Read garnet bracelet. Kuprin garnet bracelet

The novel “The Garnet Bracelet” by A. Kuprin is rightfully considered one of the best, revealing the theme of love. The storyline is based on real events. The situation in which the main character of the novel found herself was actually experienced by the mother of the writer’s friend, Lyubimov. This work is named so for a reason. Indeed, for the author, “pomegranate” is a symbol of passionate, but very dangerous love.

The history of the novel

Most of A. Kuprin’s stories are permeated with the eternal theme of love, and the novel “The Garnet Bracelet” most vividly reproduces it. A. Kuprin began work on his masterpiece in the fall of 1910 in Odessa. The idea for this work was the writer’s visit to the Lyubimov family in St. Petersburg.

One day, Lyubimova’s son told an entertaining story about his mother’s secret admirer, who for many years wrote her letters with frank declarations of unrequited love. The mother was not delighted with this manifestation of feelings, because she had been married for a long time. At the same time, she had a higher social status in society than her admirer, a simple official P.P. Zheltikov. The situation was aggravated by a gift in the form of a red bracelet, given for the princess’s name day. At that time, this was a daring act and could cast a bad shadow on the lady’s reputation.

Lyubimova’s husband and brother paid a visit to the fan’s home, he was just writing another letter to his beloved. They returned the gift to the owner, asking not to disturb Lyubimova in the future. None of the family members knew about the further fate of the official.

The story that was told at the tea party hooked the writer. A. Kuprin decided to use it as the basis for his novel, which was somewhat modified and expanded. It should be noted that work on the novel was difficult, about which the author wrote to his friend Batyushkov in a letter on November 21, 1910. The work was published only in 1911, first published in the magazine “Earth”.

Analysis of the work

Description of the work

On her birthday, Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina receives an anonymous gift in the form of a bracelet, which is decorated with green stones - “garnets”. The gift was accompanied by a note, from which it became known that the bracelet belonged to the great-grandmother of the princess's secret admirer. The unknown person signed with the initials “G.S.” AND.". The princess is embarrassed by this present and remembers that for many years a stranger has been writing to her about his feelings.

The princess's husband, Vasily Lvovich Shein, and brother, Nikolai Nikolaevich, who worked as an assistant prosecutor, are looking for a secret writer. He turns out to be a simple official under the name Georgy Zheltkov. They return the bracelet to him and ask him to leave the woman alone. Zheltkov feels a sense of shame that Vera Nikolaevna could lose her reputation because of his actions. It turns out that he fell in love with her a long time ago, having accidentally seen her at the circus. Since then, he writes letters to her about unrequited love until his death several times a year.

The next day, the Shein family learns that official Georgy Zheltkov shot himself. He managed to write his last letter to Vera Nikolaevna, in which he asks for her forgiveness. He writes that his life no longer has meaning, but he still loves her. The only thing Zheltkov asks is that the princess not blame herself for his death. If this fact torments her, then let her listen to Beethoven’s Sonata No. 2 in his honor. The bracelet, which was returned to the official the day before, he ordered the maid to hang on the icon of the Mother of God before his death.

Vera Nikolaevna, having read the note, asks her husband for permission to look at the deceased. She arrives at the official's apartment, where she sees him dead. The lady kisses his forehead and places a bouquet of flowers on the deceased. When she returns home, she asks to play a piece by Beethoven, after which Vera Nikolaevna burst into tears. She realizes that “he” has forgiven her. At the end of the novel, Sheina realizes the loss of the great love that a woman can only dream of. Here she recalls the words of General Anosov: “Love should be a tragedy, the greatest secret in the world.”

Main characters

Princess, middle-aged woman. She is married, but her relationship with her husband has long grown into friendly feelings. She has no children, but she is always attentive to her husband and takes care of him. She has a bright appearance, is well educated, and is interested in music. But for more than 8 years she has been receiving strange letters from a fan of “G.S.Z.” This fact confuses her; she told her husband and family about it and does not reciprocate the writer’s feelings. At the end of the work, after the death of the official, she bitterly understands the severity of lost love, which happens only once in a life.

Official Georgy Zheltkov

A young man about 30-35 years old. Modest, poor, well-mannered. He is secretly in love with Vera Nikolaevna and writes about his feelings to her in letters. When the bracelet he had been given was returned to him and asked to stop writing to the princess, he commits an act of suicide, leaving a farewell note to the woman.

Vera Nikolaevna's husband. A good, cheerful man who truly loves his wife. But because of his love for constant social life, he is on the verge of ruin, which drags his family to the bottom.

The main character's younger sister. She is married to an influential young man, with whom she has 2 children. In marriage, she does not lose her feminine nature, loves to flirt, gambles, but is very pious. Anna is very attached to her older sister.

Nikolai Nikolaevich Mirza-Bulat-Tuganovsky

Brother of Vera and Anna Nikolaevna. He works as an assistant prosecutor, a very serious guy by nature, with strict rules. Nikolai is not wasteful, far from feelings of sincere love. It is he who asks Zheltkov to stop writing to Vera Nikolaevna.

General Anosov

An old military general, a former friend of the late father of Vera, Anna and Nikolai. A participant in the Russian-Turkish war, he was wounded. He has no family or children, but is close to Vera and Anna like his own father. He is even called “grandfather” in the Sheins’ house.

This work is full of different symbols and mysticism. It is based on the story of one man's tragic and unrequited love. At the end of the novel, the tragedy of the story takes on even greater proportions, because the heroine realizes the severity of loss and unconscious love.

Today the novel “The Garnet Bracelet” is very popular. It describes great feelings of love, sometimes even dangerous, lyrical, with a tragic ending. This has always been relevant among the population, because love is immortal. In addition, the main characters of the work are described very realistically. After the publication of the story, A. Kuprin gained high popularity.

Current page: 1 (book has 4 pages in total)

Alexander Kuprin
Garnet bracelet

L. van Beethoven. 2 Son. (op. 2, no. 2).

Largo Appassionato.

I

In mid-August, before the birth of the new month, disgusting weather suddenly set in, such as is so typical of the northern coast of the Black Sea. Then for whole days a thick fog lay heavily over the land and sea, and then the huge siren at the lighthouse roared day and night, like a mad bull. From morning to morning there was a continuous rain, fine as water dust, turning the clay roads and paths into solid thick mud, in which carts and carriages got stuck for a long time. Then a fierce hurricane blew from the northwest, from the side of the steppe; from it the tops of the trees swayed, bending and straightening, like waves in a storm, the iron roofs of the dachas rattled at night, and it seemed as if someone was running on them in shod boots; window frames shook, doors slammed, and the chimneys howled wildly. Several fishing boats got lost at sea, and two never returned: only a week later the corpses of fishermen were thrown up in different places on the shore.

The inhabitants of the suburban seaside resort - mostly Greeks and Jews, life-loving and suspicious, like all southerners - hastily moved to the city. Along the softened highway, drays stretched endlessly, overloaded with all sorts of household items: mattresses, sofas, chests, chairs, washbasins, samovars. It was pitiful, sad, and disgusting to look through the muddy muslin of the rain at this pitiful belongings, which seemed so worn out, dirty and miserable; at the maids and cooks sitting on top of the cart on a wet tarpaulin with some irons, tins and baskets in their hands, at the sweaty, exhausted horses, which stopped every now and then, trembling at the knees, smoking and often skidding on their sides, at the hoarsely cursing tramps, wrapped from the rain in matting. It was even sadder to see abandoned dachas with their sudden spaciousness, emptiness and bareness, with mutilated flowerbeds, broken glass, abandoned dogs and all sorts of dacha rubbish from cigarette butts, pieces of paper, shards, boxes and apothecary bottles.

But by the beginning of September the weather suddenly changed dramatically and completely unexpectedly. Quiet, cloudless days immediately arrived, so clear, sunny and warm, which were not there even in July. On the dried, compressed fields, on their prickly yellow stubble, an autumn cobweb glistened with a mica sheen. The calmed trees silently and obediently dropped their yellow leaves.

Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina, the wife of the leader of the nobility, could not leave the dacha because the renovations in their city house had not yet been completed. And now she was very happy about the wonderful days that had come, the silence, solitude, clean air, the chirping of swallows on the telegraph wires, huddled together to fly away, and the gentle salty breeze blowing weakly from the sea.

II

In addition, today was her name day - the seventeenth of September. According to the sweet, distant memories of her childhood, she always loved this day and always expected something happily wonderful from it. Her husband, leaving in the morning on urgent business in the city, put a case with beautiful earrings made of pear-shaped pearls on her night table, and this gift amused her even more.

She was alone in the whole house. Her single brother Nikolai, a fellow prosecutor, who usually lived with them, also went to the city, to court. For dinner, my husband promised to bring a few and only his closest acquaintances. It turned out well that the name day coincided with summer time. In the city, one would have to spend money on a big ceremonial dinner, perhaps even a ball, but here, at the dacha, one could get by with the smallest expenses. Prince Shein, despite his prominent position in society, and perhaps thanks to it, barely made ends meet. The huge family estate was almost completely destroyed by his ancestors, and he had to live beyond his means: to host parties, do charity work, dress well, keep horses, etc. Princess Vera, whose former passionate love for her husband had long since turned into a feeling of strong, faithful, true friendship, tried with all her might to help the prince refrain from complete ruin. She denied herself many things, unnoticed by him, and saved as much as possible in the household.

Now she walked around the garden and carefully cut flowers with scissors for the dinner table. The flower beds were empty and looked disorganized. Multi-colored double carnations were blooming, as well as gillyflower - half in flowers, and half in thin green pods that smelled like cabbage; the rose bushes were still producing - for the third time this summer - buds and roses, but already shredded, sparse, as if degenerate. But dahlias, peonies and asters bloomed magnificently with their cold, arrogant beauty, spreading an autumnal, grassy, sad smell in the sensitive air. The remaining flowers, after their luxurious love and excessively abundant summer motherhood, quietly sprinkled countless seeds of future life onto the ground.

Close by on the highway the familiar sounds of a three-ton car horn were heard. It was Princess Vera’s sister, Anna Nikolaevna Friesse, who had promised by phone in the morning to come and help her sister receive guests and do housework.

The subtle hearing did not deceive Vera. She went forward. A few minutes later, an elegant car-carriage stopped abruptly at the country gate, and the driver, deftly jumping from the seat, opened the door.

The sisters kissed joyfully. From early childhood they were attached to each other with a warm and caring friendship. In appearance, they were strangely not similar to each other. The eldest, Vera, took after her mother, a beautiful Englishwoman, with her tall, flexible figure, gentle but cold and proud face, beautiful, although rather large hands and that charming sloping shoulders that can be seen in ancient miniatures. The youngest, Anna, on the contrary, inherited the Mongolian blood of her father, a Tatar prince, whose grandfather was baptized only at the beginning of the 19th century and whose ancient family went back to Tamerlane himself, or Lang-Temir, as her father proudly called her, in Tatar, this great bloodsucker. She was half a head shorter than her sister, somewhat broad in the shoulders, lively and frivolous, a mocker. Her face was of a strongly Mongolian type with quite noticeable cheekbones, with narrow eyes, which she also squinted due to myopia, with an arrogant expression in her small, sensual mouth, especially in her full lower lip slightly protruded forward - this face, however, captivated some then an elusive and incomprehensible charm, which consisted, perhaps, in a smile, perhaps in the deep femininity of all features, perhaps in a piquant, perky, flirtatious facial expression. Her graceful ugliness excited and attracted the attention of men much more often and more strongly than the aristocratic beauty of her sister.

She was married to a very rich and very stupid man who did absolutely nothing, but was registered with some charitable institution and had the rank of chamber cadet. She couldn’t stand her husband, but she gave birth to two children from him - a boy and a girl; She decided not to have any more children and did not have any more. As for Vera, she greedily wanted children and even, it seemed to her, the more the better, but for some reason they were not born to her, and she painfully and ardently adored her younger sister’s pretty, anemic children, always decent and obedient, with pale, mealy cheeks. faces and with curled flaxen doll hair.

Anna was all about cheerful carelessness and sweet, sometimes strange contradictions. She willingly indulged in the most risky flirtations in all the capitals and resorts of Europe, but she never cheated on her husband, whom, however, she contemptuously ridiculed both to his face and behind his back; she was wasteful, loved gambling, dancing, strong impressions, thrilling spectacles, visited dubious cafes abroad, but at the same time she was distinguished by generous kindness and deep, sincere piety, which forced her to even secretly accept Catholicism. She had a rare beauty of back, chest and shoulders. When going to big balls, she exposed herself much more than the limits allowed by decency and fashion, but they said that under her low neckline she always wore a hair shirt.

Vera was strictly simple, cold with everyone and a little patronizingly kind, independent and royally calm.

III

- My God, how good it is here! How good! - Anna said, walking with quick and small steps next to her sister along the path. – If possible, let’s sit for a while on a bench over the cliff. I haven't seen the sea for so long. And what a wonderful air: you breathe - and your heart is happy. In Crimea, in Miskhor, last summer I made an amazing discovery. Do you know what sea water smells like during the surf? Imagine - mignonette.

Vera smiled affectionately:

- You are a dreamer.

- No no. I also remember once everyone laughed at me when I said that there was some kind of pink tint in the moonlight. And the other day the artist Boritsky - the one who paints my portrait - agreed that I was right and that artists have known about this for a long time.

– Is being an artist your new hobby?

- You will always come up with ideas! - Anna laughed and, quickly approaching the very edge of the cliff, which fell like a sheer wall deep into the sea, she looked down and suddenly screamed in horror and recoiled back with a pale face.

- Wow, how high! – she said in a weakened and trembling voice. - When I look from such a height, I always have a sweet and disgusting tickling in my chest... and my toes ache... And yet it pulls, pulls...

She wanted to bend over the cliff again, but her sister stopped her.

– Anna, my dear, for God’s sake! I get dizzy myself when you do that. Please sit down.

- Well, okay, okay, I sat down... But just look, what beauty, what joy - the eye just can’t get enough of it. If you only knew how grateful I am to God for all the miracles he has done for us!

They both thought for a moment. Deep, deep below them lay the sea. The shore was not visible from the bench, and therefore the feeling of the infinity and grandeur of the sea expanse intensified even more. The water was tenderly calm and cheerfully blue, brightening only in slanting smooth stripes in places of flow and turning into a deep deep blue color on the horizon.

Fishing boats, difficult to spot with the eye - they seemed so small - dozed motionless in the surface of the sea, not far from the shore. And then, as if standing in the air, without moving forward, was a three-masted ship, all dressed from top to bottom with monotonous white slender sails, bulging from the wind.

“I understand you,” the older sister said thoughtfully, “but somehow my life is different from yours.” When I see the sea for the first time after a long time, it excites me, makes me happy, and amazes me. It’s as if I’m seeing a huge, solemn miracle for the first time. But then, when I get used to it, it begins to crush me with its flat emptiness... I miss looking at it, and I try not to look anymore. It gets boring.

Anna smiled.

-What are you doing? - asked the sister.

“Last summer,” Anna said slyly, “we rode from Yalta in a large cavalcade on horseback to Uch-Kosh. It's there, behind the forestry, above the waterfall. At first we got into a cloud, it was very damp and hard to see, and we all climbed up a steep path between the pine trees. And suddenly the forest suddenly ended and we came out of the fog. Imagine: a narrow platform on a rock, and there is an abyss under our feet. The villages below seem no bigger than a matchbox, the forests and gardens look like small grass. The entire area slopes down to the sea, like a geographical map. And then there’s the sea! Fifty or a hundred versts ahead. It seemed to me that I was hanging in the air and was about to fly. Such beauty, such lightness! I turn around and say to the conductor in delight: “What? Okay, Seid-ogly? And he just smacked his tongue: “Eh, master, I’m so tired of all this. We see it every day.”

“Thank you for the comparison,” Vera laughed, “no, I just think that we northerners will never understand the beauty of the sea.” I love the forest. Do you remember the forest in Yegorovskoye?.. Can it ever get boring? Pines!.. And what mosses!.. And fly agarics! Exactly made of red satin and embroidered with white beads. The silence is so... cool.

“I don’t care, I love everything,” Anna answered. “And most of all I love my sister, my prudent Verenka.” There are only two of us in the world.

She hugged her older sister and pressed herself against her, cheek to cheek. And suddenly I realized it. - No, how stupid I am! You and I, as if in a novel, are sitting and talking about nature, and I completely forgot about my gift. Look at this. I'm just afraid, will you like it?

She took from her hand bag a small notebook in an amazing binding: on the old, worn and grayed blue velvet, curled a dull gold filigree pattern of rare complexity, subtlety and beauty - obviously the labor of love of the hands of a skillful and patient artist. The book was attached to a gold chain as thin as a thread, the leaves in the middle were replaced by ivory tablets.

– What a wonderful thing! Lovely! – Vera said and kissed her sister. - Thank you. Where did you get such a treasure?

- In an antique shop. You know my weakness for rummaging through old trash. So I came across this prayer book. Look, you see how the ornament here creates the shape of a cross. True, I found only one binding, everything else had to be invented - leaves, clasps, a pencil. But Mollinet did not want to understand me at all, no matter how I interpreted it to him. The fasteners had to be in the same style as the whole pattern, matte, old gold, fine carving, and God knows what he did. But the chain is real Venetian, very ancient.

Vera affectionately stroked the beautiful binding.

– What a deep antiquity!.. How old can this book be? – she asked. – I'm afraid to determine exactly. Approximately the end of the seventeenth century, mid-eighteenth...

“How strange,” Vera said with a thoughtful smile. “Here I am holding in my hands something that, perhaps, was touched by the hands of the Marquise of Pompadour or Queen Antoinette herself... But you know, Anna, only you could have come up with the crazy idea of turning a prayer book into a ladies’ carnet 1
Notebook ( French).

However, let’s still go and see what’s going on there.

They entered the house through a large stone terrace, covered on all sides by thick trellises of Isabella grapes. Black abundant clusters, emitting a faint smell of strawberries, hung heavily among the dark greenery, gilded here and there by the sun. A green half-light spread across the entire terrace, causing the women’s faces to immediately turn pale.

-Are you ordering it to be covered here? – Anna asked.

– Yes, I thought so myself at first... But now the evenings are so cold. It's better in the dining room. Let the men go here and smoke.

– Will there be anyone interesting?

- I do not know yet. I only know that our grandfather will be there.

- Oh, dear grandfather. What a joy! – Anna exclaimed and clasped her hands. “It seems like I haven’t seen him for a hundred years.”

– There will be Vasya’s sister and, it seems, Professor Speshnikov. Yesterday, Annenka, I just lost my head. You know that they both love to eat - both the grandfather and the professor. But neither here nor in the city you can get anything for any money. Luka found quails somewhere - he ordered them from a hunter he knew - and he’s playing tricks on them. The roast beef turned out to be relatively good - alas! – inevitable roast beef. Very good crayfish.

- Well, it’s not so bad. Don't worry. However, between us, you yourself have a weakness for tasty food.

“But there will also be something rare.” This morning a fisherman brought a sea rooster. I saw it myself. Just some kind of monster. It's even scary.

Anna, greedily curious about everything that concerned her and what did not concern her, immediately demanded that they bring her the sea cock.

The tall, shaved, yellow-faced cook Luka arrived with a large elongated white tub, which he held with difficulty and carefully by the ears, afraid of spilling water on the parquet floor.

“Twelve and a half pounds, your Excellency,” he said with special chef’s pride. - We weighed it just now.

The fish was too big for the tub and lay on the bottom with its tail curled up. Its scales shimmered with gold, its fins were bright red, and from its huge predatory muzzle two long pale blue wings, folded like a fan, extended to the sides. The gurnard was still alive and was working hard with its gills.

The younger sister carefully touched the fish's head with her little finger. But the rooster suddenly flicked his tail, and Anna pulled her hand away with a squeal.

“Don’t worry, your Excellency, we’ll arrange everything in the best possible way,” said the cook, who obviously understood Anna’s anxiety. – Now the Bulgarian brought two melons. Pineapple. Kind of like cantaloupes, but the smell is much more aromatic. And I also dare to ask your Excellency what kind of sauce would you order to serve with the rooster: tartar or Polish, or maybe just breadcrumbs in butter?

- Do as you please. Go! - ordered the princess.

IV

After five o'clock the guests began to arrive. Prince Vasily Lvovich brought with him his widowed sister Lyudmila Lvovna, by her husband Durasov, a plump, good-natured and unusually silent woman; the secular young rich scoundrel and reveler Vasyuchkb, whom the whole city knew by this familiar name, very pleasant in society with his ability to sing and recite, as well as organize live pictures, performances and charity bazaars; the famous pianist Jenny Reiter, a friend of Princess Vera at the Smolny Institute, as well as her brother-in-law Nikolai Nikolaevich. Anna's husband came to pick them up in a car, with the fat, shaven, ugly huge Professor Speshnikov and the local vice-governor von Seck. General Anosov arrived later than the others, in a good hired landau, accompanied by two officers: staff Colonel Ponamarev, a prematurely aged, thin, bilious man, exhausted by back-breaking office work, and the guards hussar lieutenant Bakhtinsky, who was famous in St. Petersburg as the best dancer and incomparable ball manager .

General Anosov, a corpulent, tall, silver-haired old man, climbed heavily from the step, holding on to the handrails of the box with one hand and the rear of the carriage with the other. In his left hand he held an ear horn, and in his right hand a stick with a rubber tip. He had a large, rough, red face with a fleshy nose and with that good-natured, stately, slightly contemptuous expression in his narrowed eyes, arranged in radiant, swollen semicircles, which is characteristic of courageous and simple people who have often seen danger and danger close in front of their eyes. death. Both sisters, who recognized him from a distance, ran up to the carriage just in time to half-jokingly, half-seriously support him by the arms on both sides.

- Exactly... the bishop! - said the general in a gentle, hoarse bass.

- Grandfather, dear, dear! – Vera said in a tone of slight reproach. “We are waiting for you every day, but at least you showed your eyes.”

“Our grandfather in the south lost all conscience,” Anna laughed. – One might, it seems, remember about the goddaughter. And you behave like a Don Juan, shameless, and have completely forgotten about our existence...

The general, baring his majestic head, kissed the hands of both sisters in turn, then kissed them on the cheeks and again on the hand.

“Girls... wait... don’t scold,” he said, interspersing each word with sighs that came from long-standing shortness of breath. - Honestly... unhappy doctors... all summer they bathed my rheumatism... in some dirty... jelly... it smells terrible... And they didn’t let me out... You are the first... to whom I came... Terribly glad... to see you... How are you jumping?.. You, Verochka ... quite a lady... has become very similar... to my deceased mother... When will you call me to baptize?

- Oh, I'm afraid, grandfather, that I never...

– Don’t despair... everything is ahead... Pray to God... And you, Anya, haven’t changed at all... Even at sixty years old... you will be the same dragonfly. Wait a minute. Let me introduce you to the gentlemen officers.

– I have had this honor for a long time! - Colonel Ponamarev said, bowing.

“I was introduced to the princess in St. Petersburg,” the hussar picked up.

- Well, then, Anya, I’ll introduce you to Lieutenant Bakhtinsky. A dancer and brawler, but a good cavalryman. Take it out of the stroller, Bakhtinsky, my dear... Let's go, girls... What, Verochka, will you feed? I have... after the estuary regime... an appetite like a graduation... of an ensign.

General Anosov was a comrade in arms and a devoted friend of the late Prince Mirza-Bulat-Tuganovsky. After the death of the prince, he transferred all his tender friendship and love to his daughters. He knew them when they were very young, and even baptized the youngest Anna. At that time - as until now - he was the commandant of a large but almost abolished fortress in the city of K. and visited the Tuganovskys’ house every day. Children simply adored him for his pampering, for his gifts, for his boxes at the circus and theater, and for the fact that no one could play with them as excitingly as Anosov. But most of all they were fascinated and most firmly imprinted in their memory were his stories about military campaigns, battles and bivouacs, about victories and retreats, about death, wounds and severe frosts - leisurely, epically calm, simple-hearted stories told between evening tea and that boring hour when the children are called to bed.

According to modern customs, this fragment of antiquity seemed to be a gigantic and unusually picturesque figure. He combined precisely those simple, but touching and deep features that even in his time were much more common in privates than in officers, those purely Russian, peasant features that, when combined, give a sublime image that sometimes made our soldier not only invincible , but also a great martyr, almost a saint - traits that consisted of an ingenuous, naive faith, a clear, good-natured and cheerful outlook on life, cold and businesslike courage, humility in the face of death, pity for the vanquished, endless patience and amazing physical and moral endurance.

Anosov, starting with the Polish war, participated in all campaigns except the Japanese one. He would have gone to this war without hesitation, but he was not called, and he always had a great rule of modesty: “Do not go to your death until you are called.” During his entire service, he not only never flogged, but never even hit a single soldier. During the Polish rebellion, he once refused to shoot prisoners, despite the personal order of the regimental commander. “I will not only shoot the spy,” he said, “but, if you order, I will personally kill him. And these are prisoners, and I can’t.” And he said it so simply, respectfully, without a hint of challenge or panache, looking straight into the boss’s eyes with his clear, firm eyes, that, instead of shooting him himself, they left him alone.

During the war of 1877–1879, he very quickly rose to the rank of colonel, despite the fact that he had little education, or, as he himself put it, he only graduated from the “bear academy.” He took part in the crossing of the Danube, crossed the Balkans, sat out on Shipka, and was at the last attack of Plevna; He was seriously wounded once, lightly four times, and, in addition, he received a severe concussion in the head from a grenade fragment. Radetzky and Skobelev knew him personally and treated him with exceptional respect. It was about him that Skobelev once said: “I know one officer who is much braver than me - this is Major Anosov.”

He returned from the war almost deaf thanks to a grenade fragment, with a sore leg on which three fingers had been amputated, frostbitten during the Balkan crossing, with severe rheumatism acquired in Shipka. They wanted to retire him after two years of peaceful service, but Anosov became stubborn. Here the head of the region, a living witness of his cold-blooded courage when crossing the Danube, very helpfully helped him with his influence. In St. Petersburg they decided not to upset the honored colonel, and he was given a lifelong position as commandant in the city of K. - a position more honorable than necessary for the purposes of state defense.

Everyone in the city knew him, young and old, and laughed good-naturedly at his weaknesses, habits and manner of dressing. He always walked without weapons, in an old-fashioned frock coat, in a cap with large brims and a huge straight visor, with a stick in his right hand, with an ear horn in his left, and always accompanied by two obese, lazy, hoarse pugs, who always had the tip of their tongue stuck out and bitten. If during his usual morning walk he happened to meet acquaintances, then passers-by several blocks away heard the commandant shouting and how his pugs barked in unison after him.

Like many deaf people, he was a passionate lover of opera, and sometimes, during some languid duet, his decisive bass voice could suddenly be heard throughout the entire theater: “But he took it clean, damn it! It’s like cracking a nut.” Restrained laughter echoed through the theater, but the general did not even suspect it: in his naivety, he thought that he had exchanged a fresh impression with his neighbor in a whisper.

As a commandant, he quite often, together with his wheezing pugs, visited the main guardhouse, where the arrested officers very comfortably took a break from the hardships of military service over wine, tea and jokes. He carefully asked everyone: “What is the last name? Planted by whom? How long? For what?" Sometimes, quite unexpectedly, he praised the officer for a brave, albeit illegal, act, sometimes he began to scold him, shouting so that he could be heard on the street. But, having shouted his fill, he, without any transitions or pauses, inquired where the officer was getting his lunch from and how much he was paying for it. It happened that some errant second lieutenant, sent for a long-term imprisonment from such a remote place, where there was not even a guardhouse of its own, admitted that, due to lack of money, he was content with the soldier’s cauldron. Anosov immediately ordered that lunch be brought to the poor man from the commandant's house, from which the guardhouse was no more than two hundred steps away.

In the city of K. he became close to the Tuganovsky family and became so closely attached to the children that it became a spiritual need for him to see them every evening. If it happened that the young ladies went out somewhere or the service detained the general himself, then he was sincerely sad and did not find a place for himself in the large rooms of the commandant’s house. Every summer he took a vacation and spent a whole month on the Tuganovskys’ estate, Egorovsky, which was fifty miles away from K.

He transferred all his hidden tenderness of soul and the need for heartfelt love to these children, especially to girls. He himself was once married, but so long ago that he even forgot about it. Even before the war, his wife ran away from him with a passing actor, captivated by his velvet jacket and lace cuffs. The general sent her a pension until her death, but did not let her into his house, despite scenes of repentance and tearful letters. They had no children.

Towards the end of the summer holiday it became very cold. Summer residents began to return home. Princess Vera decided to stay behind and celebrate her birthday in a small circle, since Prince Vasily, Vera’s husband, had recently been short on funds. Therefore, Vera Nikolaevna tried to save unnoticed.

Later the weather improved: the rains stopped and the wind died down. The princess's sister Anna Nikolaevna came to help prepare for the celebration. The sisters decided to take advantage of the sunny weather and walk along the cliff, admiring the sea. They hadn't seen each other for a long time, so they couldn't talk enough.

In the evening, guests began to arrive. The sisters were especially happy about General Anosov; in his youth he served with their father. Prince Vasily, as usual, told the assembled guests interesting incidents that had happened to his relatives and friends. Everyone listened to him with pleasure. After the festive dinner, the guests gathered to play cards. Princess Vera was detained by a maid who handed her a small package. Vera Nikolaevna took out a bracelet with bright red garnets and a letter from it. The handwriting was familiar to her. Vera has received messages from a mysterious admirer more than once. In a short message, he congratulated Vera and asked her to accept his modest gift.

In the evening, Princess Vera told her husband about the gift. The next day, the prince and Vera Nikolaevna’s brother found the man who had sent him. He turned out to be a young official named Zheltkov. He frankly told the prince that he saw Vera for the first time even before marriage and could not forget her. Love for her became the meaning of his life. Vasily Lvovich even felt sorry for this young man. But he returned the bracelet to him and asked him to leave his wife alone. And he vowed not to disturb their family anymore.

In the morning, Vera Nikolaevna learned from the newspapers about Zheltkov’s death. The money he spent was considered the basis for suicide. Among the morning correspondence, the princess found a simple note. In it, Zheltkov conveyed sincere wishes to Vera for happiness, goodness and peace. Princess Vera expressed a desire to go to the apartment where Zheltkov lived and say goodbye to him. The mistress of the house showed the room where he was lying. Princess Vera had never met this man, but she was struck by the expression of peace and happiness on his face. When Vera said goodbye to the owner of the apartment, she told her that Zheltkov considered Sonata No. 2 to be Beethoven’s best creation.

At home, Princess Vera was waiting for her friend, a talented pianist. At Vera’s request, she sat down at the piano and played for her a Beethoven sonata, which Zheltkov loved so much. The last chords died down, and Vera Nikolaevna felt relief, as if the music had helped her remove the feeling of involuntary guilt from her soul.

The story teaches you to respect other people's feelings, treat your loved ones with care, and cherish mutual trust and respect.

Retelling of the Garnet Bracelet in chapters

Chapter 1

The action of the story takes place at the dacha of Vera Nikolaevna Shein and her husband, which is located on the shores of the Black Sea. The weather in mid-August was bad, there were heavy rains, but due to repairs in the city, it was not possible to leave the dacha. But at the beginning of September the rainy season ends and good weather returns.

Chapter 2

The story takes place on one day, namely Vera Nikolaevna’s name day.

She is married to the leader of the nobility. Love for her husband has long grown into a tender friendship. She is glad to have the opportunity to celebrate her name day at the dacha, because... This freed me from the need for unnecessary expenses. It so happened that her husband, due to his status, was obliged to lead a proper lifestyle: organize evenings, keep horses, etc. - but his family estate was undermined, they lived beyond their means. Trying to somehow alleviate the situation, Vera tries to be more restrained in spending.

Her sister comes to visit her. Anna Nikolaevna Friesse. The women are very different both in appearance and in character, but they sincerely love each other. If Vera inherited the restrained aristocratic beauty of her English mother, then Anna took after her Tatar father. Unlike her older sister, Anna Nikolaevna was wasteful and was not shy about her desires. She was married to a wealthy man, whom she did not respect at all, which she told him straight to his face, but, despite all her antics, she remained a faithful wife.

Chapter 3

The sisters go for a walk along the shore. They discuss the beauty of the sea, when Vera remembers the forest in Yegorovskoye, Anna Nikolaevna hands her sister a prayer book. She bought it from an antique shop and decorated it to her taste. The gift simultaneously fascinates the birthday girl, because it could have belonged to some famous woman in the past, but at the same time she is amused by the idea of turning the prayer book into a woman’s notebook.

When they return to the house, Vera shares with her younger sister her worries about the difficulty of setting a good table. And she says that in the morning they brought her a sea cock, which they will serve in the evening. The younger sister immediately wanted to look at the amazing animal that was lying alive in the bucket.

Chapter 4

In the evening, guests begin to arrive: Prince Vasily Lvovich and his sister Lyudmila Lvovna, the young reveler Vasyuchka, the pianist Jenny Reiter, then the husband of the birthday girl with Professor Speshkov. Later than everyone else, Vera's named grandfather arrives, accompanied by 2 officers.

Staff Colonel Anosov, the named grandfather of the sisters. She once served alongside their father, and loved the sisters very much as if they were her own daughters. He was an extraordinary, respected man, the type of ideal officer.

Chapter 5

At first, Prince Vasily Lvovich entertained the guests with funny stories; he took the basis from the life of the guests, but exaggerated the colors and came up with absurdities, which made them funny. After dinner, the guests sat down to play poker. While still at the table, Vera counted the guests, being superstitious, she was embarrassed by the fact that there were 13 of them. While everyone was sitting down to poker, she decided to leave when they handed her the package. The unknown person handed her a package containing a case and a letter. The case contained a garnet bracelet, and the letter explained that it was a gift for the birthday girl. The author claims that he already wrote letters to her 7 years ago. He doesn't need anything from her. And the bracelet itself previously belonged to his grandmother and mother.

Chapter 6

The evening continues, everyone relaxes and has fun. Prince Vasily Lvovich shows his album to his sister and Anosov. At first he tells a humorous story about his sister. And then, in the same manner, he takes on the story of Vera and the telegraph operator. The woman initially asked him to stop, but he continued. From the story it becomes clear that 7 years ago the telegraph operator began writing love letters to her, and she told her fiance, her current husband, about everything. Six months later she got married.

To change the subject, Vera invites everyone to tea.

Chapter 7

In the evening the guests began to gradually leave. The remaining guests sat on the terrace. Anosov told his war stories, and the guests listened to him with interest. Naturally, he came to the story of how he met and fell in love with a girl in Bulgaria, but soon the campaign continued and he left those places. Here a friendly argument arose between the guests about whether it was love, and whether it exists at all. The colonel admitted that he was not sure that he was in love, he was busy all the time, there was no time for that.

Vera goes to see off her grandfather, and asks her husband to go into the office and look at the case and letter she left there.

Chapter 8

As Vera saw off the colonel, she had a friendly conversation with him. Their conversation turned to marriage and love. Anosov says that there is no love in marriage, but only practical calculation. And true love does not require anything in return. He remembers only 2 stories from his life, about tragic love. Vera tells him a story about a petty official who wrote letters to her. She answered him only once, when she asked him not to write anymore. And the fan began to write rarely, on major holidays, and sent a gift on this day. To this the fan replied that perhaps this was the same love that crossed Vera’s life. After that he left.

Chapter 9

Returning to the house, Vera finds her husband and brother talking. Her brother is furious about the gift the stranger sent him. He believes that he needs to be returned, the spouses agree with him. He offers to find a fan, return the gift and threaten. At first, he suggests turning to superior friends or gendarmes, but fearing the fuss, the two men decide to meet with him and resolve this issue.

Chapter 10

Vera Nikolaevna's brother and husband find a suitor. It turns out that this is a simple thin man, he is very nervous around guests, but Vera’s brother behaves impudently. He returns the gift and begins a tirade asking Zheltkov to stop writing to his sister. When in his speech he reaches the point that at first he wanted to appeal to the authorities, Zheltkov laughed. He says that he will never be able to stop loving Vera; no one can change this. He asks her husband for permission to call her and say goodbye to her forever. The prince gives his consent. When Zheltkov returns, he looks upset and promises to disappear from their lives forever. Returning home, the prince finds his wife upset, and at night when he came to her, she drove him away, saying that she knew that Zheltkov would kill himself.

Chapter 11

Vera Nikolaevna did not have the habit of reading newspapers, but it was on this day that she opened this particular page. It was written there about the death of Zheltkov, who committed suicide, explaining this by embezzlement of government money. Then they bring a letter from him. He sincerely admits his feelings for Vera. Says goodbye to her. Vera Nikolaevna comes to her husband in tears with a letter. He tells her that he saw that this man loved her. She decides to go and look at Zheltkov. Her husband supports her in this decision.

Chapter 12

Vera arrives at Zheltkov’s apartment. The landlady meets her and tells her that 2 men came the day before. Also about the fact that the deceased asked to hang the garnet bracelet on the icon. When they enter the room, the hostess leaves Vera alone with Zheltkov. She puts a rose in his coffin. She understands that this was the very love that every woman dreams of. She kisses the dead man on the forehead and leaves. Before leaving, the hostess gives her a note with the number of a Beethoven sonata, which Zheltkov left, in case Vera comes to see him.

Chapter 13

Vera returns to the house. There is no one there except her pianist friend. She asks her to play something and goes to the park. She had no doubt that this would be the same sonata whose number Zheltkov left in the note. She remembers her grandfather's words about true love, words from fan letters. She can't hold back her tears. Her friend finds her in this state. But Vera already knows that even though her and Zheltkov’s love was short-lived, he forgave her.

You can use this text for a reader's diary

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A. I. Kuprin

Garnet bracelet

L. van Beethoven. 2 Son. (op. 2, no. 2).

Largo Appassionato

In mid-August, before the birth of the new month, disgusting weather suddenly set in, such as is so typical of the northern coast of the Black Sea. Then for whole days a thick fog lay heavily over the land and sea, and then the huge siren at the lighthouse roared day and night, like a mad bull. From morning to morning there was a continuous rain, fine as water dust, turning the clay roads and paths into solid thick mud, in which carts and carriages got stuck for a long time. Then a fierce hurricane blew from the northwest, from the direction of the steppe; from it the tops of the trees swayed, bending and straightening up, like waves in a storm, the iron roofs of the dachas rattled at night, it seemed as if someone was running on them in shod boots, window frames trembled, doors slammed, and there was a wild howl in the chimneys. Several fishing boats got lost at sea, and two never returned: only a week later the corpses of fishermen were thrown up in different places on the shore.

Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina, the wife of the leader of the nobility, could not leave the dacha because the renovations in their city house had not yet been completed. And now she was very happy about the wonderful days that had come, the silence, solitude, clean air, the chirping of the swallows on the telegraph wires as they flocked to take off, and the gentle salty breeze blowing weakly from the sea.

In addition, today was her name day - September 17th. According to the sweet, distant memories of her childhood, she always loved this day and always expected something happily wonderful from it. Her husband, leaving in the morning on urgent business in the city, put a case with beautiful earrings made of pear-shaped pearls on her night table, and this gift amused her even more.

Close by on the highway the familiar sounds of a three-ton car horn were heard. It was Princess Vera's sister, Anna Nikolaevna Friesse, who had promised by telephone to come in the morning to help her sister receive guests and do housework.

The sisters kissed joyfully. From early childhood they were attached to each other with a warm and caring friendship. In appearance, they were strangely not similar to each other. The eldest, Vera, took after her mother, a beautiful Englishwoman, with her tall, flexible figure, gentle but cold and proud face, beautiful, although rather large hands and that charming sloping shoulders that can be seen in ancient miniatures. The youngest, Anna, on the contrary, inherited the Mongol blood of her father, a Tatar prince, whose grandfather was baptized only at the beginning of the 19th century and whose ancient family went back to Tamerlane himself, or Lang-Temir, as her father proudly called her, in Tatar, this great bloodsucker. She was half a head shorter than her sister, somewhat broad in the shoulders, lively and frivolous, a mocker. Her face was of a strongly Mongolian type with quite noticeable cheekbones, with narrow eyes, which she also squinted due to myopia, with an arrogant expression in her small, sensual mouth, especially in her full lower lip slightly protruded forward - this face, however, captivated some then an elusive and incomprehensible charm, which consisted, perhaps, in a smile, perhaps in the deep femininity of all features, perhaps in a piquant, perky, flirtatious facial expression. Her graceful ugliness excited and attracted the attention of men much more often and more strongly than the aristocratic beauty of her sister.

She was married to a very rich and very stupid man who did absolutely nothing, but was registered with some charitable institution and had the rank of chamber cadet. She could not stand her husband, but gave birth to two children from him - a boy and a girl; She decided not to have any more children and did not have any more. As for Vera, she greedily wanted children and even, it seemed to her, the more the better, but for some reason they were not born to her, and she painfully and ardently adored her younger sister’s pretty, anemic children, always decent and obedient, with pale, mealy hair. faces and with curled flaxen doll hair.

Vera was strictly simple, cold with everyone and a little patronizingly kind, independent and royally calm.

My God, how good it is here! How good! - Anna said, walking with quick and small steps next to her sister along the path. - If possible, let’s sit for a while on a bench above the cliff. I haven't seen the sea for so long. And what a wonderful air: you breathe - and your heart is happy. In Crimea, in Miskhor, last summer I made an amazing discovery. Do you know what sea water smells like during the surf? Imagine - mignonette.

Vera smiled affectionately:

You are a dreamer.

No no. I also remember once everyone laughed at me when I said that there was some kind of pink tint in the moonlight. And the other day the artist Boritsky - the one who paints my portrait - agreed that I was right and that artists have known about this for a long time.

Is being an artist your new hobby?

You'll always come up with something! - Anna laughed and, quickly approaching the very edge of the cliff, which fell like a sheer wall deep into the sea, looked down and suddenly screamed in horror and recoiled back with a pale face.

Wow, how high! - she said in a weakened and trembling voice. - When I look from such a height, I always have a sweet and disgusting tickling in my chest... and my toes ache... And yet it pulls, pulls...

She wanted to bend over the cliff again, but her sister stopped her.

Anna, my dear, for God's sake! I get dizzy myself when you do that. Please sit down.

Well, okay, okay, I sat down... But just look, what beauty, what joy - the eye just can’t get enough of it. If you only knew how grateful I am to God for all the miracles he has done for us!

Fishing boats, difficult to spot with the eye - they seemed so small - were dozing motionless in the surface of the sea, not far from the shore. And then, as if standing in the air, without moving forward, was a three-masted ship, all dressed from top to bottom with monotonous white slender sails, bulging from the wind.

“I understand you,” the older sister said thoughtfully, “but somehow it’s not the same with me as with you.” When I see the sea for the first time after a long time, it excites me, makes me happy, and amazes me. It’s as if I’m seeing a huge, solemn miracle for the first time. But then, when I get used to it, it begins to crush me with its flat emptiness... I miss looking at it, and I try not to look anymore. It gets boring.

Anna smiled.

What are you doing? - asked the sister.

“Last summer,” Anna said slyly, “we rode from Yalta in a large cavalcade on horseback to Uch-Kosh. It's there, behind the forestry, above the waterfall. At first we got into a cloud, it was very damp and hard to see, and we all climbed up a steep path between the pine trees. And suddenly the forest suddenly ended and we came out of the fog. Imagine; a narrow platform on a rock, and there is an abyss under our feet. The villages below seem no larger than a matchbox, forests and gardens - like fine grass. The entire area slopes down to the sea, like a geographical map. And then there’s the sea! Fifty or a hundred versts ahead. It seemed to me that I was hanging in the air and was about to fly. Such beauty, such lightness! I turn around and say to the conductor in delight: “What? Okay, Seid-ogly? And he just smacked his tongue: “Eh, master, I’m so tired of all this. We see it every day."

Thank you for the comparison,” Vera laughed, “no, I just think that we, northerners, will never understand the beauty of the sea.” I love the forest. Do you remember the forest in Yegorovskoye?.. Can it ever get boring? Pines!.. And what mosses!.. And fly agarics! Exactly made of red satin and embroidered with white beads. The silence is so... cool.

“I don’t care, I love everything,” Anna answered. - And most of all I love my sister, my prudent Verenka. There are only two of us in the world.

She hugged her older sister and pressed herself against her, cheek to cheek. And suddenly I realized it.

No, how stupid I am! You and I, as if in a novel, are sitting and talking about nature, and I completely forgot about my gift. Look at this. I'm just afraid, will you like it?

What a wonderful thing! Lovely! - Vera said and kissed her sister. - Thank you. Where did you get such a treasure?

In an antique shop. You know my weakness for rummaging through old trash. So I came across this prayer book. Look, you see how the ornament here creates the shape of a cross. True, I found only one binding, everything else had to be invented - leaves, fasteners, a pencil. But Mollinet did not want to understand me at all, no matter how I interpreted it to him. The fasteners had to be in the same style as the whole pattern, matte, old gold, fine carving, and God knows what he did. But the chain is real Venetian, very ancient.

Vera affectionately stroked the beautiful binding.

What a deep antiquity!.. How old can this book be? - she asked.

I'm afraid to determine exactly. Approximately the end of the seventeenth century, mid-eighteenth...

How strange,” Vera said with a thoughtful smile. - Here I am holding in my hands a thing that, perhaps, was touched by the hands of the Marquise of Pompadour or Queen Antoinette herself... But you know, Anna, it was only you who could have come up with the crazy idea of turning the prayer book into a ladies' one carnet. However, let’s still go and see what’s going on there.

Yes, I thought so myself at first... But now the evenings are so cold. It's better in the dining room. Let the men go here and smoke.

Will there be anyone interesting?

I do not know yet. I only know that our grandfather will be there.

Oh, dear grandfather. What a joy! - Anna exclaimed and clasped her hands. “It seems like I haven’t seen him for a hundred years.”

There will be Vasya’s sister and, it seems, Professor Speshnikov. Yesterday, Annenka, I just lost my head. You know that they both love to eat - both the grandfather and the professor. But neither here nor in the city you can get anything for any money. Luka found quails somewhere - he ordered them from a hunter he knew - and he’s playing tricks on them. The roast beef we got was relatively good - alas! - inevitable roast beef. Very good crayfish.

Well, it's not so bad. Don't worry. However, between us, you yourself have a weakness for tasty food.

But there will also be something rare. This morning a fisherman brought a sea baby. I saw it myself. Just some kind of monster. It's even scary.

Anna, greedily curious about everything that concerned her and what did not concern her, immediately demanded that they bring her the sea cock.

The tall, shaved, yellow-faced cook Luka arrived with a large elongated white tub, which he held with difficulty and carefully by the ears, afraid of spilling water on the parquet floor.

“Twelve and a half pounds, your Excellency,” he said with special chef pride. - We weighed it just now.

The younger sister carefully touched the fish's head with her little finger. But the rooster suddenly flicked his tail, and Anna pulled her hand away with a squeal.

Don’t worry, your Excellency, we’ll arrange everything in the best possible way,” said the cook, who obviously understood Anna’s anxiety. - Now the Bulgarian brought two melons. Pineapple. Kind of like cantaloupes, but the smell is much more aromatic. And I also dare to ask your Excellency what kind of sauce would you order to serve with the rooster: tartar or Polish, or maybe just crackers in butter?

Do as you please. Go! - said the princess.

After five o'clock the guests began to arrive. Prince Vasily Lvovich brought with him his widowed sister Lyudmila Lvovna, by her husband Durasov, a plump, good-natured and unusually silent woman; the secular young rich scoundrel and reveler Vasyuchka, whom the whole city knew by this familiar name, very pleasant in society with his ability to sing and recite, as well as organize live pictures, performances and charity bazaars; the famous pianist Jenny Reiter, a friend of Princess Vera at the Smolny Institute, as well as her brother-in-law Nikolai Nikolaevich. Anna's husband came to pick them up in a car with the shaven, fat, ugly huge Professor Speshnikov and the local vice-governor von Seck. General Anosov arrived later than the others, in a good hired landau, accompanied by two officers: staff Colonel Ponamarev, a prematurely aged, thin, bilious man, exhausted by back-breaking office work, and the guards hussar lieutenant Bakhtinsky, who was famous in St. Petersburg as the best dancer and incomparable ball manager .

General Anosov, a corpulent, tall, silver-haired old man, climbed heavily from the step, holding on to the handrails of the box with one hand and the rear of the carriage with the other. In his left hand he held an ear horn, and in his right hand he held a stick with a rubber tip. He had a large, rough, red face with a fleshy nose and with that good-natured, stately, slightly contemptuous expression in his narrowed eyes, arranged in radiant, swollen semicircles, which is characteristic of courageous and simple people who have often seen danger and danger close in front of their eyes. death. Both sisters, who recognized him from a distance, ran up to the carriage just in time to half-jokingly, half-seriously support him by the arms on both sides.

Exactly... the bishop! - said the general in a gentle, hoarse bass.

Grandfather, dear, dear! - Vera said in a tone of slight reproach. - We are waiting for you every day, but at least you showed your eyes.

“Our grandfather in the south lost all conscience,” Anna laughed. - One could, it seems, remember about the goddaughter. And you behave like a Don Juan, shameless, and have completely forgotten about our existence...

The general, baring his majestic head, kissed the hands of both sisters in turn, then kissed them on the cheeks and again on the hand.

“Girls... wait... don’t swear,” he said, interspersing each word with sighs that came from long-standing shortness of breath. - Honestly... unhappy doctors... all summer they bathed my rheumatism... in some kind of dirty... jelly, it smells terrible... And they didn’t let me out... You are the first... to whom I came... Terribly glad... to see you... How are you jumping?.. You, Verochka ... quite a lady... has become very similar... to my deceased mother... When will you call me to baptize?

Oh, I'm afraid, grandfather, that never...

Don’t despair... everything is ahead... Pray to God... And you, Anya, have not changed at all... Even at sixty years old... you will be the same dragonfly. Wait a minute. Let me introduce you to the gentlemen officers.

I've had this honor for a long time! - Colonel Ponamarev said, bowing.

“I was introduced to the princess in St. Petersburg,” the hussar picked up.

Well, then, Anya, I’ll introduce you to Lieutenant Bakhtinsky. A dancer and brawler, but a good cavalryman. Take it out of the stroller, Bakhtinsky, my dear... Let's go, girls... What, Verochka, will you feed? I have... after the estuary regime... an appetite like a graduation... of an ensign.

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin is a Russian writer who, without a doubt, can be classified as a classic. His books are still recognizable and loved by the reader, not only under the compulsion of a school teacher, but at a conscious age. A distinctive feature of his work is documentary, his stories were based on real events or real events became the impetus for their creation - among them the story “Garnet Bracelet”.

“The Garnet Bracelet” is a true story that Kuprin heard from friends while looking through family albums. The governor's wife made sketches for letters sent to her by a certain telegraph official who was unrequitedly in love with her. One day she received a gift from him: a gold-plated chain with a pendant in the shape of an Easter egg. Alexander Ivanovich took this story as the basis for his work, turning these meager, uninteresting data into a touching story. The writer replaced the chain with the pendant with a bracelet with five garnets, which, according to what King Solomon said in one story, mean anger, passion and love.

Plot

“The Pomegranate Bracelet” begins with preparations for the celebration, when Vera Nikolaevna Sheina suddenly receives a gift from an unknown person: a bracelet with five garnets flecked in green. On the paper note that came with the gift, it is indicated that the gem is capable of endowing the owner with foresight. The princess shares the news with her husband and shows a bracelet from an unknown person. As the action progresses, it turns out that this person is a petty official named Zheltkov. He first saw Vera Nikolaevna at the circus many years ago, and since then the suddenly flared up feelings have not faded away: even her brother’s threats do not stop him. However, Zheltkov does not want to torment his beloved, and he decides to commit suicide so as not to bring shame on her.

The story ends with the realization of the strength of the stranger’s sincere feelings, which comes to Vera Nikolaevna.

Love theme

The main theme of the work “Garnet Bracelet” is undoubtedly the theme of unrequited love. Moreover, Zheltkov is a shining example of selfless, sincere, sacrificial feelings that he does not betray, even when his loyalty cost his life. Princess Sheina also fully feels the power of these emotions: years later she realizes that she wants to be loved and love again - and the jewelry donated by Zheltkov marks the imminent appearance of passion. Indeed, she soon falls in love with life again and feels it in a new way. you can read on our website.

The theme of love in the story is frontal and permeates the entire text: this love is high and pure, a manifestation of God. Vera Nikolaevna feels internal changes even after Zheltkov’s suicide - she learned the sincerity of a noble feeling and willingness to sacrifice herself for the sake of someone who will give nothing in return. Love changes the character of the entire story: the princess’s feelings die, fade, fall asleep, having once been passionate and ardent, and turned into a strong friendship with her husband. But Vera Nikolaevna still continues to strive for love in her soul, even if this has become dulled over time: she needed time to let passion and sensuality come out, but before that her calmness could seem indifferent and cold - this puts a high wall for Zheltkov.

Main characters (characteristics)

Zheltkov worked as a minor official in the control chamber (the author placed him there to emphasize that the main character was a small man). Kuprin does not even indicate his name in the work: only the letters are signed with initials. Zheltkov is exactly how the reader imagines a man of low position: thin, pale-skinned, straightening his jacket with nervous fingers. He has delicate facial features and blue eyes. According to the story, Zheltkov is about thirty years old, he is not rich, modest, decent and noble - even Vera Nikolaevna’s husband notes this. The elderly owner of his room says that during the eight years that he lived with her, he became like family to her, and he was a very nice person to talk to. “...Eight years ago I saw you in a box at the circus, and then in the first second I said to myself: I love her because there is nothing like her in the world, there is nothing better...” - this is how the modern fairy tale about Zheltkov’s feelings for Vera Nikolaevna, although he never cherished hopes that they would be mutual: “...seven years of hopeless and polite love...”. He knows the address of his beloved, what she does, where she spends her time, what she wears - he admits that he is not interested in anything but her and is not happy. you can also find it on our website.
Vera Nikolaevna Sheina inherited her mother's appearance: a tall, stately aristocrat with a proud face. Her character is strict, uncomplicated, calm, she is polite and courteous, kind to everyone. She has been married to Prince Vasily Shein for more than six years; together they are full members of high society, organizing balls and receptions, despite financial difficulties.
Vera Nikolaevna has a younger sister, Anna Nikolaevna Friesse, who, unlike her, inherited her father’s features and his Mongolian blood: narrow eyes, femininity of features, flirtatious facial expressions. Her character is frivolous, perky, cheerful, but contradictory. Her husband, Gustav Ivanovich, is rich and stupid, but he idolizes her and is constantly nearby: his feelings seem to have not changed from the first day, he looked after her and still adored her just as much. Anna Nikolaevna cannot stand her husband, but they have a son and a daughter, she is faithful to him, although she treats him quite contemptuously.
General Anosov is Anna’s godfather, his full name is Yakov Mikhailovich Anosov. He is fat and tall, good-natured, patient, hard of hearing, he has a large, red face with clear eyes, he is very respected for the years of his service, fair and courageous, has a clear conscience, always wears a frock coat and cap, uses a hearing horn and a stick.
Prince Vasily Lvovich Shein is the husband of Vera Nikolaevna. Little is said about his appearance, only that he has blond hair and a large head. He is very soft, compassionate, sensitive - he treats Zheltkov’s feelings with understanding, and is unshakably calm. He has a sister, a widow, whom he invites to the celebration.

Features of Kuprin's creativity

Kuprin was close to the theme of the character’s awareness of life’s truth. He saw the world around him in a special way and sought to learn something new; his works are characterized by drama, a certain anxiety, and excitement. “Educational pathos” is called the hallmark of his work.

In many ways, Kuprin’s work was influenced by Dostoevsky, especially in the early stages, when he writes about fatal and significant moments, the role of chance, the psychology of characters’ passions - often the writer makes it clear that not everything can be understood.

It can be said that one of the features of Kuprin’s work is a dialogue with readers, in which the plot is traced and reality is depicted - this is especially noticeable in his essays, which in turn were influenced by G. Uspensky.

Some of his works are famous for their lightness and spontaneity, poeticization of reality, naturalness and authenticity. Others are the theme of inhumanity and protest, the struggle for feelings. At some point, he begins to be interested in history, antiquity, legends, and thus fantastic stories are born with motives of the inevitability of chance and fate.

Genre and composition

Kuprin is characterized by a love of plots within plots. “The Garnet Bracelet” is further proof: Zheltkov’s note about the qualities of the jewelry is the plot within the plot.

The author shows love from different points of view - love in general terms and Zheltkov’s unrequited feelings. These feelings have no future: Vera Nikolaevna’s marital status, differences in social status, circumstances - everything is against them. This doom reveals the subtle romanticism invested by the writer in the text of the story.

The entire work is ringed by references to the same piece of music – a Beethoven sonata. Thus, the music that “sounds” throughout the story shows the power of love and is the key to understanding the text, heard in the final lines. Music communicates the unsaid. Moreover, it is Beethoven’s sonata at the climax that symbolizes the awakening of Vera Nikolaevna’s soul and the awareness that comes to her. Such attention to melody is also a manifestation of romanticism.

The composition of the story implies the presence of symbols and hidden meanings. So the fading garden implies the fading passion of Vera Nikolaevna. General Anosov tells short stories about love - these are also small plots within the main narrative.

It is difficult to determine the genre of “Garnet Bracelet”. In fact, the work is called a story largely due to its composition: it consists of thirteen short chapters. However, the writer himself called “The Garnet Bracelet” a story.

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