Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov (1831-1895). He began his career in the offices. Then he worked for the private company Shcott and Wilkins, which was engaged in the resettlement of peasants to new lands. The traveling service enriched the future writer with observations of Russian life. In 1864, Leskov’s novel “Nowhere” was published, in 1870 the novel “On Knives”. These novels, which condemned “nihilism,” made the writer an enemy of revolutionary and liberal circles. Meanwhile, Leskov's attention turns to religious, moral and ethical issues. His works: “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” (1865), “Warrior” (1866), “The Stupid Artist” (1883) give a broad picture of Russian life. Leskov was a brilliant stylist. His story “Lefty,” based on folk tales, brought him wide fame. The image of a master craftsman shoeing a flea still seems to many to this day to be one of the symbols of our homeland.
In the novel “The Enchanted Wanderer,” (1873) N.S. Leskov also touches on the gypsy theme. The main character - a man from the common people - ends up in a gypsy choir. Fascinated by the magnetism of the lead singer Grusha, Ivan Severyanych squanders all his master's money. The writer masterfully depicts the state of the Russian soul, when - it seems - you give everything, but not enough! Afterwards, Ivan came to his senses and went to repent to the owner. To his surprise, the prince has no complaints! It turned out that he also spent almost all his fortune in the choir. We bring to your attention these episodes related to gypsy music.
The gypsy episodes of The Enchanted Wanderer served as the dramatic basis for the play Grushenka, which is considered a classic of the Romanovsky repertoire.
Nikolay Semyonovich Leskov The Enchanted Wanderer Chapter 13
Chapter 13
With such courageous determination I entered the porch, crossed myself and covered myself, nothing: the house stands, does not shake, and I see: the doors are open, and ahead there are large long vestibules, and in the depths of them on the wall a lantern with a candle is shining. I looked around and saw two more doors to the left, both upholstered with mats, and above them again these candlesticks with mirrored stars. I’m thinking: what kind of house is this? The tavern doesn’t seem to be a tavern, but it’s clear that it’s a living room, but I can’t tell which one. But all of a sudden I listen closely and hear a song pouring out from behind this mat door... languid, languid, heartfelt, and its voice sings like a crimson bell, pinching my soul and filling me up. I listen and don’t go anywhere further, and at this time the far door suddenly dissolves, and I see a tall gypsy in silk trousers, and a Cossack in velvet, come out of it, and he soon escorted someone in front of him to a special door under a distant lantern, which I didn't notice at first. I must admit, although I didn’t get a good look at who it was he sent away, it seemed to me that it was he who brought my magnetizer out and said after him:
Okay, okay, don’t be offended, my dear, on this fifty kopecks, and come back tomorrow: if we get any benefit from it, we’ll give you more for bringing it to us.
And with that, he latched the door and ran towards me, as if by accident, opened the door for me, which was under the mirror, and said:
You are welcome, Mr. Merchant, please listen to our songs! There are good voices.
Grushenka. Illustration by Ilya Glazunov.
And with that, the door in front of me quietly opened wide... So, dear sirs, I was overcome with I don’t know what, but it seemed so close to me that I suddenly found myself all there, the room was so vast, but low, and the ceiling was tilted, my belly he climbs down, everything is dark, smoky, and the tobacco smoke is so thick that the chandelier hangs above, you just barely know that it is glowing. And below in this smoke there are people... a lot, passion, like a lot of people, and in front of them in this voice that I heard, a young gypsy woman sings. Moreover, as I ascended, she only delicately, delicately, gently pulled out the last little thing and lowered it to nothing, and her voice froze... Her voice froze, and with it, in one wave, everything seemed to die... But after a minute everything was as They will jump up like mad, splashing their hands and shouting. But I’m just surprised: why are there so many people here and how more and more of them seem to be emerging from the smoke? “Wow,” I think, “isn’t this some kind of game instead of people?” But as soon as I see various acquaintances of gentlemen repairers and factory owners, and I just recognize rich merchants and landowners who are hunters to the utmost, and among all this public a gypsy walks like this... you can’t even describe her as a woman, but just as if like a bright snake, on The tail moves and the whole body bends, and from the black eyes it burns with fire. Curious figure! And in her hands she holds a large tray, on which there are many glasses of champagne wine at the edges, and in the middle there is a terrible pile of money. Only there is no silver, or even gold and banknotes, and blue tits, and gray ducks, and red braids - only white swans are missing. To whomever she gives the glass, he will now drink the wine on the tray, as much as he feels zeal, throws money, gold or banknotes; and then she will kiss him on the mouth and bow. And she walked around the first row and the second - the guests seemed to be sitting in a semicircle - and then the very last row passed, behind which I stood behind a chair on my feet, and she was already turning back, she didn’t want to bring it to me, but the old gypsy who was behind her he was walking, suddenly he shouted:
Grushka! - and looks at me with his eyes. She fluttered her eyelashes at him... by God, these are these eyelashes, long, very long, black, and as if they were alive in themselves and moving like birds, and in her eyes I noticed how the old man commanded her , it was as if there was a breath of anger all over her. She was angry, which means that they told her to treat me, but, however, she fulfilled her duty: she came to me behind the back row, bowed and said:
Eat, dear guest, about my health!
And I can’t even answer her: she did this to me right away! Immediately, that is, when she bent over the tray in front of me and I saw how between the black hair on her head, like silver, the parting curled and fell behind her back, so I went mad, and all my mind was taken away from me. I drink her treat, and through the glass I look into her face and I can’t tell whether she is dark or white, and meanwhile I see how under her thin skin, as if in a plum in the sun, the color turns red and a vein beats on her delicate temple. .. “Here it is,” I think, “where the real beauty is, what nature calls perfection; The magnetizer told the truth: it’s not at all like a horse, a corrupt beast.” And so I finished the glass to the bottom and knocked it on the tray, and she stood there and waited for something to caress. I quickly put my hand into my pocket at the other end, and in my pocket I kept finding quarters, two-kopeck coins, and other common change. Not enough, I think; It’s unworthy to bestow such an ulcer with this, and you will be ashamed in front of others! And gentlemen, I hear them say quietly to the gypsy:
Eh, Vasily Ivanov, why are you telling Grusha to treat this guy? We are offended by this.
And he answers:
With us, gentlemen, every guest has honor and place, and my daughter, her father’s own, knows the gypsy custom; but you have no reason to be offended, because you still don’t know how another simple person can appreciate beauty and talent. There are different examples of this.
And when I hear this, I think: “Oh, you, the wolf is eating you! Is it really because you are richer than me that you have more feelings? No longer, what will be will be: after that I will serve the prince, but now I will not shame myself and I will not humiliate this unprecedented beauty with stinginess.” And with that, he immediately put his hand in his bosom, took out a hundred-ruble swan from the pack, and shuffled it onto the tray. And the gypsy girl now took the tray in one hand, and wiped my lips with the other with a white handkerchief, and with her lips she didn’t even kiss me, but as if she touched me with her lips, but instead, as if she had passed some kind of poison, and walked away. She walked away, and I remained in the same place, but only that old gypsy, this Grusha’s father, and another gypsy grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me forward, and put me in the very front row next to the police officer and with the other gentlemen. I have to admit, I was reluctant to do this: I didn’t want to continue and wanted to go away; but they beg and do not eat, and call:
Pear! Grunushka, stop the welcome guest!
And she comes out and... her enemy knows what she could do with her eyes: she looked like she had let some kind of infection into her eyes, and she herself said:
Don't be offended: stay with us in this place.
“Well, really,” I said, “who can be offended,” and sat down. And she kissed me again, and again the same feeling: as if it were touching my lips with a poisonous brush and burning pain right through my blood to my very heart. And after that the songs and dances began again, and again another gypsy woman went with champagne. This one is also good, but where against Pear! Half of that beauty is missing, and for this I snuck quarters from my pocket onto her tray and sprinkled them... The gentlemen laughed at this, but I don’t care, because I’m the only one looking where she is, this Grushenka, and waiting for her one voice without a choir to hear, but she doesn’t sing. She sits with others, sings along, but doesn’t sing, and I can’t hear her voice, but only her mouth with white teeth is visible... “Oh, you,” I think, “my orphan’s lot: I came in for a minute and lost a hundred rubles, but here I won’t even hear her alone!” But fortunately for me, I wasn’t the only one who wanted to listen to her: other gentlemen and important visitors all shouted together after one break:
Pear! Pear! "Shuttle", Grusha! "Shuttle"!
The gypsies coughed, and her young brother picked up the guitar, and she began to sing. You know... their singing is usually reaching and touches the hearts, and when I heard that very voice of hers, which I had been attracted to from behind the door, I became emotional. I really liked it! She began as if rudely, courageously, something like: “Mo-o-re vo-oo-o-et, mo-re a hundred-no.” As if in reality, you can hear the sea groaning and the swallowed shuttle beating in it. And then suddenly there was a completely different change in the voice, an appeal to the star: “Golden, dear, harbinger of the day, with you, earthly misfortune is inaccessible to me.” And again a new reversal, which you don’t expect. They have everything with these appeals: they cry, they languish, they simply take the soul out of the body, and then suddenly, as soon as it’s enough, in a completely different way, and it’s as if the heart will immediately be put back in again... And here she is this “sea” with “ shuttle" shook up, and others began to scream in unison: Jala-la-la. Ja-la-la.
Ja-la-la pringala!
Ja-la-la pringa-la.
Guy and chepuringala!
Gay gop-gay, ta gara!
Gay gop-gay-ta gara!
and then Grushenka went again with wine and a tray, and I again gave her another swan from her bosom... Everyone began to look at me, saying that with my gifts I was putting them below myself; so they are even ashamed to put it after me, but I definitely don’t regret anything anymore, because I will express my will, I will express my heart, I will express my soul, and I have expressed it. Whatever Grusha sings, I give her a swan for it, and I no longer count how many of them I released, but I give and it’s over, and then the others all ask her to sing at once, she doesn’t sing to all their requests, she says “she’s tired,” and I alone will nod to the gypsy: is it possible, they say, to force her? he will now look at her with his eyes, and she will sing. And she sang a lot, a powerful song from a song, and I already left her a lot, without counting the swans, and in the end, I don’t know what time, but already quite at dawn, it was as if she was really exhausted and tired , and, as if looking at me with hints, she began: “Move away, don’t look, get out of my sight.” With these words he seems to be driving, but with others he seems to be interrogating: “Or, do you want to play with my lion’s soul and experience all the power of beauty over yourself.” And I still give her a swan! She again involuntarily kissed me, as if she stung me, and in her eyes there was like a dark flame, and those others, at this evil hour, finally screamed:
Feel it, my dear,
How I love you, dear!
Fragment of the monument to Leskov in the city of Orel. Sculptural group “Enchanted Wanderer”.
and everyone pulls them up and looks at Grusha, and I look and pull them up: “Feel it!” And then the gypsies suddenly say: “Go, hut, go, stove; the owner has nowhere to lie down” - and suddenly everyone started dancing... The gypsies dance, the gypsies dance, and the gentlemen dance: everyone dances together, as if the whole hut really began to dance. The gypsies rush in front of the gentlemen, and they keep up and chase after them, the young ones whistling, and the older ones with a crack. In the places, I see, there is no one left... Even from whom I would not have expected such buffoonery in life from sedate men, they are still rising. Another one will sit and sit, who is more respectable, and at first, apparently, he is very ashamed to walk, but only leads with his eye, or twitches his mustache, and then one enemy jerks his shoulder, the other shakes his leg, and you look, he suddenly jumps up and even though he doesn’t know how to dance, He’ll go and kick something like this out, which is good for nothing! The police officer is fat, very fat, and his two daughters were married, and he and his sons-in-law immediately puff like a catfish and knead with their heels, and the hussar-repairman, the captain, is rich and a fine fellow, a dashing dancer, acts more brilliantly than anyone else: his hands in the sides, and knocks with his heels out of the way, walks in front of everyone, salutes, rolls around, and when he meets Grusha, he shakes his head, drops his hat at her feet and shouts: “Step on her, crush her, beauty!” - and she... Oh, she was also a dancer! I’ve seen how actresses dance in theaters, but all this, ugh, is like an officer’s horse without imagination at a parade for one man, he’s jockeying for God knows what, but there’s no fire of life. The same king went, as the pharaoh swims - it does not sway, but in itself, in the snake, you can hear how the cartilage crunches and the cerebellum goes from bone to bone, and it becomes, arches, leads the shoulder and the eyebrow with the toe of the leg in one line builds... Picture! It’s just that from this vision of her dance, everyone seems to have lost their entire mind: they are rushing towards her madly, without memory: some have tears in their eyes, and some bare their teeth, but everyone shouts: “We don’t regret anything: dance!” - money is simply thrown at her feet in vain, some in gold, some in banknotes. And everything here began to blow thicker and thicker, and I’m just sitting there alone, and even then I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stand it, because I can’t watch her step on the hussar’s cap... She’ll step, and there’s a damn click in my veins; She steps again, and he clicks me again, and finally I think: “Why should I torture myself in vain? I’ll let my soul walk to its heart’s content,” and as soon as I jumped up, I pushed the hussar away, and went to squat in front of Grusha... And so that she wouldn’t get on his, the hussar’s, hat, he invented such a means that, I think, you’re all screaming, that you don’t regret anything, don’t surprise me; but that I don’t regret anything, I’ll prove it with deeds and truth, and I’ll jump myself, and from behind her bosom I’ll swan under her feet and shout: “Crush him!” Advance!" She was not that... for nothing that my swan is more expensive than a hussar’s cap, but she doesn’t even look at the swan, but still strives for the hussar; Yes, only the old gypsy, thank you, noticed this, and how he stomps on her... She understood and followed me... She swims towards me, her eyes lowered down, like a mountainous snake, she’s burning the ground with anger, and I’m in front of I just jump around her in the likeness of a demon, and every time I jump, I put a swan sword under her foot... I respect her so much that I think: weren’t you, the damned one, who made both the earth and the sky? and I shout at her with impudence: “walk faster,” but all the swans are at her feet, and once I put my hand in my bosom to get another one, and, I see, there are only a dozen of them left there already... “Ugh, - I think, “damn you all!” - he crumpled them all into a pile, and immediately threw them all at her feet, and he took a bottle of champagne wine from the table, beat her throat and shouted:
Stay away, soul, otherwise I’ll hurt you? - Yes, all at once and drank to her health, because after this dance I was terribly thirsty.
Chapter 14
Who promised?
And the magnetizer who brought this on me: as he promised to leave the drunken demon away from me, he did so, and from that time on I never drank a single glass again. He did it very well.
Well, how did you and your prince end up after releasing the swans?
But I don’t know myself, it’s somehow very simple: how I got home from these gypsies, and I don’t remember how I lay down, but I just hear the prince knocking and calling, and I want to get up from the bunk, but I can’t find the edge and I can’t I can get off. I’ll crawl in one direction - there’s no end, I’ll turn around in the other - and there’s no end here either... I got lost on the horse, and that’s it!.. The prince shouts: “Ivan Severyanych!” And I respond: “Now!” - and I’m climbing in all directions and still can’t find the edge, and finally I think: well, if I can’t get down, then I’ll jump off, and I swung it like a sigan as far as possible, and I feel like something hit me in the face and around me something is ringing and pouring out, and behind me it is also ringing and pouring out again, and the prince’s voice says to the orderly: “Give the fire quickly!” But I stand there and don’t move, because I don’t know whether I see all this above me in reality or in a dream, and I believe that I still haven’t reached the edge on my horse; and instead of the orderly bringing the fire, I see that I’m standing on the floor, jumped into the owner’s glass slide with my face and beat everything...
How did you get so lost?
It’s very simple: I thought that, as is my usual custom, I was sleeping on a bunk, but I, probably, having come from the gypsies, lay down straight on the floor, and kept crawling, looking for the edges, and then began to jump... and jumped to the slide . I was wandering, because this... magnetizer, he brought the drunken demon from me, and placed the prodigal with me... I immediately remembered his words that he said: “no matter how worse it would be if you quit drinking,” and I went to look for him - I wanted to ask him to better demagnetize me to the old one, but I didn’t find him. He, too, took a lot on himself and couldn’t bear it, and right there, opposite the gypsies, at the tavern, he got so drunk that he died. “And you still remained magnetized?”
So it remained, sir. - And how long did this magnetism act on you?
Why does it take so long? it may still be in effect.
But still, it’s interesting to know how you and the prince are?.. Did you really have no explanation for the swans?
No, sir, there was an explanation, but it was not important. The prince also came having lost and began to ask me for revenge. I say: “Well, leave it alone: I don’t have any money.” He thinks it’s a joke, and I say: “No, correct me, I had a great time without you.” He asks: “Where, they say, could you put five thousand at one exit?..” I say: “I immediately threw them to the gypsy...” He doesn’t believe it. I say: “Well, don’t believe it; but I’m telling you the truth.” He got angry and said: “Lock the doors, I’ll tell you how to throw away government money,” and then, suddenly canceling it, he said: “You don’t need anything, I’m just like you, dissolute.” And he lay down in the room to finish his night's sleep, and I also went to the hayloft to sleep again. I came to my senses in the infirmary and heard that they said that I had delirium tremens and that I wanted to hang myself, only, thank God, they swaddled me in a long shirt. Then I recovered and went to the prince in his village, because he had retired at that time, and I said: “Your Excellency, I need to give you money.” He replies: “Go to hell.” I see that he is very offended by me, I go up to him and nudge him. “What,” he says, “does this mean?” “Yes, please,” I ask, “at least give me a good beating!” And he replies: “Why do you know that I’m angry with you, or maybe I don’t consider you guilty at all.” “For mercy,” I say, “how else am I not guilty when I scattered such an area of money? I myself know that hanging me, a scoundrel, for this is not enough.” And he answers: “What, brother, should you do when you are an artist.” “How,” I say, “is this so?” “So,” he answers, “so, my dear Ivan Severyanych, you, my most respectable, are an artist. “And I can’t understand,” I say. “You,” he says, “don’t think anything bad, because I myself am also an artist.” “Well, this,” I think, “is understandable: apparently, I was not the only one who struggled to the point of delirium tremens.” And he stood up, hit the pipe on the floor and said: “What a miracle is this, that you threw in front of her what you had with you, I, brother, gave for her something that I don’t have and never had.” I stared at him with all my eyes. “Father, your Excellency, have mercy, what are you saying this, I’m scared to even listen to it.” “Well, you,” he answers, “don’t be too scared: God is merciful, and maybe I’ll get out of it somehow, but I gave fifty thousand to the camp for this Pear.” I gasped: “Like,” I say, “fifty thousand!” for a gypsy? Is she worth it, little asp?” “Well,” he replies, “you, most respectable one, spoke stupidly and unartistically... Is it worth it? A woman is worth everything in the world, because she will inflict such an ulcer that you will not be cured of it in the entire kingdom, but she alone can heal from it in one minute.” And I keep thinking that all this is true, but I just keep shaking my head and saying: “Such a sum, they say!” as much as fifty thousand!” “Yes, yes,” he says, “and don’t repeat it again, because thank you for taking this too, otherwise I would have given more... whatever you want, I would have given.” “And you should,” I say, “spit and nothing more.” “I couldn’t,” he says, “brother, I couldn’t spit.” "From what?" “She hurt me with her beauty and talent, and I need healing, otherwise I’ll go crazy. And tell me: it’s true: she’s good? A? Is it true? Is there any reason to go crazy about her?..” I bit my lips and just silently shook my head: “It’s true, they say, it’s true!” “To me,” says the prince, “you know, even if I die for a woman, it doesn’t cost me anything. Can you understand that you don’t care about dying?” “What,” I say, “is incomprehensible here, beauty, perfection of nature...” “How do you understand this?” “And so,” I answer, “I understand that the beauty of nature is perfection, and for this an admiring person will die... even joy!” “Well done,” my prince replies, “well done you, my almost semi-respectable and very insignificant Ivan Severyanovich! Exactly, sir, it is precisely to die that it is joyful, and this is what is sweet to me now, that for her I turned my whole life upside down: I retired, and mortgaged my estate, and from now on I will begin to live here, without seeing a person , but I’ll just be the only one looking her in the face.” Here I lowered my voice even lower and whispered: “How,” I say, “will you look her in the face? Is she here? And he answers: “How could it be otherwise? of course, here." “Could it be,” I say, “this could be?” “But you,” he says, “wait, I’ll bring her now.” You are an artist, I won’t hide it from you.” And with that he left me and walked out the door. I stand, wait and think: “Eh, it’s not good that you say so that you’ll just look at her face! It’ll get boring!” But I don’t talk about this in detail, because as soon as I remember that she is here, now I feel that even my sides are getting hot, and my mind gets confused, I think: “Am I really going to see her now?” And suddenly they come in: the prince walks ahead and in one hand carries a guitar with a wide scarlet ribbon, and with the other, holding Grushenka by both hands, he drags her, and she walks dejectedly, resists and does not look, but only these black eyelashes on her cheeks seem to be the bird's wings move. The prince brought her in, took her in his arms and sat her down like a child, with her feet in the corner, on a wide soft sofa; He slipped one velvet pillow under her as a secret, put another under her right elbow, and threw a guitar ribbon over her shoulder and placed her fingers on the strings. Then he sat down on the floor by the sofa and bowed his head to her scarlet morocco shoe and nodded at me: they say, sit down too. I quietly sank down to the floor at the threshold, also tucked my legs under me and sat, looking at her. It's become so quiet that even things get done. I sat and sat, my knees were broken, and I looked at her, she was still in the same position, and I looked at the prince: I saw that he had chewed his entire mustache from the darkness, but he didn’t say anything to her. I nod at him: they say, what are you doing, order her to sing! And he gives me pantomime back in the sense that, they say, he won’t listen. And again we both sat on the floor and waited, and she suddenly began to seem to be delirious, sighing and sniffling, and a tear streamed down her eyelash, and her fingers, like wasps, crawled and rumbled along the strings... And suddenly she quietly, quietly, as if crying , sang: “Good people, listen to the sadness of my heart.” The prince whispers: “What?” And I also answer him in a whisper in French: “Petit-com-peu,” I say, and there’s nothing more to say, and at that moment she suddenly screams: “They’ll sell me out of beauty, they’ll sell me,” and throw the guitar far away from her knees, and tore the scarf from her head and fell face down on the sofa, buried her face in her hands and cried, and I, looking at her, cried, and the prince... he cried too, but he took the guitar and definitely didn’t sing, but, as if serving a service, he groaned: “If only you knew all the fire of love, all the melancholy of my fiery soul,” and well, sob. And he sings and sobs: “Calm me, restless, make me happy, unhappy.” How he became so cruelly agitated, I see she listened to his tears and singing and began to be quiet, calm down, and suddenly quietly took her hand out from under her face and, like a mother, gently wrapped it around his head... Well, then I felt it is clear that she took pity on him at that hour and now will calm and heal all the melancholy of his fiery soul, and I stood up slowly, unnoticeably, and left.
Retelling plan
1. Meeting of travelers. Ivan Severyanych begins a story about his life.
2. Flyagin finds out his future.
3. He runs away from home and ends up as a nanny for the daughter of a gentleman.
4. Ivan Severyanych finds himself at a horse auction, and then in Ryn-Peski as a prisoner of the Tatars.
5. Release from captivity and return to hometown.
6. The art of handling horses helps the hero get a job with the prince.
7. Flyagin meets the gypsy Grushenka.
8. The prince’s fleeting love for Grushenka. He wants to get rid of the gypsy woman.
9. Death of Grushenka.
10. The hero's service in the army, in the address desk, in the theater.
11. The life of Ivan Severyanich in the monastery.
12. The hero discovers the gift of prophecy.
Retelling
Chapter 1
On Lake Ladoga, on the way to the island of Valaam, several travelers meet on a ship. One of them, dressed in a novice cassock and looking like a “typical hero”, is Mr. Flyagin Ivan Severyanych. He gradually gets involved in the passengers' conversation about suicides and, at the request of his companions, begins a story about his life: having God's gift for taming horses, all his life he “died and could not die.”
Chapters 2, 3
Ivan Severyanych continues the story. He came from a family of servants of Count K. from the Oryol province. His “parent,” his coachman Severyan, Ivan’s “mother” died after childbirth because he “was born with an unusually large head,” for which he received the nickname Golovan. From his father and other coachmen, Flyagin “learned the secret of knowledge in animals”; from childhood he became addicted to horses. Soon he became so comfortable that he began to “show postilion mischief: to pull some guy he met across his shirt with a whip.” This mischief led to trouble: one day, returning from the city, he accidentally kills a monk who had fallen asleep on a cart with a blow of his whip. The next night the monk appears to him in a dream and reproaches him for taking his life without repentance. Then he reveals that Ivan is the son “promised to God.” “And here,” he says, is a sign for you, that you will perish many times and will never perish until your real “destruction” comes, and then you will remember your mother’s promise for you and will go to the monks.” Soon Ivan and his owners go to Voronezh and on the way saves them from death in a terrible abyss, and falls into mercy.
Upon returning to the estate after some time, Golovan starts pigeons under the roof. Then he discovers that the owner’s cat is carrying the chicks, he catches her and chops off the tip of her tail. As punishment for this, he is severely flogged, and then sent to “the English garden for the path to beat pebbles with a hammer.” The last punishment “tormented” Golovan and he decides to commit suicide. He is saved from this fate by a gypsy who cuts the rope prepared for death and persuades Ivan to run away with him, taking the horses with him.
Chapter 4
But, having sold the horses, they did not agree on the division of money and separated. Golovan gives the official his ruble and silver cross and receives a leave certificate (certificate) that he is a free man and sets off around the world. Soon, trying to get a job, he ends up with a gentleman, to whom he tells his story, and he begins to blackmail him: either he will tell everything to the authorities, or Golovan will go to serve as a “nanny” for his little daughter. This gentleman, a Pole, convinces Ivan with the phrase: “After all, you are a Russian person? The Russian man can handle everything.” Golovan has to agree. He knows nothing about the mother of a girl, an infant child, and does not know how to handle children. He has to feed her goat milk. Gradually, Ivan learns to care for the baby, even treat him. So he quietly becomes attached to the girl. One day, when he was walking with her by the river, a woman approached them, who turned out to be the girl’s mother. She begged Ivan Severyanych to give her the child, offered him money, but he was relentless and even got into a fight with the lady’s current husband, a lancer officer.
Chapter 5
Suddenly Golovan sees the angry owner approaching, he feels sorry for the woman, he gives the child to the mother and runs away with them. In another city, an officer soon sends the passportless Golovan away, and he goes to the steppe, where he ends up at a Tatar horse auction. Khan Dzhangar sells his horses, and the Tatars set prices and fight for the horses: they sit opposite each other and whip each other with whips.
Chapter 6
When a new handsome horse is put up for sale, Golovan does not hold back and, speaking for one of the repairers, screws the Tatar to death. “Tatarva - they’re okay: well, he killed and killed - that’s why they were in such condition, because he could detect me, but our own, our Russians, it’s annoying how they don’t even understand this, and they got fed up.” In other words, they wanted to hand him over to the police for murder, but he ran away from the gendarmes to Rynpeski itself. Here he ends up with the Tatars, who, to prevent him from escaping, “bristle” his legs. Golovan serves as a doctor for the Tatars, moves with great difficulty and dreams of returning to his homeland.
Chapter 7
Golovan has been living with the Tatars for several years, he already has several wives and children “Natasha” and “Kolek”, whom he regrets, but admits that he could not love them, “he did not regard them as his children”, because they were “unbaptized” . He yearns more and more for his homeland: “Oh, sir, how all this memorable life from childhood will come to mind, and it will haunt your soul that where are you missing, separated from all this happiness and have not been in spirit for so many years, and you will live unmarried and die uninveterate, and melancholy will overwhelm you, and... you wait until nightfall, you crawl out slowly behind the headquarters, so that neither your wives, nor your children, nor any of the filthy ones see you, and you begin to pray... and you pray... you pray so much that even The snow will melt under your knees and where the tears fell, you will see grass in the morning.”
Chapter 8
When Ivan Severyanych completely despaired of getting home, Russian missionaries came to the steppe “to establish their faith.” He asks them to pay a ransom for him, but they refuse, claiming that before God “all are equal and all the same.” After some time, one of them is killed, Golovan buries him according to Orthodox custom. He explains to his listeners that “an Asian must be brought into faith with fear,” because they “will never respect a humble God without a threat.”
Chapter 9
One day, two men from Khiva came to the Tatars to buy horses to “make war.” Hoping to intimidate the Tatars, they demonstrate the power of their fire god Talafa. But Golovan discovers a box with fireworks, introduces himself as Talafa, scares the Tatars, converts them to the Christian faith and, finding “caustic earth” in the boxes, heals his legs and escapes. In the steppe, Ivan Severyanych meets a Chuvashin, but refuses to go with him, because he simultaneously reveres both the Mordovian Keremet and the Russian Nicholas the Wonderworker. There are also Russians on his way, they cross themselves and drink vodka, but they drive away the passportless Ivan Severyanych. In Astrakhan, the wanderer ends up in prison, from where he is taken to his hometown. Father Ilya excommunicates him from communion for three years, but the count, who has become a pious man, releases him “on quitrent.”
Chapter 10
Golovan gets settled in the horse section. He helps men choose good horses, he is famous as a sorcerer, and everyone demands to tell him the “secret”. One prince takes him to the post of coneser. Ivan Severyanych buys horses for the prince, but periodically he has drunken “outings”, before which he gives all the money to the prince for safekeeping.
Chapter 11
One day, when the prince sells a beautiful horse to Dido, Ivan Severyanych becomes very sad and “makes an exit,” but this time he keeps the money to himself. He prays in church and goes to a tavern, from where he is kicked out when, having gotten drunk, he begins to argue with a “very empty” man who claimed that he drinks because he “voluntarily took on weakness” so that it would be easier for others, and His Christian feelings do not allow him to stop drinking. They are kicked out of the tavern.
Chapter 12
A new acquaintance puts “magnetism” on Ivan Severyanych to free him from “zealous drunkenness”, and for this he gives him a lot of water. At night, when they are walking down the street, this man leads Ivan Severyanych to another tavern.
Chapter 13
Ivan Severyanych hears beautiful singing and goes into a tavern, where he spends all his money on the beautiful singing gypsy Grushenka: “You can’t even describe her as a woman, but it’s like she’s like a bright snake, moving on her tail and bending all over, and burning from her black eyes.” fire. A curious figure! “So I went crazy, and all my mind was taken away from me.”
Chapter 14
The next day, having obeyed the prince, he learns that the owner himself gave fifty thousand for Grushenka, bought her from the camp and settled her on his country estate. And Grushenka drove the prince crazy: “That’s what’s sweet to me now, that I turned my whole life upside down for her: I retired, and pawned my estate, and from now on I’ll live here, not seeing a person, but only everything.” I’ll be the only one to look her in the face.”
Chapter 15
Ivan Severyanych tells the story of his master and Grunya. After some time, the prince gets tired of the “love word”, the “Yakhont emeralds” make him sleepy, and besides, all the money runs out. Grushenka feels the prince's cooling and is tormented by jealousy. Ivan Severyanich “became from that time on easy access to her: when the prince was away, every day twice a day he went to her outhouse to drink tea and entertained her as best he could.”
Chapter 16
One day, going to the city, Ivan Severyanich overhears the prince’s conversation with his former mistress Evgenia Semyonovna and learns that his master is going to get married, and wants to marry the unfortunate Grushenka, who sincerely loved him, to Ivan Severyanich. Returning home, Golovan learns that the prince secretly took the gypsy woman into the forest to a bee. But Grusha escapes from his guards.
Chapters 17, 18
Grusha tells Ivan Severyanych what happened while he was away, how the prince got married, how she was sent into exile. She asks to kill her, to curse her soul: “Quickly become the savior of my soul; I no longer have the strength to live like this and suffer, seeing his betrayal and abuse of me. Have pity on me, my dear; stab me once with a knife against the heart.” Ivan Severyanych recoiled, but she kept crying and exhorting him to kill her, otherwise she would commit suicide. “Ivan Severyanych furrowed his eyebrows terribly and, biting his mustache, seemed to exhale from the depths of his expanding chest: “I took the knife out of my pocket... took it apart... straightened the blade from the handle... and thrust it into my hands... “You won’t kill “- he says, “me, I will become the most shameful woman in revenge for all of you.” I trembled all over, and told her to pray, and I didn’t stab her, but just took her off the steep slope into the river and pushed her...”
Chapter 19
Ivan Severyanych runs back and on the road meets a peasant cart. The peasants complain to him that their son is being drafted into the army. In search of a quick death, Golovan pretends to be a peasant son and, having given all the money to the monastery as a contribution for Grushin’s soul, goes to war. He dreams of dying, but “neither the earth nor the water wants to accept him.” Once Golovan distinguished himself in action. The colonel wants to nominate him for a reward, and Ivan Severyanych talks about the murder of a gypsy woman. But his words are not confirmed by the request; he is promoted to officer and sent into retirement with the Order of St. George. Taking advantage of the colonel’s letter of recommendation, Ivan Severyanych gets a job as a “research officer” at the address desk, but the service does not go well, and he goes into acting. But he didn’t take root there either: rehearsals are held during Holy Week (sin!), Ivan Severyanych gets to portray the “difficult role” of a demon... He leaves the theater for the monastery.
Chapter 20
Monastic life does not bother him, he remains with the horses there, but he does not consider it worthy to take monastic vows and lives in obedience. In response to a question from one of the travelers, he says that at first a demon appeared to him in a “seductive female form,” but after fervent prayers, only small demons, children, remained. Once he was punished: he was put in a cellar for the whole summer until frost. Ivan Severyanych did not lose heart there either: “here you could hear the church bells, and your comrades visited.” They freed him from the cellar because the gift of prophecy was revealed in him. They released him on a pilgrimage to Solovki. The wanderer admits that he expects imminent death, because the “spirit” inspires him to take up arms and go to war, and he “really wants to die for the people.”
Having finished the story, Ivan Severyanych falls into quiet concentration, again feeling within himself “the influx of the mysterious broadcasting spirit, revealed only to babies.”
Leskov’s story “The Enchanted Wanderer” appeared in 1873 as a result of the author’s search for an answer to the question: do righteous people exist on earth. The language of the work is interesting and amazing. The image of the main character is so close to the reader in all its features that it simply makes him fall in love with him. Leskov, without idealizing the hero or simplifying him, creates a holistic, but contradictory, unbalanced character. Ivan Severyanovich can also be wildly cruel, unbridled in his seething passions. But his nature is truly revealed in kind and knightly unselfish deeds for the sake of others, in selfless deeds, in the ability to cope with any task. Innocence and humanity, practical intelligence and perseverance, courage and endurance, a sense of duty and love for the homeland - these are the remarkable features of Leskov’s wanderer.
Read by A. Schwartz
Anton Isaakovich Schwartz (January 24, 1896, Ekaterinodar - February 21, 1954, Leningrad) - Soviet pop artist, master of artistic expression, and reciter. Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1947). Laureate of the First All-Union Competition of Masters of Artistic Words (1937).
In 1936 he released the program “Great Russian Poets”, including poems by Pushkin, Lermontov, Tyutchev, Nekrasov Blok, Yesenin and others. In 1943 he performed with the program “Lermontov”, which included “Demon”, “Fatalist”, poems. Schwartz's performance was distinguished by the depth of Lermontov's philosophical comprehension, the strict subordination of verbal expressive means to the logic of the development of thought, the combination of relaxed conversationality with increased attention to the rhythmic and musical structure of the verse.
By the mid-1940s, Schwartz's repertoire included seven programs from the works of Gorky, Sholokhov, Tolstoy, Gorbatov, Paustovsky, Zoshchenko, three programs based on poems and poems by Pushkin, over ten programs from the works of Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chekhov, Kuprin, Leskov.
Several travelers, sailing along Lake Ladoga, got into conversation with an elderly man of enormous height and powerful physique who had recently boarded their ship. Judging by his clothes, he was preparing to become a monk. By nature, the stranger was simple-minded and kind, but it was noticeable that he had seen a lot throughout his life.
He introduced himself as Ivan Severyanych Flyagin and said that he had traveled a lot before, adding: “All my life I died, and there was no way I could die.” The interlocutors persuaded him to tell about how it happened.
Leskov. The Enchanted Wanderer. Audiobook
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 2 – summary
Ivan Severyanych was born in the Oryol province and came from the serfs of Count K. His father was the master's coachman, and Ivan himself grew up in a stable, from a young age learning everything there is to know about horses.
When he grew up, he also began to drive the count. Once, during such a journey, a cart with an old monk who had fallen asleep on top of the hay did not give way to him on a narrow road. Overtaking him, Ivan pulled this monk across the back with a whip. Opening his eyes, he fell sleepily under the wheel of his cart - and was crushed to death.
The case was hushed up, but the dead monk appeared to Ivan in a dream that same day. He reproachfully predicted a difficult life for him in the future. “You will die many times and never die once, and then you will become a monk.”
The prediction immediately began to come true. Ivan was driving his count along the road near a steep mountain - and in the most dangerous place of the descent, the crew’s brake burst. The front horses had already fallen into a terrible abyss, but Ivan held the rear ones by throwing himself onto the drawbar. He saved the Lord, but he himself, hanging a little, flew down from that mountain - and survived only by unexpected happiness: he fell on a clay block and slid down to the bottom on it, as if on a sled.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 3 – summary
Soon he got a dove and a dove in his stable. But the pigeons that were born to them got into the habit of stealing and there is one cat. Ivan caught her, whipped her and cut off her tail.
This cat turned out to be the master's. The countess's maid came running to scold Ivan for her and hit him on the cheek. He chased her away with a dirty broom. For this, Ivan was severely flogged and sent to do tedious work: on his knees, to beat small stones for the paths of the count's English garden with a hammer. Ivan became so unbearable that he decided to hang himself. He went into the forest and jumped from a tree with a noose around his neck, when suddenly a gypsy who came from nowhere cut the rope. With a laugh, he suggested that Ivan run away from the masters and engage in horse stealing with him. Ivan didn’t want to follow the thieves’ path, but there was no other choice.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 4 – summary
That same night he took the two best horses out of the master's stable. They rode off with the gypsy to Karachev and there they sold their horses at a high price. But the gypsy gave Ivan only a ruble out of all the proceeds, saying: “This is because I am a master, and you are still a student.” Ivan called him a scoundrel and broke up with him.
With his last money, through a clerk, he got himself a stamped vacation permit to Nikolaev, arrived there and went to work for a gentleman. That master’s wife ran away with a repairman (an army horse buyer), but his little daughter remained behind. He instructed Ivan to nurse her.
This was an easy matter. Ivan took the girl to the seashore, sat there with her all day and gave her goat milk. But one day a monk, whom he had killed on the road, appeared to him in his doze and said: “Let's go, Ivan, brother, let's go! You still have a lot to endure.” And he showed him in a vision a wide steppe and wild horsemen galloping along it.
And her mother began to secretly visit the girl on the seashore. She persuaded Ivan to give her his daughter, promising him a thousand rubles for this. But Ivan did not want to deceive his master.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 5 – summary
The girl’s mother’s new husband, a lancer repairman, also came ashore. First, he and Ivan got into a fight, scattering those same thousand rubles along the shore, and then Ivan, taking pity, gave his daughter to his mother, and fled from the owner along with this mother and the uhlan. They reached Penza, and there the uhlan and his wife gave Ivan two hundred rubles, and he wandered off to look for a new place.
There was horse trading going on across the Sura River at that time. The Tatar horde of Khan Dzhangar drove entire herds from their Ryn-sands. On the last day of the auction, Dzhangar brought out a white filly of extraordinary agility and beauty for sale. Two noble Tatars began to argue for her - Bakshey Otuchev and Chepkun Emgurcheev. Neither wanted to give in to the other, and in the end they were for the sake of the mare. against all odds They went: taking off their shirts, they sat down opposite each other and began to whip each other with all their strength on the back with a whip. Whoever gives up first will give up the mare to his opponent.
Spectators crowded around. Chepkun won, and he got the mare. And Ivan the hero got excited, and he wanted to take part in such a competition himself.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 6 – summary
And Khan Dzhangar now bred a karak stallion, even better than that mare. Ivan sat down to argue with the Tatar Savakirei for him. They fought with whips for a long time, both bled, and in the end Savakirei fell dead.
The Tatars had no complaints - flogged voluntarily. But the Russian police wanted to arrest Ivan for killing an Asian man. He had to flee with Emgurcheev’s Tatars far to the Steppe, to Ryn-Sands. The Tatars considered him a doctor, although Ivan knew only sabur and galangal root among the potions.
Soon a terrible longing for Russia began to torment him. Ivan tried to escape from the Tatars, but they caught him and “bristled” him: they cut his feet and stuffed chopped horse mane under his skin. It became impossible to stand on my feet: the coarse horsehair pricked me like needles. I managed to move somehow, only by twisting my legs, “at the ankles.” But the Tatars did not offend the Russian wanderer any more. They gave him two wives (one was a girl about 13 years old). Five years later, Ivan was sent to treat the neighboring horde of Agashimola, and it stole the “skilled doctor”, migrating far to the side.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 7 – summary
Agishimola gave Ivan two other wives. From all of them he had children, but he, as unbaptized, almost did not consider them his own. In the midst of the steppe monotony, homesickness tormented me more and more. Chewing tough Tatar horse meat, Ivan remembered his village: how they pluck ducks and geese there on God’s holiday, and the drunken priest, Father Ilya, goes from house to house, drinks a glass and collects treats. Among the Tatars one had to live unmarried, and could die uninveterate. Often the unfortunate wanderer crawled out behind the yurts and quietly prayed in a Christian way.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 8 – summary
One day Ivan heard that two Orthodox preachers had come to their horde. He hobbled towards them, fell at their feet and asked to help them out from the Tatars. But they said: we do not have a ransom to give for you, and we are not allowed to frighten the infidels with royal power.
Ivan soon saw one of these preachers killed nearby: the skin had been torn off from his arms and legs, and a cross had been carved on his forehead. Then the Tatars also killed the Jew, who came to spread the Jewish faith among them.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 9 – summary
Soon, out of nowhere, two strange men came to the Tatars with some boxes. They began to scare the horde with the “god Talafa,” who could cause heavenly fire - and “this very night he will show you his power.” And that same night, in the steppe, something actually hissed, and then multi-colored fire began to rain down from above. Ivan realized that these were fireworks. The newcomers ran away, but abandoned one of their boxes of paper tubes.
Ivan picked up these tubes and began to make lights from them himself. The Tatars, who had never seen fireworks, fell to their knees in fear before him. Ivan forced them to be baptized, and then noticed that the “caustic earth” from which the fireworks were made burned their skin. Pretending to be sick, he began to secretly apply this earth to his feet until they festered, and the horse’s bristles came out with pus. Having set off new fireworks as a warning, Ivan fled from the Tatars, who did not dare to chase him.
The Russian wanderer walked the entire steppe and reached Astrakhan alone. But he started drinking there, ended up with the police, and from there he was taken to his count’s estate. Pop Ilya excommunicated Ivan from communion for three years because he took polygamy in the Steppe. The count did not want to tolerate an innocent person with him, he ordered Ivan to be whipped and let go on rent.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 10 – summary
Ivan went to the fair and, like an expert, began to help the men who were being deceived by the gypsies in the horse trade. He soon gained great fame. One repairman, a noble prince, took Ivan as his assistant.
For three years the wanderer lived well with the prince, earning a lot of money from horses. The prince also trusted him with his savings, because he often lost at cards, and if Ivan lost, he stopped giving him money. Ivan was tormented only by his repeated “outings” (binges) from time to time. Before drinking, he himself gave his money to the prince.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 11 – summary
One time Ivan was especially drawn to “go out” - and at the most inconvenient moment: the prince had just left to trade at another fair, and there was no one to give the money to. Ivan stood strong for a long time, but during a tea party in the tavern one of the most empty regulars accosted him. This little man always begged everyone for a drink, even though he insisted that he used to be a nobleman and once even came to the governor’s wife naked.
He started a florid conversation with Ivan, all the time begging for vodka. Ivan himself began to drink with him. This drunkard began to assure Ivan that he had “magnetism” and could save him from his passion for wine. But before evening they both got so drunk that they barely remembered themselves.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 12 – summary
Ivan was afraid that the “magnetizer” would rob him, and kept feeling for the large bundle of money in his bosom, but it lay there. When they both left the tavern, the rogue muttered some spells on the street, and then brought Ivan to a house with lighted windows, from where a guitar and loud voices could be heard - and disappeared somewhere.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 13 – summary
Entering the house, Ivan saw out of the corner of his eye how some gypsy “magnetizer” was leading out the back door with the words: “Here’s fifty dollars for you for now, and if it’s useful to us, we’ll give you more for bringing him.” Turning to Ivan, the same gypsy invited him to “listen to songs.”
In the large room, drunken Ivan saw a lot of people, and there were quite a few city rich people there. An indescribably beautiful gypsy girl, Grusha, walked among the audience with a tray. She treated the guests to champagne, and in return they put banknotes on the tray. At a sign from the older gypsy, this girl bowed and approached Ivan. The rich people began to wrinkle their noses: why does a man need champagne? And Ivan, having drunk a glass, threw the most money onto the tray: a hundred rubles from his bosom. Immediately several gypsies rushed to him and put him in the first row, next to the police officer.
The gypsy choir danced and sang. Pear sang the plaintive romance “Shuttle” in a languid voice and again went with the tray. Ivan threw in another hundred ruble. The pear kissed him for this - as if it stung him. The entire audience danced with the gypsies. Some young hussar began to hover around Grusha. Ivan jumped out between them and began throwing hundred-ruble notes one after another at Grusha’s feet. Then he grabbed the rest of the pile from his bosom and threw it away too.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 14 – summary
He himself did not remember how he got home. In the morning, the prince returned from another fair, having lost to smithereens. He began to ask Ivan for money for “revenge,” and he responded by telling how he had spent as much as five thousand on a gypsy woman. The prince was stunned, but did not reproach Ivan, saying: “I myself am just like you, dissolute.”
Ivan ended up in the hospital with delirium tremens, and when he came out, he went to the prince in the village to repent. But he told him that, having seen Grusha, he gave not five thousand, but fifty, so that she would be released to him from the camp. The prince turned his whole life upside down for the gypsy: he retired and mortgaged his estate.
Pear was already living in his village. Coming out to them, she sang a sad song about “sadness of the heart” with a guitar. The prince sobbed, sitting on the floor and hugging a gypsy shoe.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 15 – summary
The windy prince soon got bored with Pear. She felt sad and often told Ivan how jealousy tormented her.
The impoverished prince was looking for a way to recoup his losses. He often went to the city, and Grusha was worried: did he have a new passion there. The prince’s former love, the noble and kind Evgenya Semyonovna, lived in the city. She had a daughter from the prince, who bought the two of them an apartment house to provide for them, but he himself almost never visited them.
While in town once, Ivan stopped by to see Evgenya Semyonovna. Suddenly the prince also arrived. Evgenya hid Ivan in the dressing room, and he heard her entire conversation with the prince from there.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 16 – summary
The prince persuaded Evgenia to mortgage the house in order to get him twenty thousand thousand money. He explained that he wanted to get rich by buying a cloth factory and starting a trade in brightly colored fabrics. But Evgenia immediately guessed: the prince was simply going to give a deposit for the factory, become known as a rich man from this, marry the leader’s daughter - and get rich not from the cloth, but from her dowry. The prince admitted that this was his plan.
Noble Eugenia agreed to give a mortgage on the house, but asked the prince: where will he put his gypsy? The prince replied: Grusha is friends with Ivan, I will marry them and build them a house.
The prince began to purchase the factory, and sent Ivan as his confidant to the fair in Nizhny to collect orders. However, upon returning, Ivan saw that Grusha was no longer in the village. They said: the prince took her somewhere.
They were already preparing the wedding of the prince and the daughter of the leader. Ivan, yearning for Grusha, could not find a place for himself. Once, in excitement, he went out onto a steep river bank and in desperation began to call the gypsy. And she suddenly appeared out of nowhere and hung on his neck.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 17 – summary
All ragged, being at the end of her pregnancy, Grusha trembled with frantic jealousy. She kept repeating that she wanted to kill the prince’s bride, although she herself admitted that she was not guilty of anything.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 18 – summary
Grusha said that when Ivan was in Nizhny, the prince once invited her to ride in a stroller - and took her to some bee in the thicket of the forest, saying: now you will not live with me, but here, in a house under the supervision of three single-yard girls .
But Grusha soon managed to escape from there: she deceived the girls during a game of blind man's buff. Having eluded them, the gypsy went to the prince’s house - and then she met Ivan.
Pear asked Ivan to kill her, otherwise she herself would destroy the prince’s innocent bride. Taking a folding knife from Ivan’s pocket, she thrust it into his hands. Ivan pushed the knife away in horror, but Grusha said in rage: “If you don’t kill me, I will become the most shameful woman in revenge for all of you.” He couldn’t hit her with a knife, but he pushed her off a steep slope into the river, and the gypsy drowned.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 19 – summary
Ivan ran in despair wherever his eyes looked. It seemed to him that a pear soul in the form of a girl with wings was flying nearby. By chance he met an old man and an old woman riding in a cart. Having learned that they wanted to recruit their son, Ivan agreed, changing his name, to go into the army instead. So he thought at least partly to atone for his sins.
He fought in the Caucasus for more than fifteen years. In a battle near one gorge, where a river flowed below, several soldiers tried to swim to the other side under the gunfire of rebel mountaineers, but all died from bullets. When there were no other hunters left, the wanderer Ivan volunteered to do the same. Under a hail of shots, he reached the other side of the river and built a bridge. While swimming, Ivan had a vision: Pear was flying above him and blocking him with her wings.
For this feat he received an officer's rank, and soon - his resignation. But the officership did not bring wealth with it. Retired Ivan pushed around for some time, either in a small office position or as an actor in a booth, and then decided to go to a monastery for food. There he was assigned as a coachman.
Leskov “The Enchanted Wanderer”, chapter 20 – summary
Thus ended the ordeal of the enchanted wanderer. True, at the monastery Ivan was often bothered by demons at first, but he resisted them with fasting and fervent prayers. Ivan Severyanych began to read spiritual books, and from this he began to “prophesy” about an imminent war. The abbot sent him as a pilgrim to Solovki. On this trip, the wanderer met on Ladoga with the listeners of his story. He confessed the stories of his own life to them with all the frankness of a simple soul.