Late love Ostrovsky read a summary. A.N. Ostrovsky "Late love"

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky.

Late love

ACT ONE

FACES:

Felitsata Antonovna Shablova, owner of a small wooden house.

Gerasim Porfiryich Margaritov, lawyer from retired officials, an old man of handsome appearance.

Lyudmila, his daughter, a middle-aged girl. All her movements are modest and slow, she is dressed very cleanly, but without pretensions..

Dormedont, Shablova's youngest son, Margaritov's clerk.

Onufriy Potapych Dorodnov, middle aged merchant.

A poor, darkened room in Shablova’s house. On the right side (away from the audience) are two narrow single-door doors: the closest one is to Lyudmila’s room, and the next one is to Shablova’s room; between the doors there is a tiled mirror of a Dutch oven with a firebox. In the back wall, to the right corner, is the door to Margaritov’s room; on the left is an open door to a dark hallway, in which you can see the beginning of the stairs leading to the mezzanine, where Shablova’s sons are housed. Between the doors is an antique chest of drawers with a glass cabinet for dishes. On the left side there are two small windows, in the wall between them there is an old mirror, on the sides of which there are two dim pictures in paper frames; under the mirror there is a large table of simple wood. Prefabricated furniture: chairs of different types and sizes; on the right side, closer to the proscenium, there is an old half-torn Voltaire chair. Autumn twilight, the room is dark.

SCENE ONE

Lyudmila leaves her room, listens and goes to the window.

Then Shablova leaves her room.

Shablova(without seeing Lyudmila). As if someone had knocked on a gate. No, it was my imagination. I have really pricked up my ears. What a weather! In a light coat now... oh-oh! Is my dear son walking somewhere? Oh, children, children - woe is mother! Here is Vaska, what a wandering cat, but he came home.

Lyudmila. Have you come?...Have you come?

Shablova. Ah, Lyudmila Gerasimovna! I don’t even see you, I’m standing here and fantasizing among myself...

Lyudmila. Are you saying he has arrived?

Shablova. Who are you waiting for?

Lyudmila. I? I'm nobody. I just heard you say “he came.”

Shablova. This is me expressing my thoughts here; It’s going to boil in my head, you know... The weather, they say, is such that even my Vaska came home. He sat down on the bed and purred like that, even choking; I really want to tell him that I’m home, don’t worry. Well, of course, he warmed himself up, ate, and left again. It's a man's business, you can't keep it at home. Yes, here is a beast, and even he understands that he needs to go home - to see how it is supposed to be there; and my son Nikolenka has been missing for days.

Lyudmila. How do you know what's going on with him?

Shablova. Who would know if not me! He doesn’t have any business, he’s just busy.

Lyudmila. He is a lawyer.

Shablova. What abbreviation! There was a time, but it has passed.

Lyudmila. He is busy with some lady's business.

Shablova. Why, mother, lady! Ladies are different. Just wait, I'll tell you everything. He studied well with me and completed his university course; and, as luck would have it, these new courts have started here! He signed up as a lawyer - things went, and went, and went, raking in money with a shovel. From the very fact that he entered the moneyed merchant circle. You know, to live with wolves, howl like a wolf, and he began this very merchant life, that day in a tavern, and night in a club or wherever. Of course: pleasure; he's a hot man. Well, what do they need? Their pockets are thick. And he reigned and reigned, but things went between hands, and he was lazy; and there are countless lawyers here. No matter how much he got confused there, he still spent the money; I lost the acquaintance and again returned to the same poor situation: to my mother, which means that the sterlet fish soup was used for empty cabbage soup. He got into the habit of going to taverns - he had nothing to go to the good ones, so he started hanging around the bad ones. Seeing him in such decline, I began to find him something to do. I want to take him to a lady I know, but he is shy.

UDC 82: 09 O-77

T.V. Chaikina

PLAY BY A.N. OSTROVSKY “LATE LOVE”: SPECIFICS OF THE GENRE

When interpreting Ostrovsky's plays, it is necessary to take into account their genre designations. “Scenes from the life of the outback” “Late Love” shows a separate episode from the life of the characters, which reflects the life, customs, and value systems of the inhabitants of the Moscow outskirts. Four scenes following each other are plot-related, the events are extremely concentrated in time and space.

Key words: genre, scenes, critical assessments, key episodes, everyday atmosphere, spiritual environment, love affair, stage directions, dialogues, monologues, chronotope.

A.L. Stein rightly emphasized that

A.N. Ostrovsky was a great master of the Russian genre, and his art is everyday, genre. Following the title of each of his plays, the author gave a genre subtitle, clearly indicating the features of the dramatic action, as well as the space of the image. One of the most common genres in Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy was scenes. Already in 1850, scenes from “The Morning of a Young Man” appeared. In 1858 - “scenes from village life” “The Kindergarten”, then “scenes from Moscow life” “Hard Days” (1863), “The Abyss” (1866), “Not everything is Maslenitsa for the cat” (1871).

In 1873, in Otechestvennye zapiski, Ostrovsky published “scenes from the life of the outback,” “Late Love,” and in 1874, “Labor Bread” with the same genre subtitle. In these plays, the playwright reflected the contradictions of life in the 70s of the 19th century. “The Moscow that was captured in “Bankrupt” and “The Poor Bride” has gone, disappeared, and when he wanted to remember it in some new play of his, to look into its former corners that were miraculously preserved, he had to, as if apologizing, note every time: “Scenes from the life of the outback”^ ...> The style of life, her whole appearance, was different,” noted

B.Ya. Lakshin.

Ostrovsky's new approach to recreating life caused contradictory and sometimes hostile judgments in criticism. Thus, the position of the reviewer of the newspaper “Grazhdanin”, who had his own stereotypes in the perception of Ostrovsky, was irreconcilable. He is clearly trying satirically to convey the content of the play and characterize its characters. The critic’s reflections are sometimes filled with sarcasm: he calls Lyudmila, the main character of the play, “a thief with cynicism”

and “nihilist”; Shablova's sons - Cain and Abel, emphasizing the honesty and kindness of one and the dissipation of the other. The critic explains the weakness of the play by the fact that “Late Love,” in his opinion, was originally conceived by the playwright as a parody of some kind of comedy. In conclusion, the reviewer of “Citizen” bluntly states: “Is it really all that we just saw that was Ostrovsky’s play? But where is his talent, where are his rich types, where is at least a trace of some kind of struggle, where is at least something similar to Ostrovsky? . What kind of fight did the reviewer want to see? Obviously, the one that the playwright N.A. Dobrolyubov noted: the clash of “two parties - older and younger, rich and poor, willful and irresponsible.”

The reviewer of the Odessa Bulletin, S.G., did not see the originality of Ostrovsky’s new play. Her-tse-Vinigradsky, V.P. Burenin, critic of the St. Petersburg Gazette, as well as V.G. Avseenko, who categorically pointed out the playwright’s connection with the traditions of Gogol in an effort to portray a “low-lying, rough environment.”

An exception to the general chorus of voices was a note in the St. Petersburg Gazette dated November 30, 1873, the author of which pointed out a number of advantages of Ostrovsky’s new play. According to the reviewer, the first two acts of the play are especially good, since “the action is lively, all the faces are masterfully outlined, and, as always with Mr. Ostrovsky, the conversation is replete with successful, apt, typical expressions.” The St. Petersburg Gazette critic considers the strength of “Late Love” to be the originality of the characters, pointing out that the best characters in the play are “the old woman Shablova, the simpleton son of her and Lebyadkin, especially the latter.” A word-sensitive reviewer

notices the uniqueness of the characters’ speech, in which “the most cynical things” are expressed, albeit naively, but at the same time cleverly and uniquely. Thus, he believes that “among the most successful touches are the words of the old woman Shablova: “What kind of character does a poor man have? Can a poor man have character?.. His dress is bad - that’s why he’s shy. Otherwise - character!” ".

The author of the review does not at all seek to compare the scenes of “Late Love” with the “major plays” of the playwright, understanding that this work belongs to a new stage of Ostrovsky’s work, when there is not only a rethinking of some dramatic principles and the author’s approaches to depicting the way of life, pictures of everyday life, characters , but cardinal changes are also planned in life itself, and, as a consequence of this, the space of action also changes. Following the “pictures” and “scenes of Moscow life,” “scenes from the life of the outback” appear. Moreover, in the draft autograph there was a clarification, which the playwright later abandoned (“scenes from the life of the Moscow backwoods”) [OR IRLI, f. 218, op. 1, units hr. 30, l. 4], thereby strengthening the typicality of the characters and the dramatic situation.

The critical thought of the playwright’s time was not yet ready to admit that Ostrovsky in the 1870s began to write no worse, but differently, “mastering new facts of the drama of life and new forms of its embodiment.” There were also minor attempts to interpret “Late Love” based on the characteristics of its genre. Only later, when “scenes from the life of the outback” “Labor Bread” appeared, the reviewer of “Moskovskie Vedomosti” Outsider would be one of the first to pay attention to the genre designations: “What does this mean? What is a scene, a picture in dramatic art? The same as an etude, sketch, studio in painting. By designating his latest plays this way, Mr. Ostrovsky, as it were, warns the viewer or reader not to expect from him a work that is complete, fully thought out and completed, but to treat it with the undemandingness with which one looks at a sketch, at experience.”

In 1876, while working on the play “Truth is good, but happiness is better,” conceived as “scenes,” Ostrovsky himself, in a letter to F.A. Burdin noted: “... this is not a comedy, but scenes from Moscow

what kind of life, and I don’t give them much importance.” By the way, E.G. Kholodov also believed that by calling plays “scenes” (or “pictures” close to them), “the playwright not only evaded a precise genre definition (comedy, drama), but also seemed to agree with the public (and with criticism) that this time he does not offer a full-fledged play, but just “scenes” that do not pretend to be particularly coherent and harmonious in plot.” But still, it would be a mistake to believe that the scenes are plays that are insignificant and unfinished: they show more of Ostrovsky’s creative freedom, the skill of the author, who is not burdened by strict adherence to the laws of comedy and tragedy. By repeatedly creating scenes throughout his career, the playwright significantly enriched ideas about this genre and introduced something new into the genre thinking of his time. If the early scenes of Ostrovsky's "Morning of a Young Man", showing a typical morning of a Russian "philistine among the nobility", rather resemble a plotless everyday sketch, then later works, designated scenes, are plays with a developed plot structure, with a clearly defined intrigue; The author’s detailed approach to depicting pictures of everyday life and the accuracy of his everyday observations remain unchanged. Before the action begins, Ostrovsky always outlines the environment, the everyday atmosphere, within the framework of which the plot begins to develop.

The play “Late Love” opens with an extensive and voluminous remark, recreating in detail the way of life of the characters: “A poor room, darkened by time, in Shablova’s house. On the right side (away from the audience) are two narrow single-door doors: the closest one is to Lyudmila’s room, and the next one is to Shablova’s room; between the doors there is a tiled mirror of a Dutch oven with a firebox. In the back wall, to the right corner, is the door to Margaritov’s room; on the left is an open door to a dark hallway, in which you can see the beginning of the stairs leading to the mezzanine, where Shablova’s sons are housed. Between the doors is an antique chest of drawers with a glass cabinet for dishes. On the left side there are two small windows, in the wall between them there is an old mirror, on the sides of which there are two dim pictures in paper frames; under the mirror there is a large table of simple wood. Prefabricated furniture: chairs of different types and sizes; on the right side, closer to the proscenium,

digging up a half-torn Voltaire chair. Autumn twilight, the room is dark." The location of the action remains unchanged throughout the course of the play - the playwright has extremely concentrated the events in time and space.

Scenes are characterized by the author's interest in an individual, therefore plays of this genre are often based on several episodes from the life of the main character, plot-related and undoubtedly important for the hero, determining his future fate. At the center of the play “Late Love” is the love story of an elderly girl, Lyudmila, modest and virtuous. Already in the 1st scene of the first act, she appears on stage waiting for her beloved Nikolai with the words: “Have you come?.. Have you come?” . The heroine’s interlocutor, Felitsata Antonovna Shablova, Nikolai’s mother and “mistress of a small wooden house,” tells Lyudmila in detail about her son: “He studied well with me, he completed his university course; and, as luck would have it, these new courts have started here! He signed up as a lawyer - things went, and went, and went, raking in money with a shovel. From the very fact that he entered the moneyed merchant circle. You know, to live with wolves, howl like a wolf, and he began this very merchant life, that day in a tavern, and night in a club or wherever. Of course: pleasure; he's a hot man. Well, what do they need? Their pockets are thick. And he reigned and reigned, but things went between hands, and he was lazy; and there are countless lawyers here. No matter how much he got confused there, he still spent the money; I lost the acquaintance and again returned to the same poor situation: to my mother, which means that the sterlet fish soup was used for empty cabbage soup. He got into the habit of going to taverns - he had nothing to go to the good ones, so he started hanging around the bad ones.” Her father, Gerasim Porfirich Margaritov, “a lawyer from retired officials, an old man of handsome appearance,” will tell about the fate of Lyudmila herself: “Saint, I’m telling you. She is meek, sits, works, is silent; there is need all around; after all, she sat through her best years in silence, bending over, and not a single complaint. After all, she wants to live, she must live, and never says a word about herself. He’ll earn an extra ruble, and you’ll see, it’ll be a present for your father, a surprise. After all, there are no such things... Where are they? .

It is noteworthy that, despite the love conflict clearly expressed at the beginning of the play, Ostrovsky is in no hurry to dynamically develop

intrigue. The first phenomenon sets the general tone for the entire play: it represents only conversations between the characters, revealing their everyday worries and spiritual thoughts. However, already in these voluminous dialogues and leisurely conversations, some dynamics in the development of the love affair are noticeable: in them the author of “Late Love” contains not only information about the main characters, but also shows the relationships of the characters, involving new characters in the plot of the play, posing new problems .

It is characteristic that some researchers considered Ostrovsky’s late drama the embodiment of the structural logic of European comedy-intrigue, the drama of which is expressed precisely in the entanglement of complex circumstances within the framework of a multi-dimensional love conflict. However, the plot twists and turns of “Late Love” (financial scam, the relationship between Nikolai and Lebyadkina, etc.), the abundance of various circumstances that are not directly related to the development of the main love line, constitute only the external outline of the dramatic action, which is dictated rather by the genre features of the scenes. Ostrovsky's skill lies in the fact that in individual scenes he depicts in detail and multifaceted the everyday, spiritual environment in which the main characters live, but the main line associated with the relationship between Lyudmila and Nikolai remains the only and most significant. The playwright himself wrote to his friend and artist F.A. Burdin about the careful work on the play, about the meticulous development of the love intrigue: “It cannot be said that I wrote this comedy hastily, I spent a whole month thinking about the script and stage effects and very carefully finishing the scenes of Nikolai and Lyudmila.”

If the first act represents Lyudmila’s anticipation of a meeting with her lover, then the second act is the meeting itself, where the heroine confesses her feelings, tells Nikolai about her life, about her past: “I lived my youth without love, with only the need to love, I behave modestly, I don’t impose myself on anyone; I, perhaps, with heartache, even gave up the dream of being loved.<...>Is it fair to awaken my feelings again? Your only one hint of love again raised both dreams and hopes in my soul, awakened both the thirst for love and the readiness for self-sacrifice... After all, this is late, perhaps the last love; you know what she's capable of... and you

Bulletin of KSU named after. ON THE. Nekrasova ♦ No. 2, 2009

joke about her." Such memories, the heroes’ return to the past in conversations, explanations and confessions of a narrative-epic nature, undoubtedly slow down the pace of action, expanding its boundaries.

It was important for the author to show the specifics of the characters’ way of life in the next (second) act of the play. The main means of representation here are no longer the author’s remarks, but self-statement monologues, evaluative monologues, dialogues that are not only informative, but also contain elements of reasoning and analysis. So, already in the first appearance, Margaritov, leaving on his official business, warns his daughter: “Here, Lyudmilochka, the side is hungry, the people live from day to day; whatever they snatch, they are satisfied. A drowning man, they say, clutches at straws; Well, the starving man is because he is lying ill. Here everything will be stolen and everything will be sold, and clever people take advantage of this.<.>When you see a rich, well-dressed man come or visit here, know that he did not come for a good deed - he is looking for corrupt honor or conscience.” Lyudmila also believes that rich people “don’t go to the outback to get good things.” Having learned about the upcoming visit of Lebyadkina, a rich widow, to her house, Shablova is also surprised: “Come up with more! Such a lady will go to our chicken coop.”

Ostrovsky begins the third act with vivid everyday signs, where Shablova’s first line - “the samovar has all boiled away” - adds a special flavor. The author continues to develop the love conflict no less vividly, during which the heroes find themselves in a difficult situation. The position of Nikolai, irrevocably entangled in the financial scam of Lebyadkina and the merchant Dorodnov, is hopeless; the position of Lyudmila is no less dramatic, giving her last money to her lover and ultimately betraying her own father, handing Nikolai a loan letter from Lebyadkina for his salvation. However, Ostrovsky did not seek to develop the action towards tragedy.

Actor Burdin, in a letter to Ostrovsky, accurately noted that the playwright “set the course of the play at the end of the 3rd act so that the viewer predicts the denouement in advance.” For Ostrovsky's scenes, this feature in the development of intrigue was typical. The ending of “The Pupil” (1859) is not unexpected, where patriarchal

the rows skillfully outlined by the author initially lead the action to the debunking of the heroine’s hopes; the denouement in “Labor Bread” (1874) does not look unexpected, where a girl living an independent working life has the right to choose her own groom, etc. The denouement in the fourth act of “Late Love” is a logical outcome in the relationship between Lyudmila and Nikolai. Ostrovsky showed that “readiness for self-sacrifice can change the person in whose name it is committed.” And Nikolai promises to give up his idle life and start working.

It is especially significant that in “Late Love” the denouement of the love affair does not at all coincide with the real end of the action. In a letter to Burdin dated October 29, 1873, Ostrovsky noted: “You still find a mistake in the fact that after the end of the play there is a conversation about cards; Yes, have mercy, for God’s sake, this is an ordinary, centuries-old classical technique, you will find it in both the Spaniards and Shakespeare.” This technique is a characteristic feature of Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy, which allows similar transitions from pathos to comedy. In addition, the characters’ conversations after the resolution of the intrigue continue to recreate the heroes’ lives in a continuous flow, and due to the absence of final remarks, they add some understatement to the action. It is known that Ostrovsky himself considered such incompleteness of the play’s action an important genre feature of the scenes: “They may object to us that we have few completely finished artistic dramatic works. Where are there many of them? Let us only point out the everyday trend in drama that is emerging in our country, expressed in essays, paintings and scenes from folk life; the trend is fresh, completely devoid of routine and stiltedness, and extremely practical.”

Thus, “scenes from the life of the outback” “Late Love” is a separate stage in the life of the main character of the play, dramatic and, at the same time, the most important in her fate. The play consists of four key episodes, plot-related, sequentially revealing the story of the heroine's late love. Slowly developing a love line, abandoning a complicated plot, depriving the action of unexpected turns and denouement, constantly resorting to accurate and detailed everyday sketches, Ostrovsky forms the aesthetics of scenes - an independent and specific dramatic genre.

Bibliography

1. Ostrovsky A.N. Full collection cit.: In 12 vols. -M., 1973-1980.

2. A.N. Ostrovsky and F.A. Burdin. Unpublished letters. - M.; Pg., 1923.

3. Babicheva Yu.V. Ostrovsky on the eve of the “new drama” // A.N. Ostrovsky, A.P. Chekhov and the literary process of the 19th-20th centuries. - M., 2003.

4. Dobrolyubov N.A. Literary criticism: In 2 volumes. T. 2. - L., 1984.

5. Zhuravleva A.I. Ostrovsky is a comedian. - M., 1981.

6. Critical literature about the works of A.N. Ostrovsky / Comp. N. Denisyuk Vol. 3, 4. - M., 1906.

7. Lakshin V.Ya. Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky. - M., 2004.

8. Milovzorova M.A. On the peculiarities of intrigue in the late comedies of A.N. Ostrovsky // Shchelykovsky readings 2002.: Sat. articles. - Kostroma, 2003.

10. Farkova E.Yu. Virtue and vice in the play by A.N. Ostrovsky “Late Love” // Spiritual and moral foundations of Russian literature: collection. scientific articles in 2 parts. Part 1. - Kostroma, 2007.

11. Kholodov E.G. Ostrovsky A.N. in 1873-1877 // Ostrovsky A.N. Full collection cit.: In 12 volumes. T. 4. - M., 1975.

12. Chernets L.V. Plot and plot in the plays of A.N. Ostrovsky // Shchelykov Readings 2007: Sat. articles. - Kostroma, 2007.

13. Stein A.L. Master of Russian drama: Sketches about the work of Ostrovsky. - M., 1973.

UDC 82.512.145.09 Sh 17

Z.M. Shaidullina

EMOTIONALLY-EXPRESSIVE PHRASES IN DISCOVERING THE CREATIVE WORLD OF NUR AKHMADIEV

This article reveals the originality of the creative world of the famous Tatar poet Nur Akhmadiev through a number of key concepts.

The artistic world of the poet:

a) the psychological state of the lyrical hero;

c) emotionally expressive phrases.

The expressive coloring of words in lyrical works differs from the expression of the same words in non-figurative speech. In a lyrical context, vocabulary receives additional semantic shades that enrich its expressive coloring and help reveal the poet’s inner world through the psychological state of the lyrical hero.

The poetic creativity of Nur Akhmadiev has been little studied in Tatar literary criticism. This article examines only one side of the author’s poetic skill. That is, the features of expression of emotionally - expressive phrases in his artistic world.

Emotional meanings in a literary work are divided into types. Each of them is considered separately and plays an important role in revealing the author’s artistic world. One of these is emotional meaning, which is given in only one sentence, despite this it reveals the poet’s emotions completely. This emotional meaning is also a semantic component of the microtheme. In pro-

In the works of Nur Akhmadiev, emotional phrases are widely used, allowing, with the help of heroes - characters, to more fully show the artistic world of the author. These emotional phrases are distinguished by their brightness and rich, deep meaning. For example, one of the excerpts from the poem “Ketu kitkende”. Ketunets ktulere, Ketu kichen kaytyr ele, Tik... gomer ugulere.

(Ketu kitkende)

The herd goes to pasture, But the herd will return in the evening, Only... life passes.

(our translation)

Bulletin of KSU named after. ON THE. Nekrasova ♦ No. 2, 2009

Felitsata Antonovna Shablova, owner of a small wooden house.

Gerasim Porfiryich Margaritov, lawyer from retired officials, an old man of handsome appearance.

Lyudmila, his daughter, a middle-aged girl. All her movements are modest and slow, she is dressed very cleanly, but without pretensions..

Dormedont, Shablova's youngest son, Margaritov's clerk.

Onufriy Potapych Dorodnov, middle aged merchant.

SCENE ONE

Lyudmila leaves her room, listens and goes to the window.

Then Shablova leaves her room.

Shablova (without seeing Lyudmila). As if someone had knocked on a gate. No, it was my imagination. I have really pricked up my ears. What a weather! In a light coat now... oh-oh! Is my dear son walking somewhere? Oh, children, children - woe is mother! Here is Vaska, what a wandering cat, but he came home.

Lyudmila. Have you come?...Have you come?

Shablova. Ah, Lyudmila Gerasimovna! I don’t even see you, I’m standing here and fantasizing among myself...

Lyudmila. Are you saying he has arrived?

Shablova. Who are you waiting for?

Lyudmila. I? I'm nobody. I just heard you say “he came.”

Lyudmila. How do you know what's going on with him?

Shablova. Who would know if not me! He doesn’t have any business, he’s just busy.

Lyudmila. He is a lawyer.

Shablova. What abbreviation! There was a time, but it has passed.

Lyudmila. He is busy with some lady's business.

Lyudmila. He must be timid in character.

Shablova. Come on, mother, what a character!

Lyudmila. Yes, there are people of a timid character.

Shablova. Come on, what a character! Does a poor person have character? What other character have you found?

Lyudmila. So what?

Shablova. The poor man has character too! Wonderful, really! The dress is not good, that's all. If a person has no clothes, that’s a timid character; How can he have a pleasant conversation, but he must look around himself to see if there is a flaw somewhere. Take it from us women: why does a good lady have a cheeky conversation in company? Because everything on it is in order: one is fitted to the other, one is neither shorter nor longer than the other, the color is matched to the color, the pattern is matched to the pattern. This is where her soul grows. But our brother is in trouble in high company; It seems better to fall through the ground! It hangs here, briefly here, in another place like a bag, sinuses everywhere. They look at you like you're crazy. Therefore, it is not madams who sew for us, but we ourselves are self-taught; not according to magazines, but as it had to, on a damn wedge. It was also not the Frenchman who sewed for his son, but Vershkokhvatov from behind the Dragomilovskaya outpost. So he thinks about the tailcoat for a year, walks, walks around the cloth, cuts and cuts it; he’ll cut it on one side or the other—well, he’ll cut out a sack, not a tailcoat. But before, too, how money was there, Nikolai was dandy; Well, it’s wild for him in such and such disgrace. I finally persuaded him, and I wasn’t happy either; He’s a proud man, he didn’t want to be worse than others, that’s why she’s a dandy from morning to night, and he ordered a good dress from a dear German on credit.

Lyudmila. Is she young?

Shablova. It's time for a woman. That's the problem. If it were an old woman, she would pay the money.

Lyudmila. And what about her?

Shablova. The woman is light, spoiled, and relies on her beauty. There are always young people around her - she’s used to everyone pleasing her. Another will even consider it a pleasure to serve.

Lyudmila. So he bothers for nothing for her?

Shablova. It cannot be said that it was completely free. Yes, perhaps he would, but I’ve already taken a hundred and a half out of her. So all the money that I took from her for it, I gave it all to the tailor, and here’s your profit! In addition, judge for yourself, every time you go to her, he takes a cab from the stock exchange and keeps him there for half a day. It's worth something! And what does it beat from? Divi... The wind is all in my head.

Lyudmila. Maybe he likes her?

Shablova. But it’s a disgrace for a poor man to court a rich woman and even spend money himself. Well, where should he go: there are such colonels and guardsmen there that you really can’t find words. You look at him and just say: oh, my God! Tea, they’re laughing at ours, and look, she’s laughing too. Therefore, judge for yourself: a sort of colonel will roll up to the porch on a couple with a harness, rattle a spur or saber in front, glance in passing, over his shoulder, in the mirror, shake his head and straight into her living room. Well, but she is a woman, a weak creature, a meager vessel, she will look at him with her eyes, well, as if she’s boiled and done. Where is it?

Lyudmila. So that's what she is like!

Shablova. She only looks like a great lady, but when you look closer, she is quite cowardly. She gets entangled in debts and cupids, so she sends for me to tell her fortunes with cards. You talk and talk to her, but she cries and laughs like a little child.

Lyudmila. How strange! Is it really possible to like such a woman?

Shablova. But Nikolai is proud; I got it into my head that I’ll conquer it, so I’m tormented. Or maybe he was out of pity; That’s why you can’t help but feel sorry for her, poor thing. Her husband was just as confused; They wandered around and made debts, they didn’t tell each other. But my husband died, and I had to pay. Yes, if only with the mind, one can still live; otherwise she will get confused, dear, head over heels. They say she started giving bills in vain, she signs without knowing what. And what kind of condition it was, if only I could get my hands on it. Why are you in the dark?

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky.

Late love

ACT ONE

FACES:

Felitsata Antonovna Shablova, owner of a small wooden house.

Gerasim Porfiryich Margaritov, lawyer from retired officials, an old man of handsome appearance.

Lyudmila, his daughter, a middle-aged girl. All her movements are modest and slow, she is dressed very cleanly, but without pretensions..

Dormedont, Shablova's youngest son, Margaritov's clerk.

Onufriy Potapych Dorodnov, middle aged merchant.

SCENE ONE

Lyudmila leaves her room, listens and goes to the window.

Then Shablova leaves her room.

Shablova (without seeing Lyudmila). As if someone had knocked on a gate. No, it was my imagination. I have really pricked up my ears. What a weather! In a light coat now... oh-oh! Is my dear son walking somewhere? Oh, children, children - woe is mother! Here is Vaska, what a wandering cat, but he came home.

Lyudmila. Have you come?...Have you come?

Shablova. Ah, Lyudmila Gerasimovna! I don’t even see you, I’m standing here and fantasizing among myself...

Lyudmila. Are you saying he has arrived?

Shablova. Who are you waiting for?

Lyudmila. I? I'm nobody. I just heard you say “he came.”

Lyudmila. How do you know what's going on with him?

Shablova. Who would know if not me! He doesn’t have any business, he’s just busy.

Lyudmila. He is a lawyer.

Shablova. What abbreviation! There was a time, but it has passed.

Lyudmila. He is busy with some lady's business.

Lyudmila. He must be timid in character.

Shablova. Come on, mother, what a character!

Lyudmila. Yes, there are people of a timid character.

Shablova. Come on, what a character! Does a poor person have character? What other character have you found?

Lyudmila. So what?

Lyudmila. Is she young?

Shablova. It's time for a woman. That's the problem. If it were an old woman, she would pay the money.

Lyudmila. And what about her?

Lyudmila. So he bothers for nothing for her?

Lyudmila. Maybe he likes her?

Lyudmila. So that's what she is like!

Lyudmila. How strange! Is it really possible to like such a woman?

Lyudmila. Nothing, it's better that way.

Shablova. Well, let's wait a bit and wait for Nikolai. But someone came; go get a candle. (Leaves.)

Lyudmila (at the door to the hallway). It is you?

Dormedon enters.

PHENOMENA SECOND

Lyudmila, Dormedont, then Shablova.

Dormedont. I'm with.

Lyudmila. And I thought... Yes, however, I’m very glad, otherwise it’s boring to be alone.

Shablova enters with a candle.

Shablova. Where have you been? After all, I thought that you were at home. You'll feel cold, you'll get sick, look.

Dormedont (warming himself by the stove). I was looking for my brother.

Shablova. Found?

Dormedont. Found.

Shablova. Where is he?

Dormedont. Everything is there.

(“scenes from the life of the outback in four acts”) by Alexander Ostrovsky. Written in 1873.

First staged on the stage of the Maly Theater, this play has not left the stage of many theaters since then. Based on the play, a film of the same name was made at Mosfilm in 1983.

Characters

Felitsata Antonovna Shablova, mistress of a small house.
Gerasim Porfiryich Margaritov, a lawyer from retired officials, an old man of handsome appearance.
Lyudmila, his daughter, a modest, middle-aged girl.
Nikolay Andreich Shablov, eldest son of Felitsata Antonovna.
Dormedont, youngest son of Felitsata Antonovna, clerk for Margaritov.
Varvara Kharitonovna Lebedkina, widow.
Onufriy Potapych Dorodnov, middle-aged merchant.

Plot

Once upon a time, Gerasim Porfiryich Margaritov was one of the most famous Moscow lawyers and handled big cases. But the clerk stole a document from him for a large sum and sold it to the debtor. Gerasim Porfiryich had to answer to his client with his condition. His wife died of grief, he himself thought about suicide, but only pity for his little daughter held him back.

Years have passed. Margaritov and his adult daughter rent a room in a poor house from Felitsata Antonovna Shablova.

Lyudmila falls in love with the son of the mistress of the house, the frivolous and irresponsible Nikolai. To save him from debt, she steals the most important monetary document entrusted to her father. A young man in love with another woman immediately hands the bill to her, and his rival burns it... The story ends happily: the destroyed bill turns out to be a copy, Nikolai is a decent person, and Lyudmila marries her beloved.