What is the work of nepochne nezvanova about. Dostoevsky "Netochka Nezvanova" - the history of creation. The difficult fate of Netochka Nezvanova

Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

Netochka Nezvanova

I don’t remember my father. He died when I was two years old. My mother got married another time. This second marriage brought her a lot of grief, although it was done for love. My stepfather was a musician. His fate is very remarkable: he was the strangest, most wonderful person I have ever known. It was too much reflected in the first impressions of my childhood, so much that these impressions had an impact on my whole life. First of all, to make my story clear, I will cite his biography here. Everything that I am now going to tell, I learned later from the famous violinist B., who was a comrade and short friend of my stepfather in his youth.

My stepfather's surname was Efimov. He was born in the village of a very wealthy landowner, from a poor musician who, after long wanderings, settled on the landowner's estate and was hired to join his orchestra. The landowner lived very luxuriously and most of all, to the point of passion, he loved music. It was said about him that he, who never left his village even for Moscow, once suddenly decided to go abroad for some kind of water, and went no more than a few weeks, solely in order to hear some famous violinist, who, according to the newspapers, was going to give three concerts on the waters. He had a decent orchestra of musicians, on which he spent almost all of his income. My stepfather entered this orchestra as a clarinetist. He was twenty-two years old when he met a strange man. In the same district, there lived a rich count, who went broke to maintain a home theater. This count refused the post of the conductor of his orchestra, a native of Italy, for bad behavior. The Kapellmeister was a really bad man. When he was kicked out, he completely humiliated himself, began to go to the village taverns, got drunk, sometimes begged for alms, and no one in the whole province wanted to give him a place. My stepfather made friends with this man. This connection was inexplicable and strange, because no one noticed that he had changed in any way in his behavior out of imitation of his comrade, and even the landowner himself, who at first forbade him to hang out with the Italian, then turned a blind eye to their friendship. Finally, the conductor died suddenly. In the morning the peasants found him in a ditch by the dam. They dressed up the investigation, and it turned out that he died of an apoplectic stroke. His property was kept by his stepfather, who immediately presented evidence that he had every right to inherit this property: the deceased left a handwritten note in which he made Efimov his heir in case of his death. The inheritance consisted of a black tailcoat, carefully preserved by the deceased, who still hoped to find a place for himself, and a violin, rather ordinary in appearance. Nobody disputed this inheritance. But only a few time later the first violinist of the count's orchestra appeared to the landowner with a letter from the count. In this letter, the count asked, persuaded Efimov to sell the violin left over from the Italian and which the count really wanted to acquire for his orchestra. He offered three thousand rubles and added that he had already sent for Yegor Efimov several times in order to end the bargaining personally, but that he stubbornly refused. The count concluded that the price of the violin was real, that he did not slow down anything, and in Efimov’s stubbornness he saw for himself an insulting suspicion of using his simplicity and ignorance in bargaining, and therefore asked to reason with him.

The landowner immediately sent for his stepfather.

- Why don't you want to give up the violin? - he asked him, - you do not need it. You are given three thousand rubles, this is a real price, and you are doing it unwisely if you think that they will give you more. The Count will not deceive you.

Efimov replied that he would not go to the count himself, but if he was sent, then it would be the will of the master; he will not sell the violin to the count, And if they want to take it from him by force, then it will again be the will of the master.

It is clear that with such an answer he touched the most sensitive string in the character of the landowner. The fact is that he always said with pride that he knows how to deal with his musicians, because they are all true artists to one person and that, thanks to them, his orchestra is not only better than the count's, but also no worse than the capital.

- Good! - answered the landowner. “I’ll notify the count that you don’t want to sell the violin because you don’t want to, because you have every right to sell or not sell, do you understand? But I myself ask you: why do you need a violin? Your instrument is clarinet, even though you are a poor clarinetist. Give her over to me. I'll give three thousand. (Who knew it was such a tool!)

Efimov chuckled.

- No, sir, I will not sell it to you, - he answered, - of course, your will ...

- Yes, do I oppress you, do I compel you! - shouted the landowner, pissed off, especially since the case was under the Count's musician, who could conclude from this scene very disadvantageously about the fate of all the musicians of the landowner's orchestra. - Go, ungrateful! So that I don't see you from now on! Where would you go without me with your clarinet that you don't even know how to play? But with me you are well fed, dressed, you receive a salary; you live on a noble foot, you are an artist, but you don’t want to understand and don’t feel it. Go out and don't annoy me with your presence!

The landowner drove away everyone he was angry with, because he was afraid for himself and for his fervor. And for anything he would not want to act too harshly with the "artist", as he called his musicians.

The bargaining did not take place, and it seemed that the matter ended, when suddenly, a month later, the count's violinist started a terrible business: under his own responsibility, he filed a denunciation against my stepfather, in which he proved that his stepfather was guilty of the death of the Italian and killed him with selfish goal: to take possession of a rich inheritance. He argued that the will was coerced by force, and promised to present witnesses to his prosecution. Neither the request nor the admonition of the count and the landowner who stood up for my stepfather - nothing could shake the informer in his intentions. He was imagined that the medical investigation over the body of the late Kapellmeister was done correctly, that the informer was going against the obvious, perhaps out of personal anger and annoyance, not having time to take possession of the precious instrument that was being bought for him. The musician stood his ground, swore that he was right, argued that the stroke came not from drunkenness, but from poison, and demanded an investigation another time. At first glance, the evidence seemed serious. Of course, the case was set in motion. Efimov was taken, sent to the city prison. A case began, which interested the entire province. It went very quickly and ended with the musician being caught in a false denunciation. He was sentenced to just punishment, but he stood his ground to the end and insisted that he was right. Finally, he confessed that he had no evidence that the evidence presented by him had been invented by him, but that in inventing all this, he acted on assumption, on guess, because until now, when another investigation had already been made, when already formally, Efimov's innocence was proved, he still remains fully convinced that the cause of death of the unfortunate bandmaster was Efimov, although, perhaps, he killed him not with poison, but in some other way. But they did not manage to carry out the sentence over him: he suddenly fell ill with inflammation in the brain, went mad and died in the prison infirmary.

Netochka Nezvanov is a novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

The history of the creation of the novel

In December 1846 FM Dostoevsky began working on the novel "Netochka Nezvanova". The novel was conceived as a large work in six parts.

However, out of these intended six parts, only three were written. The first part was called "Childhood", the second - "New Life" and the third part was called "The Secret".

These three parts were written by early 1849. In April 1849 Fyodor Mikhailovich was arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

The difficult fate of Netochka Nezvanova

In St. Petersburg, in a large house, at its very top, in a small room in the attic lives a family. Netochka is a little girl, eight years old, her mother and mother's husband are Netochka's stepfather. Netochka's mother - a sick woman - nevertheless supports the whole family, earning a living by sheathe rich people and cook for them.

Netochkin's stepfather, Yegor Efimov, is a strange and dishonest person who is addicted to drunkenness. A talented violinist himself, he gave up music, indulging in addiction. And he constantly insisted that he stopped playing only because his villainous wife ruined his bright talent.

In love with himself, he rudely and mercilessly insults Netochkin's mother. He is not in the least embarrassed by the fact that he himself lives off this sick woman. As a freelance clarinetist in the orchestra of a wealthy landowner, Efimov became close to an Italian violinist, who bequeathed his violin to him and taught him to play it.

Efimov imagines himself a genius, deciding that everything is permissible for him in this life. Favorably accepting the help of the people who sent him to Petersburg to study, without feeling the slightest gratitude to these people, Efimov drank the money that was given to him for the trip. And only after seven long years he got to the capital.

While already in St. Petersburg, Efimov continued to drink, but did not forget to tell everyone about his genius. Once he met Netochka's mother and married her. Netochka's mother, a romantic dreamer, who immediately believed in his talent, was ready to give everything for her husband. Efimov's old friend, Russian German B., once helped him get a job in a theater orchestra. Efimov continued to drink, not giving his wife or stepdaughter a penny from his salary. Soon he was kicked out due to arrogance and quarrelsomeness with his comrades.

Netochka, an unintelligent child, cannot understand the bitter reality of the relationship between mother and stepfather. She, by virtue of her childish perception, is incomprehensibly attached to her stepfather. In her childhood dreams, she sees a happy future in her own way. From their window one can see a large, rich mansion, the windows of which were decorated with red curtains. It was in this mansion that Netochka dreamed of living with her "dad". Once, having learned that the famous violinist S-c, Efimov, under the pretext of buying tickets for a concert, is coming to the city, he makes Netochka deceive his mother, takes the last money she needed to buy food from her, and drinks it on drink.

Netochka's mother, having learned about this, dies of an attack that very evening. Efimov still manages to get to St. Tsa's concert. He returns home completely shocked and destroyed. He finally realizes all his squalor and worthlessness, comparing himself to the great violinist. The confused Netochka literally takes her stepfather out of the house by force. Her heart breaks with pain and longing for her dead mother, whom she left at home. Finding himself on the street, Efimov runs away from his stepdaughter, who unsuccessfully tried to catch up and stop him. Eventually, he himself loses consciousness and collapses. In the hospital where he was taken, he soon dies.

Out of compassion for the girl, she was taken to the house of her dreams - the mansion, which was visible from the windows of their apartment in the attic. Then Netochka was sheltered by Alexandra Mikhailovna, who devotes a lot of energy and attention to the upbringing of the girl. Netochka grows up, in her home library she finds novels that brighten up her rather boring life. And when she was sixteen years old, she began to study at the conservatory - the girl showed a wonderful voice.

By chance, Netochka becomes the owner of a secret that the owners carefully concealed - once she found an old letter from her admirer Alexandra Mikhailovna. She understands the persecution that her husband Alexander Mikhailovna constantly subjected to. During another attack of her husband's vicious attacks on Alexandra Mikhailovna, Netochka fearlessly stands up for her, expressing to her husband everything that has boiled over the years. After that she decides to leave home ...

Instead of an afterword

After his release, Dostoevsky decided not to continue working on the novel anymore. He reworked the beginning of the novel, removed some episodes from it, excluded some of the characters. Ultimately, the need for dividing the novel into parts disappeared, and the chapters in the novel were now numbered in a row from beginning to end. So the story of Netochka Nezvanova remained unfinished.

It was first published in Otechestvennye zapiski, 1849 (January - February, May), under the title Netochka Nezvanova. The story of a woman. "

Dostoevsky worked on the story for more than two years and pinned special hopes on it. “I am now overwhelmed with work,” he informs his brother in December 1846, “and by the 5th of January he undertook to deliver the first part of the novel“ Netochka Nezvanova ”to Kraevsky, the publication of which you probably already read in Otechestvennye zapiski. ... I am writing this letter in fits and starts, for I write day and night ... I write with zeal. It still seems to me that I started a trial with all our literature, magazines and critics, and three parts of my novel in Fatherland. notes "and establish my primacy this year in spite of my ill-wishers" ("Letters", vol. I, p. 104). Dostoevsky passionately wanted to restore the former glory of the author of Poor People, greatly shaken by the Double and Prokharchin».

Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. Portrait by V. Perov, 1872

In parallel with "Netochka Nezvanova" Dostoevsky wrote " Hostess". The complete failure of The Mistress, unexpected for him, and the sharply negative response from Belinsky deeply agitated Dostoevsky, greatly hurt his pride. And with even greater enthusiasm, he turns all his hopes to "Netochka Nezvanova". In early February 1849, he wrote to the publisher of Otechestvennye zapiski Kraevsky: “Because I, in order to fulfill my word and deliver it on time, raped myself, wrote, among other things, such bad things or (in the singular) such a bad thing , as "Mistress", thus fell into bewilderment and self-belittling and for a long time afterwards could not get together to write a serious and decent one. Every failure of mine produced a disease in me ... I know very well, Andrei Alexandrovich, that the first part of Netochka Nezvanova, published by me in January, is a good work, so good that Fatherland. notes ", of course, without shame can give him a place. I know this piece is serious. Finally, I say, it's not me, but they say all» . In this case, Dostoevsky was not mistaken. "Netochka Nezvanova" really promised to be a great and significant work of the young author.

F. M. Dostoevsky - White Nights. Uncle's dream. Netochka Nezvanova. Audiobook

In the magazine edition "Netochka Nezvanova" consisted of three parts: "Childhood", "New Life" and "Secret". Dostoevsky's arrest on business Petrashevtsev interrupted his work on this work, which remained unfinished. When preparing for publication the collected works of 1860, bearing in mind that there would be no continuation of Netochka, Dostoevsky made significant changes to the journal text. He turned the beginning of a great romance into story about the childhood and adolescence of Netochka Nezvanova. Therefore, division into parts disappeared, a general numbering of chapters appeared. Compared with the magazine text, an episode was excluded (after the words: "... knowing that I won't bother anyone there"), which depicted Netochka's acquaintance with the orphan boy Laray, adopted by the prince for upbringing. The fate of poor Larry is in many ways similar to the fate of Netochka herself: “His father died of grief, and his mother died of despair that she had lost her husband. They both died in one week. But for some strange idea, for some unfortunate conviction, Larya imagined that they died, except grief, and because he did not love them; the poor orphan has tortured himself ever since with repentance, reproaches, and restored his conscience upon himself. Worst of all, he kept his conviction a secret and that there was no one to dissuade him in the whole year of his orphanhood, so that an evil thought took deep roots in him and made God knows what of a child. Yes, in addition, there were other reasons that contributed to its establishment. With tears in his eyes the poor man proved to me Larya, what an insensitive boy he was, and did not listen to my persuasions. He was especially amazed, as it was evident from his own words, why he did not love his father and mother during their life, and only after their death he guessed, poor thing, how dear they were to him! From all his stories it was evident, however, that the poor thing, too, even beyond his age, was likable and impressionable, that he loved his parents with the most ardent love; but his conviction was incurable! He told me how his parents were poor, how they used to talk about some insignificant kopeck in whole evenings, and everyone gasped, everyone complained and hoped how to put together, to amass something ... Larya cited a lot of facts, which both me and him already understood, despite the fact that both of us were not at all in such years to understand from what interests many people fight in the world ”(“ Otechestvennye zapiski ”, 1849, January-February, p. 316 - 317).

Larry's story remarkably vividly depicts the character of the poor official Fyodor Ferapontovich, who sheltered the boy after the death of his parents. Fyodor Ferapontovich belongs to those "downtrodden people" whose psychology Dostoevsky showed sincerely in his first works. “He was not angry; but whether because he was offended, humiliated by someone and there was some secret enemy who constantly insulted his pride, or simply because Fyodor Ferapontovich was a wonderful person, but to his misfortune he took his last quality very close to his heart - only he, in the absence of listeners and admirers, was extremely fond of incessantly interpreting in his home, his wife and even young children, whom he held in respectful fear, about what a good, wonderful person he was, what merits he had rendered to society, what enemies he had made and how little he shook ... what - I don’t remember, but I speak in his syllable. When he spoke in this way, it used to be so emotional from self-indulgence and adoration that he would even cry and would certainly end up with some most spectacular trick: either he would open his dressing gown, open his chest and, exposing it to his invisible enemies, he says: “Strike! " or, turning to small children, he asks them in a menacing and reproachful voice: what have they done for all the good deeds that he has shown them? Did they reward him with a good study and pronunciation of the French language for all the vigilant nights, for all the labors, for all the blood, for everything, for everything? to his family and civic virtues and every evening made a little hell out of his house ”(ibid., p. 319).

Thus, having decided not to continue "Netochka Nezvanova", Dostoevsky excluded that part of the narrative, where new faces were introduced, counting on the further development of the plot. Of the other abbreviations of the text made by Dostoevsky in 1860, the following is the most interesting. After the words “... leaning on the fireplace and tightly squeezing my head with both hands,” the lines are crossed out: “At that moment, something hot burned my hand. I looked at Pyotr Alexandrovich and shuddered with amazement: tears were rolling down both his cheeks. His whole face depicted deep suffering. " So Dostoevsky consistently deprived the image of Peter Alexandrovich of any shade of nobility.

Eight-year-old Netochka lives in a closet in the attic of a large St. Petersburg house. Her mother, by sewing and cooking, earns food for the whole family. Stepfather, Yegor Efimov, is a strange man. He is a talented violinist, but gave up music, because the “villainess” wife allegedly ruined his talent. Only her death will "untie" him.

Rude and unceremonious, he shamelessly lives off the woman he has defamed, who, in spite of everything, continues to love him. She has been dangerously ill for a long time.

In his youth, Efimov was a free clarinetist for a wealthy and kind landowner, from whose orchestra he left after the sudden death of his friend, an Italian violinist. He was a “bad man,” but with supernatural features. “The devil forced himself upon me,” Yefimov later recalled about him. The Italian bequeathed his violin to him and learned to play it. Since then, Efimov has taken possession of a proud consciousness of his genius, exclusivity, and permissiveness. Without feeling any gratitude to the people who helped him (the landowner and the count), he spent on drink the money given to him for a trip to Petersburg, where he could develop his talent. Only after seven years of disorderly wanderings in the provinces, he finally found himself in the capital.

Here, the 30-year-old violinist became friends with a young colleague, a Russian German B., with whom he shared shelter and food. In a friend who had lost his technical skills, B. was struck by his “deep, instinctive understanding of art,” but depressing self-confidence and “the incessant dream of his own genius”. B. worked hard and, despite a relatively modest talent, eventually achieved success and became a famous musician. The talented Efimov, lacking "neither patience, nor courage," gradually became drunk and behaved more and more dishonestly. Friends parted, but B. forever retained sympathy and compassion for a friend of his youth. Soon, Efimov married the mother of the then two-year-old Netochka, a dreamer who believed in his talent and was ready to sacrifice everything for her husband. Once B. helped an old friend get a job in a theater orchestra. He did not give a penny of his salary to his wife and "daughter", drinking himself and singing friends. He was soon fired due to his nasty, arrogant nature.

Not understanding the true relationship between mother and stepfather, Netochka passionately becomes attached to her “father”. He is just as “persecuted” by a strict mother, as she herself. The girl is inspired by dreams inspired by Efimov's speeches: after the death of her mother, she and her “father” will leave the squalid attic and go to a new, happy life - to the “house with red curtains,” a rich mansion visible from their window.

When the famous violinist S-c comes on tour to St. Petersburg, for Efimov it becomes a matter of life to get to his concert. He must prove to himself that S-c is nothing in front of him, not recognized because of “evil” people, but a great genius. Where can I get money for a ticket? Taking advantage of Netochka's blind love for herself, her stepfather makes her deceive her sick mother, who sent her daughter to shop with the last rubles. Having given the money to the “father”, the girl must say that she has lost it. Having figured out her husband's plan, the mother falls into despair. Suddenly from B. they bring a ticket to St. Tsa's concert. Efimov leaves. The shocked woman dies that very evening. At night, the beggar musician returns, killed by the consciousness of his insignificance before the art of S., Netochka in excitement rushes to the distraught “father” and carries him away from home, towards his childhood dream, although her heart aches for the dead mother left behind. On the street, Efimov runs away from his “daughter”, who, screaming, tries to catch up with the madman, but falls unconscious. He himself soon ends up in the hospital, where he dies.

Now Netochka lives in the same “house with red curtains” belonging to Prince X, an intelligent, kind and compassionate “eccentric”. She was ill for a long time after the experience, but then a new feeling took possession of her heart. This is love for the adorable and proud age of Katya, the daughter of the prince. Frisky Katya at first disliked the sad and painful "orphan", jealous of her father. However, she inspired respect for herself, with dignity reflecting the princess's mockery of her parents. Netochka's learning abilities also bite the proud minx, whose coldness deeply hurts the girl. One day Katya decides to play a trick on the prince's evil and absurd aunt: she lets the bulldog Falstaff into her rooms, which inspires terror in the old princess. Netochka takes on Katina's guilt and is serving her sentence, locked in a dark room until four o'clock in the morning, because she was forgotten. Excited by the injustice, Katya makes a fuss, and the girl is released. Now there is open mutual love between them: they cry and laugh, kiss each other, keep secrets until the morning. It turns out that Katya also loves her friend for a long time, but she wanted to “torment” her with the expectation. Noticing the unnatural excitement of the princess, the adults separate the girls. Soon Katya and her parents left for Moscow for a long time.

Netochka moves to the house of 22-year-old Alexandra Mikhailovna, Katya's married sister. “Quiet, gentle, loving” woman is happy to replace the “orphan” mother and devotes a lot of energy to her upbringing. The girl's happiness is overshadowed only by an unaccountable antipathy to Peter Alexandrovich, the husband of Alexandra Mikhailovna. She senses in their unnatural relationship some kind of secret: the husband is always sullen and “ambiguously compassionate,” and the wife is timid, passionate and impressionable, and seems to be guilty of something. She is thin and pale, and her health is gradually deteriorating due to constant mental pain.

Netochka is already thirteen. She is able to guess a lot, but she is distracted from reality by the awakened passion for reading. By chance, the girl finds access to the home library, where novels that are forbidden to her are kept. Now she lives with “fantasies”, “magic pictures” that take her far away from the “dull monotony” of life. For three years she has even been hiding from her oldest friend. There has been no trust between them for a long time, although mutual love is just as strong. When Netochka turns sixteen, Alexandra Mikhailovna notices her “wonderful voice”: since then, the girl has been studying singing at the conservatory.

Once in the library Netochka finds an old letter forgotten in the book. A certain S.O. writes to Alexandra Mikhailovna. The girl learns the mystery that tormented her for eight years: when she was already married, Alexandra Mikhailovna fell in love with the “uneven”, a petty official. After a short and completely “sinless” happiness, “gossip”, “anger and laughter” began - society turned its back on the “criminal”. The husband, however, defended her, but ordered S.O. to leave urgently. The faint-hearted lover forever said goodbye to the “forgotten” “sad beauty”.

The shocked Netochka reveals the meaning of Alexandra Mikhailovna's “long, hopeless suffering”, her “sacrifice, meekly, meekly and in vain”. After all, Pyotr Aleksandrovich “despises her and laughs at her”: before entering his wife’s study, he usually “remakes” his face in front of the mirror. From a humming and laughing person, he turns into a downcast, hunched over, heartbroken. Seeing this, Netochka laughs sarcastically in the face of “the criminal who forgives the sins of the righteous”.

Soon, Pyotr Alexandrovich, whom his wife suspects of a love for Netochka hidden behind unreasonable captiousness, tracks down the girl in the library and sees the cherished letter. Wanting to justify himself, he accuses Netochka of immoral correspondence with lovers. During a stormy scene in Alexandra Mikhailovna's office, the husband threatens to expel the pupil from the house. Netochka does not refute slander, to be afraid to “kill” a friend with the truth. She protects the girl. The pretender in anger reminds his wife of the past “sin”, which brings her to a swoon. Netochka denounces his moral tyranny over his wife in order “to prove” that he is “more sinless than her”! Before leaving their house permanently, she must still talk with the assistant to Pyotr Alexandrovich Ovrov, who unexpectedly stops her.

Option 2

Netochka Nezvanova, a girl of eight, lives with her mother and stepfather in the attic of a St. Petersburg house. The mother earns her bread by sewing and cooking, the stepfather, the drunken violinist Efimov, loafers all day and lives at the expense of his wife. In his youth, his stepfather was a clarinet player, he made friends with an Italian violinist, who bequeathed his violin to him and taught him to play it. The ability to play the violin instilled pride in Efimov from the realization of his genius and exclusivity. Irrepressible pride and laziness brought the violinist to the most social bottom, he got drunk and went out with his friends. Soon he will marry Netochka's mother, who firmly believed in his talent and sacrificed everything for her husband.

Netochka is passionately attached to her stepfather, she is fascinated by Efimov's speeches about a happy life in a house with red curtains, where they will go together after the death of their mother who is bullying them. When the stepfather learns that the famous violinist S-c is coming to St. Petersburg, he persuades Netochka to trick him into taking the money needed for the medicine for a terminally ill mother and buy a ticket to the concert. Efimov wants to make sure that S-c is an overrated mediocrity in comparison with him, an unrecognized genius. The mother, having learned what the money was spent on, falls into despair and dies that very evening. The stepfather realizes that he is a mediocre man in comparison with S., and goes crazy. Later he will go to the hospital, where he will die.

The orphaned girl is accepted to live in the house of a kind nobleman. Netochka is grieving over the loss of her parents, but later she experiences a new feeling - love for the proud Katya, the prince's daughter. At first, Katya treats the orphan coldly, jealous of her father, but later the girls grow closer and become best friends. Adults separate girls, noticing the outbreak of feelings between them. Katya leaves for Moscow for a long time, and Netochka moves to the house of Katya's older sister.

Katya's sister, Alexandra Mikhailovna, becomes attached to the orphan and devotes a lot of energy to her upbringing. Netochka cannot solve the mystery of this family - Alexandra's husband is always gloomy and compassionate, and Alexandra herself is timid and seems to be guilty of something. The girl escapes from a strange family atmosphere into the world of novels and stories, which she takes in a large home library. It is in the library that she finds the answer to the family secret - in one of the books Netochka notices a love letter to Alexandra from a minor official. This connection disgraced Alexandra, but her husband protected her and now constantly morally tyrannizes the unfortunate woman. Alexandra's husband tries to slander Netochka, accusing her of correspondence with her lover, in response to which the girl denounces him of duplicity and leaves the house.

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The village of Stepanchikovo and its inhabitants Former hussar, forty-year-old retired colonel Yegor Ilyich Rostanev is the owner of the rich and comfortable estate of Stepanchikov, where he lives with his mother, the widow of General Krakhotkin, unmarried sister, daughter Sasha, fifteen years old, and son Ilyusha, eight years old. Read More ......
Player Aleksey Ivanovich, a 25-year-old home teacher, lives with the family of an elderly general Zagoryansky - his stepdaughter Polina and two young children - in a luxury hotel in the German resort of Roulettenburg. Back in Russia, the general mortgaged his estate to a certain Marquis Des Grieux and already Read More ......

Summary of Netochka Nezvanova Dostoevsky “I don’t remember my father. He died when I was two years old. My mother got married another time. This second marriage brought her a lot of grief, although it was done for love. My stepfather was a musician. His fate is very remarkable: he was the strangest, most wonderful person I have ever known. It was too much reflected in the first impressions of my childhood, so much that these impressions had an impact on my whole life. First of all, to make my story clear, I will cite his biography here. Everything that I am going to tell now, I learned later from the famous violinist B., who was a comrade and short friend of my stepfather in his youth. My stepfather's surname was Efimov. He was born in the village of a very wealthy landowner, from a poor musician who, after long wanderings, settled on the landowner's estate and was hired to join his orchestra. The landowner lived very luxuriously and most of all, to the point of passion, he loved music. It was said about him that he, who never left his village even for Moscow, once suddenly decided to go abroad for some kind of water, and went no more than a few weeks, solely in order to hear some famous violinist, who, according to the newspapers, was going to give three concerts on the waters. He had a decent orchestra of musicians, on which he spent almost all of his income. My stepfather entered this orchestra as a clarinetist. He was twenty-two years old when he met a strange man. In the same district, there lived a rich count, who went broke to maintain a home theater. This count refused the post of the conductor of his orchestra, a native of Italy, for bad behavior. The Kapellmeister was a really bad man. When he was kicked out, he completely humiliated himself, began to go to the village taverns, got drunk, sometimes begged for alms, and no one in the whole province wanted to give him a place. My stepfather made friends with this man. This connection was inexplicable and strange, because no one noticed that he had changed in any way in his behavior out of imitation of his comrade, and even the landowner himself, who at first forbade him to hang out with the Italian, then turned a blind eye to their friendship. Finally, the conductor died suddenly. In the morning the peasants found him in a ditch by the dam. They dressed up the investigation, and it turned out that he died of an apoplectic stroke. His property was kept by his stepfather, who immediately presented evidence that he had every right to inherit this property: the deceased left a handwritten note in which he made Efimov his heir in case of his death. The inheritance consisted of a black tailcoat, carefully preserved by the deceased, who still hoped to find a place for himself, and a violin, rather ordinary in appearance. Nobody disputed this inheritance. But only a few time later the first violinist of the count's orchestra appeared to the landowner with a letter from the count. In this letter, the count asked, persuaded Efimov to sell the violin left over from the Italian and which the count really wanted to acquire for his orchestra. He offered three thousand rubles and added that he had already sent for Yegor Efimov several times in order to end the bargaining personally, but that he stubbornly refused. The count concluded that the price of the violin was real, that he did not slow down anything, and in Efimov’s stubbornness he saw for himself an insulting suspicion of using his simplicity and ignorance in bargaining, and therefore asked to reason with him. The landowner immediately sent for his stepfather. - Why don't you want to give up the violin? - he asked him, - you do not need it. You are given three thousand rubles, this is a real price, and you are doing it unwisely if you think that they will give you more. The Count will not deceive you. Efimov replied that he would not go to the count himself, but if he was sent, then it would be the will of the master; he will not sell the violin to the count, and if they want to take it from him by force, then it will again be the will of the master. It is clear that with such an answer he touched the most sensitive string in the character of the landowner. The fact is that he always said with pride that he knows how to deal with his musicians, because they are all true artists to one person and that, thanks to them, his orchestra is not only better than the count's, but also no worse than the capital. - Good! - answered the landowner. “I’ll notify the count that you don’t want to sell the violin because you don’t want to, because you have every right to sell or not sell, do you understand? But I myself ask you: why do you need a violin? Your instrument is clarinet, even though you are a poor clarinetist. Give her over to me. I'll give three thousand. (Who knew it was such a tool!) Efimov chuckled. - No, sir, I won't sell it to you, - he answered, - of course, your will ... - Yes, do I oppress you, do I compel you! - shouted the landowner, pissed off, especially since the case was under the Count's musician, who could conclude from this scene very disadvantageously about the fate of all the musicians of the landowner's orchestra. - Go, ungrateful! So that I don't see you since then. Where would you go without me with your clarinet that you don't even know how to play? But with me you are well fed, dressed, you receive a salary; you live on a noble foot, you are an artist, but you don’t want to understand and don’t feel it. Go out and don't annoy me with your presence! The landowner drove away everyone he was angry with, because he was afraid for himself and for his fervor. And for anything he would not want to act too harshly with the "artist", as he called his musicians. The bargaining did not take place, and it seemed that that was the end of the matter, when suddenly, a month later, the count's violinist started a terrible business: under his own responsibility, he filed a denunciation against my stepfather, in which he proved that his stepfather was guilty of the death of the Italian and killed him with mercenary the goal of taking possession of a rich inheritance. He argued that the will was coerced by force, and promised to present witnesses to his prosecution. Neither the request nor the admonition of the count and the landowner who stood up for my stepfather - nothing could shake the informer in his intentions. He was imagined that the medical investigation over the body of the late Kapellmeister was done correctly, that the informer was going against the obvious, perhaps out of personal anger and annoyance, not having time to take possession of the precious instrument that was being bought for him. The musician one hundred on his own, swore that he was right, argued that the stroke came not from drunkenness, but from poison, and demanded an investigation another time. At first glance, the evidence seemed serious. Of course, the case was set in motion. Efimov was taken, sent to the city prison. A case began, which interested the entire province. It went very quickly and ended with the musician being caught in a false denunciation. He was sentenced to just punishment, but he stood his ground to the end and insisted that he was right. Finally, he confessed that he did not have any evidence that the evidence presented by him had been invented by himself, but that in inventing all this, he acted on assumption, on guess, because until now, when another investigation had already been made, when already formally, Efimov's innocence was proved, he still remains fully convinced that the cause of death of the unfortunate bandmaster was Efimov, although, perhaps, he killed him not with poison, but in some other way. But they did not manage to carry out the sentence over him: he suddenly fell ill with inflammation in the brain, went mad and died in the prison infirmary. Throughout this whole affair, the landowner behaved in the most noble manner. He tried about my stepfather as if he were his own son. Several times he came to his prison to console him, gave him money, brought him the best cigars, learning that Efimov loved to smoke, and when his stepfather justified himself, he gave a holiday to the whole orchestra. The landowner looked at the Efimov case as a matter concerning the entire orchestra, because he valued the good behavior of his musicians, if not more, then at least on a par with their talents. A whole year passed, when suddenly a rumor spread throughout the province that some famous violinist, a Frenchman, had arrived in the provincial town and was going to give several concerts by the way. The landowner immediately began to try in some way to get him to visit him. Things were going well; the Frenchman promised to come. Everything was already ready for his arrival, almost a whole district was called, but suddenly everything took a different turn. One morning it was reported that Efimov had disappeared to no one knows where. The search began, but the trail was gone. The orchestra was in a state of emergency: there was a lack of clarinet, when suddenly, three days after Yefimov disappeared, the landowner received a letter from the Frenchman, in which he arrogantly refused the invitation, adding, of course, in obscure words, that henceforth he would be extremely careful in relations with those gentlemen who keep their own orchestra of musicians, that it is unaesthetic to see true talent under the control of a person who does not know his worth, and that, finally, the example of Efimov, a true artist and the best violinist he has ever met in Russia, serves as sufficient proof of the truth of his words. After reading this letter, the landowner was in deep amazement. He was grieved to the core. How? Efimov, the same Efimov, about whom he cared so much, whom he benefited so much, this Efimov so mercilessly, shamelessly slandered him in the eyes of a European artist, such a person whose opinion he highly valued! And finally, the letter was inexplicable in another respect: they informed that Efimov was an artist with true talent, that he was a violinist, but that they did not know how to guess his talent and forced him to study another instrument. All this so amazed the landowner that he immediately was going to go to the city to meet with the Frenchman, when suddenly he received a note from the count, in which he invited him immediately to his place and notified that he knew the whole thing, that the visiting virtuoso was now with him, together with Efimov, that he, amazed at the insolence and slander of the latter, ordered to detain him and that, finally, the presence of the landowner is necessary also because the accusation of Efimov concerns even the count himself; this is a very important matter and must be clarified as soon as possible. The landowner, immediately going to the count, immediately met the Frenchman and explained the whole story of my stepfather, adding that he did not suspect such a great talent in Efimov that Efimov, on the contrary, was a very poor clarinetist with him and that he only heard for the first time as if the musician who left him is a violinist. He added that Efimov was a free man, enjoyed complete freedom and could always, at any time, leave him if he were really oppressed. The Frenchman was surprised. They called Efimov, and it was hardly possible to recognize him: he behaved arrogantly, answered with a sneer and insisted on the justice of what he had managed to tell the Frenchman. All this irritated the count to the extreme, who told my stepfather directly that he was a scoundrel, a slanderer and worthy of the most shameful punishment. - Do not worry, your Excellency, I already know you quite well and know you well, - answered my stepfather, - by your grace, I barely escaped criminal punishment. I know why Alexey Nikiforitch, your former musician, informed me about it. The count was beside himself with anger at such a terrible accusation. He could hardly control himself; but the official who happened in the hall, who had stopped by the count on the case, announced that he could not leave all this without consequences, that the offensive rudeness of Efimov contained an evil, unjust accusation, slander, and he humbly asks to be allowed to be arrested immediately, in the count’s home. The Frenchman expressed complete indignation and said that he did not understand such black ingratitude. Then my stepfather responded with impatience that punishment, a court, and at least again a criminal investigation were better than the life that he had experienced until now, being a member of the landowner's orchestra and having no means to leave it earlier, for his extreme poverty, and with these words left the hall together with those who had arrested him. They locked him in a remote room of the house and threatened that they would send him to the city tomorrow. At about midnight the door to the prisoner's room opened. The landowner entered. He was in a dressing gown, in shoes and was holding a lighted lantern in his hands. It seemed that he could not sleep and painful care made him leave the bed at such an hour. Efimov did not sleep and looked in amazement at the newcomer. He put down the lantern and in deep excitement sat down on a chair opposite him. “Yegor,” he said to him, “why did you offend me so? Efimov did not answer. The landowner repeated his question, and some deep feeling, some strange longing sounded in his words. - And God knows why I offended you so, sir! - answered my stepfather at last, waving his hand, - to know, the devil has beguiled me! And I myself do not know who is pushing me into all this! Well, I’m not living with you, not living ... The devil himself has become attached to me! - Yegor! - the landowner began again, - come back to me; I will forget everything, I will forgive you everything. Listen: you will be the first of my musicians; I will give you a salary unlike others ... - No, sir, no, and do not say: I am not your tenant! I tell you that the devil has forced himself on me. I will light your house on fire if I stay; finds me, and sometimes such melancholy that it would be better for me not to be born! Now I can’t answer for myself either: you’re better off, sir, leave me alone. This is all since that devil fraternized with me ... - Who? - asked the landowner. - But that died like a dog, from which the light retreated, an Italian. - Did he teach you to play, Yegorushka? - Yes! He taught me a lot for my destruction. I'd better never see him. - Was he a violin master too, Yegorushka? - No, he himself knew little, but taught well. I learned myself; he was only showing — and it’s easier for my hand to dry out than this science. Now I myself do not know what I want. Just ask, sir: “Yegorka! What do you want? I can give you everything, "- and I, sir, will not say a word to you in return, because I myself do not know what I want. No, you're better off, sir, leave me alone, I'll tell you another time. I’ll do something like that on myself so that they can send me away somewhere far away, and that’s the end of it! - Yegor! - said the landowner after a minute's silence, - I won't leave you like that. If you don’t want to serve with me, go; you are a free man, I cannot hold you; but now I will not leave you like that. Play me something, Yegor, on your violin, play it! for God's sake, play it! I am not ordering you, you must understand me, I am not forcing you; I ask you tearfully: play for me, Yegorushka, for God's sake, what you played for the Frenchman! Take your soul away! You are stubborn and I am stubborn; know, I have my own temper too, Yegorushka! I feel you, feel you as I do. I cannot be alive until you play for me that, of your own free will and desire, that played the Frenchman. - Well, be it! - said Efimov. - I gave, sir, a vow never to play in front of you, just in front of you, and now my heart is resolved. I’ll play you, but only for the first and last time, and more, sir, you will never hear me anywhere, even if they promised me a thousand rubles. Then he took a violin and began to play his variations on Russian songs. B. said that these variations are his first and best piece on the violin and that he never played anything more so well and with such inspiration. The landowner, who already could not hear the music indifferently, wept bitterly. When the game was over, he got up from his chair, took out three hundred rubles, handed them to my stepfather and said: - Now go, Yegor. I'll let you out of here and settle everything with the count myself; but listen: don't see me again. The road is wide in front of you, and if we collide on it, it will hurt me and you. Well, goodbye! .. Wait! one more piece of advice to you on the road, only one: don't drink and study, study everything; do not be arrogant! I tell you how your own father would tell you. Look, I repeat again: study and don’t know a glass, but if you take a sip from grief (and there will be a lot of grief!) - write is gone, everything will go to the devil, and maybe he himself is somewhere in the ditch, like your Italian , you will die. Well, now goodbye! .. Wait, kiss me! They kissed, and after that my stepfather was released. As soon as he was free, he immediately began by spending his three hundred rubles in the nearest district town, having fraternized at the same time with the blackest, dirtiest company of some revelers, and ended up by being left alone in poverty and without any help, some wretched orchestra of a wandering provincial theater was forced to join as the first and, perhaps, the only violin. All this did not quite agree with his initial intentions, which were to go to St. Petersburg to study as soon as possible, get a good job for himself and completely form an artist out of himself. But life in a small orchestra did not work out. My stepfather soon quarreled with an itinerant theater entrepreneur and left him. Then he completely lost heart and even decided on a desperate measure that deeply sickened his pride. He wrote a letter to a landowner known to us, depicted his position to him and asked for money. The letter was written quite independently, but there was no response. Then he wrote another, in which, in the most humiliating terms, calling the landowner his benefactor and dignifying him with the title of a true connoisseur of arts, he asked him again for help. Finally the answer came. The landowner sent a hundred rubles and several lines, written by the hand of his valet, in which he announced, in order to save him from any requests in the future. Having received this money, the stepfather immediately wanted to go to Petersburg, but, after paying off the debts, there was so little money that it was impossible to even think about the trip. He again stayed in the provinces, again entered some provincial orchestra, then again did not get along in it and, thus moving from one place to another, with the eternal idea of getting to Petersburg sometime soon, stayed in the provinces for six years. Finally, a terror attacked him. With despair, he noticed how much his talent had suffered, incessantly embarrassed by a chaotic, beggarly life, and one morning he abandoned his entrepreneur, took his violin and came to Petersburg, almost begging for alms. He settled somewhere in the attic and it was then for the first time that he got along with B., who had just arrived from Germany and was also planning to make a career for himself. They soon became friends, and B. even now remembers this acquaintance with deep feeling. Both were young, both with the same hopes, and both with the same goal. But B. was still in his first youth; he suffered little poverty and misery yet; moreover, he was above all a German and strove towards his goal stubbornly, systematically, with a perfect consciousness of his strength and almost calculating in advance what would come of him - whereas his comrade was already thirty years old, while he was already tired, tired, lost all patience and was knocked out of his first, healthy forces, forced to wander around provincial theaters and orchestras of landowners for seven whole years because of a piece of bread. He was supported only by one eternal, immovable idea - to finally get out of a bad situation, save up money and get to St. Petersburg. But this idea was dark, unclear; it was some kind of irresistible inner appeal, which finally, over the years, lost its first clarity in the eyes of Efimov himself, and when he came to Petersburg, he was already acting almost unconsciously, but, according to some eternal, ancient habit of eternal desire and pondering this journey and almost without knowing what he would have to do in the capital. His enthusiasm was a kind of convulsive, bilious, impulsive, as if he himself wanted to deceive himself with this enthusiasm and make sure through it that the first strength, the first heat, the first inspiration had not yet run out in him. This incessant delight struck the cold, methodical B .; he was blinded and welcomed my stepfather as the future great musical genius. Otherwise, he could not imagine the future fate of his comrade. But soon B. opened his eyes and understood it completely. He clearly saw that all this impetuosity, fever and impatience was nothing more than an unconscious despair at the recollection of a lost talent; that even, finally, the talent itself, perhaps at the very beginning, was not at all so great that there was a lot of blinding, vain self-confidence, initial self-satisfaction and incessant fantasy, incessant dreams of one's own genius. “But, - said B., - I could not help but be surprised at the strange nature of my comrade. A desperate, feverish struggle of convulsively intense will and inner powerlessness was taking place in front of me. For seven whole years, the unfortunate man was so satisfied with only dreams of his future glory that he did not even notice how he lost the most initial in our art, how he lost even the most initial mechanism of the matter. Meanwhile, in his disordered imagination, the most colossal plans for the future were created every minute. Not only did he want to be a first-class genius, one of the first violinists in the world; not only have I already read; himself such a genius — he, moreover, thought of becoming a composer, knowing nothing about counterpoint. But what amazed me most, B. added, was that in this man, with his complete impotence, with the most insignificant knowledge in the technique of art, there was such a deep, such a clear and, one might say, instinctive understanding of art. He felt it so strongly and understood in himself that it was no wonder if he got lost in his own consciousness about himself and took himself, instead of a deep, instinctive critic of art, for a priest of art itself, for a genius. Sometimes he was able to tell me such deep truths in his crude, simple language, alien to any science, that I became perplexed and could not understand how he guessed it all, never reading anything, never learning anything, and I I owe him, - added B., - to him and his advice in their own improvement. As for me, - continued B., - I was calm about myself. I, too, passionately loved my art, although I knew at the very beginning of my path that nothing more was given to me, that I would, in my own sense, be a laborer in art; but on the other hand, I am proud that I did not bury, like a lazy slave, what was given to me by nature, but, on the contrary, increased a hundredfold, and if they praise my clarity in the game, they are surprised at the elaboration of the mechanism, then I owe all this to uninterrupted, vigilant labor, clear consciousness of one's strength, voluntary self-destruction and eternal hostility to arrogance, to early self-gratification and to laziness as a natural consequence of this self-gratification. " B., in turn, tried to share advice with his comrade, to whom he obeyed at the very beginning, but only in vain made him angry. Cooling followed between them. Soon B. noticed that apathy, melancholy and boredom began to seize his comrade more and more often, that his outbursts of enthusiasm were becoming less and less frequent, and that all this was followed by some kind of gloomy, wild despondency. Finally, Efimov began to leave his violin and sometimes did not touch it for weeks at a time. It was not far before the perfect fall, and soon the unfortunate fell into all vices. What the landowner warned him against happened: he indulged in immoderate drunkenness. B. looked at him with horror; his advice did not work, and besides, he was afraid to utter a word. Little by little, Efimov reached the most extreme cynicism: he was not at all ashamed to live at the expense of B. and even acted as if he had every right to do so. Meanwhile, the means of livelihood were depleted; B. somehow interrupted himself with lessons or was hired to play at parties with merchants among the Germans, with poor officials, who, although little by little, paid something. Efimov did not seem to want to notice the needs of his comrade: he treated him harshly and for weeks on end did not deign him with a single word. Once B. remarked to him in the most meek way that it would not be a bad thing for him not to neglect his violin too much, so as not to wean off the instrument completely; then Yefimov became completely angry and announced that he would never touch his violin on purpose, as if imagining that someone would beg him on his knees. Another time B. needed a friend to play at one party, and he invited Efimov. This invitation infuriated Efimov. He heatedly announced that he was not a street violinist and would not be as vile as B. to humiliate the noble art, playing in front of vile artisans who would not understand anything in his playing and talent. B. did not answer a word to this, but Efimov, thinking about this invitation in the absence of his comrade, who had gone to play, imagined that all this was only a hint that he was living at B.'s expense, and a desire to let him know so that he also tried to make money. When B. returned, Efimov suddenly began to reproach him for the meanness of his act and announced that he would not stay with him for a minute. He really disappeared somewhere for two days, but on the third he appeared again, as if nothing had happened, and again began to continue his former life. Only the old boyfriend and friendship, and even the compassion that B. felt for the deceased person, kept him from the intention to end such an ugly life and part with his comrade forever. Finally they parted. B. smiled with happiness: he acquired someone's strong patronage, and he managed to give a brilliant concert. At this time he was already an excellent artist, and soon his rapidly growing fame earned him a place in the orchestra of the opera house, where he so soon achieved a well-deserved success. Parting, he gave Efimov money and with tears begged him to return to the true path. B. and now can not remember him without special feeling. Meeting Efimov was one of the deepest impressions of his youth. Together they began their career, so ardently attached to each other, and even the strangestness, the grossest, sharpest shortcomings of Efimov tied B. to him even more. B. understood him; he saw right through him and knew how it would all end. When they parted, they embraced and both burst into tears. Then Efimov, through tears and sobs, said that he was a lost, unfortunate person, that he had known this for a long time, but that now he only saw clearly his own death. - I have no talent! - he concluded, turning pale as dead. B. was greatly moved. “Listen, Yegor Petrovich,” he said to him, “what are you doing over yourself? You are only ruining yourself with your despair; you have neither patience nor courage. Now you say in a fit of despondency that you have no talent. Not true! You have talent, I assure you of that. Do you have it. I can see this already by the way you feel and understand art. This I will prove to you with all your life. You told me about your old life. And then the same despair unconsciously visited you. Then your first teacher, this strange man about whom you told me so much, first awakened in you your love for art and guessed your talent. You felt it just as strongly and hard then as you feel it now. But you did not know yourself what was happening to you. You did not live in a landowner's house, and you yourself did not know what you wanted. Your teacher died too early. He left you with only vague aspirations and, most importantly, did not explain you yourself. You felt that you needed a different road, a wider one, that you were destined for other goals, but you did not understand how this would be done, and in your anguish you hated everything that surrounded you then. Your six years of poverty and misery have not been wasted; you studied, you thought, you were aware of yourself and your strength, you now understand art and your purpose. My friend, you need patience and courage. A lot awaits you more enviable than mine: you are a hundred times more an artist than I; but God grant you at least a tenth of my patience. Study and don't drink, as your good landowner told you, and most importantly - start over again, with the alphabet. What is bothering you? poverty, misery? But poverty and misery form the artist. They are inseparable from the beginning. Nobody needs you now, nobody wants to know you; so the light goes on. Wait, it won't be that much when they find out that you have a gift. Envy, petty meanness, and above all stupidity will impose on you more than poverty. Talent needs sympathy, it needs to be understood, and you will see what faces will surround you when you reach your goal even a little. They will bet on nothing and look with contempt at what has developed in you through hard work, deprivation, hunger, sleepless nights. They will not cheer you up, they will not console you, your future comrades; they will not point out to you what is good and true in you, but with evil joy they will raise every mistake of yours, they will point out to you exactly what is wrong with you, what you are wrong about, and under the guise of composure and contempt for you will be like a holiday to celebrate your every mistake (as if someone was without mistakes! ). You are arrogant, you are often inappropriately proud and you can offend the selfish insignificance, and then the trouble - you will be alone, and there are many of them; they torture you with pins. Even I am beginning to experience it. Cheer up now! You are still not so poor at all, you can live, do not neglect the black work, chop wood, as I chopped them at parties with poor artisans. But you are impatient, you are sick with your impatience, you have little simplicity, you are too cunning, you think too much, you give a lot of work to your head; you are daring in words and you are a coward when you have to pick up the bow. You are proud and have little courage. Be bold, wait, learn, and if you do not hope for your strength, then go at random; there is heat in you, there is a feeling. Perhaps you will reach the goal, but if not, still go by chance: you will not lose in any case, because the gain is too great. Here, brother, is our maybe - a great thing! Efimov listened to his former comrade with deep feeling. But as he spoke, the pallor disappeared from his cheeks; they brightened up with a blush; his eyes sparkled with an unfamiliar fire of courage and hope. Soon this noble courage turned into self-confidence, then into the usual insolence, and, finally, when B. was finishing his exhortation, Efimov was already listening to him absentmindedly and impatiently. However, he warmly squeezed his hand, thanked him and, swift in his transitions from deep self-destruction and despondency to extreme arrogance and insolence, announced arrogantly that his friend would not worry about his fate, that he knew how to arrange his fate, that soon and he hopes to get some protection for himself, will give a concert and then at once will call for himself both fame and money. B. shrugged, but did not contradict his former friend, and they parted, although, of course, not for long. Efimov immediately spent the money given to him and came for it another time, then the third, then the fourth, then the tenth, finally B. lost his patience and did not speak at home. Since then, he has completely lost sight of him. Several years have passed. Once B., returning home from a rehearsal, came across in one alley, at the entrance to a dirty tavern, a badly dressed, intoxicated man who called him by name. It was Efimov. He has changed a lot, turned yellow, swelling in the face; it was evident that the dissolute life had laid its mark on him in an indelible way. B. was extremely delighted and, not having time to say two words with him, followed him to the tavern, where he dragged him. There, in a distant little smoky room, he got a closer look at his comrade. He was almost in rags, in thin boots; his disheveled shirt-front was covered with wine. The hair on his head began to turn gray and crawl out. - What's the matter with you? Where are you now? - asked B. Efimov was embarrassed, even shattered at first, answered incoherently and abruptly, so that B. thought he saw a madman in front of him. Finally, Efimov admitted that he could not say anything if they did not give him vodka to drink, and that they had not believed him in the tavern for a long time. As he said this, he blushed, although he tried to cheer himself up with some bold gesture; but something impudent, dressed up, intrusive came out, so that everything was very pitiful and aroused compassion in kind B., who saw that his fears had come true completely. However, he ordered vodka to be served. Efimov's face changed from gratitude and was so lost that, with tears in his eyes, he was ready to kiss the hands of his benefactor. At dinner B. learned with great surprise that the unfortunate man was married. But he was even more amazed when he immediately learned that his wife made up all his misfortune and grief, and that the marriage had completely killed all his talent. - How so? - asked B. “I, brother, haven’t picked up a violin for two years now,” answered Efimov. - A woman, a cook, an uneducated, rude woman. Damn her! .. We just fight, we don't do anything else. - But why did you get married, if so? - There was nothing to eat. I met her; she had about a thousand rubles: I got married headlong. She fell in love with me. She herself hung around my neck. Who pushed her! The money has been spent, spent on drink, brother, and - what a talent there is! Everything is lost! B. saw that Efimov seemed to be in a hurry to justify himself in some way. “I dropped everything, I dropped everything,” he added. Then he announced to him that recently he had almost reached perfection in the violin, which, perhaps, although B. is one of the first violinists in the city, he would not stand a candle if he wanted to. - So why did it become? - said the surprised B. - Would you look for a place for yourself? - Not worth it! - said Efimov, waving his hand. - Who of you there understands anything! What do you know? Shish, nothing, that's what you know! Some kind of dance dance in a ballet dancer is up to you. You have never seen or heard good violinists. Why touch you; stay as you wish! Then Yefimov waved his hand again and swayed in his chair, because he was pretty drunk. Then he began to call B to him; but he refused, took his address and assured that he would visit him tomorrow. Efimov, who was now well fed, glanced mockingly at his former comrade and tried to prick him with something. When they were leaving, he grabbed B.'s rich fur coat and handed it as the lowest to the highest. Passing the first room, he stopped and introduced B. to the innkeepers and the public as the first and only violin in the whole capital. In short, he was extremely dirty at that moment. B., however, found him the next morning in the attic, where we all lived then in extreme poverty, in the same room. I was four years old then, and two years ago my mother married Efimov. It was an unfortunate woman. Before she was a governess, she was well educated, good-looking, and out of poverty she married an old official, my father. She only lived with him for a year. When my father died suddenly and the meager inheritance was divided among his heirs, my mother was left alone with me, with an insignificant amount of money that went to her share. Going to governess again, with a small child in her arms, was difficult. At this time, in some accidental way, she met with Efimov and really fell in love with him. She was an enthusiast, a dreamer, she saw some kind of genius in Efimov, she believed his arrogant words about a brilliant future; her imagination was flattered by the glorious fate of being the support, the leader of a genius, and she married him. In the first month, all her dreams and hopes disappeared, and a miserable reality remained in front of her. Efimov, who really got married, perhaps because my mother had some thousand rubles of money, as soon as they were spent, folded his hands and, as if rejoicing at an excuse, immediately announced to everyone that marriage had ruined his talent, that he could not work in a stuffy room, eye to eye with a hungry family, that songs and music would not come to mind, and that, finally, it is clear that such a misfortune was written to his family. It seems that he himself later became convinced of the validity of his complaints and, it seemed, was delighted with a new excuse. It seemed that this unfortunate, lost talent himself was looking for an external event, on which all the failures, all the calamities could be blamed. But he could not be convinced of the terrible thought that he had perished for art long and forever. He struggled convulsively, as with a painful nightmare, with this terrible conviction, and, finally, when reality overcame him, when his eyes opened for a minute, he felt that he was about to go mad with horror. He could not so easily lose faith in what had constituted his whole life for so long, and until his last minute he thought that the minute had not yet gone. In the hours of doubt, he indulged in drunkenness, which, with its ugly child, drove away his melancholy. Finally, perhaps he himself did not know how much he needed his wife at that time. It was a living excuse, and, indeed, my stepfather almost went crazy over the idea that when he buried his wife, which destroyed him, everything will go on as usual. Poor mother did not understand him. As a real dreamer, she could not bear even the first step in a hostile reality: she became hot-tempered, bilious, abusive, constantly quarreling with her husband, who found some pleasure in torturing her, and incessantly chasing him to work. But my stepfather's blinding, motionless idea, his extravagance made him almost inhuman and insensitive. He only laughed and vowed not to take violins in his hands until the death of his wife, which he announced to her with cruel frankness. Mother, who until her death passionately loved him, in spite of everything, could not bear such a life. She became eternally sick, eternally suffering, lived in continuous torment, and in addition to all this grief, all the concern for the sustenance of the family fell on her alone. She began to prepare food and first opened a table for visitors. But her husband slowly carried all the money from her, and she was often forced to send empty dishes instead of dinner to those for whom she worked. When B. visited us, she was busy washing clothes and dyeing old dresses. Thus, we all somehow made it up in our attic. The poverty of our family struck B. - Listen, you keep talking nonsense, - he said to his stepfather, - where is the murdered talent here? She feeds you, and what are you doing here? - And nothing! - answered the stepfather. But B. did not yet know all the misfortunes of mother. The husband often brought whole gangs of various tomboys and brawlers into his house, and then what was not! B. persuaded his former comrade for a long time; finally, he announced to him that if he did not want to correct himself, he would not help him in anything; said without ado that he would not give him money, because he would drink it on drink, and asked at last to play him something on the violin to see what could be done for him. When my stepfather went to fetch the violin, B. slowly began to give money to my mother, but she did not take it. For the first time she had to accept alms! Then B. gave them to me, and the poor woman burst into tears. My stepfather brought a violin, but first asked for vodka, saying that he could not play without it. They sent for vodka. He drank and left. “I’ll play you something of my own, out of friendship,” he said to B. and pulled out a thick dusty notebook from under the dresser. “I wrote all this myself,” he said, pointing to the notebook. - You will see! These, brother, are not your ballet dancers! B. silently scanned several pages; then he unfolded the notes that were with him and asked his stepfather, leaving aside his own composition, to play out something that he himself had brought. The stepfather was a little offended, however, fearing to lose his new patronage, he fulfilled B.'s order. Then B. saw that his former friend really did a lot and acquired during their separation, although he boasted that he had not taken an instrument in his hands since marriage. You should have seen the joy of my poor mother. She looked at her husband and was proud of him again. Sincerely delighted, kind B. decided to find a place for his stepfather. He already had great connections and immediately began to ask and recommend his poor comrade, taking a preliminary word from him that he would behave well. In the meantime, he dressed him better, at his own expense, and took him to some famous persons, on whom the place that he wanted to get for him depended. The fact is that Efimov only swore in words, but, it seems, with the greatest joy he accepted the offer of his old friend. B. said that he felt ashamed of all the flattery and all the humiliated worship with which his stepfather tried to appease him, fearing somehow losing his favor. He understood that he was being put on a good road, and even stopped drinking. Finally they found a place for him in the theater orchestra. He passed the test well, because in one month of diligence and work he turned back everything that he lost in a year and a half of inactivity, promised to continue to study and be serviceable and accurate in his new duties. But the situation of our family has not improved at all. The stepfather did not give mother a penny from his salary, he lived everything himself, drank and ate with new friends, whom he immediately started a whole circle. He was mostly with theatrical ministers, choristers, figurants - in a word, with such a people, among whom he could excel, and avoided people of truly talented. He managed to instill in them some kind of special respect, immediately told them that he was an unrecognized person, that he was of great talent, that his wife had ruined him and that, finally, their conductor knew nothing about music. He laughed at all the orchestra's artists, at the choice of pieces that were put on the stage, and, finally, at the very authors of the operas played. Finally, he began to interpret some new theory of music - in a word, he got tired of the whole orchestra, quarreled with his comrades, with the bandmaster, rude to his superiors, acquired a reputation as the most restless, the most absurd and at the same time the most insignificant person and brought him to the point that he became unbearable for all. Indeed, it was extremely strange to see that such an insignificant person, such a bad, useless performer and careless musician at the same time with such huge claims, with such boastfulness, arrogance, with such a harsh tone. In the end, the stepfather quarreled with B., invented the most nasty gossip, the most disgusting slander, and used it for the obvious truth. He was survived from the orchestra after six months of disorderly service for negligence in the performance of duties and drunken behavior. But he did not leave his place so soon. Soon they saw him in his old rags, because a decent dress was sold and pledged again. He began to come to his former colleagues, whether they were glad or not happy with such a guest, spread gossip, chatted nonsense, cried about his life and called everyone to look at his villainess wife.Of course, there were listeners, there were people who found pleasure, having drunk the expelled comrade, to make him talk all sorts of nonsense. In addition, he always spoke sharply and intelligently and sprinkled his speech with caustic bile and various cynical antics, which were liked by a certain kind of listeners. He was mistaken for some extravagant jester, whom it is sometimes pleasant to make to talk out of idleness. They liked to tease him by talking about some new violinist who came in. Hearing this, Efimov changed his face, was shy, inquired who had arrived and who the new talent was, and immediately began to be jealous of his fame. It seems that only from that time did his real systematic insanity begin - his motionless idea that he was the first violinist, at least in Petersburg, but that he was driven by fate, offended, misunderstood due to various intrigues and was in obscurity. The latter even flattered him, because there are such characters who very much like to consider themselves offended and oppressed, to complain about it or to comfort themselves on the sly, worshiping their unrecognized greatness. He knew all the St. Petersburg violinists in every way and, according to his concepts, did not find a rival in any of them. Connoisseurs and amateurs who knew the unfortunate madcap loved to talk in front of him about some famous, talented violinist, in order to make him speak in his turn. They loved his anger, his caustic remarks, they loved the sensible and clever things that he said, criticizing the play of his imaginary rivals. Often they did not understand him, but on the other hand, they were sure that no one in the world knows how to portray modern musical celebrities so cleverly and in such a brisk caricature. the effectiveness of his attacks and the fairness of his judgment in the case when it was necessary to blaspheme. Somehow they got used to seeing him in the corridors of the theater and behind the scenes. The attendants let him in without hindrance, as a necessary person, and he became some kind of domestic Fersite. This life lasted two or three years; but at last he bored everyone even in this last role. A formal exile followed, and, in the last two years of his life, his stepfather seemed to have sunk into the water, and he was no longer seen anywhere. However, B. met him twice, but in such a pitiful state that compassion once again prevailed in him over disgust. He called him, but his stepfather was offended, pretended not to have heard anything, pulled his old warped hat over his eyes and walked by. Finally, on some great holiday, B. was informed in the morning that his former comrade, Efimov, had come to congratulate him. B. went out to him. Efimov stood drunk, began to bow extremely low, almost at his feet, moved his lips and stubbornly refused to go into the rooms. The meaning of his act was that where, they say, we, mediocre people, hang around with such nobility as you; that for us, little people, a lackey's place is enough to congratulate on the holiday: let us bow down and leave here. In short, everything was greasy, stupid and disgustingly disgusting. From that time on, B. did not see him for a very long time, exactly until the catastrophe, which resolved all this sad, painful and wonderful life. It resolved in a terrible way. This catastrophe is closely connected not only with the first impressions of my childhood, but even with my whole life. This is how it happened ... But first I must explain what my childhood was and what this person was for me, who was so painfully reflected in my first impressions and who was the cause of the death of my poor mother.