The title of Tatiana Tolstoy's book - "We sat on the golden porch ..." serves her as an epigraph at the same time. The first line of the famous counting rhyme refers the reader to the source of all Tolstoy's work - to childhood. The basic principle of constructing the story is immediately hidden - the principle of free construction of roles: "Tsar, prince, king, prince, shoemaker, tailor. Who will you be? Each character sets his own destiny, but according to the rules of the game, the only rules that the author recognizes , then, who has already become a prince or a tailor, is obliged to bear his lot to the end.Neither life, nor Tolstaya will forgive betrayal - "they don't play like that."

But there is in this epigraph heading one more important feature - the counting-out is a closed ring composition... It has no end, no beginning, it always walks in a circle - like an hour hand. All the author's stories are strung on the image - a symbol of a circle, a ring, a returning action. In the structure of any of them, the centripetal force triumphs over the centrifugal force, because Tolstoy's main goal is to defend himself from the world, to stand in a circle and, turning his back to the alien and terrible world of the outside world, repeat the endless words of counting rhymes "We sat on the golden porch.

The meaning of the statement - in the beginning there was a garden - in rhythm and syntax refers to the biblical "In the beginning there was a word" - this adjusts to the perception of the story from the standpoint of philosophy, the highest values \u200b\u200b- "And the word was God."

"Garden" - "Childhood was a garden, continues the theme of eternity, but also reduces it to an intimate personal perception." Life is eternal, only birds die "- a child's perception of death.

As a monologue, we learn about the author. The author is the main person in the story. As for the plot, it also has one peculiarity. The story - "We sat on the golden porch ..." depicts a fabulously - magical world of childhood, which a child enjoys and which, when trying to return to adulthood, turns out to be a cluttered bourgeois house of an old neighbor - an accountant.

Here a lateral motive is formed: claims to life that destroys children's deceptions and scores with childhood. With a childish gullible dreaminess, a childish image of the world - speaking, mysterious, overflowing with meaning. For T. Tolstoy, childhood is space - time, in all respects the opposite of the children's world of things - symbols that surrounded a person ("Childhood was a garden, without end and edge, without borders and fences") But it is also a source of demagnetizing fantasies and future disappointments, a rogue shop where a person makes their first fraudulent purchases.

It is no coincidence that T. Tolstoy's publications began with stories dedicated to childhood fantasies, a sweet conviction that the whole world is saturated with a mysterious, sad, magical, rustling in the branches, swaying in dark water ("They sat on a golden porch", "A date with a blue bird" ), and it is no coincidence that already there naivety was undeniably exposed. Comparable to "adult vision". "Well, this was the one who held captive? All this rags and junk, shabby painted houses ... And it sang and shimmered, burned and called? How stupid you are joking, life. What an old I am! Well, that was All this rags and junk, shabby painted chest of drawers, clumsy oilcloth pictures, jerky jardinieres, worn plush, darned tulle, gnarled market crafts, cheap glass? And it sang and shimmered? Was it burning and calling?

It is characteristic that at a serious and even solemn moment of the story, devoted to the most exciting question: "What are you, life?" - at the end of the author's tirade, a child's voice suddenly sounds distinctly: "Ungrateful, you are alive. You cry. You love, torn and fall, and this is not enough for you? How? Not enough? Oh so, yes? And there is nothing else" (So stubborn quarrel children).

In the story, the grown-up heroine discovered that the magical world of her childhood had been rudely destroyed over the years. From the "Aladdin's cave" - \u200b\u200bthe room of the neighboring dacha - only "dust, dust, ashes" remained. But amid the devastation, the clockwork survived: "Above the dial, in the glass room, small inhabitants cringed — the Lady and the Cavalier, the masters of Time. The lady hits the table with a goblet, and a thin ringing is trying to peck at the shell of decades."

Near the dacha of the two sisters - the own house of Uncle Pasha and Veronika Vitoldovna, neighbors quarreled over a chicken egg, but when Veronika Vitoldovna died and Uncle Pasha married Margarita. The girls grew up, and Uncle Pasha grew old and died, Margarita grew old and weakened, and her daughter did not bury Uncle Pasha in pairs. In the exposition of the work - a garden, a house, the work of Uncle Pasha, the motive of the departing elements of Chekhov's notes - " The Cherry Orchard".

The system of characters - two girls - from both of them a story is told, their mother, their neighbors - Uncle Pasha, Veronika Vitoldovna, daughter of Margarita, and also Anna Ilyinichna.

The conflict between the decent, the high, the spiritual and the small, momentary, low. At the same time, Tolstaya often places important and unimportant in places: a visit to Uncle Pasha's house in childhood, delight from seeing things and disappointment in them in maturity, and again the golden Lady of Time, having drunk the cup of life to the bottom, will knock on the table for Uncle Pasha the last midnight, an image that introduces the theme of the end. The last hour.

There is a connection between the story and the play "The Cherry Orchard" by Chekhov - "and once looking back with perplexed fingers felt the smoky glass behind which, before sinking to the bottom, our garden waved a handkerchief for the last time." The motive for leaving, disappearing, including the global one, is the universal image and the death of Uncle Pasha, whose ashes. like old Firs, they were locked in the domain, the theme of soul corrosion in the fact of unprotected dust, abandonment of the past: "Emerging from a magical childhood, from the warm shining depths in the cold wind, unclench a chilled fist - that, in addition to a handful of wet sand, we took with us. sand is both an image of a desert, desolation and an image of time - an hourglass -) reminiscences, allusions and parallels.

In addition to the Bible and Chekhov, the story contains reminiscences from Tyutchev, Pushkin, fairy tales of the East, the description of Uncle Pasha's room refers to the prose of Babel (Gedali, in the "Shop of Antiquity"), Dickens, Exupery. Moonlight Sonata Beethoven's death, Bulgakov's Tradition is the choice of the name of the heroine who transformed the life of Uncle Pasha - Margarita_ and also in a situation of disappearance - the death of Veronika Vitoldovna, from whom no one is sad. Children's expectations of a miracle and the collapse of illusions.

Such a watch, a cunning mechanical toy, represents the author's ideal - time that does not go forward into the future, but in a circle.

Sweet Shura

For the first time Alexandra Ernestovna passed me by in the early morning, all bathed in the pink Moscow sun. The stockings are down, the legs are at the gate, the black suit is greasy and worn. But a hat! .. Four seasons - bulldozers, lilies of the valley, cherries, barberries - curled on a light straw dish pinned to the remnants of hair with a pin like this! The cherries have come off a little and are tapping wood. She's ninety years old, I thought. But I was wrong for six years. The sun air runs down a ray from the roof of a cool old house and again runs up, up, where we rarely see - where a cast-iron balcony hangs at an uninhabited height, where a steep roof, some kind of delicate lattice erected right in the morning sky, a melting turret, spire, doves, angels - no, I can't see well. Smiling blissfully, with eyes dimmed with happiness, Alexandra Ernestovna moves along the sunny side, rearranging her pre-revolutionary legs with a wide compass. Cream, bun, and netted carrots pull the hand, rub against the black, heavy hem. The wind came on foot from the south, blows with the sea and roses, promises the way up the easy stairs to the heavenly blue countries. Alexandra Ernestovna smiles in the morning, smiles at me. A black robe, a light-colored hat clinking with dead fruit lurk around the corner.
Then I came across her on a hot boulevard - softened, touched by a sweaty, lonely child stuck in a baked city - she never had children of her own. Scary underwear dangles from under a black, greased skirt. Someone else's child trustingly dumped sand treasures on Alexandra Ernestovna's lap. Don't stain your aunt's clothes. Nothing ... Let it be.
I met her in the stale air of the cinema (take off your hat, granny, you can't see anything!). Inappropriately for the screen passions, Alexandra Ernestovna breathed noisily, crackled with crumpled chocolate silver, gluing the fragile pharmaceutical jaws together with viscous sweet clay.
Finally, she spun in the stream of fire-breathing cars at the Nikitsky Gate, darted about, losing direction, grabbed my hand and swam to the saving shore, losing all her life the respect of a diplomatic negro lying behind the green glass of a low, shiny car, and his pretty curly-haired children. The Negro roared, smelled of blue smoke and rushed off towards the conservatory, while Alexandra Ernestovna, trembling, frightened, bulging, hung on me and dragged me to her communal shelter - trinkets, oval frames, dried flowers - leaving behind a trail of validol.
Two tiny rooms, stucco high ceiling; on the lagging wallpaper smiles, ponders, capricious beauty - sweet Shura, Alexandra Ernestovna. Yes, yes, it's me! And with a hat, and without a hat, and with loose hair. Oh, what ... And this is her second husband, well, this third is not a very good choice. Well, what can I say now ... Maybe if she then decided to run away to Ivan Nikolaevich ... Who is Ivan Nikolaevich? He is not here, he is squeezed in an album, nailed in four cardboard slots, slammed by a lady in a bustle, crushed by some short-lived white dogs that died before the Japanese war.
Sit down, sit down, what to treat you with? .. Come, of course, for God's sake, come! Alexandra Ernestovna is alone in the world, and I really want to chat!
…Autumn. Rains. Alexandra Ernestovna, do you recognize me? It is me! Remember ... well, it doesn't matter, I'm visiting you. Guests - oh, what happiness! Here, here, now I will clean ... So I live alone. Outlived everyone. Three husbands, you know? And Ivan Nikolaevich, he called, but ... Perhaps, it was necessary to make up his mind? What a long life. This is me. This is also me. And this is my second husband. I had three husbands, you know? True, the third is not very ...
And the first was a lawyer. Famous. We lived very well. In the spring - to Finland. In the summer - to the Crimea. White muffins, black coffee. Hats with lace. Oysters are very expensive ... In the evening to the theater. How many fans! He died in 1919 - stabbed to death in a gateway.
Oh, of course, she had roma-a-anas all her life, how could it be otherwise? A woman's heart - it is! Three years ago, the violinist rented a nook at Alexandra Ernestovna. Twenty-six years, laureate, eyes! .. Of course, he hid feelings in his soul, but a glance - he betrays everything! In the evening, Alexandra Ernestovna used to ask him: "For tea? ..", but he just looks like that and doesn't say anything! Well, do you understand? .. Kov-va-arny! So he was silent while he lived with Alexandra Ernestovna. But it was clear that everything was on fire and in my soul was downright bubbling. In the evenings, the two of us in two cramped rooms ... You know, there was something like that in the air - it was clear to both ... He could not stand it and left. To the street. Wandered around late. Alexandra Ernestovna stood firm and gave him no hope. Then he - out of grief - married some - so, nothing special. Moved. And once after getting married I met Alexandra Ernestovna on the street and threw such a glance - she incinerated! But again he said nothing. I buried everything in my soul.
Yes, Alexandra Ernestovna's heart was never empty. Three husbands, by the way. With the second before the war, they lived in a huge apartment. Renowned physician. Famous guests. Flowers. Always fun. And he died cheerfully: when it was already clear that the end was over, Alexandra Ernestovna decided to call the gypsies. After all, you know, when you look at something beautiful, noisy, and funny, it's easier to die, isn't it? It was not possible to get real gypsies. But Alexandra Ernestovna - an inventor - was not at a loss, she hired some grimy guys, girls, dressed them up in a noisy, shiny, fluttering one, opened the doors to the dying man's bedroom - and started bellowing, screaming, gagging, going in circles, and a wheel, and squatting: pink , gold, gold, pink! The husband did not expect, he has already turned his gaze there, and then suddenly they burst in, twist their shawls, squeal; he got up, waved his hands, wheezed: go away! - and they are more fun, more fun, but with a flood! So he died, the kingdom of heaven to him. And the third husband was not very ...
But Ivan Nikolaevich ... Ah, Ivan Nikolaevich! That was all: Crimea, thirteenth year, the striped sun through the blinds cuts the white scrubbed floor into pieces ... Sixty years have passed, but after all ... Ivan Nikolayevich just went mad: leave your husband now and come to him in Crimea. Forever and ever. She promised. Then, in Moscow, I thought: what to live on? And where? And he threw letters: "Dear Shura, come, come!" The husband has his own business here, he rarely sits at home, and there, in the Crimea, on the gentle sand, under the blue skies, Ivan Nikolaevich runs like a tiger: "Dear Shura, forever!" And the poor man himself does not have enough money for a ticket to Moscow! Letters, letters, letters every day, a whole year - Alexandra Ernestovna will show.
Oh, how he loved! To go or not to go?
Human life is divided into four seasons. Spring!!! Summer. Autumn winter? But winter is over for Alexandra Ernestovna - where is she now? Where are her weeping, colorless eyes directed? Throwing her head back, pulling back the red eyelid, Alexandra Ernestovna instills yellow drops into the eye. A pink balloon shines through the head through a thin web. Was this mouse tail, sixty years ago, enveloping the shoulders in a black peacock tail? Has the persistent but poor Ivan Nikolaevich drowned in these eyes - once and for all? Alexandra Ernestovna groans and gropes her slippers with knobby feet.
- Now we will drink tea. I won't let you go without tea. No, no, no. Don't even think about it.
I’m not going anywhere. Then I came to drink tea. And she brought some cakes. I'll put the kettle on now, don't worry. In the meantime, she will take out a velvet album and old letters.
You have to go far to the kitchen, to another city, along the endless shiny floor, rubbed so that for two days traces of red mastic remain on the soles. At the end of the corridor tunnel, like a light in a dense forest of robbers, a speck of a kitchen window glows. Twenty-three neighbors are silent behind white clean doors. Halfway there is a telephone on the wall. White note, once pinned by Alexandra Ernestovna: "Fire - 01. Ambulance - 03. In case of my death, call Elizaveta Osipovna." Elizaveta Osipovna herself has long been gone. Nothing. Alexandra Ernestovna forgot.
The kitchen is painful, lifeless. On one of the plates, someone's cabbage soup is talking to themselves. In the corner there is still a curly cone of smell after a neighbor who has smoked a “Belomor”. A chicken in a string bag hangs outside the window, as if punished, dangling in the black wind. The bare wet tree drooped with grief. The drunkard unbuttons his coat, leaning his face against the fence. Sad circumstances of place, time and mode of action. And if Alexandra Ernestovna agreed then to give up everything and run south to Ivan Nikolaevich? Where would she be now? She had already sent a telegram (food, meet me), packed her things, hid the ticket away, in the secret compartment of the purse, pinned her peacock hair high and sat down in an armchair by the window to wait. And far in the south, Ivan Nikolaevich, alarmed, not believing in happiness, rushed to the railway station - to run, worry, worry, order, hire, negotiate, go crazy, peer into the horizon surrounded by dim heat. And then? She waited in a chair until evening, until the first clear stars. And then? She pulled the hairpins out of her hair, shook her head ... And then? Well - then, then! Life passed, that's what then.
The kettle boiled. I'll make it stronger. A simple piece on a tea xylophone: lid, lid, spoon, lid, rag, lid, rag, rag, spoon, pen, pen. The way back along the dark corridor is long, with two kettles in hand. The twenty-three neighbors behind the white doors are listening to see if their foul tea will drip on our clean floor? Not a drip, don't worry. Opening the gothic door panels with my foot. I have been absent for eternity, but Alexandra Ernestovna still remembers me.
She took out cracked crimson cups, decorated the table with some kind of circles, rummaging in the dark coffin of the sideboard, stirring the bread, crackling smell that creeps out from behind his wooden cheeks. Don't go, smell! Catch it and pinch it with faceted glass doors; like this; sit under lock and key.
Alexandra Ernestovna gets wonderful jam, they gave her, you just try, no, no, you try, ah, ah, ah, no words, yes, this is something extraordinary, isn't it amazing? really, really, as long as I live in the world, never such ... well, how glad I am, I knew that you would like it, take more, take, take, I beg you! (Oh shit, my teeth will hurt again!)
I like you, Alexandra Ernestovna, I like you very much, especially in that photo where you have such an oval face, and in this one where you threw back your head and laugh with amazing teeth, and on this one, where you pretend to be capricious, and threw your hand somewhere on the back of the head so that the carved scallops would deliberately slide off the elbow. I like your life, which is no longer interesting to anyone else, somewhere out there, noisy life, running away youth, your rotten admirers, husbands who followed in a solemn line, everyone, everyone who called out to you and whom you called, everyone who passed and disappeared behind a high mountain ... I will come to you and bring you cream and a very useful carrot for the eyes, and you, please, open the velvet brown albums that have not been ventilated for a long time - let the pretty schoolgirls breathe, let the mustachioed gentlemen stretch, let the brave Ivan Nikolaevich smile. Nothing, nothing, he does not see you, what are you, Alexandra Ernestovna! .. It was necessary to make up his mind then. It was necessary to. She had already made up her mind. Here he is - next, - stretch out your hand! Here, take him in your hands, hold him, here he is, flat, cold, glossy, with a gold edge, slightly yellowed Ivan Nikolaevich! Hey, you hear, she's made up her mind, yes, she's on her way, meet me, that's it, she doesn't hesitate anymore, meet where you are, ay!
Thousands of years, thousands of days, thousands of transparent impenetrable curtains fell from heaven, thickened, closed in dense walls, blocked up the roads, they do not let Alexander Ernestovna visit her lover, lost for centuries. He stayed there, on the other side of the years, alone, at the dusty southern station, he wanders along the platform, spattered with seeds, he looks at his watch, throws away dusty spindles of corn bites with the toe of his boot, impatiently breaks off gray cypress cones, waits, waits, waits for a steam train from a hot morning gave. She didn't come. She will not come. She cheated. No, no, she wanted to! She's ready and the bags are packed! White translucent dresses huddled knees in the cramped darkness of the chest, the dressing bag creaks with skin, sparkles with silver, shameless bathing suits that barely cover the knees - and hands are bare to the shoulders! - waiting in the wings, screwing up their eyes, anticipating ... In the hat box - impossible, delightful, weightless ... oh, no words - white marshmallow, a miracle of miracles! At the very bottom, thrown back on its back, raising its paws, a box is sleeping - hairpins, combs, silk laces, diamond sand glued to cardboard spatulas - for delicate nails; small trifles. The jasmine genie is sealed in a crystal bottle - oh, how it will sparkle with a billion rainbows in the dazzling sea light! She is ready - what stopped her? What is always stopping us? Well, rather, time is passing! .. Time is passing, and the invisible layers of years are getting denser, and the rails are rusting, and the roads are overgrown, and the weeds along the ravines are becoming more magnificent. Time passes, and the boat of cute Shura sways on its back, and splashes wrinkles in her inimitable face.
... More tea?
And after the war they returned - with their third husband - here, in these rooms. The third husband was whining, whining ... The corridor is long. The light is dim. Windows to the courtyard. It's all over. The smart guests died. The flowers have dried up. Rain drumming on the glass. Whine, whine - and died, and when, why - Alexandra Ernestovna did not notice.
I took Ivan Nikolaevich out of the album, looked for a long time. What he called her! She already bought a ticket - here it is, a ticket. There are black numbers on a thick cardboard. If you want - so look, if you want - turn it upside down, it doesn't matter: forgotten signs of an unknown alphabet, an encrypted pass there, to the other side.
Maybe, if you learn the magic word ... if you guess ... if you sit down and think carefully ... or look somewhere ... there must be a door, a crack, an unnoticed crooked passage there, that day; they closed everything, but at least a crack - they gape and left; maybe in some old house, or something; in the attic, if the boards are bent ... or in a back alley, in a brick wall, there is a gap, carelessly laid with bricks, hastily smeared over, hastily hammered crosswise ... Maybe not here, but in another city ... Maybe somewhere in the confusion of rails, to the side, is a carriage, old, rusted, with a collapsed floor, a carriage in which dear Shura never got into?
“Here's my compartment ... Allow me, I'll pass. Excuse me, here's my ticket - everything is written here! " Over there, at the other end - the rusty teeth of the springs, the red, twisted edges of the walls, the blue of the sky in the ceiling, the grass under her feet - this is her rightful place, hers! Nobody took it, just had no right!
... More tea? Snowstorm.
... More tea? Apple trees in bloom. Dandelions. Lilac. Fu, it's hot. Get out of Moscow - to the sea. See you, Alexandra Ernestovna! I will tell you what is there - on the other end of the earth. Has the sea not dried up, has the Crimea drifted away as a dry leaf, has the blue sky faded? Has your exhausted, agitated lover resigned from his voluntary post at the railway station?
Alexandra Ernestovna is waiting for me in the stone hell of Moscow. No, no, that's right, that's right! There, in the Crimea, invisible but restless, in a white tunic, Ivan Nikolayevich walks up and down the dusty platform, digs a watch out of his pocket, wipes his shaved neck; back and forth along an openwork dwarf fence staining with white pollen, agitated, perplexed; through it pass, without noticing, beautiful muzzle girls in trousers, hippie boys with rolled up sleeves, braided by insolent transistor ba-ba-doo-banging; grandmothers in white kerchiefs, with buckets of plums; southern ladies with plastic acanthus clips; old men in rigid synthetic hats; right through, right through, through Ivan Nikolaevich, but he knows nothing, does not notice anything, he waits, time has gone astray, stuck halfway, somewhere near Kursk, stumbled over nightingale rivers, lost, blind, on sunflower plains.
Ivan Nikolaevich, wait a minute! I will tell her, I will tell her, do not leave, she will come, she will come, honestly, she has already made up her mind, she agrees, you stand there for now, nothing, she is now, nevertheless, collected, packed - just take it; and there is a ticket, I know, I swear, I saw - in a velvet album, shoved there behind a photograph; he got shaken, really, but that's okay, I think they'll let her in. There, of course ... you can't get through, something is interfering, I don't remember; well, she is somehow; she will think of something - there is a ticket, right? - this is important: a ticket; and, you know, the main thing is that she decided, that's for sure, for sure, I'm telling you!
Alexandra Ernestovna - five calls, the third button from the top. There is a breeze on the landing: the doors of the dusty stained-glass staircase decorated with frivolous lotuses - the flowers of oblivion - are slightly open.
- Whom? .. She died.
I mean, how is it ... wait a minute ... why? But I just ... I just go there and back! What are you? ..
White hot air rushes to the porch leaving the crypt, striving to hit the eyes. Wait ... You probably haven't taken away the garbage yet? Around the corner, on an asphalt patch, in garbage cans, the spirals of earthly existence end. And you thought - where? Behind the clouds, or what? There they are, these spirals - springs sticking out of the rotten open sofa. This is where they all dumped. An oval portrait of cute Shura - the glass was broken, his eyes gouged out. Old lady's junk - some kind of stockings ... A hat with four seasons. Don't need peeled cherries? No, why? A jug with a broken nose. And the velvet album, of course, was stolen. It is good for them to clean their boots. You are all fools, I am not crying - why would I? The trash steamed in the sun, spreading black banana slime. A stack of letters trampled into the slush. "Dear Shura, well, when will ...", "Dear Shura, just tell me ..." And one letter, dried up like a yellow lined butterfly, is spinning under a dusty poplar, not knowing where to sit.
What should I do with all this? Turn around and leave. Hot. The wind blows the dust. And Alexandra Ernestovna, dear Shura, real, like a mirage, crowned with wooden fruits and cardboard flowers, floats, smiling, along a trembling alley around the corner, to the south, to the unthinkably distant shining south, to the lost platform, floats, melts and dissolves in the hot afternoon ...

Fakir

The owl - as always, unexpectedly - appeared in the telephone receiver and invited him to visit: to look at him new passion... The program of the evening was clear: a crispy white tablecloth, light, warmth, special puff pastries in the Tmutarakan style, pleasant music from somewhere from the ceiling, exciting conversations. Everywhere there are blue curtains, showcases with collections, beads are hung on the walls. New toys - a snuff-box with a portrait of a lady reveling in her pink bare powder, a beaded purse, perhaps an Easter egg, or something unnecessary, but valuable.
Owl himself will not offend the look either - clean, small, in a home velvet jacket, a small hand weighed down with a ring. Yes, not stamped, redneck, "for a ruble fifty with a box" - why? - no, straight from the excavations, Venetian, if he’s not lying, or even a coin in a frame - some kind of, God forgive me, Antiochus, otherwise raise it higher ... Such is the Owl. He sits in a chair, shaking his shoe, folds his fingers into a house, tarry eyebrows, beautiful Anatolian eyes - like soot, a dry, silver beard, with a rustle, only his mouth is black - like a coal.
Yes, there is something to see.
Owl's ladies are also not just any - collectible, rare. Either a circus girl, for example, is twisting on a pole, shining with scales, to the thunder of drums, or just a girl, mother's daughter, smears watercolors, - she is crazy about a patch, but the whiteness itself is extraordinary, so the Owl, calling to the bride, even warns: certainly, they say, come in black glasses to avoid snow blindness.
Some people quietly disapproved of Owl, with all his rings, pies, snuff boxes; giggled about his crimson dressing gown with tassels and some sort of silver janissary slippers with curved noses; and it was funny that a bachelor had a special brush for his beard and hand cream in his bathroom ... But he would still call - and they fled, and secretly always grew cold: would he invite more? will he allow us to sit in warmth and light, in bliss and relaxation, and in general - what has he found in us ordinary people, why does he need us? ..
-… If you are not busy with anything today, please come to me by eight o'clock. Meet Alice, a lovely creature.
- Thank you, thank you, definitely!
Well, as always, at the last moment! Yura reached for the razor, and Galya, snaking into her tights, instructed her daughter: porridge in a saucepan, no one to open the door, lessons - and sleep! And don't hang on me, don't hang on, we are already late! Galya stuffed plastic bags into her bag: The owl lives in a high-rise building, under it is a grocery store, maybe they will give herring oil or something else.
Behind the house, like a hoop of darkness, lay a circular road, where frost whistled, the cold of the uninhabited plains penetrated under their clothes, the world seemed like a graveyard scary for a moment, and they did not want to wait for the bus, crowded into the subway, but caught a taxi, and, lounging comfortably, carefully whipped Owl for a velvet jacket, for a passion for collecting, for an unfamiliar Alice: where is the old one, Ninochka? - look for fistulas; wondered if Matvey Matveich would be visiting, and Matvey Matveich was condemned together.
They met him at the Owl's and so were fascinated by the old man: these stories of his reign of Anna Ioannovna, and again pies, and the smoke of English tea, and blue and gold collectible cups, and Mozart murmuring from somewhere above, and the Owl caressing the guests with their Mephistopheles' eyes - foo-you, my head is gone, - they asked for Matvey Matveich to visit. Run up! I took it in the kitchen, the floor is plank, the walls are brown, bare, and in general the area is dreadful, fences and pits, I myself in sweatpants, completely whitish, tea asleep, candied jam, and even then blurted out on the table in a jar, put a spoon: Pick out, they say, dear guests. And smoking is only on the staircase: asthma, don't blame me. And with Anna Ioannovna, the puncture came out: we settled down - God bless him, with tea - to listen to a babbling speech about the palace shura-mura, all kinds of coups, and the old man kept untiing the terrible folders with ribbons, all poking his finger at something, shouting about some land plots, and that Kuzin, a mediocrity, bureaucratic, intriguer, does not allow publication and the whole sector is setting up against Matvey Matveich, but here, here, here: the most valuable documents, he collected all his life! Galya and Yura wanted again about villains, about torture, about the ice house and the wedding of dwarfs, but Filin was not around and there was no one to direct the conversation to interesting things, and all evening only Ku-u-uzin! Ku-u-uzin! - and poking into folders, and valerian. Having put the old man down, they left early, and Galya tore her tights on the old man's stool.
- And the bard Vlasov? - Yura remembered.
- Shut up!
With that, everything seemed to turn out the other way around, but a terrible shame: they also picked up the owl's, invited them to their place, named friends - listen, stood for two hours over the "Log" cake. They locked their daughter in the nursery, the dog in the kitchen. The bard Vlasov came, sullen, with a guitar, and didn't try the cake: the cream would soften his voice, but he needed to be hoarse. He sang a couple of songs: "Aunt Motya, your shoulders, your Percy and Lanita, like Nadia Comanechi, are developed in physical education ..." Yura disgraced himself, got out with his ignorance, whispering loudly in the middle of the singing: "I forgot, Percy - what are these places?" Galya was worried, asked to sing "Friends" without fail, pressed her hands to her chest: this is such a song, such a song! He sang it at the Owl's - softly, sadly, mournfully - here, they say, "at a table covered with oilcloth, having gathered for a bottle of beer", are sitting old friends, bald, losers. And everyone has something wrong, everyone has their own sadness: “one cannot afford love, and another does not like the prince,” and no one can help anyone, alas! - but here they are together, they are friends, they need each other, and isn't this the most important thing in the world? You listen - and it seems that - yes, yes, yes, you also have something like this in your life, yes, that's it! “In - the song! Crown number! " - Yura whispered too. Bard Vlasov frowned even more, made a distant glance - to that imaginary room where baldheads loving each other were uncorking distant beer; touched the strings, began sadly: "at the table covered with oilcloth ..." Locked in the kitchen, Dzhulka scraped her claws on the floor and howled. “Having gathered for a bottle of beer,” the bard Vlasov pushed. "S-s-s" - the dog worried. Someone grunted, the bard clutched the strings in an offended manner, took a cigarette. Yura went to make a suggestion to Dzhulka. "Is this your autobiographical?" A fool asked respectfully. "What? Everything is autobiographical somewhere. " Yura returned, the bard threw his cigarette butt, concentrating. "At the table covered with oilcloth ..." An agonizing howl came from the kitchen. "Musical dog," said the bard angrily. Galya dragged the resting shepherd to the neighbors, the bard hastily finished - the howl penetrated dully through the cooperative walls, - crumpled the program and in the hallway, pulling the zipper of his jacket, said with disgust that he actually took two rubles from the nose, but since they do not know how to organize a creative atmosphere, it will come down to a ruble. And Galya again ran to the neighbors, - it's a nightmare, borrow a gold piece, - and they, too, before getting paid, took a long time to collect in change and shook out even a children's piggy bank to the roar of robbed children and the barking of a torn Dzhulka.
Yes, the Owl can handle people, but we somehow cannot. Well, maybe it will work out another time.
It was still until eight - just to stand up for pate in the grocery store at the foot of Filinov's, after all, here, too, on our outskirts, cows wander around in broad daylight, but there’s something not to see the pate. At three minutes to eight, enter the elevator - Galya, as always, will look around and say: “I want to live in such an elevator”, then the waxed parquet of the boundless platform, a copper plate: “I. I. Filin ", the bell - and finally he himself is on the threshold - will shine with black eyes, tilt his head:" Accuracy is the politeness of kings ... "And it's somehow awfully pleasant to hear this, these words - as if he, Filin, the sultan, and they and indeed kings - Galya in an inexpensive coat and Yura in a jacket and a knitted hat.

The title of the story - "They sat on the golden porch ..." - serves as his epigraph at the same time. As the title of the story, the author uses only the first line of the counting-out, ending it with ellipsis, which connects childhood and all subsequent life. In other words, all life as a whole is contained in the ellipsis. The epigraph formulates a further problem: from the king to the shoemaker and the tailor. "Who are you?" - a child on the threshold of future development is offered a range of possibilities.

The title of the work is the prism through which the author sees the built art world... The first sentences of the story: “In the beginning there was a garden. Childhood was a garden ”refer the reader not only to his own childhood, but also to the general cultural one - the era of the biblical origin of the world.

Life begins with birth, after which the world opens up before the eyes of the child, and the path to the future lies directly through childhood (an obligatory link in the formation of a personality, which begins its existence through it).

"We sat on the golden porch ..." - a story about childhood, about childhood impressions, consisting of the author's memoirs. The garden is the earliest time that the narrator can remember: “Childhood was a garden<…> without end and edge, without borders and fences, in noise and rustle, from heather to the tops of the sun. They say that early in the morning they saw a completely naked man on the lake. Building his Garden of Eden, the narrator repeatedly refers to the biblical legend of the creation of the Earth, creating the world in the sequence in which God created it, starting with the creation of infinite space and ending with the creation of man. There is also a reference to the episode of the Fall, when Adam and Eve first saw their nakedness, having tasted the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil:

On the lake saw quite naked person. - And what did you see? - All... - This is lucky! This happens once every hundred years. Because the only visible naked one - in an anatomy textbook - is not real. Tearing off the skin for this occasion, he boasts meat and red to the students of the eighth grade. When (in a hundred years) we move to the eighth grade, he will show us all this too.

A person, as a child, is in a hurry to become an adult, and it seems to him that time moves slowly. Six to seven years for a child heroine equals a century.

Old woman Anna Ilyinichna feeds her cat Memeka with the same red meat. Memeka was born after the war, she has no respect for food. In the thickets of Persian lilac, the cat spoils the sparrows. We found one such sparrow. Someone ripped the scalp off his toy head.

Plunging into childhood, the author abruptly moves from one memory to another, as if commenting on a comment. He talks about the garden, the cat born after the war, then, forgetting about the cat, remembers the sparrow. The narrative is constructed by analogy with a corridor of mirrors, where mirrors are memories. The child does not yet feel like a person, separate and singular i, he is merged with others, with the world (says: we). So you can hide behind the back of another, if it is scary, protect yourself from the terrible outside world and, turning your back on him, repeat the endless words of the countdown: "We sat on the golden porch ...".

“Life is eternal. Only birds die. " - The child does not yet take seriously the surrounding reality, speaks and thinks like a child.

“Four dachas stood without fences. The fifth was a "home of my own." - The child quotes an adult expression, says a phrase he heard from an adult. The whole world in the author's description is alive, even the house:

At the house (and what's inside?) Veronika Vikentievna - a huge white beauty - was weighing strawberries. The red-green rooster has squinted its head, looks at us: what are you girls? - "We have strawberries."

Veronica Vikentievna - Tsarina! This is the most greedy woman in the world!

They pour her overseas wines

She seizes with printed gingerbread,

A formidable guard stands around her ...

The enchanted child seems to be in a fairy tale, talking with animals. Here, the narrator mentions Pushkin's "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish", showing that the heroine cannot distinguish between reality and a fairy tale. The tale is interrupted by a story - supported by Pushkin. The return to biblical motives is repeated:

Once, with such red hands, she came out of the barn, smiling: “The little calf stabbed ...“ Get out of here! nightmare, horror - cold stench - barn, dampness, death ... And Uncle Pasha is the husband of such a terrible woman.

Cain killed Abel, Veronica Vikentievna - a calf. The child is afraid. To explain his feeling, he tries to find the words: but does not find the right one: it is worse than death, which is symbolized by the ellipsis used. The girl's strong fright is also emphasized by a quick change of opinion about Veronika Vikentievna, who, in the eyes of the heroine, transforms from a "huge white beauty" into a "terrible woman."

Talking about Uncle Pasha, Tolstaya again depicts the world through the eyes of a child: “he is an old man: he is fifty years old”, intertwines true story and fairy tale: “he serves as an accountant: he gets up at five o'clock in the morning and runs through the mountains, down the valleys. Oilcloth doors, safes, overhead - uncle's work. " Uncle Pasha is a whole for the child, it is an integral part of the world (instead of: uncle - function, Pasha - name).

“After work, Uncle Pasha returns home, where the golden-haired Queen sways on a huge bed on four legs. But we saw the glass legs later. Veronika Vikentievna quarreled with her mother for a long time (culmination of the event - A.K.)... The fact is that in the summer of 1950 she sold her mother an egg, ”- from that moment the narrator drastically changes his style of speech: the first date appears; the proposal is no longer built like a child; obviously, this is already a memory of an adult about childhood:

There was an indispensable condition: boil the egg and eat it. But my mother gave the egg to the dacha mistress. The consequences could be monstrous: the hostess could put an egg on her hen, and she, in her chicken ignorance, would hatch the same exactly unique breed of chickens that ran in Veronika Vikentievna's garden. It's good that everything worked out. They ate the egg. But Veronika Vikentievna could not forgive her mother's meanness.

The narrator tries to enact the tragedy by saying that business is not worth a damn... Five years have passed since the war, Veronika Vikentievna is afraid of competition. Resentment, at that time, is understandable. The egg here acts as an apple of discord growing, according to the Bible, on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Before the eyes of the reader, the story is noticeably rearranged. The plot composition changes direction. If from the beginning we observed its centrifugality, now the story is gaining centripetal momentum: the narrator focuses his attention on a specific event, the legal sign of the story is revealed:

The neighbors closed themselves off: they reinforced the metal mesh on the iron pillars, poured broken glass and brought a terrible yellow dog... This, of course, was not enough. After all, mother could have jumped over the fence, killed the dog and, crawling on broken glass, with a belly ripped open with barbed wire, bleeding, contrived to pull out a mustache from a rare strawberry with weakening hands? After all, she could have run with the prey to the fence and, with the last effort, toss the strawberry mustache to dad, who was hiding in the bushes, gleaming with professor glasses?

In the text of the work, real heroes seem to appear (T. Tolstoy's parents: mother Natalya Mikhailovna and father Nikita Alekseevich), the narrative is alienated from the fairy tale. But this abrupt transformation is soon replaced by a centrifugal narrative again. All events are mythologized, grotesque and hyperbole are used. Mother's quarrel with Veronika Vikentievna, a huge white beauty, is reflected in the myth of the Trojan War. Rising to a higher stage of development, the child changes his attitude towards the world around him, becomes disillusioned with it. Childhood is not completely gone, it is going away gradually, event by event. After a fight over an egg, the world becomes more and more real.

The night went ahead. Somewhere in the heart of the house, as quietly as a mouse, lay little Uncle Pasha. An oak ceiling floated high above his head, an attic floated even higher, chests with solid black coats sleeping in mothballs, even higher - an attic with pitchforks, scraps of hay, old logs, and there - a roof, a horned pipe, a weather vane, the moon - through the garden, floated through sleep, swaying, taking Uncle Pasha to the land of lost youth.

In this passage, the motive of lost time is most clearly traced. Recreated by the memory and imagination of the narrator, the scenery moves somewhere, floats. The verb "floats" is persistently repeated in the text: floats ceiling, floats attic, are sailingroof, weather vane, moon ...

Soon the first phrase about the death of a person appears: “... Hey, wake up, Uncle Pasha! Veronica is going to die soon. " The heroine grows up, gives people instructions and advice:

You will wander around the empty house without thoughts, and then you will drive away the memories and bring - to help with the housework - Veronika's younger sister, Margarita.

Oh, how in our declining years ...

And we didn’t notice anything, but we forgot Veronica.

Remembering the past with sadness, the narrator pauses, trying to hide the main refrain of the story, which barely makes its way through the speeches of the author, F. Tyutchev, A. Pushkin, P. Ershov.

We rode on one leg, treated scratches with saliva, buried treasures. Let's go to Uncle Pasha! Uncle Pasha is already waiting, opened the coveted door to Aladdin's cave. Oh room! O Uncle Pasha - King Solomon! You hold the cornucopia in mighty hands!

Uncle Pasha, in the minds of the heroine, is the most amazing person in the world: he has a house in which there is a room furnished with beautiful furniture. Uncle Pasha is a wise king, and the room is a beautiful kingdom. There is everything here: velvet waterfall, ostrich lace feathers, porcelain shower. Uncle Pasha sits down at the piano and plays a moonlight sonata. Who are you, Uncle Pasha? .. "- the line of the epigraph sounds: who are you? The heroine asks Uncle Pasha this question, just as the priests asked John in the Gospel. Throughout the text, the narrator connects the story with biblical stories, Arabic fairy tales, Oscar Wilde's tales and others. The mysteriousness conveyed to the story makes the narrator, as a hero, ask countless questions: "... who gave you this power over us, bewitched, who gave you these wings behind your back, overshadowed with a mountain light, fanned with the moon wind? .."

"Did you notice that they only have one bed in the house?" - "And where does Margarita sleep?" - "Or maybe they sleep on this bed, jack?" - "Duck, after all, lovers are only in France." Really. I didn't realize that ”- here we already see how teenagers talk about lovers, about France, which means they are reading novels.

“… Life was changing glasses in the magic lantern more and more hastily” - life is gaining momentum, time for the heroine no longer seems so slow, now it is running. “And he recognized us at once, and happily rushed to us the longed-for defective model from the course of anatomy, generously stretching out his numbered insides, but the poor man no longer worried about anyone” - the years passed, “a hundred years” flew by, and everything that the heroine had dreamed of before seems to her now boring, dull, uninteresting. Paradise is crumbling before her eyes, childhood is leaving, but the old mystery still remains.

“Autumn came to Uncle Pasha and hit him in the face” - the word “autumn” here has a double meaning. "Autumn" is a season of the year, but first of all this word emphasizes old ageuncle Pasha. “Why are you so fidgeting? - the heroine addresses him. - Do you want to show me your treasures? Well, so be it. How long have I been here. What am I old! Well, this was the one who captured? " Mystery also disappears, things take on a real form. The heroine realizes the loss: “All this rags and junk, shabby painted chest of drawers, worn plush, darned tulle, cheap glass. And it sang, shimmered and called? How stupid you are to joke, life! Dust, dust, decay. "

The grown-up heroine discovers that the magical world of her childhood has been destroyed over the years, from the "Aladdin's cave" - \u200b\u200bthe room of the neighbor's dacha - only "dust, dust, ashes" remained. But in the midst of the devastation, the clockwork survived: “Above the dial, in a glass room, small inhabitants huddled — the Lady and the Cavalier, the masters of Time. The lady hits the table with a goblet, and a thin ringing is trying to peck at the shell of decades. " The clock appears in the text for a reason: the clock is a symbol of time.

"... Uncle Pasha froze on the porch" - the ellipsis at the beginning of the sentence was not put by chance, it connects the sentence itself with the title of the story, thus representing a return to its source. The ellipsis is also a symbol of life connecting the birth and death of Uncle Pasha. “The yellow dog quietly closed his eyes and went through the snow to the black heights, taking with him a trembling living light” - the dog takes the soul of the late Uncle Pasha to a new garden, to a new Paradise, life path Uncle Pasha is complete. “The nights are cold. Let's turn on the lights early. And the Lady of Time, having drunk the cup of life to the bottom, will knock the last midnight on the table for Uncle Pasha.

The narrative, which began the story with associations of the Old Testament, ends it with a hint of an image known as an element of the Gethsemane prayer of Christ, that is, the prayer for the cup. The Garden of Eden eventually becomes Gethsemane.

Tatiana Tolstaya

"They sat on the golden porch ..."

Sweet Shura

Then I came across her on a hot boulevard - softened, touched by a sweaty, lonely child stuck in a baked city - she never had children of her own. Scary underwear dangles from under a black, greased skirt. Someone else's child trustingly dumped sand treasures on Alexandra Ernestovna's lap. Don't stain your aunt's clothes. Nothing ... Let it be.

I met her in the stale air of the cinema (take off your hat, granny, you can't see anything!). Inappropriately for the screen passions, Alexandra Ernestovna breathed noisily, crackled with crumpled chocolate silver, gluing the fragile pharmaceutical jaws together with viscous sweet clay.

Finally, she spun in the stream of fire-breathing cars at the Nikitsky Gate, darted about, losing direction, grabbed my hand and swam to the saving shore, losing for life the respect of a diplomatic negro who lay behind the green glass of a low, shiny car, and his pretty curly-haired children. The Negro roared, smelled of blue smoke and rushed off towards the conservatory, while Alexandra Ernestovna, trembling, frightened, bulging, hung on me and dragged me to her communal shelter - trinkets, oval frames, dried flowers - leaving behind a trail of validol.

Two tiny rooms, stucco high ceiling; on the lagging wallpaper smiles, ponders, capricious beauty - dear Shura, Alexandra Ernestovna. Yes, yes, it's me! And with a hat, and without a hat, and with loose hair. Oh, what ... And this is her second husband, well, this third is not a very good choice. Well, what can I say now ... Maybe if she then decided to run away to Ivan Nikolaevich ... Who is Ivan Nikolaevich? He is not here, he is squeezed in an album, nailed in four cardboard slots, slammed by a lady in a bustle, crushed by some short-lived white dogs that died before the Japanese war.

Sit down, sit down, what to treat you with? .. Come, of course, for God's sake, come! Alexandra Ernestovna is alone in the world, and I really want to chat!

…Autumn. Rains. Alexandra Ernestovna, do you recognize me? It is me! Remember ... well, it doesn't matter, I'm visiting you. Guests - oh, what happiness! Here, here, now I will clean ... So I live alone. Outlived everyone. Three husbands, you know? And Ivan Nikolaevich, he called, but ... Perhaps, it was necessary to make up his mind? What a long life. This is me. This is also me. And this is my second husband. I had three husbands, you know? True, the third is not very ...

And the first was a lawyer. Famous. We lived very well. In the spring - to Finland. In the summer - to the Crimea. White muffins, black coffee. Hats with lace. Oysters are very expensive ... In the evening to the theater. How many fans! He died in 1919 - stabbed to death in a gateway.

Oh, of course, she had roma-a-anas all her life, how could it be otherwise? A woman's heart - it is! Three years ago, the violinist rented a nook at Alexandra Ernestovna. Twenty-six years, laureate, eyes! .. Of course, he hid feelings in his soul, but a glance - he betrays everything! In the evening, Alexandra Ernestovna used to ask him: "For tea? ..", but he just looks like this and does not say anything! Well, do you understand? .. Kov-va-arny! So he was silent while he lived with Alexandra Ernestovna. But it was clear that everything was on fire and in the soul was downright bubbling. In the evenings, the two of us in two cramped rooms ... You know, there was something like that in the air - it was clear to both ... He could not stand it and left. To the street. Wandered around late. Alexandra Ernestovna stood firm and gave him no hope. Then he - out of grief - married someone - so, nothing special. Moved. And once after getting married I met Alexandra Ernestovna on the street and threw such a glance - she incinerated! But again he said nothing. I buried everything in my soul.

Yes, Alexandra Ernestovna's heart was never empty. Three husbands, by the way. With the second before the war they lived in a huge apartment. Renowned physician. Famous guests. Flowers. Always fun. And he died cheerfully: when it was already clear that the end was over, Alexandra Ernestovna decided to call the gypsies. After all, you know, when you look at something beautiful, noisy, and funny, it's easier to die, right? It was not possible to get hold of real gypsies. But Alexandra Ernestovna - an inventor - was not at a loss, she hired some grimy guys, girls, dressed them up in a noisy, shiny, fluttering one, opened the doors to the dying man's bedroom - and started bellowing, screaming, gagging, going in circles, and a wheel, and squatting: pink , gold, gold, pink! The husband did not expect, he already turned his gaze there, and then suddenly they burst in, twist their shawls, squeal; he got up, waved his hands, wheezed: go away! - and they are more fun, more fun, but with a flood! So he died, the kingdom of heaven to him. And the third husband was not very ...

But Ivan Nikolaevich ... Ah, Ivan Nikolaevich! That was all: Crimea, thirteenth year, the striped sun through the blinds sawing the white scrubbed floor into small pieces ... Sixty years have passed, but after all ... Ivan Nikolayevich just went mad: leave your husband now and come to him in Crimea. Forever and ever. She promised. Then, in Moscow, I thought: what to live on? And where? And he threw letters: "Dear Shura, come, come!" The husband has his own business here, he rarely sits at home, and there, in the Crimea, on the gentle sand, under the blue skies, Ivan Nikolaevich runs like a tiger: "Dear Shura, forever!" And the poor man himself does not have enough money for a ticket to Moscow! Letters, letters, letters every day, a whole year - Alexandra Ernestovna will show.

Oh, how he loved! To go or not to go?

Human life is divided into four seasons. Spring!!! Summer. Autumn winter? But winter is over for Alexandra Ernestovna - where is she now? Where are her weeping, colorless eyes directed? Throwing her head back, pulling back the red eyelid, Alexandra Ernestovna instills yellow drops into the eye. A pink balloon shines through the head through a thin web. Was this mouse tail, sixty years ago, enveloping the shoulders in a black peacock tail? Has the persistent but poor Ivan Nikolaevich drowned in these eyes - once and for all? Alexandra Ernestovna groans and gropes her slippers with knobby feet.

- Now we will drink tea. I won't let you go without tea. No, no, no. Don't even think about it.

I’m not going anywhere. Then I came to drink tea. And she brought some cakes. I'll put the kettle on now, don't worry. In the meantime, she will take out the velvet album and old letters.

You have to go far into the kitchen, to another city, along the endless shiny floor, rubbed so that for two days traces of red mastic remain on the soles. At the end of the corridor tunnel, like a light in a dense forest of robbers, a speck of a kitchen window glows. Twenty-three neighbors are silent behind white clean doors. Halfway there is a telephone on the wall. White note, once pinned by Alexandra Ernestovna: "Fire - 01. Ambulance - 03. In case of my death, call Elizaveta Osipovna." Elizaveta Osipovna herself has long been gone. Nothing. Alexandra Ernestovna forgot.

The kitchen is painful, lifeless. On one of the plates, someone's cabbage soup is talking to themselves. In the corner there is still a curly cone of smell after a neighbor who has smoked a “Belomor”. A chicken in a string bag hangs outside the window, as if punished, dangling in the black wind. The bare wet tree drooped with grief. The drunkard unbuttons his coat, leaning his face against the fence. Sad circumstances of place, time and mode of action. And if Alexandra Ernestovna agreed then to give up everything and run south to Ivan Nikolaevich? Where would she be now? She had already sent a telegram (food, meet me), packed her things, hid the ticket away, in the secret compartment of the purse, pinned her peacock hair high and sat down in a chair, by the window - to wait. And far in the south, Ivan Nikolaevich, alarmed, not believing in happiness, rushed to the railway station - to run, worry, worry, give orders, hire, negotiate, go crazy, peer into the horizon surrounded by dim heat. And then? She waited in a chair until evening, until the first clear stars. And then? She pulled the hairpins out of her hair, shook her head ... And then? Well - then, then! Life has passed, that's what then.

Sit down, sit down, what to treat you with? .. Come, of course, for God's sake, come! Alexandra Ernestovna is alone in the world, and I really want to chat!

Oh, how he loved! To go or not to go?

- Now we will drink tea. I won't let you go without tea. No, no, no. Don't even think about it.

I’m not going anywhere. Then I came to drink tea. And she brought some cakes. I'll put the kettle on now, don't worry. In the meantime, she will take out the velvet album and old letters.