Composition Turgenev I.S. Phrase happiness has no tomorrow
Even D. S. Merezhkovsky, who accused post-Pushkin Russian literature of moving more and more away from Pushkin with every step - with every new writer, betraying his moral and aesthetic ideals, while considering himself their faithful guardian, recognized Turgenev "to some extent, the legitimate heir to Pushkin's harmony and the perfect clarity of architecture, and the gentle charm of the language." “But,” he immediately stipulated, “this resemblance is superficial and deceptive. /…/ The feeling of fatigue and satiety with all cultural forms, Schopenhauer's Buddhist nirvana, Flaubert's artistic pessimism are much closer to Turgenev's heart than Pushkin's heroic wisdom. In the very language of Turgenev, too soft, effeminate and flexible, there is no longer Pushkin's courage, his strength and simplicity. In this bewitching melody of Turgenev, a piercing, plaintive note is heard every now and then, like the sound of a cracked bell, a sign of a deepening spiritual discord ... ".
The story "Asya" is interesting precisely because, on the one hand, references to Pushkin lie on the surface of the text, and on the other hand, thanks to this nakedness, it reveals with particular clarity how Pushkin's motifs and images, woven into Turgenev's narrative fabric, acquire a new melodic coloring, acquire new meanings, become building material in the creation of something fundamentally different from Pushkin's, artistic world. It is noteworthy that even in a response letter regarding Asya to P. V. Annenkov, Turgenev, explaining his state of mind while working on the story, resorts to a quote from Pushkin: “Your review makes me very happy. I wrote this little thing - having just escaped to the shore - while I was drying “my wet robe” ”.
In the text of the story itself, the first unquoted (that is, acting as an element of the cultural code for the hero-narrator) quote from Pushkin appears in the very first phrase, where the events described are designated as “things of bygone days”, and then there will be many such quotes, reminiscences, allusions. Here, however, it should be noted that the creative continuity of one writer relative to another is expressed not in the very fact of quoting or even using other people's images and motifs, but in the creative activity of these elements within the framework of a new artistic whole. Ultimately, as A. S. Bushmin wrote, “genuine, highest continuity, tradition, creatively mastered, always in depth, in a dissolved or, using a philosophical term, in a removed state” . Therefore, its existence should not be proved by pulling out separate fragments containing obvious references to other people's works (this can be just one of the ways to “objectify” artistic image), but by analyzing the artistic world of the work. Turgenev's appeal to Pushkin was undoubtedly not of an auxiliary technical or decorative and applied nature, but of a conceptually significant, fundamental nature, as evidenced by the work in question.
The narration in "Ace" is conducted in the first person, but this is two-faced: it contains a narrator, a certain N.N., who recalls the years of his distant youth ("the affairs of bygone days"), and a hero - a cheerful, rich, healthy and carefree young man, as N. N. was twenty years ago. (By the way, the story is built in the same way in The Captain's Daughter, but in Turgenev the discrepancy between the subject of speech and the subject of action is sharper: not only the temporal, but also the emotional-philosophical distance between the hero and the narrator is more obvious and impassable).
Turgenev's narrator not only tells the story, but also evaluates and judges its participants, first of all, himself then, through the prism of subsequent life and spiritual experience. And already at the beginning of the story, a poignant note appears that sets the reader on a sad wave, on the expectation-premonition of the inevitably sad ending. The introduction on the theme of young carelessness and gaiety ends with an epitaph: “... I lived without looking back, did what I wanted, prospered, in a word. It never occurred to me then that a person is not a plant and that he cannot flourish for a long time. Youth eats gilded gingerbread, and thinks that this is their daily bread; but the time will come - and you will ask for bread ”(199).
However, this initial content-emotional predetermination, the unidirectionality of the narrative vector, coming from the narrator, in no way cancels or detracts from interest in the hero’s story, in his momentary, unique experience, in which the philosophical pessimistic preamble of the work, at first without a trace, until the reader’s full oblivion, dissolves, so that in the end, having been nourished by the living flesh of this experience, recreated with irresistible artistic power, to show its irrefutable rightness.
Actually the story begins with the words “I traveled without any purpose, without a plan; I stopped wherever I liked, and set off immediately further, as soon as I felt the desire to see new faces - namely faces ”(199). Free soaring in the space of being, the root cause of which is “joyful and insatiable curiosity” (200) for people - with this the hero enters the story, he especially insists on this (“I was only interested in people alone”), and although he immediately seems to pull himself for the apparent deviation from the intended logic of the narrative: “But I again stray to the side” (200), - the reader should not neglect this “third-party” remark, because very soon the “fatefulness” of the hero’s inclinations and priorities indicated here is revealed.
In the exposition of the story, we also learn that the hero is in love - “struck in the heart by one young widow” (200), who cruelly stung him, preferring the red-cheeked Bavarian lieutenant. It is obvious that not only now, after many years, but even then, at the moment of her experience, this love was more like a game, a ritual, a tribute to age - but not a serious, genuine and strong feeling: “To be honest, the wound of my heart is not very was deep; but I considered it my duty to indulge in sadness and loneliness for a while - what youth does not amuse itself with! - and settled in Z. (200).
The German town, in which the hero indulged in sadness, “dreaming about the insidious widow (201) not without some tension”, was picturesque and at the same time cozy, peaceful and calm, even the air “was fondling his face”, and the moon flooded the city “with a serene and at the same time calmly moving light to the soul” (200). All this created a respectable poetic frame for the young man's feelings, emphasized the beauty of the pose (he "sat for long hours on a stone bench under a lonely huge ash tree"), but betrayed her deliberateness, picturesqueness. A small statue of the Madonna with a red heart pierced by swords looking out from the branches of an ash tree in the context of this episode is perceived not so much as a harbinger of an imminent tragedy (as this detail is comprehended by V. A. Nedzvetsky), but as an ironic rhyme to a frivolous appropriation, without any reason, “ fatal "formulas -" struck in the heart "," the wound of my heart. However, the possibility of a tragic projection of this image in the further narration is by no means removed by its initial ironic interpretation.
The plot movement begins with the traditional “suddenly”, hidden, like a statue of the Madonna in the branches of an ash tree, in the bowels of a lengthy descriptive paragraph, but imperiously interrupting the contemplative-static state of the hero by presenting one of those forces that personify fate in Turgenev: “Suddenly sounds reached me music" (201). The hero responds to this call first with an interested question, and then with a physical movement outside the comfortably settled, but eventually unpromising, aesthetically exhausted space: “I found a carrier and went to the other side” (201).
A noteworthy detail: the old man, explaining the reason for the music, and only for this purpose removed for a moment from artistic non-existence, in order to immediately sink back into it, is served with “excessive” details that clearly exceed the measure necessary to fulfill the indicated function: his “plush waistcoat, blue stockings and shoes with buckles”, at first glance, purely decorative attributes that have nothing to do with the logic of the plot.
However, using the terminology of F. M. Dostoevsky, who contrasted the “unnecessary uselessness” of an inept author with the “necessary, significant uselessness” of a “strong artist”, we recognize these redundant details in the description of the episodic old man as “necessary, significant uselessness”, because they complete the picture of a stable, orderly of the world on the eve of the turning point of the plot movement and serve as additional evidence of the hero’s commitment to this stability, the contemplativeness of his worldview even at the moment when a new impulse is ripening in him and interest is directed over the forthcoming gaze of the object.
The event, the significance of which N.N. did not immediately appreciate, but which in its own way predetermined his future life, and within the framework of the story was the plot of the plot, was a seemingly random and essentially inevitable meeting. It happened at a traditional student gathering - a commercial, where the music that beckoned the hero behind him sounded. On the one hand, someone else’s feast attracts (“Shouldn’t we go to them?” The hero asks himself, which, by the way, indicates that he, like the creator of the story, studied at a German university, that is, he received the best in education at that time), and on the other hand, apparently, it strengthens the feeling of own innocence, alienation - is it not for this reason that N.N. Well, the incentive for rapprochement with the Gagins is what strikingly distinguishes new acquaintances from other Russian travelers - ease and dignity. The portrait characteristics of the brother and sister contain not only the objective features of their appearance, but also an undisguised subjective assessment - the ardent sympathy that N. N. immediately imbued with them: Gagin, in his opinion, had one of those “happy” faces, looking at which “everyone likes it, as if they are warming you or stroking you”; “The girl whom he called his sister seemed to me very pretty at first sight,” the hero admits (203). In these observations, assessments and characteristics, we draw information not only about the object, but also about the subject of the image, that is, as in a mirror, we see the hero himself: after all, friendliness, sincerity, kindness and eccentricity, which attracted him so much in new acquaintances, as a rule, they attract only those who are able to discern and appreciate these qualities in others, because they themselves possess them. The reciprocal friendliness of the Gagins, their interest in continuing their acquaintance, the confessional sincerity of Gagin confirm this assumption. How can one disagree with N. G. Chernyshevsky: “All the faces of the story are among the best among us, very educated, extremely humane: imbued with the noblest way of thinking”; the protagonist is “a man whose heart is open to all high feelings, whose honesty is unshakable; whose thought has taken into itself everything for which our age is called the age of noble aspirations. How then, based on objective data (the nobility of the personalities of the heroes and the favorable circumstances of their meeting), do not forget about the initial tragic predestination of the plot and not hope for a happy connection between N. N and Asi with the blessing and under the auspices of Gagin? But…
Starting with "Eugene Onegin", this fateful, inevitable and irresistible "but" dominates the fates of the heroes of Russian literature. “But I was not created for bliss ...” - “But I am given to another ...”. This is how Eugene Onegin and Tatyana Larina echo in the artistic space of the novel, shaping this space with their “buts”: predetermining the plot and constricting it compositionally. Substantially, the “but” turns out to be stronger than what it contradicts: the revived spiritual trembling - in the case of Onegin and the love suffered over the years - in the case of Tatyana. Structurally and, more broadly, artistically, “but” is the driving force, energy source and architectural staple of Pushkin's novel.
Pushkin, on the other hand, poetically set the plot formula (“matrix”), in which maximum efficiency this "but" works:
In Russian literature of the 19th century, this formula successfully passed numerous tests, if not for absolute universality, then at least for undoubted viability and artistic productivity.
It is to this formula, building up on it a new artistic flesh and filling it with new meanings, that the love stories and novels of I. S. Turgenev, including the story "Asya", the plot of which is built as an unstoppable and unhindered (!) movement towards fortunately, culminating in an unexpected and at the same time inevitable cliff into a hopeless "but".
Already a description of the first evening, on the very day of the acquaintance, held by N. N. at the Gagins, with external routine, eventlessness of what is happening (we climbed the mountain, to the Gagins’ dwelling, admired the sunset, had dinner, talked, saw the guest off to the crossing - outwardly nothing special, extraordinary ), marked by a radical change in the artistic space, an intense emotional increment and, as a result, an increase in plot tension.
The Gagins lived outside the city, "in a lonely house, high up," and the road to them is both a literal and symbolic path "uphill along a steep path" (203). The view that this time opens up to the gaze of the hero is radically different from that given at the beginning of the story, at the time of N.N.
The frames of the picture move apart, lost in the distance and above, the river dominates and forms the space: “The Rhine lay before us all silver, between the green banks, in one place it burned with the crimson gold of the sunset”; “The town sheltered by the shore”, already small, as if becoming smaller, defenselessly opens up to the surrounding space, man-made structures - houses and streets - give way to the supremacy of the natural, natural relief: in all directions from the town “hills and fields scattered widely”; and most importantly, not only the horizontal infinity of the world is revealed, but also its vertical aspiration: “It was good below, but even better at the top: I was especially struck by the purity and depth of the sky, the radiant transparency of the air. Fresh and light, he quietly swayed and rolled over in waves, as if he, too, had more freedom at a height ”(76). The closed space of a well-groomed German settlement comfortably inhabited by the hero expands and transforms, acquires an immense, enticing volume that attracts into its expanses, and further in the text of the story this feeling takes shape in one of its main motives - the motive of flight, overcoming restraining fetters, gaining wings. Asya longs for this: “If we were birds, how we would soar, how we would fly ... So we would drown in this blue ...”. N.N. knows about this and foresees such a possibility: “And wings can grow with us”; “There are feelings that lift us up from the earth” (225).
But for now, N. N. simply enjoys new impressions, in which music brings additional romantic coloring, sweetness and tenderness - the old Lanner waltz, which is heard from afar and, thanks to this, freed from any specifics, turned into its own romantic substratum. "... All the strings of my heart trembled in response to those ingratiating tunes," the hero admits, "pointless and endless expectations" lit up in his soul, and under the impression of what he had experienced, it suddenly flooded - like an insight, like a gift of fate - unexpected, inexplicable, causeless and undoubted feeling of happiness. An attempt at reflection on this matter - "But why was I happy?" - is categorically suppressed: “I did not want anything; I didn’t think about anything…” What matters is the net balance: "I was happy" (206).
So, in its inverted state, bypassing the necessary stages of possibility and proximity, ignoring any justifications and reasons, jumping over all the alleged plot approaches, immediately from the end, from its unattainable for the heroes of "Eugene Onegin", doomed only to a powerless final sigh (“And happiness was so possible, so close ...”), the result, - emphatically polemically (“I was happy”), Pushkin's formula of happiness begins its work in Turgenev's story.
However, in order to realize the connection between Turgenev's interpretation of the theme of happiness precisely with Pushkin's interpretation of it (the theme itself is as old as the world, and, of course, cannot be monopolized by anyone), one should comprehend the strategy of Turgenev's direct references to Pushkin, which act as a building block. material for the image of the main character.
Asino's resemblance to Pushkin's Tatyana lies on the surface of the text, it is repeatedly and strongly presented by the author. Already in the first portrait description, Asya’s originality, “otherness” was noted first of all: “There was something of her own, special, in the warehouse of her swarthy round face” (203); and further this special, this obvious atypical appearance and behavior of Turgenev's heroine will be aggravated, thickened, filled with specifics, referring to the details that make up the image of Tatyana Larina in Pushkin's novel.
“... Wild, sad, silent, like a doe in the forest, timid ...”, - this famous characteristic of Tatyana is picked up and actively developed in the story “Asya”. Turgenev assigns to his heroine, first of all, the first of these qualities. “At first she was shy of me…”, testifies the narrator (204). “... This wildling was recently grafted, this wine was still fermenting” (213), he confirms elsewhere. And Gagin’s recollection of the then ten-year-old Asya he saw for the first time coincides almost word for word with Pushkin’s definition of Tatyana: “she was wild, agile and silent, like an animal” (218). The constructive similarity of Turgenev's phrase with Pushkin's enhances the similarity in content, emphasizes its non-randomness, symbolism, and at the same time emphasizes discrepancies and divergences. Turgenev’s phrase sounds reduced relative to Pushkin’s: instead of “sad” - “agile” (however, the loss of this attribute will soon be replenished: languishing in the unexpressedness of her love, Asya appears before the observant, but slow-witted N. N. “sad and preoccupied” / 228 /) ; instead of the poetically exalted “like a forest doe, timid” - a shortened and simplified “like an animal”. It should not be forgotten that in this case we are talking about a child who has just found himself in the master's chambers, and yet this characteristic is organically, consistently woven into the description of young Asya. At the same time, Turgenev in no way seeks to belittle his heroine in relation to the ideal that Tatyana Larina entered the Russian cultural consciousness, moreover, the whole logic of the narrative indicates the opposite: Asya admires, admires her, she is poeticized in her memoirs not only by the narrator, but and - through him - the author himself. What then does the downward adjustment of the classic identity formula mean? First of all, apparently, it is intended to emphasize, despite the external similarity, the obviousness and principle of the difference.
Tatyana, "Russian in soul", who passionately loved her nanny-peasant and believed in the traditions of the common folk antiquity, at the same time occupied a strong and stable position as a young noblewoman. The combination of folk and elite principles in it was a phenomenon of an aesthetic, ethical order. And for Asya, the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman and a maid, this initial, natural fusion in her of the two poles of the national society turned out to be a psychological drama and a serious social problem, which forced Gagin to take her away from Russia at least temporarily. The young lady-peasant, not by her own playful whim, like the serenely prosperous heroine of one of Belkin's Tales, not by aesthetic attraction and ethical predilections, like Tatyana Larina, but by her very origin, she very quickly realizes and painfully experiences "her false position » (220). “She wanted to be no worse than other young ladies” (220) - that is, she strove as impossible for what Pushkin's Tatyana repelled as from her original, but unsatisfactory status quo.
The strangeness of Pushkin's heroine is purely personal, individual in nature and to a large extent is the result of personal choice, a conscious life strategy. This oddity, of course, made life difficult for Tatiana, distinguishing her from her surroundings, and sometimes opposing it, but in the end it provided her with a special, emphatically significant social position, which, by the way, she is proud of and cherishes. Asya's strangeness is a consequence of illegitimacy and the resulting ambiguity of the social position, the result of the psychological breakdown that she experienced when she learned the secret of her birth: “She wanted /…/ to make the whole world forget her origin; she was both ashamed of her mother, and ashamed of her shame, and proud of her” (220). Unlike Tatyana, whose originality drew support in French novels and was not questioned in its aesthetic and social significance, Asya is burdened by her strangeness and even justifies herself before N.N., who so wants to please: “If I am so strange, I, right not guilty…” (228). Like Tatyana, Asya is not inherent in the generally accepted, typical, but Tatyana deliberately neglected the traditional occupations for the young lady (“Her pampered fingers did not know needles; leaning on the hoop, She did not revive the canvas with a silk pattern”), and Asya is crushed by her initial forced excommunication from the noble standard: “I need to be re-educated, I have been brought up very badly. I can't play the piano, I can't draw, I can't even sew well" (227).
Like Tatyana, Asya indulged in lonely reflections from childhood. But Tatyanina's thoughtfulness "decorated her with dreams"; Asya mentally rushed not to romantic distances, but to the resolution of painful questions: “... Why is it that no one can know what will happen to him; and sometimes you see trouble - but you can’t be saved; and why can one never tell the whole truth?..” (227) Like Tatiana, who in “her own family seemed like a stranger girl”, Asya did not find understanding and sympathy in anyone (“young forces were played out in her, her blood boiled, and not a single hand was near to guide her" / 220 /) and therefore, again, just like Pushkin's heroine, she "rushed at the books" (220).
Here, the similarity emphasizes the difference, and the difference, in turn, enhances the similarity. Turgenev gives a prosaic, realistic projection of the poetic, romantic image outlined by Pushkin, he translates into the socio-psychological plane what Pushkin presented from the standpoint of ethical and aesthetic, and exposes the inner drama, the contradictory nature of the phenomenon, which Pushkin appears as integral and even majestic. But at the same time, Turgenev does not refute Pushkin's ideal - on the contrary, he tests this ideal with reality, "socializes", "grounds" and, ultimately, confirms it, since Asya is one of the most worthy and convincing representatives of Tatyana's "nest" - that is, that typological line of Russian literature, the beginning, foundation and essence of which were laid down and predetermined by the image of Pushkin's heroine.
True, Asya does not know how to behave as unambiguously whole as Tatyana, who appeared before her future lover in a natural appearance for her and corresponding to her spiritual mood and character: “... sad / And silent, like Svetlana, / Came in and sat down by the window" . Asya has not yet found her natural pose, her style, that organic demeanor for her that would correspond to her essence. Sensitive, observant and not tolerant of falsehood, the hero "with a hostile feeling" notes "something tense, not quite natural" (208) in her habits. Admiring the “lightness and dexterity” with which she climbs the ruins, he at the same time is annoyed at the demonstrative presentation of these qualities, at the indicative of a romantic pose, when she, sitting on a high ledge, looms prudently beautifully against the background of a clear sky. In the expression on her face, he reads: “You find my behavior indecent, /…/ all the same: I know you admire me” (208). She either laughs and plays pranks, or plays the role of a “decent and well-bred” (209) young lady - in general, she is weird, she is a “semi-mysterious creature” (214) to the hero, but in fact she is simply looking for, trying, trying to understand and express herself. Only after learning Asina's story, N.N. begins to understand the reason for these eccentricities: "a secret oppression pressed her constantly, her inexperienced pride was anxiously confused and beaten" (222). Only in one of her guises does she look completely natural and organic: “no shadow of coquetry, no sign of a deliberately adopted role” (212) was in her when, as if guessing the hero’s longing for Russia, she appeared before him “a completely Russian girl / ... /, almost a maid, ”who, in an old dress with hair combed behind her ears,“ sat, not moving, at the window and sewed in a hoop, modestly, quietly, as if she had not been doing anything else in her life ”(212).
The closer N.N. peers at Asya, the less she is shy of him, the more clearly other Tatyana's features appear in her. And external: “pale, silent, with downcast eyes” (222), “sad and preoccupied” (228) - this is how her first love affects her. And, most importantly, internal: uncompromising integrity (“her whole being strove for the truth” / 98 /); readiness "for a difficult feat" (223); finally, a conscious, open appeal to Tatyana's (that is, bookish, ideal) experience - slightly paraphrasing Pushkin's text, she quotes Tatyana's words and at the same time says about herself: “where is now the cross and the shadow of the branches over my poor mother!” (We note by the way that her “proud and impregnable” mother /224/ quite deservedly, and not only for the sake of creating an appropriate aura around her daughter, bears the name Tatiana consecrated by Pushkin). All this gives Asya full reason not only to wish: “And I would like to be Tatyana ...” (224), but also to be Tatyana, that is, to be a heroine of precisely this type and warehouse. Her own awareness of this desire is not only additional evidence of spiritual closeness to Pushkin's heroine, but also a sign of the inevitability of Tatyana's - unhappy - fate. Like Tatyana, Asya will be the first to decide on an explanation; like Tatyana, instead of a reciprocal confession, she will hear moralizing reproaches; like Tatyana, she is not destined to find the happiness of mutual love.
What, however, prevents the happy union of young people in this case? Why, as in Pushkin's novel, did such a possible, close, already experienced, already given to the hero, and thus, it would seem, inevitably achievable happiness for the heroine, not come true, did not take place?
The answer to this question lies primarily in the character and personality of the hero of the story, “our Romeo,” as N. G. Chernyshevsky ironically calls him.
We have already talked about the feeling of happiness that covers N.N. immediately after meeting the Gagins. At first, this feeling does not have a single specific source, it does not seek its root cause, does not realize anything - it is simply an experience of the joy and fullness of life itself, the boundlessness of its seemingly feasible possibilities. With each subsequent episode, it becomes more and more obvious that this experience is connected with Asya, generated by her presence, her charm, her strangeness, finally. But the hero himself prefers to avoid any assessments and explanations of his own condition. Even when the accidentally peeped explanation of Asya and Gagin in the garden causes him to suspect that he is being deceived and his heart is filled with resentment and bitterness, even then he does not name true reason of my experiences: “I was not aware of what was happening in me; One feeling was clear to me: unwillingness to see the Gagins” (215). In the context of such behavior, the gesture into which N.N. disturbing questions, from unpredictable answers, from the need for self-report.
However, how much poetry is in the transmission of these random impressions! What a humane, bright feeling was preserved in the soul of the narrator, even after twenty years, to those places that healed the soul - the shelter of his happy carefree youth: “Even now I am pleased to recall my impressions of that time. Greetings to you, a modest corner of the German land, with your unpretentious contentment, with ubiquitous traces of diligent hands, patient, although unhurried work ... Greetings to you and the world! (216).
No less attractive in the hero is his inner, deep truthfulness, which does not allow him now, when the heart, even if for the time being apart from reason, is occupied by Asya, artificially, “out of annoyance”, “resurrect in himself the image of a hard-hearted widow” (216). If we develop a parallel to which, for the purpose of ironic compromise, Chernyshevsky resorts, then for "our Romeo" this "hard-hearted widow" is the same as for Shakespeare's Romeo - Rosalind: just a rehearsal, a test of the pen, a heart warm-up.
The “escape” of the hero, contrary to his subjective intentions, becomes an impetus for plot acceleration: between Gagin and N.N., upon the return of the latter, the necessary explanation takes place and new energy The plot seems to be heading towards a happy ending.
The hero, to whom Gagin's story “returned” Asya, feels “sweetness in his heart,” as if he had “secretly poured honey into it” (222).
The heroine, in whom teenage ruffiness is replaced by sensitive femininity, is natural, meek and submissive. “Tell me what should I read? tell me what should I do? I will do everything you tell me,” she says “with innocent gullibility” (227), ingenuously showing her feelings and defenselessly lamenting that it still remains unclaimed: “My wings have grown - but there is nowhere to fly” (228).
Not to hear these words, not to understand the state of the girl who utters them, it is impossible even for a much less sensitive and subtle person than our hero. Moreover, he himself is far from being indifferent to Asya. He is fully aware of the secret of her attractiveness: “it was not only with her semi-wild charm, spilled over her entire subtle body, that she attracted me: I liked her soul” (222). In her presence, he feels the festive beauty of the world with particular acuteness: “Everything shone joyfully around us, below, above us - the sky, the earth and the waters; the very air seemed to be saturated with brilliance” (224). He admires her, "drenched in a clear sunbeam, / ... / calm, meek" (224). He sensitively captures the changes taking place in her: “something soft, feminine suddenly appeared through the girlishly strict appearance” (225). He is worried about her closeness, he feels her attractive physical presence long after he hugged her in the dance: “For a long time my hand felt the touch of her tender body, for a long time I heard her accelerated, close breathing, for a long time I imagined dark, motionless, almost closed eyes on a pale but lively face, sharply covered with curls" (225).
In response to the call coming from Asya, the hero is seized by a hitherto unknown “thirst for happiness” (226) - not that passive, self-sufficient, happiness, the happiness of “pointless delight”, which he experienced already on the first evening of meeting the Gagins, but another, languishing, disturbing - “happiness to satiety”, the thirst for which Asya lit in him and the satisfaction of which she promised.
But - even mentally N. N. does not personify his expectation: "I have not yet dared to call him by name" (226).
But - even asking the rhetorical question "Does she really love me?" (229) and thereby, in essence, revealing, exposing (even if only mentally) someone else's experience, he himself still evades not only the answer, but even the question of his own feelings: “... I did not ask myself, am I in love am I in Asya” (226); "I didn't want to look into myself" (229).
This lack of accountability, unconsciousness of experiences has a dual, or rather, dual nature: on the one hand, young carelessness is manifested here (“I lived without looking back”), fraught with selfishness: the sadness that N. N. reads in the guise of Asya causes in him not so much sympathy for her, how much contrition at his own expense: “But I came so cheerful!” (226). On the other hand - and this is a possible consequence or, on the contrary, a premise of the first cause - the contemplativeness we have already noted, the passivity of character, the hero’s predisposition to freely indulge in the “quiet game of chance”, surrender to the will of the waves, move with the flow . An eloquent confession on this score was made already at the very beginning of the story: “In the crowd it was always especially easy and gratifying for me; I had fun walking where others were going, screaming when others were screaming, and at the same time I loved to watch these others scream” (199-200). And in the middle of the story, at the very moment when the hero is languishing with a thirst for “objective”, associated with the life of another person, exciting, and not lulling happiness, an image-symbol appears in the narrative - the embodiment of the character and fate of “our Romeo”.
Returning from the Gagins after a serene and joyful day spent with them, N.N., as usual, goes down to the crossing, but this time, contrary to his usual habit, "having entered the middle of the Rhine", asks the carrier "to let the boat go downstream." Not accidental, the symbolic nature of this request is confirmed and reinforced by the following phrase: "The old man lifted the oars - and the river carried us." The hero’s soul is restless, as restless in the sky (“dotted with stars, it all moved, moved, shuddered”), as restless in the waters of the Rhine (“and there, in this dark, cold depth, the stars also swayed, trembled”). The trembling and languor of the surrounding world is like a reflection of his own mental turmoil and, at the same time, a catalyst, a stimulator of this state: “anxious expectation seemed to me everywhere - and anxiety grew in me myself.” This is where an irresistible thirst for happiness arises and, it would seem, the need and possibility of its immediate quenching, but the episode ends as significant as it began and unfolded: “the boat kept rushing, and the old carrier sat and dozed, leaning over the oars” ( 225 - 226)…
Between Turgenev's heroes, unlike Pushkin's heroes, there are no objective obstacles: neither the bloody shadow of a friend killed in a duel, nor obligations in relation to any third party (“I am given to another ...”). Asino origin, which keeps her in a state of psychological discomfort and seems an unfavorable circumstance to her brother, for an enlightened, intelligent young man, of course, does not matter. N. N. and Asya are young, beautiful, free, in love, worthy of each other. This is so obvious that Gagin even decides to have a very awkward explanation with a friend about his intentions regarding his sister. Happiness, about which so much has already been said, in this case is not only possible, but almost necessary, it goes into your own hands. But our heroes move towards it in different ways, at different paces, in different ways. He - along a smooth horizontal line that goes into the invisible distance, surrendering to the elemental flow, enjoying this movement itself, not setting a goal for himself and not even thinking about it; it - along a crushing vertical, as if into an abyss from a cliff, in order to either cover the desired target, or shatter to smithereens. If the symbol of the character and fate of the hero is the movement with raised oars along the river - that is, merging with the general stream, trusting in the will of chance, on the objective course of life itself, then the image-symbol of Asya's character is "hanging" "on the ledge of the wall, right over the abyss” (207) - a kind of analogue of the Lorelei rock, this is the simultaneous readiness to both fly up and break down, but not a submissive movement downstream.
Gagin, who understands his sister well, in a difficult conversation for him with N.N., started in the hope of a happy resolution of Asya’s mental torment, at the same time involuntarily, but very accurately and irreversibly, opposes Asya to her chosen one, and to himself: “... You and I, prudent people, cannot even imagine how deeply she feels and with what incredible power these feelings are expressed in her; it comes upon her as unexpectedly and as irresistibly as a thunderstorm” (230).
A categorical inability to "come under the general level" (220); the passion of nature ("she has no feeling half" / 220 /); attraction to the opposite, ultimate incarnations of the feminine (on the one hand, she is attracted to Goethe's "domestic and sedate" / 214 / Dorothea, on the other - the mysterious destroyer and victim of Lorelei); the combination of the seriousness, even the tragedy of the worldview with childishness and innocence (between the reasoning about the fabulous Lorelei and the expression of readiness to “go somewhere far away, to pray, to a difficult feat”, a memory suddenly arises that “Frau Louise has a black cat with yellow eyes » /223/); finally, the liveliness of temperament, mobility, variability - all this is an obvious contrast to what is characteristic of N.N., which is characteristic of her brother. Hence the fear of Gagin: “She is real gunpowder. ... It’s a disaster if she falls in love with someone! ”, And his bewildered bewilderment: “Sometimes I don’t know how to be with her” (221); and his warning to himself and N.N.: “You can’t joke with fire ...” (231).
And our hero, unconsciously loving Asya, languishing with a thirst for happiness, but not ready, not in a hurry to quench this love thirst, quite consciously, very soberly and even in a businesslike way joins the cold-blooded prudence of her brother: "We are with you, prudent people ..." - this is how the conversation began; “... We began to interpret as coolly as possible about what we should have done” (232), - so hopelessly for Asya it ends. This is an association (“we”, “us”) of prudent, cold-blooded, reasonable and positive men against a girl who is gunpowder, fire, fire; it is an alliance of well-meaning philistines against the uncontrollable and unpredictable elements of love.
The theme of philistinism (philistine selfish narrow-mindedness) does not lie on the surface of the story and, at first glance, emphasizing it may seem far-fetched. The word “philistines” itself sounds only once, in a story about a student holiday, at which feasting, that is, students who violate the usual order, ritually scold these same philistines - cowardly guardians of an unchanging order, and it never occurs again in the text of the story, but in relation to to her characters seems generally inapplicable.
Subtly feeling, sensitive, humane and noble N.N. does not seem to fit this definition. Gagin also appears to the reader as extremely attractive and absolutely not like a hardened layman. His outward charm (“There are such happy faces in the world: everyone loves to look at them, as if they are warming you or stroking you. Gagin had just such a face ...” / 203 /) is a reflection of the spiritual grace that N. N. .: “It was just a Russian soul, truthful, honest, simple…” (210). “... It was not possible not to love him: the heart was drawn to him” (210). This arrangement is explained not only by the objective merits of Gagin, but also by the undoubted spiritual and personal closeness of his N.N., the obvious similarity between young people.
We do not see the protagonist of the story from the outside, everything that we learn about him, he tells and comments on himself, but all his manifestations, actions (up to a certain point!), His remarks and comments, his attitude towards others and the attitude of others towards him - all this undoubtedly testifies that it was also impossible not to love him, that hearts were also attracted to him, that he fully deserved the high certification of his most merciless critic - N. G. Chernyshevsky: “Here is a man whose heart is open to all high feelings whose honesty is unshakable, whose thought has taken into itself everything for which our age is called the age of noble aspirations. But the similarity of N. N. with Gagin is not only a positive identification mark, but also an alarming, compromising signal. In a “fire-dangerous” situation, the lover N. N. behaves in the same way as Gagin, who is attracted to creative accomplishments: “While you are dreaming about work, you soar like an eagle: it seems that the earth would move from its place - and in performance you will immediately weaken and get tired” (207). Having listened to this confession, N.N. tries to encourage his comrade, but mentally puts an unconditional and hopeless diagnosis: “... No! you will not work, you will not be able to shrink” (210). Is it because he is so sure of this that he knows it from within, from himself, just as his double Gagin knows about him: “you will not marry” (232) ...
“To marry a seventeen-year-old girl, with her temper, how is it possible!” (232) - here it is, an example of philistine logic, which displaces both the poetic mood, and the thirst for happiness, and spiritual nobility. This is the same logic that in another famous work of Russian literature will be reduced to the classic formula of philistine - "case" - existence: "No matter what happens ...
The mood with which the hero goes on a date again actualizes, brings Pushkin's formula of happiness to the surface of the narrative, but does it in a paradoxical, "opposite" way. The hero remembers his impulse, but as if distances himself from it with a question-memory: “And on the fourth day in this boat, carried away by the waves, did I languish with a thirst for happiness?” [Here and below it is emphasized by me. - G.R.] The hero cannot but understand: “It has become possible…”; he honestly admits to himself that it’s all about him now, only behind him is the stop “... and I hesitated, I pushed away”, but, as if avoiding the last responsibility, he hides behind some mythical, far-fetched, non-existent imperative: “I should have pushed him away…” (233). The words we have highlighted, which make up the semantic framework of the hero's thoughts before the decisive explanation, on the one hand, refer to Pushkin, and on the other, they refute/complement him.
The possibility of connection, which at the moment of the last meeting the heroes of "Eugene Onegin" was irretrievably lost, the heroes of "Asia" have. The duty, which was beyond doubt there, because it was about the duty of marital fidelity, is simply absent in this case: neither N.N. nor Asya owes anything to anyone except to be happy with themselves. Repeatedly appealing to a certain debt to Gagin already during the meeting, the hero is frankly disingenuous: Gagin came to him the day before not to prevent, but in order to contribute to the happiness of his sister and a feverish, at her request, departure, not to break her heart, not break life. No, Gagin is in no way suitable for the role of the inexorable Tybalt. How Mr. N.N. did not cope with the role of Romeo. Neither the exciting and defenseless closeness of Asya during a date - her irresistible gaze, the trembling of her body, her humility, trusting and decisive "Your ...", nor the return fire in her own blood and momentary self-forgetfulness an impulse towards Asya - nothing outweighs the fear lurking in the depths of N.N.’s soul (“What are we doing?”) And the unwillingness to take responsibility for oneself, and not shift it to another: “Your brother ... because he knows everything ... / ... / I had to tell him everything."
Ashino's reciprocal bewilderment "Must?" absolutely coincides with the reader's reaction to what is happening during the date. The chum hero feels the absurdity of his behavior: “What am I saying?”, he thinks, but continues in the same vein... He accuses Asya of not being able to hide her feelings from her brother (?!), declares that now “everything is gone” (?!), “everything is over” (?!) and at the same time “stealthily” watches how her face turns red, how she “became ashamed and scared.” “Poor, honest, sincere child” - this is how the narrator sees Asya after twenty years, but during the meeting she will not even hear Onegin’s cold, but respectful confession: “Your sincerity is sweet to me”; Turgenev's hero will appreciate this sincerity only from a hopeless and insurmountable distance.
The ingenuous, ingenuous, passionately in love Asya could not even imagine that the crushing formulas “everything is lost”, “it’s all over” are just a defensive rhetoric of a lost young man, that, having come on a date, the hero “did not yet know what it was could be resolved" that the words he uttered, which sounded so hopelessly categorical, hid inner turmoil and helplessness. God knows how long it would last and how it would end - after all, you can go with the flow endlessly. But it is impossible to fall off a cliff indefinitely: Asya had enough determination to make an appointment, she also got it to interrupt it when the continuation of the explanations seemed pointless.
The deplorable outcome of this scene is a sad parody of the finale of "Eugene Onegin". When Asya "with the speed of lightning rushed to the door and disappeared," the hero remained standing in the middle of the room, "certainly, as if struck by thunder." The metaphor and comparison used here emphasize the motive of a thunderstorm, fire, which throughout the story serves as the embodiment of Asya's character and Asina's love; within the framework of the episode, these techniques set the dynamics of the development of the image: it disappeared "with the speed of lightning" - he remained standing, "as if struck by thunder." But, in addition, and this is perhaps the main thing here, the phrase “certainly, as if struck by thunder” refers the reader to the pra-text:
She left. Worth Eugene,
As if struck by thunder.
This reference greatly strengthens and exacerbates the tragic absurdity of what happened. There is a “storm of sensations” in Onegin’s soul, generated by Tatyana’s declaration of love, so desired for him, and by her lawfully unconditional refusal to surrender to this love. Here is complete mental confusion and confusion with an absolute absence of objective problems: “I did not understand how this date could end so quickly, so stupidly - end when I didn’t even say a hundredth of what I wanted, what I had to say when I I myself didn’t know how it could be resolved…”. There - “spurs suddenly rang out” and the husband appeared as the personification of a legitimate and insurmountable obstacle to happiness. Frau Louise appears here, facilitating a love meeting and with all her astonished look - "raising her yellow eyebrows to the very lining" - emphasizing the sad comedy of the situation. We part with Onegin “at a moment that is bad for him”, N. N. leaves the room where the meeting took place, and from the corresponding episode of the story, by his own definition, “like a fool” (235 - 236).
But, unlike Pushkin's novel, Turgenev's story does not end with an unsuccessful explanation of the characters. N.N. is given - and this is a rare, unique, case, a “control” test and at the same time a demonstration of the pattern, the inevitability of what is happening - one more chance, an opportunity to fix everything, to explain, if not with Asya, then with her brother, ask him her hands.
What the hero experiences after such a stupidly ended date, again and again refers us to Pushkin's text.
Pushkin's triad - annoyance, madness, love - Turgenev strengthened and emphasized repetition. Someone else's experience is connected to the experience of an enlightened, sensitive and receptive N.N. - is it not so that he can avoid strangers and not make his own mistakes? Finally, determination comes, wings grow, confidence arises in the reversibility, fixability of what happened, in the possibility, proximity, tangibility of happiness. Not as a promise, but as a triumph of finding, the ritual song of the nightingale sounds for the hero: “... It seemed to me that he sang my love and my happiness” (239). But it just seemed so...
And to the reader, in turn, it may seem that N.N. misses this second chance, so generously presented to the hero by fate (and the author’s will), solely because of his own lack of will and indecision: he “almost” did not show his ripened determination to Asina's hand, "but such wooing at such a time ...". And again, careless reliance on the natural course of events: “tomorrow everything will be decided”, “tomorrow I will be happy” (239). And this same carelessness is that, although at first he “did not want to come to terms” with what happened, he “persisted for a long time” in the hope of overtaking the Gagins, but in the end he “did not feel sad for too long” and “even found that fate had arranged well, not connecting ... [him. - G.R.] with Asya "(242). A “compromising” reflection casts on the hero and compares him with the pretty maid Ganhen, who, with the sincerity and strength of her grief due to the loss of her fiancé, greatly impressed N.N. Z., following the Gagins, whom he still hoped to find, N.N. suddenly again saw Ganhen, still pale, but no longer sad, in the company of a new boyfriend. And only a small statue of the Madonna “still looked out just as sadly from the dark green of the old ash tree” (241), remaining faithful to the appearance given to it once and for all ...
Turgenev wonderfully subtly and convincingly develops the psychological motivation for the inevitability of the dramatic finale - a striking emotional and psychological discrepancy between the characters. Let's add a few more words to what was said earlier. During a decisive explanation with Asya, the hero, among the many ridiculous, awkward, helpless phrases, drops one very accurate and even fair, although still inappropriate at that moment: “You did not allow the feeling that was beginning to ripen to develop ...” (236). It's true. And although, as V. N. Nedzvetsky rightly writes, in their “sacrificial and tragic destiny they are quite equal and equally “guilty”, according to Turgenev, both women and men” and reduce everything to “the integrity of the first and the“ flabbiness ”of the second " indeed “wrong in essence”, but it is hardly advisable to ignore the fundamental difference between the behavioral strategies of Turgenev’s women and men, especially since it is this difference that largely determines the plot movement, lyrical intensity and the final meaning of Turgenev’s works.
Maximalist Asya needs everything and immediately, now. Her impatience could be attributed to the socio-psychological disadvantage that she is trying to compensate for in this way, but other, initially absolutely prosperous “Turgenev girls”, including the happiest of them, Elena Stakhova, are just as impatient and categorical. And N.N. is a person of a directly opposite mental organization: a “gradualist” (in this case, in the broadest sense of the word), a contemplator, a waiter. Does this mean that he is "worse than a notorious villain"? Of course not. Does his behavior on the rendez-vous give grounds to judge his socio-historical failure? Indeed, it is hardly suitable for radical actions, but who said that radicalism is the only acceptable way to solve socio-historical problems? Chernyshevsky generally leads the reader far away from the meaning and content of Turgenev's story, and the conclusions drawn by him can be taken into account only taking into account the fact that in Turgenev's story "the dominant and determining" is not a concrete historical, but a philosophical and psychological plane ", and it is precisely on this level reveals a fundamental divergence between Turgenev and Pushkin.
In the story "Asya" one can read the story of the subjective guilt of the hero who was unable to keep the happiness floating into his hands; the drama of the emotional and psychological discrepancy between a man and a woman who loves each other is much more clearly read, but in the end it is a story about the impossibility, the mirage of happiness as such, about the inevitability and irreparability of losses, about the insurmountable contradiction between subjective human aspirations and the objective course of life.
In the hero's behavior, which it would be so tempting to attribute entirely to his weakness, some kind of regularity unknown to him, but guiding him, is manifested. Regardless of all the above particular circumstances, which in principle can be changed, corrected, the final will be irreparably and inevitably tragic. "Tomorrow I will be happy!" - the hero is convinced. But tomorrow there will be nothing, because, according to Turgenev, “happiness has no tomorrow; he does not have yesterday either; it does not remember the past, does not think about the future; he has a present - and that is not a day, but an instant ”(239). The hero does not know, cannot and should not know this - but the narrator knows and understands with all the experience of his life, who in this case undoubtedly formulates the author's attitude to the world. It is here that a cardinal, fundamental, irreversible divergence from Pushkin is revealed.
V. Uzin also saw evidence of the “weakness and blindness of a person” in the encouraging, encouraging Tales of Belkin, which was not plunged “into the abyss of darkness and horror” only by a whimsical chance, but Pushkin has this tragic prospect as overcome by the effort of his author’s “heroic will” ”(Merezhkovsky), which gives M. Gershenzon a reason to draw an encouraging conclusion from the same circumstances: “... Pushkin portrayed a blizzard life not only as an element that dominates a person, but as an intelligent element, the wisest of man himself. People, like children, are mistaken in their plans and desires - a blizzard will pick up, whirl, deafen them, and in the muddy haze with a firm hand will lead them to the right path, where, apart from their knowledge, they had to get. Turgenev artistically realizes the hidden tragic potential of Pushkin's discourse.
“Happiness was so possible, so close…” - Pushkin says, attributing the tragic “but” to the will of a particular case and presenting evidence of the fundamental possibility of happiness in Belkin’s Tales and The Captain’s Daughter. According to Turgenev, happiness - full-fledged, long-term, lasting - does not exist at all, except as an expectation, premonition, eve, at most - an instant. “... Life is not a joke or fun, life is not even pleasure ... life is hard work. Renunciation, constant renunciation - this is its secret meaning, its solution "- these final lines of Faust express both the innermost idea of \u200b\u200b"Asia" and the deepest idea of Turgenev's work as a whole.
The tragic semantic residue of Turgenev's works is an unconditional denial of the life-affirming pathos that fills Pushkin's work. But, diverging from Pushkin in understanding the existential issues of human existence, Turgenev was undoubtedly faithful to Pushkin and agreed with him in reverence for the “shrine of beauty” and the ability to create this beauty in his work. He knew how to saturate even the tragic results of his works with such sublime poetry that the pain and sadness that sound in them give the reader satisfaction and joy. This is exactly how - hopelessly sad and at the same time sublimely poetic, light - “Asya” ends: “Condemned to the loneliness of a familyless bean, I live out boring years, but I keep, as a shrine, her notes and a dried flower of geranium, the same flower, which she once threw to me from the window. It still emits a faint smell, and the hand that gave it to me, that hand that I only once had to press to my lips, may have been smoldering in the grave for a long time ... And I myself - what happened to me? What is left of me, of those blissful and anxious days, of those winged hopes and aspirations? Thus, the light evaporation of an insignificant grass survives all the joys and all the sorrows of a person - it survives the person himself ”(242).
S. 134.
Turgenev I.S. Faust // Collected. op. in 12 volumes. T. 6. M .: Khudozh. lit., 1978. P. 181.
>Compositions based on the work of Asya
Happiness has no tomorrow
People say that happiness does not tolerate delay. This belief is especially well reflected in the story of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev "Asya". All the works of this classic, one way or another, are connected with the theme of love, but "Asya" is a special story that is considered a "pearl" among his works. Main character works - a young man a nugget. While traveling in Germany, he meets two Russians who later become his good friends.
His happiness is so close that it remains only to lend a hand, or just say the right word, but he did not take advantage of this chance, which he regretted for the rest of his life. In order not to reveal the identity of the protagonist, the author introduced him as Mr. N. N. His friends are Gagin and Asya. These are extremely hospitable, kind and intelligent people. Asya is Gagin's half-sister, whom he took under guardianship after the death of their father. She has an incomplete noble origin, which she is very ashamed of. In general, Asya is a rather cheerful, mischievous girl with a pure soul.
N. N. all these features of her character are known, but when it comes to a serious step and recognition, he retreats. And happiness, as you know, has no tomorrow. Knowing his superficial perception of the world and his spiritual immaturity, Gagin and Asya decide to leave without waiting for decisive action from N.N. At that moment, he doubted that he could be happy next to such an impulsive girl as Asya. But, after many years, he realized that he had lost the love of his life.
N.N. was never truly happy. If he had known the simple truth that one must see and accept in loved ones not only their virtues, but also their small flaws, perhaps everything would have turned out differently. There were so many other positive features in Asa that could cross out her straightforwardness, which Mr. N did not like so much. At the end of his life, he regretfully recalled the events of that evening when he let go of Asya. He still kept her notes and the long-withered geranium flower she had once thrown out of the window.
The eternal question for all time - what is happiness? There is no single answer, everyone understands it in their own way. For some, this concept includes family and own house, for another - wealth and material wealth, but still others put love at the forefront. And you experience true pleasure from feelings that are mutual.
The only pity is that in life there are often situations when you wait and wait for the blue bird of happiness, but it never arrives. Or it beckons high in the sunny blue, but it is not given in the hands. This is what real happiness is - fleeting and fleeting. It is like a moment and has not only no tomorrow, but also no yesterday.
That very bird of happiness also appears in the life of the heroes of the story by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev.
The protagonist of this work, aimlessly traveling around European countries, stops in a German town and meets the young artist Gagin and his sister Anna, called Asya in the home circle. They make friends, start spending time together, become friends.
A young seventeen-year-old girl attracts N.N., she is real, sincere, natural, there is some kind of mystery in her. After quite a short time the young man realizes that he is in love. Asya herself decides to confess, writes a note and calls N.N. on a date, where the explanation takes place. girl opens young man soul, entrusts him with his fate. She is pure and innocent, N.N. a hero who can solve all her problems.
But a young man is not as firm and resolute as a girl. He understands that his feelings are also deep and strong, only after a moment, when the chance is already lost, when, tired of waiting for that single word, he simply runs away from this dark and cramped room, where he won’t be able to spread his wings, not that, what to soar on them.
The blue bird was so close, it just flies out of my hands. It is also noteworthy that the author compares Asya with a small bird, which itself is already a real happiness. She could change N.N.'s life, fill it with real emotions, sincerity and love. And so, without this girl, he is simply doomed to a miserable existence, to the absence of a family, to bleak, monotonous gray days.
The hero is to blame for everything. He cannot give in to his feelings. He hesitates, is afraid, weighs all the pros and cons. And happiness loves the brave, those who resolutely plunge into the pool with their heads.
Turgenev is trying to show the reader how close happiness was, how possible it was. But the hero could not hold him. It’s even a pity and I don’t want to blame him at all, because the meaning of life has been lost and such feelings can no longer be experienced.
Happiness has no tomorrow - this fact is confirmed by the story. Looking at the hero of this work, we understand that happiness will not happen if you surrender to doubts and fear, if you act out of harmony with your heart, and trust only your mind, if you hesitate and sit in indecision. You need to catch your bird by the tail, I decided to follow a happy path - go and do not turn off. Never. Never!