Orthodox law of God. Archpriest Seraphim Slobodskoy: The Law of God (textbook). Reading the Gospel with the Church

A touching excerpt from the prose of Russian classics

1. I approached the coffin. My son lies in it and is not mine. Mine is always a smiling, narrow-shouldered boy, with a sharp Adam’s apple on his thin neck, and here lies a young, broad-shouldered, handsome man, his eyes half-closed, as if he is looking somewhere past me, into a distant distance unknown to me. Only in the corners of his lips did the laugh of the old son remain forever, the only one I once knew. I kissed him and stepped aside. The lieutenant colonel made a speech. My Anatoly’s comrades and friends are wiping away their tears, and my unshed tears, apparently, have dried up in my heart. Maybe that's why it hurts so much? .

   I buried him in someone else's German soil My son’s battery struck my last joy and hope, seeing off its commander on a long journey, and it was as if something in me had snapped. I arrived at my unit not myself. But then I was soon demobilized. Where to go? Is it really in Voronezh? No way! I remembered that my friend lived in Uryupinsk, demobilized in the winter due to injury - he once invited me to his place - I remembered and went to Uryupinsk.

   My friend and his wife were childless and lived in their own house on the edge of the city. Although he had a disability, he worked as a driver at a car dealership, and I got a job there too. I stayed with a friend and they gave me shelter. We transported various cargoes to the regions, and in the fall we switched to exporting bread. It was at this time that I met my new son, this one who plays in the sand.

   From a flight, it used to be that when you returned to the city, of course, the first thing you did was go to the teahouse: grab something, and, of course, drink a hundred grams from your drink. I must say, I’m already quite addicted to this harmful business. And then one time I see this guy near the tea shop, and the next day I see him again. Such a little ragged guy: his face is covered in watermelon juice, covered with dust, dirty as dust, unkempt, and his eyes are like stars at night after the rain! And I fell in love with him so much that, miraculously, I already began to miss him, and I’m in a hurry to get off the flight to see him as soon as possible. He fed himself near the teahouse - whoever would give him what.

   On the fourth day, straight from the state farm, loaded with bread, I turned up to the teahouse. My boy is sitting there on the porch, dangling his little legs and, apparently, hungry. I leaned out the window and shouted to him: “Hey, Vanyushka! Get in the car quickly, I’ll take you to the elevator, and from there we’ll come back here and have lunch.” He shuddered at my shout, jumped off the porch, climbed onto the step and quietly said: “How do you know, uncle, that my name is Vanya?” And he opened his eyes wide, waiting for me to answer him. Well, I tell him that I am an experienced person and know everything. He came in from the right side, I opened the door, sat him next to me, and off we went. Such a smart guy, and suddenly he became quiet for some reason, thought about it, and no, no, and looked at me from under his long, upward-curved eyelashes, and sighed. Such a small bird, but he has already learned to sigh. Is it his business? I ask: “Where is your father, Vanya?” He whispers: “He died at the front.” - “And mom?” - “Mom was killed by a bomb on the train while we were traveling.” - “Where were you coming from?” - “I don’t know, I don’t remember.” - “And you don’t have anyone relatives here?” - “Nobody.” - “Where are you spending the night?” - “Where will you have to?”

   A burning tear began to boil inside me, and I immediately decided: “It’s impossible for us to disappear separately! I’ll take him as my child.” And immediately my soul felt light and somehow light. I leaned over to him and quietly asked: “Vanyushka, do you know who I am?” He asked and exhaled: “Who?” I told him just as quietly. "I am your father".
   My God, what happened here! He rushed to my neck, kissed me on the cheeks, on the lips, on the forehead, and he, like a waxwing, screamed so loudly and thinly that even in the booth it was muffled: “Dear dad! I knew! I knew that you would find me! You’ll find me anyway! I’ve been waiting for you to find me for so long!” He pressed himself close to me and trembles all over, like a blade of grass in the wind. And there’s a fog in my eyes, and I’m also trembling all over, and my hands are shaking. How I didn’t lose the steering wheel then, you can wonder! But he still accidentally drove into a ditch and turned off the engine.

2. Nina's monologue from "The Seagull" by A.P. Chekhov. At the university we staged a play based on Chekhov, we recorded this monologue and played the recording... it sounds at the same time touching and creepy, heartbreaking.
   People, lions, eagles and partridges, antlered deer, geese, spiders, silent fish that lived in the water, sea ​​stars and those that could not be seen with the eye - in a word, all lives, all lives, all lives, having completed a sad circle, died out... For thousands of centuries, the earth has not carried a single living creature, and this poor moon lights up in vain your lantern. The cranes no longer wake up screaming in the meadow, and cockchafers are no longer heard in the linden groves. Cold, cold, cold. Empty, empty, empty. Scary, scary, scary.
   Pause.
   The bodies of living beings disappeared into dust, and eternal matter turned them into stones, into water, into clouds, and the souls of them all merged into one. The common world soul is me... I... I have the soul of Alexander the Great, and Caesar, and Shakespeare, and Napoleon, and the last leech. In me, the consciousness of people has merged with the instincts of animals, and I understand everything, everything, and I experience every life in myself again.
3. Nina's monologue from "The Seagull" by A.P. Chekhov. At the university we staged a play based on Chekhov, we recorded this monologue and started recording it... It sounds both touching and eerie, heartbreaking.
   People, lions, eagles and partridges, horned deer, geese, spiders, silent fish that lived in the water, starfish and those that could not be seen with the eye - in a word, all lives, all lives, all lives, having completed a sad circle, faded away .. . For thousands of centuries the earth has not carried a single living creature, and this poor moon lights its lantern in vain. The cranes no longer wake up screaming in the meadow, and cockchafers are no longer heard in the linden groves. Cold, cold, cold. Empty, empty, empty. Scary, scary, scary.
   Pause.
   The bodies of living beings disappeared into dust, and eternal matter turned them into stones, into water, into clouds, and the souls of them all merged into one. The common world soul is me... I.. . I have the soul of Alexander the Great, and Caesar, and Shakespeare, and Napoleon, and the last leech. In me, the consciousness of people has merged with the instincts of animals, and I understand everything, everything, and I experience every life in myself again.

17 answers

Would you read Chekhov's Gooseberry in its entirety or this part?

And he ate greedily and kept repeating:

Oh, how delicious! You try!

It was harsh and sour, but, as Pushkin said, “deception that elevates us is dearer to the darkness of truths.” I saw a happy man, whose cherished dream had come true so obviously, who had achieved his goal in life, got what he wanted, who was satisfied with his fate, with himself. For some reason, something sad was always mixed into my thoughts about human happiness, but now, at the sight of a happy person, I was overcome by a heavy feeling, close to despair. It was especially difficult at night. They made a bed for me in a room next to my brother’s bedroom, and I could hear how he did not sleep and how he got up and went to the plate with gooseberries and took a berry. I thought: how, in essence, there are many satisfied happy people! What an overwhelming force this is! Just look at this life: the insolence and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and bestiality of the weak, impossible poverty all around, overcrowding, degeneration, drunkenness, hypocrisy, lies... Meanwhile, in all the houses and on the streets there is silence and calm; out of the fifty thousand living in the city, not a single one would cry out or be loudly indignant. We see those who go to the market for provisions, eat during the day, sleep at night, who talk their nonsense, get married, grow old, complacently drag their dead to the cemetery, but we We don’t see or hear those who suffer, and what’s scary in life happens somewhere behind the scenes. Everything is quiet, calm, and only silent statistics protest: so many people have gone crazy, so many buckets have been drunk, so many children have died from malnutrition... And such order is obviously needed; Obviously, the happy person feels good only because the unfortunate bear their burden in silence, and without this silence happiness would not be possible. This is general hypnosis. It is necessary that behind the door of every contented, happy person there should be someone with a hammer and constantly remind him by knocking that there are unhappy people, that no matter how happy he is, life will sooner or later show him its claws, trouble will befall him - illness, poverty, loss, and no one will see or hear him, just as now he does not see or hear others. But there is no man with a hammer, the happy one lives for himself, and the small worries of life worry him lightly, like the wind on an aspen tree - and everything is going well.

I would like to cite one more passage that immediately came to mind as soon as I saw this question. This is also not Russian literature, but still a classic. 3-4 paragraph from Chapter VIII. People of Exupery's "Planet of People":

To understand a person, his needs and aspirations, to comprehend his very essence, you do not need to contrast your obvious truths with each other. Yes you are right. You are all right. Logically you can prove anything. Even the one who decides to blame the hunchbacks for all the misfortunes of mankind is right. It is enough to declare war on the hunchbacks - and we will immediately flare up with hatred for them. We will begin to take cruel revenge on the hunchbacks for all their crimes. And among the hunchbacks, of course, there are also criminals.

To understand what the essence of man is, one must forget about disagreements at least for a moment, because every theory and every faith establishes a whole Koran of unshakable truths, and they give rise to fanaticism. You can divide people into right and left, into hunchbacks and non-hunchbacks, into fascists and democrats - and any such division cannot be refuted. But truth, as you know, is what makes the world simpler, and not what turns it into chaos. Truth is a language that helps us comprehend the universal. Newton did not at all “discover” a law that had remained a secret for a long time - only puzzles solve that, and what Newton did was creativity. He created a language that tells us both about an apple falling on the lawn and about the sun rising. Truth is not what is provable, truth is simplicity.

Why argue about ideologies? Any of them can be supported by evidence, and they all contradict each other, and from these disputes you only lose all hope of saving people. But people around us, everywhere and everywhere, strive for the same thing.

We want freedom. Anyone who works with a pickaxe wants every blow to have meaning. When a convict uses a pickaxe, each blow only humiliates the convict, but if the pickaxe is in the hands of a prospector, each blow elevates the prospector. Hard labor is not where they work with a pickaxe. It's not terrible because it's hard work. Hard labor is where the blows of a pickaxe are meaningless, where labor does not connect a person with people. And we want to escape from hard labor.

In Europe, two hundred million people vegetate senselessly and would be glad to be reborn for true existence. Industry tore them away from the life that the peasant family had led, generation after generation, and locked them in huge ghettos, similar to marshalling yards, crammed with lines of soot-black carriages. People buried in workers' settlements would be glad to awaken to life.

There are others who are bogged down by tedious, monotonous work; the joys of a discoverer, a believer, a scientist are inaccessible to them. Some have imagined that it is not so difficult to elevate these people, you just need to clothe them, feed them, and satisfy their daily needs. And little by little they were raised to be philistines in the spirit of Courtelin’s novels, village politicians, narrow-minded specialists without any spiritual interests. These people are well trained, but they have not yet become accustomed to the culture. Those for whom culture is reduced to set formulas have the most wretched idea of ​​it. The last student in the department exact sciences knows much more about the laws of nature than Descartes and Pascal knew. But is a student capable of thinking like them?

We all - some vaguely, some more clearly - feel: we need to awaken to life. But how many false paths open up... Of course, people can be inspired by dressing them in some form. They will sing war songs and break bread among their comrades. They will find what they were looking for, they will feel unity and community. But this bread will bring them death.

You can dig up forgotten wooden idols, you can resurrect old, old myths that, for better or worse, have already shown themselves, you can again instill in people faith in Pan-Germanism or the Roman Empire. You can fool the Germans with arrogance, that's why that they are Germans and Beethoven's compatriots. This can turn the head of the last chimney sweep. And this is much easier than awakening Beethoven in a chimney sweep.

But these idols are carnivorous idols. The man who dies for scientific discovery or in order to find a cure for a serious illness, by his very death he serves the cause of life. Perhaps it is beautiful to die in order to conquer new lands, but modern war destroys everything for which it is supposedly waged. Nowadays we are no longer talking about shedding a little sacrificial blood to revive whole people. From the moment the airplane and mustard gas became weapons, the war became simply a massacre. Enemies take cover behind concrete walls, and everyone, unable to find the best way out, night after night sends squadrons that get close to the very heart of the enemy, raining bombs on him vital centers, paralyze industry and communications. Victory will go to the one who rots last. And both opponents rot alive.

The world has become a desert, and we all long to find comrades in it; It is in order to taste bread among our comrades that we accept war. But in order to find this warmth, in order to rush shoulder to shoulder towards the same goal, there is no need to fight at all. We are deceived. War and hatred add nothing to the joy of the general rapid movement.

Why do we hate each other? We are all at the same time, carried away by the same planet, we are the crew of one ship. It’s good when something new, more perfect, is born in a dispute between different civilizations, but it’s monstrous when they devour each other.

To free us, you just need to help us see the goal towards which we will go side by side, united by the bonds of brotherhood - but then why not look for a goal that will unite everyone? A doctor, examining a patient, does not listen to groans: it is important for a doctor to heal a person. The doctor serves the laws of the universal. The physicist also serves them, deducing almost divine equations in which the essence of the atom and the stellar nebula is simultaneously determined. A simple shepherd also serves them. Worth it for the one who modestly guards under starry sky a dozen sheep, to comprehend his work - and now he is no longer just a servant. He is a sentry. And every sentry is responsible for the fate of the empire.

Do you think the shepherd does not seek to understand himself and his place in life? At the front near Madrid, I visited a school - it was on a hill, behind a low fence made of stone, about five hundred meters away from the trenches. At this school, one corporal taught botany. IN rough hands The corporal had a poppy flower, he carefully separated the petals and stamens, and from all sides, from the trench mud, under the roar of shells, pilgrims overgrown with beards flocked to him. They surrounded the corporal, sat down directly on the ground, legs crossed, chins resting on their palms, and listened. They frowned, clenched their teeth, the lesson was not very clear to them, but they were told: “You are dark, you are animals, you are just crawling out of your lair, you need to catch up with humanity!” - and, stepping heavily, they hurried after him.

When we understand our role on earth, even the most modest and inconspicuous, then only we will be happy. Then only we will be able to live and die in peace, for what gives meaning to life gives meaning to death.

A man departs in peace when his death is natural, when somewhere in Provence an old peasant at the end of his reign gives his goats and his olives to his sons for safekeeping, so that the sons in due course will pass them on to their sons' sons. In a peasant family, only half of a person dies. At the appointed hour, life disintegrates like a pod, giving away its grains.

One day I happened to stand with three peasants at the deathbed of their mother. It was sad, to say the least. The umbilical cord tore for the second time. The knot that connected generation to generation was untied for the second time. The sons suddenly felt lonely, they seemed inept, helpless, there was no longer that table at which the whole family gathered on holiday, that magnet that attracted them all. And I saw that here not only the connecting threads are torn, but also life is given a second time. For each of the sons, in turn, will become the head of the clan, a patriarch around whom the family will gather, and when the time comes, he, in turn, will hand over the reins of power to the children who are now playing in the yard.

I looked at my mother, at the old peasant woman with a calm and stern face, at her tightly compressed lips - not a face, but a mask carved from stone. And in him I recognized the features of my sons. Their faces are a cast of this mask. This body shaped their bodies - perfectly sculpted, strong, courageous. And here it lies, devoid of life, but this is the lifelessness of the disintegrated shell from which the ripe fruit was extracted. And in turn, her sons and daughters mold new people from their flesh. People in a peasant family don't die. Mother died, long live mother!

Yes, it is bitter, but it is so simple and natural - the measured tread of the race: leaving the mortal shells of gray-haired workers on the way, one after another, constantly renewing itself, it moves towards the unknown truth.

That’s why that evening, in the death knell that floated over the village, I heard not sorrow, but hidden, gentle joy. The bell, which glorified funerals and christenings with the same ringing, again announced the change of generations. And this song in honor of the old worker’s betrothal to the earth filled the soul with quiet peace.

This is how life is passed on from generation to generation - slowly, like a tree growing - and with it consciousness is passed on. What an amazing climb! From the molten lava, from the dough from which the stars are molded, from the miraculously born living cell, we - people - emerged and rose higher and higher, step by step, and now we write cantatas and measure the constellations.

The old peasant woman passed on not only life to her children, she taught them her native language, entrusted them with wealth that had accumulated slowly over centuries: the spiritual inheritance that she got to keep - a modest store of legends, concepts and beliefs, everything that distinguishes Newton and Shakespeare from the primitive savage .

That hunger that, under fire, drove the soldiers of Spain to a botany lesson, that drove Mermoz to the South Atlantic, and another to poetry - this eternal feeling of unsatisfiedness arises because man in his development has not yet reached the peak and we still need to understand ourselves yourself and the Universe. We need to build bridges in the darkness. This is not recognized only by those who consider selfish indifference as wisdom; but such wisdom is a miserable deception. Comrades, my comrades, I take you as a witness: what are the happiest hours of our lives?

And here on last pages In this book, I again remember the aged officials - our guides at the dawn of the day when we were finally entrusted with a mail plane for the first time and we were preparing to become people. But they too were similar to us in everything, but they did not know that they were hungry.

There are too many people in the world who have not been helped to awaken.

Several years ago, during a long trip by rail, I wanted to explore this state on wheels, in which I found myself for three days; For three days there was nowhere to escape from the incessant knocking and roaring, as if the sea surf was rolling over pebbles, and I could not sleep. At about one o'clock in the morning I walked the entire train from end to end. The sleeping cars were empty. The first class carriages were also empty.

And hundreds of Polish workers huddled in third-class carriages; they were expelled from France and were returning to their homeland. In the corridors I had to step over sleeping people. I stopped and, by the light of the night lamps, began to take a closer look; the carriage was without partitions, like a barracks, and it smelled like a barracks or a police station, and the movement of the train shook and tossed bodies dumped by fatigue.

An entire people, immersed in a heavy sleep, returned to bitter poverty. Large, bald-shaven heads rolled on wooden benches. Men, women, children tossed and turned from side to side, as if trying to hide from the continuous roar and shaking that followed them into oblivion. Even sleep was not a safe haven for them.

Economic ebbs and flows tossed them around Europe from one end to another, they lost a house in the Nord department, a tiny garden, three pots of geraniums, which I had once seen in the windows of Polish miners - and it seemed to me that they had half lost their human appearance. They took with them only kitchen utensils, blankets and curtains, miserable belongings in unraveling, somehow tied together. They had to leave behind everything that was dear to them, everything they had become attached to, everyone they had tamed during four or five years in France - a cat, a dog, a geranium - they could only take with them pots and pans.

The mother was breastfeeding the baby; Deadly tired, she seemed to be sleeping. Amidst the meaninglessness and chaos of these wanderings, life was transmitted to the child. I looked at my father. The skull is heavy and bare, like cobblestone. Shackled by sleep in an awkward position, squeezed by work clothes, a shapeless and clumsy body. Not a person - a lump of clay. So at night, homeless tramps lie in piles of rags on the market benches. And I thought: poverty, dirt, ugliness - that’s not the point. But this man and this woman once met for the first time, and he probably smiled at her and probably brought her flowers after work. Perhaps shy and awkward, he was afraid that they would laugh at him. And she, confident in her charm, out of purely feminine coquetry, perhaps, was pleased to torment him. And he, who had now turned into a machine, only capable of forging or digging, was tormented by anxiety, from which his heart sank sweetly. It’s incomprehensible how they both turned into lumps of dirt? What terrible pressure did they come under? What distorted them so much? The animal retains its grace even in old age. Why is the noble clay from which man is sculpted so deformed?

I walked further among my fellow travelers, who were sleeping in a heavy, restless sleep. Snoring, moaning, indistinct muttering, the grinding of rough boots on wood, when the sleeper, trying to get comfortable on a hard bench, turns over from side to side - everything merged into a dull, incessant noise. And behind all this is an incessant roar, as if pebbles are rolling under the blows of the surf.

I sit down opposite the sleeping family. The baby somehow perched between his father and mother. But then he turns around in his sleep, and in the light of the night lamp I see his face. What a face! From these two a wonderful golden fruit was born. These shapeless, heavy coolies gave birth to a miracle of grace and charm. I looked at the smooth forehead, at the plump, tender lips and thought: here is the face of a musician, here is little Mozart, he is all promise! He is just like the little prince from a fairy tale; he would grow up, warmed by vigilant, reasonable care, and he would justify the wildest hopes! When in the garden, after a long search, they finally take you out new rose, all the gardeners get excited. The rose is separated from others, it is vigilantly cared for, pampered and cherished. But people grow up without a gardener. Little Mozart, like everyone else, will fall under the same monstrous pressure. And he will begin to enjoy the vile music of low-grade taverns. Mozart is doomed.

I returned to my carriage. I told myself: these people do not suffer from their fate. And it’s not compassion that torments me. The point is not to shed tears over an eternally unhealing ulcer. Those who are struck by it do not feel it. The plague does not strike an individual, it eats away at humanity. And I don't believe in pity. I am tormented by the care of the gardener. It’s not the sight of poverty that torments me; in the end, people get used to poverty, just as they get used to idleness. In the East, many generations live in dirt and do not feel unhappy at all. What torments me cannot be cured with free soup for the poor. It is not the ugliness of this shapeless, crumpled human clay that is painful. But in each of these people, perhaps, Mozart has been killed.

The Spirit alone, touching clay, creates Man from it.

An excerpt (the last paragraph, to be more precise) from I. A. Bunin’s story “The Caucasus”. I remember I was shocked by the ending when I read it for the first time:

"He looked for her in Gelendzhik, in Gagra, in Sochi. The next day after arriving in Sochi, he swam in the sea in the morning, then shaved, put on clean underwear, a snow-white jacket, had breakfast in his hotel on the restaurant terrace, drank a bottle of champagne, drank coffee with chartreuse, slowly smoked a cigar. Returning to his room, he lay down on the sofa and shot himself in the temples with two revolvers."

No. Today everything is done in a hurry, a little at a time, skimming off the foam. Art requires a different kind of immersion, reflection and a gaze of effort, and if you just glance at the simplest things, both an opera and a play - any word - will seem empty. We not only need to read, we need to think about it and put together a mosaic in our memory. A writer, a master, or, in general, any creator is not as great as our great service, work, dialogue - we speak with a poet, with a playwright, although another plays a role, but by listening, we are involved: without us culture dies, and eternity not eternal. And to snatch five minutes for yourself to distract yourself in the flow of days and the bustle of affairs - everything will be forgotten in an instant, only the nerve will touch the thoughts, but the thought will not give birth.

She fell into the chair and burst into tears. But suddenly something new shone in her eyes; She looked intently and persistently at Aglaya and stood up:

Do you want me to... come now, do you hear? I just tell him, and he will immediately leave you and stay with me forever, and marry me, and you will run home alone? Do you want it, do you want it? - she shouted like crazy, perhaps almost not believing that she could utter such words.

Aglaya, in fright, rushed to the door, but stopped in the doorway, as if chained, and listened.

Do you want me to drive Rogozhin away? Did you think that I had already married Rogozhin for your pleasure? Now I’ll shout in front of you: “Go away, Rogozhin!”, and I’ll say to the prince: “Remember what you promised?” God! But why did I humiliate myself so much in front of them? But wasn’t it you, prince, who assured me yourself that you would follow me, no matter what happened to me, and you would never leave me; that you love me, and forgive me everything, and I... wow... Yes, you said that too! And just to untie you, I ran away from you, but now I don’t want to! Why did she treat me like a dissolute person? Am I dissolute, ask Rogozhin, he will tell you! Now that she has disgraced me, and in your own eyes, and you will turn away from me and take her away with you by the arm? Yes, be damned after that because I believed in you alone. Go away, Rogozhin, you are not needed! - she screamed almost without memory, with an effort letting the words out of her chest, with a distorted face and parched lips, obviously not believing one bit of her fanfare, but at the same time, at least for a second, wanting to prolong the moment and deceive herself. The impulse was so strong that perhaps she would have died, or so it seemed to the prince. - Here he is, look! - she finally shouted to Aglaya, pointing her hand at the prince. - If he doesn’t come to me now, doesn’t take me and doesn’t leave you, then take him for yourself, I give in, I don’t need him!..

Both she and Aglaya stopped as if waiting, and both looked at the prince like crazy. But he, perhaps, did not understand the full force of this challenge, one might even say. He only saw before him a desperate, insane face, from which, as he once said to Aglaya, his “heart was pierced forever.” He could bear it no longer and turned to Aglaya with prayer and reproach, pointing to Nastasya Filippovna:

Is it possible! After all, she... is so unhappy!

But that’s all he managed to say, speechless under Aglaya’s terrible gaze. This look expressed so much suffering and at the same time endless hatred that he clasped his hands, screamed and rushed to her, but it was already too late! She could not bear even a moment of his hesitation, covered her face with her hands, and cried out: “Oh, my God!” - and rushed out of the room, followed by Rogozhin, to open the bolt on the door to the street.

The prince also ran, but on the threshold they grabbed him with their arms. The murdered, distorted face of Nastasya Filippovna looked at him point-blank, and her blue lips moved, asking:

For her? For her?..

She fell unconscious into his arms. He picked her up, carried her into the room, put her in an armchair and stood over her in dull anticipation. There was a glass of water on the table; Rogozhin returned and grabbed him and splashed water in her face; She opened her eyes and for a minute did not understand anything; but suddenly she looked around, shuddered, screamed and rushed to the prince.

My! My! - she cried. - Has the proud young lady left? Ha ha ha! - she laughed hysterically, - ha-ha-ha! I gave it to this young lady! What for? For what? Crazy! Crazy!.. Go away, Rogozhin, ha-ha-ha!

Rogozhin looked at them intently, did not say a word, took his hat and left. Ten minutes later the prince was sitting next to Nastasya Filippovna, looking at her without stopping and stroking her head and face with both hands, like a little child. He laughed at her laughter and was ready to cry at her tears. He said nothing, but listened intently to her impetuous, enthusiastic and incoherent babble, hardly understood anything, but smiled quietly, and as soon as it seemed to him that she began to feel sad or cry again, reproach or complain, he immediately began to stroke her head again and gently run his hands over her cheeks, comforting and coaxing her like a child.

“Hero of Our Time,” a letter from Vera and Pechorin, who rushes to Pyatigorsk. The scene in which main character opened up to me from a completely different side.

I ran out onto the porch like crazy, jumped on my Circassian, who was being driven around the yard, and set off at full speed on the road to Pyatigorsk. I mercilessly drove the exhausted horse, which, wheezing and covered in foam, rushed me along the rocky road.

The sun had already hidden itself in a black cloud resting on the ridge of the western mountains; the gorge became dark and damp. Podkumok, making his way over the stones, roared dully and monotonously. I galloped, panting with impatience. The thought of not finding her in Pyatigorsk struck my heart like a hammer! - one minute, one more minute to see her, say goodbye, shake her hand... I prayed, cursed, cried, laughed... no, nothing will express my anxiety, despair!.. With the possibility of losing her forever, Faith has become dearer to me everything in the world - more valuable than life, honor, happiness! God knows what strange, what mad plans were swarming in my head... And meanwhile I kept galloping, driving mercilessly. And so I began to notice that my horse was breathing more heavily; he had already stumbled twice out of the blue... There were five miles left to Essentuki, a Cossack village where I could change horses.

Everything would have been saved if my horse had had enough strength for another ten minutes! But suddenly, rising from a small ravine, when leaving the mountains, at a sharp turn, it crashed onto the ground. I quickly jumped off, I want to pick him up, I pull on the reins - in vain: a barely audible groan escaped through his clenched teeth; a few minutes later he died; I was left alone in the steppe, having lost my last hope; I tried to walk - my legs gave way; Exhausted by the worries of the day and lack of sleep, I fell on the wet grass and cried like a child.

And for a long time I lay motionless and cried bitterly, not trying to hold back my tears and sobs; I thought my chest would burst; all my firmness, all my composure, disappeared like smoke. My soul became weak, my mind fell silent, and if at that moment anyone had seen me, he would have turned away with contempt.

Vladimir Nabokov "Other Shores". Every evening I open a random page and read out loud. One of my favorite passages (chapter 6, last paragraph):

“And the highest pleasure for me is outside the devilish time, but very much within the divine space - this is a randomly chosen landscape, no matter in what strip, tundra or wormwood, or even among the remains of some old pine forest near the railway between the dead in this context Albany and Schenectady (one of my favorite godchildren, my blue samuelis, flies there) - in a word, any corner of the earth where I can be in the company of butterflies and their food plants. This is bliss, and behind this bliss there is something, not. completely definable. It’s like some kind of instantaneous physical emptiness, where everything I love in the world rushes to fill it. It’s like an instantaneous thrill of tenderness and gratitude, addressed, as they say in American official recommendations, to whom it may concern. - I don’t know to whom or to what, - brilliant counterpoint human destiny or benevolent spirits pampering the earthly lucky one."

In a white cloak with a bloody lining and a shuffling cavalry gait, early in the morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, came out into the covered colonnade between the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great.

More than anything else, the procurator hated the smell of rose oil, and everything now foreshadowed a bad day, since this smell began to haunt the procurator from dawn. It seemed to the procurator that the cypresses and palm trees in the garden emitted a pink smell, that a cursed pink stream was mixed with the smell of leather and the convoy. From the wings in the rear of the palace, where the first cohort of the twelfth lightning legion, which came with the procurator to Yershalaim, was stationed, smoke drifted into the colonnade through upper platform garden, and the same rich pink spirit was mixed with the bitter smoke, which indicated that the cooks in the centuries had begun to prepare dinner. Oh gods, gods, why are you punishing me?

“Yes, there is no doubt! It’s her, her again, the invincible, terrible disease of hemicrania, in which half of the head hurts. There is no cure for it, there is no salvation. I’ll try not to move my head.”

On mosaic floor a chair had already been prepared by the fountain, and the procurator, without looking at anyone, sat down in it and extended his hand to the side.

The secretary respectfully placed a piece of parchment into this hand. Unable to resist a painful grimace, the procurator glanced sideways at what was written, returned the parchment to the secretary and said with difficulty:

A suspect from Galilee? Did they send the matter to the tetrarch?

Yes, procurator,” the secretary answered.

What is he?

He refused to give an opinion on the case and sent the death sentence to the Sanhedrin for your approval,” the secretary explained.

The procurator twitched his cheek and said quietly:

Bring the accused.

And immediately, from the garden platform under the columns to the balcony, two legionnaires brought in a man of about twenty-seven and placed him in front of the procurator’s chair. This man was dressed in an old and torn blue chiton. His head was covered with a white bandage with a strap around his forehead, and his hands were tied behind his back. The man had a large bruise under his left eye and an abrasion with dried blood in the corner of his mouth. The man brought in looked at the procurator with anxious curiosity.

He paused, then quietly asked in Aramaic:

So it was you who persuaded the people to destroy the Yershalaim Temple?

At the same time, the procurator sat as if made of stone, and only his lips moved slightly when pronouncing the words. The procurator was like a stone, because he was afraid to shake his head, blazing with hellish pain.

Man with hands tied He leaned forward a little and began to speak:

A kind person! Trust me...

But the procurator, still not moving and not raising his voice at all, immediately interrupted him:

Are you calling me a good person? You're wrong. In Yershalaim, everyone whispers about me that I am a ferocious monster, and this is absolutely true,” and he added just as monotonously: “Centurion Rat-Slayer to me.”

It seemed to everyone that it had gone dark on the balcony when the centurion, commander of the special centurion, Mark, nicknamed the Rat Slayer, appeared before the procurator.

Rat Slayer was a head taller than the tallest soldier in the legion and so broad in the shoulders that he completely blocked out the still low sun.

The procurator addressed the centurion in Latin:

The criminal calls me "a good man." Take him out of here for a minute, explain to him how to talk to me. But don't maim.

And everyone, except the motionless procurator, followed Mark the Ratboy, who waved his hand to the arrested man, indicating that he should follow him.

In general, everyone followed the rat-slayer with their eyes, wherever he appeared, because of his height, and those who saw him for the first time, because of the fact that the centurion’s face was disfigured: his nose had once been broken by a blow from a German club.

Mark's heavy boots tapped on the mosaic, the bound man followed him silently, complete silence fell in the colonnade, and one could hear pigeons cooing in the garden area near the balcony, and the water sang an intricate, pleasant song in the fountain.

The procurator wanted to get up, put his temple under the stream and freeze like that. But he knew that this would not help him either.

Taking the arrested man out from under the columns into the garden. The Ratcatcher took a whip from the hands of the legionnaire standing at the foot of the bronze statue and, swinging slightly, hit the arrested man on the shoulders. The centurion's movement was careless and easy, but the bound one instantly fell to the ground, as if his legs had been cut off, choked on air, the color ran away from his face and his eyes became meaningless. Mark, with one left hand, easily, like an empty sack, lifted the fallen man into the air, put him on his feet and spoke nasally, poorly pronouncing Aramaic words:

To call a Roman procurator hegemon. No other words to say. Stand still. Do you understand me or should I hit you?

The arrested man staggered, but controlled himself, the color returned, he took a breath and answered hoarsely:

I understood you. Do not hit me.

A minute later he again stood in front of the procurator.

My? - the arrested person hastily responded, expressing with all his being his readiness to answer sensibly and not cause further anger.

The procurator said quietly:

Mine - I know. Don't pretend to be more stupid than you are. Your.

Yeshua,” the prisoner hastily answered.

Do you have a nickname?

Ga-Nozri.

Where you're from?

From the city of Gamala,” the prisoner answered, indicating with his head that there, somewhere far away, to the right of him, in the north, there was the city of Gamala.

Who are you by blood?

“I don’t know for sure,” the arrested man answered briskly, “I don’t remember my parents.” They told me that my father was Syrian...

Where do you live permanently?

“I don’t have a permanent home,” the prisoner answered shyly, “I travel from city to city.”

This can be expressed briefly, in one word - a tramp,” said the procurator and asked: “Do you have any relatives?”

There is no one. I'm alone in the world.

Do you know how to read and write?

Do you know any language other than Aramaic?

I know. Greek.

The swollen eyelid lifted, the eye, covered with a haze of suffering, stared at the arrested man. The other eye remained closed.

Pilate spoke in Greek:

So you were going to destroy the temple building and called the people to do it?

Here the prisoner perked up again, his eyes stopped expressing fear, and he spoke in Greek:

I, dear... - here horror flashed in the eyes of the prisoner because he almost misspoke, - I, the hegemon, never in my life intended to destroy the temple building and did not persuade anyone to do this senseless action.

Surprise was expressed on the face of the secretary, hunched over the low table and recording the testimony. He raised his head, but immediately bowed it again to the parchment.

A bunch of different people flocks to this city for the holiday. There are magicians, astrologers, soothsayers and murderers among them,” the procurator said monotonously, “and there are also liars.” For example, you are a liar. It is clearly written down: he persuaded to destroy the temple. This is what people testify.

These good people,” the prisoner spoke and hastily added: “hegemon,” continued: “they didn’t learn anything and they all confused what I said.” I'm actually starting to fear that this confusion will continue for a very long time. for a long time. And all because he writes me down incorrectly.

There was silence. Now both sick eyes looked heavily at the prisoner.

I repeat to you, but last time“Stop pretending to be crazy, robber,” Pilate said softly and monotonously, “there is not much recorded against you, but what is recorded is enough to hang you.”

“No, no, the hegemon,” the arrested man spoke, straining himself in the desire to convince, “he walks and walks alone with a goat’s parchment and writes continuously. But one day I looked into this parchment and was horrified. I said absolutely nothing of what was written there. I begged him: burn your parchment for God’s sake! But he snatched it from my hands and ran away.

Who it? - Pilate asked disgustedly and touched his temple with his hand.

Levi Matthew,” the prisoner readily explained, “he was a tax collector, and I met him for the first time on the road in Bethphage, where the fig garden overlooks the corner, and I got into conversation with him. Initially, he treated me with hostility and even insulted me, that is, he thought that he was insulting me by calling me a dog,” here the prisoner grinned, “I personally don’t see anything bad in this beast to be offended by this word...

The secretary stopped taking notes and secretly cast a surprised glance, not at the arrested person, but at the procurator.

However, after listening to me, he began to soften, - Yeshua continued, - finally threw money on the road and said that he would travel with me...

Pilate grinned with one cheek, baring his yellow teeth, and said, turning his whole body to the secretary:

Oh, the city of Yershalaim! There's just so much you can't hear in it. The tax collector, you hear, threw money on the road!

Not knowing how to respond to this, the secretary considered it necessary to repeat Pilate’s smile.

Still grinning, the procurator looked at the arrested man, then at the sun, steadily rising above the equestrian statues of the hippodrome, which lay far below to the right, and suddenly, in some kind of sickening torment, he thought that the easiest thing would be to expel this strange robber from the balcony, saying only two words: “Hang him.” Expel the convoy too, leave the colonnade inside the palace, order the room to be darkened, lie down on the bed, demand cold water, in a plaintive voice, call the dog Bang, complain to her about hemicrania. And the thought of poison suddenly flashed seductively in the procurator’s sick head.

He looked with dull eyes at the prisoner and was silent for some time, painfully remembering why in the morning merciless Yershalaim sun a prisoner with a face disfigured by beatings was standing in front of him, and what unnecessary questions he would have to ask.

Yes, Levi Matvey,” a high, tormenting voice came to him.

But what did you say about the temple to the crowd at the market?

I, the hegemon, said that the temple of the old faith would collapse and a new temple of truth would be created. I said it this way to make it clearer.

Why did you, tramp, confuse people at the market by talking about the truth, about which you have no idea? What is truth?

And then the procurator thought: “Oh, my gods! I’m asking him about something unnecessary at the trial... My mind no longer serves me...” And again he imagined a bowl with a dark liquid. "I'll poison you, I'll poison you!"

The truth, first of all, is that you have a headache, and it hurts so much that you are cowardly thinking about death. Not only are you unable to speak to me, but it is difficult for you to even look at me. And now I am unwittingly your executioner, which saddens me. You can’t even think about anything and dream only that your dog, apparently the only creature to which you are attached, will come. But your torment will now end, your headache will go away.

The secretary stared at the prisoner and did not finish the words.

Pilate raised his martyred eyes to the prisoner and saw that the sun was already standing quite high above the hippodrome, that the ray had made its way into the colonnade and was creeping towards Yeshua’s worn sandals, that he was avoiding the sun.

Here the procurator rose from his chair, clasped his head in his hands, and horror was expressed on his yellowish, shaved face. But he immediately suppressed it with his will and sank back into the chair.

Meanwhile, the prisoner continued his speech, but the secretary did not write down anything else, but only, stretching his neck like a goose, tried not to utter a single word.

Well, it’s all over,” said the arrested man, looking benevolently at Pilate, “and I’m extremely happy about it.” I would advise you, hegemon, to leave the palace for a while and take a walk somewhere in the surrounding area, or at least in the gardens on the Mount of Olives. The thunderstorm will begin,” the prisoner turned and squinted into the sun, “later, in the evening.” A walk would be of great benefit to you, and I would be happy to accompany you. Some new thoughts have occurred to me that might, I think, seem interesting to you, and I would be happy to share them with you, especially since you seem to be a very smart person.

The secretary turned deathly pale and dropped the scroll to the floor.

The trouble is,” continued the bound man, unstoppable, “that you are too closed and have completely lost faith in people. You can’t, you see, put all your affection into a dog. Your life is meager, hegemon,” and here the speaker allowed himself to smile.

The secretary was now thinking about only one thing: whether to believe his ears or not. I had to believe. Then he tried to imagine exactly what bizarre form the anger of the hot-tempered procurator would take at this unheard-of insolence of the arrested person. And the secretary could not imagine this, although he knew the procurator well.

Untie his hands.

One of the escort legionnaires struck his spear, handed it to another, walked up and removed the ropes from the prisoner. The secretary picked up the scroll and decided not to write anything down and not be surprised by anything for now.

“Confess,” Pilate asked quietly in Greek, “are you a great doctor?”

No, procurator, I’m not a doctor,” answered the prisoner, rubbing his crumpled and swollen purple hand with pleasure.

Cool, from under his brows Pilate gazed at the prisoner, and in these eyes there was no longer any dullness, familiar sparks appeared in them.

“I didn’t ask you,” said Pilate, “perhaps you know Latin?”

Yes, I know,” answered the prisoner.

Color appeared on Pilate's yellowish cheeks, and he asked in Latin:

How did you know that I wanted to call the dog?

It’s very simple,” the prisoner answered in Latin, “you moved your hand through the air,” the prisoner repeated Pilate’s gesture, “as if you wanted to stroke it, and your lips...

Yes, said Pilate.

There was silence, then Pilate asked a question in Greek:

So, are you a doctor?

No, no,” the prisoner answered briskly, “believe me, I’m not a doctor.”

OK then. If you want to keep it a secret, keep it. To the point this is direct relationship does not have. So you're saying that you didn't call for the temple to be destroyed... or set on fire, or in any other way destroyed?

I, the hegemon, did not call anyone to such actions, I repeat. Do I look like a retard?

“Oh yes, you don’t look like a weak-minded person,” the procurator answered quietly and smiled with some kind of terrible smile, “so swear that this didn’t happen.”

What do you want me to swear to? - asked, very animated, untied.

Well, at least with your life,” answered the procurator, “it’s time to swear by it, since it hangs by a thread, know this!”

Don't you think you've hung her up, hegemon? - asked the prisoner, - if this is so, you are very mistaken.

Pilate shuddered and answered through clenched teeth:

I can cut this hair.

And in this you are mistaken,” the prisoner objected, smiling brightly and shielding himself from the sun with his hand, “Do you agree that only the one who hung it can probably cut the hair?”

“So, so,” Pilate said, smiling, “now I have no doubt that the idle onlookers in Yershalaim followed on your heels.” I don’t know who hung your tongue, but it hung well. By the way, tell me: is it true that you appeared in Yershalaim through the Susa Gate riding on a donkey, accompanied by a crowd of rabble who shouted greetings to you as if to some prophet? - here the procurator pointed to a scroll of parchment.

The prisoner looked at the procurator in bewilderment.

“I don’t even have a donkey, hegemon,” he said. “I came to Yershalaim exactly through the Susa Gate, but on foot, accompanied by only Levi Matvey, and no one shouted anything to me, since no one knew me in Yershalaim then.

“Don’t you know such people,” Pilate continued, without taking his eyes off the prisoner, “a certain Dismas, another Gestas and a third Bar-Rabban?”

“I don’t know these good people,” answered the prisoner.

Now tell me, why do you always use the words “good people”? Is that what you call everyone?

“Everyone,” answered the prisoner, “ evil people not in the world.

This is the first time I’ve heard about this,” Pilate said, grinning, “but maybe I don’t know life much!” You don’t have to write down anything further,” he turned to the secretary, although he was not writing anything down anyway, and continued to say to the prisoner: “Did you read about this in any of the Greek books?”

No, I came to this with my own mind.

And you preach this?

But, for example, the centurion Mark, they called him the Rat Slayer - is he kind?

Yes,” replied the prisoner, “it’s true that he unlucky man. Since good people disfigured him, he has become cruel and callous. It would be interesting to know who crippled him.

“I can readily report this,” Pilate responded, “for I witnessed this. Good people They rushed at him like dogs at a bear. The Germans grabbed his neck, arms, and legs. The infantry maniple fell into the bag, and if the cavalry tour had not cut in from the flank, and I commanded it, you, philosopher, would not have had to talk to the Rat-Slayer. This was in the battle of Idistavizo, in the Valley of the Maidens.

If I could talk to him,” the prisoner suddenly said dreamily, “I’m sure he would change dramatically.”

“I believe,” Pilate responded, “that you would bring little joy to the legate of the legion if you decided to talk to any of his officers or soldiers.” However, this will not happen, fortunately for everyone, and I will be the first to take care of this.

At this time, a swallow quickly flew into the colonnade, made a circle under the golden ceiling, descended, almost touched the face of the copper statue in the niche with its sharp wing and disappeared behind the capital of the column. Perhaps she got the idea to build a nest there.

During her flight, a formula developed in the now bright and light head of the procurator. It was like this: the hegemon looked into the case of the wandering philosopher Yeshua, nicknamed Ga-Notsri, and did not find any corpus delicti in it. In particular, I did not find the slightest connection between the actions of Yeshua and the unrest that occurred in Yershalaim recently. The wandering philosopher turned out to be mentally ill. As a result, the procurator does not approve the death sentence of Ha-Nozri, passed by the Small Sanhedrin. But due to the fact that the crazy, utopian speeches of Ha-Nozri could be the cause of unrest in Yershalaim, the procurator removes Yeshua from Yershalaim and subjects him to imprisonment in Caesarea Stratonova on the Mediterranean Sea, that is, exactly where the procurator’s residence is.

“Yes, this has been my fate since childhood. Everyone read on my face signs of bad feelings that were not there; but they were anticipated - and they were born. I was modest - I was accused of guile: I became secretive. I felt good and evil deeply; no one caressed me, everyone insulted me: I became vindictive; I was gloomy, - other children were cheerful and talkative; I felt superior to them - they put me lower. I became envious. I was ready to love the whole world, but no one understood me: and I learned to hate. My colorless youth passed in a struggle with myself and the world; Fearing ridicule, I buried my best feelings in the depths of my heart: they died there. I told the truth - they didn’t believe me: I began to deceive; Having learned well the light and springs of society, I became skilled in the science of life and saw how others were happy without art, freely enjoying the benefits that I so tirelessly sought. And then despair was born in my chest - not the despair that is treated with the barrel of a pistol, but cold, powerless despair, covered with courtesy and a good-natured smile. I became a moral cripple: one half of my soul did not exist, it dried up, evaporated, died, I cut it off and threw it away - while the other moved and lived at the service of everyone, and no one noticed this, because no one knew about the existence of the deceased its halves; but now you have awakened in me the memory of her, and I read her epitaph to you. To many, all epitaphs seem funny, but not to me, especially when I remember what lies underneath them. However, I do not ask you to share my opinion: if my prank seems funny to you, please laugh: I warn you that this will not upset me in the least. At that moment I met her eyes: tears were running in them; her hand, leaning on mine, trembled; cheeks were burning; she felt sorry for me! Compassion, a feeling that all women so easily submit to, let its claws into her inexperienced heart. During the entire walk she was absent-minded and did not flirt with anyone - and this is a great sign!” M. Yu. Lermontov “Hero of Our Time”

Anton Chekhov “WALLET” Three traveling actors - Smirnov, Popov and Balabaikin walked along the railway sleepers one fine morning and found a wallet. Having opened it, they, to their great surprise and pleasure, saw in it twenty bank notes, six winning tickets 2nd loan and a check for three thousand. First of all, they shouted “Hurray”, then they sat down on the embankment and began to indulge in delight. - How much is this for each? - said Smirnov, counting the money. - My friends! Five thousand four hundred and forty-five rubles each! My dears, you'll die from that kind of money! “I’m not as happy for myself,” said Balabaikin, “as for you, my dear darlings.” Now you won’t go hungry or walk barefoot. I’m happy for art... First of all, brothers, I’ll go to Moscow and straight to Aya: sew me a wardrobe, brother... I don’t want to play peasants, I’ll switch to the role of veils and whips. I'll buy a top hat and a cap. For veils, a gray cylinder. “Now I’d like to have a drink and a snack to celebrate,” remarked jeune premier Popov. “After all, we’ve been eating dry food for almost three days, now we need something like that... Eh?..” “Yes, that wouldn’t be bad, my dear darlings...” agreed Smirnov. - There is a lot of money, but there is nothing to eat, my precious ones. That's it, dear Popov, you are the youngest and lightest of us, take a ruble from your wallet and march for provisions, my good angel... Voooon village! Do you see the white church behind the mound? It will be five versts, no more... Do you see? The village is large, and you will find everything there... Buy a bottle of vodka, a pound of sausage, two breads and a herring, and we will wait for you here, my dear, my beloved... Popov took the ruble and got ready to leave. Smirnov, with tears in his eyes, hugged him, kissed him three times, crossed him and called him darling, angel, soul... Balabaikin also hugged him and swore eternal friendship - and only after a series of outpourings, the most sensitive, touching, Popov came down from the embankment and directed his feet towards the village darkening in the distance. “This is such happiness!” he thought on the way. “I didn’t have a penny, but suddenly it’s altyn. Now I’ll move to my native Kostroma, gather a troupe and build my own theater there. However... for five thousand these days you can’t build a good shed. That’s if if the whole wallet were mine, well, then it would be a different matter... Such a theater would be created, such that my respect. they will waste nothing, but I would bring benefit to the fatherland and immortalize myself... This is what I will do... I’ll take it and put it in vodka. They will die, but in Kostroma there will be a theater that Russia has never known before." Someone, I think McMahon said that the end justifies the means, and McMahon was a great man. While he was walking and reasoning like this, his companions Smirnov and Balabaikin sat and had the following speech: “Our friend Popov is a nice fellow,” said Smirnov with tears in his eyes, “I love him, I deeply appreciate his talent, I’m in love with him, but... .. Do you know? - this money will ruin him... He will either drink it away, or go into a scam and break his neck. He is so young that it is too early for him to have his own money, you are my good darling, my dear... “Yes,” Balabaikin agreed and kissed Smirnov. - What does this boy need money for? Another thing is you and me... We are family people, positive... For you and me, an extra ruble means a lot... (Pause.) You know what, brother? Let’s not talk and get sentimental for a long time: let’s just kill him!.. Then you and I will have eight thousand each. We’ll kill him, and in Moscow we’ll say that he was hit by a train... I love him too, I adore him, but I think the interests of art come first. Besides, he is mediocre and stupid, like this sleeper. - What are you doing, what?! - Smirnov was scared. - He’s so nice, honest... Although, on the other hand, frankly speaking, my dear, he’s a decent pig, a fool, an intriguer, a gossip, a scoundrel... If we really kill him, then he himself will thank us , my dear, dear... And so that he would not be so offended, we will print a touching obituary in the newspapers in Moscow. It will be friendly. No sooner said than done... When Popov returned from the village with provisions, his comrades hugged him with tears in their eyes, kissed him, assured him for a long time that he was a great artist, then suddenly attacked him and killed him. To hide the traces of the crime, they laid the dead man on the rails... Having divided the find, Smirnov and Balabaikin, moved, speaking kind words to each other, began to eat, in full confidence that the crime would go unpunished... But virtue always triumphs, and vice is punished . The poison Popov threw into a bottle of vodka was a potent one: before the friends had time to drink another, they were already lying lifeless on the sleepers... An hour later, crows were flying above them, cawing. Moral: when actors talk with tears in their eyes about their dear comrades, about friendship and mutual “solidarity”, when they hug and kiss you, then don’t get too carried away.

Boris Pasternak "Doctor Zhivago"