she did, no one was courted as much at balls as she was, and for some reason no one was loved as much by the junior classes as she was. Imperceptibly she became a girl, and her high school fame was imperceptibly strengthened, and rumors had already spread that she was flighty, could not live without admirers, that the school student Shenshin was madly in love with her, that she supposedly loved him too, but was so changeable in her treatment of him that he attempted suicide.

During her last winter, Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun, as they said in the gymnasium. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty, the sun set early behind the tall spruce forest of the snowy gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun for tomorrow, a walk on Sobornaya Street, an ice skating rink in the city garden, a pink evening, music and this in all directions the crowd gliding on the skating rink, in which Olya Meshcherskaya seemed the most carefree, the happiest. And then one day, during a big break, when she was rushing around the assembly hall like a whirlwind from the first-graders chasing her and squealing blissfully, she was unexpectedly called to the boss. She stopped running, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar feminine movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders and, her eyes shining, ran upstairs. The boss, young-looking but gray-haired, sat calmly with knitting in her hands at her desk, under the royal portrait.

“Hello, mademoiselle Meshcherskaya,” she said in French, without raising her eyes from her knitting. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have been forced to call you here to talk to you about your behavior.”

“I’m listening, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered, approaching the table, looking at her clearly and vividly, but without any expression on her face, and sat down as easily and gracefully as only she could.

You won’t listen to me well, I, unfortunately, am convinced of this,” the boss said and, pulling the thread and spinning a ball on the varnished floor, which Meshcherskaya looked at with curiosity, she raised her eyes. “I won’t repeat myself, I won’t speak at length,” she said. Meshcherskaya really liked this unusually clean and large office, which on frosty days breathed so well with the warmth of a shiny Dutch dress and the freshness of lilies of the valley on the desk. She looked at the young king, depicted in full height in the middle of some brilliant hall, at the even parting in the milky, neatly crimped hair of the boss and was silent expectantly.

“You’re not a girl anymore,” the boss said meaningfully, secretly starting to get irritated.

Yes, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered simply, almost cheerfully.

But she’s not a woman either,” the boss said even more meaningfully, and her matte face turned slightly red. - First of all, what kind of hairstyle is this? This is a women's hairstyle!

It’s not my fault, madame, that I have good hair,” Meshcherskaya answered and slightly touched her beautifully decorated head with both hands.

Oh, that's it, it's not your fault! - said the boss. - It’s not your fault for your hairstyle, it’s not your fault for these expensive combs, it’s not your fault that you’re ruining your parents for shoes that cost twenty rubles! But, I repeat to you, you completely lose sight of the fact that you are still only a high school student...

And then Meshcherskaya, without losing her simplicity and calmness, suddenly politely interrupted her:

Sorry, madame, you are mistaken: I am a woman. And you know who is to blame for this? Dad's friend and neighbor, and your brother Alexey Mikhailovich Malyutin. This happened last summer in the village...

And a month after this conversation, a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance, who had absolutely nothing in common with the circle to which Olya Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her on the station platform, among a large crowd of people who had just arrived by train. And the incredible confession of Olya Meshcherskaya, which stunned the boss, was completely confirmed: the officer told the judicial investigator that Meshcherskaya had lured him, was close to him, vowed to be his wife, and at the station, on the day of the murder, accompanying him to Novocherkassk, she suddenly told him that she and never thought to love him, that all this talk about marriage was just her mockery of him, and she gave him to read that page of the diary that talked about Malyutin.

“I ran through these lines and right there, on the platform where she was walking, waiting for me to finish reading, I shot at her,” the officer said. - This diary, here it is, look what was written in it on the tenth of July last year. The diary wrote the following: “It’s two o’clock in the morning. I fell fast asleep, but immediately woke up... Today I have become a woman! Dad, mom and Tolya all left for the city, I was left alone. I was so happy to be alone! In the morning I walked in the garden, in the field, was in the forest, it seemed to me that I was alone in the whole world, and I thought as well as never in my life. I had lunch alone, then played for a whole hour, listening to the music I had the feeling that I would live endlessly and be as happy as anyone. Then I fell asleep in my dad’s office, and at four o’clock Katya woke me up and said that Alexei Mikhailovich had arrived. I was very happy about him, I was so pleased to accept him and keep him busy. He arrived in a pair of his Vyatkas, very beautiful, and they stood by the porch all the time; he stayed because it was raining and he wanted it to dry out by the evening. He regretted that he didn’t find dad, he was very animated and behaved like a gentleman with me, he joked a lot that he had been in love with me for a long time. When we walked around the garden before tea, the weather was again lovely, the sun shone through the entire wet garden, although it had become completely cold, and he led me by the arm and said that he was Faust with Margarita. He is fifty-six years old, but he is still very handsome and always well dressed - the only thing I didn’t like was that he arrived in a lionfish - he smells of English cologne, and his eyes are very young, black, and his beard is gracefully divided into two long parts and completely silver. Over tea we sat on the glass veranda, I felt as if unwell and lay down on the ottoman, and he smoked, then moved to me, began again to say some pleasantries, then examined and kissed my hand. I covered my face with a silk scarf, and he kissed me on the lips through the scarf several times... I don’t understand how this could happen, I’m crazy, I never thought I was like this! Now I have only one way out... I feel such disgust for him that I can’t get over it!..”

During these April days, the city became clean, dry, its stones turned white, and it was easy and pleasant to walk along them. Every Sunday, after mass, a small woman in mourning, wearing black kid gloves and carrying an ebony umbrella, walks along Cathedral Street, leading to the exit from the city. She crosses a dirty square along the highway, where there are many smoky forges and the fresh air of the field blows; further, between the monastery and the fort, the cloudy slope of the sky turns white and the spring field turns gray, and then, when you make your way among the puddles under the wall of the monastery and turn left, you will see what looks like a large low garden, surrounded by a white fence, above the gate of which is written the Assumption mother of god. The little woman makes the sign of the cross and walks habitually along the main alley. Having reached the bench opposite the oak cross, she sits in the wind and in the spring cold for an hour or two, until her feet in light boots and her hand in a narrow kid are completely cold. Listening to the spring birds singing sweetly even in the cold, listening to the sound of the wind in a porcelain wreath, she sometimes thinks that she would give half her life if only this dead wreath would not be before her eyes. This wreath, this mound, the oak cross! Is it possible that under him is the one whose eyes shine so immortally from this convex porcelain medallion on the cross, and how can we combine with this pure gaze the terrible thing that is now associated with the name of Olya Meshcherskaya? “But deep down in her soul, the little woman is happy, like all people devoted to some passionate dream.

This woman is the cool lady Olya Meshcherskaya, a middle-aged girl who has long lived in some kind of fiction that replaces her real life. At first, her brother, a poor and unremarkable ensign, was such an invention - she united her whole soul with him, with his future, which for some reason seemed brilliant to her. When he was killed near Mukden, she convinced herself that she was an ideological worker. The death of Olya Meshcherskaya captivated her with a new dream. Now Olya Meshcherskaya is the subject of her persistent thoughts and feelings. She goes to her grave every holiday, does not take her eyes off the oak cross for hours, remembers the pale face of Olya Meshcherskaya in the coffin, among the flowers - and what she once overheard: one day, during a long break, walking through the gymnasium garden, Olya Meshcherskaya quickly, quickly said to her beloved friend, plump, tall Subbotina:

I read in one of my dad’s books - he has a lot of old funny books - what kind of beauty a woman should have... There, you know, there are so many sayings that you can’t remember everything: well, of course, black eyes boiling with resin - by God , as it is written: boiling with resin! - eyelashes as black as night, a gentle blush, a thin figure, longer than an ordinary arm - you know, longer than usual! - a small leg, a moderately large chest, a correctly rounded calf, shell-colored knees, sloping shoulders - I almost learned a lot by heart, so it’s all true! - but most importantly, you know what? - Easy breath! But I have it, - listen to how I sigh, - I really do, don’t I?

Now this light breath has again dissipated in the world, in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind.

In the cemetery, above a fresh clay mound, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth.

April, gray days; The monuments of the cemetery, a spacious, provincial one, are still visible far away through the bare trees, and the cold wind rings and rings like a porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross.

A rather large, convex porcelain medallion is embedded in the cross itself, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.

This is Olya Meshcherskaya.

As a girl, she did not stand out in any way in the crowd of brown school dresses: what could be said about her, except that she was one of the pretty, rich and happy girls, that she was capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions that the classy lady gave her ? Then she began to blossom and develop by leaps and bounds. At the age of fourteen, with a thin waist and slender legs, her breasts and all those forms, the charm of which had never yet been expressed by human words, were already clearly outlined; at fifteen she was already considered a beauty. How carefully some of her friends combed their hair, how clean they were, how careful they were about their restrained movements! But she was not afraid of anything - not ink stains on her fingers, not a flushed face, not disheveled hair, not a knee that became bare when falling while running. Without any of her worries or efforts and somehow imperceptibly, everything that distinguished her from the entire gymnasium in the last two years came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, the clear sparkle of her eyes... No one danced at balls like Olya Meshcherskaya , no one ran on skates like she did, no one was looked after at balls as much as she was, and for some reason no one was loved as much by the junior classes as she was. Imperceptibly she became a girl, and her high school fame was imperceptibly strengthened, and rumors were already spreading that she was flighty, could not live without admirers, that the school student Shenshin was madly in love with her, that she supposedly loved him too, but was so changeable in her treatment of him that he attempted suicide.

During her last winter, Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun, as they said in the gymnasium. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty, the sun set early behind the tall spruce forest of the snowy gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun for tomorrow, a walk on Sobornaya Street, an ice skating rink in the city garden, a pink evening, music and this in all directions the crowd gliding on the skating rink, in which Olya Meshcherskaya seemed the most carefree, the happiest. And then one day, during a big break, when she was rushing around the assembly hall like a whirlwind from the first-graders chasing her and squealing blissfully, she was unexpectedly called to the boss. She stopped running, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar feminine movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders and, her eyes shining, ran upstairs. The boss, young-looking but gray-haired, sat calmly with knitting in her hands at her desk, under the royal portrait.

“Hello, mademoiselle Meshcherskaya,” she said in French, without raising her eyes from her knitting. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have been forced to call you here to talk to you about your behavior.”

“I’m listening, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered, approaching the table, looking at her clearly and vividly, but without any expression on her face, and sat down as easily and gracefully as only she could.

You won’t listen to me well, I, unfortunately, am convinced of this,” the boss said and, pulling the thread and spinning a ball on the varnished floor, which Meshcherskaya looked at with curiosity, she raised her eyes. “I won’t repeat myself, I won’t speak at length,” she said.

Meshcherskaya really liked this unusually clean and large office, which on frosty days breathed so well with the warmth of a shiny Dutch dress and the freshness of lilies of the valley on the desk. She looked at the young king, depicted in full height in the middle of some brilliant hall, at the even parting in the milky, neatly crimped hair of the boss and was silent expectantly.

“You’re not a girl anymore,” the boss said meaningfully, secretly starting to get irritated.

Yes, madame,” Meshcherskaya answered simply, almost cheerfully.

But she’s not a woman either,” the boss said even more meaningfully, and her matte face turned slightly red. - First of all, what kind of hairstyle is this? This is a woman's hairstyle!

It’s not my fault, madame, that I have good hair,” Meshcherskaya answered and slightly touched her beautifully decorated head with both hands.

Oh, that's it, it's not your fault! - said the boss. - It’s not your fault for your hairstyle, it’s not your fault for these expensive combs, it’s not your fault that you’re ruining your parents for shoes that cost twenty rubles! But, I repeat to you, you completely lose sight of the fact that you are still only a high school student...

And then Meshcherskaya, without losing her simplicity and calmness, suddenly politely interrupted her:

Sorry, madame, you are mistaken: I am a woman. And you know who is to blame for this? Dad's friend and neighbor, and your brother Alexey Mikhailovich Malyutin. This happened last summer in the village...

And a month after this conversation, a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance, who had absolutely nothing in common with the circle to which Olya Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her on the station platform, among a large crowd of people who had just arrived by train. And the incredible confession of Olya Meshcherskaya, which stunned the boss, was completely confirmed: the officer told the judicial investigator that Meshcherskaya had lured him, was close to him, vowed to be his wife, and at the station, on the day of the murder, accompanying him to Novocherkassk, she suddenly told him that she and never thought to love him, that all this talk about marriage was just her mockery of him, and she gave him to read that page of the diary that talked about Malyutin.

“I ran through these lines and right there, on the platform where she was walking, waiting for me to finish reading, I shot at her,” the officer said. - This diary, here it is, look what was written in it on the tenth of July last year. The diary wrote the following: “It’s two o’clock in the morning. I fell fast asleep, but immediately woke up... Today I have become a woman! Dad, mom and Tolya all left for the city, I was left alone. I was so happy to be alone! In the morning I walked in the garden, in the field, was in the forest, it seemed to me that I was alone in the whole world, and I thought as well as never in my life. I had lunch alone, then played for a whole hour, listening to the music I had the feeling that I would live endlessly and be as happy as anyone. Then I fell asleep in my dad’s office, and at four o’clock Katya woke me up and said that Alexei Mikhailovich had arrived. I was very happy about him, I was so pleased to accept him and keep him busy. He arrived in a pair of his Vyatkas, very beautiful, and they stood by the porch all the time; he stayed because it was raining and he wanted it to dry out by the evening. He regretted that he didn’t find dad, he was very animated and behaved like a gentleman with me, he joked a lot that he had been in love with me for a long time. When we walked around the garden before tea, the weather was again lovely, the sun shone through the entire wet garden, although it had become completely cold, and he led me by the arm and said that he was Faust with Margarita. He is fifty-six years old, but he is still very handsome and always well dressed - the only thing I didn’t like was that he arrived in a lionfish - he smells of English cologne, and his eyes are very young, black, and his beard is gracefully divided into two long parts and completely silver. Over tea we sat on the glass veranda, I felt as if unwell and lay down on the ottoman, and he smoked, then moved to me, began again to say some pleasantries, then examined and kissed my hand. I covered my face with a silk scarf, and he kissed me on the lips through the scarf several times... I don’t understand how this could happen, I’m crazy, I never thought I was like this! Now I have only one way out... I feel such disgust for him that I can’t get over it!..."

During these April days, the city became clean, dry, its stones turned white, and it was easy and pleasant to walk along them. Every Sunday, after mass, a small woman in mourning, wearing black kid gloves and carrying an ebony umbrella, walks along Cathedral Street, leading to the exit from the city. She crosses a dirty square along the highway, where there are many smoky forges and fresh field air blows; further, between monastery and a prison, the cloudy slope of the sky turns white and the spring field turns grey, and then, when you make your way among the puddles under the wall of the monastery and turn left, you will see, as it were, a large low garden, surrounded by a white fence, above the gate of which is written the Dormition of the Mother of God. The little woman makes the sign of the cross and walks habitually along the main alley. Having reached the bench opposite the oak cross, she sits in the wind and in the spring cold for an hour or two, until her feet in light boots and her hand in a narrow kid are completely cold. Listening to the spring birds singing sweetly even in the cold, listening to the sound of the wind in a porcelain wreath, she sometimes thinks that she would give half her life if only this dead wreath would not be before her eyes. This wreath, this mound, the oak cross! Is it possible that under him is the one whose eyes shine so immortally from this convex porcelain medallion on the cross, and how can we combine with this pure gaze the terrible thing that is now associated with the name of Olya Meshcherskaya? “But deep down in her soul, the little woman is happy, like all people devoted to some passionate dream.

This woman is the cool lady Olya Meshcherskaya, a middle-aged girl who has long lived in some kind of fiction that replaces her real life. At first, her brother, a poor and unremarkable ensign, was such an invention - she united her whole soul with him, with his future, which for some reason seemed brilliant to her. When he was killed near Mukden, she convinced herself that she was an ideological worker. The death of Olya Meshcherskaya captivated her with a new dream. Now Olya Meshcherskaya is the subject of her persistent thoughts and feelings. She goes to her grave every holiday, does not take her eyes off the oak cross for hours, remembers the pale face of Olya Meshcherskaya in the coffin, among the flowers - and what she once overheard: one day, during a long break, walking through the gymnasium garden, Olya Meshcherskaya quickly, quickly said to her beloved friend, plump, tall Subbotina:

I read in one of my dad’s books - he has a lot of old funny books - what kind of beauty a woman should have... There, you know, there are so many sayings that you can’t remember everything: well, of course, black eyes boiling with resin - by God , as it is written: boiling with resin! - eyelashes black as night, a gentle blush, a thin figure, longer than an ordinary arm - you know, longer than usual! - a small leg, a moderately large chest, a properly rounded calf, shell-colored knees, sloping shoulders - I almost learned a lot by heart, so it’s all true! - but most importantly, you know what? - Easy breath! But I have it, - listen to how I sigh, - I really do, don’t I?

Now this light breath has again dispersed into the world, in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind.