Born in a noble family. Father - Dmitry Akimovich Apukhtin (1768 - 1838), landowner, leader of the Kostroma nobility. Mother - Marya Pavlovna Fonvi-zina (1779 - 1842). Grandfather - Apukhtin Ioakim Ivanovich governor of the Simbirsk and Ufa governorates in 1783-1784, member of the trial of E. I. Pugachev.
In September 1822, she married M.A. Fonvizin. After the arrest of her husband, she arrives in St. Petersburg. Secretly corresponded with her husband. After a while, she left for Moscow, where on February 4, 1826, her second son was born. In April 1826, Natalia Dmitrievna again arrived in St. Petersburg. Followed her husband to Siberia. Arrived in Chita in March 1828. She was ill in Chita. Following her husband, she moved to the Petrovsky Zavod in 1830. In the Petrovsky Plant, she gave birth to two children who died at an early age.
By decree of November 8, 1832, M. A. Fonvizin was sent to a settlement in Yeniseisk. First, the place of their settlement was designated Nerchinsk. Relatives of the Fonvizins hired them permission to Yeniseysk. The Fonvizins arrived in Yeniseisk on March 20, 1834. In Yeniseisk, she was engaged in translations, sewing, the first in the city began to grow flowers.
March 3, 1835 Fonvizin was allowed to move to Krasnoyarsk. We left Yeniseisk not earlier than December 1835. It is allowed to move to Tobolsk on October 30, 1837, arrived in Tobolsk on August 6, 1838. In the Fonvizin family, the children of Tobolsk residents were brought up (Maria Frantseva, Nikolai Znamensky, and others).
In 1850, in Tobolsk, she met in prison with F. M. Dostoevsky, M. V. Petrashevsky and other Petrashevists. I learned from Petrashevsky that her son Dmitry also belonged to the Petrashevsky circle. She helped Pet-Rashevites.
On February 13, 1853, Fonvizin was allowed to return to his homeland and live on the estate of his brother Maryino of the Bronnitsky district of Moscow province with the establishment of strict police supervision and the prohibition of entry into Moscow and St. Petersburg.
... The Tobolsk colony of the Decembrists consisted of ... ten people, half of them were settlers, and the rest served in various positions. The first included: Semenov S.M., Svistunov P.N., Annenkov P.V., Muravyov A.M. and Dr. Wolf, and the second - Prince Baryatinsky, two brothers Bobrishchev-Pushkin, von-Vizin and Krasnokutsky. They arrived and resettled from 1836 to 1845, and five left Tobolsk: Semenov, Prince Baryatinsky, Muravyov, Wolf and Krasnokutsky, because of death, and the rest - in view of ... the highest commandments, or the most gracious manifesto. As for their convictions, Semenov was not at all sued by the supreme court, and at the highest command for participating in the affairs of a secret society, he was kept for four months in a fortress and sent to [distant] Siberia “for use in the service” (without deprivation of ranks). Svistunov, Annekov and Wolf, assigned by the Supreme Court to the 2nd category of state criminals, spent 10 years in hard labor, Prince Baryatinsky (1st category) - 13 years, P.S. Bobrishchev-Pushkin, Muravyov and von-Vizin (4 categories) - 10 years; and Krasnokutsky and N.S. Bobrishev-Pushkin (8th category) were pre-sent to Yakutsk and Turukhansk.
The oldest of the Tobolsk settlers was Mikhail Aleksandrovich von Vizin, a retired major general who spent 4 years after hard labor in a settlement in Krasnoyarsk. Fully financially secure by his brother, who sent him 2,000 rubles each. bank notes per year (except for additional amounts for the establishment of the household), - he lived there with his wife, who followed him to Siberia. Von-Vizin got a good job in Tobolsk: he bought a small house, and, although he led a modest life, had already quite extensive acquaintances, thanks to his excellent qualities of character, and also his relationship with the Governor-General [Prince Peter Dmitrievich Gorchakov]; their wife and his wife, according to cordiality and hospitality, were a place of association for all Decembrist comrades.
However, the kind and loving Mikhail Aleksandrovich and his wife Natalya Dmitrievna were not content with this and devoted themselves to helping both the poor Tobolsk population and other persons exiled to Siberia. And therefore, both of them, - according to Dmitriev-Mamonov, - left in West Siberia the kindest memory of themselves. In particular, Natalya Dmitrievna is an energetic woman who is fond of. She led an active life: on the one hand, she did household chores and set up a beautiful garden with greenhouses (where there were even pineapples), and on the other, she did charity work and educated foster children ... She was remarkably intelligent, educated, unusually eloquent, and spiritually (and religiously ) developed. Natalya Dmitrievna read a lot, translated and had a huge memory (even remembered all the tales that the nanny told her in her childhood); knew how to imagine everything so well, vividly and picturesquely, that the simplest story conveyed by her captivated each of the listeners; was simple and fun to use, so that none of those present felt any embarrassment with her. She was the only daughter of a wealthy nobleman Apukhtin (married to Maria Pavlovna von Fizina), who had large estates in the Kostroma province. It was in these Kostroma [places] that the poetic nature of his daughter was nurtured.
... wild, sad, silent,
How forest doe is afraid
She is in her own family
She seemed a stranger girl.
She did not know how to caress
To my father, not to my mother ...
The child herself, in a crowd of children
She didn’t want to play and jump.
And often all day alone
Sat silently by the window.
Thought is her friend
From the most lullaby days
The flow of rural leisure
Dreams decorated her ...
When she was 16 years old, a lot of suitors began to get married to her, whom she did not want to hear about, deciding to devote herself to God and go to the monastery. Parents, learning about this her desire - rebelled against him and demanded that she get married. Then she fled to the monastery secretly from her parents. However, the chase that overtook her returned her to her parental home. Here she obeyed her fate, but with the proviso that she would not be forced to marry; she made a promise to her tearfully begging mother not to go to the monastery while her parents were alive.
One day, her cousin, Mikhail Aleksandrovich von-Vizin, came to them in the village, a man of the highest degree kind, honest, intelligent and very educated. He had known her since childhood and always loved her as a sweet girl; but during the time before he saw her, she managed to bloom and turn from a naive pretty girl into a beauty full of fire, but with a touch of sad concentration. Mikhail Alexandrovich, being a man with a soft and gentle heart, could not resist and was captivated by his niece so much that he became attached to her passionately. She, seeing his hot affection for her, did not remain indifferent to his feeling, especially since she had the opportunity to appreciate his noble and disinterested heart (he saved her father from ruin). A few months later they got married in their family estate Davydova and soon moved to live in Moscow ...
There Natalya Dmitrievna was supposed to visit the world. Not loving him, she was burdened by him and in every possible way eager for her cherished native fields, forests, meadows and open spaces. However, communication with heterogeneous people in the world developed qualities in her that formed her into a smart woman who deeply understood her responsibilities. This proves the episode of her meeting at one of the balls with a young man who once fascinated her with his flattering assurances and, in the end, bitterly defeated her pure dreams. At the ball, he was struck by the meeting with the wife of the honored and respected general, not a naive girl anymore - who once carried him away, but a charming woman surrounded by a crowd of fans. His low nature was manifested once again by the fact that, without thinking, he became one of her fans, counting on her former sympathy for him; but was destroyed by her noble and proud rebuff, like a low caretaker for someone else's wife ...
... my success in a whirlwind of light,
My fashion house and evenings
What is in them? I’m glad to give it now
All this rag of masquerade
All this shine, and noise, and child
For a shelf of books, for a wild garden ...
But I'm given to another
I will be faithful to him for a century ...
Once, one of the relatives of Natalya Dmitrievna (Molchanov) came to her and said: “Natasha, you know, you’ve got to print! The scoundrel of the Solntsev conveyed your story to Pushkin, and he poeticized you with his poetic talent in his poem Eugene Onegin!
Natalya Dmitrievna, until the end of her life, retained her firm decisive character. She knew that her husband belonged to a secret society, but did not imagine, however, that he was in imminent danger ...
When the first chapters of the poem A.S. Pushkin was published, Mikhail Alexandrovich was already in fortress ...
Dmitry Belyukin. Tatyana Larina
Her sister was called Tatyana ...
For the first time by such a name
Pages of affectionate novel
We will sanctify willfully.
So what? it is pleasant, sonorous;
But with him, I know, inextricably
The memory of antiquity
Or girlish! ...
Tatyana Dmitrievna Larina, in marriage Princess N is the main character of the novel "Eugene Onegin." The standard and example for countless female characters in the works of many Russian writers, the "national type" of a Russian woman, ardent and clean, dreamy and straightforward, persistent friend and heroic wife.
The name "Tatyana", chosen by the poet for his heroine, later became extremely popular, in many respects thanks to this book. However, at the beginning of the 19th century it was considered to be “commonplace”, old-fashioned, and Pushkin even specifically states: “For the first time with such a name / pages of a tender novel / we will sanctify it self-willed”. At first, as the drafts testify, he thought to call her “Natasha” (Nabokov comments: “Instead of the name Tatyana Pushkin tried the name Natasha (diminutive of“ Natalia ”) in his draft stanza (2369, p. 35), It was five years before his first meeting with his future wife Natalya Goncharova. “Natasha” (like “Parasha”, “Masha”, etc.) has significantly less rhyming possibilities (“ours”, “yours”, “porridge” compared to “Tatyana” “,“ Bowl “and a few other words.) This name has already been found in literature (for example,“ Natalya, the boyar daughter of Karamzin). Pushkin Natasha appears in “The Bridegroom, a common folk tale” in 1825 (see chap. 5 , Tatiana’s dream) and at the end of that year in “Count Nulin” ”). About a third of the references to her are “Tan” (Nabokov writes: “The diminutive name appears in the novel for the first time after eleven complete references (Tatiana). The nanny breaks the ice of estrangement, referring to the girl as“ Tan ”three times in stanza XVII, once in stanza XVIII and once in stanza XXXV. From now on, Pushkin will call her “Tanya” thirty-three times, which in total for the whole poem will be thirty-eight, that is, one third of the frequency of appeals of “Tatyana” ”).
Appearance. The poet contrasts the dark-haired Tatyana with the beautiful golden-curly and ruddy Olga: "no one could call her beautiful." Tatiana does not attract either beauty or ruddy freshness (2, XXV), has a “pale color and a dull appearance” (4, XI). When she arrives in Moscow, local young ladies find her “something strange, / provincial and cutesy, / and something pale and thin, but also very not bad” (7, XLVI), when they appeared in the theater “they didn’t turn neither the jealous lornets nor the pipes of fashionable experts will give it to her. ”
Character and manners: at the beginning of the book we are presented with a shy young lady. She is “wild, sad, silent, like a forest doe, fearful,” unable to caress her parents, “and often all day alone / sat silently at the window” (2, XXV), thoughtful. The motive of uncommunicative children was widespread in romantic literature (Vladimir Nabokov. Commentary on the novel "Eugene Onegin"). According to the description of Lensky, she is “sad and silent, like Svetlana” (character of the ballad Zhukovsky). Pushkin later mentions “her absent-minded laziness” (7, XLIV).
After several years, the married lady Tatyana grows up and changes dramatically: “She was unhurried, / Not cold, not talkative, / Without an arrogant gaze for everyone, / Without a claim to success (...) Everything is quiet, it was just in her, / She it seemed a true shot / Du comme il faut ... ”(8, XIV). “Nobody could have called her beautiful / Named; but from head to toe / No one could find in it / That which is autocratic fashion / In the high circle of London / It is called vulgar ”(8, XV). Now this is the indifferent princess, the impregnable goddess of the luxurious royal Neva.
Lessons. Young lady Tatyana doesn’t do traditional girl’s activities - she doesn’t embroider, doesn’t play dolls, doesn’t play torches and outdoor games with her peers, but she loves to listen scary stories Nannies Filipyevna. “Tatyana believed the legends of / Popular antiquity, / And dreams, and card fortune telling, / And the predictions of the moon. / She was disturbed by signs " (5, V). Perhaps it is characterized by insomnia, because it rises still dark and meets sunrise. “To warn the dawn of sunrise”, as Tatyana did, was romantic behavior (Vladimir Nabokov. Commentary on the novel “Eugene Onegin”). Her love to sit silently at the window is repeatedly mentioned (Sat silently at the window. - Ch. 3, V, 3-4: "... silent ... / She went in and sat by the window"; Ch. 3, XXXVII, 9: “Tatyana stood in front of the window”; ch. 5, I, 6: “Tatyana saw through the window”; ch. 7, XLIII, 10: “Tanya sits by the window”; ch. 8, XXXVII, 13-14: "... and by the window / She is sitting ... and all of her! .."). As Nabokov notes, “Tatyana’s selenium-like soul is constantly turned to romantic solitude, the window becomes a symbol of longing and loneliness.”
Books. Her main occupation is reading: “She liked novels early; / They replaced her with everything; / She fell in love with cheats / And Richardson and Rousseau ”(2, XXIX). Her reading circle includes Richardson’s books “The Story of Sir Charles Grandison” and “Clarissa” (evidently in the emasculated French translation of Abbot Prevost), Russo “New Eloise”, Marie Sophie Risto Cotten “Matilda” (Cotten. Pushkin. Research and Materials), Julia Krudner “Valerie, or Letters of Gustave de Linard to Ernest de G”, Madame de Stael “Dolphin”, Goethe “The Suffering of Young Werther”. According to commentators, this characterizes Pushkin's ironic-critical attitude to reading provincial young ladies. These are books of the pre-Byron period, especially sentimental epistolary novels of the 18th century. Nabokov, analyzing Tatyana’s favorite novels, notes that their heroines remain as faithful to their husbands as Tatyana later her. He also draws attention to the "feeling of almost pathological respect and the peculiar exalted filial love that the young heroes of these works have for the mature and uncommunicative spouses of young heroines." She also reads Martyn Zadeki's dream book. Books have a strong influence on her behavior.
Tongue. Larina, as a representative of the nobility, speaks poor Russian, she conducts correspondence in French. “She did not know Russian well, / didn’t read our magazines, / and expressed herself with difficulty / in her native language” (III, XXVI). However, according to Pushkin - "Tatyana (Russian soul)".
Age. Precisely how old Tatyana is is not mentioned in the novel. For the first time, her age is mentioned by the word “young woman” (3, XII). There is a version that the moment of the first appearance in the novel, Tatyana is 13 years old, since the novel has the lines “Destroy prejudices, which were not and are not / The girl is thirteen!” (4, XIII) that do not have an exact reference to a specific person. But it is traditionally believed that she was older. She was probably born in 1803, as the novel begins in 1819, and in the summer of 1820 she was 17 years old. This appears from the author’s letter to Vyazemsky on November 29, 1824 in response to comments on the contradictions in the letter of Tatyana Onegin: “ ... a letter from a woman, besides a 17-year-old woman, who is also in love!". According to Baevsky (Baevsky V. S. Time in “Eugene Onegin” // Pushkin: Research and Materials / USSR Academy of Sciences. Institute of Russian literature. (Pushkin. House). - L.: Science. Leningrad. Department , 1983. - T. 11. - P. 115-130.), She is older: firstly, since her rapid removal to the brides' fair signals that Tatyana is already leaving her marriageable age, and secondly, since she I wouldn’t be able to occupy such a prominent place in the world and cause the admiration of other ladies if she were only 20 years old (and especially 16 years old, in the case of the 1st version).
Social status. Larina is a provincial young lady, her late father is a brigadier general (foreman). The Larins lived in a manor house of at least 20 rooms, had extensive land, a park, a flower garden, a garden, stables, a farmyard, fields, etc. Probably they owned about 350 acres (1000 acres) of land, which it was considered a small estate for this region, and about 200 serfs, not counting women and babies (Vladimir Nabokov. Commentary on the novel "Eugene Onegin"). To go from the village to Moscow - seven days “on their own”, not on postal ones.
Husband - “an important general” (“this fat general”, “cold-blooded general” (in the Decembrist stanza)), Prince N, Onegin’s friend and relative, “was mutilated in battles” and “caresses the court” for that. At the time of his return, they were married for about two years and live on the Neva embankment, where the palaces of the higher aristocracy are usually located. Conventional wisdom, including that of Dostoevsky, that he was an "old man." However, “if in the draft stanza LIV of Chapter 7 (PD No. 838, p. 74 rev .; VI, 462)) and in the semi-white (PD No. 157 of November 4, 1828; VI, 618)) Tatyana’s husband - "[Fat] old general", then in the Boldin version of the former 9th (now last) chapter of the novel, Pushkin rejuvenated him, making him almost the same age as Onegin and like-minded in his “opinions”: “With Onegin, he recalls [Zatey, opinions of previous years] [Friends, beauties of former years] They laugh ... “((chap. 8, stanza XXIII; VI, 626))” (I. Dyakonov. On the history of the plan “Eugene Onegin”, Pushkin: Research and materials). Obviously, this is a fairly young or middle-aged man, a participant (judging by the wounds) of the 1812 war.
History
For the first time Tatyana appears in the 2nd chapter (XXIV). (In the preface to a separate edition of the first chapter, Pushkin indicates that the beginning of the events of the novel coincides with the end of 1819). Her younger sister Olga is the subject of passion of Onegin’s neighbor Vladimir Lensky, through whom Onegin gets into the Larin’s house. On the way back from the estate, both friends are discussing sisters (3, V), and Eugene is surprised that Vladimir, being a poet, falls in love with boring Olga, and not with the melancholy Tatyana. Further, his thoughts do not enter, while the Larins begin to judge, row, and are tipped into Tatyana's suitors. "The time has come, she fell in love". Having read romance novels, the girl imagines Onegin as their hero and writes him a love confession “I am writing to you - what’s more? What else can I say? ... " (III, "Tatyana's Letter to Onegin"). A few days after receiving the letter, Onegin arrives at their estate, finds the girl in the garden and reprimands her (chapter 4, beginning).
5 months later, on Tatyana’s day, in the name of Larina, Eugene and Vladimir come to visit them, and only a couple of weeks are left before the wedding with Olga. On the eve of Christmas time (December 25 - January 5), superstitious Tatiana guesses (5, X), and at night from January 5 to 6 she has a dream about a forest and a bear that turns around Eugene. This big bear turns out to be “Onegin’s godfather, just like a fat general, Tatyana’s husband, appearing in the eighth chapter, turns out to be Onegin’s relatives and friend”. On name day, Onegin, angry that Lensky brought him with him, flirts with Olga, which entails a challenge to a duel (5, XLV). After the murder of Lensky, Onegin’s departure, and then Olga’s wedding with Lancer, the bored Tatyana wanders into the deserted Onegin estate (6, XV). There she begins to read his books, in particular Byron, and she is visited by a terrifying thought about the subject of her passion - “ Is he a parody? Muscovite in the Harold cloak ... " (6, xxiv). It is mentioned briefly that she refused to seekers of her hand - Buinov, Ivan Petushkov, hussar Pykhtin. About a year after the duel, in the winter, an old mother takes Tatyana to Moscow for a brides fair. They stop at Alina's cousin in Kharitonyevsky Lane (former address of Pushkin himself). At the ball, she is noticed by “some important general”, “this fat general” (7, LIV), who takes her as a wife.
Having returned from a trip in the fall of 1824, Onegin returns to the world, where he sees Tatiana, who has matured, in a raspberry beret (8, XIV), who has been married to Onegin, an important general, prince, friend and relative, for about 2 years. “Is that Tatyana really?” (8, XX). He falls madly in love with a socialite who politely ignores him. Weakened, he writes a letter: “But for my life to last, / I must be sure in the morning, / That I will see you in the afternoon” (8, “Onegin's Letter to Tatyana”). Then he fills her with a bunch of letters to which everyone has no answer. When meeting in the light, she is severe and surrounded by the baptismal cold, on her face there is only a trace of anger. This happens in winter, Onegin locks himself up in his apartment for a long time, and when March comes, he unexpectedly comes to Tatyana and finds her crying over his letter. “But I am given to another; I will be faithful to him for a century ”she says. Tatyana leaves, Onegin freezes in solitude and hears the ringing of the spurs of her incoming husband.
Prototypes and Versions
One of the ladies of Trigorsky (A.N. Wulf wrote in a diary in 1833: “... I was even an actor in the descriptions of the village life of Onegin, for it was all taken from Pushkin’s stay with us,“ in the Pskov province ”. So I, a Derpt student, appeared in the form of a Göttingen under the name of Lensky; my dear sisters are the samples of his village young ladies, and almost one of them is Tatiana. ” (Pushkin in the memoirs of contemporaries. T. 1. P. 421).) (Hoffman M. L. From Pushkin places. Pushkin and his contemporaries: Materials and research), for example, Kern, Anna Petrovna (From the memoirs of E. E. Sinitsina: “After several years I met in Torzhok near Lviv A.P. Kern, already an elderly woman. Then they told me that this is the heroine of Pushkin - Tatyana. "... and all above / And the nose and shoulders lifted / General came in with her." These verses, they told me at the same time, were written about her husband, Kern, who was elderly when he married her. " (Ibid. T. 2, p. 83).) Or Eupraxia Wulf. Name day of Eupraxia falls on Tatyana's day on January 12. But Olga and Tatyana were outlined by the poet in Odessa, until his exile from 1824-1826. Before that, he was in Mikhailovsky in July – August 1817, when “The young Wulfs-Osipovs were 8-12 years old; only Anna Nikolaevna Wulf could be in Pushkin’s field of vision, but it’s hard to find a woman who is characterologically less like Tatyana Larina ” (I. M. Dyakonov. On the History of the Eugene Onegin Design, Pushkin: Research and Materials).
Sisters Raevsky , including the wife of the Decembrist Volkonskaya, Maria Nikolaevna. However "They were not" county ladies ", and for many other reasons, none of them came to Tatyana 2-6 chapters." Nevertheless, Volkonskaya can serve as an example of Tatyana’s resilience from Part 2 (I. M. Dyakonov. On the history of the plan “Eugene Onegin,” Pushkin: Research and Materials).
Vorontsova, Elizaveta Ksaverievna. In the conditional language of conversations and correspondence with Alexander Raevsky, Pushkin, apparently, referred to Tatyana as a woman close to him (it was suggested that it was Vorontsov, which Lotman considers doubtful). Huber agrees with the version of Vorontsova: it is based on the assumption that Onegin’s character is based on Raevsky, Vorontsova’s lover, so Vorontsova turns out to be “Tatyana”.
Avdotya Norova in love with Chaadaev
Fonvizina, Natalya Dmitrievna , the wife of the Decembrist General, was firmly convinced that she served as a prototype. Her second husband, Pushchin, a friend of Pushkin, agreed with her.
Pushkin's sister Pavlishcheva, Olga Sergeevna - for Tatyana of the 1st period.
Pushkin's traits
Küchelbecker writes: “The poet in his 8th chapter is similar to Tatyana himself: for the lyceum comrade, for the person who grew up with him and knows him by heart, like me, the feeling with which Pushkin is full is visible everywhere, although he, like his Tatyana, does not want the light knew about this feeling ” (Küchelbecker V. To Travel. Diary. Articles).
Critical Evaluation
Pushkin himself in the preface to a separate edition of "Travels of Eugene Onegin" retells: "P. A. Katenin (to whom a fine poetic talent does not prevent being a subtle critic) remarked to us that this exception [of the chapter], which may be beneficial for the readers, also harms the plan of the whole composition; for through this the transition from Tatyana, a district young lady, to Tatyana, a noble lady, becomes too unexpected and unexplained. - A note denouncing an experienced artist. The author himself felt the justice of this ... ".
Belinsky writes: “Tatyana is an exceptional being, a deep, loving, passionate nature. Love for her could be either the greatest bliss or the greatest disaster of life without any conciliatory middle. With the happiness of reciprocity, the love of such a woman is an even, bright flame; otherwise - a stubborn flame, which willpower may not allow it to break out, but which is all the more destructive and burning, the more it is compressed inside. A happy wife, Tatyana, calmly, but nevertheless passionately and deeply, would have loved her husband, would have completely sacrificed herself to her children, would have given herself up to her motherly duties, but not out of reason, but again out of passion, and in this sacrifice, in the strict fulfillment of her duties would find its greatest pleasure, its supreme bliss. And all this without phrases, without reasoning, with this calm, with this external dispassion, with this external coldness, which make up the dignity and grandeur of deep and strong natures. ” (Types of Pushkin. Edited by N. D. Noskov with the collaboration of S. I. Povarnin) (Hoffman M. L. From the Pushkin Places. Pushkin and His Contemporaries: Materials and Research).
Dostoevsky: “Tatyana is not like that: this is a solid type, standing firmly on his soil. She is deeper than Onegin and, of course, smarter than him. She already foresaw with one noble instinct, where and what is true, which was expressed in the finale of the poem. Maybe Pushkin would have done better if he had called his poem by the name of Tatyana, and not Onegin, because she is indisputably the protagonist of the poem. This is a positive type, and not negative, it is a type of positive beauty, it is the apotheosis of a Russian woman, and the poet intended her to express the idea of \u200b\u200bthe poem in the famous scene of the last meeting of Tatyana with Onegin. You could even say that such a beautiful type of Russian woman was almost never repeated in our fiction - except for the image of Lisa in Turgenev’s Noble Nest ... " (Types of Pushkin. Edited by N. D. Noskov with the collaboration of S. I. Povarnin) (F. M. Dostoevsky. Pushkin. (Essay). Pronounced on May 27 (June 8), 1880, at a meeting of the Society of Russian Literature Lovers) .
Dmitry Pisarev she is critical of her and exposes her as a rustic little fool. “Her painfully developed imagination constantly creates her fake feelings, fake needs, fake responsibilities, an entire artificial program of life, and she carries out this artificial program with the amazing stubbornness that people who are obsessed with some kind of monomania usually distinguish. (...) Finding herself in the hands of her new master, she imagined that she had been turned into a decoration of the general's house; then all the forces of her mind and her will went to that goal, so that not a single speck of dust would fall on this decoration. She placed herself under a glass cover and committed herself to stand under that cover for the rest of her life. And she herself looks at herself from the side and admires her integrity and the firmness of her character. (...) Tatyana’s own feeling is small and flabby, but in relation to her subject this feeling is exactly what it should be; Onegin is a worthy knight of such a lady who sits under a glass hood and is covered with burning tears; Onegin would not have endured another, more energetic feeling; such a feeling frightened and would take our hero to flight; crazy and unhappy would be that woman who, out of love for Onegin, would dare to violate the majestic piety of the general’s house ” (D. Pisarev. Pushkin and Belinsky).
D. Belyukin.
D. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky: “Tatyana came out with Pushkin stronger in spirit than Onegin, but the poet did not mean at all to present his heroine as an example of a strong female character. At the same time, the idealization of the image, which was so necessary in this case, was made by Pushkin with great restraint. Tatyana is not put on a pedestal. In creating this image, Pushkin remains the same realist who does not leave the soil of reality, as he was found in Onegin, as little idealized. ” “You do not need to be a prophet to predict that the artistic image of Pushkin’s Tatiana will remain in our literature forever. After him, a whole series of female characters was created, some of which belong to the primary creations of art. But neither the brilliant host of Turgenev’s women, nor the female nature, so deeply developed by L. N. Tolstoy, nor other images that, while not being the primary creations of art, however, are able to interest us, in their content, more than Tatyana — all of them together taken, could still not make us forget Tatyana Pushkin " (Types of Pushkin. Edited by N. D. Noskov with the collaboration of S. I. Povarnin).
Vladimir Nabokov
There was a girl in one of the Russian provincial estates ... Subsequently, she wrote about herself: “From my mother I inherited daydreaming and inquisitiveness, from my father a passionate nature, the highest ability to love and hate. I was wild and shy. I passionately loved my nurse, who was my nanny ... I was secretive and timid, I got close to a few, especially with my children. I was looking for some kind of higher pure human love. ”
These are lines from the memoirs of Natalia Dmitrievna Fonvizina, a contemporary of A.S. Pushkin. Is not it, they are very reminiscent of the revelations of his heroine Tatyana Larina?
The memoirs of Frantseva, a pupil of the Fonvizins, further emphasize the similarities. She cites the story of Natalya Dmitrievna about her first love for a secular youth who, for some reason, refused her and left for Moscow, after which the desperate Natalya, at the insistence of her parents, agreed to an unequal marriage. She also said that this story became known to Pushkin.
And in fact, the events described in Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin” almost literally reproduce the story of Natalya Dmitrievna Fonvizina’s first love and first marriage, in her childhood, Apukhtina, so researchers call her among the most likely prototypes of Tatyana Larina. But, strangely enough, it did not occur to anyone among the people close to her to look for the prototype of Eugene Onegin himself.
There are many legends about the novel, there are many assumptions - both evidence-based and expressed as hypotheses. It would seem that the topic is so studied that it is difficult to imagine the emergence of something new, unexpected. And yet…
For example, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, having learned the love story of Natalia Apukhtina, really depicted it in her novel. However, a literary character is always collective. Such are the images of Tatyana Larina and Eugene Onegin: here are collected the features of various people, contemporaries of the poet, even more, perhaps, conjecture, composed. And yet there is a certain core, some basis. In this case, a very real girl with her romantic character and unhappy love, Natalya Apukhtina, is chosen as the prototype of Tatyana, and her drama becomes one of the main storylines of the novel. It is logical to assume that the very youth could be the prototype of Onegin - Natalya's first love. Who is he? The answer to this question is the essence of the proposed version.
In search of an answer, I suggest focusing on the following lines of the novel:
Tatyana's letter in front of me;
I am holy to him,
I read with secret longing
And I can’t read it ...
This is clearly about a very real letter. No matter how people are attributed to his authorship! Only Natalya Apukhtina was not mentioned. Strange, isn't it? After all, if, as many believed, the prototype of Tatiana was Natalya, then the letter was written by her, and it was to that very young man - the subject of first love.
Pushkin himself is sometimes called as the addressee, since the letter is "before him." Logical, but too straightforward. Natalya Apukhtina, firstly, never wrote to Pushkin. Her story became known to the poet from another person. Secondly, in the hands of any person may be letters intended not for him, moreover, these letters are both “sacred” stored and reread. Therefore, Pushkin could have a letter addressed to another. By the way, Tatyana wrote not to the author, but to the hero of the novel, from which Pushkin unambiguously distances himself:
As if it’s already impossible for us
Writing novels about something else
As soon as about myself.
However, how did such an intimate document get to Pushkin?
The poet calls Onegin "a good friend." Let’s take it literally and look for a prototype of Onegin among Pushkin’s closest friends. Because only a very close friend could tell him the love story of Natalia and leave her message to keep.
Note: Pushkin doesn’t read the letter in the same way as they read love notes of girlfriends of friends who boast of their victories - “with secret longing.” Reads, re-reads, “sacredly protects”! What kind of secret connects Pushkin with the letter and its addressee? First of all, of course, I recall the history of preparation and the failure of the conspiracy. Maybe one of the Decembrists, a close friend of Alexander Sergeyevich, the first love of Natalia Apukhtina, left him a letter? Is it not membership in a secret society, unwillingness to endanger the girl that caused a harsh rebuff in response to a declaration of love? At the same time, he could quite veil the true reason for the refusal by the arguments put by Pushkin into Onegin's mouth. Let us recall at least a very characteristic phrase testifying to the strength and nobility of the nature of the hero:
Learn to rule yourself;
Not everyone, like me, will understand ...
These character traits of Onegin are repeatedly emphasized in the novel. Tatyana herself admits:
... at that terrible hour
You have done nobly ...
Even the name of Onegin - Eugene - means “noble” in Greek, and the surname is associated with northern Onega, meaning cold-blooded rationality and constraint by circumstances.
Deciphering the name of the hero is not a simple formality, but an important landmark in our search. So, in this case, among Pushkin’s friends, we are looking for a noble, without fear and reproach, cold-blooded, courageous person, possibly associated with the Decembrist movement, who sacrificed his personal happiness in the name of a lofty goal, that is, who refused to marry Natalia Apukhtina.
Refusal is refusal, in whatever form it is made. Here is what Natalya Dmitrievna wrote about this period of her life:
“My mother did not resist my desire to go to the monastery, but my father did not want to hear about it, but gave me for my cousin uncle eighteen years older than me ...” Mikhail Aleksandrovich Fonvizin, a distant relative, was invited to the Kostroma estate of the Apukhtins. He arrived, stayed for a while, and soon made an offer to Natalya. Parents persuaded their daughter to agree to marriage. Remember the lines: “For poor Tanya, everyone was equal in lot”? They played a wedding, the newlyweds left for Moscow. About six months later, Natalia's cousin wrote to her mother: “She is very sweet, and I find that happiness made her even more beautiful.” Natalya, like Tatyana, having accepted her lot, found peace of mind.
There is no doubt: the portrait of Tatyana’s husband was deducted from Mikhail Alexandrovich Fonvizin, major general, hero of the war of 1812. What can be said in this connection about the sought-after Onegin prototype? If Onegin is familiar with the general, sticks with him on “you”, it can easily happen with him, it is natural to assume that the prototype should have been in the same relationship with Fonvizin.
The meeting of Onegin and Tatiana in her husband’s house breaks off a novel. Did he get a denouement? Yes, completely, the heroes still love each other and do not hide it - can the story be considered complete? Lovers are separated by circumstances and, according to the logic of the genre, having overcome them, they must unite. What is left out of the narrative? Very much and very important, about which Pushkin could not write.
M.A. Fonvizin, husband of Natalya Dmitrievna, was a member of the Salvation Union, the Union of Welfare and the Northern Society, participated in the preparation of the uprising in Moscow. We have already assumed (and literary criticism does not deny this) that Onegin and, therefore, his prototype were associated with the Decembrists, - therefore, the latter was a companion of Fonvizin. It is well known that Pushkin intended to make Onegin a participant in the Decembrist movement, but later burned the tenth chapter of the novel, as he had previously destroyed everything that related to the Decembrists. Perhaps the same fate befell the letter of Natalia-Tatyana? I would venture to speculate; it is possible that, written in French and without specifying the addressee, it still lies somewhere in the archives.
After December 14, 1825, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Fonvizin was convicted and sentenced to hard labor. Following him, leaving two young children who grew up and died, without having seen more than their mother, Natalya Dmitrievna also left for Siberia. Many years passed in exile. Fonvizina gave birth to two dead children, two more sons died in infancy - affected by difficult living conditions. Decembrist I.D.Yakushkin wrote about her: "Health N.D. very destroyed, several times she was at death, how it all ends - God knows ... "
In 1853, M.A. Fonvizin was granted amnesty due to illness and died shortly after returning from exile.
But what about the prototype of Onegin?
This is where the fun begins.
Thirty-two letters of Natalya Dmitrievna Fonvizina are known, written a year after the death of her husband to Siberia ... to Ivan Ivanovich Pushchin. In them, she returns to the story of her first love: “Your friend A.S. how a poet perfectly and faithfully grasped my character ardent, dreamy and focused in himself - and miraculously described its first manifestation upon entering conscious life ... ”At the same time, Natalya Dmitrievna often calls herself ... Tanya. And, no less, and perhaps more significant: I.I. Pushchin also called Natalya Fonvizina in reply letters - Tanya, Tanya!
Isn't it strange? Thirty-five years passed, full of tragic events, hardships and losses, and suddenly - a stream of letters with memories of the days of distant youth ... Let us ask ourselves the question: why did N.D. Fonvizina write specifically to Pushchina? In relation to an outsider, who also suffers in hard labor, this would be unthinkable. Such letters can be written only to someone with whom you are connected by something deeply intimate and far from outdated. So was Pushchin not the subject of Natalya Apukhtina's first love - love carried through years of trials?
About the young man in whom young Natasha was in love, we know nothing. But it is worth assuming that he was Ivan Pushchin - everything falls into place. A logical explanation is found not only of the fact of such an intimate correspondence, but also of everything that preceded it and what followed.
Among the lyceum students Big Jeanne - as I.I. Pushchina was called by friends - was known as the embodiment of mind, courage and justice. Slender handsome, brilliant cavalryman - it was no wonder to fall in love with him. However, it is known that in his youth Ivan Pushchin held special views on marriage and was in no hurry to tie himself up in family ties, for he was preparing himself for some great mission. Sixteen years old, he became a member of the Sacred Artel, one of the first Decembrist organizations, then a member of the Union of Salvation, the Union of Welfare and one of the founders of the Northern Society. Pushchin was Pushkin's closest friend - “a priceless friend,” which means he could trust him, tell the story of Natalia and transmitting her letter. So Natalya Apukhtina and Ivan Pushchin turned into Tatyana Larina and Eugene Onegin.
Of course, in the image of the protagonist of the novel, traits of other contemporaries of the poet are also visible, but the main core here, without a doubt, is Pushcha, from whom in Onegin there is nobility, courage, and a sharp mind.
Ivan Ivanovich Pushchin, as one of the leaders of the uprising, was sentenced to death. It was only thanks to the intervention of dignitaries that she was replaced with life imprisonment.
... And yet love took its toll.
After the death of her husband, Natalya Dmitrievna (by that time she was already more than fifty years old) again went to Siberia. This act caused general surprise, because no one knew his motives. Natalya Dmitrievna left for Pushchin.
In August 1856, according to the manifesto of Tsar Alexander II, I.I. Pushchin was amnestied, and in May of the following year, he married Natalya Dmitrievna. Their marriage, contemporaries called "strange." But he doesn’t seem strange to us anymore. For this is exactly how the story of Tatyana Larina and Eugene Onegin would most likely end if the novel were completed.
Of course, Tanya was not her sister! Just a very, very close and good friend. And this, perhaps, is more important than a sister - no duties, no coincidences, but only real mutual understanding and trust. They immediately became friends, two frightened first-graders - Olya Popova and Tanya Levina, and all years sat at the same desk until they combined with the men's school. It was in the eighth grade that they combined, Olya remembered for sure, because they passed on the literature of Eugene Onegin. And they transplanted everyone at the same time. What for? A pedagogical technique for a successful merger? Extra inconvenience and disappointment!
The boys, of course, could not miss such a wonderful coincidence - Olga and Tatyana, are inseparable all the time, both are excellent pupils. Little boys need a little dumb neighing. But they didn’t have a name, Olina’s surname against the background of Pushkin’s “Tales of the Priest and his Workman Balda” served as a separate inspiration for these idiots. Popovna-Balda, that's what she was called in class.
Everything, everything was painful and unbearable - a cruel nickname, wounding Pushkin’s words, his own helplessness. Tanya, her sweet girlfriend Tanya, really looked like Tatyana Larina - a dark braid, a silent person, a dreamer. But Olga! Of course, the boys were laughing. With her height and foot size! Even the physical education teacher was lower. All the time I wanted to pull my head into my shoulders, I hated to look in the mirror, I never tried on high heel shoes.
Mom liked simple Russian names - Olga, Vladimir. Poor mom, she always wanted the best. Probably, choosing a name, she represented a pretty little daughter in curls and aprons, and not a skinny long Popovna-Balda. It’s even more offensive that brother Volodka grew up real handsome - with a thick light hair and bright blue mother’s eyes. Lucky fools! As if you need such eyes to chase the ball in a vacant lot and wallow with detectives. And Olya got her father’s, dull gray, almost without eyelashes. And the hair is also gray, straight, like straw. I had to tightly braid the braids so that dull strands did not hang. Mom selflessly pretended not to notice Olga ugliness - “the main thing is the soul!”. Of course, like Chekhov’s heroines: the soul and dreams of a beautiful tomorrow. And all as one were unhappy and lonely!
Well, even though Tanya got a simple surname, they did not bother her much. Tanya was generally wonderful, everyone was friends with her, and everything was easy - to study, walk, dream, not pay attention to the offenders. If Tanya got sick and did not come to school, Olya simply wandered alone along the corridor and did not even want to talk to anyone. No, Tanya also tried to attach a nickname - “Lyova, you to the board, Lyova, let me write off the physics”, but she did not pay attention at all.
How could one even think of Levka Krasnopolsky in those days ?! Fatal coincidence? Here's more nonsense!
Yes, Tanya did not pay attention and did it right, surnames are an eternal topic for school bullying! For example, for some reason Svetka Baranova was called Kozoy, and Nadia Mikhailova was called Mishany. In short, in vain Olya was so tormented, they teased everyone, nothing special.
Everyone, but not Kira.
When they filled out a new magazine and the classroom stumbled on her last name, Kira stood up and quietly, distinctly said: Kira Andreevna Katenina-Goryacheva. And even the most avid scoffers were silent, because Pushkin had a poem known to the whole class:
Who will send me her portrait
Features of a beautiful sorceress ...
And the whole class knew that there was a dedication in the poem: “To Katenin. 1821 ”, and it was Kirin’s ancestor, it seems, the brother of her great-grandfather.
That’s how it all coincided - the union of schools, Eugene Onegin, his own growing up. They spent hours wandering with Tanya along the old Moscow streets, names familiar from childhood suddenly acquired a new mysterious meaning - Arbat, Sivtsev Vrazhek, Plyushchikha, Neopalimovsky Lane. It seemed that the city itself was beckoning and promising some kind of new beautiful life, they vied with each other to read poetry, dreamed of true only love. Like Simonov:
Do not understand did not wait for them,
like amid the fire
waiting for
you saved me ...
Then many girls were fond of Shchipachev’s poems “Love is not sighs on the bench and walks in the moonlight,” but Tanya admitted to Olga, in deep secret, that she did not like Schipachev at all and that she was ashamed to admit that she was dreaming about walking in the moonlight. Yes, walking in the moonlight, holding the hand of a loved one and only people, listening to flowers whispering and a nightingale singing gently. Let this bourgeoisie, but even Pushkin wrote about roses and nightingales.
Olya painfully wanted to shout: “But what about me ?! Aren't we going to walk together? ” But it was not enough to seem stupid and funny.
In that year, a passion for Pushkin began in the class. As if thanks to Kira and her famous ancestor, a thin thread stretched from the great distant poet personally to them, the eighth-grade students of a simple Moscow school. All the girls learned to argue the passages from Eugene Onegin - who will remember more, Olya, for example, remembered almost four chapters in a row, from the beginning to the “fan of glory and freedom ...”, and Tanya — two, but the most unexpected and complex ones - “whom to love , who to believe, who will not change us alone ... ".
In general, it turned out that with Pushkin on any topic you can find a suitable verse or at least a line, they even got a habit at school at one time not to speak in their own words, but only to Pushkin's phrases. For example, Sveta Baranova sings at a school evening, and someone from the audience whispers loudly: “As she howls a beast, she will cry like a child!” And when their class teacher Nina Vasilievna began to praise the excellent student Kozyrev for his essay, even the stupid Butenko blurted out: “His example is science for others; but my goodness, what a bore! ” And immediately looked at Kira - did she appreciate his wit.
That's it. It was the most annoying! Everyone always looked at Kira.
Just think about how they waited for the unification of the schools, and what a disappointment they had! Fifteen krivlyak and talkers entered the class, almost everything was a cut below the girls, there was no interest in being friends with them. And how angry the teachers! Rather, teachers. Nina Vasilievna did not even try to hide her irritations, she could only hear:
- Levine! I hope my question does not distract you too much from communicating with Petrov? He knows better the topic, why listen to the teacher!
- Butenko, I understand that you are only interested in the new hairstyle of Goryacheva, but maybe you can do a favor and turn to the board?
Of course, separate training was very suitable for Nina Vasilievna and many other teachers - no passions, no novels, only work for the good of society! Thirty souls of obedient positive students. Or, more precisely, naive fools. Once, together with Sveta Baranova, they were preparing for the literature exam, re-reading about Pechorin, and suddenly Tanya asked:
“Why didn't Bella get pregnant from Pechorin?” Or did they not have a relationship and she remained a virgin?
Olya felt herself blushing like boiled cancer, because she had long been tormented by a question on this terrible topic. It’s not for mom to ask, and not for the teacher at school!
“And how can one even know if a virgin is or not?” How could Pechorin know this?
And both of them, by the way, were fifteen years old!
Svetka Baranova then just collapsed onto the bed and began to shake like a patient. She and Tanya were even scared.
“Are you ... girls, pretty ... you really don't know ?!”
Sveta, of course, knew. And quickly explained to them about hymen and so on. And at the same time about the fact that pregnancy can be avoided, and there are different ways. But how was this knowledge to be correlated with the image of an extra person in Russian literature?
Why did youth leave such a feeling of poverty and awkwardness? After all, everyone was dressed alike, they all ate poorly, everyone lived in communal apartments?
Everything, but not Kira! Any sports slippers on her legs resembled beautiful shoes, and a short haircut seemed more luxurious than Tannin's beautiful braid. How did she do it? Even the recently introduced school uniform, a deaf brown dress with a black apron, Kira wore not like all the girls did - she did not sew on a white collar and cuffs, but pulled a thin light blouse with a turn-down collar under the dress. And every day the blouse was a different shade - then pink, then cream, then completely white!
God, what a stupid and uncomfortable form they had! Every day the same school gown, disgusting gray semicircles forever protruded under the arms. But who could get a blouse, like Kira! Not to mention deodorants, they haven’t heard such words. True, “armpits” soon appeared on sale - fabric pads that were sewn on the inside for several days, and then stripped and washed separately. Eternal gimmick and inconvenience!
Everything, everything was ashamed, uncomfortable, awkward - the buttons of her bra protruding on the back from under any clothes, long winter leggings, a belt with elastic bands. And this eternal fear that the stocking will be unfastened and begin to slide in front of the boys! Well, if the other girls were nearby and could block their backs. And what a torment every month with the search for cotton wool, with horror because it will leak on the dress. And even worse - the mocking glance of the physical education teacher when one had to take time off from the lesson these days.
But Kira seemed to live in another beautiful world, without the slightest problems and inconveniences. And her dress was different - not bought in the Children's World, but custom-made, French. And the blouses were French, and the hairstyle. It’s not that they knew how to distinguish, for example, from German or English, everything in the Kirin House was just French.
After returning from the evacuation of Olina, her parents got a very small room in a barrack-type house with a long dark corridor and no bathroom, only a cold water tap in the shared kitchen. Where was it every day to change blouses, when they were washed at best once a week - they went with their mother on a tram to the district bathhouse. The room did not even have enough space for a second bed, and Olya slept in a cot until she was seventeen. And after the brother’s birth, there was no place to cook lessons, because this squeak did not fall asleep in the light.
Fortunately, Tanya lived in a large beautiful room with three windows and many wonderful comfortable things. In addition to the wide dining table, where the girls freely laid out textbooks and notebooks, there were also bedside tables, a bed, a cozy couch, a carved sideboard, two bookcase shelves, and even a Singer sewing machine with a separate table and a needlework shelf. Most importantly, no one interfered, and they did not interfere with anyone, because Tanya’s mother was in charge of the neurological department and for an hour she stayed at the hospital, and her elder sister Lucy studied at the institute’s library. Of course, Tanya also had neighbors, but mostly lonely old people and old women, almost imperceptible and inaudible in a huge apartment with high echoing ceilings. Olya for a long time even believed that a better shelter than Tanya’s room simply did not exist. Until I got into Kira’s house.
No, it was a very good time. And how well they lived together! They read, did homework, chatted, fried potatoes. Sometimes in the evening, Lucy appeared with her fiancé Zyamka, it became fun, but still the balance was upset, because the sister and Zyamka always argued and discussed obscure topics or suddenly started to kiss. Then I had to, gently averting my eyes, wind up onto the street and freeze in the entrance to Zyamkino leaving. But soon Lyudmila and Zyamka got married, went to Sokolniki to her aunt, and a real expanse came!
Even Kira often came to them.
It’s a shame to remember how they both rejoiced and fawned - they began to vying with each other to poke fun, ridiculed the boys, and remembered jokes about teachers. Kira was almost always silent, although she smiled warmly. Not! All the same, that warmth and spiritual openness did not arise, which happens with real friendship. Because for a minute it was impossible to forget that Kira was from another, beautiful and inaccessible life. But why did she come?
Sometimes Kira invited to study at home - to prepare for a dictation or to repeat physics. It was immediately evident that he was inviting uncertainly and reluctantly. And then he begins to make excuses:
- Grandma is a little strange. This is after the war. She is kind, but afraid of strangers. And mother gets tired at work, it is difficult for her to talk a lot.
But they did not listen, they already agreed in advance! Ah, how they were waiting for this invitation, how hurriedly, trying not to look at each other, they dressed, stuffed into the bag everyone hated physics textbook.
Kirina's grandmother was really strange, but somehow charmingly strange. For example, she always wore lace blouses and long strict skirts, like at a concert of classical music, even if she was peeling potatoes or washing dishes. In addition, she dyed her hair blue, constantly apologized and thanked you, addressed everyone to you, was mortally afraid of postmen and janitors and spoke with Kira exclusively in French! That is, it fully corresponded to the wonderful house, which Olga remembered for her whole life as an example of another wonderful life.
It was a completely separate apartment belonging to one family - spacious rooms with high stucco ceilings, a dark polished coat hanger in the hallway, a kitchen with curtains, a huge bathroom, and a toilet. I am ashamed to admit, but the toilet, covered with a striped rug, with a funny picture on the door and a beautiful semicircular shelf, was especially striking. Instead of chopped newsprint, on a shelf, like all people, lay a pack of snow-white paper napkins. Napkins were sold in the store and were quite affordable, but it never occurred to any of the friends and neighbors to use them in such a strange way. In all the apartments familiar to Olya, the kitchen, corridor and bathroom with toilet were called long and boring - “common areas”. And it was clear to everyone that curtains were not hung on the “common” windows, just as they were not putting on lampshades on public bulbs in the corridor. And before Ole such nonsense never bothered, they just never crossed my mind!
The rooms of Kirina’s apartment were filled with the same wonderful and unnecessary things as a lace blouse in the kitchen. Things a bit like a museum, but the fact of the matter is that it was not a museum, but a residential building where they sleep, wash, drink tea. Especially the girls were attracted by the heavy triple mirror in a dark frame - they slowly twisted the side flaps, looked at their own backs and backs, straightened the folds on the skirts, it was remarkably convenient! The entire back wall of the main room was occupied by a carved buffet with an entire exhibition of porcelain dolls and thin, almost transparent cups painted with small birds, each bird had different birds, and if you looked at the bottom, you could see a tiny painted fly. In the corner was a desk, also carved, with a cover of green cloth, and on the table was a bronze clock in the form of a composition - a naked muscular man struggling with a huge eagle. In the bookcase, behind the flaps with golden stripes, heavy velvet albums were visible, in the niche above the grandmother's bed there was a whole gallery of oval porcelain plates with landscapes and shepherdesses. In a word, it was a fabulously beautiful house where it seemed inconceivable to live, as in the Tretyakov Gallery.
Grandmother Kirina allowed me to take photo albums and books with views of Paris. The girls sat on the sofa and carefully, almost without breathing, leafing through the heavy hard pages laid with tissue paper - Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, Place de la Concorde. But most of all, it was not the squares and palaces with sculptures that attracted them, but the people - almost all in very beautiful pre-war dresses. Each time they enthusiastically examined already familiar photographs: a thin girl-bride by the arm with a beautiful "Monsieur", an elegant lady in a hat, three little girls on the porch against the background of the painted landscape, then they are in high school dresses with long braids, then they quite adults in long skirts, laughing, holding hands. Then came the family portraits of the Katenins' house, some gentlemen in old frock coats, boys in sailor suits, no one knew exactly whose aunts and grandfathers they were. But the grandmother turned out to be a bride, a lady, and one of the three girls-gymnasium students! And the little schoolgirls were shot not in Paris, but in the Russian southern town. Who would have guessed!
On a separate page, a large beautiful photograph was placed - two elegant teenage girls in plaid dresses and long light scarves. You can’t mix it up here, it’s immediately obvious that it’s abroad. Below the photograph there was a clear inscription: “Kira / Lera. May 1932. "
It is clear that Leroy, the youngest of the mysterious beautiful girls, was Kirina's mother, Valeria Dmitrievna. But who is this other adult and charming Kira? Missing sister, aunt, girlfriend? Surely their Cyrus was named in her honor!
Once Tanya decided to ask her grandmother, who was usually friendly and talkative, but she suddenly became terribly afraid, burst into tears and selected the album. I remember Kira comforted Tanya for a long time, assured that her grandmother had been so strange and shy for a long time, but when the girls next opened the photos, this picture was gone.
But all the wonderful things, and the mirror, and the eagle-clock, and the painted cups and even albums were not the main ones! The main thing in the house, of course, were two large portraits in the same beautiful frames - an old-fashioned man with a beard and a bow instead of a tie and a very short-haired very young man in a tunic. The girls have long known that one depicts Kirin's grandfather, a great scientist and doctor, Dmitry Ivanovich Katenin, yes, a descendant of that same Katenin, and on the other - Kirin, father Andrey Goryachev, Hero Soviet Union.
This was the most amazing and wonderful! French professor and Russian nobleman, graduate of the Sorbonne, the famous scientist Katenin! Of course, he decided to return to his homeland, because for many years he had studied terrible contagious diseases and knew best how to deal with them. Kirin grandfather came to Moscow in the 36th year with his wife and daughter Leroy, but did not even see a new apartment, and immediately went to Central Asia for an epidemic of typhoid fever. Thanks to Professor Katenin, the girls today simply can not imagine what typhoid is, and after all, Olina’s mother told me that almost all her relatives died from this terrible disease. And the professor himself also could not protect himself - he became infected and died right there in Central Asia. But he managed to save many, many people!
The story about the young hero Andryusha Goryachev turned out to be even more romantic. A brave Komsomol member, a true friend, the best student in the class, Andrei was the first to rush to the aid of the bewildered French girl Lera Katenina, who had come to their school directly from Paris. Because she almost did not know the Russian language, did not understand anything, needed protection and support after the death of her father. And, of course, they are madly in love with each other. And they got married right after graduation! A year later, their daughter Kira was born, and a year later Andryusha, as always the first, stepped with a bunch of grenades under a train carrying an important German general.
Sometimes Lera herself appeared in the house, that is, Kirina’s mother, Valeria Dmitrievna, a wonderful beauty who looked like a movie actress from foreign films. She greeted very friendly, but almost never entered into conversation, did not ask about lessons or grades, only kissed Kira lightly and immediately went to her room. It was mortally interesting who she was and what she was doing, but Kira did not tell, and the girls themselves for some reason did not dare to ask. Finally, one day, on a particularly rainy autumn day, my grandmother managed to talk to Kirin. It turned out that the beautiful Frenchwoman Lera Katenina decided to follow in her father's footsteps and also fight infections, she defended her thesis and works at the Department of Epidemiology at Moscow University. Of course, Lerochka is constantly looked after by colleagues and other acquaintances of men, and one famous conductor even made an offer, but she refuses everyone because she cannot forget Andryusha. True, at this, the most interesting place, Kira shouted loudly at her grandmother and told her not to tell fairy tales, but still there was a feeling of sad and beautiful, like from the picture “The Stranger”.
Was Olga Kire jealous? No, rather tormented by a mixed sense of admiration and resentment, but even to Tanya she would never admit it.
Olin’s parents were always quiet and elderly, they waged a war in evacuation with their factory, they also received a room from the factory, holidays were held in the factory house of culture. The most valuable thing in the house was considered the tea service received by the mother from the factory union on the occasion of the birth of her son. Olya was then terribly shy of her mother’s late pregnancy, she had already heard in the yard how the children appeared, the very thought that parents could do this seemed terrible and shameful. Little Volodka grew up funny as all the kids did, but he was terribly disturbed in the house and all the time he was trying to get to Olya’s school bag. His portfolio simply fascinated him, more than any toy, and on one unfortunate day, when Olya stepped out into the corridor for a moment, his brother managed to open the lock and pour a full inkwell into the open compartment. After this incident, Olga finally got over to Tanya and only came home for the night.
How well they were friends with Tanya before the appearance of Kira! And how unfairly one day life was broken.
The ubiquitous news was brought by the ubiquitous Goat, Svetka Baranova - Tanya's mother, Asya Naumovna Levin, was fired from the hospital on suspicion of sabotage.
Of course, Olya has long known and understood that the world's first Soviet country has many envious and enemies. Even in elementary grades, they read Gaidar and cried with Tanya over "The Fate of the Drummer". It’s good that they finally caught the spies and freed the drummer’s father! And the little Alka from the "Military Secret" died, died terribly and unjustly, like the wonderful Malchish-Kibalchish. But if only in the books! In history lessons, they told about a real large group of enemies of the people exposed before the war. It seems that even large military and government members were included in it!
And now a terrible new news - pest doctors are encroaching on the life of Stalin himself! Stalin, who won the mortal war and saved all of humanity from fascism! Thank God that they were immediately recognized and arrested, otherwise it could not be, but how did Mom get into the number of enemies of Tannin? Is she deliberately harming the sick and treating them wrong? What a stupid thing! Maybe she was intimidated, deceived? Is Tanin dad? Surgeon Mikhail Arkadyevich Levin, who died near Stalingrad. He was also a pest ?! What if he did not die, but surrendered, like the father of Vitka Gusev, and now Tanya’s mother is forced to participate in a conspiracy to hide his terrible betrayal?
Olya will never forget that terrible day. Dad suddenly called for a walk. Her alone, without mom and Volodya. Thorny snow cut their cheeks, they walked along a dark empty street towards the same empty uncomfortable square, and dad said in a strange dim voice that he had nothing against the Jews in general and Tanya’s mother in particular and that he admitted the possibility of a misunderstanding, but categorically asks No, he insists that Olga stop going to the Levins! And she must immediately, tomorrow, transfer to another desk! For example, in their class there is a daughter of a Hero of the Soviet Union, why not make friends with this girl, and not with a Jewish woman from a dubious family? Olga almost vomited out of despair, she tried to argue and cry, but her father remained adamant: his daughter is a pioneer and should not discuss government decisions, if Tanya’s mother was fired from her job, that means there was reason for that!
All night Olga tried to imagine how she opens the classroom door, passes by their desks and Tanya’s desks, and sits down separately. It was so terrible that in the morning she still vomited, and even a loving mother allowed her not to go to school. For another two days, Olga portrayed a headache and nausea, refused to eat, but her father strictly ordered that the performance be stopped and set off for classes.
It seemed that not three days had passed, but a whole life, when she was the last, just before the bell, still entered the classroom. Oh, salvation! .. A place near Tanya was taken! And immediately the offense was burned - her native place, familiar from the first class, the third desk at the window. Kira Goryacheva sat in Oliny place and calmly took out notebooks and textbooks. The very Kira, whom they despised and considered an imaginary and a yoke.
“Popova, I hope you don’t mind,” the mathematician mumbled, “Kira is hard to see from the last desk, she asked to be transferred.
“What will happen to her, dylda,” Svetka Baranova, who always ran after Kira, whispered with pleasure, clicking on the last syllable. “She can be seen from anywhere, even on the floor, like Uncle Styopa.”
- Be quiet, goat miserable! - breathed out Olga, trying not to cry. - I do not mind ... but I want ... as a pioneer ... to declare ...
She understood that it was necessary to stop, that neither dad nor teachers would forgive any speeches, but to give up Tanya, her beloved Tanya, to the impudent confident Kirka ?!
- Yes, I want to state! As a pioneer and girlfriend of Tanya Levina. To declare ... that the son is not responsible for the father, here! That is, I want to say that the daughter is not responsible for the mother either! And Tanya does not answer. And as I was friends, I will be friends with her!
She suddenly realized that she was right! What exactly would Oleg Kosheva or Ulyana Gromova do. And she calmly and even condescendingly added:
“But, of course, if Kira is hard to see, I can give way, please!”
“Thank you, Olya,” Tanya said quietly and burst into tears. “Thank you, but I'm responsible for my mom.” And my mother, ”she suddenly shouted,“ never, you hear, never been a pest! .. My mother is a wonderful doctor, and my dad was a wonderful doctor, and my sister will be a wonderful doctor, and we will never, never didn’t harm anyone!
- Calm down, Levine. The party itself will sort it out and punish the guilty. And she’ll deal with your mom. And your business is to study and work for the good of the people! Therefore, I ask you to urgently get notebooks, a control is announced for simple fractions.
Yes, from that case, Kira began to be considered their friend. Although no one asked her to climb with nobility and transplantation. Over the years, Olya increasingly seemed that she was not going to betray Tanya at all. In addition, Stalin soon died, Asya Naumovna was returned to work, and unification with the men's school began.
But still, their friendship saved Cyrus. And there was nothing to be done about it.
The changes came so unthinkable that the adults were completely numb, they only turned their heads to any question. First, the death of Stalin, then the arrest of Beria - they were all flowers! By the way, Zamka saved them from participating in the funeral of Stalin. On the eve, we decided to go all the pioneer link of six girls (then there were no rumors about unification with the men's school), Olya ran to Tanya in the morning, and they looked forward to the others, including Kira and Svetka Baranova, who lived very close by but somehow late. They decided to hide from their parents, in that terrible period Olya generally tried to devote them less to her life and learned to talk about abstract girlfriends with whom she allegedly did homework in the library. Tanya’s mother left somewhere in the morning, there was a bad tense silence in the house, all the old neighbors completely calmed down like inanimate ones, and then Zamka burst in with a bag of potatoes.
The castle had often visited the Levins before, and after dismissal, Asya Naumovna quietly became their only breadwinner, although he himself lived on a scholarship. Nobody knew how he managed and where he earned money, but the simplest and most necessary products appeared regularly in the house.
So this time, he triumphantly dragged a rather heavy gray bag into the room, was about to shove it further to the window, but then he noticed the girls with mourning bandages on the sleeves of their coats. The bandages the day before were made from black satin sleeves, which were worn on labor lessons.
“Where are you going?” - strictly, as the headmaster, asked Zyamka.
I did not want to answer, the mood of both was exaltedly mourning, as expected in the hour of great disaster.
- Ta-ak, I see! Patriots are bad! Have you thought how you will get out? And if you get confused in the crowd?
With one motion, Zyamka slipped the keys lying on the shelf by the door into Tanya’s pocket, slammed the door outside and turned the key in the lock twice. All! They were locked, hopelessly locked. Even if knocking and shouting to neighbors, no one would have responded, and no one had a key to the room. So they sat until evening without drinking and eating. Laughingly, the worst thing was the lack of a toilet, but then Tanya came up with a pee in a big pot of ficus.
Zamka, well done, didn’t talk to anyone, not even Tanya’s mother. Fortunately, the rest of the girls were not allowed in, and no one found out about their shame. And from the neighboring class that day, three schoolgirls died in the crowd at once. And also a physical education teacher and one of Tanya’s neighbors.
The tenth, last school year was the happiest. Firstly, Olina's parents got a new beautiful room in a high brick house behind Taganka. The apartment had only two neighbors, a real large bathroom with hot water, a large window and even a balcony! Volodya finally bought a bed, and Olya - a comfortable sofa. But the main thing is that the sofa wasn’t very much needed, because mom allowed her to spend the night with Tanya! Of course, not every day, and only on condition that Asya Naumovna was on duty, but still it was a great happiness! The main thing, it turned out very naturally, everyone understood that it was foolish to change a good school in the center in the last year. Lyusya had gotten married by then, Asya Naumovna was glad that Tanya was not alone, she even bought Olya a nightgown as a present so that she would not have to bring her home.
How and to whom can one explain this feeling of complete happiness and freedom? They chatted, sat embracing on a crumpled, but remarkably comfortable large sofa, reading aloud Simonov's beloved. And dreamed, dreamed, dreamed. It was necessary to have a lot of time to do - to complete the school curriculum, prepare for admission to Moscow State University, learn some foreign language, truly learn, not at the school level, but to communicate freely. Lucky Kira, with her knowledge of French, you can do foreign language without preparation!
Kira appeared in their company less and less, probably decided to abandon the hated physics, unnecessary for humanitarian universities. It is clear that she never appreciated their friendship. True, some girls chatted that Kira began an affair. A real affair with an absolutely adult person, almost a professor of physics. But she and Tanya did not believe - the beautiful Kirk and some old professor with a beard ?!
Time flew by swiftly! Exhibition of masterpieces of the Dresden Gallery, First Tchaikovsky Competition. Of course, Tanya fell in love with Van Cliburn for the whole summer, collecting his photographs and newspaper articles. No, Cliburn was soon overshadowed by the new stunning Sovremennik Theater! They stood in line all night, but still got to the "Eternally Alive", the guys in the class almost burst with envy!
They have long decided that they will enter the Faculty of Chemistry, necessarily together.
“You know,” Tanya said joyfully, “even Zyamka says that times have changed and Jews began to be accepted into the university.”
This was the only topic that upset and even annoyed Olya in Tanya’s house. And it seemed absolutely far-fetched! Everyone knew the names of Oistrakh, Landau, Arkady Raikin. And many more many Jews - musicians, composers, scientists. Who could believe that they were not specially accepted somewhere? But she did not dare to object or argue. It was not enough, due to all nonsense, to lose Tanino's confidence!
Once, in the midst of winter, a pipe broke in the apartment, the batteries instantly cooled, and the girls went to bed together in Asi Naumovna’s bed, wrapped in a thick cotton blanket. Tanya fell asleep instantly, she had such a lovely unprotected face, fluffy locks of hair touched Olya’s face, and from this touch and a wonderful warm smell I wanted to cry.
A day later, the pipe was repaired, and they never slept together again.
Of course, they talked about love, especially as classmates finally grew up and became like people. One of them, gloomy serious Kolya Bondarenko, was in love with Tanya since the ninth grade. He even tried to explain himself, everyone, including teachers, guessed, Tanya herself was worried and worried, but, fortunately, this novel did not receive any development. Still, it was more important to successfully finish school, go to university, and only then move on to dating, marriage, and other adult life.
No, all is not true! Tanya simply could not forget him. This stupid musician boy, this insignificant dude Levka of Krasnopolsky!
At first, Olya didn’t understand anything at all - in June, in the midst of exams for the eighth grade, Tanya suddenly stopped going to school. It turns out that she undertook to patronize a completely foreign stranger boy whose grandmother died! You see, she saw him at a concert at the conservatory, and this child prodigy needs special attention. Yes, they both did not have grandmothers at all, the same Kolya Bondarenko did not have a mother, why didn’t Tanya care for him? And most importantly, this unfortunate genius never thought that another person could face a call to the director and even a re-examination! But Tanya did not want to hear anything, she was busy with Levka, as if with a baby, escorted her home, fed her soup and, finally, dragged him to live before her relatives arrived.
Thank God this story ended quickly because Levka left with his mother for Far East, and he didn’t say a good word or even say goodbye, which was to be expected.