On a winter evening, six people gathered at an old university friend. People, apparently, are middle-aged and with education. Incidentally, it was about Shakespeare, that his types were truly "snatched from the very bowels of human" essence "." Each named those Hamlets, Othello, and other heroes of Shakespearean tragedies whom they had met among others. And the owner "knew one King Lear" and, at the request of the others, immediately "began to narrate."

I

The storyteller’s childhood and youth passed in the village, on the estate of his mother, a wealthy landowner. Their closest neighbor was Martyn Petrovich Kharlov, a man of gigantic stature and extraordinary strength. Two-arched back, shoulders, “like millstones”, ears, like kalachi. A mop of matted yellow-gray hair over a gray face, a huge, bumpy nose and tiny blue eyes.

Amazing fearlessness and disinterestedness were peculiar to him. About 25 years ago he saved the life of Natalya Nikolaevna (that was the name of the landowner, the narrator’s mother), holding her carriage on the edge of a deep ravine where the horses had already fallen. "The rip-offs and lacerations were torn, but Martyn Petrovich never let go of the wheel of the wheel he had seized - although blood spattered from under his nails."

He was proud of the ancient noble origin and believed that it obliges to act nobly, “so that no stink, zemstvo, subject person and dare to think bad of us! I’m Kharlov, my last name is where I’m leading from ... and there is no honor in me ?! How is that possible? ”

Harlov’s ancestor was the Swede Harlus, who in ancient times came to Russia, “wished to be a Russian nobleman and signed up for the golden book.”

His wife died, two daughters remained, Anna and Eulampia. The neighbor Natalya Nikolaevna first married the eldest; Anna's husband was a certain Sletkin, the son of a petty official, helpful, rather spiteful and greedy. For Eulampia, a neighbor also “saved” the groom. He was a retired army major Zhitkov, a middle-aged man, a poor man who "barely understood literacy and was very stupid", but wanted to get into the estate managers. “What’s different, sir, but peasant counts are peasant’s - I understand to the finer point,” he used to say ... “Oh, it’s all not about the nobility of the then morals!

And what is the brother of Kharlov’s late wife, someone named Bychkov, nicknamed “Souvenir”, “sheltered” in the house of a wealthy landowner Natalya Nikolaevna, the mother of the storyteller, “as a jester or a parasite”. "He was a scanty man, despised by everyone: an engraver in one word." It was felt that if he had money, "the most mean person would have come out of him, immoral, evil, even cruel."

But, perhaps, Kharlov’s daughter is on top, believing, like his father, that distant ancestors oblige?

II

One summer, in the evening, Martyn Petrovich appeared at the house of Natalya Nikolaevna, an unprecedented pensive, pale. He wanted to say something, muttered incoherent words, then suddenly he went out, sat down on his shiver and sped off. And the next day he came again and said that a week ago, waking up, he felt that his arm and leg were not working. Paralysis? But then he "went into action again."

Taking this as a warning (besides, he had a bad dream), the old man decided to divide the estate between his two daughters. He asked that the landowner’s son (who later told his friends this story), and Bychkov’s house, be present at the time of the formal act. He also invited her steward and groom Eulampia Zhitkov.

It turned out that all the papers had already been prepared and the “chamber approved”, since Martyn Petrovich “did not spare money” during the execution of the papers.

- Do you really give all your estate to the rest of your daughters?

- Vestimo, without a trace.

“Well, and you yourself ... where will you live?”

Kharlov even waved his hands.

- As where? At home, as he lived until now ... so on. What could be the change?

“And are you so sure of your daughters and your brother-in-law?”

- Are you talking about Volodka? About a rag about this? Yes, where I want to shove him, and there and here ... What is his power? And they, me, daughters, that is, to drink, dress, shoe on the coffin ... Have mercy! Their first duty!

Owing to the importance of the moment, the neighbor landowner openly expressed her opinion: “Excuse me, Martyn Petrovich; your eldest, Anna, is a proud pride, well, and the second one is looking like a wolf ... "

But Martyn Petrovich objected: “Yes, so that they ... My daughters ... Yes, so that I ... Out of obedience, then get out? Yes, and in a dream ... Resist? To whom? To the parent? .. Dare? But curse them really for a long time? In awe and humility we have lived our century - and suddenly ... Lord! ”

Apparently, life in awe and humility is not the best teacher.

III

The day has come for the "commission of a formal act." Property division. Everything was very solemn.

Martyn Petrovich put on a militia outfit of the 12th year, a bronze medal was on his chest, and a saber hung from the side. And what a significant pose. The left hand on the hilt of the saber, the right hand on the table covered with red cloth. And on the table - two scribbled sheets of paper - an act that was to be signed.

“And what importance was reflected in his posture, what self-confidence, in his unlimited and undoubted power!”

Martyn Petrovich, with all selflessness, was not without certain human weaknesses. The desire to show off, demonstrate your worth and to show off your beneficence! “Do alms in secret,” the gospel says. (Probably, this applies not only to alms, but to any beneficence).

Solemnly everything was, very solemn ... And the priest was present. But they did not remember that there are still good rules in the Gospel, for example: “He who exalts himself will be humbled.” If people didn’t perform what ... at least they knew about these principles of human relations. But take a look, for example, at the police officer, the representative of the zemstvo court. What is up to him all the principles! "Fat, pale, untidy gentleman ... with a constant, albeit funny, but crappy smile on his face: he was known for the great bribe taker ... In essence, he was interested in one upcoming snack with vodka."

“On, take it, read it!” It’s hard for me. Just look, not lots! So that all the gentlemen present could penetrate, ”Martyn Petrovich rather unceremoniously ordered his son-in-law, who was obsequious in front of the door.

And Martyn Petrovich wished to read the last phrase of the act himself. “And this is my parental will to my daughters to fulfill and observe holy and indestructible, like a commandment; because after God I’m the father and the head of them, and I don’t have to give a report to anyone or give ...

It was a home-made “paper”, drawn up on the instructions of Martyn Petrovich, very flowery and impressive, and the police then read the present donation note made up of a form “without any of these flowers”.

But that was not all.

IV

The “entry into possession” of the new two landowners took place on the porch in the presence of peasants, domestic, as well as witnesses and neighbors. The police officer (the same “fat little gentleman with ... a cheerful, but crappy smile on his face”) gave his face a “formidable look” and inspired the peasants “about obedience”. Although there are no more "peaceful faces" than among the charles of the peasants. "Dressed in skinny Armenians and torn sheepskin coats," the peasants stood motionless and as soon as the police officer emitted an "interjection" like: "Hear the hell! You see, the devils! ”Suddenly bowed all at once, as if on command“ ... It’s clear that Martyn Petrovich, as it should, trained them.

Oh, how much more was to come in the next 100-150 years! Of course, “blessed are the humble,” “blessed are the meek,” the Gospel affirms. But this is when everyone around is humble and meek - not out of fear, but according to inner conviction. This level was still very far away. There was still a future to stand, a little straightened, to smash the landowners' estates; then again relive the semblance of serfdom: without passports, without the right to even say a word, with forced labor for empty “sticks” instead of workdays; under the rule of the new “persecuted”, who grew up from their own environment, not from landowners or kulaks.

Someday, with a different level of technical equipment, consciousness, relationships, everyone will become, perhaps, gracious, gentle, pure hearts. But then, at the time of Turgenev ... And how sensitively he noticed all the important details of that life, how he managed to convey them - precisely, really, lively. Too long, in detail? But, if Turgenev reads everything in a row, a vivid picture arises, even in our current shortcomings it explains a lot.

Kharlov himself did not want to go out onto the porch: “My subjects will submit to my will even without that!”

Either he suddenly decided to show off for the last time, or something else got into his head, but then he barked out the window: “Obey!”

The daughters, the new landowners, held on importantly. And the brother-in-law of Martyn Petrovich Sletkin has especially changed. “The movements of the head and legs remained obsequious,” but the whole look now said: “Finally, they say, it got through!”

It was a prayer service. Anna and Eulampia, who had previously bowed to Martyn Petrovich to the ground, again, on the orders of his father, "thanked him earthly."

Then a feast, toasts. And suddenly a miserable, fussy Souvenir (brother of the late wife of Kharlov), apparently drunk, “burst into his flabby, crappy laugh” and began to predict what would happen to Martyn Petrovich in the future: “Bare back ... yes, in the snow!”

- What are you lying? Fool! Said Harlov contemptuously.

- Fool! fool! - repeated the Souvenir. - The One Most High God knows which of us both is a real fool. But you, brother, my sister, your wife was killed ...

In general, conversations during the feast were frank. Finally, Martyn Petrovich turned his back to all and went out. Then they all parted.

V

Soon, the landlord’s neighbor, with her son (who later told the whole story to friends), went to her sister’s village, and when they returned to their village at the end of September, they suddenly learned from the servant that Martyn Petrovich “became the last person as he is,” that now Sletkin “is wielding everything”, and Zhitkov, the groom of Eulampia, was driven out altogether.

Natalya Nikolaevna, (neighbor landowner), invited Kharlova and Sletkin to her. Martyn Petrovich did not appear, and in response to her letter he sent a quarter of the paper on which it was written in large letters: “I can’t do it for her. Shame will kill. Let it disappear like that. Thank. Do not torture. Harlov Martynko. "

Sletkin appeared, although not immediately, but the conversation was short, he left the landowner's office all red, with a "poisonous-evil and bold expression on his face." Then it was ordered - Sletkin and Kharlov’s daughters, if they decide to appear, “not to allow”.

Sletkin, a former pupil of the landowner, Kharlov’s neighbor, was an orphan. With curly hair, eyes black as boiled prunes, his hawk-like nose “resembled the Jewish type”. First, he was “placed” in a county school, then he entered the “fief’s office”, then he was “enlisted in state-owned shops and, finally,“ married Martyn Petrovich’s daughter. Eternal dependence is first on the benefactor who sheltered him, then from the whims of Martyn Petrovich little, apparently, contributed to the education in him of dignity and generosity.

Who were his ancestors? Of the Jews, gypsies, Moldavians? From Armenians or other Caucasians? Where does the “black as boiled prune eyes" come from, curly hair, hawk nose? What keeps his genetic memory, what wanderings, disasters? Yes, it’s hardly worth digging through the genes when his entire conscious life also did not contribute to the purification of the soul.

In Krylov’s fable it is said about one unfortunate bird: “And she lagged behind the crows, and did not stick to the pavas.” On the one hand, gentlemen, like peacocks proud of their dominant position, on the other - a dark goal, from which he has long lagged behind.

Anna, Kharlov’s daughter, whom Sletkin was “married to,” was outwardly attractive - lean, with a beautiful dark complexion and pale blue eyes. But “everyone, looking at her, probably would have thought:“ Well, how clever you are - and a bastard! ” There was something “serpentine” in her beautiful face.

And here is what Eulampius looked like: a “haggard beauty”, tall, full-bodied, large. Blond thick braid, eyes dark blue with a wiring. “But there was something wild and almost harsh in her huge eyes.” Apparently, she inherited many of her features from Martin Petrovich.

The boy, the son of a landowner, (on whose behalf a story is told many years later), went hunting with a gun and a dog. In a grove, he heard nearby voices and soon Sletkin and Eulampia suddenly entered the clearing. At the same time, Eulampia was somehow embarrassed, and Sletkin started a conversation and said that Martyn Petrovich “was offended at first”, and now he became “very quiet.” As for the groom who was refused, Sletkin explained that Zhitkov (retired major), inappropriate person for housekeeping.

- I, says, I can repair the peasant reprisal. Because - I'm used to hitting the face!

- Nothing, he can’t. And you need to beat the erysipelas skillfully. And Eulampia Martynovna herself refused him. A completely inappropriate person. All our economy would be lost with him!

Wandering through the forest, the boy then again met Sletkin with Eulampia on the lawn. Sletkin lay on his back with both hands under his head and slightly swinging his left leg, “thrown to his right knee.”

On the lawn, a few steps from Sletkin, Evlampia walked slowly, with lowered eyes, and sang in an undertone. “You find, you find, a formidable cloud, / You kill, you kill the father-in-law. / You thunder, thunder you mother-in-law, / And I’ll kill a young wife myself! ”

Anna then, going out onto the porch, looked for a long time in the direction of the grove, even asked the peasant walking through the courtyard if the master had returned. “I didn’t see ... netuti,” the man answered, having removed his cap.

VI

Then the boy met Martyn Petrovich himself at the pond, who was sitting with a fishing rod. “But what rags he wore and how he sank all!”

A 15-year-old boy, wishing to console the old man, allowed himself to talk about his mistake: “- You acted carelessly that you gave everything to your daughters ... But if your daughters are so ungrateful, then you should show contempt ... it is contempt ... and not to grieve ... "

- Leave it! Harlov whispered suddenly with a gnashing of teeth, and his eyes, fixed on a pond, sparkled viciously ... - Go away!

- But Martyn Petrovich ...

- Go away, they say ... otherwise I'll kill you!

He was furious, and then it turned out that he was crying. "A tear behind a tear rolled down his eyelashes on the cheeks ... and his face took on an expression that was completely fierce ..."

In mid-October, he suddenly appeared in the house of a neighbor of the landowner. But in what form! His despair exacerbates the autumn landscape.

“The wind now howled muffledly, then whistled impulsively; a low, without any clearance, sky turned from an unpleasantly white color into a lead, even more ominous color - and the rain that poured, poured relentlessly and incessantly, suddenly became even larger, even more oblique and squealed over the glass. ” Everything, and gray trees, and puddles littered with dead leaves, and impassable dirt on the roads, and cold - all made me sad.

The boy standing at the window suddenly thought that a huge bear, standing on his hind legs, sped around the yard. Soon the monster was kneeling in the middle of the dining room in front of the mistress and her household. It was Martyn Petrovich - he ran on foot through impassable mud. “They kicked me out, ma'am ... My own daughters ...”

“Honor your father and mother,” the ancient biblical commandments say. But they neatly performed rituals here, mainly according to tradition, having forgotten (or not knowing at all) another rule cited in the Gospel: “The essence of faith is more important than the external form”.

His bed was thrown into the closet, and the room was taken away. Even before that they left without any money. The daughters in everything obeyed Sletkin now, and he seemed to take revenge on the “benefactor” who had humiliated him before.

Still, we must pay tribute to Martyn Petrovich, he had a conscience, the abnormal structure of society often prevented her from manifesting.

“Ma'am,” Harlov groaned and hit himself in the chest. - “I can’t bear the ingratitude of my daughters! I can’t, ma'am! After all, I gave them everything, I gave everything! And besides, my conscience tortured me. A lot ... oh! I changed my mind a lot ... “If only you could benefit someone in your life!” - I thought so, - I rewarded the poor, let the peasants go free, or something, because the century had stuck them! After all, you are a defendant before God for them! That's when their tears come to you! ”

Does suffering ultimately awaken conscience? Perhaps suffering is not useless to people?

VII

The neighbor of the landowner had a kind heart. A good room was assigned to Martyn Petrovich, the butler ran for the bedclothes, and just at that moment, the miserable, humbled parasite Souvenir took the opportunity to mock over the proud man who always despised him.

How many such Bychkovs, deprived of their own housing, property, decent social status, huddled in the estates of all kinds of landowners. “The instigator,” “the jester,” a miserable beggar. Constant humiliation, aimlessness, the need to please. A trampled human person can then turn into a terrible, unexpected side.

- The instigator called me a parasite! "No, they say, you have your own home!" And now, I suppose, I’ve become the same installer ...

Calmed down was Martyn Petrovich again became annoyed. But the Souvenir "as if possessed by a demon." After all the humiliations, it was the hour of his “triumph”.

“- Yes, yes the most respectable! - shouted from again, - here we are now in what kind of subtle circumstances we find! And your daughters, with your brother-in-law, Vladimir Vasilievich, amuse themselves in plenty under your shelter! And even if you, according to the promise, cursed them! And that wasn’t enough for you! And where do you compete with Vladimir Vasilievich? They called him Volodka! What is Volodka for you? He is Vladimir Vasilievich, Mr. Sletkin, a landowner, master, and who are you? ”

Every picture, movement, character lives on, and all events seem real. It seems that the author talks about them, but in fact - shows.

And Kharlov, who had almost begun to find humility, (“I can forgive you, too!”), Became extremely furious.

“- Shelter! - you say ... No! I will not curse them ... They do not care! A shelter ... A shelter, I will ruin them, and they will not have a shelter just like mine! They recognize Martyn Kharlov! My strength has not disappeared yet! They’ll find out how to mock me! .. They won’t have a shelter! ”

And he rushed away.

Natalya Nikolaevna sent the estate manager for him, but could not return.

Soon he was already standing in the attic of his former home and was breaking the roof of the new outbuilding.

The manager informed the landowner that the terrified peasants of Kharlov were all hiding.

“And what about his daughters?”

- And daughters - nothing. Run in vain ... vote ... What's the point?

“And Sletkin is there?”

- There too. She screams the most, but she can do nothing. "

VIII

In the courtyard of Harlov was still crowded: an unprecedented sight. He destroyed everything without tools - with his bare hands. Sletkin with a gun in his hands, not daring to shoot, unsuccessfully tried to force the peasants to climb the roof, they clearly dodged. There was admiration for the extraordinary power of the former owner, and fear of this force, and more ... They almost approved of Kharlov, although he surprised them.

And “the last pipe thundered with a heavy roar” ... Sletkin took aim, but suddenly Eulampia “pulled him by the elbow”.

- Do not bother - he threw himself fiercely at her.

- Don’t you dare! She said, and her blue eyes flashed menacingly from beneath her brow. - Father is ruining his house. His goodness.

- You're lying: ours!

- You say: ours, but I say: him.

But it was too late, the old man broke up with might and main.

“- Ah, great! great, my dear daughter! - thundered from above Harlov. - Great, Eulampia Martynovna! How do you live, can you with your friend? Do you kiss well, have mercy? ”

Kharlov’s face was “a strange grin - bright, cheerful ... an evil grin ...”

But Eulampia did not flinch at this terrible moment.

- Stop it, father; come down ... We are to blame; we will return everything to you. Come down.

“What are you disposing of for us?” - interfered Sletkin. Eulampia only frowned more than an eyebrow.

- I will return my part to you - I will give everything. Come on down, father! Forgive us; forgive me.

Kharlov continued to smile.

“Late, darling,” he spoke, and his every word rang like copper. “Your stone soul was moving late!” Downhill rolled - now you won’t keep it! .. You want to deprive me of a shelter - so I won’t leave you logs on a log either! I put it with my own hands, I will ruin it with my own hands - as it is with one hand! You see, he didn’t take an ax!

And no matter how Eulampia begged him, promising to shelter, warm, and bandage his wounds, everything was in vain. He began to swing the front rafters of the pediment, singing "in the burlak" - "One more time! again!"

The manager Natalya Nikolaevna, who arrived again, took some measures, but to no avail. “The front pair of rafters, swaying violently, banked, cracked and collapsed into the yard - and together with her, not being able to resist, Harlov himself collapsed and the ground cracked heavily. Everyone started, gasped ... Kharlov lay motionless on his chest, and the longitudinal upper beam of the roof rested against his back, the little horse that followed the fallen pediment. ”

"He broke the back of his head with a beam, and he broke his chest, as it turned out at autopsy."

Nevertheless, this steppe bear, semi-literate, wild, ferocious, causes involuntary sympathy and even respect sometimes. He still managed to utter before his death the barely audible last words addressed to Eulampia: "- Well, daughter ... ka ... I'm not talking about you ..." What he wanted to say: "I'm not talking about ... I’m wedging or I do not forgive"? Most likely, it was still forgiveness.

As a result, alas, Martyn Petrovich, gifted with extraordinary power, did not do anything socially useful - he destroyed the outbuilding, and kept his guard over his neighbors.

IX

Well, we looked into the wilderness of the middle of the 19th century. How much unceremonious pride and a number of miserable, boundless humiliation. Here, each character acts in accordance with his character and, of course, conditions. Here the abnormal, outrageous sometimes seems normal to them. But the souls of crushed peasants gradually gain an sometimes unclear feeling: what is fair and what is “not divine” react instinctively to good and evil. Gradually, imperceptibly, a sense of justice breaks through them, at least sparks of kindness.

A 15-year-old teenager who observed all these events noticed a lot: how Sletkin and his wife became “the subject of a silent, but general alienation”, and the Eulampia, “although her guilt was probably no less than her sister, this alienation did not extend. She even aroused some self-pity when she fell at the feet of her deceased father. But that she was to blame - it was still felt by everyone. ”

“They offended the old man,” said some peasant ..., ““ sin is on your soul! Offended! ” This word "offended!" it was immediately accepted by all as an irrevocable sentence. The justice of the people affected ... "

A few days later, Eulampia left home forever, giving her sister her part of the estate, took only a few hundred rubles.

X

Subsequently, the narrator saw both sisters. Anna became a widow and an excellent mistress of the estate, kept calm, with dignity, and none of the local landowners knew how to “convincingly display and defend her rights”. She said, "in a small and quiet voice, but every word hit the target." She had three well-bred children, two daughters and a son. Local landowners said that she was a "blasting scum; "Miser", poisoned her husband, etc. But from herself, from her family, her life - it blew contentment. “Everything in the world is given to a person not according to his merit, but due to some still unknown, but logical laws,” the narrator reflects, “sometimes it seems to me that I vaguely feel them.”

What did he feel dimly? What are these laws? Sorry, he did not make the vague explicit.

Eulampia met him by chance a few years later in a small village near St. Petersburg. There, at the intersection of two roads, surrounded by a high and cramped picket fence, there was a lonely house, where the leader of the “splinter whips” lived.

Who are these schismatics? A sect that arose in Russia in the 17th century.

They said that they “live without priests,” and they call their leader “the Virgin”.

And once she managed to see. From the gate of a lonely mysterious house a trolley rolled out onto the road, in which a man of about 30 had a “remarkably beautiful and handsome appearance”, and next to him was a tall woman in an expensive black shawl and “velvet shushun” - Yevlampiya Kharlova. Wrinkles appeared on her face, but “the expression of that face has especially changed!” It is difficult to convey in words how much it has become self-confident, strict, proud! Not every calm feature of power - satiety of power breathed every trait ... "

How did Eulampia get into the Khlystovo Mother of God? Why did Sletkin die? What are the “laws not yet known” on the basis of which “everything in the world is given to man”?

There are unsolved secrets in life. Turgenev is primarily an artist, not a philosopher, and paints life here as it was perceived by the narrator, not necessarily trying to answer all the questions that arise.

The end of the story is businesslike, calm, and brings us back to its beginning when six old university comrades met on a winter evening and leisurely talked about Shakespearean types that are sometimes found in everyday life.

The narrator fell silent, his friends talked a little more and they parted

There are "still unknown laws" and unsolved secrets. But man already knows long ago the laws of behavior and relationships - the commandments, the constant violation of which just leads to suffering, sooner or later everyone comes either in the earthly, or, as the sages say in some other kind of life.

For example, even before our era it was said to a person: "Honor father and mother," (regardless of their merits or demerits, wealth or poverty). King Lear suffered from not keeping this commandment.

Or, for example: “As you want people to do with you, so do you with them,” Jesus Christ also called in the Sermon on the Mount. That is, take good care of someone else's life, dignity, interests. If we were all better educated from childhood, we would all soon learn to create conditions more and more favorable for the fulfillment of the commandments. This is still to come - a challenge for the 21st and subsequent centuries.