“Spring waters. Heroes of the story "Spring Waters" by Turgenev: characteristics of the main characters Turgenev's pomegranate cross

The story is prefaced by a quatrain from an old Russian romance:
happy years,
Happy Days -
Like spring waters
They rushed
Apparently, it will be about love, youth. Maybe in the form of memories? Yes indeed. "About one o'clock in the night he returned to his study. He sent out a servant who lit the candles, and throwing himself into an armchair near the fireplace, covered his face with both hands."
Well, apparently, “he” (from our point of view) lives well, no matter who he is: the servant lights the candles, he lit the fireplace for him. As it turns out later, he spent the evening with pleasant ladies, with educated men. In addition: some of the ladies were beautiful, almost all the men were smart and talented. He also sparkled in the conversation. Why is he now strangled by "aversion to life"?
And what is he (Dmitry Pavlovich Sanin) thinking about in the quiet of a cozy warm office? "About the vanity, uselessness, vulgar falsity of everything human." That's it, no more, no less!
He is 52 years old, he remembers all ages and sees no light. “Everywhere is the same eternal transfusion from empty to empty, the same pounding of water, the same half-conscientious, half-conscious self-deception ... - and then suddenly, just like snow on your head, old age will come - and with it ... the fear of death ... and bang into the abyss!" And before the end of weakness, suffering ...
To divert himself from unpleasant thoughts, he sat down at his desk, began to rummage through his papers, through old women's letters, intending to burn this unnecessary rubbish. Suddenly he cried out weakly: in one of the boxes there was a box in which lay a small pomegranate cross.
He again sat down in an armchair by the fireplace - and again covered his face with his hands. "... And he remembered a lot, long past ... That's what he remembered ..."
In the summer of 1840 he was in Frankfurt, returning from Italy to Russia. After the death of a distant relative, he had several thousand rubles; he decided to live them abroad, and then do not serve.
At that time, tourists traveled in stagecoaches: there were still few railways. Sanin was to leave for Berlin that day.
Walking around the city, at six o'clock in the evening he went to the "Italian confectionery" to drink a glass of lemonade. There was no one in the first room, then a girl of 19 years old "with dark curls scattered over her bare shoulders, with bare arms outstretched forward" ran in from the next room. Seeing Sanin, the stranger grabbed his hand and led him along. "Hurry, hurry, here, save!" she said in a breathless voice. He had never seen such a beauty in his life.
In the next room lay on the sofa her brother, a boy of 14, pale, with blue lips. It was a sudden collapse. A tiny, shaggy old man with crooked legs hobbled into the room and said that he had sent for a doctor...
"- But Emil will die for now!" the girl exclaimed and held out her hands to Sanin, begging for help. He took off the boy's frock coat, unbuttoned his shirt, and, taking a brush, began to rub his chest and arms. At the same time, he glanced askance at the extraordinary beauty of the Italian. The nose is a little big, but "beautiful, aquiline fret", dark gray eyes, long dark curls ...
Finally, the boy woke up, soon a lady with silver-gray hair and a swarthy face appeared, as it turns out, the mother of Emil and his sister. At the same time the maid came with the doctor.
Fearing that now he was superfluous, Sanin went out, but the girl caught up with him and begged him to return in an hour "for a cup of chocolate." "- We owe you so much - you may have saved your brother - we want to thank you - mom wants. You must tell us who you are, you must rejoice with us ..."
An hour and a half later he showed up. All the inhabitants of the candy store seemed unspeakably happy. On a round table, covered with a clean tablecloth, stood a huge porcelain coffee pot filled with fragrant chocolate; around the cup, carafes of syrup, biscuits, rolls. Candles burned in ancient silver chandeliers.
Sanin was seated in an easy chair and forced to tell about himself; in turn, the ladies let him in on the details of their lives. They are all Italians. Mother - a lady with silver-gray hair and a swarthy face "almost completely Germanized", since her late husband, an experienced confectioner, settled in Germany 25 years ago; daughter Gemma and son Emil "very good and obedient children"; a little old man named Pantaleone, it turns out, was once an opera singer, but now "in the Roselli family he was something between a friend of the house and a servant."
The mother of the family, Frau Lenore, imagined Russia like this: "eternal snow, everyone wears fur coats and all the military - but the hospitality is extraordinary! Sanin tried to give her and her daughter more accurate information." He even sang "Sarafan" and "On the pavement street", and then Pushkin's "I remember a wonderful moment" to the music of Glinka, somehow accompanying himself on the piano. The ladies admired the ease and sonority of the Russian language, then they sang several Italian duets. The former singer Pantaleone also tried to perform something, some kind of "extraordinary grace", but failed. And then Emil suggested that the sister read to the guest "one of Maltz's comedies, which she reads so well."
Gemma read "quite like an actor," "using her facial expressions." Sanin admired her so much that he did not notice how the evening flew by and completely forgot that at half past ten his stagecoach departed. When the clock struck 10 in the evening, he jumped up as if stung. Late!
“Did you pay all the money, or did you just give a deposit?” Frau Lenore asked curiously.
- All! Sanin cried out with a sad grimace.
“Now you must stay in Frankfurt for several days,” Gemma told him, “where are you in a hurry ?!”
He knew that he would have to stay "because of the emptiness of his wallet" and ask a Berlin friend to send money.
"Stay, stay," Frau Lenore also said. "We will introduce you to Gemma's fiancé, Mr. Karl Klüber."
Sanin was slightly taken aback by this news.
And the next day, guests came to his hotel: Emil and with him a tall young man "with a handsome face" - Gemma's fiancé.
The groom said that he "wanted to express his respect and his gratitude to the foreigner, who rendered such an important service to the future relative, the brother of his bride."
Mr. Klüber hurried to his shop - "business first!" - and Emil still visited Sanin and told that his mother, under the influence of Mr. Klüber, wants to make a merchant out of him, while his vocation is the theater.
Sanin was invited to his new friends for breakfast and stayed until the evening. Around Gemma, everything seemed pleasant and sweet. "Great charms lurk in the monotonously quiet and smooth course of life" ... With the onset of night, when he went home, the "image" of Gemma did not leave him. And the next day, in the morning, Emil appeared to him and announced that Herr Klüber, (who had invited everyone the day before for a pleasure ride), would now arrive with a carriage. A quarter of an hour later Kluber, Sanin and Emil drove up to the porch of the confectionery. Frau Lenore stayed at home because of a headache, but sent Gemma with them.
Let's go to Soden - a small town near Frankfurt. Sanin furtively watched Gemma and her fiancé. She behaved calmly and simply, but still somewhat more seriously than usual, and the groom "looked like a condescending mentor"; he also treated nature "with the same indulgence through which the usual bossy severity occasionally broke through."
Then lunch, coffee; nothing remarkable. But rather drunken officers were sitting at one of the neighboring tables, and suddenly one of them approached Gemma. He had already managed to visit Frankfurt and apparently knew her. “I drink to the health of the most beautiful coffee shop in the whole of Frankfurt, in the whole world (he “popped” the glass at once) - and in retribution I take this flower, plucked by her divine fingers!” At the same time, he took the rose that lay in front of her. At first she was frightened, then anger flashed in her eyes! Her gaze confused the drunk, who, muttering something, "went back to his own."
Herr Klüber, putting on his hat, said: "This is unheard of! Unheard of insolence!" and demanded an immediate settlement from the waiter. He also ordered the carriage to be laid down, since "decent people cannot travel here, because they are insulted!"
"Get up, Main Fraulein," Herr Klüber said with the same severity, "it's indecent for you to stay here. We'll settle down there, in the tavern!"
Hand in hand with Gemma, he marched majestically to the inn. Emil followed them.
Meanwhile, Sanin, as befits a nobleman, went up to the table where the officers were sitting and said in French to the offender: "You are an ill-mannered impudent one." He jumped up, and another officer, older, stopped him and asked Sanin, also in French, who he was to that girl.
Sanin, throwing his business card on the table, declared that he was a stranger to the girl, but he could not see such insolence with indifference. He grabbed the rose he had taken from Gemma and left, having received the assurance that "tomorrow morning one of the officers of their regiment will have the honor to come to his apartment."
The groom pretended not to notice Sanin's act. Gemma didn't say anything either. And Emil was ready to throw himself on the neck of the hero or go with him to fight with the offenders.
Klüber ranted all the way: about the fact that they should not have listened to him when he offered to dine in a closed arbor, about morality and immorality, about decency and a sense of dignity ... Gradually, Gemma clearly became embarrassed for her fiancé. And Sanin secretly rejoiced at everything that happened, and at the end of the trip he handed her that same rose. She flushed and squeezed his hand.
This is how this love started.
In the morning a second appeared and said that his friend, Baron von Donhof, "would be satisfied with a slight apology." It wasn't there. Sanin replied that he did not intend to give either heavy or light apologies, and when the second left, he could not figure it out: “How did life suddenly spin like that? I'm fighting with someone in Frankfurt for something."
Pantaleone unexpectedly appeared with a note from Gemma: she was worried and asked Sanin to come. Sanin promised and at the same time invited Pantaleone as a second: there were no other candidates. The old man, shaking his hand, pompously said: "- Noble young man! Great heart! .." and promised to give an answer soon. An hour later, he appeared very solemnly, handed Sanin his old business card, agreed, and said that "honor is above all!" and so on.
Then the negotiations between the two seconds ... They worked out the conditions: "To shoot Baron von Donhof and Mr. de Sanin tomorrow, at 10 o'clock in the morning ... at a distance of 20 steps. Old Pantaleone seemed to be younger; these events seemed to take him to that era when he stage "accepted and made challenges": operatic baritones "are known to be very cocky in their roles."
After spending the evening at the house of the Roselli family, Sanin went out late in the evening on the porch and walked along the street. “And how many of them poured out, these stars ... All of them glowed and swarmed, vying with each other, playing with rays,” Having caught up with the house in which the confectionery was located, he saw: a dark window opened and a female figure appeared in it. Gemma!
The surrounding nature seems to react sensitively to what is happening in the soul. Suddenly a gust of wind came up, "the earth seemed to tremble underfoot, the thin starlight trembled and streamed ..." And again silence. Sanin saw such a beauty "that his heart sank."
"- I wanted to give you this flower ... She threw him an already withered rose, which he won back the day before. And the window slammed shut."
He fell asleep only in the morning. "Instantly, like that whirlwind, love came upon him." A stupid duel ahead! "And suddenly he will be killed or maimed?"
Sanin and Pantaleone were the first to arrive in the woods where the duel was to take place. Then both officers appeared, accompanied by a doctor; "a bag of surgical instruments and bandages dangled over his left shoulder."
What are the apt characteristics of the participants.
Doctor. "It was evident that he was utterly used to such excursions ... each duel brought him 8 chervonets - 4 from each of the warring parties." Sanin, a romantic in love. "Pantaleone!" Sanin whispered to the old man, "if... if they kill me, anything can happen, get a piece of paper out of my side pocket - a flower is wrapped in it - give this piece of paper to signora Gemma. Do you hear? Do you promise?"
But Pantaleone hardly heard anything. By this time he had lost all theatrical pathos and at the decisive moment suddenly yelled:
"- A la-la-la ... What a wildness! Two such young men are fighting - why? What the hell? Go home!"
Sanin fired first and missed, the bullet "tinkled against a tree." Baron Denhof deliberately "fired to the side, into the air."
"Why did you fire into the air?" Sanin asked.
- It's none of your business.
- Will you shoot into the air for the second time? Sanin asked again.
- May be; Don't know".
Of course, Donhof felt that during the dinner he did not behave in the best way and did not want to kill an innocent person. Still, he had no conscience, apparently.
"I refuse my shot," Sanin said and threw the pistol on the ground.
“And I don’t intend to continue the duel either,” Donhof exclaimed and also threw down his pistol ... "
Both shook hands. Then the second announced:
"Honor is satisfied - and the duel is over!"
Returning from the duel in the carriage, Sanin felt relieved in his soul and at the same time "was a little ashamed and ashamed ..." But Pantaleone again perked up and now behaved like "a victorious general returning from the field of a battle he won." Emil was waiting for them on the road. "- You are alive, you are not injured!"
They arrived at the hotel and there suddenly a woman came out of a dark corridor, "her face was covered with a veil." She immediately disappeared, but Sanin recognized Gemma "under the thick silk of a brown veil."
Then Madame Lenore appeared to Sanin: Gemma told her that she did not want to marry Mr. Klüber.
"- You acted like a noble person; but what an unfortunate set of circumstances!"
The circumstances were really gloomy, as usual largely due to social reasons.
"- I'm not talking about ... that it's a shame for us that this has never happened in the world for the bride to refuse the groom; but this is ruin for us ... We can no longer live on income from our store ... but Mr. Kluber very rich and will be even richer. And why should he be refused? Because he did not stand up for his bride? Let's suppose that this is not entirely good of him, but he is a stately man, he was not brought up at the university and, as a respectable merchant , had to despise the frivolous prank of an unknown officer. And what an insult it is ...! "
Frau Lenore had her own understanding of the situation.
"- And how will Mr. Kluber trade in the store if he fights with customers? This is completely incongruous! And now ... refuse? But how are we going to live?"
It turned out that the dish, which before only their confectionery prepared, now everyone began to do it, many competitors appeared.
Perhaps, not wanting it himself, Turgenev revealed the whole ins and outs of the then morals, relationships, suffering. The hard way, century after century, people go to a new understanding of life; or rather, to the one that arose at the dawn of human civilization, but still has by no means captured the mass consciousness because it is still intertwined with many erroneous and cruel ideas. People go the way of suffering, through trial and error... "Make everything smooth"... - called Christ. He talked about the social structure, and not about the terrain. And not about universal barracks equality of income, but about equality of opportunities to realize oneself; and about the level of mass spiritual development, probably.
The main moral law is the idea of universal equality of opportunity. Without any privileges, advantages. When this idea is fully implemented, all people will be able to love each other. After all, there can be no true friendship, not only between the oppressor and the oppressed, but also between the privileged and those deprived of these privileges.
And now, it seems, almost the culmination of this, in its own way tragic, albeit ordinary story. Sanin must ask Gemma not to reject Mr. Klüber. Frau Lenore begs him about this.
"- She must believe you - you risked your life! .. You will prove to her that she will destroy herself and all of us. You saved my son - save my daughter too! God himself sent you here ... I am ready to ask you on my knees …"
What should Sanya do?
"Frau Lenore, think why on earth I...
- Do you promise? Don't you want me to die right there, now, in front of you?"
How could he help them when there was nothing even to buy a return ticket? After all, they are, in essence, on the verge of death; The bakery doesn't feed them anymore.
"I'll do whatever you want!" he exclaimed. "I'll talk to Fraulein Gemma..."
He was in a terrible position! First, this duel ... If a more ruthless person were in the place of the baron, he could easily kill or maim. And now the situation is even worse.
"Here," he thought, "now life is spinning! And it's spinning so much that my head is spinning."
Sensations, impressions, unsaid, not quite conscious thoughts ... And above all this - the image of Gemma, that image that so indelibly crashed into his memory on that warm night, in a dark window, under the rays of swarming stars!
What to say to Gemma? Frau Lenore was waiting for him. "Go into the garden; she is there. Look, I'm counting on you!"
Gemma was sitting on a bench picking the ripest cherries from a large basket of cherries. He sat down next to me.
"You dueled today," said Gemma. Her eyes glowed with gratitude.
"- And all this because of me ... for me ... I will never forget this."
Here are just snippets of that conversation. At the same time, he saw "her thin, clean profile, and it seemed to him that he had never seen anything like it - and did not experience anything like what he felt at that moment. His soul flared up."
It was about Mr. Kluber.
"What advice would you give me...?" she asked after a while.
Her hands were trembling. He quietly laid his hand on those pale, trembling fingers.
“I will listen to you ... but what advice will you give me?”
He began to explain: “Your mother believes that to refuse Mr. Klüber only because he did not show special courage the third day ...
- Just because? Gemma said...
- What ... in general ... refuse ...
- But what is your opinion?
- My? - ... He felt something come up to him under the throat and took away his breath. "I suppose so too," he began with an effort...
Gemma straightened up.
- Same? You too?
- Yes ... that is ... - Sanin could not, resolutely could not add a single word.
She promised: "I'll tell my mother ... I'll think about it."
Frau Lenore appeared at the threshold of the door leading from the house to the garden.
"No, no, no, for God's sake don't say anything to her yet," Sanin said hastily, almost frightened.
At home, he mournfully and muffledly exclaimed: "I love her, I love her madly!"
Recklessly, carelessly, he rushed forward. “Now he didn’t reason about anything, didn’t think anything, didn’t calculate and didn’t foresee ...”
He immediately, "almost with a stroke of the pen," wrote a letter:
"Dear Gemma!
You know what advice I have taken upon myself to give you, you know what your mother wants and what she asked me to do, but what you do not know and what I am obliged to tell you now is that I love you, love you. with all the passion of a heart that fell in love for the first time! This fire broke out in me suddenly, but with such force that I cannot find words!! When your mother came to me and asked me - he was still smoldering in me - otherwise, as an honest person, I probably would have refused to fulfill her order ... The very confession that I am now making to you is the confession of an honest person. You must know who you are dealing with - there must be no misunderstanding between us. You see that I cannot give you any advice ... I love you, love, love - and I have nothing else - neither in my mind nor in my heart !!
Dm. Sanin".
It's already night. How to send a letter. It’s embarrassing through the waiter ... He left the hotel and suddenly met Emil, who gladly undertook to convey the letter and soon brought an answer.
"I beg you, I beg you - do not come to us all tomorrow, do not show yourself. I need this, I absolutely need it - and everything will be decided there. I know you will not refuse me, because ...
Gemma."
The whole next day, Sanin and Emil walked in the vicinity of Frankfurt, talking. All the time it seemed to Sanin that tomorrow would bring him unprecedented happiness! "His hour has finally come, the veil has been lifted..."
Returning to the hotel, he found a note, Gemma made an appointment for him the next day, in one of the gardens that surrounded Frankfurt, at 7 o'clock in the morning.
"There was one happy man in Frankfurt that night..."
"Seven! The clock on the tower chimed." Let's skip all the details. There are so many of them everywhere. The experiences of a lover, the weather, the surrounding landscape ...
Gemma arrived shortly. She was wearing a gray mantilla and a small dark hat, in her hands was a small umbrella.
"You're not angry with me?" Sanin finally said. It was hard for Sanin to say anything more stupid than these words... he himself was aware of it...
Well, and so on. How much sincere, naive enthusiasm! How happy he is, how selflessly, selflessly in love!
"Trust me, trust me," he said.
And the reader no longer believes in this cloudless happy moment ... nor Sanin, who is infinitely honest, turned his whole soul inside out; nor the author, truthful and talented; nor Gemma, who recklessly rejected a very advantageous suitor; no, the reader does not believe that such a cloudless, complete happiness is possible in life. It can't be... "There is no happiness in the world...", even Pushkin asserted expertly. Something must happen. We are seized by some kind of sad alertness, we feel sorry for these young and beautiful lovers, so gullible, so recklessly honest. "- I fell in love with you from the very moment I saw you - but I did not immediately understand what you became for me! Besides, I heard that you were an engaged bride ..."
And then Gemma said that she had refused the groom!
"To himself?
- Himself. We have in the house. He came to us.
- Gemma! So you love me?
She turned to him.
- Otherwise... Would I have come here? she whispered, and both her hands fell on the bench.
Sanin seized these powerless, palms up hands, and pressed them to his eyes, to his lips ... Here it is, happiness, here is his radiant face!
Another whole page will be occupied by talk of happiness.
“Could I think,” continued Sanin, “could I think, driving up to Frankfurt, where I supposed to stay only a few hours, that I would find here the happiness of my whole life!
- All life? Right? asked Gemma.
- All life, forever and ever! Sanin exclaimed with a new impulse.
"If she had told him at that moment: "Throw yourself into the sea ..." - he would have already flown into the abyss.
Sanin had to go to Russia before the wedding to sell the estate. Frau Lenore was surprised: "So you will sell the peasants too?" (He had once expressed indignation at serfdom in a conversation.)
“I will try to sell my estate to a person whom I will know well,” he said, not without hesitation, “or perhaps the peasants themselves will want to pay off.
"That's the best," agreed Frau Lenore. “And then sell living people…”
In the garden after dinner, Gemma gave Sanin a pomegranate cross, but at the same time she reminded selflessly and modestly: "You must not consider yourself bound" ...
8
How to sell the estate as soon as possible? At the pinnacle of happiness, this practical question tormented Sanin. With the hope of coming up with something, he went out the next morning to take a walk, "ventilate" and unexpectedly met Ippolit Polozov, with whom he had once studied together in a boarding school.
Polozov's appearance is quite remarkable: fat, plump, small pig eyes with white eyelashes and eyebrows, a sour expression on his face. And the character matches the appearance. He was a sleepy phlegmatic, indifferent to everything except food. Sanin heard that his wife was beautiful and, in addition, very rich. And now, it turns out, for the second year they live in Wiesbaden, next door to Frankfurt; Polozov came for one day for shopping: his wife instructed, and today he is returning back.
The friends went to have breakfast together at one of the best hotels in Frankfurt, where Polozov occupied the best room.
And Sanin suddenly had an unexpected thought. If the wife of this sleepy phlegmatic is very rich - "they say she is the daughter of some farmer" - will she not buy the estate for "a fair price"?
“I don’t buy estates: there is no capital,” said the phlegmatic. - "Unless my wife will buy it. You talk to her." And even before that, he mentioned that he did not interfere in the affairs of his wife. "She's on her own ... well, I'm on my own."
Having learned that Sanin "started to marry", and the bride "without capital", he asked:
“So, love is very strong, isn’t it?
- You're so funny! Yes, strong.
- And for this you need money?
“Well, yes… yes, yes.”
In the end, Polozov promised to take his friend in his carriage to Wiesbaden.
Now everything depends on Mrs. Polozova. Would she be willing to help? How would that speed up the wedding!
Saying goodbye to Gemma, left alone with her for a moment, Sanin "fell at the feet of a dear girl."
“Are you mine?” she whispered, “will you be back soon?
- I'm yours ... I'll be back, - he repeated breathlessly.
"I'll be waiting for you, my dear!"
The hotel in Wiesbaden looked like a palace. Sanin took a cheaper room and, after resting, went to Polozov's. He sat "in a luxurious velvet armchair in the middle of a magnificent salon." Sanin wanted to speak, but suddenly "a young, beautiful lady in a white silk dress, with black lace, with diamonds on her arms and around her neck - Marya Nikolaevna Polozova herself" appeared suddenly.
"Yes, they really told me: this lady is anywhere!" Sanin thought. His soul was filled with Gemma, other women did not matter to him now.
“Mrs. Polozova quite clearly showed traces of her plebeian origin. Her forehead was low, her nose was somewhat fleshy and upturned” ... Well, the fact that her forehead is low still, apparently, does not mean anything: she is smart, it will soon become clear, and in she has a great charm, something powerful, daring, "not that Russian, not that gypsy" ... What about conscientiousness, humanity ... How is it with this? The environment could influence here, of course; and some old impressions... We'll see.
In the evening, a detailed conversation finally took place. She asked about marriage and about the estate.
"He's decidedly charming," she said, half thoughtfully, half absent-mindedly.
And when he promised to take an inexpensive price for the estate, she said: “I won’t accept any sacrifices from you. How? Instead of encouraging you ... Well, how should I put it better? I will peel like sticky? It's not in my habit. When it happens, I do not spare people - just not in this manner. "
"Oh, keep your eyes open with you!" Sanin thought at the same time.
Or maybe she just wants to show her best side? Show off? But why would she?
Finally, she asked to be given "two days' time" and then she would immediately decide the issue. "After all, you are able to part with your bride for two days?"
But didn’t she try to charm him all the time somehow imperceptibly; gradually, insinuatingly, skillfully? Oh, isn't she slowly enticing Sanin? For what? Well, at least for the purpose of self-affirmation. He's a reckless romantic...
"If you please, come early tomorrow - do you hear?" she called after him.
At night Sanin wrote a letter to Gemma, took it to the post office in the morning and went for a walk in the park where the orchestra was playing. Suddenly the handle of the umbrella "knocked on his shoulder." Before him was the ubiquitous Marya Nikolaevna. Here at the resort, it is not known why, ("Am I not well?"), they forced her to drink some kind of water, after which she had to walk for an hour. She suggested that we go for a walk together.
"Well then, give me your hand. Don't be afraid: your bride isn't here - she won't see you."
As for her husband, he ate and slept a lot, but obviously did not claim her attention at all.
"- We will not talk about this purchase now; we will have a good talk about it after breakfast; and now you must tell me about yourself ... So that I know who I am dealing with. And after, if you want, I will tell you about myself I'll tell you."
He wanted to object, to evade, but she did not allow.
"I want to know not only what I'm buying, but who I'm buying from."
And an interesting long conversation took place. "Marya Nikolaevna listened very cleverly; besides, she herself seemed so frank that she unwittingly called others to frankness." And this long stay together, when she smelled of "quiet and burning temptation"! ..
On the same day, in the hotel, in the presence of Polozov, a business conversation took place about the purchase of the estate. It turned out that this lady has outstanding commercial and administrative abilities! "The whole ins and outs of the economy was well known to her; she carefully asked about everything, entered into everything; her every word hit the target ... "
“Well, all right!” Marya Nikolaevna finally decided. “Now I know your estate ... no worse than you. What price will you put per soul? We also agreed on a price.
Will she let him go tomorrow? Everything's been decided. Is she "driving up to him?" "Why is that? What does she want?.. Those grey, predatory eyes, those dimples on her cheeks, those serpentine braids"... He was no longer able to shake it all off, to throw it away from himself.
In the evening I had to go with her to the theater.
In 1840, the theater in Wiesbaden (like many others then and later) was characterized by "phrasing and miserable mediocrity", "diligent and vulgar routine".
It was unbearable to watch the antics of the actors. But behind the box there was a small room furnished with sofas, and Marya Nikolaevna invited Sanin there.
They are alone again, side by side. He is 22 and so is she. He is someone else's fiancé, and she, apparently, lures him. Caprice? Want to feel your power? "Take everything from life"?
“My father himself hardly knew how to read and write, but he gave us a good upbringing,” she confesses. "- Do not think, however, that I am very learned. Oh, my God, no - I am not learned, and I have no talents. I can hardly write ... right; I cannot read loudly; neither on the piano, nor draw, nor sewing - nothing! Here I am - all here! "
After all, Sanin understood that he was being deliberately lured? But at first I did not pay attention to it, in order to still wait for the solution of my issue. If he had simply insisted in a businesslike way on getting an answer, avoiding all this intimacy, then perhaps the capricious lady would have refused to buy the estate at all. Agreeing to give her a couple of days to think, he waited ... But now, alone, it began to seem to him that he was again seized by some kind of "child, from which he could not get rid of for the second day already." The conversation "in an undertone, almost in a whisper - and this irritated him and worried him even more ..."
How cleverly she manages the situation, how convincingly, skillfully she justifies herself!
“I’m telling you all this,” she continued, “firstly, in order not to listen to these fools (she pointed to the stage where at that moment an actress was howling instead of an actor ...), and secondly, in order to that I am indebted to you: yesterday you told me about yourself.
And finally, there was talk of her strange marriage.
"- Well - and you asked yourself, ... what could be the reason for such a strange ... act on the part of a woman who is not poor ... and not stupid ... and not bad?"
Yes, of course, and Sanin asked himself this question, and the reader is perplexed. This sleepy, inert phlegmatic of hers! Well, be she poor, weak, unsettled. On the contrary, he is poor and helpless! Let's listen to her. How does she herself explain all this?
"Do you want to know what I love the most?
"Freedom," Sanin prompted.
Marya Nikolaevna laid her hand on his arm.
“Yes, Dmitry Pavlovich,” she said, and her voice sounded something special, some kind of undoubted sincerity and importance, “freedom, above all and above all. And don't think that I boast about it - there is nothing laudable about it - only it is so, and always has been and will be so for me; until my death. As a child, I must have seen a lot of slavery and suffered from it.
Why does she even need this marriage? But the secular society of the mid-19th century ... She needed the social status of a married lady. Otherwise, who is she? Rich courtesan, lady of the demimonde? Or an old maid? How many prejudices, conventions. The husband was a sign, a screen in this case. He, in fact, also suited this role. He could eat, sleep, live in luxury, not interfere in anything, only sometimes carry out small assignments.
So that's why this strange marriage! She had planned everything in advance.
“Now you, perhaps, understand why I married Ippolit Sidorych; with him I am free, completely free, like air, like the wind ... And I knew this before the wedding ... "
What an active, active energy it still has. Mind, talent, beauty, reckless prowess ... She will not, like other heroines of Turgenev, sacrifice herself, she will break anyone, adapt to herself.
And she has adapted well to society, although she knows in her heart that all this is "not divine."
"- After all, they will not require me to report here - on this earth; and there (she raised her finger up) - well, let them dispose of it as they know."
Having talked "heart to heart" and thus preparing the ground, she then cautiously went on the offensive.
"- I ask myself, why are you telling me all this?" Sanin admitted.
Marya Nikolaevna moved slightly on the sofa.
- You ask yourself ... Are you so slow-witted? Or so humble?
And suddenly: "- I'm telling you all this, ... because I really like you; yes, don't be surprised, I'm not joking, because after meeting you it would be unpleasant for me to think that you will keep a bad memory of me ... or even not bad, it's all the same to me, but wrong. That's why I got you here, and I'm left alone with you, and I'm talking to you so frankly. Yes, yes, frankly. I'm not lying. And notice, Dmitri Pavlovich, I I know that you are in love with another, that you are going to marry her ... Do justice to my disinterestedness ...
She laughed, but her laughter suddenly broke off ... and in her eyes, which were so cheerful and bold at the usual time, something like timidity, even like sadness, flashed.
"A snake! ah, she's a snake!" Sanin thought meanwhile, "but what a beautiful snake."
Then they watched the play for some time, then talked again. At last Sanin started talking, even began arguing with her. She secretly rejoiced at this: "if he argues, then he concedes or concedes."
When the play ended, the dexterous lady "asked Sanin to throw a shawl over her and did not move while he wrapped her truly regal shoulders with a soft cloth."
Leaving the box, they suddenly met Donhof, who could hardly contain his rage. Apparently, he believed that he had some rights to this lady, but was immediately unceremoniously rejected by her.
"Do you know him very briefly?" Sanin asked.
- With him? With this boy? He's on my errands. Don't you worry!
- Yes, I'm not worried at all.
Marya Nikolaevna sighed.
- Ah, I know you're not worried. But listen - you know what: you're so sweet, you shouldn't refuse me one last request."
What was the request? Ride out of town. "Then we'll be back, we'll finish the job - and amen!"
How could I not believe when the decision is so close. One last day left.
"- Here's my hand, without a glove, right, business. Take it - and believe its shake. What kind of woman I am, I don't know; but I'm an honest person - and you can do business with me.
Sanin, without really realizing what he was doing, raised that hand to his lips. Marya Nikolaevna quietly received her, and suddenly fell silent - and was silent until the carriage stopped!
She began to leave ... What is it? Was it Sanin's imagination, or did he definitely feel some kind of quick and burning touch on his cheek?
- Till tomorrow! - Marya Nikolaevna whispered to him on the stairs ... "
He returned to his room. He was ashamed to think of Gemma. "But he reassured himself that tomorrow everything would be over forever and he would forever part with this eccentric lady - and forget all this nonsense! .."
The next day Marya Nikolaevna knocked impatiently on his door.
"Well? Are you ready?" a cheerful voice sounded.
He saw her on the threshold of the room. "With a train of a dark blue Amazon on her arm, with a small man's hat on coarsely braided curls, with a veil thrown back over her shoulder, with a defiant smile on her lips, in her eyes, all over her face ..." She "quickly ran down the stairs." And he obediently ran after her. Gemma would look at her fiancé at that moment.
The horses were already standing in front of the porch.
And then ... then the whole walk, all the impressions, shades of moods in great detail. Everything lives and breathes. And the wind "flowed towards, rustled and whistled in the ears," and the horse reared up, and the consciousness of "free, impetuous movement forward" seized both.
“Here,” she began with a deep, blissful sigh, “this is the only thing worth living for. You managed to do what you wanted, which seemed impossible - well, use it, my soul, to the very edge!” across the throat. “And what a kind person then feels!”
At that time, a beggar old man made his way past them. She called out to
German “Nate, take it” and threw a heavy purse at his feet, and then, fleeing from gratitude, let her horse gallop: “After all, I didn’t do it for him, but for myself. How dare he thank me?”
Then she sent out the groom accompanying them, ordering him to sit in the tavern and wait.
“Well, now we are free birds!” exclaimed Marya Nikolaevna. “Where shall we go?.. Let's go there, to the mountains, to the mountains!”
They raced, jumped over ditches, fences, streams... Sanin looked into her face. “It seems that this soul wants to take possession of everything that it sees, earth, sky, sun and the very air, and it regrets only one thing: there are few dangers - they would have overcome them all!”
And the reader also admires her, no matter what. "Remote forces broke out," "the sedate and well-mannered land, trampled on by its violent revelry, is amazed."
To give the horses a rest, they rode at a walk.
"Am I really going to Paris the day after tomorrow?
- Yes ... really? Sanin picked it up.
- Are you in Frankfurt?
- I'm definitely going to Frankfurt.
- On what - with God! But today is ours…ours…ours!”
She kept him busy for a long time. She made a short stop, took off her hat and, standing next to him, braided long braids: "I need to put my hair in order"; and he "was bewitched", "trembled involuntarily, from head to toe."
Then they went somewhere deep into the forest. "She obviously knew where she was headed..."
Will he be able to return to Frankfurt now?
Finally, through the dark green of the spruce bushes, from under a canopy of gray rock, a wretched guardhouse looked at him, with a low door in the wicker wall "...
Four hours later they returned to the hotel. And on the same day, "Sanin stood in front of her in his room, as if lost, as lost ...
- Where are you going? she asked him. - To Paris - or to Frankfurt?
“I’m going to where you will be, and I’ll be with you until you drive me away,” he answered in despair and fell into the arms of his sovereign. Her gaze expressed the triumph of victory. eyes".
And everything disappeared. Again before us is a lonely, middle-aged bachelor sorting out old papers in the drawers of his desk.
"He remembered the crappy, tearful, deceitful, pitiful letter he had sent to Gemma, a letter left unanswered..."
Life in Paris, slavery, humiliation, then he was thrown out, "like worn out clothes." And now he could no longer understand why he left Gemma "for a woman whom he did not love at all?" ...
Simply, apparently, the “animal man” who was sitting in it then turned out to be stronger than the spiritual one.
And now, 30 years later, he is back in Frankfurt. But there is neither the house where the confectionery was, nor the street; there was no trace left. New streets, built up with "huge solid houses, elegant villas" ... Here, no one even heard the name Roselli. The name of Kluber was known to the owner of the hotel, but it turns out that the once prosperous capitalist then went bankrupt and died in prison? Who would have thought!
And once, leafing through the local "address-calendar", Sanin suddenly stumbled upon the name of von Donhof. In the "gray-haired gentleman", a retired major, he immediately recognized his former enemy. He heard from a friend that Gemma was in America: she married a merchant and went to New York. Then Donhof went to this acquaintance, a local merchant, and brought the address of Gemma's husband, Mr. Jeremiah Slocom.
“By the way,” Donhof asked, lowering his voice, “what about that Russian lady who, remember, was staying in Wiesbaden then…?”
Alas, it turns out she died a long time ago.
On the same day he sent a letter to New York; asked "to please him with at least the briefest news about how she lives in this new world, where she has retired." He decided to wait for an answer in Frankfurt and lived in a hotel for six weeks, hardly leaving his room. I read "historical works" from morning to evening.
But will Gemma answer? Is she alive?
Letter came! It is as if from another life, from a magical old dream ... The address on the envelope was written in someone else's handwriting ... "He sank in his heart." But when he opened the package, he saw the signature: "Gemma! Tears welled up from his eyes: the mere fact that she signed with her name, without a surname - served him as a pledge of reconciliation, forgiveness!"
He learned that Gemma had been living for the 28th year quite happily "in contentment and abundance." She has four sons and an 18-year-old daughter, a fiancee. Frau Lenore died already in New York, and Pantaleone died before leaving Frankfurt. Emilio fought under the leadership of Garibaldi and died in Sicily.
The letter contained a photograph of the bride's daughter. "Gemma, living Gemma, young as he knew her 30 years ago! The same eyes, the same lips, the same type of whole face. On the back of the photo was:" My daughter, Marianne. "He immediately sent the bride a magnificent pearl a necklace in which a garnet cross was inserted.
Sanin is a wealthy man, "managed to amass a considerable fortune" in 30 years. And this is what he came to in the end: "It is heard that he is selling all his estates and is going to America."
In a letter sent to New York from Frankfurt, Sanin wrote about his "lonely and joyless life."
Why did this happen with all the selfless heroism of his nature? Marya Nikolaevna is to blame? Hardly. Just at the decisive moment, he could not fully understand the situation and obediently allowed himself to be manipulated, disposed of. Easily became a victim of circumstances, not trying to master them. How often does this happen - with individuals; sometimes with groups of people; sometimes even nationwide. "Don't make yourself an idol..."
And another hidden but important reason. Like a monster with sharp fangs in the dark depths - material and social inequality, the source of many life tragedies. Yes, material inequality, and related relationships of people.
After all, hoping to sell the estate, he did not dare to refuse to accompany the eccentric lady, to be alone for a long time with a beautiful and intelligent predator. He did not dare to provoke her displeasure. Everything would work out, maybe
to another, do not be this dependence. And she, perhaps, was so eager to command to a large extent because in her childhood "she had seen enough of slavery and suffered from it."
Yes, what to say. All these are people who have received some education, relatively free. They own noble estates, travel, belong to a privileged minority. The hero didn’t understand something, he didn’t manage to ... But the overwhelming majority were still dominated by a terrible mental underdevelopment, a misunderstanding of more elementary things; and even material and social inequality - much more blatant! There it is just right to recall not the lines from the touching romance, prefaced by the story, but the folk tragic "coachman's song". "The rich chose, but hateful, she will not see happy days." If you are poor, powerless, your beloved will be taken away, even if you are by nature even seven spans in your forehead.
Mankind, laughing and crying, shying forward and then back, slowly, painfully parted with its slave past.

The story "Spring Waters" by Turgenev was written in 1872. The work belongs to the late period of the writer's work, and tells about the love story of a wealthy Russian landowner who fruitlessly wasted his best years.

For better preparation for the literature lesson, we recommend reading the online summary of "Spring Waters" chapter by chapter. A retelling of the story will also be useful for the reader's diary.

Main characters

Dmitry Pavlovich Sanin- Russian landowner, soft, noble, but weak-willed person.

Gemma Roselli- a girl of extraordinary beauty, a young Italian woman, with whom Sanin was in love.

Polozova Maria Nikolaevna- a selfish, freedom-loving, immoral woman, accustomed to indulging her own whims.

Other characters

Lenore Roselli- Gemma's mother, a widow, a kind, pragmatic woman.

Emilio Roselli- Gemma's brother, an ardent and noble teenager.

Pantaleone- an old and faithful servant of the Roselli family.

Karl Klüber- a young wealthy German, Gemma's fiancé.

Donhof- Baron, with whom Sanin became friends after a duel.

Ippolit Polozov- Sanin's childhood friend, the weak-willed husband of Marya Nikolaevna.

The landowner Dmitry Pavlovich Sanin "recently passed the 52nd year." Going through old letters in the table, he accidentally stumbled upon a case in which a "little pomegranate cross" was kept. Seeing him, the man cried out weakly, and plunged into memories ...

Chapters 1-3

In 1840, "Sanin passed the 22nd year." Returning home from Italy, he decided to spend one day in Frankfurt. After wandering around the city, the young man went into an Italian pastry shop.

Suddenly, a beautiful dark-haired girl ran into the room and began to ask for help. Sanin followed the stranger, and in the next room he found a pale teenage boy who was in a deep faint.

Sanin ordered to bring brushes, and "began to rub his chest and arms with all his might." In spite of his will, he looked askance at the girl: “My God! what a beauty she was!

Sanin managed to bring the boy to his senses. Soon his mother appeared in the candy store, accompanied by a doctor. Deciding that "he is becoming superfluous", the young man wanted to go outside, but the girl asked him to come to them "in an hour for a cup of chocolate."

Chapters 4-7

Sanin reappeared in the confectionery, whose owners accepted him as their own. He met the Roselli family: the widow Lenore, her eldest daughter Gemma and son Emilio, as well as the old faithful servant Pantaleone.

Mrs. Lenore had a vague idea of Russia. She believed that "eternal snow reigns there, everyone walks in fur coats and all the military." Sanin began to talk fascinatingly about his homeland. He even performed several old romances and folk songs, which won over his new acquaintances.

Sanin was so carried away by communication that he was late for the evening stagecoach. The Rosellis invited their Russian guest to visit them the next day so that he could meet Gemma's fiancé.

Chapters 8-13

The bridegroom of the beauty turned out to be "a prominent and tall young man with a handsome face" named Karl Kluber.

In a private conversation, Emilio confessed to his new friend that his mother, under the influence of Kluber, wants to make a merchant out of him, while the boy himself dreamed of becoming an artist. Sanin decided to talk to Mrs. Lenore about her son's future, but she didn't want to hear anything about the "arts".

Sanin spent the whole day in the circle of the Roselli family. Returning home late at night, he thought about the beautiful Gemma all the time.

Chapters 14-22

The next day, Emilio and Kluber came to see Sanin to go for a ride together in an open carriage. Mrs. Roselli canceled the trip because of a headache, but allowed Gemma to join the young people.

During dinner in a tavern, one of the officers, being tipsy, went up to Gemma and showered her with vulgar compliments. The girl was beside herself with rage, but Kluber only "demanded an immediate settlement" from the waiter and hurried to take the bride away. Sanin, who could not "see such insolence with indifference", challenged the impudent officer to a duel. Kluber pretended not to notice Sanin's explanation with the officer, and all the way he talked about the decline in morals. It was noticeable to the naked eye that "Gemma has clearly become ashamed of her fiancé."

Sanin's opponent was Baron von Donhof. The young man asked old Pantaleone to be his second, which touched him very much. Gemma found out about the upcoming duel and gave Sanin a rose the night before. Emilio, also initiated into the mystery, did not take his admiring eyes off the Russian friend.

Before the duel, Sanin asked Pantaleone to return the rose to Gemma in case he was killed. He fired first, but missed. The baron deliberately fired into the air. He admitted his guilt, a little "wrinkled on the spot - and hesitantly stretched out his hand forward." The young people shook hands and parted as friends.

Chapters 23-30

At the hotel Sanin was visited by Madame Lenore, who thanked the young man for his masculine deed. She admitted that Gemma refused Kluber, and now their family is in danger of ruin. The woman began to beg Sanin to talk to Gemma and ask her to change her mind.

Having met the beautiful Italian woman in the garden, Sanin told her about her mother's request. He asked her not to make any decisions until the evening. Returning to the hotel, the young man wrote Gemma a letter declaring his love.

The whole next day, Sanin walked around the city with Emilio, and only in the evening received a note from Gemma, in which she made an appointment for him in the garden. At the meeting, the girl admitted that she resolutely refused Kluber. Sanin asked to be taken to his mother to prove that he was "not a deceiver".

Upon learning of her daughter's decision, Madame Lenore wept bitterly. She calmed down somewhat only when she heard about the upcoming marriage of Gemma and Sanin. The inspired groom even agreed to sell the family estate in order to best equip the Roselli confectionery.

At dinner, Gemma gave her lover her pomegranate cross as a sign that different religions would not interfere with their marriage.

Chapters 31-42

The next day, fate brought Sanin to his childhood friend Ippolit Polozov. He was married to a very rich woman, whose estate was located next to the lands of Sanin. The young man was glad of the chance to quickly and profitably sell his inheritance, and agreed to go to Wiesbaden to Polozov's wife, since only she could decide on the deal.

Sanin hurried to the confectionery to announce his upcoming trip. He promised Gemma to return "the day after tomorrow - with a shield or on a shield."

In Wiesbaden, Sanin met Polozov's wife, the charming Marya Nikolaevna. The woman did not have a bright beauty, but she was very smart and courteous. Marya Nikolaevna became interested in Sanin, and suggested that he stay for a couple of days in order to calmly decide on the purchase of the estate.

“The cheeky treatment of Ms. Polozova” did not embarrass Sanin - he was ready to indulge her in everything, if only to quickly complete an important deal for him. Sanin "was very good-looking," and Marya Nikolaevna skillfully began to seduce the young man. She even made a bet with her husband that she could do it in two days.

In the theater, where Polozova invited the young man, she said that "most of all and above all" she values \u200b\u200bpersonal freedom. That is why she chose Hippolytus as her husband - a man who can be commanded.

The next morning Marya Nikolaevna invited Sanin for a horse ride. She was a dexterous horsewoman, and without difficulty charmed the young man even more. During the walk, the riders were caught by a downpour, which they decided to wait out in a tiny gatehouse. So Polozov "lost the bet".

When Marya Nikolaevna asked Sanin where he was going now, he replied that from now on he would follow her forever. The woman's eyes at that moment "expressed one ruthless stupidity and satiety of victory."

Chapters 43-44

Sanin bitterly recalled the voluntary slavery of Marya Nikolaevna. After a while, she mercilessly got rid of her annoying lover. Sanin returned to his homeland, but only hopeless longing and loneliness awaited him there.

Memories crowded in Sanin's head, and unexpectedly for everyone, he decided to go abroad - to a city where he had once been truly happy for a long time. In Frankfurt, there was "no trace left of the Roselli confectionery". Sanin learned from Baron Dongof that Gemma had married a wealthy American and had gone to live with her husband in New York.

Having learned the address of his former lover, Sanin wrote her a letter of repentance. He really hoped to get an answer, and received it. Gemma's letter "was very sweet and simple." She thanked Sanin for not marrying Kluber and thus not ruining her life. Gemma said that she was very happily married, "that she has five children - four sons and one eighteen-year-old daughter." Seeing the photograph of Marianne, Sanin was so stunned - "Gemma, living Gemma, young, as he knew her thirty years ago." From the letter, he learned that Pantaleone had died before leaving for America, and already in New York, Mrs. Lenore had died. Emilio died a heroic death fighting in Garibaldi's troops.

Sanin immediately sent a gift to Marianna - "a garnet cross, dressed in a magnificent pearl necklace." Returning to St. Petersburg, Sanin began selling all his estates. According to rumors, he was going to America ...

Conclusion

In his work, I. S. Turgenev paid special attention to the theme of weak-willed people - well-educated and wealthy intellectual nobles who lost love and the meaning of life due to indecision and weak character.

After reading the brief retelling of Spring Waters, we recommend reading the full version of the story.

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happy years,

Happy Days -

Like spring waters

They raced!

From an old romance

At one o'clock in the morning he returned to his office. He sent out a servant who lit the candles, and throwing himself into an armchair near the fireplace, covered his face with both hands. Never before had he felt so tired, physically and mentally. He spent the whole evening with pleasant ladies, with educated men; some of the ladies were beautiful, almost all the men were distinguished by intelligence and talents - he himself spoke very successfully and even brilliantly ... and, with all that, never before that “taedium vitae”, which the Romans already spoke about, that “disgust for life” - with such irresistible force did not take possession of him, did not choke him. If he had been a little younger, he would have wept from anguish, from boredom, from irritation: caustic and burning bitterness, like the bitterness of wormwood, filled his whole soul. Something obnoxiously hateful, disgustingly heavy surrounded him on all sides, like a languid autumn night; and he did not know how to get rid of this darkness, this bitterness. There was no hope for sleep: he knew that he would not fall asleep.

He began to think... slowly, languidly and viciously.

He thought about the vanity, the uselessness, the vulgar falsity of everything human. All ages gradually passed before his mind's eye (he himself had recently passed the 52nd year) - and not a single one found mercy in front of him. Everywhere is the same eternal pouring from empty to empty, the same pounding of water, the same half-conscientious, half-conscious self-deception - no matter what the child amuses herself, if only she doesn’t cry, and then suddenly, just like snow on her head, old age will come – and with it that ever-increasing, corroding and undermining fear of death… and bang into the abyss! It's good if life plays out like that! And then, perhaps, before the end, like rust on iron, infirmities, suffering ... Not covered with stormy waves, as the poets describe, he imagined the sea of \u200b\u200blife - no; he imagined this sea calmly smooth, motionless and transparent to the darkest bottom; he himself sits in a small, rolling boat - and there, on this dark, muddy bottom, like huge fish, ugly monsters are barely visible: all worldly ailments, illnesses, sorrows, madness, poverty, blindness ... He looks - and here is one of the monsters stands out from the darkness, rises higher and higher, becomes more and more distinct, all disgustingly more distinct. Another minute - and the boat propped up by him will capsize! But here it again seems to grow dim, it moves away, sinks to the bottom - and it lies there, slightly stirring the pool ... But the appointed day will come - and it will turn the boat over.

He shook his head, jumped up from his chair, walked about the room twice, sat down at the writing-table, and, pulling out one drawer after another, began to rummage through his papers, old letters, mostly from women. He himself did not know why he was doing this, he was not looking for anything - he simply wanted to get rid of the thoughts that tormented him by some external occupation. Having unrolled several letters at random (one of them contained a withered flower tied with a faded ribbon), he just shrugged his shoulders and, glancing at the fireplace, threw them aside, probably intending to burn all this unnecessary rubbish. Hastily thrusting his hands first into one drawer, then into another, he suddenly opened his eyes wide and, slowly pulling out a small octagonal box of old cut, slowly lifted its lid. In the box, under a double layer of yellowed cotton paper, was a small pomegranate cross.

For several moments he looked at this cross in bewilderment - and suddenly he cried out weakly ... Either regret, or joy portrayed his features. Such an expression appears on the face of a person when he has to suddenly meet another person whom he has long lost sight of, whom he once loved dearly and who now suddenly appears before his eyes, all the same - and all changed over the years. He got up and, returning to the fireplace, sat down again in an armchair - and again covered his face with his hands ... “Why today? exactly today?" - he thought, and he remembered a lot that had long passed ...

Here's what he remembered...

But first you need to say his name, patronymic and surname. His name was Sanin, Dmitry Pavlovich.

Here's what he remembered:

It was the summer of 1840. Sanin was 22 years old and was in Frankfurt, on his way back from Italy to Russia. He was a man with a small fortune, but independent, almost without a family. After the death of a distant relative, he had several thousand rubles - and he decided to live them abroad, before entering the service, before finally putting on himself that official collar, without which a secure existence became unthinkable for him. Sanin carried out his intention exactly and arranged it so skilfully that on the day of his arrival in Frankfurt he had just enough money to get to Petersburg. In 1840 there were very few railroads; Gentlemen tourists traveled in stagecoaches. Sanin took a seat in the "beywagen"; but the stagecoach departed only at 11 o'clock in the evening. There was plenty of time left. Fortunately, the weather was fine and Sanin, after having lunch at the then famous hotel "White Swan", went to wander around the city. He went to see Dannecker's Ariadne, which he did not like much, visited Goethe's house, from whose works he, however, read one "Werther" - and then in a French translation; walked along the banks of the Main, got bored, as a respectable traveler should; Finally, at six o'clock in the evening, tired, with dusty feet, I found myself in one of the most insignificant streets of Frankfurt. He could not forget this street for a long time. On one of her few houses, he saw a sign: "Italian confectionery Giovanni Roselli" declared itself to passers-by. Sanin went in to drink a glass of lemonade; but in the first room, where, behind a modest counter, on the shelves of a painted cabinet, resembling a pharmacy, there were several bottles with gold labels and the same number of glass jars with crackers, chocolate cakes and candies, there was not a soul in this room; only a gray cat squinted and purred, moving its paws, on a high wicker chair near the window, and, brightly glowing in the slanting beam of the evening sun, a large ball of red wool lay on the floor next to an overturned basket of carved wood. A vague noise was heard in the next room. Sanin stood for a moment and, letting the bell on the door ring to the end, said, raising his voice: "Is there anyone here?" At the same instant, the door from the next room opened, and Sanin was forced to be astonished.

A girl of about nineteen impetuously ran into the candy store, with dark curls scattered over her bare shoulders, with outstretched bare arms, and, seeing Sanin, immediately rushed to him, grabbed his arm and dragged him along, saying in a breathless voice: “Hurry, hurry, here, save me!" Not out of unwillingness to obey, but simply out of an excess of amazement, Sanin did not immediately follow the girl - and, as it were, rested on the spot: he had never seen such a beauty in his life. She turned to him and with such desperation in her voice, in her eyes, in the movement of her clenched hand convulsively raised to her pale cheek, she said: “Go on, go on!” - that he immediately rushed after her through the open door.

In the room where he ran after the girl, on an old-fashioned horsehair sofa, all white - white with yellowish tints, like wax or like ancient marble, lay a boy of fourteen years old, strikingly like a girl, obviously her brother. His eyes were closed, the shadow of his thick black hair fell like a stain on his petrified forehead, on motionless thin eyebrows; clenched teeth showed from under blue lips. He didn't seem to be breathing; one hand dropped to the floor, the other he threw over his head. The boy was dressed and buttoned up; a tight tie tightened around his neck.

A lonely man, at a certain stage in his life, sorts out his archive. He finds in it a small box in which the cross is kept. Dmitry Pavlovich Sanin is visited by memories. He recalls the events of his distant youth, when he loved and was loved as a young man, made promises and vows. He did not complete any of them. His insecurity and fear of change in life made many people unhappy.

The main idea. The work shows all human qualities and vices from which many suffer, and indecision makes loving people unhappy.

retelling

Having lived half his life in peace and relative prosperity, Dmitry Pavlovich Sanin, one day, wanting to distract himself from the sad thoughts that more and more often visit his lonely life, sorts out papers. A lot of them have accumulated, and among them he finds a small box in which lies a cross. He recalls a sad story that happened in his younger years when he was traveling in Germany.

Once in Frankfurt, he walked along the old streets and stumbled upon Roselli's Italian Confectionery. He entered her. A young girl immediately rushed to him and, crying, began to convince him to help her brother, who suddenly lost consciousness. Dimitri succeeds. The boy comes to his senses and at the same time his mother and the girl's mother appear with the doctor. In gratitude for their help, they invite Sanin to have dinner with them.

He agreed and stayed so long that he was late for his stagecoach. Since, in connection with these events, he had little money left, and Dmitry was forced to ask his German friend to borrow him. While waiting for help, Sanin lived in a hotel, where he was visited by Gemma, the sister of the unconscious Emil, with her fiancé Karl. He invited Dmitry Pavlovich to visit Soden with them. During the walk, the young man did not take his eyes off the young beauty Roselli.

The next day they walked, and later went to one of the taverns in the city. The girl wished to dine not in a separate office, but on a common veranda, where there were many people, including a group of drunken officers. One of them raised his glass and toasted Gemma, and then came over and took the rose from her plate. This surprised everyone and greatly offended the girl. But her fiancé did not stand up for her, he pretended that nothing had happened. Dmitry Sanin approached the officer and challenged him to a duel. After the rest of the day he spent with Gemma, and at the end of it she gave him a rose taken from the military. The young man realized that he fell in love.

The next day he fought a duel, and the offender of the young maiden shot upwards, as if admitting his guilt. Gemma Roselli announces her desire to break off the engagement, and Louise, the girl's mother, asks Sanin to act on her, since the material well-being of her family depends on it. But Gemma refuses. The girl's parents resign themselves that she loves Dmitry, having learned that he has the means.

On the street, Sanin meets his friend Polozov, who convinces him to go with him to Wiesbaden, where his wife Maria Nikolaevna is being treated. It was a very beautiful young woman. She is very interested in Dimitri, and he cannot resist her charms. He did not know that he had been betted on. And, although Polozov is sure that Sanin is very in love with Gemma, he loses the bet: after three days, Dmitry is already completely under the control of Maria Nikolaevna.

Dmitry Pavlovich suffers for a long time, but, in the end, he confesses to Gemma in treason. This weak and weak-willed person destroys both himself and his beloved girl.

After the conversation, he goes on a journey with the Polozovs. Mary already commands and pushes them around. And after a while, Dmitry Pavlovich finds out that Gemma got married and left with her husband for America. He writes to her and receives a thank you reply that he has called off the engagement. In it, she says that she is happy, has five children, her brother died in the war, mother and servant Pantaleone died and sends him a photograph of her daughter. In response, Sanin sends the girl a pomegranate cross.

So, like spring waters, human life rushed by, leaving behind lost opportunities and dreams. So the soft-bodied Sanin misses his happiness, which was in front of him many years ago, and with his indecision he destroys the dreams of others around him.