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Retelling of the Kuprin garnet bracelet. The story The Garnet Bracelet: analysis of the work. Storyline briefly by chapters

In mid-August, the weather in Crimea deteriorated, and residents of the suburban resort hastily moved to the cities. But at the beginning of September it became warmer again, and quiet cloudless days arrived. Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina, the wife of the leader of the nobility, could not leave the dacha, since the city apartment was being renovated. Now she was very happy about the beautiful warm days, silence, loneliness, and the gentle salty breeze.

Today was her name day. She was left alone in the house: her husband and brother went to the city on business. Before lunch, the man promised to return and bring a few of his closest acquaintances. This made Vera happy: she had to save money in order to refrain from ruin, and the reception at the dacha could be very modest. Now she walked around the garden and cut flowers for dining table.

The familiar sounds of a car horn were heard on the highway. It was the princess's sister, Anna Nikolaevna Friesse, who arrived. The sisters loved each other dearly and were very happy to meet. Outwardly, they were different: Vera, tall, with a flexible figure, a gentle, but cold and arrogant face, large beautiful hands, took after her mother, a beautiful Englishwoman, and Anna inherited her father’s Mongolian features, although she was also charming in her own way. She was married to a very rich man and gave birth to two children, a boy and a girl. Princess Vera, who had no children of her own, adored her nephews.

The sisters talked about the beauty of the sea and recalled their native places. Suddenly Anna realized that she had forgotten to give Vera a gift. She took from her hand bag a small notebook in an exquisite antique binding - a very expensive and rare thing.

After walking around a little more, the sisters went into the house to prepare to receive guests.

After the fifth, the invitees began to arrive. Vera was especially pleased by the arrival of Jenny Reiter, a talented pianist, friend from the Smolny Institute, and General Anosov, a friend of her late father, whom the sisters affectionately called grandfather. A brave warrior, a simple and sincere person, Anosov was fair with his subordinates, respected and took care of soldiers, valued honest and decent people. He was so attached to Vera and Anna, who tried to see them as often as possible. Anosov did not have his own family.

Lunch was lively. They told different funny stories and joked cheerfully with each other. Before getting up from the table, Princess Vera listed the guests. There were thirteen of them, and this upset the superstitious princess.

Suddenly, the maid Dasha called her from the living room with a mysterious look. In the princess’s small office, Dasha put a small package on the table and explained that a messenger had brought it. There was no one to return the gift: the messenger had already left, and Vera unwrapped the package. It contained a small jewelry case made of red plush. The princess lifted the lid and “saw an oval gold bracelet squeezed into black velvet,” and inside it was a note. The handwriting seemed familiar to her, but she put the note aside to look at the bracelet.

It was gold, low-grade... and on the outside it was entirely covered with small, poorly polished diamonds. But in the middle of the bracelet towered, surrounding some strange little green stone, five beautiful garnets - each the size of a pea. Under the fire of an electric light, deep red living lights lit up in them. “Like blood,” Vera thought with unexpected alarm. Then she unfolded the letter and, having read the first lines, realized that she knew the author.

Having congratulated the princess on her angel's day, he wrote that he would not have dared to present her with something he had chosen personally, but the family kept a relic - a silver bracelet decorated with garnets. The stones from it are accurately transferred to a gold bracelet, which no one has ever worn. The author of the letter said about the green pebble that it is a rare variety of pomegranate - green. According to an old legend, he is able to give the women he wears the gift of foresight and drive away heavy thoughts from them...

The letter ended like this: “I beg you not to be angry with me. I blush when I remember my insolence seven years ago, when I dared to write stupid and wild letters to you, young lady, and even expect an answer to them. Now all that remains in me is reverence, lifelong admiration and slavish devotion. Now I can only wish you happiness every minute and rejoice if you are happy. I mentally bow down to the furniture you sit on, the parquet floors you walk on, the trees you touch in passing, the servants you talk to. I don’t even have envy of people or things... Your humble servant, before death and after death, G.S.Zh.”

Princess Vera decided to show the letter to her husband, but to do it after the guests had left. The guests, meanwhile, were having fun: playing poker and talking. Prince Vasily Lvovich, Vera’s husband, showed a homemade humorous album with his own drawings. There was also a story about the love story of a poor telegraph operator for a charming blonde, Vera, and naive, funny notes from the lover. This story ended with the death of a loving telegraph operator, who bequeathed “to give Vera two telegraph buttons and a perfume bottle filled with his tears.”

The long autumn event was dying down, and the guests began to leave. General Anosov, Vera and Anna remained on the terrace. The general entertained the sisters with stories about various interesting episodes of his life. The sisters listened to him with delight. They were especially interested in the capture of the general; they wanted to know whether he had ever truly loved. “Probably didn’t like it,” the general replied. He went to meet his crew. The sisters decided to hold him. Before leaving, Vera asked her husband to read the received letter.

During the walk, the conversation about love continued. The general said that people marry out of mutual sympathy, meaning what blessings in life, and Vera’s mention of her happy marriage did not convince him that this marriage was based on love. “Love must be a tragedy, the greatest mystery in the world! No life’s conveniences, calculations and compromises should concern her,” the old man said convincingly. He gave several examples of real, great love and suddenly asked Vera to tell about the telegraph operator in love, from whom Prince Vasily laughed in his album.

And she told of the madman who pursued her with his love. It started two years before the marriage. He sent her letters signed by G.S., J. These letters were funny and vulgar, although quite chaste. After Vera asked (in writing!) not to bother her anymore with her castings, the telegraph operator stopped writing, sending congratulations only on Easter and on New Year. They never met. But today... And the princess told the general about the parcel she had received and translated the letter almost word for word. The general thought for a moment, and then said: “Perhaps this is just an abnormal guy, a maniac, or maybe... your life path, Vironko, crossed exactly the kind of love that women dream of and that men are no longer capable of.” Soon everyone said goodbye and the guests left.

Princess Vera entered the house with an unpleasant feeling. She heard the voices of her husband and brother Nikolai, who insisted that this senseless courtship must be stopped and the bracelet returned. Both Prince Vasily and Vera also believed that the bracelet should be sent back. The men decided that they should find out the address and take the bracelet to the owner themselves. For some reason, Vera felt sorry for the unfortunate man, but her brother Nikolai Nikolaevich was very determined and aggressive.

Vasily Lvovich and Nikolai Nikolaevich went to the stranger. They walked up the spit-stained stairs, smelling of mice. A weak voice answered their knock: “Come in.” The room resembled the cabin of a steamship. Its owner, a tall, thin young man with long fluffy hair, invited the guests to sit down. Having learned who his visitors were, he was completely at a loss. Very pale, blue eyes, with a gentle girlish face, Zheltkov (the guests already knew his last name) humbly listened to Nikolai Nikolaevich’s harsh criticisms. Prince Shein sat in silence, and Zheltkov turned to him, saying that he had loved Vera Nikolaevna for seven years and would always love her, and this feeling could only be ended by death. He asked the prince for permission to call Vera Nikolaevna. Vasily Lvovich agreed.

Zheltkov went, and Nikolai Nikolaevich began to reproach his brother-in-law for his unnecessary, unresolved softness, but the prince did not agree with him: “I see his face, and I feel that this man is not capable of deceiving... Is he really to blame for love and is it really possible to control such a feeling How's love? .. I am very sorry for this man... and I feel that I am present at what a huge tragedy of the soul...”

In ten minutes Zheltkov returned. His eyes were as deep as full of unshed tears. “I'm ready,” he said, “and you won't hear anything from me tomorrow. It's like I died for you." Addressing only Vasily Lvovich, Zheltkov explained that he had squandered government money and he needed to flee this city. He asked permission to write a last letter to Vera Nikolaevna. “Okay, write,” Shein replied. Zheltkov repeated that they would not hear anything about him, and added that Vera Nikolaevna did not want to talk to him at all.

In the evening, Vasily Lvovich told Vera about his meeting with Zheltkov. The princess was worried. “I know this man will kill himself,” she told her husband.

Princess Vera never read newspapers. But she accidentally opened this one and read about the suicide of an official of the control chamber.

In the evening the postman came. The princess recognized Zheltkov's hand. He wrote: “It is not my fault, Vera Nikolaevna, that God was pleased to send me love for you as a great happiness. For me, my whole life consists only of you... I am endlessly grateful to you just for the fact that you exist... I checked myself - this is not a disease, not a manic idea - this is love, with which God was pleased to reward me for something. Let me be funny in your eyes and in the eyes of your brother Nikolai Nikolaevich. As I leave, I say with delight: “Hallowed be your name».

Eight years ago I saw you... and then I said to myself: I love her because there is nothing like her in the world, there is nothing better, no animal, no plant, no person who would be more beautiful and gentle than you. You would embody all the beauty of the earth..."

Further, Zheltkov wrote that he would leave in ten minutes, and now he was burning expensive relics associated with his love, and asked Vera Nikolaevna, if she remembered him, to play or order to play Beethoven’s Sonata in D major No. 2, op. 2.

The letter ended like this: “I thank you from the depths of my soul for being my only joy in life, my only consolation, my only thought. May God give you happiness, and may nothing temporary or everyday disturb your beautiful soul. I kiss your hands. G.S.J.”

With reddened eyes, Princess Vera came to her husband. He understood her and sincerely said: “He loved you, and he was not crazy at all. I didn’t take my eyes off him and saw his every movement, every change in his face... For him, life without you did not exist. It seemed to me that I was present at the enormous suffering from which people die, and I even almost realized that in front of me was a dead person...”

Vera Nikolaevna said that she would go to the city to say goodbye to the dead, and Prince Vasily agreed with her. She easily found Zheltkov’s apartment, and the landlady led her to the deceased’s room. Before opening the door, Vera sat on a chair in the hallway, and the hostess talked about last days and the watch of his dear lodger. When the princess asked about the bracelet, she replied that Mr. Jerzy (George) asked her to hang this bracelet on the icon of the Mother of God.

Vera gathered her strength and opened the door to Zheltkov’s room. He lay on the table. “There was deep importance in his closed eyes, and his lips smiled blissfully and carefree.” The princess took a large red rose from her pocket, placed it under the deceased's neck and kissed him on the forehead with a long, friendly kiss. When she left, the owner of the apartment remembered that before his death, Mr. Zheltkov asked, if any lady came to see him, to tell her that Beethoven’s best work was “Son. No. 2, op. 2. Largo Appassionato.

Vera Nikolaevna returned home late in the evening. The pianist Jenny Reiter was waiting for her. Excited by everything she saw and experienced, Vera rushed to her and shouted: “Jenny, dear... play something for me! “- and immediately left the room.

She sat down on a bench in the flower garden. Vera had no doubt that she would hear the Appassionata. “So it was. She recognized from the first chords this exceptional work, the only one in depth. And her soul allegedly split in two. She thought about how an exceptional, great love that every woman dreams of had passed her by, and about why Zheltkov asked her to listen to this particular piece: “Hallowed be thy name.” The music seemed to say that suffering, grief and death are nothing before great love.

Princess Vera wept. “And at this time the amazing music... continued: “Calm down, dear, calm down... Do you remember about me? .. After all, you are my only and last love. Think of me and I will be with you... Take it easy. I sleep so sweet, sweet, sweet.” Jenny Reiter left the room and saw her friend, all in tears. Vera said excitedly: “He has forgiven me now. Everything is fine ".

The action of A.I. Kuprin's story takes place in a cozy resort town on the Black Sea coast. Autumn begins, and although the first cold weather is still quite far away, summer residents are in a hurry to return to the city. It is at this moment that the central heroine of the story appears before the reader’s gaze - Vera Nikolaevna Sheina, the princess. According to the plot of the story Garnet bracelet», summary which we are looking at, the princess did not return to the city at the same time as everyone else, since renovation work was still underway in her apartment.

name day

Fortunately, summer was in no hurry to give way to autumn, and the bad weather in August gave way to warm and sunny September days. Vera Nikolaevna's husband, Vasily, was forced to urgently leave for the city for a day on business. This happened just on the eve of the princess’s name day (September 17). On the dressing table, Vasily left a gift for his beloved wife - a case with finely crafted pearl earrings. On the occasion of her name day, Sheina is throwing a dinner party, and her sister, Anna Nikolaevna Friesse, decides to help her prepare everything for the holiday. By evening, guests gathered in the house. Quite by accident, the princess counted their number - there were exactly 13 guests. Being a superstitious lady, Vera considered this to be an unkind omen. When the invitees sat down to play poker, Sheina retired to her office. At that moment, the maid entered and handed the princess a case, where Vera found a note from a certain G.S.Zh., who congratulated her on her name day and thought that he could not come up with best gift than a garnet bracelet. The summary does not imply the presence detailed descriptions, but we will mention that it was a family decoration of rare beauty that belonged to the great-grandmother of the hero.

Story

Princess Sheina decided to tell her husband about the unusual gift. Going down to the living room, she heard that her husband was reading satirical stories about themselves and their acquaintances to the guests, namely, his new creation “Princess Vera and the Telegraph Operator in Love”. According to the plot of the story "Garnet Bracelet", a summary of which you are now reading, the story featured the personality of a certain P.P.Zh. - a telegraph operator in love with Vera, who filled her with love messages both before she got married and became a princess, and after. In the story of Vasily P.P.Zh. first ended up in a lunatic asylum, and then took the monastic vows, but still continued to write letters to the princess, which she returned to the post office. After the death of P.P.Zh. the princess in the creation of Vasily received the last gift from her admirer - a perfume bottle filled with tears, and two telegraph buttons. General Anosov, one of the guests of the evening, asked Vera Nikolaevna what part of her husband's story was true. The birthday girl confirmed that she really had an anonymous admirer. He still continues to send her letters from time to time. To this, Anosov noted that, perhaps, Vera's life path was crossed by just the kind of love that women dream of and that men are no longer capable of.

Zheltkov

Further, the story "Garnet Bracelet", the summary of which we analyze, develops in this way: as soon as the guests left, Vasily and Nikolai (the princess's brother) decide that G.S.Zh. it needs to end. They send the bracelet back, and then find it by the initials of the telegraph operator Zheltkov - that very admirer of Sheina. Zheltkov agreed that his behavior could not be justified, but noted that neither exile nor prison could kill his feelings for Vera - only death was capable of that. The next morning, Vera Nikolaevna learns from the newspaper about Zheltkov’s suicide. And the postman brings the princess the last letter from a fan, where G.S.Zh. says that love for her has become for him a reward from above and repeats: "Hallowed be thy name." This is how the main part of the story “Garnet Bracelet” ends. Below is a summary of the end of a simple, but at the same time very deep story.

Awareness

Vera Nikolaevna goes to the funeral of her admirer. In the coffin, Zheltkov looks serene and happy, as if a moment before his death he learned the most important and bright secret of the universe. At this moment, the princess understands that Anosov was right, and she simply missed the highest love that any woman dreams of. Returning home, Vera asked her friend Jenny to play something for the soul on the piano. The girl complied with the princess’s request and suddenly began to play exactly that part of L. Beethoven’s Appassionato, where the line “Hallowed be thy name” appeared - the main words of G.S.Zh’s farewell note. At that moment, Vera Nikolaevna felt that he had forgiven her...

Conclusion

Now you know the summary of “Garnet Bracelet” by A.I. Kuprina. However, in order to experience all the magic of this work, I recommend reading it in its entirety - there are few short stories that can cause a real storm in the reader’s soul. Undoubtedly, “Garnet Bracelet” is one of them.

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

Largo Appassionato.

I

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

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

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

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

II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III

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

Vera smiled softly.

- You are a dreamer.

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

– Is being an artist your new hobby?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fishing boats, difficult to spot with the eye - they seemed so small - dozed motionless in the surface of the sea, not far from the shore. And then, as if standing in the air, not moving forward, a three-masted ship, all dressed from top to bottom with monotonous white slender sails, bulging from the wind.

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

Anna smiled.

-What are you doing? the sister asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vera affectionately stroked the beautiful binding.

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

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

They entered the house through a large stone terrace, closed on all sides by thick trellises of Isabella grapes. Plentiful black clusters, emitting a faint smell of strawberries, hung heavily between the dark, in some places gilded by the sun greenery. A green half-light spread over the entire terrace, from which the faces of the women immediately turned pale.

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

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

– Will there be anyone interesting?

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

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

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

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

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

Anna, greedily curious about everything that concerned her and that did not concern her, immediately demanded that they bring her a gurnard.

The tall, clean-shaven, yellow-faced cook Luka came in with a large, oblong white tub, which he held with difficulty by the ears, afraid to splash water on the parquet.

“Twelve and a half pounds, Your Excellency,” he said with a peculiar chef's pride. - We weighed it just now.

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

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

- Don't worry, your Excellency, everything is fine. at its best“We’ll arrange it,” said the cook, obviously understanding Anna’s anxiety. – Now the Bulgarian brought two melons. Pineapple. Kind of like cantaloupes, but the smell is much more aromatic. And I also dare to ask Your Excellency, what sauce would you like to serve with a rooster: tartar or Polish, otherwise you can just crackers in butter?

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

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

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

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

One day Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina celebrated her name day. She celebrated at the dacha, since her and her husband’s apartment was being renovated. Many guests were invited to the celebration, and the birthday girl was a little embarrassed that there were thirteen guests.

The guests went to play poker, and Vera went to the veranda, where the maid gave her the mysterious package. In it, Vera found a box containing a gold bracelet and a note. Vera first examined the bracelet. It was made of low-grade gold, but on some links stones of a poorly polished garnet were suspended, and in the middle of it hung a small green stone, as it turned out later, it was a rare type of garnet - green garnet. Then Vera read the note. It was written beautiful handwriting, which was very familiar to the woman. The note contained congratulations on Angel's Day. The author wrote that this bracelet was passed down from generation to generation, and it has power, women with it gain the gift of foresight and they are no longer bothered by bad thoughts, and men can avoid violent death. The author also asked for forgiveness for his insolence seven years ago.

Vera thought for a long time whether to show her husband a gift and a note to her husband Vasya or not. And I decided to show everything after the guests left.

The holiday is in full swing. Prince Vasily Lvovich showed the guests a family humorous album and read out the letters that the telegraph operator in love had written to Vera before her marriage. Then all the guests drank tea and began to leave. Vera went to see off the guests, and asked her husband to go and look at the red case and the letter on the table.

While the woman was seeing off General Anosov, she, in response to the words about the lack of love in the modern world and the uselessness of marriage, said that she was very happily married and loved her husband. And the general said that love should be a tragedy. He tells a few examples and then asks about the telegraph operator. The woman says that a couple of years before her marriage, a stranger sent her letters, who signed the letters “G. S. Zh." He apparently kept an eye on Vera, as he described her entire day in letters. Soon Vera asked this man not to write to her, and from then on he limited himself to only congratulations on the holidays.

Vera's brother Nikolai and her husband Vasily Lvovich decide to find a secret admirer, because they do not want this to become known to anyone later. They find the person who sent the bracelet. He turned out to be a man named Zheltkov. He apologized to Vasily and explained that Vera had been his only true love for eight years. He promised not to write to her anymore, but asks to talk on the phone once. After this conversation, Zheltkov promised Vasily that no one would ever hear from him again, asked permission from the princess’s husband to give her the last letter, and received it.

Vasily Lvovich came home and told everything to his wife, who was amazed by this story. She understands that Zheltkov is going to kill himself. And in the morning Vera sees an article in the newspaper about the suicide of an official control service G.S. Zheltkova.

Vera receives the last letter from the deceased, in which he asks for forgiveness, talks about love and says that he first saw her at the circus, she was sitting in a box. It was then that Zheltkov fell in love.

Vera goes home to Zheltkov and learns from his housekeeper about the wonderful man Zheltkov. It turned out that before sending the garnet bracelet to Vera, Zheltkov hung it on the icon for several days. Vera understands that the love that every woman dreams of has passed her by. She kisses the deceased on the forehead and leaves.

Arriving home, the woman was glad that there was no one there except her. She thought a lot about Zheltkov and about this love. Then pianist Jenny Reiter came to visit and played a Beethoven sonnet. It was he who asked Zheltkov to play in the letter.

Vera was sad. She cried, because such love is a dream. Vera pressed herself against the acacia tree and hoped that Zheltkov had forgiven her.