There were six of us, gathered one winter evening at an old university friend. The conversation turned to Shakespeare, about his types, about how deeply and truly they were snatched from the very depths of the human “essence”. We were especially surprised at their truth in life, their daily routine; each of us named those Hamlets, those Othellos, those Falstaffs, even those Richard IIIs and Macbeths (the latter, it is true, only in the possibility) with whom he had to face.

- And I, gentlemen, - exclaimed our host, a man already elderly, - I knew one king Lear!

- How so? we asked him.

- Yes, the same. Do you want me to tell you?

- Do me a favor.

And our friend immediately began the story.

“All my childhood,” he began, “and my first youth up to the age of fifteen, I spent in the country, on the estate of my mother, a wealthy landowner ... of the province. Perhaps the sharpest impression of that already distant time remained in my memory the figure of our closest neighbor, a certain Martyn Petrovich Kharlov. Yes, and it would be difficult to erase that impression: I have never seen anything like Harlov in my life. Imagine a man of gigantic stature! On a huge body sat, somewhat sideways, without any sign of a neck, a monstrous head; a whole shock of tangled, yellow-gray hair rose above her, beginning almost from the most disheveled eyebrows. On the vast area of ​​the dove-gray, as if peeling, face stuck out a huge, knobby nose, tiny blue eyes bulged arrogantly, and a mouth opened, also tiny, but crooked, cracked, of the same color as the rest of the face. Although a hoarse voice came out of this mouth, it was extremely strong and resonant... Its sound was reminiscent of the clanging of iron strips being carried in a cart along a bad pavement, and Harlov spoke as if shouting to someone in a strong wind through a wide ravine. It was hard to tell what exactly Harlov's face was expressing, it was so expansive... It happened that you couldn't see it with one glance! But it was not unpleasant - some even majesty was noticed in it, only it was very marvelous and unusual. And what were his hands - the same pillows! What fingers, what legs! I remember that, without a certain respectful horror, I could not look at Martin Petrovich's back two feet high, at his shoulders like millstones; but I was especially struck by his ears! Perfect rolls - with wraps and arches; cheeks and lifted them on both sides. Martin Petrovich wore - both winter and summer - a Cossack made of green cloth, belted with a Circassian strap, and oiled boots; I never saw a tie on him, and besides what would he tie a tie around? He breathed long and hard, like a bull, but he walked without noise. One might have thought that, having got into the room, he was constantly afraid of interrupting and upsetting everything, and therefore he moved from place to place carefully, more and more sideways, as if stealthily. He possessed a truly Herculean strength and, as a result, enjoyed great honor in the neighborhood: our people still revere the heroes. There were even legends about him: they said that he once met a bear in the forest and almost overcame him; that, having found a strange peasant thief in his apiary, he, together with a cart and a horse, threw him over the wattle fence, and the like. Harlov himself never boasted of his strength. “If my right hand is blessed,” he used to say, “then it was the will of God!” He was proud; only he was not proud of his strength, but of his rank, origin, his mind-reason.

- Our family is from the entry (he pronounced the word Swede like that); from entering Harlus, he assured, he came to Russia in the reign of Ivan Vasilyevich the Dark (there it is when!) and that Harlus, who entered, did not wish to be a Chukhon count - but he wished to be a Russian nobleman and signed himself up in the golden book. Here we are, the Harlovs, where did we come from! .. And for the same reason, all of us, the Harlovs, are born blond, with bright eyes and clean faces! hence the snowmen!

“Yes, Martyn Petrovich,” I tried to object to him, “Ivan Vasilyevich the Dark did not exist at all, but there was Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible. Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich was nicknamed Dark.

- Lie again! - Harlov calmly answered me, - if I say, it has become so!

One day my mother took it into her head to praise him to his face for his truly remarkable disinterestedness.

- Oh, Natalya Nikolaevna! - he said almost with annoyance, - found something to praise! We, gentlemen, cannot do otherwise; so that no smerd, zemstvo, subject person would even dare to think evil of us! I am Kharlov, I take my last name out of nowhere ... (here he pointed his finger somewhere very high above him at the ceiling) and there was no honor in me ?! Yes, how is that possible?

Another time, a visiting dignitary who was visiting my mother took it into his head to play a joke on Martin Petrovich. He again spoke about the entry of Harlus, who had left for Russia ...

- Under Tsar Peas? interrupted the dignitary.

- No, not under Tsar Peas, but under the Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich the Dark.

“But I believe,” the dignitary continued, “that your family is much older and goes back even to the antediluvian times, when there were still mastodons and megaloteria ...

These learned terms were completely unknown to Martin Petrovich; but he realized that the dignitary was mocking him.

“Perhaps,” he blurted out, “our family is definitely very ancient; while my ancestor arrived in Moscow, they say, a fool lived in it no worse than your excellency, and such fools are born only once in a thousand years.

The dignitary flew into a rage, and Kharlov shook his head back, stuck out his chin, snorted, and that was it. Two days later he reappeared. Mother began to reproach him. “A lesson to him, madam,” interrupted Harlov, “don’t jump in vain, ask first who you are dealing with. It still hurts young, you need to teach him.” The dignitary was almost the same age as Harlov; but this giant is accustomed to consider all people undersized. He had great confidence in himself and was not afraid of anyone. “Can they do anything to me? Where in the world is there such a person? he asked, and suddenly began to laugh with a short but deafening laugh.

My mother was very picky about acquaintances, but Kharlova received with special cordiality and let him down a lot: twenty-five years ago, he saved her life by keeping her carriage on the edge of a deep ravine, where the horses had already fallen. The straps and harnesses were torn, but Martin Petrovich never let go of the wheel he had seized - although blood spurted from under his nails. My mother also married him: she gave him a seventeen-year-old orphan, brought up in her house; he was then forty years old. Martyn Petrovich's wife was a frail person; they say he carried her into his house in the palm of his hand, and she did not live long with him; however, she bore him two daughters. My mother, even after her death, continued to patronize Martin Petrovich; she placed his eldest daughter in a provincial boarding school, then found her a husband - and already had another in mind for the second. Kharlov was a decent landlord, he had about three hundred acres of land behind him, and he settled down little by little, and how the peasants obeyed him - there’s nothing to talk about! Due to his obesity, Harlov almost never walked anywhere: the earth did not wear him. He rode everywhere in a low racing droshky and himself drove a horse, a stunted, thirty-year-old mare, with a scar from a wound on her shoulder: she received this wound in the battle of Borodino under the commander of the cavalry guard regiment. This horse was constantly lame somehow on all four legs at once; she could not walk, but only trotted, skipping; she ate Chernobyl and wormwood along the borders, which I did not notice for any other horse. I remember that I always wondered how this half-dead horse could carry such a terrible weight. I do not dare to repeat how many pounds were counted in our neighbor. Behind Martyn Petrovich, his black -haired Cossack Maksima was placed on the begun shocks. Pressing his whole body and face against his master, and resting his bare feet on the rear axle of the droshky, he seemed like a leaf or a worm, accidentally stuck to the gigantic carcass that was erected in front of him. The same Cossack shaved Martin Petrovich once a week. To perform this operation, they say, he stood on the table; some jokers assured him that he was forced to run around his master's chin. Harlov did not like to stay at home for a long time, and therefore he could often be seen driving around in his invariable carriage, with the reins in one hand (with the other he grasped, with an inverted elbow, leaned on his knee), with a tiny old cap on the very top of his head. He cheerfully looked around with his bearish little eyes, called out in a thunderous voice to all the peasants he met, philistines, merchants; he sent strong promises to the priests, whom he did not like very much, and one day, coming up with me (I went out for a walk with a gun), he attacked a hare lying near the road so that a groan and a ringing stood in my ears until the evening.

Turgenev Ivan

Steppe King Lear

I.S. Turgenev

Steppe King Lear

There were six of us, gathered one winter evening at an old university friend. The conversation turned to Shakespeare, about his types, about how they are deeply and truly snatched from the very depths of human "essence". We were especially surprised at their truth in life, their daily routine; each of us named those Hamlets, those Othellos, those Falstaffs, even those Richard IIIs and Macbeths (the latter, it is true, only in the possibility) with whom he had to face.

And I, gentlemen, - exclaimed our host, a man already elderly, - I knew one King Lear!

How so? we asked him.

Yes, the same. Do you want me to tell you?

Do me a favor.

And our friend immediately began the story.

“All my childhood,” he began, “and my first youth until the age of fifteen, I spent in the countryside, on the estate of my mother, a wealthy landowner ... in the province. Perhaps the most striking impression of that already distant time remained in my memory the figure of our nearest neighbor, a certain Martin Petrovich Kharlov. And it would be difficult to erase that impression: I have never seen anything like Kharlov in my life. Imagine a man of gigantic stature! head, a whole mop of tangled yellow-gray hair rose above it, starting almost from the most disheveled eyebrows. On the vast area of ​​the dove-gray, as if peeling, face stuck out a huge knobby nose, tiny blue eyes bulged haughtily, and a mouth opened, also tiny, but crooked. , cracked, of the same color as the rest of the face. The voice came out of this mouth, although hoarse, but extremely strong and resounding ... Its sound resembled the clanging of an iron x lanes, carried in a cart along a bad pavement - and Harlov spoke, as if shouting to someone in a strong wind through a wide ravine. It was hard to tell what exactly Harlov's face was expressing, it was so expansive... Sometimes you couldn't see it with one glance! But it was not unpleasant - some even majesty was noticed in it, only it was very marvelous and unusual. And what were his hands - the same pillows! What fingers, what legs! I remember that, without a certain respectful horror, I could not look at Martin Petrovich's two-yard back, at his shoulders, like millstones. But I was especially struck by his ears! Perfect rolls - with wraps and arches; cheeks and lifted them on both sides. Martyn Petrovich wore both winter and summer a Cossack made of green cloth, girded with a Circassian strap, and oiled boots; I never saw a tie on him, and besides what would he tie a tie around? He breathed long and hard, like a bull, but he walked without noise. One might have thought that, having got into the room, he was constantly afraid of interrupting and upsetting everything, and therefore he moved from place to place carefully, more and more sideways, as if stealthily. He possessed a truly Herculean strength and, as a result, enjoyed great honor in the neighborhood: our people still revere the heroes. There were even legends about him: they said that he once met a bear in the forest and almost overcame him; that, having found a strange peasant thief in his apiary, he, together with a cart and a horse, threw him over the wattle fence, and the like. Harlov himself never boasted of his strength. “If my right hand is blessed,” he used to say, “then it was the will of God!” he was proud; only he was not proud of his strength, but of his rank, origin, his mind-reason.

Our family is from the entry (he pronounced the word Swede like that); from the entry of Harlus, - assured from, - in the reign of Ivan Vasilyevich the Dark (there it is when!) He came to Russia; and that Harlus, who entered, did not wish to be a Chukhon count - but wished to be a Russian nobleman and signed up for the golden book. Here we are, the Harlovs, where did we come from! .. And for the same reason, all of us, the Harlovs, are born blond, with bright eyes and clean faces! because snowmen!

Yes, Martyn Petrovich, - I tried to object to him, - there was no Ivan Vasilyevich the Dark at all, but there was Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible. Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich was nicknamed Dark.

Lie again! - Harlov calmly answered me, - if I say, it has become so!

One day my mother took it into her head to praise him to his face for his truly remarkable disinterestedness.

Oh, Natalya Nikolaevna! - he said almost with annoyance, - found something to praise! We, gentlemen, cannot do otherwise; so that no smerd, zemstvo, subject person would even dare to think evil of us! I am Kharlov, I take my last name out of nowhere ... (here he pointed his finger somewhere very high above him at the ceiling) and there was no honor in me ?! Yes, how is that possible?

Another time, a visiting dignitary who was visiting my mother took it into his head to play a joke on Martin Petrovich. He again spoke about the entry of Harlus, who had left for Russia ...

Under King Peas? interrupted the dignitary.

No, not under Tsar Peas, but under the Grand Duke Ivan Vasilievich the Dark.

And I think so, - continued the dignitary, - that your family is much older and goes back even to the antediluvian times, when there were still mastodons and megaloteria ...

These learned terms were completely unknown to Martin Petrovich; but he realized that the dignitary was mocking him.

Maybe, - he blurted out, - our family is definitely very ancient; at the time my ancestor arrived in Moscow, they say, a fool lived in it no worse than your excellency, and such fools are born only once in a thousand years.

The dignitary flew into a rage, and Harlov shook his head back, stuck out his chin, snorted, and was like that. Two days later he reappeared. Mother began to reproach him. "A lesson to him, ma'am," Harlov interrupted, "don't jump in vain, ask first who you're dealing with. It's still painful when you're young, you need to teach him." The dignitary was almost the same age as Harlov; but this giant is accustomed to consider all people undersized. He had great confidence in himself and was not afraid of anyone. "Can they do anything to me? Where is such a person in the world?" he asked, and suddenly began to laugh with a short but deafening laugh.

My mother was very picky about acquaintances, but Kharlova received with special cordiality and listened to a lot of things: he, about twenty-five years ago, saved her life by keeping her carriage on the edge of a deep ravine, where the horses had already fallen. The straps and harnesses were torn, but Martin Petrovich never let go of the wheel he had seized - although blood spurted from under his nails. My mother also married him: she gave him a seventeen-year-old orphan, brought up in her house; he was then forty years old. Martyn Petrovich's wife was a frail person; they say he carried her into his house in the palm of his hand, and she did not live long with him; however, she bore him two daughters. My mother, even after her death, continued to patronize Martin Petrovich; she placed his eldest daughter in a provincial boarding school, then found her a husband - and already had another in mind for the second.

Kharlov was a decent landlord, he had about three hundred acres of land behind him, and he built himself up little by little, and how the peasants obeyed him - I have nothing to say about this! Due to his obesity, Harlov almost never walked anywhere: the earth did not wear him. He rode everywhere in a low racing droshky and himself drove a horse, a stunted, thirty-year-old mare, with a scar from a wound on her shoulder: she received this wound in the battle of Borodino under the commander of the cavalry guard regiment. This horse was constantly lame somehow on all four legs at once; she could not walk, but only trotted, skipping; she ate Chernobyl and wormwood along the borders, which I did not notice for any other horse. I remember that I always wondered how this half-dead horse could carry such a terrible weight. I do not dare to repeat how many pounds were counted in our neighbor. Behind Martyn Petrovich, his black -haired Cossack Maksima was placed on the begun shocks. Pressing his whole body and face against his master, and resting his bare feet on the rear axle of the droshky, he seemed like a leaf or a worm, accidentally stuck to the gigantic carcass that was erected in front of him. The same Cossack shaved Martin Petrovich once a week. To perform this operation, they say, he stood on the table; some jokers assured him that he was forced to run around his master's chin. Harlov did not like to stay at home for a long time, and therefore he could often be seen driving around in his invariable carriage, with the reins in one hand (with the other he grasped, with an inverted elbow, leaned on his knee), with a tiny old cap on the very top of his head. He cheerfully looked around with his bearish little eyes, called out in a thunderous voice to all the peasants he met, philistines, merchants; he sent strong promises to the priests, whom he did not like very much, and one day, coming up with me (I went out for a walk with a gun), he attacked a hare lying near the road so that a groan and a ringing stood in my ears until the evening.

Turgenev Ivan

Steppe King Lear

I.S. Turgenev

Steppe King Lear

There were six of us, gathered one winter evening at an old university friend. The conversation turned to Shakespeare, about his types, about how they are deeply and truly snatched from the very depths of human "essence". We were especially surprised at their truth in life, their daily routine; each of us named those Hamlets, those Othellos, those Falstaffs, even those Richard IIIs and Macbeths (the latter, it is true, only in the possibility) with whom he had to face.

And I, gentlemen, - exclaimed our host, a man already elderly, - I knew one King Lear!

How so? we asked him.

Yes, the same. Do you want me to tell you?

Do me a favor.

And our friend immediately began the story.

“All my childhood,” he began, “and my first youth until the age of fifteen, I spent in the countryside, on the estate of my mother, a wealthy landowner ... in the province. Perhaps the most striking impression of that already distant time remained in my memory the figure of our nearest neighbor, a certain Martin Petrovich Kharlov. And it would be difficult to erase that impression: I have never seen anything like Kharlov in my life. Imagine a man of gigantic stature! head, a whole mop of tangled yellow-gray hair rose above it, starting almost from the most disheveled eyebrows. On the vast area of ​​the dove-gray, as if peeling, face stuck out a huge knobby nose, tiny blue eyes bulged haughtily, and a mouth opened, also tiny, but crooked. , cracked, of the same color as the rest of the face. The voice came out of this mouth, although hoarse, but extremely strong and resounding ... Its sound resembled the clanging of an iron x lanes, carried in a cart along a bad pavement - and Harlov spoke, as if shouting to someone in a strong wind through a wide ravine. It was hard to tell what exactly Harlov's face was expressing, it was so expansive... Sometimes you couldn't see it with one glance! But it was not unpleasant - some even majesty was noticed in it, only it was very marvelous and unusual. And what were his hands - the same pillows! What fingers, what legs! I remember that, without a certain respectful horror, I could not look at Martin Petrovich's two-yard back, at his shoulders, like millstones. But I was especially struck by his ears! Perfect rolls - with wraps and arches; cheeks and lifted them on both sides. Martyn Petrovich wore both winter and summer a Cossack made of green cloth, girded with a Circassian strap, and oiled boots; I never saw a tie on him, and besides what would he tie a tie around? He breathed long and hard, like a bull, but he walked without noise. One might have thought that, having got into the room, he was constantly afraid of interrupting and upsetting everything, and therefore he moved from place to place carefully, more and more sideways, as if stealthily. He possessed a truly Herculean strength and, as a result, enjoyed great honor in the neighborhood: our people still revere the heroes. There were even legends about him: they said that he once met a bear in the forest and almost overcame him; that, having found a strange peasant thief in his apiary, he, together with a cart and a horse, threw him over the wattle fence, and the like. Harlov himself never boasted of his strength. “If my right hand is blessed,” he used to say, “then it was the will of God!” he was proud; only he was not proud of his strength, but of his rank, origin, his mind-reason.

Our family is from the entry (he pronounced the word Swede like that); from the entry of Harlus, - assured from, - in the reign of Ivan Vasilyevich the Dark (there it is when!) He came to Russia; and that Harlus, who entered, did not wish to be a Chukhon count - but wished to be a Russian nobleman and signed up for the golden book. Here we are, the Harlovs, where did we come from! .. And for the same reason, all of us, the Harlovs, are born blond, with bright eyes and clean faces! because snowmen!

Yes, Martyn Petrovich, - I tried to object to him, - there was no Ivan Vasilyevich the Dark at all, but there was Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible. Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich was nicknamed Dark.

Lie again! - Harlov calmly answered me, - if I say, it has become so!

One day my mother took it into her head to praise him to his face for his truly remarkable disinterestedness.

Oh, Natalya Nikolaevna! - he said almost with annoyance, - found something to praise! We, gentlemen, cannot do otherwise; so that no smerd, zemstvo, subject person would even dare to think evil of us! I am Kharlov, I take my last name out of nowhere ... (here he pointed his finger somewhere very high above him at the ceiling) and there was no honor in me ?! Yes, how is that possible?

Another time, a visiting dignitary who was visiting my mother took it into his head to play a joke on Martin Petrovich. He again spoke about the entry of Harlus, who had left for Russia ...

Under King Peas? interrupted the dignitary.

No, not under Tsar Peas, but under the Grand Duke Ivan Vasilievich the Dark.

And I think so, - continued the dignitary, - that your family is much older and goes back even to the antediluvian times, when there were still mastodons and megaloteria ...

These learned terms were completely unknown to Martin Petrovich; but he realized that the dignitary was mocking him.

Maybe, - he blurted out, - our family is definitely very ancient; at the time my ancestor arrived in Moscow, they say, a fool lived in it no worse than your excellency, and such fools are born only once in a thousand years.

The dignitary flew into a rage, and Harlov shook his head back, stuck out his chin, snorted, and was like that. Two days later he reappeared. Mother began to reproach him. "A lesson to him, ma'am," Harlov interrupted, "don't jump in vain, ask first who you're dealing with. It's still painful when you're young, you need to teach him." The dignitary was almost the same age as Harlov; but this giant is accustomed to consider all people undersized. He had great confidence in himself and was not afraid of anyone. "Can they do anything to me? Where is such a person in the world?" he asked, and suddenly began to laugh with a short but deafening laugh.

My mother was very picky about acquaintances, but Kharlova received with special cordiality and listened to a lot of things: he, about twenty-five years ago, saved her life by keeping her carriage on the edge of a deep ravine, where the horses had already fallen. The straps and harnesses were torn, but Martin Petrovich never let go of the wheel he had seized - although blood spurted from under his nails. My mother also married him: she gave him a seventeen-year-old orphan, brought up in her house; he was then forty years old. Martyn Petrovich's wife was a frail person; they say he carried her into his house in the palm of his hand, and she did not live long with him; however, she bore him two daughters. My mother, even after her death, continued to patronize Martin Petrovich; she placed his eldest daughter in a provincial boarding school, then found her a husband - and already had another in mind for the second.

A calm, free account of past events.

Beginning characteristic of Turgenev. On a winter evening, six people gathered at an old university friend. The people seem to be middle-aged and educated. Among other things, they talked about Shakespeare, that his types were truly "snatched from the very depths of the human "essence." Everyone called those Hamlets, Othello and other heroes of Shakespeare's tragedies who happened to meet among those around him. And the owner "knew one King Lear" and, at the request of the others, immediately "began to narrate."

The narrator spent his childhood and youth in the countryside, on the estate of his mother, a wealthy landowner. Their closest neighbor was Martyn Petrovich Kharlov, a man of gigantic stature and extraordinary strength. Double-arched back, shoulders "like millstones", ears similar to rolls. A mop of tangled yellow-gray hair over a bluish face, a huge knobby nose and tiny blue eyes.

Amazing fearlessness and disinterestedness were characteristic of him. About 25 years ago, he saved the life of Natalya Nikolaevna (that was the name of the landowner, the mother of the narrator), keeping her carriage on the edge of a deep ravine, where the horses had already fallen. "The lines and harnesses were torn, but Martyn Petrovich never let go of the wheel he had seized - although blood spurted from under his nails."

He was proud of his ancient noble origin and believed that it obliges him to act nobly, “so that no smerd, zemstvo, subject person would even dare to think bad of us! ?! How is that possible?"

Harlov's ancestor was the Swede Harlus, who came to Russia in ancient times, "wished to be a Russian nobleman and signed up for the golden book."

His wife died, leaving two daughters, Anna and Evlampia. Neighbor Natalya Nikolaevna first married the eldest; Anna's husband was a certain Sletkin, the son of a petty official, helpful, rather vicious and greedy. For Yevlampia, the neighbor also "stored" the groom. It was a retired army major, Zhitkov, a middle-aged man, poor, who "barely knew how to read and was very stupid," but wanted to become a manager of the estate. “What else, sir, but the teeth of counting among the peasants - I understand this to the subtlety,” he used to say ... Oh, all this does not testify to the nobility of the customs of that time!

And what about the brother of the late wife of Kharlov, a certain Bychkov, nicknamed "Souvenir", "sheltered" in the house of a wealthy landowner Natalya Nikolaevna, the mother of the narrator, "as either a jester, or a freeloader." "He was a miserable man, despised by all: a hanger-on in one word." It was felt that if he had money, "the worst person would come out of him, immoral, evil, even cruel."

But, perhaps, Harlov's daughters are at their best, believing, like their father, that distant ancestors oblige?

One summer, in the evening, Martin Petrovich appeared at Natalya Nikolaevna's house, unusually thoughtful, pale. He wanted to say something, muttered incoherent words, then suddenly got out, got into his droshky and sped away. And the next day he came again and said that a week ago, when he woke up, he felt that his arm and leg were not working. Paralysis? But then he "re-entered the action."

Taking this as a warning (besides, he had a bad dream), the old man decided to divide the estate between his two daughters. He asked that the son of the landowner, who later told his friends this story, and Bychkov, who lived in her house, be present during the formal act. He also invited her manager and fiancé Yevlampia Zhitkov.

It turned out that all the papers had already been prepared and "the chamber approved," since Martyn Petrovich "spared no money" in the course of paperwork.

“Are you really leaving all your property without a trace to your daughters?
- Vestimo, without a trace.
- Well, and you yourself ... where will you live?

Harlov even waved his hands.

As where? At home, as he lived until now ... and henceforth. What could be the change?
- And you are so sure of your daughters and son-in-law?
- Do you want to talk about Volodya? About this rag? Yes, I will shove him wherever I want, and there, and here ... What is his power? And they me, the daughter, that is, to drink, dress, shoe... Have mercy! Their first duty!

In view of the importance of the moment, the landowner's neighbor frankly expressed her opinion: "Forgive me, Martyn Petrovich; your eldest, Anna, is a well-known pride, well, and the second looks like a wolf ..."
But Martyn Petrovich objected: “Yes, so that they ... My daughters ... Yes, so that I ... Get out of obedience? Yes, even in a dream ... Resist? Who? Parent? .. Dare? And curse - then they are really long? In trembling and in humility they lived their lives - and suddenly ... Lord!

Apparently, life in awe and in humility is not the best teacher.

The day has come to "commit the formal act." Property division. Everything was very solemn.
Martyn Petrovich put on a militia outfit of the 12th year, a bronze medal flaunted on his chest, a saber hung on his side. And what a great pose. The left hand is on the hilt of the saber, the right hand is on the table covered with red cloth. And on the table - two sheets of paper covered with writing - an act that was to be signed.

"And what importance was expressed in his posture, what self-confidence, in his unlimited and undoubted power!"

Martin Petrovich, for all his disinterestedness, was not without certain human weaknesses. The desire to show off, show off your importance and flaunt your beneficence! "Give alms in secret," says the Gospel. (Probably, this applies not only to almsgiving, but to any good deed.)

Everything was solemn, very solemn... And the priest was present. But they did not remember that there are still good rules in the Gospel, for example: "He who exalts himself will be humbled." If people didn’t do what they did ... at least they knew about these principles of human relations. But look, for example, at the police officer, the representative of the zemstvo court. What does he care about all principles! "A fat, pale, untidy gentleman ... with a constant, albeit cheerful, but trashy smile on his face: he was known as a great bribe-taker ... In essence, he was interested in one upcoming snack with vodka."

“Here, take it, read it! Otherwise it’s hard for me. Just look, don’t lotuse! So that all the gentlemen present can penetrate,” Martin Petrovich ordered his son-in-law, who was standing at the door with an obsequious air, rather unceremoniously.
And Martyn Petrovich wished to read the last phrase of the act himself. "And to fulfill and observe this parental will of my daughters sacredly and inviolably, like a commandment; for after God I am their father and head, and I am not obliged to give an account to anyone and never gave..."

It was a self-made "paper", drawn up at the direction of Martyn Petrovich in a very flowery and impressive manner, and the real deed of gift, drawn up according to the form, "without any of these flowers", was then read by the police officer.
But that was not all.

The "taking into possession" of the two new landowners took place on the porch in the presence of peasants, courtyards, as well as witnesses and neighbors. The police officer (that same "fat little gentleman with ... a cheerful but cheesy smile on his face"), gave his face a "formidable look" and inspired the peasants "about obedience." Although there are no more "pacified physiognomies" than those of the Kharlov peasants. "Cloaked in thin coats and torn sheepskin coats," the peasants stood motionless, and as soon as the police officer uttered an "interjection" like: "Listen, devils! You see, devils!" drilled them properly.

Oh, how much more was to come in the next 100-150 years! Of course, "blessed are the humble," "blessed are the meek," the Gospel affirms. But this is when everyone around is humble and meek - not out of fear, but out of inner conviction. It was still very far from that level. It was still to be in the future, having straightened up a little, to smash the landowners' estates; then again experience the semblance of serfdom: without passports, without the right to speak a word freely, with forced hard labor for empty "sticks" instead of workdays; under the rule of new "drivers" who grew up from their own environment, not from landowners or kulaks.

Someday, with a different level of technical equipment, consciousness, relationships - maybe everyone will become merciful, meek, pure in heart. But then, in the time of Turgenev... And how sensitively he noticed all the important details of the life of that time, how he managed to convey them - accurately, realistically, vividly. Too long, detailed? On the other hand, if you read everything in Turgenev, a vivid picture arises, which explains a lot even in our current shortcomings.
Kharlov himself did not want to go out onto the porch: "My subjects will submit to my will anyway!"

Either he suddenly took it into his head to show off for the last time, or something else came into his head, but then he barked through the window: "Obey!"

Daughters, new landowners, behaved importantly. And the son-in-law of Martin Petrovich Sletkin has especially changed. "The movements of the head and legs remained obsequious," but the whole look now said: "Finally, they say, I got it!"
There was a prayer service. Anna and Evlampia, who had previously bowed to the ground to Martin Petrovich, again, at the order of their father, "thanked him earthly."

Then a feast, toasts. And suddenly the miserable, fussy Souvenir (the brother of Harlov's late wife), apparently drunk, "burst into his flabby, trashy laughter" and began to predict what they would do with Martyn Petrovich in the future: "Bare back ... yes to the snow!"

“What are you lying about? Fool!” Harlov said contemptuously.
- Fool! fool! Souvenir repeated. - The only Almighty God knows which of us both is a real fool. But you, brother, my sister, your wife have killed ... "

In general, conversations during the feast were frank. Finally, Martin Petrovich turned his back on everyone and went out. Then everyone dispersed.

Soon, a neighbor landowner with her son (who later told her friends the whole story) left for the village to her sister, and returning to their village at the end of September, they suddenly learned from the servant that Martyn Petrovich "became the last person, as he is," that now Sletkin "wields everything," and Zhitkov, Evlampia's fiancé, was generally driven away.
Natalya Nikolaevna, (a neighbor of the landowner), invited Kharlov and Sletkin to her place. Martyn Petrovich did not appear, and in response to her letter he sent a quarter of a piece of paper on which it was written in large letters:

Sletkin appeared, although not immediately, but the conversation was short, he left the landowner's office all red, with a "poisonous-evil and insolent expression on his face." It was then ordered that Sletkin and Kharlov's daughters, if they decide to appear, "not allow".

Sletkin, in the past a pupil of the landowner, a neighbor of Harlov, was an orphan. With curly hair, eyes as black as boiled prunes, and a hawk-like nose, he "resembled a Jewish type." First, he was “placed” in a district school, then he entered the “patrimonial office”, then he was “enrolled in the service of state-owned stores, and, finally, “married to the daughter of Martyn Petrovich. Eternal dependence - first on the benefactor who sheltered him, then on the whims of Martyn Petrovich, apparently did little to instill in him dignity and generosity.

Who were his ancestors? From Jews, Gypsies, Moldovans? From Armenians or other Caucasians? Why "black, like boiled prunes, eyes", curly hair, hawk nose? What does his genetic memory store, what wanderings, disasters? Yes, it is hardly worth rummaging through the genes, when his entire conscious life also did not contribute to the purification of the soul.

In Krylov's fable it is said about one unfortunate bird: "And she fell behind the crows, and did not stick to the peahens." On the one hand, the gentlemen, like peacocks, proud of their master's position, on the other, a dark barrenness, from which he has long lagged behind.
Anna, Kharlov's daughter, whom Sletkin was "married", was outwardly attractive - lean, with a beautiful swarthy face and pale blue eyes. But "everyone, looking at her, probably would have thought: "Well, what a clever girl you are - and a mean one!" There was something "snake" in her beautiful face.

And this is what Yevlampia looked like: a "impressive beauty", tall, portly, large. Blond thick braid, dark blue eyes with a veil. "But there was something wild and almost stern in the look of her huge eyes." She apparently inherited many of her features from Martin Petrovich.

The boy, the son of the landowner, (on whose behalf many years later the story is told), went hunting with a gun and a dog. In the grove, he heard voices not far away, and soon Sletkin and Evlampia unexpectedly came out into the clearing. At the same time, Evlampia was somehow embarrassed, and Sletkin started a conversation and said that Martyn Petrovich "at first was offended", but now he "has become completely quiet." As for the groom who was refused, Sletkin explained that Zhitkov, (retired major), unsuitable person for housekeeping.

"- I, he says, can repair reprisals with a peasant. Because - I'm used to punching in the face!" (This is him, serving in the army, so used to it.)
"- He can't do anything. And you need to beat him in the face skillfully. But Yevlampia Martynovna herself refused him. A completely unsuitable person. All our household would be lost with him!"

Wandering through the forest, the boy then again met Sletkin and Evlampia on the lawn. Sletkin lay on his back with both hands under his head and slightly swaying his left leg, "thrown over his right knee."
Across the lawn, a few paces from Sletkin, Evlampia paced slowly, with downcast eyes, and sang in an undertone. The lyrics of the song speak volumes.

"You find it, you find it, a formidable cloud,
You kill, you kill father-in-law.
You smash, smash your mother-in-law,
And I'll kill my young wife myself!"

Anna then, going out onto the porch, looked for a long time in the direction of the grove, even asking a peasant passing through the yard if the master had returned.

“I didn’t see ... netuti,” answered the man, taking off his hat.

The boy later met Martin Petrovich himself at the pond, who was sitting with a fishing rod. "But what rags he was wearing and how he sank all over!"
A 15-year-old boy, wanting to console the old man, allowed himself to speak about his mistake: “You were reckless that you gave everything to your daughters ... But if your daughters are so ungrateful, then you should show contempt ... precisely contempt ... and don't grieve..."

"Leave it alone!" Harlov suddenly whispered with gnashing of teeth, and his eyes, fixed on the pond, sparkled angrily... "Go away!"
- But Martin Petrovich...
"Go away, they say... otherwise I'll kill you!"

He got angry, and then it turned out that he was crying. "Tear after tear rolled from his eyelashes down his cheeks ... and his face took on a completely ferocious expression ..."
In mid-October, he suddenly appeared in the house of a neighbor of the landowner. But in what form! His despair is exacerbated by the autumn landscape.

The wind now howled dully, then whistled impetuously; the low, without any gap sky turned from an unpleasantly white color into a leaden, even more ominous color - and the rain, which poured, poured incessantly and incessantly, suddenly became even larger, even slanter and with a screech floated on the glass." Everything, both gray trees, and puddles littered with dead leaves, and impassable mud on the roads, and cold - everything made me sad.
The boy, who was standing at the window, suddenly felt that a huge bear, standing on its hind legs, rushed across the yard. Soon the monster was kneeling in the middle of the dining room before the hostess and her household. It was Martyn Petrovich - he ran on foot through impassable mud.

"- They kicked me out, madam ... Native daughters ..."

"Honor your father and mother," - it is said in the ancient biblical commandments. But here they carefully performed rituals, mainly according to tradition, forgetting (or not knowing at all) one more rule given in the Gospel: "The essence of faith is more important than the external form."
His bed was thrown into the closet, and the room was taken away. Even before that, they were left completely without money. The daughters were now subordinate to Sletkin in everything, and he seemed to take revenge on the "benefactor" who had humiliated him before.
We must still pay tribute to Martin Petrovich, he had a conscience, the abnormal structure of society often prevented it from manifesting itself.

“Madame,” groaned Harlov and thumped his chest, “I can’t bear the ingratitude of my daughters! I can’t, madam! After all, I gave them everything, everything! I changed my mind a lot ... "If only you did a favor to someone in your life! - I thought this way, - I rewarded the poor, let the peasants go free, or something, because they were stuck for a century! After all, you are responsible before God for them! That's when you shed their tears!"
Perhaps suffering eventually awakens the conscience? Maybe suffering is not useless for people?

The landowner's neighbor had a good heart. Martyn Petrovich was given a good room, the butler ran for bed linen, and just at that moment the miserable, humiliated freeloader Souvenir took the opportunity to show off the proud man who always despised him.

How many of these Bychkovs, deprived of their own housing, property, decent social status, huddled in the estates of various landowners. "Hunger", "jester", miserable beggar. Constant humiliation, aimlessness, the need to please. The trampled human personality can then turn into a terrible, unexpected side.

"- He called me a hanger-on, a parasite! "No, they say, you have your own shelter!"
Having calmed down, Martin Petrovich again began to get irritated. But the Souvenir is "like a demon possessed." After all the humiliations, this was the hour of his "triumph".
“Yes, yes, most respected one!” he crackled again, “here we are now in what slender circumstances we find ourselves! And your daughters, with your son-in-law, Vladimir Vasilyevich, under your roof make fun of you enough! promise, cursed! And you weren't enough for that! Besides, how can you compete with Vladimir Vasilyevich? They also called him Volodka! What kind of Volodka is he to you? He is Vladimir Vasilyevich, Mr. Sletkin, a landowner, a gentleman, and who are you?"

Every picture, movement, character lives, and all events seem real. It seems that the author talks about them, but in fact - shows.
And Kharlov, who had almost begun to acquire humility ("I can forgive you, after all!"), became furious as never before.

"- Blood! - you say... No! I won't curse them... They don't care! "My strength has not yet disappeared! They will find out how to mock me! .. They will not have shelter!"

And he ran away.
Natalya Nikolaevna sent the manager of the estate for him, but she could not return him.
Soon he was already standing in the attic of his former house and breaking the roof of a new outbuilding.
The manager reported to the landowner that the frightened peasants of Harlov were all hiding.

"What about his daughters?
- And daughters - nothing. They run in vain ... they cry ... What's the point?
- And Sletkin is there?
- There too. He screams more than anyone else, but he can't do anything."

In the yard of Kharlov it was still crowded: an unprecedented spectacle. He crushed everything without tools - with his bare hands. Sletkin with a gun in his hands, not daring to shoot, unsuccessfully tried to force the peasants to climb onto the roof, they obviously evaded. There was admiration for the extraordinary strength of the former owner, and fear of this strength, and more ... They almost approved of Harlov, although he surprised them.
And then "with a heavy roar the last trumpet thumped" ... Sletkin took aim, but suddenly Yevlampia "pulled him by the elbow."

"Don't interfere," he snapped at her fiercely.
- Don't you dare! - she said, - and her blue eyes flashed menacingly from under her drawn brows. The father is destroying his house. His good.
- You're lying: ours!
"You say: ours, and I say: his."

But it was too late, the old man was gone with might and main.

"Ah, great! great, my dear daughter!" Harlov boomed from above.

On Harlov's face was "a strange smile - bright, cheerful ... an evil smile ..."
But Evlampia did not flinch at that terrible moment.

"- Stop it, father; get down ... We are to blame; we will return everything to you. Get down.
- What are you doing for us? Sletkin intervened. Yevlampia only frowned more than her brows.
- I will return my part to you - I will give everything. Stop, come down, father! Forgive us; I'm sorry.

Harlov continued to smile.

It's too late, my dear, - he spoke, and his every word rang like brass. - Your stone soul moved late! It rolled downhill - now you can’t hold it! ..

You wanted to deprive me of shelter - so I will not leave you a log on a log! I laid it with my own hands, I will destroy it with my own hands - as it is with one hand! You see, I didn’t even take an ax!”

And no matter how Evlampia begged him, promising to shelter, warm, and bandage his wounds, it was all in vain. He began to swing the front rafters of the pediment, singing "in Burlatsky" - "One more time! One more time!".

The manager of Natalya Nikolaevna, who arrived again, took some measures, but to no avail. "The front pair of rafters, violently swaying, tilted, crackled and collapsed into the yard - and with it, unable to resist, Harlov himself collapsed and heavily cracked to the ground. Everyone shuddered, gasped ... Harlov lay motionless on his chest, and in the longitudinal upper beam of the roof rested on his back, the ridge that followed the fallen pediment.
"The back of his head was broken with a beam, and he crushed his chest, as it turned out during the autopsy."

Nevertheless, this steppe bear, semi-literate, wild, ferocious, evokes involuntary sympathy and even sometimes respect. Before his death, he still had time to utter, barely audibly, the last words addressed to Evlampia: “Well, daughter ... ka ... I’m not talking about you ...” What he wanted to say: “I’m not talking about you ... I curse or I do not forgive"? Most likely, it was still forgiveness.
As a result, alas, Martyn Petrovich, endowed with extraordinary strength, did nothing socially useful - he destroyed the wing, but showed off his neighbors.

Well, we looked into the rural wilderness of the middle of the 19th century. How much unceremonious pride and a number of miserable, boundless humiliation. Here each character acts in accordance with his character and, of course, the conditions. Here the abnormal, the outrageous, sometimes seems normal to them. But the souls of the downtrodden peasants slowly acquire sometimes a vague feeling: what is fair and what is "not divine", they react instinctively to good and evil. Gradually, imperceptibly, a sense of justice breaks through in them, at least a spark of kindness.

A 15-year-old teenager, who observed all these events, noticed a lot: how Sletkin and his wife became "the subject of an albeit silent, but general alienation," and Evlampia, "although her fault was probably no less than her sister, this alienation did not extend. She even aroused some regret for herself when she fell at the feet of her deceased father. But that she was to blame, it was still felt by everyone.

"They offended an old man," said some peasant..., "it's a sin on your soul! They offended you!" This word "offended!" was immediately accepted by all as an irrevocable sentence. People's justice has affected ... "

A few days later, Evlampia left home forever, giving her part of the estate to her sister, taking only a few hundred rubles.

Subsequently, the narrator saw both sisters. Anna became a widow and an excellent mistress of the estate, she kept herself calm, with dignity, and none of the local landowners knew how to "exhibit and defend their rights more convincingly." She spoke "a little and in a low voice, but every word hit the target." She had three well-bred children, two daughters and a son. Local landowners said that she was "a rogue rogue; a miser", poisoned her husband, etc. But from herself, from her family, life - she breathed contentment. "Everything in the world is given to a person not according to his merits, but due to - something not yet known, but logical laws," the narrator reflects, "sometimes it seems to me that I vaguely feel them."
What did he vaguely feel? What are these laws? It's a pity he didn't make the vague clear.

Evlampia met him by chance a few years later in a small village near St. Petersburg. There, at the crossroads of two roads, surrounded by a high and tight palisade, stood a lonely house, where the leader of the "Khlysty-schismatics" lived.

Who are these schismatics? A sect that arose in Russia in the 17th century.

They said that they "live without priests", and they call their leader "Mother of God".

And one day I saw her. From the gates of a lonely mysterious house a cart rolled out onto the road, in which sat a man of about 30 "remarkably beautiful and good-looking", and next to him was a tall woman in an expensive black shawl and "velvet shushun" - Yevlampia Kharlova. Wrinkles appeared on her face, but "the expression of this face has especially changed! It is difficult to put into words how self-confident, stern, proud it became! Not just calmness of power - every feature breathed satiety of power ..."

How did Evlampia get into the Khlystov Mother of God? Why did Sletkin die? What are the "not yet known laws" on the basis of which "everything in the world is given to man"?

There are unsolved mysteries in life. Turgenev is first of all an artist, not a philosopher, and here he draws life as it was perceived by the narrator, without necessarily trying to answer all the questions that arise in this case.
The end of the story is business-like, calm, bringing us back to its beginning, when six old university comrades met on a winter evening and slowly talked about Shakespearean types, sometimes encountered in everyday life.
The narrator fell silent, the friends talked a little more and then parted.

There are "still unknown laws" and unsolved mysteries. But the laws of behavior and relationships have been known to man for a long time - the commandments, the constant violation of which just leads to suffering, sooner or later for everyone, either on earth, or, as the sages say, in some other life.

For example, even before our era, it was said to a person: "Honor your father and mother" (regardless of their merits or demerits, wealth or poverty). King Lear suffered from the failure to fulfill this commandment.

Or, for example: "As you want people to do to you, so do you to them," Jesus Christ called in the Sermon on the Mount. That is, take care of someone else's life, dignity, interests. If all of us had been better brought up from childhood, we would all have learned to create conditions more and more favorable for the fulfillment of the commandments. This is still ahead - a challenge for the 21st century and beyond.