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Alexander Kuprin
Garnet bracelet

L. van Beethoven. 2 Son. (op. 2, no. 2).

Largo Appassionato.

I

In mid-August, before the birth of the new moon, the bad weather suddenly set in, which is so characteristic of the northern coast of the Black Sea. Sometimes for whole days a thick fog lay heavily over the land and the sea, and then the huge siren in the lighthouse roared day and night like a mad bull. Then from morning till morning it rained incessantly, fine as water dust, turning clay roads and paths into solid thick mud, in which wagons and carriages got bogged down for a long time. That blew from the northwest, from the side of the steppe, a ferocious hurricane; from it the tops of the trees swayed, bending down and straightening up, like waves in a storm, the iron roofs of the dachas rattled at night, and it seemed as if someone was running along them in shod boots; window frames trembled, doors slammed, and howled wildly in the chimneys. Several fishing boats got lost in the sea, and two did not return at all: only a week later the corpses of fishermen were thrown out in different places on the coast.

The inhabitants of the suburban seaside resort - mostly Greeks and Jews, cheerful and suspicious, like all southerners - hurriedly moved to the city. On the softened highway stretched endlessly the carts, overloaded with all sorts of household items: mattresses, sofas, chests, chairs, washstands, samovars. It was pitiful, and sad, and disgusting to look through the muddy muslin of rain at this miserable belongings, which seemed so worn out, dirty and beggarly; on the maids and cooks sitting on top of the wagon on a wet tarpaulin with some kind of irons, tins and baskets in their hands, on sweaty, exhausted horses, which now and then stopped, trembling at the knees, smoking and often carrying sides, on hoarsely cursing quails, wrapped up from the rain in mats. It was even sadder to see the abandoned dachas with their sudden spaciousness, emptiness and bareness, with mutilated flowerbeds, broken glass, abandoned dogs and all sorts of dacha rubbish from cigarette butts, pieces of paper, shards, boxes and apothecary's vials.

But by the beginning of September, the weather suddenly changed abruptly and quite unexpectedly. Quiet, cloudless days immediately set in, so clear, sunny and warm that there were none even in July. On the dry, compressed fields, on their prickly yellow bristles, autumn cobwebs shone with a mica sheen. The calmed trees silently and obediently dropped their yellow leaves.

Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina, the wife of the marshal of the nobility, could not leave the dachas, because the repairs in their city house had not yet been completed. And now she was very glad of the lovely days that had come, the silence, solitude, clean air, the chirping of the swallows on the telegraph wires that had strayed to fly away, and the gentle salty breeze that weakly pulled from the sea.

II

In addition, today was her name day - the seventeenth of September. According to sweet, distant memories of childhood, she always loved this day and always expected something happy and wonderful from him. Her husband, leaving in the morning on urgent business in the city, put a case with beautiful pear-shaped pearl earrings on her night table, and this gift amused her even more.

She was alone in the whole house. Her unmarried brother Nikolai, a fellow prosecutor, who usually lived with them, also went to the city, to the court. For dinner, the husband promised to bring a few and only the closest acquaintances. It turned out well that the name day coincided with summer time. In the city, one would have to spend money on a big ceremonial dinner, perhaps even on a ball, but here, in the country, one could manage with the smallest expenses. Prince Shein, despite his prominent position in society, and perhaps thanks to him, could barely make ends meet. The huge family estate was almost completely upset by his ancestors, and he had to live above his means: to make receptions, do charity, dress well, keep horses, etc. Princess Vera, whose former passionate love for her husband had long since passed into a strong, faithful feeling, true friendship, tried with all her might to help the prince refrain from complete ruin. She in many ways, imperceptibly for him, denied herself and, as far as possible, economized in the household.

Now she was walking in the garden and carefully cutting flowers for the dinner table with scissors. The flower beds were empty and looked disordered. Multi-colored terry carnations were blooming, as well as levka - half in flowers, and half in thin green pods that smelled of cabbage, rose bushes still gave - for the third time this summer - buds and roses, but already shredded, rare, as if degenerate. On the other hand, dahlias, peonies and asters bloomed magnificently with their cold, arrogant beauty, spreading an autumnal, grassy, ​​sad smell in the sensitive air. The rest of the flowers, after their luxurious love and excessive abundant summer motherhood, quietly showered countless seeds of a future life on the ground.

Close by on the highway came the familiar sound of a three-ton car horn. It was the sister of Princess Vera, Anna Nikolaevna Friesse, who had promised in the morning to come by phone to help her sister receive guests and take care of the house.

Subtle hearing did not deceive Vera. She walked towards. A few minutes later a graceful carriage came to an abrupt halt at the dacha gate, and the driver, deftly jumping down from the seat, flung open the door.

The sisters kissed happily. They are from the very early childhood were attached to each other by a warm and caring friendship. In appearance, they were strangely not similar to each other. The eldest, Vera, took after her mother, a beautiful Englishwoman, with her tall, flexible figure, gentle, but cold and proud face, beautiful, although rather large hands, and that charming sloping of her shoulders, which can be seen in old miniatures. The youngest, Anna, on the contrary, inherited the Mongolian blood of her father, a Tatar prince, whose grandfather was baptized only in early XIX centuries and whose ancient family went back to Tamerlane himself, or Lang-Temir, as her father proudly called, in Tatar, this great bloodsucker. She was half a head shorter than her sister, somewhat broad in the shoulders, lively and frivolous, a mocker. Her face was of a strongly Mongolian type, with rather noticeable cheekbones, with narrow eyes, which, moreover, she screwed up due to myopia, with an haughty expression in her small, sensual mouth, especially in her full lower lip slightly protruding forward - this face, however, captivated some then an elusive and incomprehensible charm, which consisted, perhaps, in a smile, perhaps in the deep femininity of all features, perhaps in a piquant, provocatively coquettish facial expression. Her graceful ugliness excited and attracted the attention of men much more often and stronger than her sister's aristocratic beauty.

She was married to a very rich and very stupid man who did absolutely nothing, but was registered with some charitable institution and had the title of chamber junker. She could not stand her husband, but she gave birth to two children from him - a boy and a girl; She decided not to have any more children, and never did. As for Vera, she greedily wanted children and even, it seemed to her, the more the better, but for some reason they were not born to her, and she painfully and ardently adored the pretty anemic children of her younger sister, always decent and obedient, with pale mealy faces and curled flaxen doll hair.

Anna consisted entirely of cheerful carelessness and sweet, sometimes strange contradictions. She willingly indulged in the most risky flirting in all the capitals and in all the resorts of Europe, but she never cheated on her husband, whom, however, she contemptuously ridiculed both in the eyes and behind the eyes; she was extravagant, terribly fond of gambling, dancing, strong impressions, sharp spectacles, visited dubious cafes abroad, but at the same time she was distinguished by generous kindness and deep, sincere piety, which forced her even to secretly accept Catholicism. She had a rare beauty back, chest and shoulders. Going to big balls, she was exposed much more than the limits allowed by decency and fashion, but it was said that under the low neckline she always wore a sackcloth.

Vera, on the other hand, was strictly simple, coldly and a little condescendingly kind to everyone, independent and royally calm.

III

- My God, how good it is here! How good! - Anna said, walking with quick and small steps next to her sister along the path. - If possible, let's sit a little on the bench above the cliff. I haven't seen the sea in such a long time. And what a wonderful air: you breathe - and your heart rejoices. In the Crimea, in Miskhor, last summer I made an amazing discovery. Do you know what sea water smells like during the surf? Imagine - mignonette.

Vera smiled softly.

- You are a dreamer.

- No no. I also remember the time everyone laughed at me when I said that there is some kind of pink tint in the moonlight. And the other day the artist Boritsky - that's the one who paints my portrait - agreed that I was right and that artists have long known about this.

– Is the artist your new hobby?

- You can always figure it out! - Anna laughed and, quickly going to the very edge of the cliff, which fell like a sheer wall deep into the sea, looked down and suddenly screamed in horror and recoiled back with a pale face.

- Oh, how high! she said in a weak and trembling voice. - When I look from such a height, I always somehow tickle sweetly and disgustingly in my chest ... and my toes ache ... And yet it pulls, pulls ...

She wanted to bend over the cliff again, but her sister stopped her.

- Anna, my dear, for God's sake! It makes my head spin when you do that. Please sit down.

- Well, well, well, sat down ... But just look, what beauty, what joy - just the eye will not get enough. If you knew how grateful I am to God for all the miracles that he has done for us!

Both thought for a moment. Deep, deep beneath them lay the sea. The shore was not visible from the bench, and therefore the feeling of infinity and grandeur of the expanse of the sea intensified even more. The water was tenderly calm and cheerfully blue, brightening only with oblique smooth stripes in the places of the current and turning into a deep deep blue color on the horizon.

Fishing boats, hardly marked by the eye - they seemed so small - dozed motionless in the sea surface, not far from the shore. And then, as if standing in the air, not moving forward, a three-masted vessel, all dressed from top to bottom with uniform white slender sails, bulging from the wind.

“I understand you,” the older sister said thoughtfully, “but somehow it’s not the same with me as it is with you. When I see the sea for the first time after a long time, it both excites me, and pleases, and amazes me. As if for the first time I see a huge, solemn miracle. But then, when I get used to it, it starts to crush me with its flat emptiness ... I miss looking at it, and I try not to look anymore. Bored.

Anna smiled.

- What are you? the sister asked.

“Last summer,” Anna said slyly, “we rode from Yalta in a big cavalcade on horseback to Uch-Kosh. It's there, behind the forestry, above the waterfall. First we got into the cloud, it was very damp and hard to see, and we all climbed up the steep path between the pines. And suddenly, somehow, the forest ended immediately, and we came out of the fog. Imagine: a narrow platform on a rock, and under our feet we have an abyss. The villages below seem no bigger than a matchbox, the forests and gardens look like fine grass. The whole area descends to the sea, exactly geographic map. And then there is the sea! Fifty versts, a hundred ahead. It seemed to me that I hung in the air and was about to fly. Such beauty, such ease! I turn around and say to the guide in delight: “What? Okay, Seyid-ogly?” And he only smacked his tongue: “Oh, master, how tired all this mine is. We see every day."

- Thank you for the comparison, - Vera laughed, - no, I just think that we northerners will never understand the charms of the sea. I love the forest. Do you remember the forest we have in Yegorovsky?.. How can he ever get bored? Pine trees!.. And what mosses!.. And fly agarics! Accurately made of red satin and embroidered with white beads. The silence is so… cool.

“I don’t care, I love everything,” Anna answered. - And most of all I love my little sister, my prudent Verenka. There are only two of us in the world.

She hugged her older sister and snuggled up to her, cheek to cheek. And suddenly she caught on. - No, how stupid I am! You and I, as if in a novel, are sitting and talking about nature, but I completely forgot about my gift. Here look. I'm just afraid, will you like it?

She took from her handbag a small notebook in an amazing binding: on the old blue velvet, worn and gray with time, a dull gold filigree pattern of rare complexity, subtlety and beauty curled - obviously, the love work of the hands of a skillful and patient artist. The book was attached to a gold chain as thin as a thread, the pages in the middle were replaced by ivory tablets.

- What a wonderful thing! Charm! Vera said and kissed her sister. - Thank you. Where did you get such a treasure?

- In an antique shop. You know my weakness for rummaging through old junk. So I came across this prayer book. Look, you see how the ornament here makes the figure of a cross. True, I found only one binding, I had to invent everything else - leaves, fasteners, a pencil. But Mollinet did not at all want to understand me, no matter how I interpreted him. The clasps had to be in the same style as the whole pattern, matte, old gold, fine carving, and God knows what he did. But the chain is real Venetian, very ancient.

Vera affectionately stroked the beautiful binding.

- What a deep antiquity! .. How long can this book be? she asked. - I'm afraid to be precise. Approximately the end of the seventeenth century, the middle of the eighteenth ...

“How strange,” Vera said with a thoughtful smile. “Here I am holding in my hands a thing that, perhaps, the hands of the Marquise Pompadour or Queen Antoinette herself touched ... But you know, Anna, it was only you who could have come up with the crazy idea of ​​​​transforming a prayer book into a ladies' carnet 1
Notebook ( French).

However, let's go and see what's going on there.

They entered the house through a large stone terrace, closed on all sides by thick trellises of Isabella grapes. Plentiful black clusters, emitting a faint smell of strawberries, hung heavily between the dark, in some places gilded by the sun greenery. A green half-light spread over the entire terrace, from which the faces of the women immediately turned pale.

- You order to cover here? Anna asked.

– Yes, I myself thought so at first… But now the evenings are so cold. It's better in the dining room. And let the men go here to smoke.

Will anyone be interesting?

- I do not know yet. I only know that our grandfather will be.

- Oh, dear grandfather. Here is joy! Anna exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “I don't think I've seen him for a hundred years.

- There will be Vasya's sister and, it seems, Professor Speshnikov. Yesterday, Annenka, I just lost my head. You know that they both love to eat - both the grandfather and the professor. But neither here, nor in the city - you can't get anything for any money. Luka found quails somewhere - he ordered a familiar hunter - and something is playing tricks on them. The roast beef came out relatively good - alas! - the inevitable roast beef. Very good crabs.

“Well, not so bad. You don't worry. However, between us, you yourself have a weakness for delicious food.

But there will be something rare. This morning the fisherman brought a gurnard. I saw it myself. Just some kind of monster. Even scary.

Anna, greedily curious about everything that concerned her and what did not concern her, immediately demanded that they bring her a gurnard.

The tall, clean-shaven, yellow-faced cook Luka came in with a large, oblong white tub, which he held with difficulty by the ears, afraid to splash water on the parquet.

"Twelve and a half pounds, Your Excellency," he said with a peculiar chef's pride. - We've been weighing.

The fish was too big for the pelvis and lay on the bottom with its tail curled up. Its scales shone with gold, the fins were bright red, and from the huge predatory muzzle two pale blue, folded, like a fan, long wings went to the sides. The gurnard was still alive and worked hard with its gills.

The younger sister gently touched the head of the fish with her little finger. But the rooster suddenly flapped its tail, and Anna with a squeal pulled her hand away.

“Don’t worry, Your Excellency, everything is in at its best we’ll arrange it,” said the cook, obviously understanding Anna’s anxiety. - Now the Bulgarian brought two melons. Pineapple. Kind of like cantaloupe, but the smell is much more fragrant. And I also dare to ask Your Excellency, what sauce would you like to serve with a rooster: tartar or Polish, otherwise you can just crackers in butter?

- Do as you please. Go! - ordered the princess.

IV

After five o'clock the guests began to arrive. Prince Vasily Lvovich brought with him his widowed sister Lyudmila Lvovna, after her husband Durasov, a plump, good-natured and unusually silent woman; a secular young rich varmint and reveler Vasyuchkb, whom the whole city knew under this familiar name, very pleasant in society with his ability to sing and recite, as well as arrange lively pictures, performances and charity bazaars; the famous pianist Jenny Reiter, a friend of Princess Vera at the Smolny Institute, as well as her brother-in-law Nikolai Nikolayevich. They were followed by Anna's husband in a car, with a shaved, fat, ugly huge professor Speshnikov and with the local vice-governor von Seck. Later than the others, General Anosov arrived, in a good hired landau, accompanied by two officers: Staff Colonel Ponamarev, a prematurely old, thin, bilious man, exhausted by excessive clerical work, and Guards Hussar lieutenant Bakhtinsky, who was famous in St. Petersburg as the best dancer and incomparable manager of balls .

General Anosov, a fat, tall, silver old man, was heavily climbing down from the footboard, holding on to the railing of the goat with one hand, and with the other on the back of the carriage. In his left hand he held an auditory horn, and in his right a stick with a rubber tip. He had a large, rough, red face with a fleshy nose and that good-natured, majestic, slightly contemptuous expression in his narrowed eyes, located in radiant, swollen semicircles, which is characteristic of courageous and simple people who have often seen danger and close before their eyes and death. The two sisters, who had recognized him from afar, ran up to the carriage just in time to half-jokingly, half-seriously support him from both sides under the arms.

– Exactly… a bishop! the general said in a gentle, husky bass.

- Grandpa, dear, dear! Vera said in a tone of slight reproach. - Every day we are waiting for you, and at least you showed your eyes.

“Grandfather in the south has lost all conscience,” Anna laughed. - One could, it seems, remember the goddaughter. And you keep yourself a Don Juan, shameless, and completely forgot about our existence ...

The general, baring his majestic head, kissed the hands of both sisters in turn, then kissed them on the cheeks and again on the hand.

“Girls… wait… don’t scold,” he said, interspersing each word with sighs that came from long-standing shortness of breath. “Honestly… unfortunate doctors… bathed my rheumatism all summer… in some kind of dirty… jelly… it smells awful… And they didn’t let me out… You’re the first… to whom I came… I’m terribly glad… to see you… How are you jumping?.. You, Verochka ... quite a lady ... she became very similar ... to her dead mother ... When will you call for baptism?

- Oh, I'm afraid, grandfather, that never ...

- Do not despair ... everything is ahead ... Pray to God ... And you, Anya, have not changed at all ... Even at sixty years old ... you will be the same dragonfly-egoza. Wait a minute. Let me introduce you to the officers.

“I have had this honor for a long time!” said Colonel Ponamarev, bowing.

“I was introduced to the princess in Petersburg,” the hussar picked up.

- Well, I'll introduce you, Anya, Lieutenant Bakhtinsky. A dancer and a brawler, but a good cavalryman. Take it out, Bakhtinsky, my dear, out of the carriage there ... Let's go, girls ... What, Verochka, will you feed? I… after the firth regime… have an appetite, like a graduation… an ensign.

General Anosov was a comrade-in-arms and devoted friend of the late Prince Mirza-Bulat-Tuganovsky. After the death of the prince, he transferred all tender friendship and love to his daughters. He knew them when they were very young, and even baptized the younger Anna. At that time - as still - he was the commandant of a large, but almost abolished fortress in the city of K. and daily visited the Tuganovskys' house. Children simply adored him for pampering, for gifts, for lodges in the circus and theater, and for the fact that no one knew how to play with them so excitingly as Anosov. But most of all they were fascinated and most strongly imprinted in their memory by his stories about military campaigns, battles and bivouacs, about victories and retreats, about death, wounds and severe frosts - unhurried, epicly calm, simple-hearted stories told between evening tea and that boring hour when the children are called to bed.

According to modern customs, this piece of antiquity seemed to be a gigantic and unusually picturesque figure. He combined precisely those simple, but touching and profound features, which even in his time were much more common in privates than in officers, those purely Russian, muzhik features that, when combined, give an exalted image that sometimes made our soldier not only invincible , but also a great martyr, almost a saint - features that consisted of a simple, naive faith, a clear, good-natured and cheerful outlook on life, cold and businesslike courage, humility in the face of death, pity for the defeated, endless patience and amazing physical and moral endurance.

Anosov, starting from the Polish war, participated in all campaigns except the Japanese one. He would have gone to this war without hesitation, but he was not called, and he always had a great rule of modesty: "Do not climb to death until you are called." In all his service, he not only never flogged, but even hit a single soldier. During the Polish uprising, he once refused to shoot prisoners, despite the personal order of the regimental commander. “I will not only shoot the spy,” he said, “but, if you order, I will personally kill him. And these are prisoners, and I can’t.” And he said it so simply, respectfully, without a hint of defiance or showmanship, looking directly into the eyes of the chief with his clear, hard eyes, that instead of being shot himself, they left him alone.

During the war of 1877-1879, he very quickly rose to the rank of colonel, despite the fact that he was little educated, or, as he himself put it, he graduated only from the “bear academy”. He participated in the crossing of the Danube, crossed the Balkans, sat out on Shipka, was at the last attack of Plevna; they wounded him once seriously, four lightly, and, in addition, he received a severe concussion in the head with a fragment of a grenade. Radetsky and Skobelev knew him personally and treated him with exceptional respect. It was about him that Skobelev once said: "I know one officer who is much braver than me - this is Major Anosov."

He returned from the war almost deaf due to a grenade fragment, with a sore leg, on which three fingers, frostbitten during the Balkan crossing, were amputated, with the most severe rheumatism acquired on Shipka. They wanted to retire him after two years of peaceful service, but Anosov became stubborn. Here he was very opportunely helped with his influence by the head of the region, a living witness of his cold-blooded courage when crossing the Danube. In St. Petersburg, they decided not to upset the honored colonel, and he was given a life-long post of commandant in the city of K. - a position more honorable than necessary for the purposes of national defense.

In the city, everyone knew him from young to old and good-naturedly laughed at his weaknesses, habits and manner of dressing. He always went about unarmed, in an old-fashioned frock coat, in a cap with large brim and with a huge straight visor, with a stick in right hand, with an auditory horn in the left and certainly accompanied by two obese, lazy, hoarse pugs, in which the tip of the tongue was always stuck out and bitten. If during his usual morning walk he had to meet with acquaintances, then passers-by for several blocks heard the commandant screaming and how his pugs barked in unison after him.

Like many deaf people, he was a passionate lover of opera, and sometimes, during some languid duet, his resolute bass would suddenly be heard throughout the theater: “But he took it clean, damn it! Just cracked a nut." Restrained laughter swept through the theater, but the general did not even suspect this: in his naivety, he thought that he had exchanged fresh impressions with his neighbor in a whisper.

As a commandant, he quite often, along with his wheezing pugs, visited the main guardhouse, where they rested from hardships very comfortably over screw, tea and jokes. military service arrested officers. He carefully asked everyone: “What is your last name? Planted by whom? How much? For what?" Sometimes, quite unexpectedly, he praised an officer for a brave, albeit illegal, act, sometimes he began to scold, shouting so that he could be heard on the street. But, having shouted his fill, without any transitions or pauses, he inquired where the officer was getting dinner from and how much he pays for it. It happened that some misguided second lieutenant, sent for a long term in prison from such a backwater, where there was not even a guardhouse of his own, admitted that, due to lack of money, he was content from a soldier's cauldron. Anosov immediately ordered that lunch be brought to the poor fellow from the commandant's house, from which the guardhouse was no more than two hundred steps away.

In the city of K., he became close to the Tuganovsky family and became attached to the children with such close ties that it became a spiritual need for him to see them every evening. If it happened that the young ladies went somewhere or the service delayed the general himself, then he sincerely yearned and could not find a place for himself in the large rooms of the commandant's house. Every summer he took a vacation and spent a whole month at the Tuganovsky estate, Yegorovsky, fifty miles away from K..

He transferred all his hidden tenderness of the soul and the need of heartfelt love to these children, especially to girls. He himself was once married, but so long ago that he even forgot about it. Even before the war, his wife ran away from him with a passing actor, captivated by his velvet jacket and lace cuffs. The general sent her a pension until her death, but did not let her into his house, despite scenes of repentance and tearful letters. They didn't have children.

Garnet bracelet . Kuprin A.I.

Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina, the wife of the marshal of the nobility, had already lived with her husband in the country for some time, because their city apartment was being renovated. Today was her name day, and therefore guests were supposed to arrive. The first to appear was Vera's sister, Anna Nikolaevna Friesse, who was married to a very rich and very stupid man who did nothing, but was registered with some charitable society and had the title of chamber junker. Grandfather, General Anosov, whom the sisters love very much, should come. Guests began to arrive after five o'clock. Among them is the famous pianist Jenny Reiter, a friend of Princess Vera at the Smolny Institute, Anna's husband brought with him Professor Speshnikov and the local vice-governor von Seck. Prince Vasily Lvovich is accompanied by his widowed sister Lyudmila Lvovna. Lunch is a lot of fun, everyone has known each other for a long time.

Vera Nikolaevna suddenly noticed that there were thirteen guests. This scared her a little. Everyone sat down to play poker. Vera did not want to play, and she was on her way to the terrace, where they were laying tea, when the maid beckoned her from the drawing room with a somewhat mysterious air. She handed her a package that a messenger had brought half an hour earlier.

Vera opened the package - under the paper was a small red plush jewelry case. It contained an oval gold bracelet, and inside it was a carefully folded note. She unfolded it. The handwriting looked familiar to her. She put the note aside and decided to look at the bracelet first. “It was gold, low-grade, very thick, but puffy, and on the outside it was completely covered with small old, poorly polished grenades. But on the other hand, in the middle of the bracelet, surrounded by some ancient small green stone, five beautiful cabochon garnets, each the size of a pea, rose. When Vera, with a random movement, successfully turned the bracelet in front of the light of an electric light bulb, then in them, deep under their smooth ovoid surface, lovely, densely red living lights suddenly lit up. Then she read the lines written in small, beautiful calligraphy. It was a congratulation on the day of the Angel. The author reported that this bracelet belonged to his great-grandmother, then his late mother wore it. The pebble in the middle is a very rare variety of garnet - green garnet. He further wrote: “According to an old legend that has been preserved in our family, he has the ability to communicate the gift of foresight to women who wear it and drives away heavy thoughts from them, while protecting men from violent death ... I beg you not to be angry with me. I blush at the memory of my insolence seven years ago, when I dared to write stupid and wild letters to you, young lady, and even expect an answer to them. Now all I have left is reverence, eternal admiration and slavish devotion...” “Show Vasya or not? And if so, when? Now or after the guests? No, it’s better later - now not only this unfortunate person will be ridiculous, but I will be with him, ”Vera thought and could not take her eyes off the five scarlet bloody fires trembling inside the five grenades.

Meanwhile, the evening went on as usual. Prince Vasily Lvovich showed his sister, Anosov and brother-in-law a homemade humorous album with handwritten drawings. Their laughter attracted everyone else. There was a story: "Princess Vera and the telegraph operator in love." “Better not,” she said.

Vera softly touched her husband's shoulder. But he either did not hear, or did not attach importance. He humorously retells the old letters of a man in love with Vera. He wrote them when she was not yet married. Prince Vasily calls the author a telegraph operator. Husband keeps talking...

“Gentlemen, who wants tea?” - asked Vera Nikolaevna.

General Anosov tells his goddaughters about the love he had in his youth in Bulgaria with a Bulgarian girl. When the time came for the troops to leave, they swore an oath to each other in eternal mutual love and said goodbye forever. "And that's it?" asked Lyudmila Lvovna disappointedly.

Later, when the guests had almost all left, Vera, seeing off her grandfather, quietly said to her husband: “Come and see ... there in my desk, in a drawer, is a red case, and in it is a letter. Read it."

It was so dark that I had to grope my way with my feet. The general led Vera by the arm. “That Ludmila Lvovna is funny,” he suddenly spoke, as if continuing aloud the course of his thoughts. - And I want to say that people in our time have forgotten how to love. I do not see true love. And in my time I didn’t see it!” Marriage, in his opinion, means nothing. “Take at least Vasya and me. Can we call our marriage unhappy?” Vera asked. Anosov was silent for a long time. Then he drawled reluctantly: "Well, well ... let's say - an exception." Why do people get married? As for women, they are afraid to remain in girls, they want to be a mistress, a lady, independent ... Men have other motives. Tiredness from a single life, from a mess in the house, from tavern dinners ... Again, the thought of children ... There are sometimes thoughts about a dowry. But where is love? Love disinterested, selfless, not waiting for a reward? “Wait, wait, Vera, now you want me again about your Vasya? Really, I love him. He is a good guy. Who knows, maybe the future will show his love in the light of great beauty. But you understand what kind of love I'm talking about. Love must be a tragedy. The greatest secret in the world! No comforts of life, calculations and compromises should concern her.” “Have you ever seen such love, grandfather?” “No,” the old man answered decisively. - True, I know two similar cases ... In one regiment of our division ... there was the wife of a regimental commander ... Bony, red-haired, thin ... In addition, a morphine drinker. And then one day, in the fall, they send a newly made ensign to their regiment ... just from a military school.

A month later, this old horse completely mastered him. He's a page, he's a servant, he's a slave... By Christmas, she was tired of him. She returned to one of her former ... passions. But he couldn't. Follows her like a ghost. He was exhausted, emaciated, blackened ...

And then one spring they arranged some kind of May Day or a picnic in the regiment ... They returned back at night on foot along the canvas railway. Suddenly, a freight train is coming towards them ... she suddenly whispers in the ensign's ear: “You all say that you love me. But if I order you, you probably won’t throw yourself under the train.” And he, without answering a word, ran - and under the train. He, they say, calculated correctly ... so he would have been neatly cut in half and cut. But some idiot decided to hold him back and push him away. Didn't make it. The ensign, as he clung to the rails with his hands, both his hands were chopped off ... And the man disappeared ... in the meanest way ... "

The general tells another story. When the regiment was leaving for the war and the train was already moving, the wife shouted loudly to her husband: “Remember, take care of Volodya<своего любовника>! If anything happens to him, I will leave home and never come back. And I'll take the kids." At the front, this captain, a brave soldier, looked after this coward and loafer Vishnyakov, like a nanny, like a mother. Everyone was delighted when they learned that Vishnyakov died in the hospital from typhus ...

The general asks Vera what the story with the telegraph operator is. Vera told in detail about some madman who began to pursue her with his love two years before her marriage. She has never seen him and does not know his last name. He signed G.S.Zh. Once he mentioned that he was serving in some state institution as a small official - he did not mention a word about the telegraph. He must have kept an eye on her, because in his letters he indicated exactly where she went in the evenings ... and how she was dressed. At first his letters were somewhat vulgar, though quite chaste. But once Vera wrote to him so that he would not bother her anymore. Since then, he began to be limited to congratulations on holidays. Princess Vera spoke about the bracelet and about the strange letter from her mysterious admirer. “Yes, yes,” the general drawled at last. “Maybe it’s just a crazy guy… or… maybe it’s this kind of love that crossed your life path, Verochka…”

Vera's brother Nikolai and Vasily Lvovich are worried that an unknown person will boast to someone that Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina accepts gifts from him, then send something else, then go to jail for embezzlement, and the princes of Sheina will be called as witnesses "... We decided that he must be found, the bracelet returned and the lecture read.” “For some reason, I felt sorry for this unfortunate man,” Vera said hesitantly.

Vera's husband and brother find the right apartment on the eighth floor, climbing the dirty, spit-stained stairs. The inhabitant of the Zheltkov room was a man “very pale, with a tender girlish face, blue eyes and a stubborn childish chin with a dimple in the middle; he must have been about thirty years old, thirty five.” He silently accepts his bracelet back, apologizing for his behavior. Upon learning that the gentlemen were going to turn to the authorities for help, Zheltkov laughed, sat down on the sofa and lit a cigarette. “Now is the hardest moment of my life. And I must, prince, speak to you without any conventions... Will you listen to me?” “Listen,” Shein said. Zheltkov says that he loves Shein's wife. It is difficult for him to say this, but seven years of hopeless and polite love give him this right. He knows that he can never stop loving her. They cannot cut off this feeling of his by anything, except perhaps death. Zheltkov asks permission to speak on the phone with Princess Vera Nikolaevna. He will relay the contents of the conversation to them.

He returned ten minutes later. His eyes shone and were deep, as if filled with unshed tears. “I'm ready,” he said, “and you won't hear anything from me tomorrow. It's like I'm dead for you. But one condition - I'm telling you, Prince Vasily Lvovich - you see, I spent the government money, and I have to flee this city anyway. Will you allow me to write another last letter to Princess Vera Nikolaevna?” Shane allows.

In the evening, at the dacha, Vasily Lvovich told his wife in detail about the meeting with Zheltkov. He seemed to feel compelled to do so. At night, Vera says, "I know this man will kill himself."

One of the most famous creations of Alexander Kuprin is the Garnet Bracelet. The genre of this work is not so easy to determine. It is called both a story and a story. What is the difference between these genres? And which of them does the "Garnet Bracelet" refer to?

Plot

The work "Garnet Bracelet", the genre of which will be defined in this article, is dedicated to extraordinary, unearthly love. The main characters are a married couple Vera and Vasily Shein. The action takes place in a small provincial town on the seashore. Vasily Shein occupies the honorary position of the head of the nobility, which obliges a lot. He attends dinner parties himself high level, has an appropriate appearance, and its family life is exemplary. Vasily and his wife have friendly, warm relations. Vera has not experienced passionate love for her husband for a long time, but she understands him perfectly, which can be said about Vasily.

The plot takes place in the fifth chapter, when the name day of the hostess is celebrated in the Sheins' house. Unnoticed by the guests, Vera receives a gift and a rather lengthy letter attached to it. The message contains a declaration of love. The gift is a massive inflated bracelet made of low-grade gold, decorated with a garnet.

Later, the reader will learn the backstory. Even before Vera's marriage, the author of the letter abandoned her. But one day, secretly from her husband, she writing forbade him to send such messages. From now on, he was limited only to congratulations on New Year, Easter and name day. He did not stop the correspondence, however, he did not speak about love anymore in his messages.

Vera's relatives, and especially brother Nikolai, were extremely outraged by the gift. And so we decided to take effective methods to neutralize the restless admirer. One day, Vasily and Nikolai went straight to the house of a man who had loved Vera unrequitedly for more than eight years, and insistently demanded that they stop writing. The garnet bracelet was also returned to the donor.

Genre

In literature, there are various types of works: from a small lyric poem to a large-scale novel in several volumes. The content of the work "Garnet Bracelet" was briefly outlined above. The genre must be defined. But first it is worth saying a few words about this literary concept.

Genre - a set of works that have some characteristic common features. It can be a comedy, and an essay, and a poem, and a novel, and a story, and a short story. We will consider the last two options. The genre of Kuprin's Garnet Bracelet, of course, cannot be either a comedy, or a poem, or a novel.

There is a significant difference between a short story and a novel. These genres cannot be confused. main feature stories are small. It is much more difficult to draw a line between him and the story. But there is still a difference. The story describes events that are components of one integral plot. This genre originated during Ancient Russia. His first examples were works about the exploits of Russian soldiers. Much later, Karamzin began to develop this genre. And after him - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev. The story is characterized by a slow unhurried development of events.

This genre is a small realistic work. It resembles a Western European short story, but many literary critics single out the story as a separate, special type of work. The story has an unexpected twist. This genre differs from the story in the absence of background, a limited number of characters, and a focus on the main event.

So all the same - a story or a story?

At the beginning of the article, the plot of the work "Garnet Bracelet" was outlined. What genre comes to mind after reading this work or even his brief retelling? Undoubtedly a story. The "Garnet Bracelet" depicts characters who are not directly related to the main events. Some are mentioned in passing, others in great detail. The work gives a detailed description of Anna, the younger sister of Vera. In addition, the biography of General Anosov, a friend of the Shein family, is presented in some detail. He is not only depicted by the author brightly and colorfully. His presence in the plot has a symbolic meaning. Anosov discusses with Vera the topic of "true love, which men are now not capable of." He also utters a significant phrase about the feeling that Vera met on life path and which every woman in the world dreams of. But this hero does not affect the course of events in any way. Its meaning in the story is only symbolic.

It should also be recalled that there is a backstory. Vera tells the same Anosov about the events recent years, namely about a fan who gave her a compromising gift. All this allows us to state with confidence that the genre of Kuprin's work "Garnet Bracelet" is a story. Although it is worth adding that this concept is inherent exclusively in Russian literature. It has no exact equivalent in other languages. In English and German, for example, Kuprin's work is called a short story. And therefore, the one who determines the "Garnet Bracelet" with a story will not make a gross mistake.

The story "Garnet Bracelet", written in 1910, occupies a significant place in the writer's work and in Russian literature. Paustovsky called the love story of a petty official to a married princess one of "the most fragrant and languishing stories about love." True, eternal love, which is a rare gift, is the theme of Kuprin's work.

In order to get acquainted with the plot and the characters of the story, we suggest reading summary"Pomegranate Bracelet" chapter by chapter. It will provide an opportunity to comprehend the work, to comprehend the charm and lightness of the writer's language and to penetrate into the idea.

main characters

Vera Sheina- Princess, wife of the leader of the nobility Shein. She married for love, over time, love grew into friendship and respect. She began to receive letters from the official Zheltkov, who loved her, even before her marriage.

Zheltkov- official. Unrequitedly in love with Vera for many years.

Vasily Shein- Prince, provincial marshal of the nobility. Loves his wife.

Other characters

Yakov Mikhailovich Anosov- General, friend of the late Prince Mirza-Bulat-Tuganovsky, father of Vera, Anna and Nikolai.

Anna Friesse- sister of Vera and Nikolai.

Nikolay Mirza-Bulat-Tuganovsky- assistant prosecutor, brother of Vera and Anna.

Jenny Reiter- a friend of Princess Vera, a famous pianist.

Chapter 1

In mid-August, bad weather came to the Black Sea coast. Most of the inhabitants of coastal resorts hastily began to move to the city, leaving their summer cottages. Princess Vera Sheina was forced to stay at her dacha, as repairs were going on in her city house.

Along with the first days of September, it was warm, it became sunny and clear, and Vera was very happy about the wonderful days of early autumn.

Chapter 2

On the day of her name day, September 17, Vera Nikolaevna was expecting guests. The husband left in the morning on business and had to bring guests for dinner.

Vera was glad that the name day fell on the summer season and there was no need to arrange a magnificent reception. The Shein family was on the verge of ruin, and the position of the prince obliged a lot, so the spouses had to live beyond their means. Vera Nikolaevna, whose love for her husband long ago degenerated into "a feeling of lasting, faithful, true friendship", supported him as much as she could, saved money, denied herself in many ways.

Her sister Anna Nikolaevna Friesse came to help Vera with the housework and to receive guests. Not similar in appearance or characters, the sisters were very attached to each other from childhood.

Chapter 3

Anna had not seen the sea for a long time, and the sisters briefly sat down on a bench above the cliff, “falling like a sheer wall deep into the sea” - to admire the lovely landscape.

Remembering the prepared gift, Anna handed her sister a notebook in an old binding.

Chapter 4

By evening, guests began to arrive. Among them was General Anosov, a friend of Prince Mirza-Bulat-Tuganovsky, the late father of Anna and Vera. He was very attached to his sisters, they, in turn, adored him and called him grandfather.

Chapter 5

Those gathered in the Sheins' house were entertained at the table by the host, Prince Vasily Lvovich. He had a special gift for storytelling: humorous stories were always based on an event that happened to someone he knew. But in his stories, he so "exaggerated", so bizarrely combined truth and fiction, and spoke with such a serious and businesslike look that all the listeners laughed non-stop. This time his story concerned the failed marriage of his brother, Nikolai Nikolaevich.

Rising from the table, Vera involuntarily counted the guests - there were thirteen of them. And, since the princess was superstitious, she became restless.

After dinner everyone except Vera sat down to play poker. She was about to go out onto the terrace when the maid called her. On the table in the office, where both women went, the servant laid out a small package tied with a ribbon, and explained that a messenger had brought it with a request to hand it over to Vera Nikolaevna personally.

Vera found a gold bracelet and a note in the bag. First, she began to examine the decoration. In the center of a low-grade gold bracelet stood out several magnificent garnets, each about the size of a pea. Looking at the stones, the birthday girl turned the bracelet, and the stones flared up like "charming dense red living lights." With anxiety, Vera realized that these fires looked like blood.

He congratulated Vera on Angel Day, asked him not to be angry with him for daring to write letters to her a few years ago and expect an answer. He asked to accept as a gift a bracelet, the stones of which belonged to his great-grandmother. From her silver bracelet, he, exactly repeating the location, transferred the stones to the gold one and drew Vera's attention to the fact that no one had yet worn the bracelet. He wrote: “however, I believe that there is no treasure in the whole world worthy of decorating you” and admitted that all that is now left in him is “only reverence, eternal admiration and slavish devotion”, every minute desire for happiness to the Faith and joy if she is happy.

Vera pondered whether to show the gift to her husband.

Chapter 6

The evening passed smoothly and lively: they played cards, talked, listened to the singing of one of the guests. Prince Shein showed several guests a home album with his own drawings. This album was an addition to the humorous stories of Vasily Lvovich. Those looking at the album laughed so loudly and contagiously that the guests gradually moved towards them.

The last story in the drawings was called "Princess Vera and the telegraph operator in love", and the text of the story itself, according to the prince, was still "prepared". Vera asked her husband: “It’s better not to,” but he either did not hear, or did not pay attention to her request and began his cheerful story about how Princess Vera received passionate messages from a telegraph operator in love.

Chapter 7

After tea, a few guests left, the rest settled on the terrace. General Anosov told stories from his army life, Anna and Vera listened to him with pleasure, as in childhood.

Before going to see off the old general, Vera invited her husband to read the letter she had received.

Chapter 8

On the way to the crew waiting for the general, Anosov talked with Vera and Anna about the fact that he had not met true love in his life. According to him, “love should be a tragedy. The greatest secret in the world."

The general asked Vera about what was true in the story told by her husband. And she gladly shared with him: "some madman" pursued her with his love and sent letters even before marriage. The princess also told about the parcel with the letter. In thought, the general noted that it was quite possible that Vera's life was crossed by "a single, all-forgiving, ready for anything, modest and selfless" love that any woman dreams of.

Chapter 9

After seeing off the guests and returning to the house, Sheina joined in the conversation between her brother Nikolai and Vasily Lvovich. The brother believed that the "nonsense" of the fan should be stopped immediately - the story with the bracelet and letters could ruin the family's reputation.

After discussing what to do, it was decided that the next day Vasily Lvovich and Nikolai would find Vera's secret admirer and, demanding to leave her alone, would return the bracelet.

Chapter 10

Shein and Mirza-Bulat-Tuganovsky, Vera's husband and brother, paid a visit to her admirer. It turned out to be an official Zheltkov, a man of thirty or thirty-five.

Nikolai immediately explained to him the reason for the arrival - with his gift, he crossed the line of patience of Vera's relatives. Zheltkov immediately agreed that he was to blame for the persecution of the princess.

Turning to the prince, Zheltkov spoke about the fact that he loves his wife and feels that he can never stop loving her, and all that remains for him is death, which he will accept "in any form". Before speaking further, Zheltkov asked permission to leave for a few minutes to call Vera.

During the official’s absence, in response to Nikolai’s reproaches that the prince was “limp” and sorry for his wife’s admirer, Vasily Lvovich explained to his brother-in-law what he felt. “This person is not capable of deceiving and lying knowingly. Is he to blame for love, and is it possible to control such a feeling as love - a feeling that has not yet found an interpreter for itself. The prince was not just sorry for this man, he realized that he had witnessed "some kind of enormous tragedy of the soul."

When he returned, Zheltkov asked permission to write a last letter to Vera and promised that the visitors would never hear or see him again. At the request of Vera Nikolaevna, he "as soon as possible" stops "this story."

In the evening, the prince gave his wife the details of the visit to Zheltkov. She was not surprised by what she heard, but was slightly agitated: the princess felt that "this man will kill himself."

Chapter 11

The next morning, Vera learned from the newspapers that the official Zheltkov committed suicide due to the waste of state money. All day Sheina thought about the "unknown person", whom she never had a chance to see, not understanding why she foresaw the tragic denouement of his life. She also remembered the words of Anosov about true love, which may have met on her way.

The postman brought Zheltkov's farewell letter. He admitted that he regards love for Vera as a great happiness, that his whole life lies only in the princess. He asked for forgiveness for the fact that “an uncomfortable wedge crashed into Vera’s life”, thanked her simply for the fact that she lives in the world, and said goodbye forever. “I tested myself - this is not a disease, not a manic idea - this is love, which God was pleased to reward me for something. Leaving, I say in delight: “Hallowed be thy name,” he wrote.

After reading the message, Vera told her husband that she would like to go and see the man who loved her. The prince supported this decision.

Chapter 12

Vera found an apartment that Zheltkov rented. The landlady came out to meet her, and they started talking. At the request of the princess, the woman told about the last days of Zheltkov, then Vera went into the room where he was lying. The expression on the face of the deceased was so peaceful, as if this man “before parting with life, learned some deep and sweet secret that resolved his whole human life.”

In parting, the landlady told Vera that if she suddenly died and a woman came to say goodbye, Zheltkov asked me to tell her that best work Beethoven - his name he wrote down - "L. van Beethoven. Son. No. 2, op. 2. Largo Appassionato.

Vera wept, explaining her tears by the painful "impression of death."

Chapter 13

Vera Nikolaevna returned home late in the evening. At home, only Jenny Reiter was waiting for her, and the princess rushed to her friend with a request to play something. Without doubting that the pianist would perform “the very passage from the Second Sonata that this dead man with the funny surname Zheltkov asked for,” the princess recognized the music from the first chords. Vera's soul seemed to be divided into two parts: at the same time she was thinking about the love that had passed by once in a thousand years, and why she should listen to this particular work.

“The words were forming in her mind. They so coincided in her thoughts with the music that they were like couplets that ended with the words: “Hallowed be thy name.” These words were about great love. Vera cried about the past feeling, and the music excited and calmed her at the same time. When the sounds of the sonata died down, the princess calmed down.

To Jenny's question why she was crying, Vera Nikolaevna answered only to her with an understandable phrase: “He has forgiven me now. Everything is fine" .

Conclusion

Telling the story of the hero’s sincere and pure, but unrequited love for a married woman, Kuprin encourages the reader to think about what place a feeling occupies in a person’s life, what it gives the right to, how the inner world of someone who has the gift of love changes.

Acquaintance with the work of Kuprin can begin with a brief retelling of the "Garnet Bracelet". And then, already knowing storyline, having an idea of ​​​​the heroes, with pleasure to dive into the rest of the writer's story about wonderful world true love.

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In mid-August, before the birth of the new moon, the bad weather suddenly set in, which is so characteristic of the northern coast of the Black Sea. Sometimes for whole days a thick fog lay heavily over the land and the sea, and then the huge siren in the lighthouse roared day and night like a mad bull. Then from morning till morning it rained incessantly, fine as water dust, turning clay roads and paths into solid thick mud, in which wagons and carriages got bogged down for a long time. Then a fierce hurricane blew from the northwest, from the side of the steppe; from him the tops of the trees swayed, bending down and straightening up, like waves in a storm, the iron roofs of the dachas rattled at night, it seemed as if someone was running on them in shod boots, the window frames trembled, the doors slammed, and the chimneys howled wildly. Several fishing boats got lost in the sea, and two did not return at all: only a week later the corpses of fishermen were thrown out in different places on the coast.

The inhabitants of the suburban seaside resort - mostly Greeks and Jews, cheerful and suspicious, like all southerners - hurriedly moved to the city. On the softened highway stretched endlessly the carts, overloaded with all sorts of household items: mattresses, sofas, chests, chairs, washstands, samovars. It was pitiful, and sad, and disgusting to look through the muddy muslin of rain at this miserable belongings, which seemed so worn out, dirty and beggarly; on the maids and cooks sitting on top of the wagon on a wet tarpaulin with some kind of irons, tins and baskets in their hands, on sweaty, exhausted horses, which now and then stopped, trembling at the knees, smoking and often carrying sides, on hoarsely cursing quails, wrapped up from the rain in mats. It was even sadder to see the abandoned dachas with their sudden spaciousness, emptiness and bareness, with mutilated flowerbeds, broken glass, abandoned dogs and all sorts of dacha rubbish from cigarette butts, pieces of paper, shards, boxes and apothecary's vials.

But by the beginning of September, the weather suddenly changed abruptly and quite unexpectedly. Quiet, cloudless days immediately set in, so clear, sunny and warm that there were none even in July. On the dry, compressed fields, on their prickly yellow bristles, autumn cobwebs shone with a mica sheen. The calmed trees silently and obediently dropped their yellow leaves.

Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina, the wife of the marshal of the nobility, could not leave the dachas, because the repairs in their city house had not yet been completed. And now she was very glad of the lovely days that had come, the silence, the solitude, the clean air, the chirping of the swallows on the telegraph wires that were flocking to fly away, and the gentle salty breeze that weakly pulled from the sea.