I love very much the modest life of those secluded rulers of the distant
villages, which in Little Russia are usually called old world, which,
like decrepit picturesque houses, beautiful in their variegation and in complete contrast to the new smooth structure, which the walls have not yet washed
the rain, the roofs are not covered with green mold, and the porch, devoid of ticks, does not show its red bricks. I sometimes like to go for a minute into the sphere
this extraordinarily secluded life, where not a single desire flies over
a palisade surrounding a small courtyard, behind a fence of a garden filled with
apple trees and plum trees, behind the village huts surrounding him, staggering on
side, overshadowed by willows, elderberries and pears. The lives of their humble owners
so quiet, so quiet, that for a moment you forget yourself and think that the passions, desires and restless creations of the evil spirit that disturb the world do not exist at all and you saw them only in a brilliant, sparkling dream. I'm from here
I see a low house with a gallery of small blackened wooden
columns going around the whole house, so that during thunder and hail
close the window shutters without getting wet with rain. Behind him fragrant bird cherry, whole
rows of low fruit trees sunk by the crimson of cherries and
a sea of ​​plums covered with a lead mat; spreading maple, in the shade of which
a carpet is spread out for rest; in front of the house there is a spacious yard with a low fresh air
grass, with a trodden path from the barn to the kitchen and from the kitchen to the lordly
chambers; long necked goose, water drinker with young and tender, like fluff, goslings; a palisade hung with bundles of dried pears and apples and
ventilated carpets; a wagon with melons standing near the barn; harnessed
an ox lying lazily beside him - all this for me has an inexplicable
charm, perhaps, because I no longer see them and that we are pleased with all that, with
than we are apart. Be that as it may, but even when my chaise
drove up to the porch of this house, the soul took surprisingly pleasant and
calm state; horses rolled merrily under the porch, the coachman
calmly climbed down from the box and filled his pipe, as if he were coming to
own house; the very barking that the phlegmatic watchdogs raised,
eyebrows and bugs, was pleasant to my ears. But most of all I liked the most
the owners of these modest corners, old men, old women, who carefully went out to meet them. Their faces appear to me and now sometimes in the noise and crowd among
fashionable tailcoats, and then suddenly a half-sleep comes over me and I imagine the past. On the
their faces are always written with such kindness, such cordiality and sincerity that you involuntarily refuse, at least for a short time, from
of all audacious dreams and imperceptibly you pass with all your senses into a lowly bucolic life.
I still cannot forget the two old men of the last century, whom,
Alas! no longer there, but my soul is still full of pity, and my feelings
shrink strangely when I imagine that in time I will come back to their
former, now empty dwelling and I will see a bunch of collapsed huts, stalled
a pond overgrown with a ditch in the place where the low house stood - and nothing
more. Sad! I'm sad in advance! But let's get back to the story.
Afanasy Ivanovich Tovstogub and his wife Pulcheria Ivanovna Tovstogubikha,
in the expression of the district peasants, there were those old men about whom I began
tell. If I were a painter and wanted to depict Philemon on a canvas
and Baucis, I would never choose another original than them. Athanasius
Ivanovich was sixty years old, Pulcheria Ivanovna was fifty-five. Athanasius
Ivanovich was tall and always wore a sheepskin coat covered with
camlot, sat bent over and almost always smiled, even if he was talking or
just listened. Pulcheria Ivanovna was somewhat serious, almost never
laughed; but so much kindness was written on her face and in her eyes, so much
willingness to treat you to everything that they had the best, that you, surely, found
a smile already too sugary for her kind face. Light wrinkles on their
faces were arranged with such agreeableness that the artist would surely have stolen
them. From them one could, it seemed, read their whole life, clear, calm
life led by the old national, simple-hearted and together rich
surnames, always constituting the opposite of those low Little Russians,
which tear themselves out of the tar, the merchants, fill, like locusts, the chambers and
government offices, tearing up the last penny from their fellow countrymen, flooding
Petersburg, they finally make capital and solemnly add to
his surname, ending in o, syllable въ. No, they weren't like these.
contemptible and miserable creations, as well as all Little Russian ancient and
native surnames.
It was impossible to look without participation at their mutual love. They never
you said to each other, but always you; you, Afanasy Ivanovich; you Pulcheria
Ivanovna. "Did you push through the chair, Afanasy Ivanovich?" - "Nothing is
get angry, Pulcheria Ivanovna: it's me. "They never had children, and therefore
all their affection was concentrated on themselves. Once upon a time, in
youth, Afanasy Ivanovich served in the company, was after a second major,
but that was already a very long time ago, it had already passed, Afanasy Ivanovich himself was almost
never mentioned it. Afanasy Ivanovich married thirty years old, when
he was a fine fellow and wore an embroidered camisole; he even took Pulcheria rather cleverly
Ivanovna, whom the relatives did not want to give for him; but he already talks about it
remembered very little, at least never spoke.
All these old, unusual incidents were replaced by a calm and
solitary life, those dormant and at the same time some kind of harmonious
dreams that you feel as you sit on the rustic balcony overlooking the garden,
when the beautiful rain makes a luxurious noise, clapping on the tree leaves, flowing down
murmuring streams and slandering sleep on your members, and meanwhile the rainbow
steals from behind the trees and in the form of a dilapidated vault shines dull
seven flowers in the sky. Or when you are rocked by a carriage that dives between
green bushes, and the steppe quail rattles and fragrant grass, along with
ears of corn and wild flowers climbs into the doors of the carriage, pleasantly hitting
your hands and face.
He always listened with a pleasant smile to the guests who came to him, sometimes
he himself spoke, but asked more questions. He did not belong to those
old people who get bored with the eternal praises of the old time or
condemnation of the new. On the contrary, when questioning you, he showed great
curiosity and concern for your circumstances own life, good luck and
failures, in which all good old men are usually interested, although it
somewhat like the curiosity of a child who, while talking to
you, examines the signet of your watch. Then his face, one might say,
breathed kindness.

Within the framework of the project "Gogol. 200 years"RIA Newspresents a summary of the work "Old World Landowners" by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol - a story that Pushkin called his favorite of all Gogol's stories.

The old men Afanasy Ivanovich Tovstogub and his wife Pulcheria Ivanovna live in seclusion in one of the remote villages, called old-world villages in Little Russia. Their life is so quiet that to a guest who accidentally drove into a low manor house, surrounded by the greenery of a garden, the passions and disturbing unrest of the outside world seem to not exist at all. The small rooms of the house are crammed with all sorts of gizmos, the doors sing in different ways, the pantries are filled with supplies, the preparation of which is constantly busy with the courtyards under the direction of Pulcheria Ivanovna. Despite the fact that the economy is robbed by the clerk and lackeys, the blessed land produces everything in such quantity that Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna do not notice the theft at all.

The old people never had children, and all their affection was concentrated on themselves. It is impossible to look without participation at their mutual love, when with extraordinary concern in their voices they turn to each other on “you”, warning every desire and even an affectionate word that has not yet been said. They love to treat - and if it were not for the special properties of the Little Russian air that helps digestion, then the guest, no doubt, after dinner would have been lying on the table instead of a bed.

The old people also love to eat themselves - and from the very early morning until late in the evening you can hear how Pulcheria Ivanovna guesses the desires of her husband, in an affectionate voice offering one or the other food. Sometimes Afanasy Ivanovich likes to play a joke on Pulcheria Ivanovna and will suddenly start talking about a fire or a war, forcing his wife to be frightened in earnest and to be baptized so that her husband's speech could never come true.

But after a minute, unpleasant thoughts are forgotten, the old people decide that it is time to have a bite, and suddenly a tablecloth and those dishes that Afanasy Ivanovich chooses at the prompt of his wife appear on the table. And quietly, calmly, in the extraordinary harmony of two loving hearts, days go by.

A sad event changes the life of this peaceful corner forever. Pulcheria Ivanovna's favorite cat, usually lying at her feet, disappears in a large forest behind the garden, where wild cats lure her. Three days later, having knocked down in search of a cat, Pulcheria Ivanovna meets her favorite in the garden, who has come out of the weeds with a miserable meow. Pulcheria Ivanovna feeds a runaway and thin fugitive, wants to stroke her, but the ungrateful creature rushes out the window and disappears forever. From that day on, the old woman becomes thoughtful, bored, and suddenly announces to Afanasy Ivanovich that it was death that came for her and that they were soon destined to meet in the next world. The only thing the old woman regrets is that there will be no one to look after her husband. She asks the housekeeper Yavdokha to look after Afanasy Ivanovich, threatening her entire family with God's punishment if she does not fulfill the order of the mistress.

Pulcheria Ivanovna dies. At the funeral, Afanasy Ivanovich looks strange, as if he does not understand all the savagery of what happened. When he returns to his house and sees how empty his room has become, he sobs loudly and inconsolably, and tears, like a river, flow from his dull eyes.

Five years have passed since then. The house is deteriorating without its mistress, Afanasy Ivanovich is weakening and doubled against the former. But his longing does not weaken with time. In all the objects surrounding him, he sees the deceased, tries to pronounce her name, but in the middle of the word, convulsions distort his face, and the cry of a child breaks out of an already cooling heart.

It is strange, but the circumstances of the death of Afanasy Ivanovich bear a resemblance to the death of his beloved wife. As he slowly walks along the garden path, he suddenly hears someone behind him say in a clear voice: "Afanasy Ivanovich!" For a moment his face brightens up, and he says: "It's Pulcheria Ivanovna calling me!" He submits to this conviction with the will of an obedient child.

"Lay me near Pulcheria Ivanovna" - that's all he says before his death. His wish was fulfilled. The manor's house was empty, the goods were torn apart by the peasants and finally let go to the wind by a distant relative-heir who arrived.

The material was provided by the Internet portal briefly.ru, compiled by V. M. Sotnikov

Afanasy Ivanovich Tovstogub and his wife Pulcheria Ivanovna are two old men of the “past century”, who tenderly love and touchingly care for each other. Afanasy Ivanovich was tall, always wore a sheepskin coat, and practically always smiled. Pulcheria Ivanovna almost never laughed, but “so much kindness was written on her face and in her eyes, so much readiness to treat you to everything they had best, that you would probably find the smile already too sugary for her kind face.”

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol

Mirgorod. Part one

old world landowners

I very much love the modest life of those secluded rulers of remote villages, who in Little Russia are usually called old-world, who, like decrepit picturesque houses, are good in their diversity and in complete contrast to the new smooth structure, whose walls have not yet been washed by rain, the roof has not been covered with green mold and lacking the cheeky porch does not show its red bricks. I sometimes like to descend for a moment into the sphere of this unusually solitary life, where not a single desire flies over the palisade surrounding a small courtyard, over the wattle fence of a garden filled with apple and plum trees, over the village huts surrounding it, staggering to the side, overshadowed by willows, elderberry and pears. The life of their modest owners is so quiet, so quiet, that for a moment you forget and think that the passions, desires and restless creations of an evil spirit that disturb the world do not exist at all and you saw them only in a brilliant, sparkling dream. From here I can see a low house with a gallery of small blackened wooden posts going around the whole house, so that during thunder and hail you can close the shutters of the windows without getting wet with rain. Behind him fragrant bird cherry, whole rows of low fruit trees, sunk cherries and a sea of ​​plums covered with a lead mat; a spreading maple, in the shade of which a carpet is spread out for relaxation; in front of the house there is a spacious yard with low, fresh grass, with a trodden path from the barn to the kitchen and from the kitchen to the master's quarters; a long-necked goose drinking water with goslings young and tender as fluff; a palisade hung with bundles of dried pears and apples and ventilated carpets; a wagon with melons standing near the barn; an unharnessed ox lying lazily beside him - all this has an inexplicable charm for me, perhaps because I no longer see them and that everything that we are apart from is dear to us. Be that as it may, but even when my chaise drove up to the porch of this house, my soul took on a surprisingly pleasant and calm state; the horses rolled merrily under the porch, the coachman calmly got down from the box and stuffed his pipe, as if he were coming to his own house; the barking itself, which was raised by phlegmatic watchdogs, eyebrows and bugs, was pleasant to my ears. But most of all I liked the very owners of these modest corners, the old men, the old women, who carefully came out to meet me. Their faces appear to me even now sometimes in the noise and crowd among fashionable tailcoats, and then suddenly a drowsiness finds itself on me and the past seems to me. Such kindness, such cordiality and sincerity are always written on their faces that you involuntarily refuse, at least for a short time, from all daring dreams and imperceptibly pass with all your feelings into a base bucolic life.

I still cannot forget two old men of the last century, whom, alas! no longer, but my soul is still full of pity, and my feelings shrink strangely when I imagine that in time I will come back to their former, now deserted dwelling and see a bunch of ruined huts, a dead pond, an overgrown moat in that place where a low house stood, and nothing more. Sad! I'm sad in advance! But let's get back to the story.

Afanasy Ivanovich Tovstogub and his wife Pulcheria Ivanovna Tovstogubikha, in the words of the peasants of the district, were the old men about whom I began to talk. If I were a painter and wanted to depict Philemon and Baucis on the canvas, I would never choose another original than them. Afanasy Ivanovich was sixty years old, Pulcheria Ivanovna was fifty-five. Afanasy Ivanovich was tall, he always walked in a sheepskin coat covered with camlot, he sat bent over and almost always smiled, even if he was talking or simply listening. Pulcheria Ivanovna was somewhat serious, almost never laughing; but so much kindness was written on her face and in her eyes, so much readiness to treat you to everything they had best, that you would probably find the smile already too sugary for her kind face. The light wrinkles on their faces were arranged with such pleasantness that the artist would surely have stolen them. One could, it seemed, read from them all their lives, a clear, calm life led by old national, simple-hearted and at the same time rich families, always constituting the opposite of those low Little Russians who tear themselves out of the tar, merchants, fill, like locusts, chambers and office workers. places, tearing the last penny from their fellow countrymen, flooding St. Petersburg with tell-tales, finally making capital and solemnly adding to their surname, ending in o, the syllable въ. No, they did not look like these despicable and pitiful creations, just like all ancient Little Russian and indigenous families.

old world landowners

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Old world landlords. Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol

Mirgorod. Part one
old world landowners
I very much love the modest life of those secluded rulers of remote villages, who in Little Russia are usually called old-world, who, like decrepit picturesque houses, are good in their diversity and in complete contrast to the new smooth structure, whose walls have not yet been washed by rain, the roof has not been covered with green mold and lacking the cheeky porch does not show its red bricks. I sometimes like to descend for a moment into the sphere of this unusually solitary life, where not a single desire flies over the palisade surrounding a small courtyard, over the wattle fence of a garden filled with apple and plum trees, over the village huts surrounding it, staggering to the side, overshadowed by willows, elderberry and pears. The life of their modest owners is so quiet, so quiet, that for a moment you forget and think that the passions, desires and restless creations of an evil spirit that disturb the world do not exist at all and you saw them only in a brilliant, sparkling dream. From here I can see a low house with a gallery of small blackened wooden posts going around the whole house, so that during thunder and hail you can close the shutters of the windows without getting wet with rain. Behind him fragrant bird cherry, whole rows of low fruit trees, sunk cherries and a sea of ​​plums covered with a lead mat; a spreading maple, in the shade of which a carpet is spread out for relaxation; in front of the house there is a spacious yard with low, fresh grass, with a trodden path from the barn to the kitchen and from the kitchen to the master's quarters; a long-necked goose drinking water with goslings young and tender as fluff; a palisade hung with bundles of dried pears and apples and ventilated carpets; a wagon with melons standing near the barn; an unharnessed ox lying lazily beside him - all this has an inexplicable charm for me, perhaps because I no longer see them and that everything that we are apart from is dear to us. Be that as it may, but even when my chaise drove up to the porch of this house, my soul took on a surprisingly pleasant and calm state; the horses rolled merrily under the porch, the coachman calmly got down from the box and stuffed his pipe, as if he were coming to his own house; the barking itself, which was raised by phlegmatic watchdogs, eyebrows and bugs, was pleasant to my ears. But most of all I liked the very owners of these modest corners, the old men, the old women, who carefully came out to meet me. Their faces appear to me even now sometimes in the noise and crowd among fashionable tailcoats, and then suddenly a drowsiness finds itself on me and the past seems to me. Such kindness, such cordiality and sincerity are always written on their faces that you involuntarily refuse, at least for a short time, from all daring dreams and imperceptibly pass with all your feelings into a base bucolic life.

I still cannot forget two old men of the last century, whom, alas! no longer, but my soul is still full of pity, and my feelings shrink strangely when I imagine that in time I will come back to their former, now deserted dwelling and see a bunch of ruined huts, a dead pond, an overgrown moat in that place where a low house stood, and nothing more. Sad! I'm sad in advance! But let's get back to the story.

Afanasy Ivanovich Tovstogub and his wife Pulcheria Ivanovna Tovstogubikha, in the words of the peasants of the district, were the old men about whom I began to talk. If I were a painter and wanted to depict Philemon and Baucis on the canvas, I would never choose another original than them. Afanasy Ivanovich was sixty years old, Pulcheria Ivanovna was fifty-five. Afanasy Ivanovich was tall, always wore a mutton sheepskin coat covered with camlot[ ], sat bent over and almost always smiled, even if he was talking or simply listening. Pulcheria Ivanovna was somewhat serious, almost never laughing; but so much kindness was written on her face and in her eyes, so much readiness to treat you to everything they had best, that you would probably find the smile already too sugary for her kind face. The light wrinkles on their faces were arranged with such pleasantness that the artist would surely have stolen them. One could, it seemed, read from them all their lives, a clear, calm life led by old national, simple-hearted and at the same time rich families, always constituting the opposite of those low Little Russians who tear themselves out of the tar, merchants, fill, like locusts, chambers and office workers. places, tearing the last penny from their fellow countrymen, flooding St. Petersburg with tell-tales, finally making capital and solemnly adding to their surname, ending in o, the syllable въ. No, they did not look like these despicable and pitiful creations, just like all ancient Little Russian and indigenous families.

It was impossible to look without participation at their mutual love. They never said to each other you, but always you; you, Afanasy Ivanovich; you, Pulcheria Ivanovna. “Did you push through the chair, Afanasy Ivanovich?” - "Nothing, do not be angry, Pulcheria Ivanovna: it's me." They never had children, and therefore all their affection was concentrated on themselves. Once upon a time, in his youth, Afanasy Ivanovich served in the companions [ ], was after a second major, but that was a very long time ago, it had already passed, Afanasy Ivanovich himself almost never remembered it. Afanasy Ivanovich married at the age of thirty, when he was young and wore an embroidered camisole; he even carried away rather cleverly Pulcheria Ivanovna, whom her relatives did not want to give away for him; but he remembered very little of that, at least he never spoke of it.

All these long-standing, extraordinary incidents have been replaced by a calm and solitary life, by those dormant and at the same time some kind of harmonic dreams that you feel when you sit on a rustic balcony overlooking the garden, when a beautiful rain rustles luxuriously, flapping on tree leaves, flowing down in murmuring streams and slandering sleep on your members, and meanwhile a rainbow sneaks up from behind the trees and, in the form of a dilapidated vault, shines with matte seven colors in the sky. Or when your carriage is rocking you, diving between green bushes, and the steppe quail rattles and fragrant grass, together with ears of corn and wildflowers, climbs into the doors of the carriage, pleasantly hitting you on the hands and face.

He always listened with a pleasant smile to the guests who came to him, sometimes he spoke himself, but he asked more questions. He was not one of those old men who bore with eternal praises of the old times or censures of the new. He, on the contrary, in questioning you, showed great curiosity and interest in the circumstances of your own life, successes and failures, in which all good old people are usually interested, although it is somewhat like the curiosity of a child who, while talking to you, examines the signet of your hours. Then his face, one might say, breathed kindness.

The rooms of the house in which our old men lived were small, low, such as are usually found in old-world people. Each room had a huge stove, which occupied almost a third of it. These rooms were terribly warm, because both Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna were very fond of warmth. Their fireboxes were all held in the vestibule, always filled almost to the ceiling with straw, which is usually used in Little Russia instead of firewood. The crackle of this burning straw and the illumination make the porch extremely pleasant on a winter evening, when ardent youth, chilled from the pursuit of some dark-skinned woman, runs into them, clapping their hands. The walls of the rooms were decorated with several paintings and pictures in old narrow frames. I am sure that the owners themselves have long forgotten their contents, and if some of them were carried away, they would probably not notice this. Two portraits were large, painted in oils. One represented some bishop, the other Peter III. The Duchess Lavalière peered out of the narrow frames, stained with flies. Around the windows and above the doors there were many small pictures, which you somehow get used to recognizing as stains on the wall and therefore you don’t look at them at all. The floor in almost all the rooms was clay, but so cleanly smeared and kept with such neatness, with which, it is true, no parquet is kept in a rich house, lazily swept by a sleepy gentleman in livery.

Pulcheria Ivanovna's room was full of chests, drawers, drawers, and chests. A lot of bundles and bags with seeds, flower, garden, watermelon, hung on the walls. Numerous balls of multi-coloured wool, scraps of old dresses, sewn for half a century, were stacked in the corners in chests and between chests. Pulcheria Ivanovna was a great housewife and collected everything, although sometimes she herself did not know what it would be used for later.

But the most remarkable thing about the house was the singing doors. As soon as morning came, the singing of the doors was heard throughout the house. I can’t say why they sang: whether the rusty hinges were the fault, or the mechanic who made them hid some secret in them - but the remarkable thing is that each door had its own special voice: the door leading to the bedroom sang the thinnest treble; the door to the dining-room rattled in bass; but the one that was in the entrance made some strange rattling and groaning sound together, so that, listening to it, it was very clearly heard at last: “Fathers, I will be chilly!” I know a lot of people really don't like this sound; but I love him very much, and if I happen to sometimes hear the creaking of doors here, then suddenly I will smell like a village, a low room, illuminated by a candle in an old candlestick, dinner already standing on the table, on a dark May night, looking out of the garden, through the dissolved a window, on a table laden with appliances, a nightingale, dousing the garden, the house and the distant river with its peals, fear and the rustle of branches ... and God, what a long string of memories is brought to me then!

The chairs in the room were wooden, massive, as is usually the case in antiquity; they were all with high turned backs, in their natural form, without any varnish and paint; they were not even upholstered with material and were somewhat similar to those chairs that bishops still sit on to this day. Triangular tables in the corners, quadrangular in front of a sofa and a mirror in thin gold frames carved with leaves, which flies dotted with black dots, a carpet in front of the sofa with birds that look like flowers and flowers that look like birds - these are almost all the decorations of an undemanding house where my old people lived.

The maid's room was filled with young and middle-aged girls in striped underwear, whom Pulcheria Ivanovna sometimes gave to sew some trinkets and forced to peel berries, but who for the most part ran to the kitchen and slept. Pulcheria Ivanovna considered it necessary to keep them in the house and strictly looked after their morality. But, to her extreme surprise, it did not take several months for any of

I very much love the modest life of those secluded rulers of remote villages, who in Little Russia are usually called old-world, who, like decrepit picturesque houses, are good in their diversity and in complete contrast to the new smooth structure, whose walls have not yet been washed by rain, the roof has not been covered with green mold and lacking the cheeky porch does not show its red bricks. I sometimes like to descend for a moment into the sphere of this unusually solitary life, where not a single desire flies over the palisade surrounding a small courtyard, over the wattle fence of a garden filled with apple and plum trees, over the village huts surrounding it, staggering to the side, overshadowed by willows, elderberry and pears. The life of their modest owners is so quiet, so quiet, that for a moment you forget and think that the passions, desires and restless creations of an evil spirit that disturb the world do not exist at all and you saw them only in a brilliant, sparkling dream. From here I can see a low house with a gallery of small blackened wooden posts going around the whole house, so that during thunder and hail you can close the shutters of the windows without getting wet with rain. Behind him fragrant bird cherry, whole rows of low fruit trees, sunk cherries and a sea of ​​plums covered with a lead mat; a spreading maple, in the shade of which a carpet is spread out for relaxation; in front of the house there is a spacious yard with low, fresh grass, with a trodden path from the barn to the kitchen and from the kitchen to the master's quarters; a long-necked goose drinking water with goslings young and tender as fluff; a palisade hung with bundles of dried pears and apples and ventilated carpets; a wagon with melons standing near the barn; an unharnessed ox lying lazily beside him - all this has an inexplicable charm for me, perhaps because I no longer see them and that everything that we are apart from is dear to us. Be that as it may, but even when my chaise drove up to the porch of this house, my soul took on a surprisingly pleasant and calm state; the horses rolled merrily under the porch, the coachman calmly got down from the box and stuffed his pipe, as if he were coming to his own house; the barking itself, which was raised by phlegmatic watchdogs, eyebrows and bugs, was pleasant to my ears. But most of all I liked the very owners of these modest corners, the old men, the old women, who carefully came out to meet me. Their faces appear to me even now sometimes in the noise and crowd among fashionable tailcoats, and then suddenly a drowsiness finds itself on me and the past seems to me. Such kindness, such cordiality and sincerity are always written on their faces that you involuntarily refuse, at least for a short time, from all daring dreams and imperceptibly pass with all your feelings into a base bucolic life.

I still cannot forget two old men of the last century, whom, alas! no longer, but my soul is still full of pity, and my feelings shrink strangely when I imagine that in time I will come back to their former, now deserted dwelling and see a bunch of ruined huts, a dead pond, an overgrown moat in that place where there was a low house - and nothing more. Sad! I'm sad in advance! But let's get back to the story.

Afanasy Ivanovich Tovstogub and his wife Pulcheria Ivanovna Tovstogubikha, in the words of the peasants of the district, were the old men about whom I began to talk. If I were a painter and wanted to depict Philemon and Baucis on the canvas, I would never choose another original than them. Afanasy Ivanovich was sixty years old, Pulcheria Ivanovna was fifty-five. Afanasy Ivanovich was tall, he always walked in a sheepskin coat covered with camlot, he sat bent over and almost always smiled, even if he was talking or simply listening. Pulcheria Ivanovna was somewhat serious, almost never laughing; but so much kindness was written on her face and in her eyes, so much readiness to treat you to everything they had best, that you would probably find the smile already too sugary for her kind face. The light wrinkles on their faces were arranged with such pleasantness that the artist would surely have stolen them. One could, it seemed, read from them all their lives, a clear, calm life led by old national, simple-hearted and at the same time rich families, always constituting the opposite of those low Little Russians who tear themselves out of the tar, merchants, fill, like locusts, chambers and office workers. places, tearing the last penny from their fellow countrymen, flooding St. Petersburg with tell-tales, finally making capital and solemnly adding to their surname, ending in about, syllable in. No, they did not look like these despicable and pitiful creations, just like all ancient Little Russian and indigenous families.

It was impossible to look without participation at their mutual love. They never spoke to each other you but always you; you, Afanasy Ivanovich; you, Pulcheria Ivanovna. “Did you push through the chair, Afanasy Ivanovich?” - "Nothing, do not be angry, Pulcheria Ivanovna: it's me." They never had children, and therefore all their affection was concentrated on themselves. Once upon a time, in his youth, Afanasy Ivanovich served in the company, was after a second major, but that was a very long time ago, already gone, Afanasy Ivanovich himself almost never remembered it. Afanasy Ivanovich married at the age of thirty, when he was young and wore an embroidered camisole; he even carried away rather cleverly Pulcheria Ivanovna, whom her relatives did not want to give away for him; but he remembered very little of that, at least he never spoke of it.

All these long-standing, extraordinary incidents have been replaced by a calm and solitary life, by those dormant and at the same time some kind of harmonic dreams that you feel when you sit on a rustic balcony overlooking the garden, when a beautiful rain rustles luxuriously, flapping on tree leaves, flowing down in murmuring streams and slandering sleep on your members, and meanwhile a rainbow sneaks up from behind the trees and, in the form of a dilapidated vault, shines with matte seven colors in the sky. Or when your carriage is rocking you, diving between green bushes, and the steppe quail rattles and fragrant grass, together with ears of corn and wildflowers, climbs into the doors of the carriage, pleasantly hitting you on the hands and face.

He always listened with a pleasant smile to the guests who came to him, sometimes he spoke himself, but he asked more questions. He was not one of those old men who bore with eternal praises of the old times or censures of the new. He, on the contrary, in questioning you, showed great curiosity and interest in the circumstances of your own life, successes and failures, in which all good old people are usually interested, although it is somewhat like the curiosity of a child who, while talking to you, examines the signet of your hours. Then his face, one might say, breathed kindness.

The rooms of the house in which our old men lived were small, low, such as are usually found in old-world people. Each room had a huge stove, which occupied almost a third of it. These rooms were terribly warm, because both Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna were very fond of warmth. Their fireboxes were all held in the vestibule, always filled almost to the ceiling with straw, which is usually used in Little Russia instead of firewood. The crackle of this burning straw and the illumination make the porch extremely pleasant on a winter evening, when ardent youth, chilled from the pursuit of some dark-skinned woman, runs into them, clapping their hands. The walls of the rooms were decorated with several paintings and pictures in old narrow frames. I am sure that the owners themselves have long forgotten their contents, and if some of them were carried away, they would probably not notice this. Two portraits were large, painted in oils. One represented some bishop, the other Peter III. The Duchess Lavalière peered out of the narrow frames, stained with flies. Around the windows and above the doors there were many small pictures, which you somehow get used to recognizing as stains on the wall and therefore you don’t look at them at all. The floor in almost all the rooms was clay, but so cleanly smeared and kept with such neatness, with which, it is true, no parquet is kept in a rich house, lazily swept by a sleepy gentleman in livery.