The story takes place in 1833 in Moscow. The main character, Volodya, is sixteen years old, he lives with his parents in the country and is preparing to enter university. Soon the family of Princess Zasekina moves into the poor outbuilding next door. Volodya accidentally sees the princess and really wants to meet her. The next day, his mother receives an illiterate letter from Princess Zasekina asking for her protection. Mother sends Volodya to Princess Volodya with a verbal invitation to come to her house. There Volodya meets the princess, Zinaida Alexandrovna, who is five years older than him. The princess immediately calls him to her room to untangle the wool, flirts with him, but quickly loses interest in him. On the same day, Princess Zasekina pays a visit to his mother and makes an extremely unfavorable impression on her. However, despite this, the mother invites her and her daughter to dinner. During lunch, the princess noisily sniffs tobacco, fidgets in her chair, spins around, complains about poverty and talks about her endless bills, but the princess, on the contrary, is dignified - she talks to Volodin’s father in French throughout the entire dinner, but looks at him with hostility. She does not pay attention to Volodya, however, when leaving, she whispers to him to come to them in the evening.
Arriving at the Zasekins, Volodya meets the princess’s admirers: Doctor Lushin, the poet Maidanov, Count Malevsky, retired captain Nirmatsky and hussar Belovzorov. The evening is stormy and fun. Volodya feels happy: he gets the lot to kiss Zinaida’s hand, all evening Zinaida does not let him go and gives him preference over others. The next day, his father asks him about the Zasekins, then he goes to them. After lunch, Volodya goes to visit Zinaida, but she does not come out to see him. From this day Volodin’s torment begins.
In the absence of Zinaida, he languishes, but even in her presence it does not become easier for him, he is jealous, offended, but cannot live without her. Zinaida easily guesses that he is in love with her. Zinaida rarely goes to Volodya’s parents’ house: her mother doesn’t like her, her father doesn’t speak to her much, but somehow in a particularly intelligent and significant way.
Unexpectedly, Zinaida changes a lot. She goes for a walk alone and walks for a long time, sometimes she doesn’t show herself to guests at all: she sits in her room for hours. Volodya guesses that she is in love, but does not understand with whom.
One day Volodya is sitting on the wall of a dilapidated greenhouse. Zinaida appears on the road below. Seeing him, she orders him to jump down onto the road if he really loves her. Volodya immediately jumps and faints for a moment. Alarmed Zinaida fusses around him and suddenly begins to kiss him, however, realizing that he has come to his senses, she gets up and, forbidding him to follow her, leaves. Volodya is happy, but the next day, when he meets with Zinaida, she behaves very simply, as if nothing had happened.
One day they meet in the garden: Volodya wants to pass by, but Zinaida herself stops him. She is sweet, quiet and kind to him, invites him to be her friend and grants him the title of her page. A conversation takes place between Volodya and Count Malevsky, in which Malevsky says that pages should know everything about their queens and follow them relentlessly, day and night. It is not known whether Malevsky gave special meaning what he said, but Volodya decides to go into the garden at night to keep watch, taking a small English knife with him. He sees his father in the garden, gets very scared, loses his knife and immediately returns home. The next day, Volodya tries to talk about everything with Zinaida, but her twelve-year-old cadet brother comes to her, and Zinaida instructs Volodya to entertain him. In the evening of the same day, Zinaida, having found Volodya in the garden, carelessly asks him why he is so sad. Volodya cries and reproaches her for playing with them. Zinaida asks for forgiveness, consoles him, and a quarter of an hour later he is already running around with Zinaida and the cadet and laughing.
For a week, Volodya continues to communicate with Zinaida, driving away all thoughts and memories. Finally, returning one day to dinner, he learns that a scene had taken place between father and mother, that the mother had reproached his father for his affair with Zinaida, and that she had learned about this from an anonymous letter. The next day, mother announces that she is moving to the city. Before leaving, Volodya decides to say goodbye to Zinaida and tells her that he will love and adore her until the end of his days.
Volodya once again accidentally sees Zinaida. He and his father are going for a horse ride, and suddenly his father, dismounting and giving him the reins of his horse, disappears into an alley. After some time, Volodya follows him and sees that he is talking to Zinaida through the window. The father insists on something, Zinaida does not agree, finally she extends her hand to him, and then the father raises the whip and sharply hits her on her bare arm. Zinaida shudders and, silently raising her hand to her lips, kisses the scar. Volodya runs away.
Some time later, Volodya and his parents moved to St. Petersburg, entered the university, and six months later his father died of a stroke, a few days before his death he received a letter from Moscow, which excited him extremely. After his death, his wife sent a fairly significant amount of money to Moscow.
Four years later, Volodya meets Maidanov at the theater, who tells him that Zinaida is now in St. Petersburg, she is happily married and is going abroad. Although, Maidanov adds, after that story it was not easy for her to form a party for herself; there were consequences... but with her mind anything is possible. Maidanov gives Volodya Zinaida’s address, but he goes to see her only a few weeks later and learns that she suddenly died from childbirth four days ago.
The guests have long left. The clock struck half past twelve. Only the owner, Sergei Nikolaevich, and Vladimir Petrovich remained in the room.
The owner called and ordered the leftovers from dinner.
So, this matter is decided,” he said, sitting deeper in his chair and lighting a cigar, “each of us is obliged to tell the story of our first love.” It's your turn, Sergei Nikolaevich.
Sergei Nikolaevich, a round man with a plump blond face, looked first at the owner, then raised his eyes to the ceiling.
“I didn’t have a first love,” he finally said, “I just started with the second.”
How is this possible?
Very simple. I was eighteen years old when for the first time I was attracted to a very pretty young lady; but I looked after her as if this was not new to me: just as I later looked after others. As a matter of fact, in the first and last time I fell in love, about six years old, with my nanny; but this is a long time ago. The details of our relationship have been erased from my memory, and even if I remembered them, who would be interested?
So what should we do? - the owner began. “There’s not much that’s interesting about my first love either: I didn’t fall in love with anyone before I met Anna Ivanovna, my current wife, and everything went like clockwork for us: our fathers matched us, we very soon fell in love with each other and got married.” without delay. My fairy tale is told in two words. I confess, gentlemen, when raising the question of first love, I was hoping for you, I won’t say old, but not young bachelors either. Are you going to amuse us with something, Vladimir Petrovich?
“My first love really belongs to the number of not quite ordinary ones,” answered Vladimir Petrovich, a man of about forty, black hair with graying hair, with a slight hesitation.
A! - the owner and Sergei Nikolaevich said in one voice. - So much the better... Tell me.
If you please... or not: I won’t tell you; I am not a master of storytelling: it comes out dry and short or lengthy and false; and if you allow me, I will write down everything I remember in a notebook and read it to you.
The friends did not agree at first, but Vladimir Petrovich insisted on his own. Two weeks later they got back together, and Vladimir Petrovich kept his promise.
This is what was in his notebook:
I was sixteen years old then. This happened in the summer of 1833.
I lived in Moscow with my parents. They rented a dacha near the Kaluga outpost, opposite Neskuchny. I was preparing for university, but I worked very little and in no hurry.
Nobody restricted my freedom. I did what I wanted, especially since I parted with my last French tutor, who could not get used to the idea that he had fallen “like a bomb” (comme une bombe) in Russia, and with a fierce expression on his face I lay on my bed all day long. My father treated me with indifference and kindness; Mother paid almost no attention to me, although she had no children except me: other worries absorbed her. My father, still a young and very handsome man, married her for convenience; she was ten years older than him. My mother led a sad life: she was constantly worried, jealous, angry - but not in the presence of her father; she was very afraid of him, but he behaved strictly, coldly, distantly... I have never seen a more exquisitely calm, self-confident and autocratic person.
I will never forget the first weeks I spent at the dacha. The weather was wonderful; We moved from the city on May 9, on Nikolina’s day. I walked - now in the garden of our dacha, now along Neskuchny, now behind the outpost; I took some book with me - Kaidanov's course, for example - but rarely opened it, and mostly read poetry out loud, which I knew a lot from memory; the blood was fermenting in me, and my heart was aching - so sweet and funny: I kept waiting, timid about something and marveled at everything, and was all ready; fantasy played and rushed quickly around the same ideas, like swifts around a bell tower at dawn; I thought, felt sad and even cried; but even through the tears and through the sadness, inspired sometimes by a melodious verse, sometimes by the beauty of the evening, a joyful feeling of young, simmering life emerged, like spring grass. I had a riding horse, I would saddle it myself and ride off alone somewhere far away, start galloping and imagine myself as a knight in a tournament - how joyfully the wind blew in my ears! - or, turning his face to the sky, he accepted its shining light and azure into his open soul.
I remember at that time the image of a woman, a ghost female love almost never appeared in definite shape in my mind; but in everything that I thought, in everything that I felt, there was hidden a half-conscious, bashful premonition of something new, unspeakably sweet, feminine...
This premonition, this expectation penetrated my entire being: I breathed it, it rolled through my veins in every drop of blood... it was destined to come true soon.
Our dacha consisted of a wooden manor house with columns and two low outbuildings; in the wing to the left there was a tiny factory of cheap wallpaper... I went there more than once to watch how a dozen thin and disheveled boys in greasy dressing gowns and with worn-out faces continually jumped onto the wooden levers that pressed the quadrangular stumps of the press, and thus, with the weight of their puny bodies, squeezed out colorful wallpaper patterns. The outbuilding to the right stood empty and was being rented out. One day - about three weeks after the ninth of May - the shutters in the windows of this outbuilding opened, women's faces- some family settled in it. I remember that on the same day at dinner, mother asked the butler who our new neighbors were, and, hearing the name of Princess Zasekina, at first she said, not without some respect: “Ah! princess... - and then added: “She must be some poor one.”
“They arrived in three cabs, sir,” the butler noted, respectfully serving the dish, “they don’t have their own carriage, sir, and the furniture is very empty.”
Yes,” my mother objected, “but it’s still better.”
Her father looked at her coldly: she fell silent.
Indeed, Princess Zasekina could not have been rich woman: the outbuilding she hired was so dilapidated, small, and low that people, although somewhat wealthy, would not agree to settle in it. However, I ignored all this then. Princely title had little effect on me: I recently read Schiller’s The Robbers.
II
I had the habit of wandering around our garden every evening with a gun and watching for crows. I have long felt hatred for these cautious, predatory and crafty birds. On the day in question, I also went to the garden - and, having walked all the alleys in vain (the crows recognized me and only croaked abruptly from a distance), I accidentally approached the low fence that separated our property from the narrow strip of the garden that stretched behind the outbuilding to the right and belonged to him. I walked with my head down. Suddenly I heard voices; I looked over the fence and was petrified... A strange sight presented itself to me.
A few steps away from me - in a clearing, between green raspberry bushes, stood a tall, slender girl in a striped pink dress and with a white scarf on his head; Four young men crowded around her, and she took turns slapping them on the forehead with those small gray flowers, whose name I don’t know, but which are well known to children: these flowers form small bags and burst with a bang when you hit them on something hard. The young people so willingly offered their foreheads - and in the movements of the girl (I saw her from the side) there was something so charming, commanding, caressing, mocking and sweet that I almost cried out in surprise and pleasure and, it seems, would have given it right away everything in the world, just so that these lovely fingers would slap me on the forehead. My gun slipped onto the grass, I forgot everything, I devoured with my gaze this slender figure, and the neck, and beautiful hands, and slightly disheveled blond hair under a white handkerchief, and this half-closed, intelligent eye, and these eyelashes, and a tender cheek under them...
“Young man, but young man,” a voice suddenly said next to me, “is it really permissible to look at other young ladies like that?”
I shuddered all over, I was stunned... A man with short-cropped black hair stood next to me behind the fence and looked at me ironically. At that very moment the girl turned to me... I saw huge gray eyes on a moving, animated face - and this whole face suddenly trembled, laughed, white teeth flashed on it, eyebrows raised somehow funny... I flushed, grabbed a gun from the ground and, pursued by loud, but not evil laughter, he ran to his room, threw himself on the bed and covered his face with his hands. My heart was jumping inside me; I was very ashamed and happy: I felt unprecedented excitement.
Having rested, I combed my hair, cleaned myself and went downstairs to have tea. The image of a young girl floated before me, my heart stopped jumping, but somehow contracted pleasantly.
What happened to you? - my father suddenly asked me, “did you kill a crow?”
I wanted to tell him everything, but I resisted and just smiled to myself. When I went to bed, I, I don’t know why, turned around on one leg three times, put on some lipstick, lay down and slept like a log all night. Before the morning, I woke up for a moment, raised my head, looked around me with delight - and fell asleep again.
“How can I meet them?” - was my first thought as soon as I woke up in the morning. I went into the garden before tea, but didn't go too close to the fence and didn't see anyone. After tea, I walked several times along the street in front of the dacha - and from afar I looked into the windows... I thought I saw her face behind the curtain, and I quickly left with fear. “However, we need to get to know each other,” I thought, walking randomly along the sandy plain stretching out in front of Neskuchny, “but how? That is the question". I recalled the slightest details of yesterday’s meeting: for some reason I especially clearly imagined how she laughed at me... But while I was worried and making various plans, fate was already taking care of me.
In my absence, my mother received a letter from her new neighbor on gray paper, sealed with brown sealing wax, the kind used only on postal summonses and on the corks of cheap wine. In this letter, written in illiterate language and untidy handwriting, the princess asked her mother to provide her with protection: my mother, according to the princess, was well acquainted with significant people on whom her fate and the fate of her children depended, since she had very important processes . “I address you,” she wrote, “as a noble lady to a noble lady, and at the same time I am pleased to take advantage of this opportunity.” As she finished, she asked her mother for permission to come to her. I found my mother in an unpleasant mood: my father was not at home, and she had no one to consult with. It was impossible not to answer the “noble lady,” and even the princess, and mother was perplexed how to answer. Writing a note in French seemed inappropriate to her, and mother herself was not strong in Russian spelling - and she knew it - and did not want to compromise herself. She was delighted at my arrival and immediately ordered me to go to the princess and verbally explain to her that my mother, they say, is always ready to render her ladyship, to the best of her ability, a service and asks her to come to her at the first hour. The unexpectedly quick fulfillment of my secret desires both delighted and frightened me; however, I did not show the embarrassment that had taken hold of me - and first went to my room to put on a new tie and frock coat; At home I still wore a jacket and turn-down collars, although I was very burdened by them.
In the cramped and unkempt front outbuilding, which I entered with an involuntary trembling throughout my whole body, I was met by an old and gray-haired servant with a dark, copper-colored face, pig-like, gloomy eyes and such deep wrinkles on his forehead and temples as I have never seen in my life. seen. He carried a gnawed back of a herring on a plate and, closing the door leading to another room with his foot, said abruptly:
What do you want?
Is Princess Zasekina at home? - I asked.
Boniface! - a rattling female voice shouted from behind the door.
The servant silently turned his back to me, revealing the heavily worn back of his livery, with a single reddish coat of arms button, and left, placing the plate on the floor.
Did you go to the neighborhood? - repeated the same female voice. The servant muttered something. - Eh?.. Someone came?.. - was heard again. - Is Barchuk next door? Well, ask.
“Please come into the living room,” said the servant, appearing again in front of me and picking up the plate from the floor.
I went and entered the "living room".
I found myself in a small and not entirely tidy room with poor, as if hastily arranged, furniture. Near the window, on an armchair with a broken arm, sat a woman of about fifty, bare-haired and ugly, in an old green dress and with a colorful scarf around her neck. Her small black eyes glared at me.
I walked up to her and bowed.
Do I have the honor of speaking with Princess Zasekina?
I am Princess Zasekina; and you are the son of Mr. V.?
Exactly so, sir. I came to you with an order from my mother.
Sit down please. Boniface! Where are my keys, have you seen?
I told Mrs. Zasekina my mother’s answer to her note. She listened to me, tapping her thick red fingers on the window, and when I finished, she stared at me again.
Very good; “I will certainly be there,” she said finally. - How young you are! How old are you, may I ask?
“Sixteen years,” I answered with an involuntary hesitation.
The princess took some scribbled, greasy papers out of her pocket, brought them to her very nose and began to sort through them.
“These are good years,” she said suddenly, turning and fidgeting in her chair. - And you, please, be without ceremony. It's simple for me.
“Too simple,” I thought, looking with involuntary disgust at her entire unattractive figure.
At that moment, another door to the living room quickly opened, and on the threshold appeared the girl whom I had seen the day before in the garden. She raised her hand and a grin flashed across her face.
“And here is my daughter,” said the princess, pointing at her with her elbow. - Zinochka, the son of our neighbor, Mr. V. What is your name, may I ask?
Vladimir,” I answered, standing up and lisping with excitement.
What about father?
Petrovich.
Yes! I had a friend who was a police chief, also called Vladimir Petrovich. Boniface! Don't look for the keys, the keys are in my pocket.
The young girl continued to look at me with the same grin, squinting slightly and tilting her head slightly to the side.
“I have already seen Monsieur Voldemar,” she began. (The silvery sound of her voice ran through me with some kind of sweet chill.) - Will you allow me to call you that?
“For mercy’s sake,” I stammered.
Where is it? - asked the princess.
The princess did not answer her mother.
Are you busy now? - she said, not taking her eyes off me.
No way, sir.
Would you like to help me untangle the wool? Come here to me.
She nodded her head at me and walked out of the living room. I went after her.
The room we entered had a little better furniture and was arranged with more taste. However, at that moment I could hardly notice anything: I moved as if in a dream and felt throughout my entire being some kind of stupidly tense well-being.
The princess sat down, took out a bundle of red wool and, pointing to a chair opposite her, carefully untied the bundle and placed it in my hands. She did all this silently, with a kind of amusing slowness and with the same bright and sly smile on her slightly parted lips. She began to wind the wool onto the folded card and suddenly illuminated me with such a clear and quick glance that I involuntarily looked down. When her eyes for the most part half-squinted, opened to its full size - her face changed completely: as if light was pouring over it.
What did you think of me yesterday, Monsieur Voldemar? - she asked after a while. - You probably judged me?
I... princess... I didn’t think anything... how can I... - I answered with embarrassment.
Listen,” she objected, “you don’t know me yet: I’m strange; I want to always be told the truth. “You, I heard, are sixteen years old, and I am twenty-one: you see, I am much older than you, and therefore you must always tell me the truth... and obey me,” she added. - Look at me - why don’t you look at me?
I was even more embarrassed, but I looked up at her. She smiled, only not the same, but a different, approving smile.
“Look at me,” she said, lowering her voice affectionately, “it’s not unpleasant for me... I like your face; I have a feeling that we will be friends. Do you like me? - she added slyly.
Princess... - I began.
Firstly, call me Zinaida Alexandrovna, and secondly, what is this habit among children (she has recovered) - among young people - not to say directly what they feel? It's good for adults. After all, you like me?
Although I was very pleased that she spoke to me so openly, I was a little offended. I wanted to show her that she was not dealing with a boy, and, taking on as casual and serious a look as possible, I said:
Of course, I like you very much, Zinaida Alexandrovna; I don't want to hide it.
She shook her head thoughtfully.
Do you have a tutor? - she asked suddenly.
No, I haven’t had a tutor for a long time.
I lied; Not even a month has passed since I parted with my Frenchman.
ABOUT! Yes, I see - you are quite big.
She lightly hit my fingers.
Keep your arms straight! - And she diligently began to wind the ball.
I took advantage of the fact that she did not raise her eyes and began to examine her, first furtively, then more and more boldly. Her face seemed to me even more charming than the day before; everything about him was so subtle, smart and sweet. She sat with her back to the window, which was covered with a white curtain; a ray of sunshine, breaking through this curtain, poured soft light her fluffy, golden hair, her innocent neck, sloping shoulders and tender, calm breasts. I looked at her - and how dear and close she became to me! It seemed to me that I had known her for a long time and knew nothing and had not lived before her... She was wearing a dark, already worn dress with an apron; I think I would willingly caress every fold of this dress and this apron. The tips of her shoes peeked out from under her dress: I would have bowed to these shoes with adoration... “And here I am sitting in front of her,” I thought, “I met her... what happiness, my God!” I almost jumped out of my chair with delight, but I just dangled my legs a little, like a child getting a treat.
I felt as good as a fish in water, and I would not leave this room for a century, I would not leave this place.
Her eyelids quietly lifted, and again her bright eyes shone tenderly before me - and again she grinned.
“The way you look at me,” she said slowly and shook her finger at me.
I blushed... “She understands everything, she sees everything,” flashed through my head. “And how can she not understand and see everything!”
Suddenly something knocked in the next room - a saber rang.
Zina! - the princess shouted in the living room, - Belovzorov brought you a kitten.
Kitten! - Zinaida exclaimed and, quickly rising from her chair, threw the ball into my lap and ran out.
I also got up and, putting a bundle of wool and a ball on the window, went out into the living room and stopped in bewilderment. In the middle of the room lay a striped kitten with its paws outstretched; Zinaida stood on her knees in front of him and carefully raised her muzzle to him. Near the princess, blocking almost the entire space between the windows, could be seen a blond and curly-haired young man, a hussar with a ruddy face and bulging eyes.
How funny! - Zinaida repeated, - and his eyes are not gray, but green, and his ears are so big! Thank you, Viktor Yegorych! You are very nice.
The hussar, whom I recognized as one of the young men I had seen the day before, smiled and bowed, snapping his spurs and rattling the rings of his saber.
Yesterday you wanted to say that you wanted to have a tabby kitten with big ears... so I got it, sir. The word is the law. - And he bowed again.
The kitten squeaked weakly and began to sniff the floor.
He's hungry! - Zinaida exclaimed. - Boniface! Sonya! bring some milk.
The maid, in an old yellow dress with a faded scarf around her neck, came in with a saucer of milk in her hand and placed it in front of the kitten. The kitten trembled, closed his eyes and began to lap.
What a pink tongue he has,” Zinaida noted, bending her head almost to the floor and looking from the side right under his nose.
The kitten was satiated and purred, coyly moving its paws. Zinaida stood up and, turning to the maid, said indifferently:
Take it away.
“A hand for the kitten,” said the hussar, grinning and shuddering with his whole powerful body, tightly pulled into a new uniform.
Both,” Zinaida objected and extended her hands to him. While he kissed them, she looked at me over her shoulder.
I stood motionless in one place and didn’t know whether to laugh, say something, or remain silent. Suddenly, through the open door of the hall, the figure of our footman Fyodor caught my eye. He made signs to me. I mechanically went out to him.
What you? - I asked.
“Mama has been sent for you,” he said in a whisper. - They are angry that you don’t come back with an answer.
How long have I been here?
More than an hour.
More than an hour! - I repeated involuntarily and, returning to the living room, began to bow and shuffle my feet.
Where are you going? - the princess asked me, looking from behind the hussar.
I need to go home, sir. So I will say,” I added, turning to the old woman, “that you will come to us in the second hour.”
Say so, father.
The princess hastily took out a snuff-box and sniffed it so noisily that I even shuddered.
Just say so,” she repeated, blinking tearfully and groaning.
I bowed again, turned and left the room with that feeling of uneasiness in my back that a very young man feels when he knows that they are looking after him.
Look, Monsieur Voldemar, come to us,” Zinaida shouted and laughed again.
“Why is she laughing all the time?” - I thought, returning home, accompanied by Fyodor, who did not say anything to me, but followed me disapprovingly. Mother scolded me and was surprised: what could I have been doing with this princess for so long? I didn’t answer her and went to my room. I suddenly felt very sad... I tried not to cry... I was jealous of the hussar.
V
The princess, as promised, visited her mother and did not like her. I was not present at their meeting, but at the table my mother told my father that this Princess Zasekina seemed to her une femme très vulgaire, that she was very tired of her with her requests to intercede with Prince Sergius for her, that she was always having some kind of litigation and business - des vilaines affaires d'argent - and that she must be a great scoundrel. Mother, however, added that she had invited her and her daughter to have lunch tomorrow (when I heard the word “with my daughter,” I buried my nose in the plate) - because she was, after all, a neighbor, and with a name. To this, the father announced to his mother that he now remembered what kind of lady she was; that in his youth he knew the late Prince Zasekin, an excellently educated, but empty and absurd man; that he was called in society “le Parisien”, due to his long life in Paris; that he was very rich, but lost his entire fortune - and it is unknown why, almost because of money - however, he could have chosen better, - added the father and smiled coldly, - married the daughter of some clerk, and Having got married, he indulged in speculation and went completely broke.
“No matter how she asks for a loan,” my mother remarked.
“It’s very possible,” the father said calmly. - Does she speak French?
Very bad.
Hm. However, it doesn't matter. I think you told me that you invited her daughter too; Someone assured me that she was a very nice and educated girl.
A! Therefore, she is not like her mother.
And not like my father,” the father objected. - He was also educated, but stupid.
Mother sighed and thought. The father fell silent. I felt very awkward during this conversation.
After lunch I went to the garden, but without a gun. I promised myself not to go near the “Zasekin Garden,” but an irresistible force drew me there - and not without reason. Before I could get closer to the fence, I saw Zinaida. This time she was alone. She held a book in her hands and walked slowly along the path. She didn't notice me.
I almost missed it; but suddenly he caught himself and coughed.
She turned around, but did not stop, pulled away the wide blue ribbon of her round straw hat with her hand, looked at me, smiled quietly and again fixed her eyes on the book.
I took off my cap and, hesitating a little in place, walked away with a heavy heart. “Que suis-je pour elle?” - I thought (God knows why) in French.
Familiar steps came behind me; I looked around - my father was walking towards me with his quick and light gait.
Is this the princess? - he asked me.
Princess.
Do you know her?
I saw her this morning at the princess's.
The father stopped and, turning sharply on his heels, walked back. Having caught up with Zinaida, he bowed politely to her. She also bowed to him, not without some surprise on her face, and lowered the book. I saw how she followed him with her eyes. My father always dressed very elegantly, uniquely and simply; but never did his figure seem more slender to me, never did his gray hat fit more beautifully on his barely thinning curls.
I started to go to Zinaida, but she didn’t even look at me, picked up the book again and walked away.
I spent the whole evening and the next morning in a kind of dull numbness. I remember I tried to work and took on Kaidanov - but in vain the accelerating lines and pages of the famous textbook flashed before me. Ten times in a row I read the words: “Julius Caesar was distinguished by military courage” - I did not understand anything and threw the book. Before dinner I put on lipstick again and put on my frock coat and tie again.
What is this for? - asked mother. - You are not a student yet, and God knows whether you will pass the exam. And how long ago did they sew your jacket? Don't throw her away!
There will be guests,” I whispered almost in despair.
What nonsense! what kind of guests these are!
I had to submit. I replaced my frock coat with a jacket, but did not take off my tie. The princess and her daughter appeared half an hour before dinner; The old woman threw on a yellow shawl over the green dress that was already familiar to me and put on an old-fashioned cap with fiery-colored ribbons. She immediately started talking about her bills, sighed, complained about her poverty, “moaned,” but did not behave at all: she sniffed tobacco just as noisily, turned around and fidgeted in her chair just as freely. It was as if it never entered her head that she was a princess. But Zinaida behaved very strictly, almost arrogantly, like a real princess. A cold immobility and importance appeared on her face - and I did not recognize her, did not recognize her glances, her smile, although even in this new form she seemed beautiful to me. She was wearing a light barge dress with pale blue streaks; her hair fell in long curls along her cheeks - in the English manner; this hairstyle suited the cold expression on her face. My father sat next to her during dinner and, with his characteristic elegant and calm politeness, occupied his neighbor. He occasionally glanced at her - and she occasionally glanced at him, so strangely, almost hostilely. Their conversation was in French; I remember I was surprised by the purity of Zinaidin’s pronunciation. The princess, during the table, was still not embarrassed by anything, ate a lot and praised the food. Mother was apparently burdened by her and answered her with some kind of sad disdain; Father occasionally wrinkled his eyebrows slightly. Mother didn’t like Zinaida either.
“This is some kind of proud woman,” she said the next day. - And just think - what to be proud of - avec sa mine de grisette!
“You obviously haven’t seen the grisettes,” her father remarked to her.
And thank God!
Of course, thank God... but how can you judge them?
Zinaida paid absolutely no attention to me. Soon after lunch the princess began to say goodbye.
“I will hope for your patronage, Marya Nikolaevna and Pyotr Vasilich,” she said in a sing-song voice to her mother and father. - What to do! There were times, but they are gone. “Here I am, radiant,” she added with an unpleasant laugh, “but what an honor if there is nothing to eat.”
Her father bowed respectfully to her and walked her to the front door. I stood there in my short jacket and looked at the floor, as if sentenced to death. Zinaida's treatment of me completely killed me. Imagine my surprise when, passing by me, she whispered to me quickly and with the same affectionate expression in her eyes:
Come to us at eight o’clock, you hear, without fail...
I just spread my arms - but she had already left, throwing a white scarf over her head.
Fame has come to this the greatest writer not only thanks to novels and stories. Numerous stories, plays, and prose poems played a major role. He was a very versatile writer.
The author did not chase quantity. It is known that he wrote his works slowly, nurturing the idea for a long time. Despite this, his works regularly appeared on the pages of magazines and separate books.
Famous story Turgenev wrote “First Love” when he was already 42 years old. In his work, he tried to comprehend the years he had lived and understand his past. Therefore all literary plot imbued with autobiography.
The history of the creation and conception of the story “First Love”
Turgenev's story with beautiful and unusual name– “First Love” was written by the author while he was in the city on the Neva. It is known that the basis for the author’s plot was the events that once happened to the writer himself. And so, being in St. Petersburg from January to March 1860, he took on his new work, the idea of which had long been born in his head.
According to the plot, the author talks about emotional experiences that aroused new feelings in the main character. A small childhood love on the pages of Turgenev's story turns into adult love, filled with tragedy and sacrifice. It is known that almost every hero of this work had prototypes, since this story was written on the basis of the author’s personal emotional experience and the events that once happened in his family.
As the writer himself later admitted, he tried to portray all events as they are, without hiding or embellishing anything.
“The actual incident is described without the slightest embellishment.”
The author believed that there was nothing wrong with him telling the truth, he had nothing to hide, and someone would take his story as a model and this would help avoid many mistakes and tragedies. This Turgenev story was first published in Russia, the year of its publication was 1860.
The plot of Turgenev's story "First Love" is constructed as if it were a memoir. The story is told from the perspective of an elderly man who remembers his first love. The author took as the main character of his story young man Vladimir, who was barely 16 years old.
In the story, the main character and his family go to relax on a family estate, which is located outside the city. In this rural calm and tranquility, he meets a young and beautiful girl. Zinaida was already 21 years old at that time. But Vladimir is not at all embarrassed by the age difference. This is how the main character appears in Turgenev's story female character– Zinaida Aleksandrovna Zasekina. Of course, she is young and beautiful, so it’s hard not to fall in love. Yes, Vladimir fell in love with Zina, but it turns out that he is not the only one in love. Around a pretty girl there are constantly candidates for her affection.
But the girl’s character turns out to be not the most diligent. Realizing that men really like her, Zina is not averse to sometimes making cruel jokes on them. So she doesn’t like Vladimir at all, but seeing his suffering, she decides to play a little prank on him, showing her capricious and playful disposition. Sometimes Zinaida Alexandrovna makes fun of him in front of everyone because he is too young. But Turgenev’s hero endures all this, because he is deeply in love. And only after some time, Vladimir unexpectedly learns that Zinaida is also very much in love and this object of her love is his father.
One day he witnesses a secret meeting between Zinaida Alexandrova and Pyotr Vasilyevich, his father. From everything he saw and said, he understood that his father had left the girl forever, because the whole family was leaving back to the city from the village. And a week later, Vladimir’s father suddenly has a stroke and dies. Zinaida very soon marries some Mr. Dolsky. Four years later, the young woman dies in childbirth.
Prototypes of the heroes of Turgenev's story “First Love”
All Turgenev's heroes in his story “First Love” have fictitious names, but according to the memoirs of contemporaries, they all have prototypes. As soon as the story came out, everyone recognized it real people: the writer himself, his mother, father and the girl with whom the author was in love. Let's take a closer look at their prototypes:
♦ Vladimir, Turgenev’s main character, is the author himself, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev.
♦ Zinaida Alexandrovna - Princess Ekaterina Lvovna Shakhovskaya, who was a poetess. It is known that the young author was deeply in love with her, but it soon became clear that she was his father’s mistress. Her fate: wedding and death after childbirth was in reality.
♦ Pyotr Vasilyevich, the father of the main character - Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev, who married a woman for convenience. Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova was much older than him, and he did not love her at all. Hence his affairs with other women.
It is known that due to the fact that the writer’s father’s marriage was not for love, Sergei Nikolaevich’s novels were frequent. His wife, the writer’s mother, took care of the housework and stood firmly on her feet. Therefore, the couple lived on their own. In the story the author shows this married couple, from whose relationship their son, a completely young creature, suffers. The author himself is easily recognizable in it. This whole story takes place at a time when Ivan Turgenev lives in a village in the Moscow region to prepare for exams to enter the university.
The young man is passionately in love, and the girl flirts and jokes with him. Volodya completely forgets about his studies and thinks only about Zinochka. That’s why so much of Turgenev’s story is devoted to describing the experiences and feelings of a young man, which are constantly changing and in some ways even resemble a storm or flash. It is worth noting that Volodya is still happy, although the girl simply laughs at him. But still, anxiety gradually increases, and soon the young man begins to understand that Zina is not so simple: she has secret life and she is also in love with someone.
Soon, not only the hero, but also the readers begin to guess who Zinaida is in love with. The tone of the entire narrative of Turgenev's story changes greatly and the word "love", which before was stormy and enthusiastic, becomes dark and tragic. The girl’s feelings turn out to be much deeper than those of the main character. And Vladimir understands that this is what it is real love. It’s so different, everyone has their own, which is impossible to understand and explain. And as confirmation of this is the ending of the story, where the hero witnesses the explanation of two people in love who cannot be together.
But Volodya is not offended by them, realizing that this love is real and he has no right to condemn or interfere with such true love. This love is multifaceted, beautiful, complex. The author himself tried to find it all his life.
Composition of Turgenev's story
In its composition, Turgenev's story “First Love” is a rather simple work, but deep and meaningful. It has twenty chapters. The narrative is constructed in the form of memories, so the presentation is sequential and in the first person, since the author is the main character himself, who talks about what happened to him in his youth. Although the name, of course, has been changed: Vladimir Petrovich.
Turgenev's story begins with a short prologue, which shows the background of all these memories and introduces the reader to what they are about to learn. So, Vladimir, being an old man, in one of the companies tells the story of his first and tragic love. He does not want to tell his friends it orally, as they did, but tells them that he will definitely write this story and read it to them the next time. new meeting. And he keeps his word. After this comes the story itself.
Detailed analysis of the twelfth chapter of Turgenev's story
The twelfth chapter, which is the culmination of the entire plot, occupies a special place in the entire Turgenev story. It is here, in this chapter, that the hero’s feelings reach their highest intensity. In it, the author describes the feeling that he has never had better in his life. The plot of this chapter allows us to understand a girl who at first seems frivolous and not serious, but it turns out that she is capable of suffering and deep and serious feelings. But only these “illegal” feelings become a real tragedy for her, and, most likely, this pushes her to commit unpredictable and sometimes cruel acts.
The author claimed that what he had to experience at the age of 16 was simply bliss, which, unfortunately, would never be repeated. The writer measured a lot of things in life through love, and therefore he puts his heroes in Turgenev’s story through the test of love. Ivan Sergeevich shows that his heroes must be fulfilled as individuals. Turgenev's psychologism is always secret; he does not give an open description of them, only general hints that helped readers plunge into the depths of sensuality. This chapter contains many experiences of Vladimir, which show his inner world, and this helps to understand the content of the entire work.
With the help of his work, Turgenev was able to relive his youthful excitement and show the reader all the versatility of love.
I.S. Turgenev had a huge influence not only on literature, but also on the perception of the world among his readers, it is not for nothing that the term “Turgenev girl” has become a part of speech educated people and became common noun for the canonical female image in national culture. This author has created many diverse works, but they are united by deep poetry in every word. His “First Love” is also imbued with it.
In 1844 I.S. Turgenev met with French singer Pauline Viardot and fell in love. As it turned out, forever. They quarreled, made up, the writer followed his beloved everywhere. But this love was doomed, and at the same time selfless. It was this feeling that gave rise to a number of lyrical and philosophical stories with a tragic love plot, including “First Love,” published in 1860. In these works, feeling is a disease that affects a person and deprives him of his will and reason.
The book was written in January-March 1860. The plot collision was based on real story the writer's family: a love triangle between the young writer, his father and Princess Ekaterina Shakhovskaya. The author noted that he had nothing to hide, and as for the condemnation of Turgenev’s frankness by his acquaintances, he did not care.
Genre: short story or story?
The story is short in volume prose work, having a unique storyline, one conflict and reflecting a separate episode in the lives of the heroes. Tale – epic genre, standing in volume between a novel and a short story, has a more complex and branched plot, and the conflict is a chain of episodes.
“First Love” can be called a story, since there are several main characters (usually one or two in a story). The work depicts not a single episode, but a chain of events, related to development love conflict. Also genre feature A story can be called something that is a story within a story. The narrator, who is also the main character, recalls episodes of his youth, so the introduction talks about the situation that led the narrator to memories: he and his friends were talking about the topic of first love, and his story turned out to be the most entertaining.
What is the work about?
In the company of friends, the narrator recalls his youth, his first love. As a 16-year-old boy, Vladimir was fascinated by his dacha neighbor, 21-year-old Zinaida. The girl enjoyed the attention of young people, but did not take anyone seriously, but spent evenings with them in fun and games. The heroine laughed at all her admirers, including Vladimir, and did not take life seriously at all. But once…
Main character noticed a change in his beloved, it soon dawned on him: she fell in love! But who is he, the opponent? The truth turned out to be terrible, this is the father of the main character, Pyotr Vasilyevich, who married his mother for convenience, treats both her and his son with disdain. Pyotr Vasilyevich is not interested in the scandal, so love ends quickly. Soon he dies of a stroke, Zinaida gets married and also dies in childbirth.
The main characters and their characteristics
The description of the characters in the story “First Love” is dramatic and in itself gives rise to a conflict of interest. In a family where there is no harmony, love was perceived by men as a means to forget themselves or to feel needed. However, in pursuit of personal happiness, they did not delve into the hidden depths of Zinaida’s personality, and did not discern her essence. She poured out all the heat of her heart into an ice vessel and destroyed herself. Thus, the main characters of the work became victims of their own blindness, inspired by passion.
- Vladimir- A 16-year-old nobleman, still under family care, but striving for independence and adulthood. He is overwhelmed by dreams of love, happiness, harmony, he idealizes all feelings, especially love. However, for the main character himself, love became a tragedy. Vladimir forgot about everything, was ready to constantly be at Zinaida’s feet, was absorbed only in her. And after the dramatic denouement, he mentally aged, all his dreams of a brilliant future were shattered, and only the ghost of unfulfilled love remained.
- Zinaida– 21-year-old impoverished princess. She was in a hurry and longed to live, as if sensing that there would not be much time left. The main character of the story “First Love” could not calm down all her inner passion around her, despite big choice men, there was no loved one. And she chose the most unsuitable one, for the sake of whom she disdained all prohibitions and decency, and for him she was just another entertainment. She got married in a hurry to hide the shame, died giving birth to a child from an unloved... So a life ended, full of only one, also unfulfilled love.
- Petr Vasilievich- the father of the main character. He married a woman who was 10 years older for money, ruled and pushed her around. He showered his son with cold contempt. The family was completely unnecessary in his life; it still did not give him satisfaction. But the young neighbor, having loved him with all her heart, briefly gave him a taste for life. However, he could not leave his wife, it would be unprofitable, and there would be a scandal too. That's why the hero simply abandoned his mistress to the mercy of fate.
Subject
- The main theme of the story is Love. It's different here. And the self-humiliating feeling of Vladimir’s mother towards her husband: the woman is ready to do anything just not to lose her husband, she is afraid of him, afraid to admit to herself that he does not love her. And Vladimir’s hopeless, sacrificial love: he agrees to any role in order to be close to Zinaida, even a page, even a jester. And Zinaida herself has a passionate obsession: for the sake of Pyotr Vasilyevich, she becomes the same slave as his son before her. And love by chance for the protagonist’s father: women liked him, the neighbor was a new hobby, an easy affair.
- The result of love is next topic – loneliness. And Vladimir, and Zinaida, and Pyotr Vasilyevich are broken by this love triangle. After tragic ending no one remained the same, they all found themselves alone forever, they died morally, and then the failed lovers died physically.
- Family theme. Of particular importance in the work is the unfavorable climate in home Main character. It was he who made him beg for love. The complexes received from the cold rejection of his father were expressed in his attitude towards Zinaida. This slavish worship destroyed his chances of success.
Issues
Moral problems are revealed in the work in several aspects. Firstly, does Zinaida’s life, the crowd of fans around her, with whom she plays like pawns, deserve understanding? Secondly, can Forbidden love, transgressing everything moral standards, be happy? Plot development events answers these questions in the negative: main character finds herself punished for her disdain for her admirers by the devil-may-care attitude of her loved one, and their relationship inevitably leads to a breakup. And indirectly led to the death of both. However, the reader sympathizes with Zinaida, she is full of thirst for life, and this evokes involuntary sympathy. In addition, she is capable of deep feeling, commanding respect.
The problem of power in love is most fully expressed in the relationship between Zinaida and Pyotr Vasilyevich. The girl dominated her past gentlemen and felt very cheerful. But true love came, and with it suffering. And even suffering from a loved one is sweet. And no power is needed. Pyotr Vasilyevich hit her with a whip, and she gently brought the reddened place to her lips, because this is a mark from him.
Idea
The main idea of the story is the all-consuming power of love. Whatever it is, happy or tragic, it is like a fever that suddenly seizes and does not let go, and if it goes away, it leaves devastation. Love is powerful and sometimes destructive, but this feeling is wonderful, you cannot live without it. You can only exist. The main character remembered his youthful emotions forever; his first love revealed to him the meaning and beauty of existence, even if distorted by suffering.
And the writer himself was unhappy in love, and his hero too, but even the most tragic passion is best discovery V human life, because for the sake of those minutes when you are in seventh heaven with happiness, it is worth enduring the bitterness of loss. In suffering, people purify themselves and reveal new facets of their soul. Taking into account the autobiographical nature of the story, we can say that the author, without his fatal and sad muse, as well as the pain caused by her, would not have been able to penetrate so deeply into the essence of romantic relationships. The main idea of “First Love” would be far from it, and it must be suffered and learned from one’s own experience, since only those who experienced it will write convincingly about the tragedy of love.
What does the story teach?
The moral lessons in Turgenev's story consist of several points:
- Conclusion: First Love inspires us to be brave in expressing our emotions. There is no need to be afraid of love, because the most unrequited affection is the most wonderful memory. It is better to experience happiness for a moment than to be unhappy all your life because you chose peace over mental anguish.
- Moral: everyone gets what they deserve. Zinaida played with men - and now she is a pawn in the hands of Pyotr Vasilyevich. He himself married for convenience, rejected his neighbor - died of a stroke, “burnt out.” But Vladimir, despite the tragedy, received the brightest memory in his life, and at the same time his conscience is calm, because he did not injure anyone and sincerely gave all of himself to tender affection.
“First Love” is over 150 years old. However, this work does not lose its relevance. How many people have had their hearts broken by their first feelings forever! But, nevertheless, everyone carefully stores these emotions in their souls. And the beauty with which this book is written makes you re-read it many times.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!On this page of the site there is literary work First love the author whose name is Turgenev Ivan Sergeevich. On the website you can either download the book First Love for free in RTF formats, TXT, FB2 and EPUB, or read online e-book Turgenev Ivan Sergeevich - First love without registration and without SMS.
Archive size with the book First Love = 83.87 KB
“Stories; Stories; Poems in prose; Noble Nest; Fathers and Sons": Astrel: AST; M.; 2008
ISBN 978-5-17-016131-7, 978-5-271-04935-4
annotation
I.S. Turgenev is a unique name even in the golden galaxy of Russian classics prose XIX century. This is a writer whose impeccable literary excellence correlates with equally impeccable knowledge human soul. Turgenev enriched Russian literature with the most captivating female images and delightful, poetic pictures of nature. Works of Turgenev; putting the lofty essence into an elegantly simple plot form, are still not subject to the laws of time - and are still read as if they were written yesterday...
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
First love
Dedicated to P. V. Annenkov
The guests have long left. The clock struck half past twelve. Only the owner, Sergei Nikolaevich, and Vladimir Petrovich remained in the room.
The owner called and ordered the leftovers from dinner.
“So, this matter is decided,” he said, sitting deeper in his chair and lighting a cigar, “each of us is obliged to tell the story of our first love.” It's your turn, Sergei Nikolaevich.
Sergei Nikolaevich, a round man with a plump blond face, looked first at the owner, then raised his eyes to the ceiling.
“I didn’t have a first love,” he said finally, “I just started with the second.”
- How is this possible?
- Very simple. I was eighteen years old when I first became involved with a very pretty young lady; but I looked after her as if this was not new to me: just as I later looked after others. As a matter of fact, for the first and last time I fell in love at about six years old with my nanny; but this is a long time ago. The details of our relationship have been erased from my memory, and even if I remembered them, who would be interested?
- So what should we do? - the owner began. “There’s not much that’s interesting about my first love either: I didn’t fall in love with anyone before I met Anna Ivanovna, my current wife, and everything went like clockwork for us: our fathers matched us, we very soon fell in love with each other and got married.” without delay. My fairy tale is told in two words. Gentlemen, I confess, raising the question of first love, I was hoping for you, I won’t say old, but not young bachelors either. Are you going to amuse us with something, Vladimir Petrovich?
“My first love is indeed one of the not quite ordinary ones,” answered Vladimir Petrovich, a man of about forty, black hair with graying hair, with a slight hesitation.
- A! – the owner and Sergei Nikolaevich said in one voice. - So much the better... Tell me.
- If you please... or not: I won’t tell you; I am not a master of storytelling: it comes out dry and short or lengthy and false; and if you allow me, I will write down everything I remember in a notebook and read it to you.
The friends did not agree at first, but Vladimir Petrovich insisted on his own. Two weeks later they got back together, and Vladimir Petrovich kept his promise.
This is what was in his notebook:
I
I was sixteen years old then. This happened in the summer of 1833.
I lived in Moscow with my parents. They rented a dacha near the Kaluga outpost, opposite Neskuchny. I was preparing for university, but I worked very little and in no hurry.
Nobody restricted my freedom. I did what I wanted, especially since I parted with my last French tutor, who could not get used to the idea that he had fallen “like a bomb” (comme une bombe) in Russia, and with a fierce expression on his face I lay on my bed all day long. My father treated me with indifference and kindness; Mother paid almost no attention to me, although she had no children except me: other worries absorbed her. My father, still a young and very handsome man, married her for convenience; she was ten years older than him. My mother led a sad life: she was constantly worried, jealous, angry - but not in the presence of her father; she was very afraid of him, but he behaved strictly, coldly, distantly... I have never seen a more exquisitely calm, self-confident and autocratic person.
I will never forget the first weeks I spent at the dacha. The weather was wonderful; We moved from the city on May 9, on Nikolina’s day. I walked - now in the garden of our dacha, now along Neskuchny, now behind the outpost; I took some book with me - Kaidanov’s course, for example - but rarely opened it, and mostly read poetry out loud, which I knew a lot from memory; the blood was fermenting in me, and my heart was aching - so sweet and funny: I kept waiting, timid about something and marveled at everything, and was all ready; fantasy played and rushed quickly around the same ideas, like swifts around a bell tower at dawn; I thought, felt sad and even cried; but even through the tears and through the sadness, inspired sometimes by a melodious verse, sometimes by the beauty of the evening, a joyful feeling of young, simmering life emerged, like spring grass.
I had a riding horse, I would saddle it myself and ride off alone somewhere far away, start galloping and imagine myself as a knight in a tournament - how joyfully the wind blew in my ears! - or, turning his face to the sky, he accepted its shining light and azure into his open soul.
I remember that at that time the image of a woman, the ghost of female love, almost never appeared in definite shape in my mind; but in everything that I thought, in everything that I felt, there was hidden a half-conscious, bashful premonition of something new, unspeakably sweet, feminine...
This premonition, this expectation penetrated my entire being: I breathed it, it rolled through my veins in every drop of blood... it was destined to come true soon.
Our dacha consisted of a wooden manor house with columns and two low outbuildings; in the wing to the left there was a tiny factory of cheap wallpaper... I went there more than once to watch how a dozen thin and disheveled boys in greasy dressing gowns and with worn-out faces continually jumped onto the wooden levers that pressed the quadrangular stumps of the press, and thus, with the weight of their puny bodies, squeezed out colorful wallpaper patterns. The outbuilding to the right stood empty and was being rented out. One day - about three weeks after the ninth of May - the shutters in the windows of this outbuilding opened, women's faces appeared in them - some family settled in it. I remember that on the same day at dinner, mother asked the butler who our new neighbors were, and, hearing the name of Princess Zasekina, at first she said, not without some respect: “Ah! Princess...” and then added: “She must be some poor one.”
“They arrived in three cabs,” the butler noted, respectfully serving the dish, “they don’t have their own carriage, sir, and the furniture is very empty.”
“Yes,” my mother objected, “but it’s still better.”
Her father looked at her coldly: she fell silent.
Indeed, Princess Zasekina could not have been a rich woman: the outbuilding she hired was so dilapidated, small, and low that people, although somewhat wealthy, would not agree to live in it. However, I then ignored all this. The princely title had little effect on me: I had recently read Schiller's The Robbers.
II
I had the habit of wandering around our garden every evening with a gun and watching for crows. I have long felt hatred for these cautious, predatory and crafty birds. On the day in question, I also went to the garden - and, having walked all the alleys in vain (the crows recognized me and only croaked abruptly from a distance), I accidentally approached the low fence that separated our property proper from the narrow strip of the garden that stretched behind the outbuilding to the right and belonged to him. I walked with my head down. Suddenly I heard voices; I looked over the fence and was petrified... A strange sight presented itself to me.
A few steps away from me - in a clearing, between green raspberry bushes, stood a tall, slender girl in a striped pink dress and with a white scarf on her head; Four young men crowded around her, and she took turns slapping them on the forehead with those small gray flowers, the name of which I don’t know, but which are well known to children: these flowers form small bags and burst with a bang when you hit them on something hard. The young people so willingly offered their foreheads - and in the movements of the girl (I saw her from the side) there was something so charming, commanding, caressing, mocking and sweet that I almost cried out in surprise and pleasure and, it seems, would have given it right away everything in the world, just so that these lovely fingers would slap me on the forehead. My gun slid onto the grass, I forgot everything, I devoured with my gaze this slender figure, and the neck, and the beautiful hands, and the slightly disheveled blond hair under a white scarf, and this half-closed, intelligent eye, and these eyelashes, and the tender cheek under them...
“Young man, young man,” a voice suddenly said next to me, “is it really permissible to look at other people’s young ladies like that?”
I shuddered all over, I was stunned... A man with short-cropped black hair stood next to me behind the fence and looked at me ironically. At that very moment the girl turned to me... I saw huge gray eyes on a moving, animated face - and this whole face suddenly trembled, laughed, white teeth flashed on it, eyebrows raised somehow funny... I flushed, grabbed the gun from the ground and, pursued by loud, but not evil laughter, he ran to his room, threw himself on the bed and covered his face with his hands. My heart was jumping inside me; I was very ashamed and happy: I felt unprecedented excitement.
Having rested, I combed my hair, cleaned myself and went downstairs to have tea. The image of a young girl floated before me, my heart stopped jumping, but somehow contracted pleasantly.
- What happened to you? - my father suddenly asked me, - did you kill a crow?
I wanted to tell him everything, but I resisted and just smiled to myself. When I went to bed, I, I don’t know why, turned around on one leg three times, put on some lipstick, lay down and slept like a log all night. Before the morning, I woke up for a moment, raised my head, looked around me with delight - and fell asleep again.
III
“How can I meet them?” - was my first thought as soon as I woke up in the morning. I went into the garden before tea, but didn't go too close to the fence and didn't see anyone. After tea, I walked several times along the street in front of the dacha - and from afar I looked into the windows... I thought I saw her face behind the curtain, and I quickly left with fear. “However, we need to get to know each other,” I thought, walking randomly along the sandy plain stretching out in front of Neskuchny, “but how? That is the question". I recalled the slightest details of yesterday’s meeting: for some reason I especially clearly imagined how she laughed at me... But while I was worried and making various plans, fate was already taking care of me.
In my absence, my mother received a letter from her new neighbor on gray paper, sealed with brown sealing wax, the kind used only on postal summonses and on the corks of cheap wine.
In this letter, written in illiterate language and untidy handwriting, the princess asked her mother to provide her with protection: my mother, according to the princess, was well acquainted with significant people on whom her fate and the fate of her children depended, since she had very important processes . “I address you,” she wrote, “as a noble lady to a noble lady, and at the same time I am pleased to take advantage of this opportunity.” As she finished, she asked her mother for permission to come to her. I found my mother in an unpleasant mood: my father was not at home, and she had no one to consult with. It was impossible not to answer the “noble lady,” and even the princess, and mother was perplexed how to answer. Writing a note in French seemed inappropriate to her, and mother herself was not strong in Russian spelling - and she knew it - and did not want to compromise herself. She was delighted at my arrival and immediately ordered me to go to the princess and verbally explain to her that my mother, they say, is always ready to render her ladyship, to the best of her ability, a service and asks her to come to her at the first hour. The unexpectedly quick fulfillment of my secret desires both delighted and frightened me; however, I did not show the embarrassment that had overcome me - and first went to my room to put on a new tie and frock coat: at home I still wore a jacket and turn-down collars, although I was very burdened by them.
IV
In the cramped and unkempt front outbuilding, which I entered with an involuntary trembling throughout my whole body, I was greeted by an old gray-haired servant with a dark, copper-colored face, pig-like, gloomy eyes and such deep wrinkles on his forehead and temples as I had never seen in my life. He carried a gnawed back of a herring on a plate and, closing the door leading to another room with his foot, said abruptly:
- What do you want?
– Is Princess Zasekina at home? – I asked.
- Boniface! – a rattling female voice shouted from behind the door.
The servant silently turned his back to me, revealing the heavily worn back of his livery, with a single reddish coat of arms button, and left, placing the plate on the floor.
- Did you go to the neighborhood? – repeated the same female voice. The servant muttered something. “Huh?.. Someone came?..” was heard again. - Is Barchuk next door? Well, ask.
“Please come into the living room,” said the servant, appearing again in front of me and picking up the plate from the floor.
I recovered and entered the “living room”.
I found myself in a small and not entirely tidy room with poor, as if hastily arranged, furniture. Near the window, on an armchair with a broken arm, sat a woman of about fifty, bare-haired and ugly, in an old green dress and with a colorful scarf around her neck. Her small black eyes glared at me.
I walked up to her and bowed.
– Do I have the honor to speak with Princess Zasekina?
- I am Princess Zasekina; and you are the son of Mr. V.?
- Exactly so, sir. I came to you with an order from my mother.
- Sit down please. Boniface! Where are my keys, have you seen?
I told Mrs. Zasekina my mother’s answer to her note. She listened to me, tapping her thick red fingers on the window, and when I finished, she stared at me again.
- Very good; “I will certainly be there,” she said finally. - How young you are! How old are you, may I ask?
“Sixteen years,” I answered with an involuntary hesitation.
The princess took some scribbled, greasy papers out of her pocket, brought them to her very nose and began to sort through them.
“These are good years,” she said suddenly, turning and fidgeting in her chair. – And you, please, be without ceremony. It's simple for me.
“Too simple,” I thought, looking with involuntary disgust at her entire unattractive figure.
At that moment, another door to the living room quickly opened, and on the threshold appeared the girl whom I had seen the day before in the garden. She raised her hand and a grin flashed across her face.
“And here is my daughter,” said the princess, pointing at her with her elbow. – Zinochka, the son of our neighbor, Mr. V. What is your name, may I ask?
“Vladimir,” I answered, standing up and lisping with excitement.
- What about father?
- Petrovich.
- Yes! I had a friend who was a police chief, also called Vladimir Petrovich. Boniface! Don't look for the keys, the keys are in my pocket.
The young girl continued to look at me with the same grin, squinting slightly and tilting her head slightly to the side.
“I have already seen Monsieur Voldemar,” she began. (The silvery sound of her voice ran through me with some kind of sweet chill.) “Will you allow me to call you that?”
“For mercy, sir,” I stammered.
- Where is it? - asked the princess. The princess did not answer her mother.
-Are you busy now? – she said, not taking her eyes off me.
- No way, sir.
– Do you want to help me untangle the wool? Come here to me.
She nodded her head at me and walked out of the living room. I went after her.
The room we entered had slightly better furniture and was arranged with more taste. However, at that moment I could hardly notice anything: I moved as if in a dream and felt throughout my entire being some kind of stupidly tense well-being.
The princess sat down, took out a bundle of red wool and, pointing to a chair opposite her, carefully untied the bundle and placed it in my hands. She did all this silently, with a kind of amusing slowness and with the same bright and sly smile on her slightly parted lips. She began to wind the wool onto the folded card and suddenly illuminated me with such a clear and quick glance that I involuntarily looked down. When her eyes, mostly half-squinted, opened to their full size, her face changed completely: as if light was pouring across it.
– What did you think of me yesterday, Monsieur Voldemar? – she asked after a while. - You probably judged me?
“I... princess... I didn’t think anything... how can I...” I answered with embarrassment.
“Listen,” she objected. – You don’t know me yet: I’m strange; I want to always be told the truth. “You, I heard, are sixteen years old, and I am twenty-one: you see, I am much older than you, and therefore you must always tell me the truth ... and obey me,” she added. - Look at me - why don’t you look at me?
I was even more embarrassed, but I looked up at her. She smiled, only not the same, but a different, approving smile.
“Look at me,” she said, lowering her voice affectionately, “it’s not unpleasant for me... I like your face; I have a feeling that we will be friends. Do you like me? – she added slyly.
“Princess...” I began.
- Firstly, call me Zinaida Alexandrovna, and secondly, what is this habit among children (she has recovered) - among young people - not to say directly what they feel? It's good for adults. After all, you like me?
Although I was very pleased that she spoke to me so openly, I was a little offended.
I wanted to show her that she was not dealing with a boy, and, taking on as casual and serious a look as possible, I said:
– Of course, I like you very much, Zinaida Alexandrovna; I don't want to hide it.
She shook her head thoughtfully.
- Do you have a tutor? – she asked suddenly.
- No, I haven’t had a tutor for a long time.
I lied; Not even a month has passed since I parted with my Frenchman.
- ABOUT! Yes, I see that you are quite big.
She lightly hit my fingers.
- Keep your hands straight! - And she diligently began to wind the ball.
I took advantage of the fact that she did not raise her eyes and began to examine her, first furtively, then more and more boldly.
It would be great to have a book First love author Turgenev Ivan Sergeevich you would like it!
If so, then would you recommend this book? First love to your friends by placing a hyperlink to the page with this work: Turgenev Ivan Sergeevich - First Love.
Keywords pages: First love; Turgenev Ivan Sergeevich, download, free, read, book, electronic, online
Consequences of tubal ligation during caesarean section
The benefits of sunflower seeds for the heart, hair and nerves
Why do my legs give way at the knees?
Name energy: how the patronymic influences fate and the birth program Name patronymic meaning character
First Chinese Emperor