L. N. Andreev

A modern tragedy in three acts and six scenes

Leonid Andreev. Plays by M., "Soviet Writer", 1981

CHARACTERS

Kerzhentsev Anton Ignatievich, Doctor of Medicine. Kraft, a pale young man. Savelov Alexey Konstantinovich, famous writer. Tatyana Nikolaevna, his wife. Sasha, the Savelovs' maid. Daria Vasilievna, housekeeper in Kerzhentsev's house. Vasily, Kerzhentsev's servant. Masha, a nurse in a hospital for the insane. Vasilyeva, nurse. Fedorovich, writer. Semenov Evgeniy Ivanovich, psychiatrist, professor. Ivan Petrovich | Direct Sergey Sergeevich) doctors in the hospital. Third doctor. | Nurse. Servants in the hospital.

Dedicated to Anna Ilyinichna Andreeva

ACT ONE

PICTURE ONE

The rich office-library of Dr. Kerzhentsev. Evening. The electricity is on. The light is soft. In the corner is a cage with a large orangutan, who is now sleeping; only a red hairy lump is visible. The curtain that usually covers the corner with the cage is pulled back: Kerzhentsev and a very pale young man, whom the owner calls by his last name, Kraft, are examining the sleeper.

Craft. He's sleeping. Kerzhentsev. Yes. Now he sleeps like this all day long. This is the third orangutan to die of sadness in this cage. Call him by name - Jaipur, he has a name. He is from India. My first orangutan, an African, was named Zuga, the second - in honor of my father - Ignatius. (Laughs.) Ignatius. Craft. Is he playing... Jaipur is playing? Kerzhentsev. Not enough now. Craft. It seems to me that this is homesickness. Kerzhentsev. No, Kraft. Travelers tell interesting things about gorillas, which they observed in their natural conditions. It turns out that gorillas, just like our poets, are susceptible to melancholy. Suddenly something happens, the hairy pessimist stops playing and dies of boredom. So he dies - not bad, Kraft? Craft. It seems to me that tropical melancholy is even more terrible than ours. Kerzhentsev. Do you remember that they never laugh? Dogs laugh, but they don't. Craft. Yes. Kerzhentsev. Have you ever seen in menageries how two monkeys, after playing, suddenly calm down and cuddle up to each other - what a sad, searching and hopeless look they have? Craft. Yes. But where do they get their melancholy? Kerzhentsev. Solve it! But let's move away, let's not disturb his sleep - from sleep he imperceptibly moves towards death. (Draws the curtains.) And now, when he sleeps for a long time, he shows signs of rigor mortis. Sit down, Kraft.

Both sit down at the table.

Shall we play chess? Craft. No, I don't feel like it today. Your Jaipur has upset me. Poison him, Anton Ignatievich. Kerzhentsev. No need. He will die himself. And the wine, Kraft?

Calling. Silence. Servant Vasily enters.

Vasily, tell the housekeeper to give her a bottle of Johannisberg. Two glasses.

Vasily goes out and soon returns with wine.

Put it in. Please drink Kraft. Craft. What do you think, Anton Ignatievich? Kerzhentsev. About Jaipur? Craft. Yes, about his longing. Kerzhentsev. I thought a lot, a lot... How do you find wine? Craft. Good wine. Kerzhentsev (holds the glass up to the light). Can you find out the year? Craft. No, no matter what. I'm generally indifferent to wine. Kerzhentsev. And this is a great pity, Kraft, a great pity. You have to love and know wine, like everything else you love. My Jaipur upset you - but, probably, he would not die of melancholy if he could drink wine. However, you have to drink wine for twenty thousand years to be able to do this. Craft. Tell me about Jaipur. (Sits deep in a chair and rests his head on his hand.) Kerzhentsev. There was a disaster here, Kraft. Craft. Yes? Kerzhentsev. Yes, some kind of disaster. Where does this melancholy come from in monkeys, this incomprehensible and terrible melancholy from which they go crazy and die in despair? Craft. Are they going crazy? Kerzhentsev. Probably. No one in the animal world, except anthropoid apes, knows this melancholy... Kraft. Dogs howl often. Kerzhentsev. This is different, Kraft, this is fear of the unknown world, this is horror! Now look into his eyes when he is sad: these are almost our human eyes. Take a closer look at his general human-likeness... my Jaipur often sat, thoughtful, almost like you are now... and understand where this melancholy comes from? Yes, I sat for hours in front of the cage, I peered into his yearning eyes, I myself looked for an answer in his tragic silence - and then one day it seemed to me: he was yearning, he was dreaming vaguely about the time when he was also a man, a king, what something of the highest form. You see, Kraft: it was! (Raises finger.) Craft. Let's say. Kerzhentsev. Let's say. But now I look further, Kraft, I look deeper into his melancholy, I no longer sit for hours, I sit for days before his silent eyes - and now I see: either he was already a king, or... listen, Kraft! or he could have become one, but something prevented him. He does not remember the past, no, he yearns and hopelessly dreams of the future that was taken away from him. He is all striving for a higher form, he is all longing for a higher form, because in front of him... in front of him, Kraft, is a wall! Craft. Yes, it's sad. Kerzhentsev. This is melancholy, you understand, Kraft? He walked, but some kind of wall blocked his path. Do you understand? He walked, but some catastrophe broke out over his head - and he stopped. Or maybe the disaster even threw him back - but he stopped. Wall, Craft, disaster! His brain stopped, Kraft—and everything stopped with him! All! Craft. You return to your thought again. Kerzhentsev. Yes. There is something terrible in the past of my Jaipur, in the dark depths from which it emerged - but he cannot tell. He doesn't know himself! He only dies from unbearable melancholy. Thought! - Yes, of course, a thought! (Gets up and walks around the office.) Yes. That thought, the power of which you and I know, Kraft, suddenly betrayed him, suddenly stopped and stood still. It's horrible! This is a terrible catastrophe, worse than a flood! And he became covered with hair again, he stood on all fours again, he stopped laughing - he must die of melancholy. He is a dethroned king, Kraft! He is the ex-king of the earth! A few stones remain from his kingdoms, and where is the ruler - where is the priest - where is the king? The king wanders through the forests and dies of melancholy. Thumbs up, Kraft?

Silence. Kraft is in the same position, motionless. Kerzhentsev walks around the room.

When I examined the brain of the late Ignatius, not my father, but this... (Laughs.) This one was also Ignatius... Kraft. Why do you laugh a second time when talking about your father? Kerzhentsev. Because I didn't respect him, Kraft.

Silence.

Craft. What did you find when you opened the skull of Ignatius? Kerzhentsev. Yes, I didn't respect my father. Listen, Kraft, my Jaipur will die soon: would you like us to explore his brain together? It will be interesting. (Sits down.) Craft. Fine. And when I die, will you look at my brain? Kerzhentsev. If you bequeath it to me, with pleasure, that is, with readiness, I wanted to say. I don't like you lately, Kraft. You probably don't drink much wine. You start feeling homesick for Jaipur. Drink. Craft. Do not want. Are you always alone, Anton Ignatievich? Kerzhentsev (sharp). I don't need anyone. Craft. Today for some reason it seems to me that you are a very unhappy person, Anton Ignatievich!

Silence. Kraft sighs and changes his position.

Kerzhentsev. Look, Kraft, I didn't ask you to talk about my personal life. I like you because you know how to think and you are concerned about the same questions as me, I like our conversations and activities, but we are not friends, Kraft, I ask you to remember this! I have no friends and I don't want them.

Silence. Kerzhentsev goes to the corner where the cage is, pulls back the curtain and listens: it’s quiet there - and again returns to his place.

Sleeping. However, I can tell you, Kraft, that I feel happy. Yes, happy! I have an idea, Kraft, I have - this! (Somewhat angrily taps his fingers on his forehead.) I don't need anyone.

Silence. Kraft is reluctant to drink wine.

Drink, drink. And you know, Kraft, you will soon hear from me... yes, in a month, a month and a half. Craft. Are you releasing a book? Kerzhentsev. A book? No, what nonsense! I don’t want to publish any book, I’m working for myself. I don’t need people - I think this is the third time I’ve told you this, Kraft? Enough about people. No, it will be... some experience. Yes, an interesting experience! Craft. Won't you tell me what's wrong? Kerzhentsev. No. I believe in your modesty, otherwise I would not have told you this either - but no. You will hear. I wanted... it happened to me... in a word, I want to know the strength of my thought, to measure its strength. You see, Kraft: you only know a horse when you ride it! (Laughs.) Craft. Is it dangerous?

Silence. Kerzhentsev thought.

Anton Ignatievich, is this experience of yours dangerous? I can hear it in your laugh: your laugh is not good. Kerzhentsev. Craft!.. Craft. I'm listening to. Kerzhentsev. Craft! Tell me, you are a serious young man: would you dare to pretend to be crazy for a month or two? Wait: don’t put on the mask of a cheap simulator—do you understand, Kraft? - and call upon the very spirit of madness with a spell. You see him: instead of a crown there is straw in his gray hair, and his robe is torn - do you see, Kraft? Craft. I see. No, I wouldn't. Anton Ignatievich, is this your experience? Kerzhentsev. May be. But let's leave it, Kraft, let's leave it. You are truly a serious young man. Would you like some more wine? Craft. No thanks. Kerzhentsev. Dear Kraft, every time I see you, you become paler. You disappeared somewhere. Or are you unwell? What's wrong with you? Craft. This is personal, Anton Ignatievich. I also wouldn't like to talk about personal things. Kerzhentsev. You're right, sorry.

Silence.

Do you know Alexey Savelov? Craft (indifferently). I'm not familiar with all of his stuff, but I like him, he's talented. I haven't read his latest story yet, but they praise... Kerzhentsev. Nonsense! Craft. I heard that he... is your friend? Kerzhentsev. Nonsense! But let him be a friend, let him be a friend. No, what are you talking about, Kraft: Savelov is talented! Talents must be preserved, talents must be cherished like the apple of one's eye, and if only he were talented!.. Craft. What? Kerzhentsev. Nothing! He is not a diamond - he is only diamond dust. He is a lapidary in literature! A genius and great talent always have sharp edges, and Savelov’s diamond dust is needed only for cutting: others shine while he works. But... let's leave all the Savelovs alone, this is not interesting. Craft. Me too.

Silence.

Anton Ignatievich, can’t you wake up your Jaipur? I would like to look at him, into his eyes. Wake me up. Kerzhentsev. Would you like it, Kraft? Okay, I'll wake him up... unless he's already dead. Let's go.

Both approach the cage. Kerzhentsev pulls back the curtain.

Craft. He's sleeping? Kerzhentsev. Yes, he's breathing. I'll wake him up, Kraft!..

A curtain

PICTURE TWO

The office of the writer Alexei Konstantinovich Savelov. Evening. Silence. Savelov writes at his desk; aside, at a small table, Savelov’s wife, Tatyana Nikolaevna, is writing business letters.

Savelov (suddenly). Tanya, are the children sleeping? Tatyana Nikolaevna. Children? Savelov. Yes. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Kids are sleeping. They were already going to bed when I left the nursery. And what? Savelov. So. Don't interfere.

Silence again. Both write. Savelov frowns, puts down his pen and walks around the office twice. He looks over Tatyana Nikolaevna's shoulder at her work.

What are you doing? Tatyana Nikolaevna. I am writing letters regarding that manuscript, but I must answer, Alyosha, it’s awkward. Savelov. Tanya, come play for me. I need. Don't say anything now - I need it. Go. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Fine. What should I play? Savelov. Don't know. Choose for yourself. Go. Tatyana Nikolaevna goes into the next room, leaving the door open. A light flashes there. Tatyana Nikolaevna plays the piano. (He walks around the room, sits down and listens. He smokes. He puts down a cigarette, goes to the door and shouts from afar.) That's enough, Tanya. No need. Come here! Tanya, can you hear?

Walks silently. Tatyana Nikolaevna enters and looks attentively at her husband.

Tatyana Nikolaevna. What are you, Alyosha, aren’t you working again? Savelov. Again. Tatyana Nikolaevna. From what? Savelov. Don't know. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Are you tired? Savelov. No.

Silence.

Tatyana Nikolaevna. Can I continue the letters or leave them? Savelov. No, leave it! Better talk to me... but maybe you don't want to talk to me? Tatyana Nikolaevna (smiles). Well, what nonsense, Alyosha, shame on you... funny! Let it stay, I’ll add it later, it doesn’t matter. (Collects letters.) Savelov (walks). I can't write at all today. And yesterday too. You see, it’s not that I’m tired, what the hell! - but I want something else. Something else. Something completely different! Tatyana Nikolaevna. Let's go to the theater. Savelov (stopping). In which? No, to hell with it. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Yes, perhaps it’s already too late. Savelov. Well, to hell with it! I don’t have the slightest desire to go to the theater. It’s a pity that the children are sleeping... no, however, I don’t want children either. And I don’t want music - it just drags on my soul, it makes it even worse. What do I want, Tanya? Tatyana Nikolaevna. I don't know, darling. Savelov. And I don't know. No, I can guess what I want. Sit down and listen, okay? I shouldn’t write, you understand, Tanhen? - and do something yourself, move, wave your arms, perform some actions. Act! In the end, it’s simply unbearable: to be only a mirror, to hang on the wall of your office and only reflect... Wait: it wouldn’t be bad to write a sad, very sad fairy tale about a mirror that for a hundred years reflected murderers, beauties, kings, freaks - - and I was so homesick for real life that I let myself off the hook and... Tatyana Nikolaevna. And what? Savelov. Well, it crashed, of course, what else? No, I’m tired of it, again it’s fiction, fiction, royalties. Our famous Savelov wrote... to hell with it completely! Tatyana Nikolaevna. But I’ll write down the topic anyway. Savelov. Write it down if you want. No, just think, Tanhen: in six years I have never cheated on you! Never! Tatyana Nikolaevna. And Nadenka Skvortsova? Savelov. Leave it! No, I’m serious, Tanya: this is impossible, I’m starting to hate myself. A thrice-cursed mirror that hangs motionless and can only reflect what it itself wants to be reflected and passes by. Amazing things can happen behind the mirror, but at the same time it reflects some idiot, a blockhead who wanted to straighten his tie! Tatyana Nikolaevna. This is not true, Alyosha. Savelov. You absolutely don’t understand anything, Tatyana! I hate myself - do you understand that? No? I hate that little world that lives in me, here, in my head - the world of my images, my experience, my feelings. To hell! I'm disgusted with what's in front of my eyes, I want what's behind me... what's there? A whole huge world lives somewhere behind my back, and I feel how beautiful it is, but I can’t turn my head. I can not! To hell. Soon I will stop writing completely! Tatyana Nikolaevna. This will pass, Alyosha. Savelov. And it will be a great pity if it passes. Oh, Lord, if only someone would come in and tell me about that life! Tatyana Nikolaevna. Can I call someone... Alyosha, do you want me to call Fedorovich? Savelov. Fedorovich? To talk about literature all evening again? To hell! Tatyana Nikolaevna. But who? I don't know who to call who would suit your mood. Sigismund? Savelov. No! And I don't know anyone who would fit. Who?

Both are thinking.

Tatyana Nikolaevna. What if Kerzhentsev? Savelov. Anton? Tatyana Nikolaevna. Yes, Anton Ignatievich. If you call, he will come now; in the evenings he is always at home. If you don’t want to talk, then play chess with him. Savelov (stops and looks angrily at his wife). I won’t play chess with Kerzhentsev, how can you not understand that? Last time he killed me in three moves... what is so interesting for me to play with such... Chigorin! And I still understand that this is just a game, and he is serious, like an idol, and when I lose, he considers me an ass. No, no need for Kerzhentsev! Tatyana Nikolaevna. Well, talk, you are friends with him. Savelov. Talk to him yourself, you like to talk to him, but I don’t want to. Firstly, only I will speak, and he will be silent. You never know how many people are silent, but his silence is terribly disgusting! And then, I’m just tired of him with his dead monkeys, his divine thought - and the lackey Vaska, at whom he shouts like a bourgeois. Experimenter! The man has such a magnificent forehead, for which one could erect a monument - but what did he do? Nothing. Even if you hit nuts with your forehead, it’s still work. Phew, tired of running! (Sits down.) Tatyana Nikolaevna. Yes... There’s one thing I don’t like, Alyosha: there’s something gloomy in his eyes. Apparently, he is really sick: this psychosis of his, which Karasev spoke about... Savelov. Leave it! I don't believe in his psychosis. He pretends, he breaks the fool. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Well, you're too much, Alyosha. Savelov. No, not too much. I, my dear, have known Anton since high school; for two years we were the most loving friends - and he is the most wonderful person! And I don’t trust him in anything. No, I don't want to talk about him. Tired of it! Tanya, I'll go somewhere. Tatyana Nikolaevna. With me? Savelov. No, I want one. Tanya, can I? Tatyana Nikolaevna. Go, of course. But where will you go - to someone? Savelov. Maybe I’ll go see someone... No, I really want to wander around the streets, among the people. Brush elbows, watch how they laugh, how they bare their teeth... Last time they beat someone on the boulevard, and, honestly, Tanya, I looked at the scandal with pleasure. Maybe I'll go to a restaurant. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Oh, Alyosha, dear, I’m afraid of this, don’t, dear. You'll drink too much again and be unwell - don't! Savelov. No, no, what are you talking about, Tanya! Yes, I forgot to tell you: today I followed the general. They were burying some general, and military music was playing - do you understand? This is not a Romanian violin, which exhausts the soul: here you walk firmly, in step - you can feel it. I love wind instruments. In the copper pipes, when they cry and scream, in the drum roll with its cruel, hard, distinct rhythm... What do you want?

The maid Sasha entered.

Tatyana Nikolaevna. Why don't you knock, Sasha? You to me? Sasha. No. Anton Ignatyich came and asked whether they can come to you or not. They have already undressed. Savelov. Well, of course, call me. Tell him to come straight here.

The maid comes out.

Tatyana Nikolaevna (smiles). Easy to remember. Savelov. Oh, damn it!.. He will delay me, by God! Tanya, please stay with Kerzhentsev, and I’ll go, I can’t! Tatyana Nikolaevna. Yes, of course, go! After all, he’s one of his own, what embarrassment can there be here... Darling, you’re completely upset! Savelov. Oh well! Now a person will come in, and you kiss. Tatyana Nikolaevna. I'll make it! Kerzhentsev enters. Says hello. The guest kisses Tatyana Nikolaevna's hand. Savelov. What is your fate, Antosha? And I, brother, am leaving. Kerzhentsev. Well, go ahead and I'll go out with you. Are you also coming, Tatyana Nikolaevna? Savelov. No, she will stay, sit down. What did Karasev say about you: you’re not entirely healthy? Kerzhentsev. Nothing. Some memory loss is probably an accident or overwork. That's what the psychiatrist said. What are they already saying? Savelov. They say, brother, they say! Why are you smiling, are you happy? I’m telling you, Tanya, that this is some kind of thing... I don’t believe you, Antosha! Kerzhentsev. Why don’t you believe me, Alexey? Savelov (sharp). In everything.

Silence. Savelov walks around angrily.

Tatyana Nikolaevna. How is your Jaipur doing, Anton Ignatievich? Kerzhentsev. He died. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Yes? What a pity.

Savelov snorts contemptuously.

Kerzhentsev. Yes, he died. Yesterday. You, Alexey, better go, otherwise you are already starting to hate me. I do not hold you. Savelov. Yes, I will go. You, Antosha, don’t be angry, I’m angry today and I’m throwing myself at everyone like a dog. Don't be angry, my dear, she will tell you everything. Jaipur died for you, and I, brother, buried a general today: I marched three streets. Kerzhentsev. Which general? Tatyana Nikolaevna. He jokes, he followed the music. Savelov (stuffing cigarette case with cigarettes). Jokes are jokes, but you still bother less with the monkey, Anton - someday you will seriously go crazy. You are an experimenter, Antosha, a cruel experimenter!

Kerzhentsev does not answer.

Kerzhentsev. Are the children healthy, Tatyana Nikolaevna? Tatyana Nikolaevna. Thank God we are healthy. And what? Kerzhentsev. Scarlet fever is on the move, we must be careful. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Oh my God! Savelov. Well now I gasped! Goodbye, Antosha, don’t be angry that I’m leaving... Maybe I’ll still find you. I'll be there soon, darling. Tatyana Nikolaevna. I'll walk you around a little, Alyosha, just a few words for me. Me now, Anton Ignatievich. Kerzhentsev. Please don't be shy.

Savelov and his wife come out. Kerzhentsev paces around the room. He takes a heavy paperweight from Savelov’s desk and weighs it in his hand: this is how Tatyana Nikolaevna finds him.

Tatyana Nikolaevna. Gone. What are you watching, Anton Ignatievich? Kerzhentsev (calmly putting down the paperweight). It's a heavy thing, you can kill a person if you hit him on the head. Where did Alexey go? Tatyana Nikolaevna. So, take a walk. He misses. Sit down, Anton Ignatievich, I’m very glad that you finally stopped by. Kerzhentsev. Bored? How long has it been? Tatyana Nikolaevna. It happens to him. Suddenly he quits his job and starts looking for some real life. Now he has gone wandering the streets and will probably get involved in some kind of story. What’s sad to me, Anton Ignatievich, is that, apparently, I’m not giving him something, some necessary experiences, our life with him is too calm... Kerzhentsev. And happy? Tatyana Nikolaevna. What is happiness? Kerzhentsev. Yes, no one knows this. Do you really like Alexey's latest story? Tatyana Nikolaevna. Very. And you? Kerzhentsev is silent. I find that his talent is growing every day. This does not mean at all that I speak like his wife; I am generally quite impartial. But this is also criticized... and you?

Kerzhentsev is silent.

(Worried.) And you, Anton Ignatievich, read the book carefully or just leafed through it? Kerzhentsev. Very carefully. Tatyana Nikolaevna. So what?

Kerzhentsev is silent. Tatyana Nikolaevna glances at him and silently begins to clear the papers from the table.

Kerzhentsev. Don't you like that I'm silent? Tatyana Nikolaevna. I don't like anything else. Kerzhentsev. What? Tatyana Nikolaevna. Today you cast one very strange glance at Alexei, at your husband. I don’t like, Anton Ignatyich, that for six years... you could not forgive either me or Alexei. You have always been so reserved that it never even occurred to me, but today... However, let’s leave this conversation, Anton Ignatich! Kerzhentsev (gets up and stands with his back to the stove. Looks down at Tatyana Nikolaevna). Why change, Tatyana Nikolaevna? I find him interesting. If today for the first time in six years I showed something - although I don’t know what - then today you started talking about the past for the first time. This is interesting. Yes, six years ago, or rather seven and a half - the weakening of my memory did not affect these years - I proposed my hand and my heart to you and you deigned to reject both. Do you remember that it was at the Nikolaevsky station and that the hand on the station clock showed exactly six at that minute: the disk was divided in half by one black line? Tatyana Nikolaevna. I don't remember this. Kerzhentsev. No, that's right, Tatyana Nikolaevna. And remember that you still felt sorry for me then? This you cannot forget. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Yes, I remember that, but what could I have done differently? There was nothing offensive to you in my pity, Anton Ignatich. And I just can't understand why we're saying this - what is this, an explanation? Fortunately, I am absolutely sure that not only do you not love me... Kerzhentsev. This is careless, Tatyana Nikolaevna! What if I say that I still love you, that I won’t get married, that I lead such a strange, secluded life, just because I love you? Tatyana Nikolaevna. You won't say that! Kerzhentsev. Yes, I won't say that. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Listen, Anton Ignatyich: I really love talking to you... Kerzhentsev. Talk to me, and sleep with Alexei? Tatyana Nikolaevna (stands up, indignantly). No, what's wrong with you? This is rude! This is impossible! I don't understand. And maybe you are really sick? This psychosis of yours, which I heard about... Kerzhentsev. Well, let's say. Let it be the same psychosis that you have heard about - if you can’t say otherwise. But are you really afraid of words, Tatyana Nikolaevna? Tatyana Nikolaevna. I'm not afraid of anything, Anton Ignatyich. (Sits down.) But I will have to tell Alexey everything. Kerzhentsev. Are you sure that you will be able to tell and he will be able to understand something? Tatyana Nikolaevna. Alexey won’t be able to understand?.. No, are you kidding, Anton Ignatyich? Kerzhentsev. Well, this can be allowed too. Of course, Alexey told you that I was... how should I put this to you... a big hoaxer? I love joke experiments. Once upon a time, in my youth, of course, I deliberately sought the friendship of one of my comrades, and when he blurted out everything, I left him with a smile. With a slight smile, however: I respect my loneliness too much to break it with laughter. So now I’m joking, and while you’re worried, I might be looking at you calmly and with a smile... with a slight smile, however. Tatyana Nikolaevna. But do you understand, Anton Ignatyich, that I cannot allow such an attitude towards myself? Bad jokes that make no one want to laugh. Kerzhentsev (laughs). Really? And it seemed to me that I was already laughing. You are the one being serious, Tatyana Nikolaevna, not me. Laugh! Tatyana Nikolaevna (laughs forcefully). But maybe this is also just experience? Kerzhentsev (seriously). You're right: I wanted to hear your laughter. The first thing I loved about you was your laughter. Tatyana Nikolaevna. I won't laugh anymore.

Silence.

Kerzhentsev (smiles). You are very unfair today, Tatyana Nikolaevna, yes: you give everything to Alexey, but you would like to take away the last crumbs from me. Just because I love your laughter and find in it that beauty that perhaps others do not see, you no longer want to laugh! Tatyana Nikolaevna. All women are unfair. Kerzhentsev. Why talk so bad about women? And if I’m joking today, then you’re joking even more: you’re pretending to be a little cowardly bourgeois who with rage and... despair defends her little nest, her poultry house. Do I really look like a kite? Tatyana Nikolaevna. It's hard to argue with you... speak up. Kerzhentsev. But it’s true, Tatyana Nikolaevna! You are smarter than your husband, and my friend, I am also smarter than him, and that’s why you always loved talking to me so much... Your anger even now is not without some pleasantness. Allow me to be in a strange mood. Today I spent too long delving into the brain of my Jaipur - he died of melancholy - and I am in a strange, very strange and... humorous mood! Tatyana Nikolaevna. I noticed this, Anton Ignatievich. No, seriously, I am sincerely sorry for your Jaipur: he had such... (smiles) intelligent face. But what do you want? Kerzhentsev. Compose. Dream up. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Lord, what unfortunate women we are, eternal victims of your brilliant whims: Alexey ran away so as not to write, and I had to come up with consolations for him, and you... (Laughs.) Compose! Kerzhentsev. So you laughed. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Yes, God bless you. Write, but please, not about love! Kerzhentsev. There is no other way. My story begins with love. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Well, as you wish. Wait, I'll sit more comfortably. (Sits on the sofa with her feet up and straightens her skirt.) Now I'm listening. Kerzhentsev. So, let’s say, Tatyana Nikolaevna, that I, Doctor Kerzhentsev... as an inexperienced writer, I will be in the first person, is it possible?.. - so, let’s say that I love you - is it possible? - and that I became unbearably irritated, looking at you and the talented Alexei. Thanks to you, my life has fallen apart, and you are unbearably happy, you are magnificent, criticism itself approves of you, you are young and beautiful... by the way, you do your hair very beautifully now, Tatyana Nikolaevna! Tatyana Nikolaevna. Yes? Alexey likes it that way. I'm listening to. Kerzhentsev. You listen? Wonderful. So... do you know what loneliness is with his thoughts? Let's assume you know this. So, one day, sitting alone at my table... Tatyana Nikolaevna. You have a magnificent table, I dream of one like this for Alyosha. Sorry... Kerzhentsev. ...and getting more and more irritated - thinking about many things - I decided to commit a terrible crime: to come to your house, just to come to your house and... kill the talented Alexei! Tatyana Nikolaevna. What? What are you saying! Shame on you! Kerzhentsev. These are the words! Tatyana Nikolaevna. Unpleasant words! Kerzhentsev. You are scared? Tatyana Nikolaevna. Are you afraid again? No, I'm not afraid of anything, Anton Ignatyich. But I demand, that is, I want... the story to be within the limits of... artistic truth. (Gets up and walks around.) I'm spoiled, my dear, with talented stories, and a pulp novel with its terrible villains... aren't you angry? Kerzhentsev. First experience! Tatyana Nikolaevna. Yes, this is my first experience, and it shows. How do you, your hero, want to carry out his terrible plan? After all, of course, he is a smart villain who loves himself, and he doesn’t at all want to exchange his... comfortable life for hard labor and shackles? Kerzhentsev. Without a doubt! And I... that is, my hero pretends to be crazy for this purpose. Tatyana Nikolaevna. What? Kerzhentsev. You do not understand? He will kill, and then recover and return to his... comfortable life. Well, how are you, dear critic? Tatyana Nikolaevna. How? It's so bad that... it's a shame! He wants to kill, he is pretending, and he is telling - and to whom? Wife! Bad, unnatural, Anton Ignatyich! Kerzhentsev. What about the game? My wonderful critic, what about the game? Or don’t you see what crazy treasures of a crazy game are hidden here: telling the wife herself that I want to kill her husband, looking into her eyes, smiling quietly and saying: I want to kill your husband! And, saying this, to know that she will not believe it... or will she believe it? And that when she starts telling others about this, no one will believe her either! Will she cry... or won't she? - but they won’t believe her! Tatyana Nikolaevna. What if they believe it? Kerzhentsev. What are you saying: only crazy people say such things... and listen! But what a game - no, seriously think about it, what a crazy, sharp, divine game! Of course, for a weak head this is dangerous, you can easily cross the line and never come back, but for a strong and free mind? Listen, why write stories when you can make them! A? Is not it? Why write? What scope for creative, fearless, truly creative thought! Tatyana Nikolaevna. Is your hero a doctor? Kerzhentsev. The hero is me. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Well, it doesn't matter, you. He can quietly poison or instill some disease... Why doesn’t he want to? Kerzhentsev. But if I poison you unnoticed, how will you know that I did it? Tatyana Nikolaevna. But why should I know this?

Kerzhentsev is silent.

(Stomps his foot lightly.) Why should I know this? What are you saying!

Kerzhentsev is silent. Tatyana Nikolaevna moves away and rubs her temples with her fingers.

Kerzhentsev. Are you feeling unwell? Tatyana Nikolaevna. Yes. No. The head is something... What were we talking about just now? How strange: what were we talking about just now? How strange, I don’t quite clearly remember what we were talking about just now. About what?

Kerzhentsev is silent.

Anton Ignatyich! Kerzhentsev. What? Tatyana Nikolaevna. How did we get here? Kerzhentsev. For what? Tatyana Nikolaevna. I don't know. Anton Ignatyich, my dear, don’t! I'm really a little scared. No need to joke! You're so cute when you talk to me seriously... and you've never joked like that! Why now? Have you stopped respecting me? No need! And don’t think that I’m so happy... whatever! It’s very difficult for me and Alexey, it’s true. And he himself is not at all so happy, I know! Kerzhentsev. Tatyana Nikolaevna, today for the first time in six years we are talking about the past, and I don’t know... Did you tell Alexey that six years ago I proposed my hand and heart to you and you deigned to refuse both? Tatyana Nikolaevna (embarrassed). My dear, but how could I... not tell you when... Kerzhentsev. And he also pitied me? Tatyana Nikolaevna. But don’t you really believe in his nobility, Anton Ignatyich? Kerzhentsev. I loved you very much, Tatyana Nikolaevna. Tatyana Nikolaevna (begging). No need! Kerzhentsev. Fine. Tatyana Nikolaevna. After all, you are strong! You have a huge will, Anton Ignatyich, if you want, you can do anything... Well... forgive us, forgive me! Kerzhentsev. Will? Yes. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Why are you looking like that - you don’t want to forgive? You can not? My God, how... terrible! And who is to blame, and what kind of life is this, Lord! (Cries quietly.) And everyone should be afraid, sometimes children, sometimes... Sorry!

Silence. Kerzhentsev looks as if from a distance at Tatyana Nikolaevna - suddenly he brightens up and changes his mask.

Kerzhentsev. Tatyana Nikolaevna, my dear, stop it, what are you doing! I was joking. Tatyana Nikolaevna (sighing and wiping away tears). You won't be anymore. No need. Kerzhentsev. Yes, sure! You see: my Jaipur died today... and I... well, I was upset, or something. Look at me: you see, I'm already smiling. Tatyana Nikolaevna (looking and also smiling). What are you, Anton Ignatyich! Kerzhentsev. I'm an eccentric, well, an eccentric - you never know how many eccentrics there are, and what kind of eccentrics too! My dear, you and I are old friends, how much salt we have eaten, I love you, I love dear, noble Alexei - let me always speak directly about his works... Tatyana Nikolaevna. Well, of course this is a controversial issue! Kerzhentsev. Well, that's great. What about your cute kids? This is probably a feeling common to all stubborn bachelors, but I consider your children almost like my own. Your Igor is my godson... Tatyana Nikolaevna. You are dear, Anton Ignatyich, you are dear! -- Who is this?

After knocking, the maid Sasha enters.

What do you mean, Sasha, how you scared me, my God! Children? Sasha. No, the children are sleeping. The gentleman asks you to come to the phone, they just called, sir. Tatyana Nikolaevna. What's happened? What about him? Sasha. Nothing, by God. They are cheerful and joke. Tatyana Nikolaevna. I'm now, excuse me, Anton Ignatyich. (From the door, kindly.) Cute!

They both come out. Kerzhentsev walks around the room - stern, preoccupied. He takes the paperweight again, examines its sharp corners and weighs it in his hand. When Tatyana Nikolaevna enters, she quickly puts him in his place and puts on a pleasant face.

Anton Ignatyich, let's go quickly! Kerzhentsev. What happened, honey? Tatyana Nikolaevna. There is nothing. Cute! Yes, I don’t know. Alexey calls from the restaurant, someone has gathered there and asks us to come. Funny. Let's go! I won't change my clothes - let's go, honey. (Stops.) How obedient you are: he goes on his own and doesn’t even ask where. Cute! Yes... Anton Ignatyich, when did you see a psychiatrist? Kerzhentsev. Five or six days. I was at Semyonov’s, my dear, he’s my friend. Knowledgeable person. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Ah!.. This is very famous, it seems good. What did he tell you? Don't be offended, dear, but you know how I... Kerzhentsev. What are you doing, dear! Semyonov said that it was nothing, overwork was nothing. We talked for a long time, he’s a good old man. And such wicked eyes! Tatyana Nikolaevna. But is there overwork? My poor thing, you are overtired. (Strokes his hand.) No need, dear, rest, get treatment...

Kerzhentsev silently bends down and kisses her hand. She looks down at his head with fear.

Anton Ignatyich! You won't argue with Alexei today?

A curtain

ACT TWO

PICTURE THREE

Savelov's office. Six o'clock in the evening, before dinner. There are three people in the office: Savelov, his wife and a guest invited to dinner, the writer Fedorovich.

Tatyana Nikolaevna sits on the end of the sofa and looks pleadingly at her husband; Fedorovich leisurely, with his hands behind his back, walks around the room; Savelov sits in his place at the table and either leans back in his chair, or, lowering his head over the table, angrily chops and breaks a pencil and matches with a cutting knife.

Savelov. To hell with Kerzhentsev, finally! You both understand, and you understand this, Fedorovich, that I’m as tired of Kerzhentsev as a bitter radish! Well, even if he’s sick, and even if he’s gone crazy, and even if he’s dangerous - after all, I can’t think only about Kerzhentsev. To hell! Listen, Fedorovich, were you at yesterday's report at the literary society? What interesting things were said there? Fedorovich. Not much interesting. So, they bickered and swore more, I left early. Savelov. Was I scolded? Fedorovich. They scolded you too, brother. They scold everyone there. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Well, listen, Alyosha, listen, don’t be irritated: Alexander Nikolaevich just wants to warn you about Kerzhentsev... No, no, wait, you can’t be so stubborn. Well, if you don’t believe me and think that I’m exaggerating, then believe Alexander Nikolaevich, he is an outsider: Alexander Nikolaevich, tell me, were you at this dinner and saw everything yourself? Fedorovich. Myself. Tatyana Nikolaevna. So what, say it! Fedorovich. Well, there is no doubt that it was a fit of pure rabies. It was enough to look at his eyes, his face - sheer frenzy! You can't create foam on your lips. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Well? Fedorovich. Your Kerzhentsev never gave me the impression of a meek person at all, he was such a filthy idol with twisted legs, but here everyone felt creepy. There were about ten of us at the table, so everyone scattered in all directions. Yes, brother, and Pyotr Petrovich was about to burst: with his thickness, such a test! Tatyana Nikolaevna. Don't you believe me, Alexey? Savelov. What do you want me to believe? These are strange people! Did he hit anyone? Fedorovich. No, he didn’t beat anyone, although he made an attempt on Pyotr Petrovich’s life... But he broke dishes, that’s true, and broke flowers and a palm tree. Yes, of course he is dangerous, who can vouch for such a thing? We are an indecisive people, we try to be delicate, but we should definitely inform the police, let him sit in the hospital until he goes away. Tatyana Nikolaevna. It is necessary to inform, this cannot be left like this. God knows what! Everyone is watching, and no one... Savelov. Leave it, Tanya! I just had to tie him up, nothing more, and put a bucket of cold water on his head. If you want, I believe in Kerzhentsev’s madness, why, anything can happen, but I absolutely don’t understand your fears. Why would he want to do any harm to me? Nonsense! Tatyana Nikolaevna. But I told you, Alyosha, what he told me that evening. He scared me so much then that I wasn’t myself. I almost cried! Savelov. Sorry, Tanechka: you really told me, but I, my dear, didn’t understand anything from your story. Some ridiculous chatter on too sensitive topics, which, of course, should have been avoided... You know, Fedorovich, he once wooed Tatyana? Of course, love too!.. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Alyosha! Savelov. He can do it, he is his own person. Well, you know, something like a love belch - oh, just a whim! Whim! Kerzhentsev has never loved anyone and cannot love anyone. I know it. Enough about him, gentlemen. Fedorovich. Fine. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Well, Alyosha, dear, well, it’s worth doing this - for me! Well, I may be stupid, but I'm really worried. You don’t need to accept him, that’s all, you can write him a kind letter. After all, you can’t let such a dangerous person into your house, right, Alexander Nikolaevich? Fedorovich. Right! Savelov. No! I’m even embarrassed to listen to you, Tanya. Indeed, only this is not enough for me, because of some kind of whim... well, not a whim, I'm sorry, I didn't put it that way, well, in general, because of some fears, I would refuse a person a home. There was no need to chat about such topics, but now there is no point. Dangerous man... that's enough, Tanya! Tatyana Nikolaevna (sighing). Fine. Savelov. And one more thing, Tatyana: don’t even think about writing to him without my knowledge, I know you. Did you guess right? Tatyana Nikolaevna (dry). You guessed nothing, Alexey. Let's leave it better. When are you going to Crimea, Alexander Nikolaevich? Fedorovich. Yes, I’m thinking about moving this week. It's hard for me to get out. Savelov. No money, Fedorchuk? Fedorovich. Not really. I'm waiting for the advance, they promised. Savelov. Nobody, brother, has any money. Fedorovich (stops in front of Savelov). If only you could come with me, Alexey! You’re not doing anything anyway, but you and I would have had a great time there, huh? You’ve been spoiled, your wife is spoiling you, and then we’d set off on foot: the road, brother, is white, the sea, brother, blue, almond blossoms... Savelov. I don't like Crimea. Tatyana Nikolaevna. He absolutely cannot stand Crimea. But what if it were so, Alyosha: I would stay with the children in Yalta, and you and Alexander Nikolaevich go to the Caucasus. You love the Caucasus. Savelov. Why am I going at all? I’m not going anywhere at all, I’ve got my fill of work here! Fedorovich. Good for children. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Certainly! Savelov (irritated). Well, go with the children if you want. After all, this, by God, is impossible! Well, go with the children, and I’ll stay here. Crimea... Fedorovich, do you like cypress trees? And I hate them. They stand like exclamation marks, damn them, but there’s no point... like a manuscript from a lady writer about some “mysterious” Boris! Fedorovich. No, brother, lady writers love ellipses more...

The maid enters.

Sasha. Anton Ignatievich came and asked, can I come to you?

Some silence.

Tatyana Nikolaevna. Well, Alyosha! Savelov. Of course, ask! Sasha, ask Anton Ignatyich here, say that we are in the office. Give me some tea.

The maid comes out. There is silence in the office. Kerzhentsev enters with some kind of large paper parcel in his hands. The face is dark. Says hello.

Ah, Antosha! Hello. What are you smoking? They tell me everything. Get treatment, brother, you need serious treatment, you can’t leave it like this. Kerzhentsev (quiet). Yes, I think he's a little sick. Tomorrow I’m thinking of going to a sanatorium to relax. We need to rest. Savelov. Rest, rest, of course. You see, Tanya, a person knows what he needs to do even without you. Here it is, brother, these two were beating you up... Tatyana Nikolaevna (reproachfully). Alyosha! Would you like some tea, Anton Ignatyich? Kerzhentsev. With pleasure, Tatyana Nikolaevna. Savelov. Why are you so quiet? Anton you say? (Grunts.)“Alyosha, Alyosha...” I don’t know how to remain silent as you say... Sit down, Anton, why are you standing there? Kerzhentsev. Here, Tatyana Nikolaevna, please take it. 486 Tatyana Nikolaevna (accepts the package). What is this? Kerzhentsev. Igor toys. I promised a long time ago, but somehow there was no time, but today I finished all my business in the city and, fortunately, I remembered. I'm going to say goodbye to you. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Thank you, Anton Ignatyich, Igor will be very happy. I'll call him here, let him get it from you. Savelov. No, Tanya, I don’t want noise. Igor will come, then Tanka will drag along, and a Persian revolution will begin here: either they impale him, or they shout “hurray”!.. What? Horse? Kerzhentsev. Yes. I came to the store and was confused, I just couldn’t guess what he would like. Fedorovich. My Petka now demands a car, he doesn’t want a horse.

Tatyana Nikolaevna is calling.

Savelov. Of course! They also grow. Soon they will get to airplanes... What do you want, Sasha? Sasha. They called me. Tatyana Nikolaevna. It's me, Alyosha. Here, Sasha, please take it to the nursery and give it to Igor, tell him his uncle brought it to him. Savelov. Why won’t you go yourself, Tanya? Better take it yourself. Tatyana Nikolaevna. I don't want to, Alyosha. Savelov. Tanya!

Tatyana Nikolaevna takes the toy and leaves silently. Fedorovich whistles and looks at the pictures he has already seen on the walls.

Ridiculous woman! She's the one who's afraid of you, Anton! Kerzhentsev (surprised). Me? Savelov. Yes. Something presented itself to a woman, and now someone like you is going crazy. Considers you a dangerous person. Fedorovich (interrupting). Whose card is this, Alexey? Savelov. Actresses of one. What did you say to her here, Antosha? It’s in vain, my dear, that you touch on such topics. I am convinced that for you it was a joke, and Tanya is bad when it comes to jokes, you know her as well as I do. Fedorovich (again). Who is this actress? Savelov. You don't know her! That's right, Anton, it shouldn't be. You are smiling? Or serious?

Kerzhentsev is silent. Fedorovich looks at him sideways. Savelov frowns.

Well, of course, jokes. Still, stop joking, Anton! I’ve known you since high school, and there was always something unpleasant in your jokes. When they joke, brother, they smile, and at that time you try to make such a face so that your veins shake. Experimenter! Well, what, Tanya? Tatyana Nikolaevna (enters). Well, of course, I'm glad. What are you so passionate about here? Savelov (walks around the office, throwing disdainfully and rather sharply as he goes). About jokes. I advised Anton not to joke, since not everyone finds his jokes equally... successful. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Yes? What about tea, dear Anton Ignatyich, you haven’t been served yet! (Rings.) Sorry, I didn't even notice! Kerzhentsev. I would ask for a glass of white wine if that doesn't disturb your order. Savelov. Well, what kind of order do we have!.. (To the maid who came in.) Sasha, give me some wine and two glasses: will you have wine, Fedorovich? Fedorovich. I’ll have a glass, won’t you? Savelov. Do not want. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Give me some white wine, Sasha, and two glasses.

The maid leaves and soon returns with wine. An awkward silence. Savelov restrains himself so as not to show hostility to Kerzhentsev, but this becomes more difficult every minute.

Savelov. What sanatorium do you want to go to, Anton? Kerzhentsev. Semenov advised me. There is a wonderful place along the Finland Road, I’ve already written off. There are few patients, or rather, vacationers there - forest and silence. Savelov. Ah!.. Forest and silence. Why don't you drink wine? Drink. Fedorovich, pour it. (Mockingly.) What do you need the forest and silence for? Tatyana Nikolaevna. For relaxation, of course, what are you asking about, Alyosha? Is it true, Alexander Nikolaevich, that today our Alyosha is kind of stupid? Aren't you angry with me, famous writer? Savelov. Don't talk, Tanya, it's unpleasant. Yes, of course, for relaxation... Here, Fedorovich, pay attention to the person: a simple sense of nature, the ability to enjoy the sun and water are completely alien to him. Really, Anton?

Kerzhentsev is silent.

(Getting irritated.) No, and at the same time he thinks that he has gone ahead - do you understand, Fedorovich? And you and I, who can still enjoy the sun and water, seem to him something atavistic, deadly backward. Anton, don’t you think that Fedorovich is very similar to your late orangutan? Fedorovich. Well, that's partly true, Alexey. That is, it’s not that I look like... Savelov. Not the truth, but simply absurdity, a kind of narrow-mindedness... What do you want, Tanya? What other signs are these? Tatyana Nikolaevna. Nothing. Don't you want some wine? Listen, Anton Ignatich, today we are going to the theater, do you want to come with us? We have a box. Kerzhentsev. With pleasure, Tatyana Nikolaevna, although I don’t particularly like theater. But today I will go with pleasure. Savelov. Don't you like it? Strange! Why don't you love him? This is something new in you, Anton, you continue to develop. You know, Fedorovich, Kerzhentsev once wanted to become an actor himself - and, in my opinion, he would have been a wonderful actor! It has these properties... and in general... Kerzhentsev. My personal qualities have nothing to do with it, Alexey. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Certainly! Kerzhentsev. I don't like theater because it presents poorly. For real play, which, after all, is only a complex system of pretending, the theater is too small. Isn't it true, Alexander Nikolaevich? Fedorovich. I don’t quite understand you, Anton Ignatyich. Savelov. What is a real game? Kerzhentsev. True artistic play can only happen in life. Savelov. And that’s why you didn’t become an actor, but remained a doctor. Do you understand, Fedorovich? Fedorovich. You're being picky, Alexey! As far as I understand... Tatyana Nikolaevna. Well, of course, he is shamelessly finding fault. Leave him, dear Anton Ignatich, let's go to the nursery. Igor certainly wants to kiss you... kiss him, Anton Ignatyich! Kerzhentsev. The noise of children is somewhat difficult for me now, excuse me, Tatyana Nikolaevna. Savelov. Of course, let him sit there. Sit down, Anton. Kerzhentsev. And I’m not at all... offended by Alexei’s ardor. He was always hot, even in high school. Savelov. Totally unnecessary condescension. And I’m not at all excited... Why don’t you drink wine, Anton? Drink, the wine is good... But I was always surprised by your isolation from life. Life flows past you, and you sit as if in a fortress, you are proud in your mysterious loneliness, like a baron! The time has passed for the barons, brother, their fortresses have been destroyed. Fedorovich, do you know that our baron’s only ally, the orangutan, recently died? Tatyana Nikolaevna. Alyosha, again! This is impossible! Kerzhentsev. Yes, I'm sitting in a fortress. Yes. In the fortress! Savelov (sitting down.) Yes? Say please! Listen, Fedorovich, this is the baron’s confession! Kerzhentsev. Yes. And my strength is this: my head. Don’t laugh, Alexey, it seems to me that you haven’t quite grown up to this idea yet... Savelov. Not grown up?.. Kerzhentsev. Sorry, I didn't put it that way. But only here, in my head, behind these skull walls, can I be completely free. And I'm free! Alone and free! Yes!

He gets up and begins to walk along the line of the office that Savelov had just walked along.

Savelov. Fedorovich, give me your glass. Thank you. What is your freedom, my lonely friend? Kerzhentsev. And the fact is... And the fact, my friend, is that I stand above the life in which you squirm and crawl! And the fact is, my friend, that instead of the pitiful passions to which you submit like slaves, I have chosen the royal human thought as my friend! Yes, Baron! Yes, I am impregnable in my castle - and there is no force that would not break against these walls! Savelov. Yes, your forehead is great, but are you relying on it too much? Your overwork... Tatyana Nikolaevna. Gentlemen, leave it to you! Alyosha! Kerzhentsev (laughs). My overwork? No, I'm not afraid... of my overwork. My thought is obedient to me, like a sword, the edge of which is directed by my will. Or are you, blind, not seeing its shine? Or do you, blind, not know this delight: to enclose the whole world here, in your head, to dispose of it, to reign, to flood everything with the light of divine thought! What do I care about the cars that are rumbling out there somewhere? Here, in great and strict silence, my thought works - and its power is equal to the power of all the machines in the world! You often laughed at my love for books, Alexey, - do you know that someday a person will become a deity, and a book will be his footstool! Thought! Savelov. No, I don't know that. And your fetishism of the book seems to me just... funny and... stupid. Yes! There is still life!

He also gets up and walks around excitedly, at times almost colliding with Kerzhentsev; there is something scary in their excitement, in the way they stand face to face for a moment. Tatyana Nikolaevna whispers something to Fedorovich, who shrugs his shoulders helplessly and reassuringly.

Kerzhentsev. And this is what you say, writer? Savelov. And I say this, a writer. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Gentlemen! Kerzhentsev. You are a pathetic writer, Savelov. Savelov. May be. Kerzhentsev. You have published five books - how dare you do this if you talk about a book like that? This is blasphemy! You don't dare write, you shouldn't! Savelov. Aren't you going to stop me?

They both pause for a moment at the desk. To the side, Tatyana Nikolaevna anxiously pulls Fedorovich’s sleeve, he whispers reassuringly to her: “Nothing! Nothing!”

Kerzhentsev. Alexei! Savelov. What? Kerzhentsev. You're worse than my orangutan! He managed to die of boredom! Savelov. Did he die himself or did you kill him? Experience?

They walk again, colliding. Kerzhentsev is the only one laughing loudly at something. His eyes are scary.

Are you laughing? Do you despise? Kerzhentsev (gestures strongly, speaks as if to someone else). He doesn't believe in thought! He dares not to believe in thought! He doesn't know that thought can do anything! He doesn’t know that a thought can drill a stone, burn a house, that a thought can...-- Alexey! Savelov. Your overwork!.. Yes, to the sanatorium, to the sanatorium! Kerzhentsev. Alexei! Savelov. What?

Both stop near the table, Kerzhentsev facing the viewer. His eyes are scary, he inspires. He placed his hand on the paperweight. Tatyana Nikolaevna and Fedorovich are in tetanus.

Kerzhentsev. Look at me. Do you see my point? Savelov. You need to go to a sanatorium. I look. Kerzhentsev. Look! I can kill you. Savelov. No. You're crazy!!! Kerzhentsev. Yes, I'm crazy. I'll kill you with this! (Slowly picks up the paperweight.) (Inspiring.) Put your hand down!

Just as slowly, without taking his eyes off Kerzhentsev’s, Savelov raises his hand to sew up his head. Savelov's hand slowly, jerkily, unevenly lowers, and Kerzhentsev hits him on the head. Savelov falls. Kerzhentsev leans over him with a raised paperweight. The desperate cry of Tatyana Ivanovna and Fedorovich.

A curtain

PICTURE FOUR

Kerzhentsev's office-library. Near the desks, the desk and the library, with books piled on them, Daria Vasilyevna, Kerzhentsev’s housekeeper, an elderly, pretty woman, is slowly doing something. He hums quietly. He straightens the books, brushes off the dust, looks into the inkwell to see if there is any ink. There's a bell in front. Daria Vasilievna turns her head, hears Kerzhentsev’s loud voice in the hall and calmly continues her work.

Daria Vasilievna (sings quietly).“My mother loved me, she adored that I was a beloved daughter, and my daughter ran away with her sweetheart into the dead of a stormy night...> What do you want, Vasya? Has Anton Ignatich arrived? Vasily. Daria Vasilievna! Daria Vasilievna. Well? “I was running through the forest dense..." Let's have lunch now, Vasya. Well, what are you doing? Vasily. Daria Vasilievna! Anton Ignatich is asking to give them clean underwear, a shirt, he is in the bathroom. Daria Vasilievna (surprised). What is this? What other underwear? You need to have lunch, not laundry, after seven o'clock. Basil. This is a bad thing, Daria Vasilievna, I'm afraid. There is blood all over his clothes, on his jacket and trousers. Daria Vasilievna. Well, what are you talking about! Where? Basil. How do I know? I'm afraid. I started taking off my fur coat, and there was blood on the sleeves even in the fur coat, staining my hands. Quite fresh. Now he washes himself in the bathroom and asks to change clothes. He won’t let me in, he talks through the door. Daria Vasilievna. This is strange! Well, let's go, I'll give it to you now. Hm! An operation, maybe some kind, but for the operation he puts on a robe. Hm! Basil. Hurry up, Daria Vasilievna! Hear, it's calling. I'm afraid. Daria Vasilievna. Oh well. How timid. Let's go. (They leave.)

The room is empty for some time. Then Kerzhentsev enters and behind him, apparently frightened, Daria Vasilievna. Kerzhentsev speaks in a loud voice, laughs loudly, and is dressed at home, without a starched collar.

Kerzhentsev. I won’t have lunch, Dashenka, you can clean up. I don't want to. Daria Vasilievna. How is this possible, Anton Ignatyich? Kerzhentsev. And so. Why are you scared, Dasha? Did Vasily say anything to you? You want to listen to this fool. (He quickly goes to the corner where the empty cage still stands.) Where is our Jaipur? No. Our Jaipur, Daria Vasilievna, has died. Died! What are you doing, Dasha, what are you doing? Daria Vasilievna. Why did you lock the bathroom and take the keys to yourself, Anton Ignatyich? Kerzhentsev. And so as not to upset you, Daria Vasilyevna, so as not to upset you! (Laughs.) I'm kidding. You'll find out soon, Dasha. Daria Vasilievna. What do I find out? Where have you been, Anton Ignatyich? Kerzhentsev. Where were you? I was at the theater, Dasha. Daria Vasilievna. What kind of theater is it now? Kerzhentsev. Yes. Now there is no theater. But I played it myself, Dasha, I played it myself. And I played great, I played great! It’s a pity that you can’t appreciate, that you can’t appreciate, I would tell you about one amazing thing, an amazing thing - a talented technique! Talented reception! You just need to look into the eyes, you just need to look into the eyes and... But you don’t understand anything, Dasha. Kiss me, Dashenka. Daria Vasilievna (moving away). No. Kerzhentsev. Kiss. Daria Vasilievna. Don't want. I'm afraid. You have eyes... Kerzhentsev (sternly and angrily). What about the eyes? Go. Enough nonsense! But you’re stupid, Dasha, and I’ll kiss you anyway. (Kisses him forcefully.) It’s a pity, Dashenka, that the night is not ours, that the night... (Laughs.) Well, go ahead. And tell Vasily that in an hour or two I will have these guests, these guests in uniforms. Let him not be afraid. And tell him to give me a bottle of white wine here. So. All. Go.

The housekeeper comes out. Kerzhentsev, stepping very firmly, walks around the room, walking. Thinks he has a very carefree and cheerful appearance. He takes one book after another, looks at it and puts it back. His appearance is almost scary, but he thinks that he is calm. Walking. He notices an empty cage and laughs.

Oh, it's you, Jaipur! Why do I keep forgetting that you died? Jaipur, have you died of boredom? Stupid melancholy, you should have lived and looked at me as I looked at you! Jaipur, do you know what I did today? (Walks around the room, speaks, gesticulating strongly.) Died. He took it and died. Stupid! Doesn't see my triumph. Does not know. Does not see. Stupid! But I’m a little tired - I wish I wasn’t tired! Put your hand down - I said. And he lowered it. Jaipur! Monkey - he lowered his hand! (Approaches the cage, laughs.) Could you do it, monkey? Stupid! He died like a fool - from melancholy. Stupid! (Humming loudly.)

Vasily brings in wine and a glass and walks on tiptoe.

Who is this? A? It's you. Put it in. Go.

Vasily also timidly tiptoes out. Kerzhentsev throws down the book, drinks a glass of wine with a flourish and quickly, and, having made several circles around the room, takes the book and lies down on the sofa. He lights a light bulb on the table at the head of his head; his face is illuminated brightly, as if by a reflector. He tries to read, but cannot, and throws the book on the floor.

No, I don't want to read it. (Puts his hands under his head and closes his eyes.) So glad. Nice. Nice. Tired. Sleepy; sleep. (Silence, immobility. Suddenly he laughs, without opening his eyes, as if in a dream. He slightly raises and lowers his right hand.) Yes!

Again, quiet and prolonged laughter with closed eyes. Silence. Immobility. The brightly lit face becomes stern, more severe. Somewhere a clock is striking. Suddenly, with his eyes still closed, Kerzhentsev slowly gets up and sits down on the sofa. Silent, as if in a dream. And he pronounces it slowly, separating the words, loudly and strangely empty, as if in someone else’s voice, swaying slightly and evenly.

And it is quite possible that Doctor Kerzhentsev is really crazy. He thought that he was pretending, but he really is crazy. And now he's crazy. (Another moment of stillness. Opens his eyes and looks in horror.) Who said that? (He is silent and looks in horror.) Who? (Whispers.) Who said? Who? Who? Oh my God! (Jumps up and, full of horror, rushes around the room.) No! No! (He stops and, stretching out his arms, as if holding in place the spinning things, everything falling, almost screams.) No! No! It's not true, I know. Stop! Everyone stop! (He rushes about again.) Stop, stop! Wait a minute! No need to drive yourself crazy. No need, no need to drive yourself crazy. Like this? (He stops and, closing his eyes tightly, pronounces separately, deliberately making his voice alien and cunning.) He thought that he was pretending, that he was pretending, but he was really crazy. (Opens his eyes and, slowly raising both hands, takes hold of his hair.) So. It happened. What I was waiting for happened. It's over. (Again, silently and convulsively rushes about. He begins to tremble with large, ever-increasing tremors. He mutters. Suddenly he runs into the mirror, sees himself-- and screams slightly in horror.) Mirror! (Carefully again, he creeps up to the mirror from the side, looks in. He mumbles. He wants to straighten his hair, but doesn’t understand how to do it. The movements are ridiculous, uncoordinated.) Yeah! So so so. (Laughs slyly.) You thought you were faking it, but you were crazy, hoo-hoo! What, clever? Yeah! You are small, you are evil, you are stupid, you are Doctor Kerzhentsev. Some doctor Kerzhentsev, crazy doctor Kerzhentsev, some doctor Kerzhentsev!.. (Mumbling. Laughing. Suddenly, continuing to look at himself, he slowly and seriously begins to tear his clothes. The torn material cracks.)

A curtain

ACT THREE

PICTURE FIFTH

A hospital for the insane, where the pretrial suspect Kerzhentsev was placed on probation. On the stage there is a corridor into which the doors of individual cells open; the corridor expands into a small hall, or niche. There is a small desk for the doctor, two chairs; It’s clear that hospital employees like to gather here to talk. The walls are white with wide blue paneling; electricity is burning. Bright, cozy. Opposite the niche is the door to Kerzhentsev’s cell. There is restless movement in the corridor: Kerzhentsev has just ended a severe seizure. A doctor in a white robe, who is called Ivan Petrovich, a nurse Masha, and attendants enter and exit the cell occupied by the patient. They bring medicine and ice.

Two nurses are chatting quietly in a niche. The second doctor, Doctor Straight, comes out of the corridor - still a young man, short-sighted and very modest. As he approaches, the nurses fall silent and assume respectful poses. They bow.

Straight. Good evening. Vasilyeva, what is this? Seizure? Vasilyeva. Yes, Sergei Sergeich, a seizure. Straight. Whose room is this? (Looks closer to the door.) Vasilyeva. Kerzhentsev, the same one, Sergei Sergeich. The killers. Straight. Oh yes. So what's wrong with him? Ivan Petrovich there? Vasilyeva. There. It’s okay now, I’ve calmed down. Here comes Masha, you can ask her. I just arrived.

The nurse Masha, still a young woman with a pleasant, meek face, wants to enter the cell; the doctor calls out to her.

Straight. Listen, Masha, how are you? Masha. Hello, Sergey Sergeich. Now nothing, silence. I'm bringing medicine. Straight. A! Well, bring it, bring it.

Masha enters, carefully opening and closing the door.

Does the professor know? Did they tell him? Vasilyeva. Yes, they reported. They themselves wanted to come, but now it’s okay, he left. Straight. A!

A servant leaves the cell and soon returns. Everyone follows him with their eyes.

Vasilyeva (laughs quietly). What, Sergey Sergeich, aren’t you used to it yet? Straight. A? Well, well, I'll get used to it. Was he going on a rampage or something? Vasilyeva. Don't know. Nurse. He went on a rampage. It took three people to cope, so he fought. That's how Mamai is!

Both nurses laugh quietly.

Straight (strictly). Oh well! There's no point in baring your teeth here.

Doctor Ivan Petrovich comes out of Kerzhentsev’s cell, his knees are slightly crooked, he walks waddling.

Ah, Ivan Petrovich, hello. How are you doing there? Ivan Petrovich. Nothing, nothing, great. Give me a cigarette. What, on duty today? Straight. Yes, on duty. Yes, I heard that you had something here, so I came in to take a look. Did you want to come yourself? Ivan Petrovich. I wanted to, but now there’s no need. He seems to be falling asleep, I gave him such a dose... That’s it, my friend, that’s it, Sergei Sergeich, that’s it, darling. Mr. Kerzhentsev is a strong man, although based on his exploits one could have expected more. Do you know his feat? Straight. Well, of course. Why, Ivan Petrovich, didn’t you send him to isolation? Ivan Petrovich. That's how they treated it. He's coming on his own! Evgeny Ivanovich!

Both doctors throw down their cigarettes and take respectful, expectant poses. Accompanied by another doctor, Professor Semenov, an impressive, large old man with black-gray hair and a beard, approaches; In general, he is very shaggy and somewhat resembles a yard dog. Dressed normally, without a robe. They say hello. The nurses step aside.

Semenov. Hello Hello. Has your colleague calmed down? Ivan Petrovich. Yes, Evgeny Ivanovich, I calmed down. Falls asleep. I just wanted to go report to you. Semenov. Nothing, nothing. I calmed down - and thank God. What is the reason - or is it the weather? Ivan Petrovich. That is, partly because of the weather, and partly he complains that he is restless, cannot sleep, crazy people are screaming. Yesterday Kornilov had another seizure and howled throughout the whole building for half the night. Semenov. Well, I’m tired of this Kornilov myself. Kerzhentsev wrote again, or what? Ivan Petrovich. Writes! These writings should be taken away from him, Evgeny Ivanovich, it seems to me that this is also one of the reasons... Semenov. Well, well, take it away! Let him write to himself. He writes interestingly, then you read it, I read it. Are you wearing a shirt? Ivan Petrovich. I had to. Semenov. When he falls asleep, take it off quietly, otherwise it will be unpleasant when he wakes up in his shirt. He won't remember anything. Let him, let him write to himself, don’t bother him, give him more paper. Doesn't he complain of hallucinations? Ivan Petrovich. Not yet. Semenov. Well, thank God. Let him write, he has something to talk about. Give him more feathers, give him a box, he breaks feathers when he writes. Emphasizes everything, emphasizes everything! Does he scold you? Ivan Petrovich. It happens. Semenov. Well, well, he vilifies me too, writes: and if you, Evgeny Ivanovich, are dressed in a robe, then who will be crazy: you or me?

Everyone laughs quietly.

Ivan Petrovich. Yes. Unhappy man. That is, he doesn’t inspire any sympathy in me, but...

Nurse Masha comes out of the door, carefully closing it behind her. They look at her.

Masha. Hello, Evgeniy Ivanovich. Semenov. Hello, Masha. Masha. Ivan Petrovich, Anton Ignatich is asking for you, he has woken up. Ivan Petrovich. Now. Perhaps you would like, Evgeny Ivanovich? Semenov. No need to worry him. Go.

Ivan Petrovich follows the nurse into the cell. Everyone looks at the locked door for a while. It's quiet there.

This Masha is an excellent woman, my favorite. Third doctor. He just never locks the doors. If you leave her in charge, there won’t be a single patient left, they’ll run away. I wanted to complain to you, Evgeny Ivanovich. Semenov. Well, well, complain! They'll lock others up, but if he runs away, we'll catch him. An excellent woman, Sergei Sergeevich, take a closer look at her, this is new to you. I don’t know what’s in it, but it has a wonderful effect on the sick and heals the healthy too! A kind of innate talent for health, spiritual ozone. (Sits down and takes out a cigarette. The assistants are standing.) Why don't you smoke, gentlemen? Straight. I have just... (Lights a cigarette.) Semenov. I would marry her, I like her so much; let her light the stove with my books, she can do that too. Third doctor. She can do this. Straight (smiling respectfully). Well, you are single, Evgeny Ivanovich, get married. Semenov. It won’t, no woman will marry me, they say I look like an old dog.

They laugh quietly.

Straight. What is your opinion, professor, this interests me very much: is Doctor Kerzhentsev really abnormal or just a malingerer, as he now claims? As an admirer of Savelov, this incident at one time excited me extremely, and your authoritative opinion, Evgeny Ivanovich... Semenov (shaking his head towards the camera). Have you seen it? Straight. Yes, but this attack doesn't prove anything yet. There are cases... Semenov. It doesn’t prove it, but it does prove it. What should I say? I have known this Anton Ignatievich Kerzhentsev for five years, I know him personally, and he has always been a strange person... Straightforward. But isn't this crazy? Semenov. This is not madness, they also say about me that I am strange; and who isn't weird?

Ivan Petrovich comes out of the cell and they look at him.

Ivan Petrovich (smiling). He asks to take off his shirt, he promises that he won’t. Semenov. No, it's too early. He was with me - we are talking about your Kerzhentsev - and just before the almost murder, he consulted about his health; seems to be cunning. And what can I tell you? In my opinion, he really needs hard labor, good hard labor for fifteen years. Let him get some air and breathe some oxygen! Ivan Petrovich (laughs). Yes, oxygen. Third doctor. He shouldn't go to the monastery! Semenov. It is necessary to let him into the monastery, not into the monastery, but among the people; he himself asks for hard labor. That's how I give my opinion. He set traps, and he himself sits in them; he'll probably go seriously crazy. And it will be a pity for the person. Straight (thinking). And this terrible thing is the head. It’s worth swaying a little and... So sometimes you think to yourself: who am I, if I take a good look at it? A? Semenov (stands up and affectionately pats Straight on the shoulder). Well, well, young man! Not so scary! Anyone who thinks to himself that he is crazy is still healthy, but if he comes down, then he will stop thinking. It’s just like death: scary while you’re alive. We, the older ones, must have gone crazy a long time ago; we are not afraid of anything. Look at Ivan Petrovich!

Ivan Petrovich laughs.

Straight (smiles). Still restless, Evgeny Ivanovich. Unstable mechanics.

From a distance comes some vague, unpleasant sound, similar to whining. One of the nurses quickly leaves.

What is this? Ivan Petrovich (to the third doctor). Again, probably your Kornilov, let him be empty. He exhausted everyone. Third doctor. I should go. Goodbye, Evgeny Ivanovich. Semenov. I'll go to him myself and have a look. Third doctor. Well, it’s bad, it’ll hardly last a week. It's burning! So I will wait for you, Evgeny Ivanovich. (Leaves.) Straight. And what does Kerzhentsev write, Evgeny Ivanovich? I'm not out of curiosity... Semyonov. And he writes well, nimblely: he can go there, he can go there - he writes well! And when he proves that he is healthy, you see a madman in optima forma (In the best possible way (lat.).), but he will begin to prove that he is crazy - at least put him in the department to give lectures to young doctors, so healthy. Ah, my young gentlemen, the point is not what he writes, but the fact that I am a man! Human!

Masha enters.

Masha. Ivan Petrovich, the patient has fallen asleep, can the servants be released? Semenov. Let go, Masha, let go, just don’t leave. Doesn't he offend you? Masha. No, Evgeny Ivanovich, he doesn’t offend. (Leaves.)

Soon two stalwart servants come out of the cell, trying to walk quietly, but they can’t, they knock. Kornilov shouts louder.

Semenov. So that. It’s a pity that I look like a dog, I wish I could marry Masha; and I lost my qualifications a long time ago. (Laughs.) However, as our nightingale is drowning, we must go! Ivan Petrovich, come on, you’ll tell me more about Kerzhentsev. Goodbye, Sergey Sergeevich. Straight. Goodbye, Evgeny Ivanovich.

Semenov and Ivan Petrovich slowly leave along the corridor. Ivan Petrovich says. Doctor Straight stands with his head down, thinking. He absentmindedly looks for a pocket under his white robe, takes out a cigarette case and a cigarette, but doesn’t light a cigarette - he forgot.

A curtain

PICTURE SIX

The cell where Kerzhentsev is located. The furnishings are official, the only large window is behind bars; The door is locked at every entrance and exit; hospital nurse Masha does not always do this, although she is obliged to do so. There are quite a few books that Dr. Kerzhentsev ordered from home, but does not read. Chess, which he plays often, playing complex, multi-day games against himself. Kerzhentsev in a hospital gown. During his stay in the hospital he lost weight and his hair grew back a lot, but he was fine; Kerzhentsev's eyes have a somewhat excited look due to insomnia. He is currently writing his explanation to psychiatric experts. It’s twilight, it’s already a little dark in the cell, but the last bluish light falls on Kerzhentsev from the window. It becomes difficult to write due to the darkness. Kerzhentsev gets up and turns the switch: first the top light bulb on the ceiling flashes, then the one on the table, under the green lampshade. He writes again, concentrated and gloomy, counting the covered sheets in a whisper. Nurse Masha enters quietly. Her white official robe is very clean, and all of her, with her precise and silent movements, gives the impression of cleanliness, order, affectionate and calm kindness. He straightens the bed and does something quietly.

Kerzhentsev (without turning around). Masha! Masha. What, Anton Ignatyich? Kerzhentsev. Was chloralamide dispensed at the pharmacy? Masha. They let me go, I'll bring it now when I go for tea. Kerzhentsev (stops writing and turns around). According to my recipe? Masha. In your. Ivan Petrovich looked, said nothing, and signed. He just shook his head. Kerzhentsev. Did you shake your head? What does this mean: a lot, in his opinion, the dose is large? Ignoramus! Masha-. Don’t scold, Anton Ignatyich, don’t, my dear. Kerzhentsev. Did you tell him how insomnia I have, that I haven’t slept properly one night? Masha. Said. He knows. Kerzhentsev. Ignorant! Ignorant people! Jailers! They put a person in such conditions that a completely healthy person can go crazy, and they call it a test, a scientific test! (Walks around the cell.) Donkeys! Masha, this night that Kornilov of yours was yelling again. Seizure? Masha. Yes, a seizure, a very strong one, Anton Ignatich, forcibly calmed down. Kerzhentsev. Unbearable! Did you wear a shirt? Masha. Yes. Kerzhentsev. Unbearable! He howls for hours and hours and no one can stop him! It’s terrible, Masha, when a person stops talking and howls: the human larynx, Masha, is not adapted to howling, and that’s why these half-animal sounds and screams are so terrible. I want to get down on all fours and howl. Masha, when you hear this, don’t you want to howl yourself? Masha. No, dear, what are you talking about! I'm healthy. Kerzhentsev. Healthy! Yes. You are a very strange person, Masha... Where are you going? Masha. I'm going nowhere, I'm here. Kerzhentsev. Stay with me. You are a very strange person, Masha. For two months now I have been looking closely at you, studying you, and I just can’t understand where you get this devilish firmness, unshakability of spirit. Yes. You know something, Masha, but what? Among the crazy, howling, crawling, in these cages, where every particle of the air is infected with madness, you walk as calmly as if it were... a meadow with flowers! Understand, Masha, that this is more dangerous than living in a cage with tigers and lions, with the most poisonous snakes! Masha. Nobody will touch me. I’ve been here for five years now, and no one has even hit me, or even cursed me. Kerzhentsev. That's not the point, Masha! Infection, poison - do you understand? -- that's the problem! All your doctors are already half crazy, but you are crazy, you are categorically healthy! You are as affectionate with us as with calves, and your eyes are so clear, so deeply and incomprehensibly clear, as if there is no madness in the world at all, no one howls, but only sings songs. Why is there no melancholy in your eyes? You know something, Masha, you know something precious, Masha, the only thing that can save you, but what? But what? Masha. I don't know anything, honey. I live as God commanded, but what do I know? Kerzhentsev (laughs angrily). Well, yes, of course, as God commanded. Masha. And everyone lives like this, I’m not alone. Kerzhentsev (laughs even angrier). Well, of course, everyone lives like that! No, Masha, you don’t know anything, it’s a lie, and I’m clinging to you in vain. You are worse than a straw. (Sits down.) Listen, Masha, have you ever been to the theater? Masha. No, Anton Ignatyich, I never have. Kerzhentsev. So. And you are illiterate, you have not read a single book. Masha, do you know the Gospel well? Masha. No, Anton Ignatyich, who knows? I only know what is read in church, and even then you won’t remember much! I like to go to church, but I don’t have to, I don’t have time, there’s a lot of work, God forbid I just jump up for a minute and cross my forehead. I, Anton Ignatich, strive to get to church when the priest says: and all of you, Orthodox Christians! When I hear this, I sigh, and I’m glad. Kerzhentsev. So she's happy! She knows nothing, and she is happy, and in her eyes there is no melancholy from which they die. Nonsense! The lowest form or... what or? Nonsense! Masha, do you know that the Earth on which you and I are now, that this Earth is spinning? Masha (indifferently). No, my dear, I don’t know. Kerzhentsev. She’s spinning, Masha, she’s spinning, and we’re spinning with her! No, you know something, Masha, you know something that you don’t want to say. Why did God give language only to his devils, and why are angels dumb? Maybe you are an angel, Masha? But you are dumb - you are desperately not a match for Dr. Kerzhentsev! Masha, my dear, do you know that I will really go crazy soon? Masha. No, you won't. Kerzhentsev. Yes? Tell me, Masha, but only with a clear conscience - God will punish you for deception! - tell me with a clear conscience: am I crazy or not? Masha. You yourself know that there is no... Kerzhentsev. I don’t know anything myself! Myself! I'm asking you! Masha. Certainly not crazy. Kerzhentsev. Did I kill? What is this? Masha. So that's what they wanted. It was your will to kill, so you killed. Kerzhentsev. What is this? Sin, do you think? Masha (somewhat angrily). I don’t know, dear, ask those who know. I'm not a judge of people. It’s easy for me to say: it’s a sin, I turned my tongue, it’s done, but for you it will be a punishment... No, let others punish whoever they want, but I can’t punish anyone. No. Kerzhentsev. And God, Masha? Tell me about God, you know. Masha. What are you saying, Anton Ignatyich, how dare I know about God? No one dares to know about God; there has never been such a desperate head. Should I bring you some tea, Anton Ignatyich? With milk? Kerzhentsev. With milk, with milk... No, Masha, you shouldn’t have taken me out of the towel then, you did a stupid thing, my angel. Why the hell am I here? No, why the hell am I here? If I were dead, I would be at peace... Oh, if only for a minute of peace! They cheated on me, Masha! They cheated on me in the mean way that only women, slaves and... thoughts cheat on me! I was betrayed, Masha, and I died. Masha. Who cheated on you, Anton Ignatyich? Kerzhentsev (hitting himself on the forehead). Here. Thought! Thought, Masha, that’s who cheated on me. Have you ever seen a snake, a drunken snake, frantic with poison? And there are a lot of people in the room, and the doors are locked, and there are bars on the windows - and here she crawls between people, climbs up their legs, bites them on the lips, on the head, in the eyes!.. Masha! Masha. What, my dear, are you not feeling well? Kerzhentsev. Masha!.. (Sits down with his head in his hands.)

Masha comes up and carefully strokes his hair.

Masha! Masha. What, honey? Kerzhentsev. Masha!.. I was strong on the earth, and my feet stood firmly on it - and what now? Masha, I'm dead! I will never know the truth about myself. Who am I? Did I pretend to be crazy in order to kill - or was I really crazy, and that’s the only reason I killed? Masha!.. Masha (carefully and affectionately takes his hands away from his head, stroking his hair). Lie down on the bed, my dear... Oh, my dear, and how I feel sorry for you! Nothing, nothing, everything will pass, and your thoughts will become clearer, everything will pass... Lie down on the bed, rest, and I’ll sit around. Look, how much gray hair there is, my dear, Antoshenka... Kerzhentsev. Don't go. Masha. No, I have nowhere to go. Lie down. Kerzhentsev. Give me a handkerchief. Masha. Here, my dear, this is mine, it’s clean, it was just given out today. Wipe your tears, wipe them away. You need to lie down, lie down. Kerzhentsev (lowering his head, looking at the floor, goes to the bed, lies down, eyes closed). Masha! Masha. I'm here. I want to take a chair for myself. Here I am. Is it okay if I put my hand on your forehead? Kerzhentsev. Fine. Your hand is cold, I'm pleased. Masha. What about a light hand? Kerzhentsev. Easy. You're funny, Masha. Masha. My hand is light. Before, before the nurses, I was a nanny, but sometimes the baby wouldn’t sleep and would worry, but if I put my hand on it, he’d fall asleep with a smile. My hand is light and kind. Kerzhentsev. Tell me something. You know something, Masha: tell me what you know. Don’t think, I don’t want to sleep, I closed my eyes. Masha. What do I know, my dear? You all know this, but what can I know? I'm stupid. Well, listen. Since I was a girl, something happened to us when a calf got away from its mother. And how stupid she missed him! And by evening it was, and my father said to me: Masha, I’ll go to the right to look, and you go to the left, if there’s anyone in the Korchagin forest, call. So I went, my dear, and just as I approached the forest, lo and behold, a wolf came out of the bushes!

Kerzhentsev, opening his eyes, looks at Masha and laughs.

Why are you laughing? Kerzhentsev. You, Masha, tell me like a little kid about the wolf! Well, was the wolf very scary? Masha. Very scary. Just don’t laugh, I haven’t said everything yet... Kerzhentsev. Well, that's enough, Masha. Thank you. I need to write. (Rises.) Masha (pushing back the chair and straightening the bed). Well, write to yourself. Shall I bring you some tea now? Kerzhentsev. Yes please. Masha. With milk? Kerzhentsev. Yes, with milk. Don't forget chloralamid, Masha.

Doctor Ivan Petrovich enters, almost colliding with Masha.

Ivan Petrovich. Hello, Anton Ignatyich, good evening. Listen, Masha, why don’t you close the door? Masha. Didn't I close it? And I thought... Ivan Petrovich. “And I thought...” Look, Masha! I’m telling you for the last time... Kerzhentsev. I won't run away, colleague. Ivan Petrovich. That’s not the point, it’s order; we ourselves are in the position of subordinates here. Go, Masha. Well, how do we feel? Kerzhentsev. We feel bad, in accordance with our situation. Ivan Petrovich. That is? And you look fresh. Insomnia? Kerzhentsev. Yes. Yesterday Kornilov didn’t let me sleep the whole night... I think that’s his last name? Ivan Petrovich. What, howl? Yes, a severe seizure. It's a madhouse, my friend, there's nothing you can do about it, or a yellow house, as they say. And you look fresh. Kerzhentsev. And yours, Ivan Petrovich, is not very fresh. Ivan Petrovich. Got wrapped up. Eh, I don’t have time, otherwise I would play chess with you, you’re Lasker! Kerzhentsev. For a test? Ivan Petrovich. That is? No, whatever it is - for innocent relaxation, my friend. Why test you? You yourself know that you are healthy. If I had the power, I would not hesitate to send you to hard labor. (Laughs.) You need hard labor, my friend, hard labor, not chloralamid! Kerzhentsev. So. And why, colleague, when you say this, don’t you look me in the eyes? Ivan Petrovich. That is, as in the eyes? Where am I looking? In the eyes! Kerzhentsev. You are lying, Ivan Petrovich! Ivan Petrovich. Oh well! Kerzhentsev. Lie! Ivan Petrovich. Oh well! And you are an angry man, Anton Ignatyich, and you can start scolding right away. Not good, my friend. And why would I lie? Kerzhentsev. Out of habit. Ivan Petrovich. Here you go. Again! (Laughs.) Kerzhentsev (looks at him gloomily). And you, Ivan Petrovich, how many years would you imprison me for? Ivan Petrovich. That is, to hard labor? Yes, for about fifteen years, I think so. A lot of? Then it’s possible for ten, that’s enough for you. You yourself want hard labor, so grab a few dozen years. Kerzhentsev. I want it myself! Okay, I want to. So, to hard labor? A? (He chuckles gloomily.) So, let Mr. Kerzhentsev grow hair like a monkey, huh? But this means (tapping himself on the forehead)- to hell, right? Ivan Petrovich. That is? Well, you are a fierce fellow, Anton Ignatyich, very much so! Well, well, it's not worth it. And here’s why I’m coming to you, my dear: today you will have a guest, or rather, a guest... don’t worry! A? Not worth it!

Silence.

Kerzhentsev. I do not worry. Ivan Petrovich. It’s great that you don’t worry: by God, there is nothing in the world that would be worth breaking spears over! Today you, and tomorrow I, as they say...

Masha comes in and puts down a glass of tea.

Masha, is the lady there? Masha. There, in the corridor. Ivan Petrovich. Yeah! Go ahead. So... Kerzhentsev. Savelova? Ivan Petrovich. Yes, Savelova, Tatyana Nikolaevna. Don’t worry, my dear, it’s not worth it, although, of course, I wouldn’t let the lady in: it’s not according to the rules, and it’s really a difficult test, that is, in terms of nerves. Well, the lady obviously has connections, her superiors gave her permission, but what about us? - we are subordinate people. But if you don’t want to, then your will will be fulfilled: that is, we will send the lady back from where she came. So what about Anton Ignatyich? Can you stand this brand?

Silence.

Kerzhentsev. I can. Ask Tatyana Nikolaevna here. Ivan Petrovich. Very well. And one more thing, my dear: a minister will be present during the meeting... I understand how unpleasant this is, but order, as a rule, cannot be helped. So don’t be rowdy, Anton Ignatyich, don’t drive him away. I deliberately gave you such a dunce that he doesn’t understand anything! You can speak calmly. Kerzhentsev. Fine. Ask. Ivan Petrovich. Bon voyage, colleague, goodbye. Don't worry.

It turns out. Kerzhentsev is alone for some time. He quickly looks in the small mirror and straightens his hair; pulls himself up to appear calm. Tatyana Nikolaevna and the servant enter, the latter stands near the door, does not express anything, only occasionally scratches his nose in embarrassment and guilt. Tatyana Nikolaevna is in mourning, her hands are in gloves - apparently she is afraid that Kerzhentsev will extend his hand.

Tatyana Nikolaevna. Hello, Anton Ignatyich.

Kerzhentsev is silent.

(Louder.) Hello, Anton Ignatyich. Kerzhentsev. Hello. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Can I sit down? Kerzhentsev. Yes. Why did you come? Tatyana Nikolaevna. I'll tell you now. How are you feeling? Kerzhentsev. Fine. Why did you come? I didn't invite you and I didn't want to see you. If you, with mourning and all your... sad appearance, want to awaken conscience or repentance in me, then it was a wasted effort, Tatyana Nikolaevna. No matter how precious your opinion is about the action I committed, I only value my opinion. I respect only myself, Tatyana Nikolaevna, - in this respect I have not changed. Tatyana Nikolaevna. No, that's not what I'm after... Anton Ignatyich! You must forgive me, I came to ask for your forgiveness. Kerzhentsev (surprised). What? Tatyana Nikolaevna. Forgive me... He listens to us, and I feel embarrassed to speak... Now my life is over, Anton Ignatich, Alexey took it to his grave, but I cannot and should not remain silent about what I understood... He listens to us . Kerzhentsev. He doesn't understand anything. Speak. Tatyana Nikolaevna. I realized that I was the only one to blame for everything - without intent, of course, to blame, like a woman, but only I alone. I somehow forgot, it just didn’t occur to me that you could still love me, and I, with my friendship... it’s true, I loved being with you... But it was I who made you sick. Excuse me. Kerzhentsev. Before illness? Do you think I was sick? Tatyana Nikolaevna. Yes. When that day I saw you so... scary, so... not a person, I think I immediately realized that you yourself were only a victim of something. And... this doesn’t seem like the truth, but it seems that even at that moment when you raised your hand to kill... my Alexei, I already forgave you. Forgive me too. (Cries quietly, lifts the veil and wipes her tears under the veil.) Sorry, Anton Ignatyich. Kerzhentsev (walks silently around the room, stops). Tatyana Nikolaevna, listen! I wasn't crazy. It's horrible!

Tatyana Nikolaevna is silent.

Probably what I did was worse than if I had simply, like others, killed Alexei... Konstantinovich, but I was not crazy. Tatyana Nikolaevna, listen! I wanted to overcome something, I wanted to rise to some peak of will and free thought... if only this was true. Horrible! I do not know anything. They cheated on me, you know? My thought, which was my only friend, lover, protection from life; my thought, in which I alone believed, as others believe in God - it, my thought, became my enemy, my murderer! Look at this head - there is incredible horror in it! (Walks.) Tatyana Nikolaevna (looks at him carefully and with fear). I do not understand. What are you saying? Kerzhentsev. With all the strength of my mind, thinking like... a steam hammer, I now cannot decide whether I was crazy or sane. The line is lost. Oh, vile thought - it can prove both, but what is there in the world besides my thought? Maybe from the outside it’s even clear that I’m not crazy, but I’ll never know. Never! Who should I trust? Some lie to me, others know nothing, and others I seem to drive crazy myself. Who will tell me? Who's to say? (Sits down and clasps his head with both hands.) Tatyana Nikolaevna. No, you were crazy. Kerzhentsev (getting up). Tatyana Nikolaevna! Tatyana Nikolaevna. No, you were crazy. I wouldn't come to you if you were healthy. You're crazy. I saw how you killed, how you raised your hand... you're crazy! Kerzhentsev. No! It was... frenzy. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Why then did you beat again and again? He was already lying down, he was already... dead, and you kept beating and beating! And you had such eyes! Kerzhentsev. This is not true: I only hit once! Tatyana Nikolaevna. Yeah! You forgot! No, more than once, you hit a lot, you were like a beast, you are crazy! Kerzhentsev. Yes, I forgot. How could I forget? Tatyana Nikolaevna, listen, it was a frenzy, because this happens! But the first blow... Tatyana Nikolaevna (shouting). No! Move away! You still have those eyes... Move away!

The attendant stirs and takes a step forward.

Kerzhentsev. I walked away. It is not true. My eyes are like this because I have insomnia, because I suffer unbearably. But I beg you, I once loved you, and you are a man, you came to forgive me... Tatyana Nikolaevna. Don't come near! Kerzhentsev. No, no, I'm not coming. Listen... listen! No, I'm not coming. Tell me, tell me... you are a man, you are a noble man, and... I'll believe you. Tell! Use your whole mind and tell me calmly, I will believe you, tell me I’m not crazy. Tatyana Nikolaevna. Stay there! Kerzhentsev. I'm here. I just want to kneel. Have mercy on me, tell me! Think, Tanya, how terribly, how incredibly lonely I am! Don't forgive me, don't, I'm not worth it, but tell the truth. You're the only one who knows me, they don't know me. Do you want, I will give you an oath that if you tell me, I will kill myself, I will avenge Alexei myself, I will go to him... Tatyana Nikolaevna. To him? You?! No, you are crazy. Yes Yes. I am afraid of you! Kerzhentsev. Tanya! Tatyana Nikolaevna. Get up! Kerzhentsev. Okay, I'm up. You see how obedient I am. Are crazy people ever so obedient? Ask him! Tatyana Nikolaevna. Tell me "you". Kerzhentsev. Fine. Yes, of course, I have no right, I have forgotten myself, and I understand that you hate me now, you hate me because I am healthy, but in the name of the truth - tell me! Tatyana Nikolaevna. No. Kerzhentsev. In the name... of the murdered one! Tatyana Nikolaevna. No no! I'm leaving. Farewell! Let people judge you, let God judge you, but I... forgive you! It was I who drove you crazy, and I'm leaving. Excuse me. Kerzhentsev. Wait! Don't leave! You can't leave like that! Tatyana Nikolaevna. Don't touch me with your hand! You hear! Kerzhentsev. No, no, I accidentally walked away. Let's be serious, Tatyana Nikolaevna, let's be just like serious people. Sit down... or don't you want to? Well, okay, I'll stand too. So here's the thing: you see, I'm lonely. I am terribly lonely, like no one in the world. Honestly! You see, night comes, and a frenzied horror seizes me. Yes, yes, loneliness!.. Great and formidable loneliness, when there is nothing around, a gaping emptiness, do you understand? Don't leave! Tatyana Nikolaevna. Farewell! Kerzhentsev. Just one word, I am now. Just one word! My loneliness!.. No, I won’t talk about loneliness anymore! Tell me that you understand, tell me... but you don’t dare leave like that! Tatyana Nikolaevna. Farewell.

Comes out quickly. Kerzhentsev rushes after her, but the attendant blocks his way. The next minute, with his usual dexterity, he slips out himself and closes the door in front of Kerzhentsev.

Kerzhentsev (frantically bangs his fists, screams). Open up! I'll break down the door! Tatyana Nikolaevna! Open up! (He moves away from the door and silently grabs his head, clutches his hair with his hands. He stands there.)

Leonid Andreev. Thought

On December 11, 1900, doctor of medicine Anton Ignatievich Kerzhentsev committed murder. Both the entire set of data in which the crime was committed, and some of the circumstances preceding it, gave reason to suspect Kerzhentsev of abnormal mental abilities.

Placed on probation at the Elisabeth Psychiatric Hospital, Kerzhentsev was subjected to the strict and careful supervision of several experienced psychiatrists, among whom was Professor Drzhembitsky, who had recently died. Here are the written explanations that were given about what happened by Dr. Kerzhentsev himself a month after the start of the test; together with other materials obtained by the investigation, they formed the basis of the forensic examination.

SHEET ONE

Until now, Messrs. experts, I hid the truth, but now circumstances force me to reveal it. And, having recognized her, you will understand that the matter is not at all as simple as it may seem to laymen: either a feverish shirt or shackles. There is a third thing here - not shackles or a shirt, but, perhaps, more terrible than both of them combined.

Alexei Konstantinovich Savelov, who I killed, was my friend at the gymnasium and university, although we differed in our specialties: I, as you know, am a doctor, and he graduated from the Faculty of Law. It cannot be said that I did not love the deceased; I always liked him, and I never had closer friends than him. But despite all his attractive qualities, he was not one of those people who could inspire me with respect. The amazing softness and pliability of his nature, the strange inconstancy in the field of thought and feeling, the sharp extremes and groundlessness of his constantly changing judgments made me look at him as at a child or a woman. People close to him, who often suffered from his antics and at the same time, due to the illogicality of human nature, loved him very much, tried to find an excuse for his shortcomings and their feelings and called him “an artist.” And indeed, it turned out as if this insignificant word completely justified him and that what would be bad for any normal person made him indifferent and even good. Such was the power of the invented word that even I at one time succumbed to the general mood and willingly excused Alexey for his minor shortcomings. Small ones - because he was incapable of large ones, as of anything large. This is sufficiently evidenced by his literary works, in which everything is petty and insignificant, no matter what short-sighted criticism says, greedy for the discovery of new talents. His works were beautiful and insignificant, and he himself was beautiful and insignificant.

When Alexey died, he was thirty-one years old, a little over one year younger than me.

Alexey was married. If you saw his wife now, after his death, when she is in mourning, you cannot get an idea of ​​how beautiful she once was: she has become so, so much worse. The cheeks are gray, and the skin on the face is so flabby, old, old, like a worn glove. And wrinkles. These are wrinkles now, but another year will pass - and these will be deep furrows and ditches: after all, she loved him so much! And her eyes no longer sparkle or laugh, but before they always laughed, even at the time when they needed to cry. I saw her for just one minute, having accidentally bumped into her at the investigator’s, and I was struck by the change. She couldn't even look at me angrily. So pathetic!

Only three people - Alexey, me and Tatyana Nikolaevna - knew that five years ago, two years before Alexey’s marriage, I proposed to Tatyana Nikolaevna, and it was rejected. Of course, this is only assumed that there are three, and, probably, Tatyana Nikolaevna has a dozen more girlfriends and friends who are intimately aware of how Dr. Kerzhentsev once dreamed of marriage and received a humiliating refusal. I don’t know if she remembers that she laughed then; She probably doesn’t remember - she had to laugh so often. And then remind her: on September 5th she laughed. If she refuses - and she will refuse - then remind her how it was. I, this strong man who never cried, who was never afraid of anything - I stood in front of her and trembled. I trembled and saw her biting her lips, and had already reached out to hug her when she looked up and there was laughter in them. My hand remained in the air, she laughed, and laughed for a long time. As much as she wanted. But then she did apologize.

Excuse me, please,” she said, and her eyes laughed.

And I smiled too, and if I could forgive her for her laughter, I will never forgive that smile of mine. It was the fifth of September, at six o'clock in the evening, St. Petersburg time. In St. Petersburg, I add, because we were then on the station platform, and now I clearly see the large white dial and the position of the black hands: up and down. Alexey Konstantinovich was also killed at exactly six o'clock. The coincidence is strange, but can reveal a lot to a savvy person.

One of the reasons for putting me here was the lack of motive for a crime. Now you see that there was a motive. Of course, it wasn't jealousy. The latter presupposes in a person an ardent temperament and weakness of mental abilities, that is, something directly opposite to me, a cold and rational person. Revenge? Yes, rather revenge, if the old word is so necessary to define a new and unfamiliar feeling. The fact is that Tatyana Nikolaevna once again made me make a mistake, and this always made me angry. Knowing Alexey well, I was sure that in a marriage with him Tatyana Nikolaevna would be very unhappy and would regret me, and that’s why I insisted that Alexey, then still just in love, marry her. Just a month before his tragic death, he told me:

I owe my happiness to you. Really, Tanya?

Yes, brother, you made a mistake!

This inappropriate and tactless joke shortened his life by a whole week: I initially decided to kill him on the eighteenth of December.

Yes, their marriage turned out to be happy, and it was she who was happy. He did not love Tatyana Nikolaevna very much, and in general he was not capable of deep love. He had his own favorite thing - literature - which took his interests beyond the bedroom. But she loved him and lived only for him. Then he was an unhealthy person: frequent headaches, insomnia, and this, of course, tormented him. And for her, even caring for him, sick, and fulfilling his whims was happiness. After all, when a woman falls in love, she becomes insane.

And day after day I saw her smiling face, her happy face, young, beautiful, carefree. And I thought: I arranged this. He wanted to give her a dissolute husband and deprive her of himself, but instead he gave her a husband whom she loved, and he himself remained with her. You will understand this strangeness: she is smarter than her husband and loved to talk with me, and after talking, she went to bed with him - and was happy.

I don’t remember when the thought of killing Alexei first came to me. Somehow she appeared unnoticed, but from the first minute she became so old, as if I had been born with her. I know that I wanted to make Tatyana Nikolaevna unhappy, and that at first I came up with many other plans that would be less disastrous for Alexei - I have always been an enemy of unnecessary cruelty. Using my influence on Alexei, I thought of making him fall in love with another woman or making him a drunkard (he had a tendency towards this), but all these methods were not suitable. The fact is that Tatyana Nikolaevna would manage to remain happy, even giving him to another woman, listening to his drunken chatter or accepting his drunken caresses. She needed this man to live, and she needed to serve him in one way or another. There are such slave natures. And, like slaves, they cannot understand and appreciate the strength of others, not the strength of their master. There were smart, good and talented women in the world, but the world has never seen and will never see a fair woman.

I confess sincerely, not in order to achieve unnecessary leniency, but to show in what a correct, normal way my decision was created, that for quite a long time I had to struggle with pity for the person whom I condemned to death. I felt sorry for him for the death horror and those seconds of suffering until his skull was broken. It was a pity - I don’t know if you understand this - of the skull itself. In a harmoniously working living organism there is a special beauty, and death, like illness, like old age, is, first of all, ugliness. I remember how long ago, when I had just graduated from university, I fell into the hands of a beautiful young dog with slender, strong limbs, and it cost me a lot of effort to tear off her skin, as experience required. And for a long time afterwards it was unpleasant to remember her.

And if Alexey hadn’t been so sickly and frail, I don’t know, maybe I wouldn’t have killed him. But I still feel sorry for his beautiful head. Please tell Tatyana Nikolaevna this too. It was a beautiful, beautiful head. The only bad thing about him was his eyes - pale, without fire or energy.

I would not have killed Alexei even if the criticism had been right and he really had been such a major literary talent. There is so much darkness in life, and it so needs talents to illuminate its path, that each of them must be protected like the most precious diamond, as something that justifies the existence of thousands of scoundrels and vulgarities in humanity. But Alexey was not talented.

This is not the place for a critical article, but read the most sensational works of the deceased, and you will see that they were not needed for life. They were necessary and interesting for hundreds of obese people in need of entertainment, but not for life, but not for us, trying to unravel it. While a writer, with the power of his thoughts and talent, must create a new life, Savelov only described the old one, without even trying to unravel its hidden meaning. The only story of his that I like, in which he comes close to the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe unknown, is the story "The Secret", but he is an exception. The worst thing, however, was that Alexey, apparently, began to wear out his teeth and, from his happy life, lost the last teeth with which he needed to dig into life and gnaw at it. He himself often told me about his doubts, and I saw that they were well founded; I accurately and in detail extorted the plans for his future works, and let the grieving fans be consoled: there was nothing new or major in them. Of the people close to Alexei, only his wife did not see the decline of his talent and would never have seen it. And do you know why? She did not always read her husband's works. But when I tried to open her eyes a little, she simply considered me a scoundrel. And, making sure that we were alone, she said:

You can't forgive him for anything else.

The fact that he is my husband and I love him. If Alexey didn’t feel such a passion for you...

She paused, and I cautiously finished her thought:

Would you kick me out?

Laughter flashed in her eyes. And, smiling innocently, she said slowly:

No, I would leave it.

But I never showed with a single word or gesture that I continued to love her. But then I thought: so much the better if she guessed.

The very fact of taking a person’s life did not stop me. I knew that this was a crime strictly punishable by law, but almost everything we do is a crime, and only a blind person does not see it. For those who believe in God, it is a crime against God; for others - a crime against people; for people like me, it’s a crime against oneself. It would be a great crime if, having recognized the need to kill Alexei, I did not carry out this decision. And the fact that people divide crimes into big and small and call murder a big crime has always seemed to me like an ordinary and pathetic human lie to themselves, an attempt to hide from the answer behind their own back.

I wasn’t afraid of myself either, and that was the most important thing. For a murderer, for a criminal, the most terrible thing is not the police, not the court, but himself, his nerves, the powerful protest of his body, brought up in well-known traditions. Remember Raskolnikov, this is such a pity for the man who died so absurdly, and the darkness of his kind. And I spent a very long time, very carefully, dwelling on this question, imagining what I would be like after the murder. I will not say that I came to complete confidence in my peace of mind - such confidence could not be created by a thinking person who foresaw all contingencies. But, having carefully collected all the data from my past, taking into account the strength of my will, the strength of my unexhausted nervous system, my deep and sincere contempt for current morality, I could have relative confidence in the successful outcome of the enterprise. Here it would not be superfluous to tell you one interesting fact from my life.

Once upon a time, while still a fifth-semester student, I stole fifteen rubles from the friendly money entrusted to me, said that the cashier had made a mistake in the account, and everyone believed me. This was more than a simple theft, when a needy person steals from a rich person: there was a broken trust, and the taking of money from a hungry person, and even a comrade, and even a student, and, moreover, a person with means (which is why they believed me). This act probably seems more disgusting to you than even the murder of a friend I committed, doesn’t it? And I remember it was fun that I was able to do it so well and deftly, and I looked into the eyes, straight into the eyes of those to whom I boldly and freely lied. My eyes are black, beautiful, straight, and they believed them. But most of all, I was proud of the fact that I had absolutely no remorse, which is what I needed to prove to myself. And to this day I remember with particular pleasure the menu of the unnecessary luxurious lunch that I gave myself with stolen money and ate with appetite.

And do I now feel remorse? Repentance for what you did? Not at all.

It's hard for me. It’s incredibly hard for me, like no other person in the world, and my hair is turning grey, but this is different. Other. Terrible, unexpected, incredible in its terrible simplicity.

SHEET TWO

My task was this. I need to kill Alexei; It is necessary that Tatyana Nikolaevna see that it was I who killed her husband, and that at the same time legal punishment does not affect me. Not to mention the fact that the punishment would have given Tatyana Nikolaevna an extra reason to laugh; I didn’t want hard labor at all. I love life very much.

I love it when golden wine plays in a thin glass; I love, tired, to stretch out in a clean bed; I like to breathe clean air in spring, see a beautiful sunset, read interesting and smart books. I love myself, the strength of my muscles, the strength of my thoughts, clear and precise. I love the fact that I am alone and not a single curious glance has penetrated into the depths of my soul with its dark gaps and abysses, at the edge of which my head is spinning. I have never understood or known what people call the boredom of life. Life is interesting, and I love it for the great mystery that is contained in it, I love it even for its cruelty, for its ferocious vindictiveness and satanically cheerful play with people and events.

I was the only person whom I respected - how could I risk sending this man to hard labor, where he would be deprived of the opportunity to lead the varied, full and deep existence he needed!.. And from your point of view, I was right in wanting to avoid hard labor. I am a very successful doctor; Without needing funds, I treat many poor people. I'm useful. Probably more useful than the murdered Savelov.

And impunity could be achieved easily. There are thousands of ways to kill a person without being noticed, and as a doctor, it was especially easy for me to resort to one of them. And among the plans I came up with and discarded, for a long time I was occupied with this one: to inoculate Alexei with an incurable and disgusting disease. But the inconveniences of this plan were obvious: long-term suffering for the object itself, something ugly in all this, deep and somehow too... stupid; and finally, even in her husband’s illness, Tatyana Nikolaevna would have found joy for herself. My task was especially complicated by the mandatory requirement that Tatyana Nikolaevna know the hand that struck her husband. But only cowards are afraid of obstacles: people like me are attracted to them.

Chance, that great ally of the smart, came to my aid. And I allow myself to pay special attention, Messrs. experts, to this detail: it was an accident, that is, something external, independent of me, that served as the basis and reason for what followed. In one newspaper I found an article about a cashier, or clerk (the newspaper clipping probably remained at my home or is with the investigator), who feigned an epileptic fit and allegedly lost money during it, but in reality, of course, stole it. The clerk turned out to be a coward and confessed, even indicating the location of the stolen money, but the idea itself was not bad and feasible. To feign madness, to kill Alexei in a state of supposed insanity and then “recover” - this is a plan that I created in one minute, but which required a lot of time and work to take on a very definite concrete form. At that time I was superficially familiar with psychiatry, like any non-specialist doctor, and it took me about a year to read all kinds of sources and think about it. By the end of this time I was convinced that my plan was quite feasible.

The first thing that experts will have to pay attention to is hereditary influences - and my heredity, to my great joy, turned out to be quite suitable. The father was an alcoholic; one uncle, his brother, ended his life in a mental hospital and, finally, my only sister, Anna, already deceased, suffered from epilepsy. True, on our mother’s side, everyone in our family was healthy, but one drop of the poison of madness is enough to poison a whole series of generations. In terms of my strong health, I took after my mother’s family, but I had some harmless oddities that could serve me well. My relative unsociability, which is simply a sign of a healthy mind, preferring to spend time alone with itself and books than to waste it on idle and empty chatter, could pass for morbid misanthropy; coldness of temperament, not seeking rough sensual pleasures, is an expression of degeneration. The very persistence in achieving once set goals - and many examples of it could be found in my rich life - in the language of gentlemen experts would receive the terrible name of monomania, the dominance of obsessions.

The ground for simulation was thus unusually favorable: the statics of madness were evident, the matter remained with the dynamics. After an unintentional underpainting of nature, it was necessary to apply two or three successful strokes, and the picture of madness was ready. And I very clearly imagined how it would be, not with programmatic thoughts, but with living images: although I don’t write bad stories, I am far from devoid of artistic flair and imagination.

I saw that I would be able to carry out my role. The tendency to pretend has always been part of my character and was one of the forms in which I strived for inner freedom. Even in the gymnasium, I often feigned friendship: I walked along the corridor hugging each other, as real friends do, skillfully faked a friendly, frank speech and discreetly inquired. And when the softened friend gave his all, I threw his little soul away from me and walked away with a proud consciousness of my strength and inner freedom. I remained the same dualist at home, among my relatives; Just as in an Old Believer house there is special dishes for strangers, so I had everything special for people: a special smile, special conversations and frankness. I saw that people do a lot of stupid, harmful and unnecessary things, and it seemed to me that if I began to tell the truth about myself, then I would become like everyone else, and this stupid and unnecessary thing would take over me.

I always liked to be respectful to those I despised and to kiss people I hated, which made me free and master over others. But I never knew a lie to myself - this most common and lowest form of human enslavement to life. And the more I lied to people, the more mercilessly truthful I became to myself - a virtue that few can boast of.

In general, I think there was hidden in me a remarkable actor, capable of combining the naturalness of the game, which at times reached the point of complete fusion with the personified person, with unrelenting cold control of the mind. Even during ordinary book reading, I completely entered into the psyche of the person depicted and - would you believe it? - already an adult, I cried bitter tears over “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” What a marvelous property of a flexible, culturally sophisticated mind to reincarnate! You live as if a thousand lives, then you descend into hellish darkness, then you rise to the bright mountain heights, with one glance you take in the endless world. If man is destined to become God, then his throne will be a book...

Yes. This is true. By the way, I want to complain to you about the local order. They put me to bed when I want to write, when I need to write. Then they don’t close the doors, and I have to listen to some crazy person yelling. Yelling, yelling - it's downright unbearable. So you can really drive a person crazy and say that he was crazy before. And don’t they really have an extra candle and I have to ruin my eyes with electricity?

Here you go. And once I even thought about a stage, but I gave up this stupid thought: pretense, when everyone knows that it is pretense, already loses its value. And the cheap laurels of a sworn actor on a government salary attracted me little. You can judge the degree of my art by the fact that many donkeys still consider me the most sincere and truthful person. And what’s strange: I’ve always managed to deceive not donkeys, - I said so in the heat of the moment, - but smart people; conversely, there are two categories of lower order beings in whom I have never been able to gain confidence: women and dogs.

Do you know that the venerable Tatyana Nikolaevna never believed my love and does not believe, I think, even now that I killed her husband? According to her logic, it turns out like this: I didn’t love her, but I killed Alexei because she loved him. And this nonsense probably seems meaningful and convincing to her. And she's a smart woman!

It didn’t seem very difficult for me to play the role of a madman. Some of the necessary instructions were given to me by books; I had to fill part of it, like any real actor in any role, with my own creativity, and the rest would be recreated by the public itself, which had long ago refined its feelings with books and the theater, where it was taught to recreate living faces along two or three unclear contours. Of course, some problems were bound to remain - and this was especially dangerous in view of the strict scientific examination to which I would be subjected, but even here no serious danger was foreseen. The vast field of psychopathology is still so little developed, there is still so much that is dark and random in it, there is so much scope for fantasy and subjectivism that I boldly entrusted my fate into your hands, gentlemen. experts. I hope I didn't offend you. I am not encroaching on your scientific authority and I am sure that you will agree with me, as people accustomed to conscientious scientific thinking.

Finally stopped yelling. This is simply unbearable.

And even at a time when my plan was only in draft, a thought appeared to me that could hardly have entered a crazy head. This thought is about the terrible danger of my experience. Do you understand what I am talking about? Madness is such a fire that it is dangerous to joke with. Having built a fire in the middle of a powder magazine, you may feel safer than you would then if even the slightest thought of madness creeps into your head. And I knew it, I knew it, I knew it - but does danger mean anything to a brave man?

And didn’t I feel my thoughts, solid, bright, as if forged from steel and unconditionally obedient to me? Like a sharply sharpened rapier, it wriggled, stung, bit, divided the fabric of events; like a snake, it silently crawled into the unknown and dark depths that are forever hidden from daylight, and its hilt was in my hand, the iron hand of a skilled and experienced swordsman. How obedient, efficient and quick she was, my thought, and how I loved her, my slave, my formidable strength, my only treasure!

He's yelling again and I can't write anymore. How terrible it is when a person howls. I have heard many scary sounds, but this one is the scariest, the most terrible. It is unlike anything else, this voice of the beast passing through the larynx of a man. Something fierce and cowardly; free and pathetic to the point of meanness. The mouth is twisted to the side, the facial muscles tense like ropes, the teeth are bared like a dog, and from the dark opening of the mouth comes this disgusting, roaring, whistling, laughing, howling sound...

Yes. Yes. That was my thought. By the way: you will, of course, pay attention to my handwriting, and I ask you not to attach importance to the fact that it sometimes trembles and seems to change. I haven’t written for a long time; recent events and insomnia have weakened me greatly, and my hand sometimes trembles. This has happened to me before.

SHEET THIRD

Now you understand what kind of terrible attack happened to me at the Karganovs’ evening. This was my first experience, and it was a success even beyond my expectations. It was as if everyone knew in advance that this would happen to me, as if the sudden madness of a completely healthy person in their eyes seemed something natural, something that could always be expected. No one was surprised, and everyone vied with each other to color my performance with the play of their own imagination - it’s rare that a guest performer has such a wonderful troupe as these naive, stupid and gullible people. Did they tell you how pale and scary I was? How cold - yes, it was cold sweat that covered my forehead? What crazy fire did my black eyes burn with? When they conveyed all these observations to me, I looked gloomy and depressed, and my whole soul trembled with pride, happiness and ridicule.

Tatyana Nikolaevna and her husband were not at the evening - I don’t know if you paid attention to this. And this was not an accident: I was afraid of intimidating her, or, even worse, instilling suspicion in her. If there was anyone who could get into my game, it was her.

And in general there was nothing accidental here. On the contrary, every little thing, the most insignificant, was strictly thought out. I chose the moment of the attack - at dinner - because everyone would be gathered and somewhat excited by the wine. I sat at the edge of the table, away from the candelabra with candles, since I didn’t want to start a fire or burn my nose. Next to me I sat Pavel Petrovich Pospelov, this fat pig, with whom I had long wanted to do some kind of trouble. He is especially disgusted when he eats. When I first saw him doing this, it occurred to me that eating is an immoral thing. Here all this came in handy. And probably not a single soul noticed that the plate that shattered under my fist was covered with a napkin on top so as not to cut my hands.

The trick itself was amazingly rude, even stupid, but that’s exactly what I was counting on. They would not have understood a more subtle thing. At first I waved my arms and talked “excitedly” with Pavel Petrovich, until he began to open his eyes in surprise; then I fell into “concentrated reverie”, waiting for a question from the obligatory Irina Pavlovna:

What's wrong with you, Anton Ignatievich? Why are you so gloomy?

And when all eyes turned to me, I smiled tragically.

Are you unwell?

Yes. A little. My head is spinning. But don't worry, please. This will pass now.

The hostess calmed down, and Pavel Petrovich looked at me suspiciously and with disapproval. And the next minute, when he raised a glass of port wine to his lips with a blissful look, I - once! - knocked the glass out from under his very nose, twice! - I hit the plate with my fist. The fragments are flying, Pavel Petrovich is floundering and grunting, the ladies are squealing, and I, baring my teeth, drag the tablecloth from the table with everything that is on it - it was a hilarious picture!

Yes. Well, they surrounded me and grabbed me: someone was carrying water, someone was sitting me in a chair, and I was growling like a tiger in the Zoological, and making mistakes with my eyes. And all of this was so ridiculous, and they were all so stupid that, by God, I seriously wanted to smash several of these faces, taking advantage of the privilege of my position. But, of course, I abstained.

Where I am? What's wrong with me?

Even this absurdly French: “Where am I?” was a success with these gentlemen, and no less than three fools immediately reported:

Positively they were too small for a good game!

A day later - I gave time for the rumors to reach the Savelovs - a conversation with Tatyana Nikolaevna and Alexei. The latter somehow did not comprehend what had happened and limited himself to asking:

What have you done, brother, with the Karganovs?

He turned his jacket over and went into the office to study. That way, if I really went crazy, he wouldn’t choke. But his wife’s sympathy was especially eloquent, stormy and, of course, insincere. And then... it’s not that I felt sorry for what I had started, but the question simply arose: is it worth it?

“Do you love your husband very much?” I said to Tatyana Nikolaevna, who was following Alexei with her gaze.

She quickly turned around.

Yes. And what?

She quickly and directly looked into my eyes, but did not answer. And at that moment I forgot that once upon a time she laughed, and I was not angry with her, and what I was doing seemed unnecessary and strange to me. It was fatigue, natural after a strong upsurge of nerves, and it lasted only a moment.

“Can you really be trusted?” Tatyana Nikolaevna asked after a long silence.

Of course, you can’t,” I answered jokingly, but inside me the extinguished fire was already flaring up again.

I felt strength, courage, determination that stops at nothing within myself. Proud of the success I had already achieved, I boldly decided to go to the end. Fight is the joy of life.

The second seizure occurred a month after the first. Not everything here was so thought out, and this is unnecessary given the existence of a general plan. I had no intention of arranging it on this particular evening, but since the circumstances were so favorable, it would be stupid not to take advantage of them. And I clearly remember how it all happened. We were sitting in the living room chatting when I started to feel really sad. I vividly imagined - in general this rarely happens - how alien I am to all these people and alone in the world, I, forever imprisoned in this head, in this prison. And then they all became disgusted with me. And with rage I struck with my fist and shouted something rude and was glad to see the fear on their pale faces.

Scoundrels!” I shouted. “Filthy, satisfied scoundrels!” Liars, hypocrites, vipers. I hate you!

And it’s true that I fought with them, then with the lackeys and coachmen. But I knew that I was struggling, and I knew that it was on purpose. It just felt good to hit them, to tell them straight in the face the truth about what they are like. Is anyone who tells the truth crazy? I assure you, Messrs. experts that I was aware of everything, that when I struck, I felt a living body under my hand that was in pain. And at home, left alone, I laughed and thought what an amazing, wonderful actor I was. Then I went to bed and read a book at night; I can even tell you which one: Guy de Maupassant; as always, he enjoyed it and fell asleep like a baby. Do crazy people read books and enjoy them? Do they sleep like babies?

Crazy people don't sleep. They suffer and their minds become confused. Yes. They get confused and fall... And they want to howl and scratch themselves with their hands. They want to stand like this, on all fours, and crawl quietly, and then jump up at once and shout: “Aha!” - and laugh. And howl. So raise your head and for a long, long time, long, long, pathetic, pathetic.

And I slept like a baby. Do crazy people sleep like babies?

SHEET FOUR

Last night the nurse Masha asked me:

Anton Ignatievich! Do you never pray to God?

She was serious and believed that I would answer her sincerely and seriously. And I answered her without a smile, as she wanted:

No, Masha, never. But if it pleases you, you can cross me.

And still seriously, she crossed me three times; and I was very glad that I had given a moment of pleasure to this excellent woman. Like all high-ranking and free people, you, gentlemen. experts, don’t pay attention to the servants, but we, prisoners and “crazy people,” have to see them up close and sometimes make amazing discoveries. So, it probably never occurred to you that the nurse Masha, whom you assigned to watch the crazy people, is crazy herself? And this is so.

Take a closer look at her gait, silent, sliding, a little timid and surprisingly careful and dexterous, as if she were walking between invisible drawn swords. Peer into her face, but do it somehow unnoticed by her, so that she does not know about your presence. When one of you arrives, Masha’s face becomes serious, important, but smiling condescendingly - exactly the expression that dominates your face at that moment. The fact is that Masha has a strange and meaningful ability to involuntarily reflect on her face the expression of all other faces. Sometimes she looks at me and smiles. A sort of pale, reflected, as if alien smile. And I guess I was smiling. when she looked at me. Sometimes Masha’s face becomes pained, gloomy, her eyebrows converge towards her nose, the corners of her mouth droop; my whole face ages ten years and darkens - this is probably what my face is like sometimes. It happens that I scare her with my gaze. You know how strange and a little scary the look of any deeply thoughtful person is. And Masha’s eyes widen, the pupil darkens, and, slightly raising her hands, she silently walks towards me and does something to me, friendly and unexpected: smoothes my hair or straightens my robe.

“Your belt will come undone!” she says, and her face is still as frightened.

But I happen to see her alone. And when she is alone, her face is strangely devoid of any expression. It is pale, beautiful and mysterious, like the face of a dead man. You shout to her:

“Masha!” - she will quickly turn around, smile with her tender and timid smile and ask:

Should I serve you something?

She always serves something, receives something, and if she has nothing to serve, receive and put away, she apparently gets worried. And she is always silent. I never noticed her drop or knock anything. I tried to talk to her about life, and she was strangely indifferent to everything, even to murders, fires and any other horror that has such an effect on underdeveloped people.

You understand: they are killed, wounded, and they are left with small, hungry children,” I told her about the war.

Yes, I understand,” she answered and thoughtfully asked: “Should I give you some milk, haven’t you eaten much today?”

I laugh and she responds with a slightly scared laugh. She has never been to the theater, does not know that Russia is a state and that there are other states; She is illiterate and has heard only the Gospel that is read in fragments in church. And every evening she kneels and prays for a long time.

For a long time I considered her simply a narrow-minded, stupid creature, born for slavery, but one incident made me change my view. You probably know, you were probably told that I experienced one bad minute here, which, of course, proves nothing except fatigue and a temporary loss of strength. It was a towel. Of course, I am stronger than Masha and could have killed her, since it was just the two of us, and if she had shouted or grabbed my hand... But she didn’t do anything like that. She just said:

No need, my dear.

I often thought about this “don’t” and still can’t understand the amazing power that is contained in it and that I feel. It is not in the word itself, meaningless and empty; she is somewhere in the unknown and inaccessible depths of the Machine of the Soul. She knows something. Yes, she knows, but she can’t or won’t say. Then many times I tried to get Masha to explain this “no need”, and she could not explain.

Do you think suicide is a sin? That God forbade him?

Why not?

So. No need.” And she smiles and asks: “Can I bring you something?”

Positively, she is crazy, but quiet and helpful, like many crazy people. And don't touch her.

I allowed myself to deviate from the story, since Masha’s action yesterday threw me back to memories of my childhood. I don’t remember my mother, but I had an aunt Anfisa, who always baptized me at night. She was a silent old maid, with acne on her face, and was very ashamed when her father joked with her about suitors. I was still little, about eleven years old, when she hanged herself in the small shed where we stored coals. She then kept introducing herself to her father, and this cheerful atheist ordered masses and memorial services.

He was very smart and talented, my father, and his speeches in court made not only nervous ladies cry, but also serious, balanced people. Only I didn’t cry while listening to him, because I knew him and knew that he himself did not understand anything of what he was saying. He had a lot of knowledge, a lot of thoughts and even more words; words, thoughts, and knowledge were often combined very successfully and beautifully, but he himself did not understand anything about it. I often doubted even whether he existed - before that he was all outside, in sounds and gestures, and it often seemed to me that this was not a person, but an image flashing in a cinematograph, connected to a gramophone. He did not understand that he was a man, that now he was living and then he would die, and he did not look for anything. And when he went to bed, stopped moving and fell asleep, he probably did not have any dreams and ceased to exist. In his own words - he was a lawyer - he earned thirty thousand a year, and not once was he surprised or thought about this circumstance. I remember we went with him to the newly purchased estate, and I said, pointing to the trees of the park:

Clients?

He smiled, flattered, and replied:

Yes, brother, talent is a great thing.

He drank a lot, and his intoxication was expressed only in the fact that everything began to move faster for him, and then immediately stopped - he fell asleep. And everyone considered him unusually talented, and he constantly said that if he had not become a famous lawyer, he would have been a famous artist or writer. Unfortunately it's true.

And least of all he understood me. One day it happened that we were in danger of losing our entire fortune. And for me it was terrible. Nowadays, when only wealth gives freedom, I don’t know what I would have become if fate had placed me in the ranks of the proletariat. Even now, without anger, I cannot imagine that someone dares to lay their hand on me, forces me to do what I don’t want, buys my work, my blood, my nerves, my life for pennies. But I experienced this horror only for one minute, and the next I realized that people like me are never poor. But my father didn’t understand this. He sincerely considered me a stupid young man and looked with fear at my imaginary helplessness.

Oh, Anton, Anton, what are you going to do?.. - he said.

He himself was completely limp: long, unkempt hair hung over his forehead, his face was yellow. I answered:

Don't worry about me, dad. Since I am not talented, I will kill Rothschild or rob a bank.

My father got angry because he took my answer for an inappropriate and flat joke. He saw my face, he heard my voice, and yet he took it as a joke. A pathetic, cardboard clown who, through a misunderstanding, was considered a human!

He did not know my soul, and the entire external order of my life outraged him, because he did not invest in his understanding. I studied well at the gymnasium, and this upset him. When guests came - lawyers, writers and artists - he pointed his finger at me and said:

And my son is my first student. How have I angered God?

And everyone laughed at me, and I laughed at everyone. But even more than my successes, my behavior and costume upset him. He deliberately came into my room in order to rearrange the books on the table without my noticing and create at least some kind of disorder. My neat hairstyle took away his appetite.

“The inspector orders you to cut your hair short,” I said seriously and respectfully.

He swore loudly, and inside me everything was trembling with contemptuous laughter, and not without reason I then divided the whole world into inspectors simply and inspectors inside out. And they all reached out to my head: some to cut it off, others to pull the hair out of it.

The worst thing for my father were my notebooks. Sometimes, drunk, he looked at them with hopeless and comic despair.

Have you ever made an inkblot?” he asked.

Yes, it happened, dad. The day before yesterday I started studying trigonometry.

Licked it?

That is, how did you lick it?

Well, yes, did you lick the blot?

No, I have attached a piece of paper.

The father waved his hand in a drunken gesture and grumbled as he stood up:

No, you are not my son. No no!

Among the notebooks he hated, there was one that could, however, give him pleasure. There was also not a single crooked line, blot or blot in it. And it said something like this: “My father is a drunkard, a thief and a coward.”

Here comes to my mind one fact that I had forgotten, which, as I see now, will not be deprived of you, gentlemen. experts of great interest. I'm very glad I remembered him, very, very glad. How could I forget him?

In our house there lived a maid, Katya, who was my father’s mistress and at the same time my mistress. She loved her father because he gave her money, and she loved me because I was young, had beautiful black eyes and did not give money. And that night, when my father’s corpse stood in the hall, I went to Katya’s room. It was not far from the hall, and the sexton’s reading could be clearly heard in it.

I think that my father's immortal spirit has received complete satisfaction!

No, this is a really interesting fact, and I don't understand how I could have forgotten it. To you, Messrs. experts, this may seem childish, a childish prank that has no serious meaning, but it is not true. This, Messrs. experts, it was a fierce battle, and victory in it was not cheap for me. My life was at stake. I'm afraid, if I turned back, if I turned out to be incapable of love, I would kill myself. It was decided, I remember.

And what I did was not so easy for a young man of my age. Now I know that I was fighting a windmill, but then the whole matter seemed to me in a different light. Now it’s difficult for me to recall what I experienced in my memory, but I remember I had the feeling that with one act I was breaking all the laws, divine and human. And I was terribly cowardly, ridiculously so, but still I controlled myself, and when I went to Katya, I was ready for kisses, like Romeo.

Yes, then I was still, it seems, a romantic. Happy time, how far away it is! I remember Messrs. experts that, returning from Katya, I stopped in front of the corpse, folded my arms on my chest like Napoleon, and looked at him with comic pride. And then he shuddered, frightened by the moving coverlet. Happy, distant time!

I'm afraid to think, but it seems that I never stopped being a romantic. And I was almost an idealist. I believed in human thought and its limitless power. The entire history of mankind seemed to me to be the procession of one triumphant thought, and this was only so recently. And I’m scared to think that my whole life was a deception, that all my life I was a madman, like that crazy actor whom I saw the other day in the next ward. He collected blue and red pieces of paper from everywhere and called each of them a million; he begged them from visitors, stole them and dragged them out of the closet, and the watchmen made rude jokes, but he sincerely and deeply despised them. He liked me, and as a parting gift he gave me a million.

“It’s not a million,” he said, “but excuse me: I have such expenses now, such expenses.”

And, taking me aside, he explained in a whisper:

Now I'm looking at Italy. I want to drive dad away and introduce new money there, this one. And then, on Sunday, I will declare myself a saint. The Italians will be happy: they are always very happy when they are given a new saint.

Wasn’t it with this million that I lived?

I am scared to think that my books, my comrades and friends, still stand in their scales and silently store what I considered the wisdom of the earth, its hope and happiness. I know, Messrs. experts, whether I’m crazy or not, from your point of view I’m a scoundrel - would you look at this scoundrel when he enters his library?!

Come on down, gentlemen. experts, take a look at my apartment - it will be interesting for you. In the top left drawer of the desk you will find a detailed catalog of books, paintings and trinkets; You will also find the keys to the cabinets there. You yourself are men of science, and I believe that you will treat my things with due respect and care. I also ask you to ensure that the lamps are not smoked. There is nothing more terrible than this soot: it gets everywhere, and then it takes a lot of work to remove it.

ON THE SCRIPTURE

Now the paramedic Petrov refused to give me Chloralamid in the dose I require. First of all, I am a doctor and I know what I am doing, and then, if I am refused, I will take drastic measures. I have not slept for two nights and do not want to go crazy. I demand that they give me chloralamide. I demand it. It's dishonest to drive me crazy.

SHEET FIFTH

After the second attack they began to fear me. In many houses, doors were hastily slammed in front of me; at a chance meeting, acquaintances shuddered, smiled meanly and asked meaningfully:

How's your health, darling?

The situation was just such that I could commit any lawlessness and not lose the respect of those around me. I looked at people and thought: if I want, I can kill this and that, and nothing will happen to me for it. And what I experienced at this thought was new, pleasant and a little scary. Man has ceased to be something strictly protected, something fearful to touch; as if some kind of husk had fallen off of him, he was as if naked, and killing him seemed easy and tempting.

Fear protected me from inquisitive gazes with such a dense wall that the need for a third preparatory attack was itself abolished. Only in this respect did I deviate from the drawn plan, but this is the power of talent, that it does not constrain itself by boundaries and, in accordance with changed circumstances, changes the entire course of the battle. But it was still necessary to obtain official absolution for past sins and permission for future sins - a scientific and medical certificate of my illness.

And here I waited for such a confluence of circumstances in which my appeal to a psychiatrist could seem like an accident or even something forced. This was, perhaps, an excessive subtlety in the finishing of my role. Tatyana Nikolaevna and her husband sent me to a psychiatrist.

Please go to the doctor, dear Anton Ignatievich,” said Tatyana Nikolaevna.

She had never called me “darling” before, and I had to be considered crazy to receive this insignificant affection.

“Okay, dear Tatyana Nikolaevna, I’ll go,” I answered obediently.

The three of us - Alexey was right there - sat in the office where the murder subsequently took place.

But what can I “do”? - I timidly made excuses to my strict friend.

You never know. You'll hit someone's head.

I turned the heavy cast-iron paperweight in my hands, looked first at him, then at Alexei, and asked:

Head? Are you talking about your head?

Well, yes, head. Just grab something like this and you're done.

This was getting interesting. It was my head and precisely this thing that I intended to squander, and now this very head was discussing how it would turn out. She reasoned and smiled carefree. And there are people who believe in premonitions, in the fact that death sends some invisible messengers in advance - what nonsense!

Well, you can hardly do anything with this thing,” I said. “It’s too light.”

What are you saying: easy! - Alexey was indignant, pulled the paperweight out of my hands and, taking it by the thin handle, waved it several times. - Try it!

Yes, I know...

No, take it like this and you will see.

Reluctantly, smiling, I took the heavy thing, but then Tatyana Nikolaevna intervened. Pale, with trembling lips, she said, rather screamed:

Alexey, leave it! Alexey, leave it!

What are you doing, Tanya? “What’s wrong with you?” he was amazed.

Leave it! You know how much I don't like such things.

We laughed and the paperweight was placed on the table.

With Professor T. everything happened as I expected. He was very careful, restrained in his expressions, but serious; asked if I had any relatives whose care I could entrust myself with, advised me to sit at home, rest and calm down. Relying on my knowledge of the doctor, I argued slightly with him, and if he had any doubts, then when I dared to object to him, he irrevocably classified me as crazy. Of course, Messrs. experts, you will not attach serious importance to this harmless joke on one of our brothers: as a scientist, Professor T. is undoubtedly worthy of respect and honor.

The next few days were some of the happiest days of my life. They pitied me as if they were an admitted patient, they paid me visits, they spoke to me in some broken, absurd language, and only I knew that I was healthy like no one else, and I enjoyed the distinct, powerful work of my thoughts. Of all the amazing, incomprehensible things that life is rich in, the most amazing and incomprehensible is human thought. It contains divinity, it contains the guarantee of immortality and a powerful force that knows no barriers. People are amazed with delight and amazement when they look at the snowy peaks of mountain communities; if they understood themselves, then more than the mountains, more than all the wonders and beauties of the world, they would be amazed at their ability to think. The simple thought of a laborer about how best to lay one brick on top of another is the greatest miracle and the deepest mystery.

And I enjoyed my thought. Innocent in her beauty, she gave herself to me with all passion, like a lover, served me like a slave, and supported me like a friend. Don’t think that all these days spent at home within four walls, I was thinking only about my plan. No, everything was clear there and everything was thought out. I thought about everything. Me and my thought - it was as if we were playing with life and death and soaring high above them. By the way, in those days I solved two very interesting chess problems, which I had been working on for a long time, but without success. You know, of course, that three years ago I took part in an international chess tournament and took second place after Lasker. If I had not been an enemy of all publicity and continued to participate in competitions, Lasker would have had to give up his favorite place.

And from the moment Alexei’s life was placed in my hands, I felt a special affection for him. I was pleased to think that he lives, drinks, eats and rejoices, and all this because I allow him. A feeling similar to the feeling of a father for his son. And what worried me was his health. For all his frailty, he is unforgivably careless: he refuses to wear a sweatshirt and, in the most dangerous, wet weather, goes out without galoshes. Tatyana Nikolaevna calmed me down. She came to visit me and told me that Alexey was completely healthy and even slept well, which rarely happens to him. Delighted, I asked Tatyana Nikolaevna to give Alexey the book - a rare copy that accidentally fell into my hands and Alexey had liked for a long time. Perhaps, from the point of view of my plan, this gift was a mistake: they could suspect a deliberate fraud in this, but I so wanted to please Alexei that I decided to take a little risk. I even neglected the fact that in terms of the artistry of my game, the gift was already a caricature.

This time I was very nice and simple with Tatyana Nikolaevna and made a good impression on her. Neither she nor Alexey saw a single seizure of mine, and it was obviously difficult, even impossible, for them to imagine me as crazy.

“Come and visit us,” Tatyana Nikolaevna asked when parting.

“You can’t,” I smiled. “The doctor didn’t order it.”

Well, here's some more nonsense. You can come to us - it’s just like being at home. And Alyosha misses you.

I promised, and not a single promise was made with such confidence in fulfillment as this one. Don't you think, Messrs. experts, when you learn about all these happy coincidences, don’t you think that it was not only me who sentenced Alexey to death, but also someone else? But, in essence, there is no “other”, and everything is so simple and logical.

The cast-iron paperweight stood in its place when on December 11, at five o’clock in the evening, I entered Alexei’s office. This hour, before lunch - they have lunch at seven o'clock - both Alexey and Tatyana Nikolaevna spend in rest. They were very happy about my arrival.

“Thank you for the book, buddy,” Alexey said, shaking my hand. “I was going to see you myself, but Tanya said that you’ve completely recovered.” We're going to the theater today - are you going with us?

The conversation began. That day I decided not to pretend at all; this absence of pretense had its own subtle pretense, and, under the impression of the upsurge of thought he had experienced, he spoke a lot and interestingly. If only admirers of Savelov’s talent knew how many of “his” best thoughts originated and were hatched in the head of the unknown Dr. Kerzhentsev!

I spoke clearly, precisely, finishing off phrases; I was looking at the clock hand at the same time and thought that when it was at six, I would become a murderer. And I said something funny, and they laughed, and I tried to remember the feeling of a person who is not yet a murderer, but will soon become a murderer. No longer in an abstract idea, but quite simply, I understood the process of life in Alexey, the beating of his heart, the blood transfusion in his temples, the silent vibration of the brain and how this process would be interrupted, the heart would stop pumping blood, and the brain would freeze.

What thought will he freeze on?

Never has the clarity of my consciousness reached such heights and strength; Never has the feeling of a multifaceted, harmoniously working “I” been so complete. Just like God: without seeing - I saw, without listening - I heard, without thinking - I was aware.

There were seven minutes left when Alexey lazily rose from the sofa, stretched and left.

“I’ll be there now,” he said, leaving.

I didn’t want to look at Tatyana Nikolaevna, so I went to the window, parted the drapes and stood. And, without looking, I felt Tatyana Nikolaevna hastily cross the room and stand next to me. I heard her breathing, knew that she was looking not out the window, but at me, and I was silent.

“How gloriously the snow shines,” said Tatyana Nikolaevna, but I did not respond. Her breathing became faster, then stopped.

Anton Ignatievich!” she said and stopped.

I was silent.

Anton Ignatievich!” she repeated just as hesitantly, and then I looked at her.

She quickly backed away, almost fell, as if she had been thrown back by the terrible force that was in my gaze. She recoiled and rushed to her husband as he entered.

Alexey! - she muttered. - Alexey... He...

She thinks I want to kill you with this thing.

And quite calmly, without hiding, I took the paperweight, lifted it in my hand and calmly approached Alexei. He looked at me without blinking with his pale eyes and repeated:

She thinks...

Yes, she thinks.

Slowly, smoothly, I began to raise my hand, and Alexey just as slowly began to raise his, still not taking his eyes off me.

Wait! - I said sternly.

Alexei’s hand stopped, and, still not taking his eyes off me, he smiled incredulously, palely, with only his lips. Tatyana Nikolaevna shouted something terribly, but it was too late. I hit the temple with the sharp end, closer to the crown of the head than to the eye. And when he fell, I bent down and hit him two more times. The investigator told me that I beat him many times because his head was completely crushed. But this is not true. I hit him only three times: once when he was standing, and twice later, on the floor.

It is true that the blows were very strong, but there were only three of them. I probably remember this. Three strikes.

SHEET SIX

Don’t try to make out what was crossed out at the end of the fourth sheet and generally don’t attach undue importance to my blots as imaginary signs of disordered thinking. In the strange position in which I find myself, I must be terribly careful, which I do not hide and which you understand perfectly well.

The darkness of the night always has a strong effect on the tired nervous system, and that is why terrible thoughts so often come at night. And that night, the first after the murder, my nerves were, of course, especially tense. No matter how much I controlled myself, killing a person is no joke. Over tea, having already put myself in order, washed my nails and changed my dress, I invited Maria Vasilievna to sit with me. This is my housekeeper and partly my wife. She seems to have a lover on her side, but she is a beautiful woman, quiet and not greedy, and I easily came to terms with this small drawback, which is almost inevitable in the position of a person who acquires love for money. And this stupid woman was the first to strike me.

Kiss me, I said.

She smiled stupidly and froze in her place.

She shuddered, blushed and, making frightened eyes, imploringly reached across the table to me, saying:

Anton Ignatievich, darling, go to the doctor!

“What else?” I got angry.

Oh, don't shout, I'm afraid! Oh, I'm afraid of you, darling, little angel!

But she knew nothing about my seizures or about the murder, and I was always kind and even with her. “So there was something in me that other people don’t have and that scares me,” a thought flashed through my mind and immediately disappeared, leaving a strange feeling of cold in my legs and back. I realized that Maria Vasilievna had learned something on the side, from the servants, or had stumbled upon the ruined dress I had thrown off, and this quite naturally explained her fear.

Go, I ordered.

Then I lay on the sofa in my library. I didn’t want to read, I felt tired all over my body, and my general condition was that of an actor after a brilliantly played role. I was pleased to look at the books and it was pleasant to think that someday later I would read them. I liked my whole apartment, and the sofa, and Marya Vasilievna. Excerpts of phrases from my role flashed through my head, I mentally reproduced the movements that I made, and occasionally critical thoughts lazily crept in: but here something better could have been said or done. But with his improvised “wait!” I was very pleased. Indeed, this is a rare and, for those who have not experienced it themselves, an incredible example of the power of suggestion.

- "Wait a minute!" - I repeated, closing my eyes and smiling.

And my eyelids began to get heavy, and I wanted to sleep, when lazily, simply, like all the others, a new thought entered my head, possessing all the properties of my thought: clarity, accuracy and simplicity. She entered lazily and stopped. Here it is verbatim and in the third person, as it was for some reason:

“And it is quite possible that Dr. Kerzhentsev is really crazy. He thought that he was pretending, but he is really crazy. And now he is crazy.”

This thought was repeated three, four times, and I still smiled, not understanding:

"He thought he was faking it, but he's really crazy. And he's crazy now."

But when I realized... At first I thought that Maria Vasilievna said this phrase, because it was as if there was a voice, and this voice seemed to be hers. Then I thought about Alexey. Yes, to Alexey, to the murdered man. Then I realized that it was me who thought - and it was horror. Taking myself by the hair, already standing for some reason in the middle of the room, I said:

So. Everything is over. What I feared happened.

I came too close to the border, and now there is only one thing left ahead of me - madness.

When they came to arrest me, I found myself, according to them, in a terrible state - disheveled, in a torn dress, pale and scary. But, Lord! Doesn't surviving such a night and still not go crazy mean having an indestructible brain? But all I did was tear the dress and break the mirror. By the way: let me give you one piece of advice. If one of you ever has to go through what I went through that night, hang mirrors in the room where you will rush about. Hang them in the same way as you hang them when there is a dead person in the house. Hang it up!

I'm scared to write about this. I'm afraid of what I need to remember and say. But I can’t put it off any longer, and perhaps with half-words I’m only increasing the horror.

This evening.

Imagine a drunken snake, yes, yes, exactly a drunken snake: it retained its anger; her agility and speed have increased even more, and her teeth are still sharp and poisonous. And she is drunk, and she is in a locked room, where there are many people trembling in horror. And, coldly ferocious, it slides between them, wraps itself around their legs, stings in the very face, on the lips, and curls into a ball and digs into its own body. And it seems as if not one, but thousands of snakes are curling, and stinging, and devouring themselves. This was my thought, the same one in which I believed and in the sharpness and poisonousness of whose teeth I saw my salvation and protection.

A single thought was broken into a thousand thoughts, and each of them was strong, and all of them were hostile. They whirled in a wild dance, and their music was a monstrous voice, booming like a trumpet, and it rushed from somewhere unknown to me. It was a running thought, the most terrible of snakes, for it hid in the darkness. From my head, where I held her tightly, she went into the recesses of the body, into its black and unknown depths. And from there she screamed like a stranger, like a runaway slave, insolent and daring in the consciousness of her safety.

“You thought that you were pretending, but you were crazy. You are small, you are evil, you are stupid, you are Doctor Kerzhentsev. Some Doctor Kerzhentsev, crazy Doctor Kerzhentsev!..”

So she screamed, and I didn’t know where her monstrous voice was coming from. I don't even know who it was; I call it a thought, but maybe it wasn't a thought. Thoughts, like doves over a fire, were spinning in my head, and she was screaming from somewhere below, above, from the sides, where I could neither see her nor catch her.

And the worst thing I experienced was the consciousness that I did not know myself and never knew. While my “I” was in my brightly illuminated head, where everything moves and lives in a natural order, I understood and knew myself, reflected on my character and plans, and was, as I thought, a master. Now I saw that I was not a master, but a slave, pitiful and powerless. Imagine that you lived in a house with many rooms, occupied only one room and thought that you owned the whole house. And suddenly you found out that they were living there, in other rooms. Yes, they live. Some mysterious creatures live, maybe people, maybe something else, and the house belongs to them. You want to find out who they are, but the door is locked, and you can’t hear a sound or a voice behind it. And at the same time, you know that it is there, behind this silent door, that your fate is decided.

I went to the mirror... Hang the mirrors. Hang it up!

Then I don’t remember anything until the judiciary and the police came. I asked what time it was and they told me nine. And for a long time I could not understand that only two hours had passed since my return home, and about three hours had passed since Alexei’s murder.

Sorry, Messrs. experts, that I described such an important moment for the examination as this terrible state after the murder in such general and vague terms. But this is all that I remember and that I can convey in human language. For example, I cannot convey in human language the horror that I experienced all the time. In addition, I cannot say with positive confidence that everything I so weakly outlined happened in reality. Perhaps this was not the case, but something else. There is only one thing I firmly remember - this thought, or voice, or something else:

"Doctor Kerzhentsev thought that he was pretending to be crazy, but he really is crazy."

Now I tested my pulse: 180! This is now, just with one memory!

SHEET SEVEN

Last time I wrote a lot of unnecessary and pathetic nonsense, and, unfortunately, you have now already received and read it. I am afraid that he will give you a false idea of ​​my personality, as well as of the real state of my mental faculties. However, I believe in your knowledge and in your clear mind, gentlemen. experts.

You understand that only serious reasons could force me, Doctor Kerzhentsev, to reveal the whole truth about Savelov’s murder. And you will easily understand and appreciate them when I say that I don’t know even now whether I pretended to be crazy in order to kill with impunity, or whether I killed because I was crazy; and will probably forever be deprived of the opportunity to know this. The nightmare of that evening disappeared, but it left a trail of fire. There are no absurd fears, but there is the horror of a person who has lost everything, there is a cold consciousness of fall, death, deception and insolubility.

You scientists will argue about me. Some of you will say that I am crazy, others will argue that I am healthy and will allow only some restrictions in favor of degeneration. But, with all your learning, you will not prove as clearly either that I am crazy or that I am healthy, as I will prove this. My thought returned to me, and, as you will see, it cannot be denied either strength or sharpness. An excellent, energetic thought - after all, even enemies should be given their due!

I'm crazy. Would you like to listen: why?

The first thing that condemns me is heredity, the same heredity that I was so happy about when I was thinking about my plan. The seizures I had as a child... I'm sorry, gentlemen. I wanted to hide this detail about the seizures from you and wrote that since childhood I was a healthy man. This does not mean that I saw any danger for myself in the fact of the existence of some absurd, soon-ending seizures. I just didn't want to clutter the story with unimportant details. Now I needed this detail for a strictly logical construction, and, as you can see, I convey it without hesitation.

So here it is. Heredity and seizures indicate my predisposition to mental illness. And it began, unnoticed by me, much earlier than I came up with the murder plan. But, possessing, like all crazy people, unconscious cunning and the ability to adapt crazy actions to the norms of sound thinking, I began to deceive, not others, as I thought, but myself. Carried away by a force alien to me, I pretended to walk on my own. The rest of the evidence can be sculpted like wax. Is not it?

It doesn’t cost anything to prove that I didn’t love Tatyana Nikolaevna, that there was no real motive for the crime, but only a fictitious one. In the strangeness of my plan, in the composure with which I carried it out, in the mass of little details, it is very easy to discern the same insane will. Even the sharpness and rise of my thoughts before the crime proves my abnormality.

So, wounded to death, I played in the circus,

Gladiator death representing...

I have not left a single detail in my life unexplored. I've traced my whole life. To every step I took, to every thought, word, I applied the measure of madness, and it matched every word, every thought. It turned out, and this was the most surprising thing, that even before that night the thought had already occurred to me: am I really crazy? But I somehow got rid of this thought and forgot about it.

And, having proven that I am crazy, do you know what I saw? That I'm not crazy - that's what I saw. Please listen.

The biggest thing that heredity and seizures accuse me of is degeneration. I am one of the degenerates, of which there are many, who can be found if you look more closely, even among you, gentlemen. experts. This provides a wonderful clue to everything else. You can explain my moral views not by conscious thoughtfulness, but by degeneration. Indeed, moral instincts are embedded so deeply that only with some deviation from the normal type is complete liberation from them possible. And science, still too bold in its generalizations, classifies all such deviations into the realm of degeneration, even if physically the person was built like Apollo and healthy like the last idiot. But so be it. I have nothing against degeneration - it brings me into good company.

I will not defend my motive for the crime. I tell you completely sincerely that Tatyana Nikolaevna really offended me with her laughter, and the offense lay very deep, as it happens with such hidden, lonely natures as me. But let it not be true. Even if I didn't have love. But is it really impossible to assume that by killing Alexei I just wanted to try my hand? After all, you freely admit the existence of people who climb, risking their lives, on inaccessible mountains just because they are inaccessible, and do not call them crazy? Don’t you dare call Nansen, this greatest man of the last century, crazy! Moral life has its poles, and I tried to achieve one of them.

You are embarrassed by the lack of jealousy, revenge, self-interest and other absurd motives that you are accustomed to consider the only real and healthy ones. But then you, people of science, will condemn Nansen, condemn him along with the fools and ignoramuses who consider his enterprise to be madness.

My plan... It is unusual, it is original, it is bold to the point of audacity, but is it not reasonable from the point of view of the goal I have set? And it was precisely my inclination towards pretense, quite reasonably explained to you, that could have suggested this plan to me. An uplifting thought - but is genius really insanity? Coolness—but why must a murderer necessarily tremble, turn pale, and hesitate? Cowards always tremble, even when they hug their maids, and is courage really madness?

And how simply my own doubts about my health are explained! Like a real artist, an artist, I entered the role too deeply, temporarily identified with the person being portrayed and for a moment lost the ability to self-report. Would you say that even among the jury, the actors who break down every day, there are none who, while playing Othello, feel a real need to kill?

Quite convincing, isn't it, gentlemen. scientists? But don't you feel one strange thing: when I prove that I am crazy, it seems to you that I am healthy, and when I prove that I am healthy, you hear that I am crazy.

Yes. This is because you don’t believe me... But I don’t believe myself either, because who in myself will I trust? A vile and insignificant thought, a lying slave who serves everyone? He is only good for cleaning boots, but I made him my friend, my god. Down from the throne, pathetic, powerless thought!

Who am I, Messrs. experts, crazy or not?

Masha, dear woman, you know something that I don’t know. Tell me, who should I ask for help?

I know your answer, Masha. No it's not that. You are a kind and nice woman, Masha, but you don’t know either physics or chemistry, you’ve never been to the theater and don’t even suspect that the thing on which you live, receiving, serving and putting away, is spinning. And she spins, Masha, spins, and we spin with her. You are a child, Masha, you are a stupid creature, almost a plant, and I envy you very much, almost as much as I despise you.

No, Masha, you are not the one who will answer me. And you don't know anything, it's not true. In one of the dark closets of your simple house lives someone who is very useful to you, but this room is empty for me. He died long ago, the one who lived there, and on his grave I erected a magnificent monument. He died. Masha died and will not rise again.

Who am I, Messrs. experts, crazy or not? Forgive me for sticking to you with such impolite persistence with this question, but you are “men of science,” as my father called you when he wanted to flatter you, you have books, and you have clear, precise and infallible human thought . Of course, half of you will remain with one opinion, the other with another, but I will believe you, gentlemen. scientists - I will believe first and believe second. Tell me... And to help your enlightened mind I will give you an interesting, very interesting fact.

On one quiet and peaceful evening, which I spent among these white walls, on Masha’s face, when it caught my eye, I noticed an expression of horror, confusion and submission to something strong and terrible. Then she left, and I sat down on the prepared bed and continued to think about what I wanted. But I wanted strange things. I, Dr. Kerzhentsev, wanted to howl. Not to scream, but to howl, like that one over there. I wanted to tear my dress and scratch myself with my nails. Take the shirt at the collar, first pull it a little, just a little, and then - once! - all the way to the bottom. And I, Dr. Kerzhentsev, wanted to get on all fours and crawl. And all around it was quiet, and the snow was knocking on the windows, and somewhere nearby Masha was silently praying. And I deliberately chose for a long time what to do. If you howl, it will come out loud and there will be a scandal. If you tear your shirt, they will notice tomorrow. And quite sensibly I chose the third: crawling. No one will hear, and if they see me, I will say that a button has come off and I am looking for it.

And while I was choosing and deciding, it was good, not scary and even pleasant, so, I remember, I dangled my leg. But here I thought:

"Why crawl? Am I really crazy?"

And it became scary, and I immediately wanted everything: crawl, howl, scratch. And I got angry.

“Do you want to crawl?” I asked.

But it was silent, it no longer wanted.

No, you want to crawl?” I insisted.

And it was silent.

Well, crawl!

And, rolling up my sleeves, I got down on all fours and crawled. And when I had only walked around half the room, I felt so funny at this absurdity that I sat down right there on the floor and laughed, laughed, laughed.

With the habitual and still unextinguished belief that it is possible to know something, I thought that I had found the source of my crazy desires. Obviously, the desire to crawl and others were the result of self-hypnosis. The persistent thought that I was crazy also caused crazy desires, and as soon as I fulfilled them, it turned out that there were no desires and I was not crazy. The reasoning, as you can see, is very simple and logical. But...

But after all, I crawled? Was I crawling? Who am I - a making excuses crazy person or a healthy person driving himself crazy?

Help me, you highly learned men! Let your authoritative word tip the scales in one direction or the other and resolve this terrible, wild question. So, I'm waiting!..

I'm waiting in vain. Oh my sweet tadpoles - aren't you me? Isn’t it the same vile, human thought, always lying, changeable, illusory, working in your bald heads, like mine? And why is mine worse than yours? You will prove that I am crazy, I will prove to you that I am healthy; If you try to prove that I am healthy, I will prove to you that I am crazy. You will say that you cannot steal, kill and deceive, because this is immorality and a crime, but I will prove to you that you can kill and rob, and that this is very moral. And you will think and speak, and I will think and speak, and we will all be right, and none of us will be right. Where is the judge who can judge us and find the truth?

You have an enormous advantage, which knowledge of the truth gives you alone: ​​you have not committed a crime, are not on trial, and have been invited to examine the state of my psyche for a decent fee. And that's why I'm crazy. And if you were put here, Professor Drzhembitsky, and I was invited to observe you, then you would be crazy, and I would be an important bird - an expert, a liar, who differs from other liars only in that he lies only under oath .

True, you did not kill anyone, did not commit theft for the sake of stealing, and when you hire a cab driver, you are sure to bargain with him for a ten-kopeck piece, which proves your complete mental health. You are not crazy. But something completely unexpected can happen...

Suddenly, tomorrow, now, this very minute, when you are reading these lines, a terribly stupid, but careless thought came to you: am I crazy too? Who will you be then, Mr. Professor? Such a stupid, absurd thought - because why are you going crazy? But try to drive her away. You drank milk and thought it was whole milk until someone said it was mixed with water. And it’s over - there is no more whole milk.

You're crazy. Would you like to crawl on all fours? Of course you don’t want to, because what healthy person would want to crawl! Well, but still? Don't you have such a slight desire, a very slight, completely trivial desire that you want to laugh at - to slide out of your chair and crawl a little, just a little? Of course, he doesn’t, where could he appear from a healthy man who was just drinking tea and talking with his wife. But don’t you feel your legs, although you didn’t feel them before, and don’t you think that something strange is happening in your knees: a severe numbness is struggling with the desire to bend your knees, and then... Indeed, Mr. Drzhembitsky, can anyone really hold you back if you want to crawl a little?

But wait, crawl. I still need you. My struggle is not over yet.

SHEET EIGHT

One of the manifestations of the paradoxical nature of my nature: I really love children, very young children, when they just begin to babble and look like all small animals: puppies, kittens and baby snakes. Even snakes can be attractive in childhood. And this fall, on a fine sunny day, I happened to see such a picture. A tiny girl in a cotton coat and a hood, from under which only her pink cheeks and nose were visible, wanted to approach a very tiny dog ​​on thin legs, with a thin muzzle and a cowardly tail tucked between her legs. And suddenly she became scared, she turned around and, like a small white ball, rolled towards the nanny who was standing right there and silently, without tears or screaming, hid her face in her lap. And the tiny dog ​​blinked affectionately and fearfully tucked its tail, and the nanny’s face was so kind and simple.

“Don’t be afraid,” the nanny said and smiled at me, and her face was so kind and simple.

I don’t know why, but I often remembered this girl both in freedom, when I was carrying out the plan to kill Savelov, and here. At the same time, looking at this lovely group under the clear autumn sun, I had a strange feeling, as if the solution to something, and the murder I had planned seemed to me like a cold lie from some other, completely special world. And the fact that both of them, the girl and the dog, were so small and sweet, and that they were ridiculously afraid of each other, and that the sun was shining so warmly - all this was so simple and so full of meek and deep wisdom, as if right here, in this group lies the solution to existence. That was the feeling. And I said to myself: “I need to think about this carefully,” but I didn’t think about it.

And now I don’t remember what happened then, and I’m painfully trying to understand, but I can’t. And I don’t know why I told you this funny, unnecessary story, when I still have so much serious and important stuff to tell you. Need to cum.

Let's leave the dead alone. Alexei was killed, he had long since begun to decompose; he’s not there - to hell with him! There is something nice about the plight of the dead.

Let's not talk about Tatyana Nikolaevna. She is unhappy, and I willingly join in the general regrets, but what does this misfortune mean, all the misfortunes in the world in comparison with what I, Dr. Kerzhentsev, am experiencing now! You never know how many wives in the world lose their beloved husbands, and you never know how many will lose them. Let's leave them - let them cry.

But here, in this head...

You understand, Messrs. experts, how terribly this happened. I did not love anyone in the world except myself, and in myself I did not love this vile body that vulgar people love - I loved my human thought, my freedom. I didn’t know and don’t know anything higher than my thoughts, I idolized her - and wasn’t she worth it? Didn’t she, like a giant, fight against the whole world and its errors? She carried me to the top of a high mountain, and I saw how deep below people were swarming with their petty animal passions, with their eternal fear of life and death, with their churches, masses and prayer services.

Wasn't I great, and free, and happy? Like a medieval baron, perched as if in an eagle’s nest in his impregnable castle, proudly and imperiously looking at the valleys below, so invincible and proud I was in my castle, behind these black bones. A king over myself, I was also a king over the world.

And they cheated on me. It’s mean, insidious, how women, slaves and thoughts cheat. My castle has become my prison. Enemies attacked me in my castle. Where is the salvation? In the inaccessibility of the castle, in the thickness of its walls, is my death. The voice does not come out. And who is strong to save me? Nobody. For no one is stronger than me, and I - I am the only enemy of my “I”.

The vile thought betrayed me, the one who believed in it and loved it so much. It has not become any worse: it is the same light, sharp, elastic, like a rapier, but its hilt is no longer in my hand. And she kills me, her creator, her master, with the same stupid indifference as I killed others with her.

Night falls, and a frenzied horror seizes me. I was firmly on the ground, and my feet stood firmly on it, - and now I am thrown into the emptiness of infinite space. Great and formidable loneliness, when I, the one who lives, feels, thinks, who is so dear and is the only one, when I am so small, infinitely insignificant and weak and ready to go out every second. Ominous loneliness, when I am only an insignificant particle of myself, when within myself I am surrounded and strangled by gloomily silent, mysterious enemies. Wherever I go, I carry them with me everywhere; alone in the emptiness of the universe, and I have no friend in myself. Crazy loneliness, when I don’t know who I am, lonely, when unknown people speak with my lips, my thoughts, my voice.

You can't live like that. And the world sleeps peacefully: husbands kiss their wives, scientists give lectures, and a beggar rejoices at the thrown penny. Mad world, happy in its madness, your awakening will be terrible!

Who's strong will give me a helping hand? Nobody. Nobody. Where will I find that eternal thing to which I could cling with my pitiful, powerless, terribly lonely “I”? Nowhere. Nowhere. Oh, dear, dear girl, why are my bloody hands reaching out to you now - after all, you are also a person and just as insignificant, and lonely, and subject to death. Do I feel sorry for you, or do I want you to feel sorry for me, but, as if behind a shield, I would hide behind your helpless little body from the hopeless emptiness of centuries and space. But no, no, it's all a lie!

I will ask you for a big, huge favor, gentlemen. experts, and if you feel at least a little human in yourself, you will not refuse her. I hope we understand each other enough to not trust each other. And if I ask you to say in court that I am a healthy person, then I will least of all believe your words. You can decide for yourself, but for me no one will solve this issue:

Did I pretend to be crazy in order to kill, or did I kill because I was crazy?

But the judges will believe you and give me what I want: hard labor. I ask you not to misinterpret my intentions. I do not repent that I killed Savelov, I do not seek atonement for sins in punishment, and if, to prove that I am healthy, you need me to kill someone for the purpose of robbery, I will gladly kill and rob. But in hard labor I am looking for something else, something I don’t even know myself.

I am drawn to these people by some vague hope that among them, who have violated your laws, murderers, robbers, I will find sources of life unknown to me and will again become my friend. But even if this is not true, even if hope deceives me, I still want to be with them. Oh, I know you! You are cowards and hypocrites, you love your peace most of all, and you would gladly hide any thief who stole a roll of bread in a madhouse - you would rather admit the whole world and yourself are crazy than dare to touch your favorite inventions. I know you. The criminal and crime are your eternal anxiety, this is the menacing voice of the unknown abyss, this is the inexorable condemnation of your entire rational and moral life, and no matter how tightly you plug your ears with cotton, it passes, it passes! And I want to go to them. I, Doctor Kerzhentsev, will join the ranks of this terrible army for you, as an eternal reproach, as one who asks and waits for an answer.

I do not humbly ask you, but I demand: tell me that I am healthy. Lie if you don't believe it. But if you cowardly wash your learned hands and put me in an insane asylum or set me free, I friendly warn you: I will cause you big trouble.

For me there is no judge, no law, nothing prohibited. Everything is possible. Can you imagine a world in which there are no laws of gravity, in which there is no up or down, in which everything obeys only whim and chance? I, Doctor Kerzhentsev, this new world. Everything is possible. And I, Doctor Kerzhentsev, will prove this to you. I'll pretend to be healthy. I will achieve freedom. And for the rest of my life I will study. I will surround myself with your books, I will take from you all the power of your knowledge, of which you are proud, and I will find one thing that is long overdue. This will be an explosive. So strong that people have never seen it before: stronger than dynamite, stronger than nitroglycerin, stronger than the very thought of it. I am talented, persistent, and I will find it. And when I find him, I will blow up your damned land, which has so many gods and no one eternal God.

At the trial, Dr. Kerzhentsev behaved very calmly and remained in the same, silent position throughout the entire hearing. He answered questions indifferently and indifferently, sometimes forcing me to repeat them twice. Once he made a select audience laugh, filling the courtroom in huge numbers. The chairman addressed some kind of order to the bailiff, and the defendant, apparently not hearing enough or being absent-minded, stood up and asked loudly:

What, do you need to go out?

Where to go? - the chairman was surprised.

Don't know. Did you say something.

The audience laughed, and the chairman explained to Kerzhentsev what was going on.

Four psychiatric experts were called, and their opinions were equally divided. After the prosecutor’s speech, the chairman addressed the accused, who had refused a defense lawyer:

Accused! What do you have to say in your defense?

Doctor Kerzhentsev stood up. With dull, seemingly sightless eyes, he slowly looked around the judges and looked at the audience. And those on whom this heavy, unseeing gaze fell experienced a strange and painful feeling: as if the most indifferent and silent death was looking at them from the empty orbits of the skull.

“Nothing,” answered the accused.

And once again he looked around at the people who had gathered to judge him, and repeated.

D. S. Lukin. L. ANDREEV'S STORY “THOUGHT” AS AN ARTISTIC MANIFESTO

BBK 83.3(2=411.2)6

UDC 821.161.1-32

D. S. Lukin

D. Lukin

Petrozavodsk, PetrSU

Petrozavodsk, PetrSU

L. ANDREEV'S STORY “THOUGHT” AS AN ARTISTIC MANIFESTO

L. ANDREEV’S STORY “THOUGHT” AS AN ARTISTIC MANIFESTO

Annotation: In the article, using the methods of problem and motive analysis, Leonid Andreev’s story “Thought” is read as a manifesto and at the same time as an anti-manifesto of modern art. In the story, the writer explores the tragedy of the creation's betrayal of the creator and polemicizes with the rationalistic and positivist philosophical ideas of the past, which question the existence of rationally incomprehensible foundations of life and affirm the leading role of reason in knowledge.

Keywords: manifesto; anti-manifesto; modern; motive; thought; intelligence; Human.

Abstract: The article introduces problematic and motivic analysis of L. Andreev’s story “Thought”. It allows to read the story as manifesto and antimanifesto of Art Nouveau. In the story the writer explores the tragedy of betrayal of creation to the creator. Leonid Andreev argues with rationalistic and positivist philosophical ideas of the past, questioning the existence of rationally incomprehensible foundations of life and claiming the major role of mind in knowledge.

Keywords: manifesto; antimanifesto; Art Nouveau; motive; thought; mind; human.

Scientific discoveries and a total sociocultural crisis by the end of the 19th century destroyed in the public consciousness traditional ideas about the world, which again became a mystery, and the ways of human self-identification. The “disappearance” of existential foundations determined a new vector of artistic search - modern art.

Christian at its core, Russian literature at the turn of the century presented a complex, eclectic picture. On the pages of works of art, an intense debate unfolded about the nature and place of man in the space of life, in particular, about the possibilities and significance of reason in the historical development of mankind.

In M. Gorky's poem "Man" (1903), the hymn of Thought with a capital T sounds: it is placed above love, hope, faith and is determined by the Archimedean point of breakthrough into a better future. L. Andreev, who found himself at the crossroads of literary trends of the time and brought a new artistic direction to Russian literature - expressionism, is usually charged with disbelief in the power of the human mind, as well as in the “ethical person”. In this aspect, as a rule, researchers consider the story “Thought” (1902). However, the conflicting synthesis of aesthetic, scientific, religious-mystical, ethical and biological principles, so significant in the motivic field of “Thoughts”, makes the problems of the story more complex and deeper.

The story consists of eight sheets of notes from Dr. Kerzhentsev, made during his stay in a mental hospital before the trial for the murder of his friend the writer Savelov. In these recordings, Kerzhentsev addresses experts who must render a verdict on the state of his mental health. Explaining what happened, talking about the motives and stages of preparation for the murder, including feigning madness, Kerzhentsev logically and consistently proves that he is completely healthy, and then that he is sick. The story ends with a brief report about the trial of Kerzhentsev, at which the opinion of experts about his mental health was equally divided.

The main character of the story can be looked at as a modern artist. The hero rejects previous literature with its mimetic principle in the person of his writer friend, whom he will kill. Art should serve not the entertainment of the well-fed, but also not social needs, but some higher goals, taking on a theurgic mission - this is Kerzhentsev’s attitude, which coincides with the course of philosophical and aesthetic thought of the time.

The hero admits that he has always been inclined to play: the philosophy of the game sets the script, direction and staging of the murder, the hero’s attitude towards people and life. Kerzhentsev embodies the idea of ​​life creativity, which is important for modernism. He does not live the “natural truth of life,” but experiments with life, challenges the foundations and his own capabilities. The act of life creation that Kerzhentsev undertakes turns out, however, to be too aesthetically rational to become the art of life. Freed from external ethical obligations, the hero’s “creative thought” turns out to be hostile to the human and in man himself.

Personifying “creative thought” in Kerzhentsev, Andreev explores the tragedy of the creation’s betrayal of the creator and polemicizes with the rationalistic and positivist philosophical ideas of the past, which question the existence of rationally incomprehensible foundations of life and affirm the leading role of reason in knowledge. The dominant philosophy of Descartes - “I think, therefore I exist” - is rethought by Andreev in the parodic and tragic vein of the “reverse”: Kerzhentsev’s thought leads him into oblivion. From this point of view, the story can be perceived as a manifesto of a new art that rejects the achievements of the culture of the past with its myth of “Homo sapiens.”

At the same time, Andreev reveals the “dead ends of non-existence” of the new art, moving not towards life, but from it. The “creative act” of the hero, literally criminal and insane, acquires the substantive signs of a new art, conducting an artistic experiment on life in a mystical search for the beyond. From this position, one can read L. Andreev’s “Thought” as an anti-manifesto of modern art.

The work was carried out with the support of the Strategic Development Program of PetrSU as part of the implementation of a set of measures for the development of research activities for 2012–2016.

Bibliography

1. Andreev, L. N. Thought / L. N. Andreev // Collected works: in 6 volumes. T. 1: Stories and tales 1898–1903. - M.: Book Club Knigovek, 2012. - P. 391–435.

2. Gorky, A. M. Man / A. M. Gorky // Collected works: in 18 volumes. T. 4: Works 1903–1907. - M.: Goslitizdat, 1960. - P. 5–10.

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(c) 2014 Denis Sergeevich Lukin

© 2014-2018 South Ural State University

Electronic magazine “Language. Culture. Communications" (6+). Registered Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor). Certificate of registration of mass media El No. FS 77-57488 dated March 27, 2014. ISSN 2410-6682.

Founder: Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Education "SUSU (National Research University)" Editorial Board: Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Education "SUSU (National Research University)"Editor-in-Chief: Ponomareva Elena Vladimirovna

"Thought"

On December 11, 1900, doctor of medicine Anton Ignatievich Kerzhentsev committed murder. Both the entire set of data in which the crime was committed, and some of the circumstances preceding it, gave reason to suspect Kerzhentsev of abnormal mental abilities.

Placed on probation at the Elisabeth Psychiatric Hospital, Kerzhentsev was subjected to the strict and careful supervision of several experienced psychiatrists, among whom was Professor Drzhembitsky, who had recently died. Here are the written explanations that were given about what happened by Dr. Kerzhentsev himself a month after the start of the test;

together with other materials obtained by the investigation, they formed the basis of the forensic examination.

SHEET ONE

Until now, Messrs. experts, I hid the truth, but now circumstances force me to reveal it. And, having recognized her, you will understand that the matter is not at all as simple as it may seem to laymen: either a feverish shirt or shackles. There is a third thing here - not shackles or a shirt, but, perhaps, more terrible than both of them combined.

Alexei Konstantinovich Savelov, who I killed, was my friend at the gymnasium and university, although we differed in our specialties: I, as you know, am a doctor, and he graduated from the Faculty of Law. It cannot be said that I did not love the deceased; I always liked him, and I never had closer friends than him. But despite all his attractive qualities, he was not one of those people who could inspire me with respect. The amazing softness and pliability of his nature, the strange inconstancy in the field of thought and feeling, the sharp extremes and groundlessness of his constantly changing judgments made me look at him as at a child or a woman. People close to him, who often suffered from his antics and at the same time, due to the illogicality of human nature, loved him very much, tried to find an excuse for his shortcomings and their feelings and called him “an artist.” And indeed, it turned out as if this insignificant word completely justified him and that what would be bad for any normal person made him indifferent and even good. Such was the power of the invented word that even I at one time succumbed to the general mood and willingly excused Alexey for his minor shortcomings. Small ones - because he was incapable of large ones, as of anything large. This is sufficiently evidenced by his literary works, in which everything is petty and insignificant, no matter what short-sighted criticism says, greedy for the discovery of new talents. His works were beautiful and insignificant, and he himself was beautiful and insignificant.

When Alexey died, he was thirty-one years old, a little over one year younger than me.

Alexey was married. If you saw his wife now, after his death, when she is in mourning, you cannot get an idea of ​​how beautiful she once was: she has become so, so much worse. The cheeks are gray, and the skin on the face is so flabby, old, old, like a worn glove. AND

wrinkles. These are wrinkles now, but another year will pass - and these will be deep furrows and ditches: after all, she loved him so much! And her eyes no longer sparkle or laugh, but before they always laughed, even at the time when they needed to cry. I saw her for just one minute, having accidentally bumped into her at the investigator’s, and I was struck by the change. She couldn't even look at me angrily. So pathetic!

Only three people - Alexey, me and Tatyana Nikolaevna - knew that five years ago, two years before Alexey’s marriage, I proposed to Tatyana Nikolaevna, and it was rejected. Of course, this is only assumed that there are three, and, probably, Tatyana Nikolaevna has a dozen more girlfriends and friends who are intimately aware of how Dr. Kerzhentsev once dreamed of marriage and received a humiliating refusal. I don’t know if she remembers that she laughed then; She probably doesn’t remember - she had to laugh so often. AND

then remind her: on the fifth of September she laughed. If she refuses - and she will refuse - then remind her how it was. I, this strong man who never cried, who was never afraid of anything - I stood in front of her and trembled. I trembled and saw her biting her lips, and had already reached out to hug her when she looked up and there was laughter in them. My hand remained in the air, she laughed, and laughed for a long time.

As much as she wanted. But then she did apologize.

Excuse me, please,” she said, and her eyes laughed.

And I smiled too, and if I could forgive her for her laughter, I will never forgive that smile of mine. It was the fifth of September, at six o'clock in the evening, St. Petersburg time. In St. Petersburg, I add, because we were then on the station platform, and now I clearly see the large white dial and the position of the black hands: up and down. Alexei

Konstantinovich was also killed at exactly six o'clock. The coincidence is strange, but can reveal a lot to a savvy person.

One of the reasons for putting me here was the lack of motive for a crime. Now you see that there was a motive. Of course, it wasn't jealousy. The latter presupposes in a person an ardent temperament and weakness of mental abilities, that is, something directly opposite to me, a cold and rational person. Revenge? Yes, rather revenge, if the old word is so necessary to define a new and unfamiliar feeling.

The fact is that Tatyana Nikolaevna once again made me make a mistake, and this always made me angry. Knowing Alexey well, I was sure that in marriage with him

Tatyana Nikolaevna will be very unhappy and will regret me, and that’s why I insisted so much that Alexey, then still just in love, should marry her.

Just a month before his tragic death, he told me:

I owe my happiness to you. Really, Tanya?

And she looked at me, said: “true,” and her eyes smiled. I

smiled too. And then we all laughed when he hugged Tatiana

Yes, brother, you made a mistake!

This inappropriate and tactless joke shortened his life by a whole week: I initially decided to kill him on the eighteenth of December.

Yes, their marriage turned out to be happy, and it was she who was happy. He loved

Tatyana Nikolaevna not much, and in general he was not capable of deep love. He had his own favorite thing - literature - which took his interests beyond the bedroom. But she loved him and lived only for him. Then he was an unhealthy person: frequent headaches, insomnia, and this, of course, tormented him. And for her, even caring for him, sick, and fulfilling his whims was happiness. After all, when a woman falls in love, she becomes insane.

And day after day I saw her smiling face, her happy face, young, beautiful, carefree. And I thought: I arranged this. He wanted to give her a dissolute husband and deprive her of himself, but instead he gave her a husband whom she loved, and he himself remained with her. You will understand this strangeness: she is smarter than her husband and loved to talk with me, and after talking, she went to bed with him -

and was happy.

I don’t remember when the thought of killing Alexei first came to me. Somehow she appeared unnoticed, but from the first minute she became so old, as if I had been born with her. I know that I wanted to make Tatyana Nikolaevna unhappy, and that at first I came up with many other plans that would be less disastrous for Alexei - I have always been an enemy of unnecessary cruelty. Using my influence on Alexei, I thought of making him fall in love with another woman or making him a drunkard (he had a tendency towards this), but all these methods were not suitable.

The fact is that Tatyana Nikolaevna would manage to remain happy, even giving him to another woman, listening to his drunken chatter or accepting his drunken caresses. She needed this man to live, and she needed to serve him in one way or another. There are such slave natures. And, like slaves, they cannot understand and appreciate the strength of others, not the strength of their master. There were smart, good and talented women in the world, but the world has never seen and will never see a fair woman.

I confess sincerely, not in order to achieve unnecessary leniency, but to show in what a correct, normal way my decision was created, that for quite a long time I had to struggle with pity for the person whom I condemned to death. I felt sorry for him for the death horror and those seconds of suffering until his skull was broken. It was a pity - I don’t know if you understand this - of the skull itself. In a harmoniously working living organism there is a special beauty, and death, like illness, like old age, is, first of all, ugliness. I remember how long ago, when I had just graduated from university, I fell into the hands of a beautiful young dog with slender, strong limbs, and it cost me a lot of effort to tear off her skin, as experience required. And for a long time afterwards it was unpleasant to remember her.

And if Alexey hadn’t been so sickly and frail, I don’t know, maybe I wouldn’t have killed him. But I still feel sorry for his beautiful head.

Please tell Tatyana Nikolaevna this too. It was a beautiful, beautiful head. The only bad thing about him was his eyes - pale, without fire or energy.

I would not have killed Alexei even if the criticism had been right and he really had been such a major literary talent. There is so much darkness in life, and it so needs talents to illuminate its path, that each of them must be protected like the most precious diamond, as something that justifies the existence of thousands of scoundrels and vulgarities in humanity. But

Alexey was not talented.

This is not the place for a critical article, but read the most sensational works of the deceased, and you will see that they were not needed for life. They were necessary and interesting for hundreds of obese people in need of entertainment, but not for life, but not for us, trying to unravel it. While a writer, by the power of his thoughts and talent, must create a new life,

Savelov only described the old one, without even trying to unravel its hidden meaning. The only story of his that I like, in which he comes close to the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe unknown, is the story "The Secret", but he is an exception.

The worst thing, however, was that Alexey, apparently, began to wear out his teeth and, from his happy life, lost the last teeth with which he needed to dig into life and gnaw at it. He himself often told me about his doubts, and I saw that they were well founded; I accurately and in detail extorted the plans for his future works, and let the grieving fans be consoled: there was nothing new or major in them.

Of the people close to Alexei, only his wife did not see the decline of his talent and would never have seen it. And do you know why? She did not always read her husband's works. But when I tried to open her eyes a little, she simply considered me a scoundrel. And, making sure that we were alone, she said:

You can't forgive him for anything else.

The fact that he is my husband and I love him. If Alexey didn’t feel such a passion for you...

She paused, and I cautiously finished her thought:

Would you kick me out?

Laughter flashed in her eyes. And, smiling innocently, she said slowly:

No, I would leave it.

But I never showed with a single word or gesture that I continued to love her. But then I thought: so much the better if she guessed.

The very fact of taking a person’s life did not stop me. I knew that this was a crime strictly punishable by law, but almost everything we do is a crime, and only a blind person does not see it. For those who believe in

God is a crime before God; for others - a crime against people;

for people like me, it’s a crime against oneself. It would be a great crime if, having recognized the need to kill Alexei, I did not carry out this decision. And the fact that people divide crimes into big and small and call murder a big crime has always seemed to me like an ordinary and pathetic human lie to themselves, an attempt to hide from the answer behind their own back.

I wasn’t afraid of myself either, and that was the most important thing. For a murderer, for a criminal, the most terrible thing is not the police, not the court, but himself, his nerves, the powerful protest of his body, brought up in well-known traditions. Remember

Raskolnikov, this is such a pity for this man who died so absurdly, and the darkness of his kind. And I spent a very long time, very carefully, dwelling on this question, imagining what I would be like after the murder. I will not say that I came to complete confidence in my peace of mind - such confidence could not be created by a thinking person who foresaw all contingencies. But, having carefully collected all the data from my past, taking into account the strength of my will, the strength of my unexhausted nervous system, my deep and sincere contempt for current morality, I could have relative confidence in the successful outcome of the enterprise. Here it would not be superfluous to tell you one interesting fact from my life.

Once upon a time, while still a fifth-semester student, I stole fifteen rubles from the friendly money entrusted to me, said that the cashier had made a mistake in the account, and everyone believed me. This was more than a simple theft, when a needy person steals from a rich person: there was a broken trust, and the taking of money from a hungry person, and even a comrade, and even a student, and, moreover, a person with means (which is why they believed me). This act probably seems more disgusting to you than even the murder of a friend I committed, doesn’t it? A

I remember it was fun that I was able to do it so well and deftly, and I looked into the eyes, straight into the eyes of those to whom I boldly and freely lied. My eyes are black, beautiful, straight, and they believed them. But most of all, I was proud of the fact that I had absolutely no remorse, which is what I needed to prove to myself. And to this day I remember with particular pleasure the menu of the unnecessary luxurious lunch that I gave myself with stolen money and ate with appetite.

And do I now feel remorse? Repentance for what you did?

It's hard for me. It’s incredibly hard for me, like no other person in the world, and my hair is turning grey, but this is different. Other. Terrible, unexpected, incredible in its terrible simplicity.

SHEET TWO

My task was this. I need to kill Alexei; need to

Tatyana Nikolaevna saw that it was I who killed her husband, and that at the same time legal punishment would not affect me. Not to mention the fact that the punishment would have given Tatyana Nikolaevna an extra reason to laugh; I didn’t want hard labor at all. I love life very much.

I love it when golden wine plays in a thin glass; I love, tired, to stretch out in a clean bed; I like to breathe clean air in spring, see a beautiful sunset, read interesting and smart books. I love myself, the strength of my muscles, the strength of my thoughts, clear and precise. I love the fact that I am alone and not a single curious glance has penetrated into the depths of my soul with its dark gaps and abysses, at the edge of which my head is spinning. I have never understood or known what people call the boredom of life. Life is interesting, and I love it for the great mystery that is contained in it, I love it even for its cruelty, for its ferocious vindictiveness and satanically cheerful play with people and events.

I was the only person whom I respected - how could I risk sending this man to hard labor, where he would be deprived of the opportunity to lead the varied, full and deep existence he needed!.. And from your point of view, I was right in wanting to avoid hard labor. I am a very successful doctor; Without needing funds, I treat many poor people. I'm useful.

Probably more useful than the murdered Savelov.

And impunity could be achieved easily. There are thousands of ways to kill a person without being noticed, and as a doctor, it was especially easy for me to resort to one of them. And among the plans I came up with and discarded, for a long time I was occupied with this one: to inoculate Alexei with an incurable and disgusting disease. But the inconveniences of this plan were obvious: long-term suffering for the object itself, something ugly in all this, deep and somehow too... stupid; and finally, and in her husband’s illness, Tatyana

Nikolaevna would find joy for herself. My task was especially complicated by the mandatory requirement that Tatyana Nikolaevna know the hand that struck her husband. But only cowards are afraid of obstacles: people like me are attracted to them.

Chance, that great ally of the smart, came to my aid. And I allow myself to pay special attention, Messrs. experts, for this detail:

It was precisely chance, that is, something external that did not depend on me, that served as the basis and reason for what followed. In one newspaper I found an article about a cashier, or clerk (the newspaper clipping probably remained at my home or is with the investigator), who feigned an epileptic fit and allegedly lost money during it, but in reality, of course, stole it.

The clerk turned out to be a coward and confessed, even indicating the location of the stolen money, but the idea itself was not bad and feasible. Feign madness, kill

Alexei in a state of supposedly going crazy and then “recovering” - this is a plan that I created in one minute, but which required a lot of time and work to take a very definite concrete form. At that time I was superficially familiar with psychiatry, like any non-specialist doctor, and it took me about a year to read all kinds of sources and think about it. By the end of this time I was convinced that my plan was quite feasible.

The first thing that experts will have to pay attention to is hereditary influences - and my heredity, to my great joy, turned out to be quite suitable. The father was an alcoholic; one uncle, his brother, ended his life in a mental hospital and, finally, my only sister, Anna, already deceased, suffered from epilepsy. True, on our mother’s side, everyone in our family was healthy, but one drop of the poison of madness is enough to poison a whole series of generations. In terms of my strong health, I took after my mother’s family, but I had some harmless oddities that could serve me well. My relative unsociability, which is simply a sign of a healthy mind, preferring to spend time alone with itself and books than to waste it on idle and empty chatter, could pass for morbid misanthropy; coldness of temperament, not seeking rough sensual pleasures, is an expression of degeneration. The very persistence in achieving once set goals - and many examples of it could be found in my rich life - in the language of gentlemen experts would receive the terrible name of monomania, the dominance of obsessions.

The ground for the simulation was thus unusually favorable:

the statics of madness were evident, it was up to the dynamics. After an unintentional underpainting of nature, it was necessary to apply two or three successful strokes, and the picture of madness was ready. And I very clearly imagined how it would be, not with programmatic thoughts, but with living images: although I don’t write bad stories, I am far from devoid of artistic flair and imagination.

I saw that I would be able to carry out my role. The tendency to pretend has always been part of my character and was one of the forms in which I strived for inner freedom. Even in the gymnasium, I often feigned friendship: I walked along the corridor hugging each other, as real friends do, skillfully faked a friendly, frank speech and discreetly inquired. And when the softened friend gave his all, I threw his little soul away from me and walked away with a proud consciousness of my strength and inner freedom.

I remained the same dualist at home, among my relatives; Just as in an Old Believer house there is special dishes for strangers, so I had everything special for people: a special smile, special conversations and frankness. I

I saw that people do a lot of stupid, harmful and unnecessary things, and it seemed to me that if I began to tell the truth about myself, then I would become like everyone else, and this stupid and unnecessary thing would take over me.

I always liked to be respectful to those I despised and to kiss people I hated, which made me free and master over others. But I never knew a lie to myself - this most common and lowest form of human enslavement to life. And the more I lied to people, the more mercilessly truthful I became to myself.

A virtue that few can boast of.

In general, I think there was hidden in me a remarkable actor, capable of combining the naturalness of the game, which at times reached the point of complete fusion with the personified person, with unrelenting cold control of the mind. Even during ordinary book reading, I completely entered into the psyche of the person depicted and - would you believe it? - already an adult, I cried with bitter tears over “Uncle’s Cabin.”

Tom." What a marvelous property of a flexible, culturally sophisticated mind -

reincarnate! You live as if a thousand lives, then you descend into hellish darkness, then you rise to the bright mountain heights, with one glance you take in the endless world. If man is destined to become God, then his throne will be a book...

Yes. This is true. By the way, I want to complain to you about the local order. They put me to bed when I want to write, when I need to write. Then they don’t close the doors, and I have to listen to some crazy person yelling.

Yelling, yelling - it's downright unbearable. So you can really drive a person crazy and say that he was crazy before. And don’t they really have an extra candle and I have to ruin my eyes with electricity?

Here you go. And once I even thought about a stage, but I gave up this stupid thought: pretense, when everyone knows that it is pretense, already loses its value. And the cheap laurels of a sworn actor on a government salary attracted me little. You can judge the degree of my art by the fact that many donkeys still consider me the most sincere and truthful person. And what’s strange: I’ve always managed to deceive not donkeys, - I said so in the heat of the moment, - but smart people; conversely, there are two categories of lower order beings in whom I have never been able to gain confidence: women and dogs.

Do you know that the venerable Tatyana Nikolaevna never believed my love and does not believe, I think, even now that I killed her husband? According to her logic, it turns out like this: I didn’t love her, but I killed Alexei because she loved him.

And this nonsense probably seems meaningful and convincing to her. And she's a smart woman!

It didn’t seem very difficult for me to play the role of a madman. Some of the necessary instructions were given to me by books; I had to fill part of it, like any real actor in any role, with my own creativity, and the rest would be recreated by the public itself, which had long ago refined its feelings with books and the theater, where it was taught to recreate living faces along two or three unclear contours. Of course, some problems were bound to remain - and this was especially dangerous in view of the strict scientific examination to which I would be subjected, but even here no serious danger was foreseen. The vast field of psychopathology is still so little developed, there is still so much that is dark and random in it, there is so much scope for fantasy and subjectivism that I boldly entrusted my fate into your hands, gentlemen. experts. I hope I didn't offend you. I am not encroaching on your scientific authority and I am sure that you will agree with me, as people accustomed to conscientious scientific thinking.

Finally stopped yelling. This is simply unbearable.

And even at a time when my plan was only in draft, a thought appeared to me that could hardly have entered a crazy head. This thought is about the terrible danger of my experience. Do you understand what I am talking about? Madness -

This is the kind of fire that is dangerous to joke with. Having built a fire in the middle of a powder magazine, you may feel safer than you would then if even the slightest thought of madness creeps into your head.

And I knew it, I knew it, I knew it - but does danger mean anything to a brave man?

And didn’t I feel my thoughts, solid, bright, as if forged from steel and unconditionally obedient to me? Like a sharply sharpened rapier, it wriggled, stung, bit, divided the fabric of events; like a snake, it silently crawled into the unknown and dark depths that are forever hidden from daylight, and its hilt was in my hand, the iron hand of a skilled and experienced swordsman. How obedient, efficient and quick she was, my thought, and how I loved her, my slave, my formidable strength, my only treasure!

He's yelling again and I can't write anymore. How terrible it is when a person howls. I have heard many scary sounds, but this one is the scariest, the most terrible.

It is unlike anything else, this voice of the beast passing through the larynx of a man. Something fierce and cowardly; free and pathetic to the point of meanness. The mouth is twisted to the side, the facial muscles tense like ropes, the teeth are bared like a dog, and from the dark opening of the mouth comes this disgusting, roaring, whistling, laughing, howling sound...

Yes. Yes. That was my thought. By the way: you will, of course, pay attention to my handwriting, and I ask you not to attach importance to the fact that it sometimes trembles and seems to change. I haven’t written for a long time; recent events and insomnia have weakened me greatly, and my hand sometimes trembles.

This has happened to me before.

SHEET THIRD

Now you understand what kind of terrible attack happened to me at the Karganovs’ evening. This was my first experience, and it was a success even beyond my expectations. It was as if everyone knew in advance that this would happen to me, as if the sudden madness of a completely healthy person in their eyes seemed something natural, something that could always be expected. No one was surprised, and everyone vied with each other to color my performance with the play of their own imagination - it’s rare that a guest performer has such a wonderful troupe as these naive, stupid and gullible people. Did they tell you how pale and scary I was? How cold - yes, it was cold sweat that covered my forehead? What crazy fire did my black eyes burn with? When they conveyed all these observations to me, I looked gloomy and depressed, and my whole soul trembled with pride, happiness and ridicule.

Tatyana Nikolaevna and her husband were not at the evening - I don’t know if you paid attention to this. And this was not an accident: I was afraid of intimidating her, or, even worse, instilling suspicion in her. If there was anyone who could get into my game, it was her.

And in general there was nothing accidental here. On the contrary, every little thing, the most insignificant, was strictly thought out. I chose the moment of the attack - at dinner - because everyone would be gathered and somewhat excited by the wine. I sat at the edge of the table, away from the candelabra with candles, since I didn’t want to start a fire or burn my nose. I sat Pavel next to me

Petrovich Pospelov, this fat pig, with whom I have long wanted to do some kind of trouble. He is especially disgusted when he eats. When I first saw him doing this, it occurred to me that eating is an immoral thing. Here all this came in handy. And probably not a single soul noticed that the plate that shattered under my fist was covered with a napkin on top so as not to cut my hands.

The trick itself was amazingly rude, even stupid, but that’s exactly what I was counting on. They would not have understood a more subtle thing. At first I waved my arms and talked “excitedly” with Pavel Petrovich, until he began to open his eyes in surprise; then I fell into “concentrated reverie”, waiting for a question from the obligatory Irina Pavlovna:

What's wrong with you, Anton Ignatievich? Why are you so gloomy?

And when all eyes turned to me, I smiled tragically.

Are you unwell?

Yes. A little. My head is spinning. But don't worry, please. This will pass now.

The hostess calmed down, and Pavel Petrovich looked at me suspiciously and with disapproval. And the next minute, when he raised a glass of port wine to his lips with a blissful look, I - once! - knocked the glass out from under his very nose, twice! - I hit the plate with my fist. The fragments are flying, Pavel Petrovich is floundering and grunting, the ladies are squealing, and I, baring my teeth, drag the tablecloth from the table with everything that is on it - it was a hilarious picture!

Yes. Well, they surrounded me and grabbed me: someone was carrying water, someone was sitting me in a chair, and I was growling like a tiger in the Zoological, and making mistakes with my eyes. AND

it was all so ridiculous, and they were all so stupid that, by God, I seriously wanted to smash several of these faces, taking advantage of the privilege of my position. But, of course, I abstained.

Where I am? What's wrong with me?

Even this absurdly French: “Where am I?” was a success with these gentlemen, and no less than three fools immediately reported:

Positively they were too small for a good game!

A day later - I gave time for the rumors to reach the Savelovs - a conversation with

Tatyana Nikolaevna and Alexey. The latter somehow did not comprehend what had happened and limited himself to asking:

What have you done, brother, with the Karganovs?

He turned his jacket over and went into the office to study. That way, if I really went crazy, he wouldn’t choke. But his wife’s sympathy was especially eloquent, stormy and, of course, insincere. And then... it’s not that I felt sorry for what I had started, but the question simply arose: is it worth it?

“Do you love your husband very much?” I said to Tatyana Nikolaevna, who was following Alexei with her gaze.

She quickly turned around.

Yes. And what?

She quickly and directly looked into my eyes, but did not answer. And at that moment I forgot that once upon a time she laughed, and I was not angry with her, and what I was doing seemed unnecessary and strange to me. It was fatigue, natural after a strong upsurge of nerves, and it lasted only a moment.

“Can you really be trusted?” Tatyana Nikolaevna asked after a long silence.

Of course, you can’t,” I answered jokingly, but inside me the extinguished fire was already flaring up again.

I felt strength, courage, determination that stops at nothing within myself. Proud of the success I had already achieved, I boldly decided to go to the end. Struggle -

this is the joy of life.

The second seizure occurred a month after the first. Not everything here was so thought out, and this is unnecessary given the existence of a general plan. I had no intention of arranging it on this particular evening, but since the circumstances were so favorable, it would be stupid not to take advantage of them. And I clearly remember how it all happened. We were sitting in the living room chatting when I started to feel really sad. I vividly imagined - in general this rarely happens -

how alien I am to all these people and alone in the world, I am forever imprisoned in this head, in this prison. And then they all became disgusted with me. And with rage I struck with my fist and shouted something rude and was glad to see the fear on their pale faces.

Scoundrels!” I shouted. “Filthy, satisfied scoundrels!” Liars, hypocrites, vipers. I hate you!

And it’s true that I fought with them, then with the lackeys and coachmen. But I knew that I was struggling, and I knew that it was on purpose. It just felt good to hit them, to tell them straight in the face the truth about what they are like. Is anyone who tells the truth crazy? I assure you, Messrs. experts that I was aware of everything, that when I struck, I felt a living body under my hand that was in pain. And at home, left alone, I laughed and thought what an amazing, wonderful actor I was.

Then I went to bed and read a book at night; I can even tell you which one: Guy de Maupassant; as always, he enjoyed it and fell asleep like a baby. Do crazy people read books and enjoy them? Do they sleep like babies?

Crazy people don't sleep. They suffer and their minds become confused. Yes.

They get confused and fall... And they want to howl and scratch themselves with their hands. They want to stand like this, on all fours, and crawl quietly, and then jump up at once and shout: “Aha!” - and laugh. And howl. So raise your head and for a long, long time, long, long, pathetic, pathetic.

And I slept like a baby. Do crazy people sleep like babies?

SHEET FOUR

Last night the nurse Masha asked me:

Anton Ignatievich! Do you never pray to God?

She was serious and believed that I would answer her sincerely and seriously. And I answered her without a smile, as she wanted:

No, Masha, never. But if it pleases you, you can cross me.

And still seriously, she crossed me three times; and I was very glad that I had given a moment of pleasure to this excellent woman. Like all high-ranking and free people, you, gentlemen. experts, don’t pay attention to the servants, but we, prisoners and “crazy people,” have to see them up close and sometimes make amazing discoveries. So, it probably never occurred to you that the nurse Masha, assigned by you to watch the insane, -

crazy yourself? And this is so.

Take a closer look at her gait, silent, sliding, a little timid and surprisingly careful and dexterous, as if she were walking between invisible drawn swords. Peer into her face, but do it somehow unnoticed by her, so that she does not know about your presence. When one of you arrives, Masha’s face becomes serious, important, but smiling condescendingly - exactly the expression that dominates your face at that moment. The fact is that Masha has a strange and meaningful ability to involuntarily reflect on her face the expression of all other faces. Sometimes she looks at me and smiles. A sort of pale, reflected, as if alien smile. And I guess I was smiling.

when she looked at me. Sometimes Masha’s face becomes pained, gloomy, her eyebrows converge towards her nose, the corners of her mouth droop; my whole face ages ten years and darkens - this is probably what my face is like sometimes. It happens that I scare her with my gaze. You know how strange and a little scary the look of any deeply thoughtful person is. And Masha’s eyes widen, the pupil darkens, and, slightly raising her hands, she silently walks towards me and does something to me, friendly and unexpected: smoothes my hair or straightens my robe.

“Your belt will come undone!” she says, and her face is still as frightened.

But I happen to see her alone. And when she is alone, her face is strangely devoid of any expression. It is pale, beautiful and mysterious, like the face of a dead man. You shout to her:

“Masha!” - she will quickly turn around, smile with her tender and timid smile and ask:

Should I serve you something?

She always serves something, receives something, and if she has nothing to serve, receive and put away, she apparently gets worried. And she is always silent. I never noticed her drop or knock anything. I tried to talk to her about life, and she was strangely indifferent to everything, even to murders, fires and any other horror that has such an effect on underdeveloped people.

You understand: they are killed, wounded, and they are left with small, hungry children,” I told her about the war.

Yes, I understand,” she answered and thoughtfully asked: “Should I give you some milk, haven’t you eaten much today?”

I laugh and she responds with a slightly scared laugh. She has never been to the theater, does not know that Russia is a state and that there are other states; She is illiterate and has heard only the Gospel that is read in fragments in church. And every evening she kneels and prays for a long time.

For a long time I considered her simply a narrow-minded, stupid creature, born for slavery, but one incident made me change my view. You probably know, you were probably told that I experienced one bad minute here, which, of course, proves nothing except fatigue and a temporary loss of strength. It was a towel. Of course, I am stronger than Masha and could have killed her, since it was just the two of us, and if she had shouted or grabbed my hand... But she didn’t do anything like that. She just said:

No need, my dear.

I often thought about this “don’t” and still can’t understand the amazing power that is contained in it and that I feel. It is not in the word itself, meaningless and empty; she is somewhere in the unknown and inaccessible depths of the Machine of the Soul. She knows something. Yes, she knows, but she can’t or won’t say. Then many times I tried to get Masha to explain this “no need”, and she could not explain.

Do you think suicide is a sin? That God forbade him?

Why not?

So. No need.” And she smiles and asks: “Can I bring you something?”

Positively, she is crazy, but quiet and helpful, like many crazy people. And don't touch her.

I allowed myself to deviate from the story, since Masha’s action yesterday threw me back to memories of my childhood. I don’t remember my mother, but I had an aunt Anfisa, who always baptized me at night. She was a silent old maid, with acne on her face, and was very ashamed when her father joked with her about suitors. I was still little, about eleven years old, when she hanged herself in the small shed where we stored coals. She then kept introducing herself to her father, and this cheerful atheist ordered masses and memorial services.

He was very smart and talented, my father, and his speeches in court made not only nervous ladies cry, but also serious, balanced people. Only I didn’t cry while listening to him, because I knew him and knew that he himself did not understand anything of what he was saying. He had a lot of knowledge, a lot of thoughts and even more words; words, thoughts, and knowledge were often combined very successfully and beautifully, but he himself did not understand anything about it. I often doubted even whether he existed - before that he was all outside, in sounds and gestures, and it often seemed to me that this was not a person, but an image flashing in a cinematograph, connected to a gramophone. He did not understand that he was a man, that now he was living and then he would die, and he did not look for anything. And when he went to bed, stopped moving and fell asleep, he probably did not have any dreams and ceased to exist. With his tongue - he was a lawyer -

he earned thirty thousand a year, and not once was he surprised or thought about this circumstance. I remember we went with him to the newly purchased estate, and I said, pointing to the trees of the park:

Clients?

He smiled, flattered, and replied:

Yes, brother, talent is a great thing.

He drank a lot, and his intoxication was expressed only in the fact that everything began to move faster for him, and then immediately stopped - he fell asleep.

And everyone considered him unusually talented, and he constantly said that if he had not become a famous lawyer, he would have been a famous artist or writer. Unfortunately it's true.

And least of all he understood me. One day it happened that we were in danger of losing our entire fortune. And for me it was terrible. Nowadays, when only wealth gives freedom, I don’t know what I would have become if fate had placed me in the ranks of the proletariat. Even now, without anger, I cannot imagine that someone dares to lay their hand on me, forces me to do what I don’t want, buys my work, my blood, my nerves, my life for pennies. But I experienced this horror only for one minute, and the next I realized that people like me are never poor. But my father didn’t understand this. He sincerely considered me a stupid young man and looked with fear at my imaginary helplessness.

Oh, Anton, Anton, what are you going to do?.. - he said.

He himself was completely limp: long, unkempt hair hung over his forehead, his face was yellow. I answered:

Don't worry about me, dad. Since I'm not talented, I'll kill

Rothschild or I'll rob a bank.

My father got angry because he took my answer for an inappropriate and flat joke. He saw my face, he heard my voice, and yet he took it as a joke. A pathetic, cardboard clown who, through a misunderstanding, was considered a human!

He did not know my soul, and the entire external order of my life outraged him, because he did not invest in his understanding. I studied well at the gymnasium, and this upset him. When guests came - lawyers, writers and artists - he pointed his finger at me and said:

And my son is my first student. How have I angered God?

And everyone laughed at me, and I laughed at everyone. But even more than my successes, my behavior and costume upset him. He deliberately came into my room in order to rearrange the books on the table without my noticing and create at least some kind of disorder. My neat hairstyle took away his appetite.

“The inspector orders you to cut your hair short,” I said seriously and respectfully.

He swore loudly, and inside me everything was trembling with contemptuous laughter, and not without reason I then divided the whole world into inspectors simply and inspectors inside out. And they all reached out to my head: some to cut it off, others to pull the hair out of it.

The worst thing for my father were my notebooks. Sometimes, drunk, he looked at them with hopeless and comic despair.

Have you ever made an inkblot?” he asked.

Yes, it happened, dad. The day before yesterday I started studying trigonometry.

Licked it?

That is, how did you lick it?

Well, yes, did you lick the blot?

No, I have attached a piece of paper.

The father waved his hand in a drunken gesture and grumbled as he stood up:

No, you are not my son. No no!

Among the notebooks he hated, there was one that could, however, give him pleasure. There was also not a single crooked line, blot or blot in it. And it said something like this: “My father -

Here comes to my mind one fact that I had forgotten, which, as I see now, will not be deprived of you, gentlemen. experts of great interest. I

I’m very glad I remembered him, very, very glad. How could I forget him?

In our house there lived a maid, Katya, who was my father’s mistress and at the same time my mistress. She loved her father because he gave her money, and she loved me because I was young, had beautiful black eyes and did not give money. And that night, when my father’s corpse stood in the hall, I went to Katya’s room. It was not far from the hall, and the sexton’s reading could be clearly heard in it.

I think that my father's immortal spirit has received complete satisfaction!

No, this is a really interesting fact, and I don't understand how I could have forgotten it. To you, Messrs. experts, this may seem childish, a childish prank that has no serious meaning, but it is not true. This, Messrs.

experts, it was a fierce battle, and victory in it was not cheap for me.

My life was at stake. I'm afraid, if I turned back, if I turned out to be incapable of love, I would kill myself. It was decided, I remember.

And what I did was not so easy for a young man of my age. Now I know that I was fighting a windmill, but then the whole matter seemed to me in a different light. Now it’s difficult for me to recall what I experienced in my memory, but I remember I had the feeling that with one act I was breaking all the laws, divine and human. And I was terribly cowardly, ridiculously so, but still I controlled myself, and when I went to Katya, I was ready for kisses, like Romeo.

Yes, then I was still, it seems, a romantic. Happy time, how far away it is! I remember Messrs. experts that, returning from Katya, I stopped in front of the corpse, folded my arms on my chest like Napoleon, and looked at him with comic pride. And then he shuddered, frightened by the moving coverlet. Happy, distant time!

I'm afraid to think, but it seems that I never stopped being a romantic. AND

I was almost an idealist. I believed in human thought and its limitless power. The entire history of mankind seemed to me to be the procession of one triumphant thought, and this was only so recently. And I’m scared to think that my whole life was a deception, that all my life I was a madman, like that crazy actor whom I saw the other day in the next ward. He collected blue and red pieces of paper from everywhere and called each of them a million;

he begged them from visitors, stole them and dragged them out of the closet, and the watchmen made rude jokes, but he sincerely and deeply despised them. He liked me, and as a parting gift he gave me a million.

“It’s not a million,” he said, “but excuse me: I have such expenses now, such expenses.”

And, taking me aside, he explained in a whisper:

Now I'm looking at Italy. I want to drive dad away and introduce new money there, this one. And then, on Sunday, I will declare myself a saint.

The Italians will be happy: they are always very happy when they are given a new saint.

Wasn’t it with this million that I lived?

I am scared to think that my books, my comrades and friends, still stand in their scales and silently store what I considered the wisdom of the earth, its hope and happiness. I know, Messrs. experts, whether I’m crazy or not, from your point of view I’m a scoundrel - would you look at this scoundrel when he enters his library?!

Come on down, gentlemen. experts, take a look at my apartment - it will be interesting for you. In the top left drawer of the desk you will find a detailed catalog of books, paintings and trinkets; You will also find the keys to the cabinets there. You yourself are men of science, and I believe that you will treat my things with due respect and care. I also ask you to ensure that the lamps are not smoked.

There is nothing more terrible than this soot: it gets everywhere, and then it takes a lot of work to remove it.

ON THE SCRIPTURE

Now the paramedic Petrov refused to give me Chloralamid in the dose I require. First of all, I am a doctor and I know what I am doing, and then, if I am refused, I will take drastic measures. I have not slept for two nights and do not want to go crazy. I demand that they give me chloralamide. I demand it.

It's dishonest to drive you crazy.

SHEET FIFTH

After the second attack they began to fear me. In many houses, doors were hastily slammed in front of me; at a chance meeting, acquaintances shuddered, smiled meanly and asked meaningfully:

How's your health, darling?

The situation was just such that I could commit any lawlessness and not lose the respect of those around me. I looked at people and thought:

if I want, I can kill this and that, and nothing will happen to me for it. AND

what I experienced at this thought was new, pleasant and a little scary.

Man has ceased to be something strictly protected, something fearful to touch; as if some kind of husk had fallen off of him, he was as if naked, and killing him seemed easy and tempting.

Fear protected me from inquisitive gazes with such a dense wall that the need for a third preparatory attack was itself abolished.

Only in this respect did I deviate from the drawn plan, but this is the power of talent, that it does not constrain itself by boundaries and, in accordance with changed circumstances, changes the entire course of the battle. But it was still necessary to obtain official remission of past sins and permission for future sins

Scientific and medical certificate of my illness.

And here I waited for such a confluence of circumstances in which my appeal to a psychiatrist could seem like an accident or even something forced. This was, perhaps, an excessive subtlety in the finishing of my role.

Tatyana Nikolaevna and her husband sent me to a psychiatrist.

Please go to the doctor, dear Anton Ignatievich,” she said

Tatyana Nikolaevna.

She had never called me “darling” before, and I had to be considered crazy to receive this insignificant affection.

“Okay, dear Tatyana Nikolaevna, I’ll go,” I answered obediently.

The three of us - Alexey was right there - sat in the office where the murder subsequently took place.

But what can I “do”? - I timidly made excuses to my strict friend.

You never know. You'll hit someone's head.

I turned the heavy cast-iron paperweight in my hands, looked first at him, then at Alexei, and asked:

Head? Are you talking about your head?

Well, yes, head. Just grab something like this and you're done.

This was getting interesting. It was my head and precisely this thing that I intended to squander, and now this very head was discussing how it would turn out. She reasoned and smiled carefree. And there are people who believe in premonitions, in the fact that death sends some invisible messengers in advance - what nonsense!

Well, you can hardly do anything with this thing,” I said. “It’s too light.”

What are you saying: easy! - Alexey was indignant, pulled the paperweight out of my hands and, taking it by the thin handle, waved it several times. - Try it!

Yes, I know...

No, take it like this and you will see.

Reluctantly, smiling, I took the heavy thing, but then Tatyana intervened

Nikolaevna. Pale, with trembling lips, she said, rather screamed:

Alexey, leave it! Alexey, leave it!

What are you doing, Tanya? “What’s wrong with you?” he was amazed.

Leave it! You know how much I don't like such things.

We laughed and the paperweight was placed on the table.

With Professor T. everything happened as I expected. He was very careful, restrained in his expressions, but serious; asked if I had any relatives whose care I could entrust myself with, advised me to sit at home, rest and calm down. Relying on my knowledge of the doctor, I argued slightly with him, and if he had any doubts, then when I dared to object to him, he irrevocably classified me as crazy.

Of course, Messrs. experts, you will not attach serious importance to this harmless joke on one of our brothers: as a scientist, Professor T. is undoubtedly worthy of respect and honor.

The next few days were some of the happiest days of my life. They pitied me as if they were an admitted patient, they paid me visits, they spoke to me in some broken, absurd language, and only I knew that I was healthy like no one else, and I enjoyed the distinct, powerful work of my thoughts.

Of all the amazing, incomprehensible things that life is rich in, the most amazing and incomprehensible is human thought. It contains divinity, it contains the guarantee of immortality and a powerful force that knows no barriers. People are amazed with delight and amazement when they look at the snowy peaks of mountain communities; if they understood themselves, then more than the mountains, more than all the wonders and beauties of the world, they would be amazed at their ability to think. The simple thought of a laborer about how best to lay one brick on top of another is the greatest miracle and the deepest mystery.

And I enjoyed my thought. Innocent in her beauty, she gave herself to me with all passion, like a lover, served me like a slave, and supported me like a friend. Don’t think that all these days spent at home within four walls, I was thinking only about my plan. No, everything was clear there and everything was thought out. I thought about everything. Me and my thought - it was as if we were playing with life and death and soaring high above them. By the way, in those days I solved two very interesting chess problems, which I had been working on for a long time, but without success. You know, of course, that three years ago I took part in an international chess tournament and took second place after Lasker. If I were not an enemy of all publicity and continued to participate in competitions,

Lasker would have to give up his favorite place.

And from the moment Alexei’s life was placed in my hands, I felt a special affection for him. I was pleased to think that he lives, drinks, eats and rejoices, and all this because I allow him. A feeling similar to the feeling of a father for his son. And what worried me was his health.

For all his frailty, he is unforgivably careless: he refuses to wear a sweatshirt and, in the most dangerous, wet weather, goes out without galoshes. Calmed me down

Tatyana Nikolaevna. She came to visit me and told me that Alexey was completely healthy and even slept well, which rarely happens to him. Delighted, I asked Tatyana Nikolaevna to give Alexey the book - a rare copy that accidentally fell into my hands and Alexey had liked for a long time. Perhaps, from the point of view of my plan, this gift was a mistake: they could suspect a deliberate fraud in this, but I so wanted to please Alexei that I decided to take a little risk. I even neglected the fact that in terms of the artistry of my game, the gift was already a caricature.

This time I was very nice and simple with Tatyana Nikolaevna and made a good impression on her. Neither she nor Alexey saw a single seizure of mine, and it was obviously difficult, even impossible, for them to imagine me as crazy.

“Come and visit us,” Tatyana Nikolaevna asked when parting.

“You can’t,” I smiled. “The doctor didn’t order it.”

Well, here's some more nonsense. You can come to us - it’s just like being at home. And Alyosha misses you.

I promised, and not a single promise was made with such confidence in fulfillment as this one. Don't you think, Messrs. experts, when you learn about all these happy coincidences, don’t you think that it was not only me who sentenced Alexey to death, but also someone else? And, in essence, none

there is no “other”, and everything is so simple and logical.

The cast-iron paperweight stood in its place when on December 11, at five o’clock in the evening, I entered Alexei’s office. This hour, before lunch - they have lunch at seven o'clock - both Alexey and Tatyana Nikolaevna spend in rest. They were very happy about my arrival.

“Thank you for the book, buddy,” Alexey said, shaking my hand. “I was going to see you myself, but Tanya said that you’ve completely recovered.” We're going to the theater today - are you going with us?

The conversation began. That day I decided not to pretend at all; this absence of pretense had its own subtle pretense, and, under the impression of the upsurge of thought he had experienced, he spoke a lot and interestingly. If only admirers of Savelov’s talent knew how many of “his” best thoughts originated and were hatched in the head of the unknown Dr. Kerzhentsev!

I spoke clearly, precisely, finishing off phrases; I was looking at the clock hand at the same time and thought that when it was at six, I would become a murderer. And I said something funny, and they laughed, and I tried to remember the feeling of a person who is not yet a murderer, but will soon become a murderer. No longer in an abstract idea, but quite simply, I understood the process of life in

Alexey, the beating of his heart, the blood transfusion in his temples, the silent vibration of the brain and then - when this process is interrupted, the heart stops pumping blood, and the brain freezes.

What thought will he freeze on?

Never has the clarity of my consciousness reached such heights and strength;

Never has the feeling of a multifaceted, harmoniously working “I” been so complete.

Just like God: without seeing - I saw, without listening - I heard, without thinking - I was aware.

There were seven minutes left when Alexey lazily rose from the sofa, stretched and left.

“I’ll be there now,” he said, leaving.

I didn’t want to look at Tatyana Nikolaevna, so I went to the window, parted the drapes and stood. And without looking, I felt like Tatyana

Nikolaevna hurriedly crossed the room and stood next to me. I heard her breathing, knew that she was looking not out the window, but at me, and I was silent.

“How gloriously the snow shines,” said Tatyana Nikolaevna, but I did not respond. Her breathing became faster, then stopped.

Anton Ignatievich!” she said and stopped.

I was silent.

Anton Ignatievich!” she repeated just as hesitantly, and then I looked at her.

She quickly backed away, almost fell, as if she had been thrown back by the terrible force that was in my gaze. She recoiled and rushed to her husband as he entered.

Alexey! - she muttered. - Alexey... He...

She thinks I want to kill you with this thing.

And quite calmly, without hiding, I took the paperweight, lifted it in my hand and calmly approached Alexei. He looked at me without blinking with his pale eyes and repeated:

She thinks...

Yes, she thinks.

Slowly, smoothly, I began to raise my hand, and Alexey just as slowly began to raise his, still not taking his eyes off me.

Wait! - I said sternly.

Alexei’s hand stopped, and, still not taking his eyes off me, he smiled incredulously, palely, with only his lips. Tatyana Nikolaevna shouted something terribly, but it was too late. I hit the temple with the sharp end, closer to the crown of the head than to the eye. And when he fell, I bent down and hit him two more times.

The investigator told me that I beat him many times because his head was completely crushed. But this is not true. I hit him only three times: once when he was standing, and twice later, on the floor.

It is true that the blows were very strong, but there were only three of them. I probably remember this. Three strikes.

SHEET SIX

Don’t try to make out what was crossed out at the end of the fourth sheet and generally don’t attach undue importance to my blots as imaginary signs of disordered thinking. In the strange position in which I find myself, I must be terribly careful, which I do not hide and which you understand perfectly well.

The darkness of the night always has a strong effect on the tired nervous system, and that is why terrible thoughts so often come at night. And that night, the first after the murder, my nerves were, of course, especially tense. No matter how much I controlled myself, killing a person is no joke. Over tea, having already put myself in order, washed my nails and changed my dress, I invited Maria to sit with me

Vasilievna. This is my housekeeper and partly my wife. She seems to have a lover on her side, but she is a beautiful woman, quiet and not greedy, and I easily came to terms with this small drawback, which is almost inevitable in the position of a person who acquires love for money. And this stupid woman was the first to strike me.

Kiss me, I said.

She smiled stupidly and froze in her place.

She shuddered, blushed and, making frightened eyes, imploringly reached across the table to me, saying:

Anton Ignatievich, darling, go to the doctor!

“What else?” I got angry.

Oh, don't shout, I'm afraid! Oh, I'm afraid of you, darling, little angel!

But she knew nothing about my seizures or about the murder, and I was always kind and even with her. “So there was something in me that other people don’t have and that scares me,” a thought flashed through my mind and immediately disappeared, leaving a strange feeling of cold in my legs and back. I realized that Maria

Vasilievna found out something on the side, from the servants, or came across a ruined dress that I had discarded, and this quite naturally explained her fear.

Go, I ordered.

Then I lay on the sofa in my library. I didn’t want to read, I felt tired all over my body, and my general condition was that of an actor after a brilliantly played role. I was pleased to look at the books and it was pleasant to think that someday later I would read them. I liked my whole apartment, and the sofa, and Marya Vasilievna. Excerpts of phrases from my role flashed through my head, I mentally reproduced the movements that I made, and occasionally critical thoughts lazily crept in: but here something better could have been said or done. But with his improvised “wait!” I was very pleased. Indeed, this is a rare and, for those who have not experienced it themselves, an incredible example of the power of suggestion.

- "Wait a minute!" - I repeated, closing my eyes and smiling.

And my eyelids began to get heavy, and I wanted to sleep, when lazily, simply, like all the others, a new thought entered my head, possessing all the properties of my thought: clarity, accuracy and simplicity. She entered lazily and stopped. Here it is verbatim and in the third person, as it was for some reason:

“And it is quite possible that Dr. Kerzhentsev is really crazy. He thought that he was pretending, but he is really crazy. And now he is crazy.”

This thought was repeated three, four times, and I still smiled, not understanding:

"He thought he was pretending, but he was really crazy. And

crazy now."

But when I realized... At first I thought that Maria said this phrase

Then I thought about Alexey. Yes, to Alexey, to the murdered man. Then I realized that it was me who thought - and it was horror. Taking myself by the hair, already standing for some reason in the middle of the room, I said:

So. Everything is over. What I feared happened.

I came too close to the border, and now there is only one thing left ahead of me - madness.

When they came to arrest me, I found myself, according to them, in a terrible state - disheveled, in a torn dress, pale and scary. But, Lord! Doesn't surviving such a night and still not go crazy mean having an indestructible brain? But all I did was tear the dress and break the mirror. By the way: let me give you one piece of advice. If one of you ever has to go through what I went through that night, hang mirrors in the room where you will rush about. Hang them in the same way as you hang them when there is a dead person in the house. Hang it up!

I'm scared to write about this. I'm afraid of what I need to remember and say. But I can’t put it off any longer, and perhaps with half-words I’m only increasing the horror.

This evening.

Imagine a drunken snake, yes, yes, exactly a drunken snake: it retained its anger; her agility and speed have increased even more, and her teeth are still sharp and poisonous. And she is drunk, and she is in a locked room, where there are many people trembling in horror. And, coldly ferocious, it slides between them, wraps itself around their legs, stings in the very face, on the lips, and curls into a ball and digs into its own body. And it seems as if not one, but thousands of snakes are curling, and stinging, and devouring themselves. This was my thought, the same one in which I believed and in the sharpness and poisonousness of whose teeth I saw my salvation and protection.

A single thought was broken into a thousand thoughts, and each of them was strong, and all of them were hostile. They whirled in a wild dance, and their music was a monstrous voice, booming like a trumpet, and it rushed from somewhere unknown to me. It was a running thought, the most terrible of snakes, for it hid in the darkness. From my head, where I held her tightly, she went into the recesses of the body, into its black and unknown depths. And from there she screamed like a stranger, like a runaway slave, insolent and daring in the consciousness of her safety.

“You thought that you were pretending, but you were crazy. You are small, you are evil, you are stupid, you are Doctor Kerzhentsev. Some Doctor Kerzhentsev, crazy Doctor Kerzhentsev!..”

So she screamed, and I didn’t know where her monstrous voice was coming from. I

I don’t even know who it was; I call it a thought, but maybe it wasn't a thought. Thoughts, like doves over a fire, were spinning in my head, and she was screaming from somewhere below, above, from the sides, where I could neither see her nor catch her.

And the worst thing I experienced was the consciousness that I did not know myself and never knew. While my “I” was in my brightly illuminated head, where everything moves and lives in a natural order, I understood and knew myself, reflected on my character and plans, and was, as I thought, a master.

Now I saw that I was not a master, but a slave, pitiful and powerless.

Imagine that you lived in a house with many rooms, occupied only one room and thought that you owned the whole house. And suddenly you found out that they were living there, in other rooms. Yes, they live. Some mysterious creatures live, maybe people, maybe something else, and the house belongs to them. You want to find out who they are, but the door is locked, and you can’t hear a sound or a voice behind it.

And at the same time, you know that it is there, behind this silent door, that your fate is decided.

I went to the mirror... Hang the mirrors. Hang it up!

Then I don’t remember anything until the judiciary and the police came. I asked what time it was and they told me nine. And for a long time I could not understand that only two hours had passed since my return home, and about three hours had passed since Alexei’s murder.

Sorry, Messrs. experts, that I described such an important moment for the examination as this terrible state after the murder in such general and vague terms. But this is all that I remember and that I can convey in human language. For example, I cannot convey in human language the horror that I experienced all the time. In addition, I cannot say with positive confidence that everything I so weakly outlined happened in reality. Perhaps this was not the case, but something else. There is only one thing I firmly remember - this thought, or voice, or something else:

"Doctor Kerzhentsev thought that he was pretending to be crazy, but he really is crazy."

Now I tested my pulse: 180! This is now, just with one memory!

SHEET SEVEN

Last time I wrote a lot of unnecessary and pathetic nonsense, and, unfortunately, you have now already received and read it. I am afraid that he will give you a false idea of ​​my personality, as well as of the real state of my mental faculties. However, I believe in your knowledge and in your clear mind, gentlemen. experts.

You understand that only serious reasons could force me, Doctor Kerzhentsev, to reveal the whole truth about Savelov’s murder. And you will easily understand and appreciate them when I say that I don’t know even now whether I pretended to be crazy in order to kill with impunity, or whether I killed because I was crazy; and will probably forever be deprived of the opportunity to know this. The nightmare of that evening disappeared, but it left a trail of fire. There are no absurd fears, but there is the horror of a person who has lost everything, there is a cold consciousness of fall, death, deception and insolubility.

You scientists will argue about me. Some of you will say that I am crazy, others will argue that I am healthy and will allow only some restrictions in favor of degeneration. But, with all your learning, you will not prove as clearly either that I am crazy or that I am healthy, as I will prove this. My thought returned to me, and, as you will see, it cannot be denied either strength or sharpness. Excellent, energetic thought -

after all, enemies should be given their due!

I'm crazy. Would you like to listen: why?

The first thing that condemns me is heredity, the same heredity that I was so happy about when I was thinking about my plan. The seizures I had as a child... I'm sorry, gentlemen. I wanted to hide this detail about the seizures from you and wrote that since childhood I was a healthy man. This does not mean that I saw any danger for myself in the fact of the existence of some absurd, soon-ending seizures. I just didn't want to clutter the story with unimportant details. Now I needed this detail for a strictly logical construction, and, as you can see, I convey it without hesitation.

So here it is. Heredity and seizures indicate my predisposition to mental illness. And it began, unnoticed by me, much earlier than I came up with the murder plan. But, possessing, like all crazy people, unconscious cunning and the ability to adapt crazy actions to the norms of sound thinking, I began to deceive, not others, as I thought, but myself. Carried away by a force alien to me, I pretended to walk on my own. The rest of the evidence can be sculpted like wax. Is not it?

It doesn’t cost anything to prove that I didn’t love Tatyana Nikolaevna, that there was no real motive for the crime, but only a fictitious one. IN

the strangeness of my plan, in the composure with which I carried it out, in the mass of little things, it is very easy to discern the same insane will. Even the sharpness and rise of my thoughts before the crime proves my abnormality.

So, wounded to death, I played in the circus,

Gladiator death representing...

I have not left a single detail in my life unexplored. I

traced my whole life. To every step I took, to every thought, word, I applied the measure of madness, and it matched every word, every thought. It turned out, and this was the most surprising thing, that even before that night the thought had already occurred to me: am I really crazy? But I somehow got rid of this thought and forgot about it.

And, having proven that I am crazy, do you know what I saw? That I'm not crazy - that's what I saw. Please listen.

The biggest thing that heredity and seizures accuse me of is degeneration. I am one of the degenerates, of which there are many, who can be found if you look more closely, even among you, gentlemen. experts. This provides a wonderful clue to everything else. You can explain my moral views not by conscious thoughtfulness, but by degeneration. Indeed, moral instincts are embedded so deeply that only with some deviation from the normal type is complete liberation from them possible. And science, still too bold in its generalizations, classifies all such deviations into the realm of degeneration, even if physically the person was built like Apollo and healthy like the last idiot. But so be it. I have nothing against degeneration - it brings me into good company.

I will not defend my motive for the crime. I tell you completely sincerely that Tatyana Nikolaevna really offended me with her laughter, and the offense lay very deep, as it happens with such hidden, lonely natures as me. But let it not be true. Even if I didn't have love. But is it really impossible to assume that by killing Alexei I just wanted to try my hand? After all, you freely admit the existence of people who climb, risking their lives, on inaccessible mountains just because they are inaccessible, and do not call them crazy? Don’t you dare call Nansen, this greatest man of the last century, crazy! Moral life has its poles, and I tried to achieve one of them.

You are embarrassed by the lack of jealousy, revenge, self-interest and other absurd motives that you are accustomed to consider the only real and healthy ones. But then you, people of science, will condemn Nansen, condemn him along with the fools and ignoramuses who consider his enterprise to be madness.

My plan... It is unusual, it is original, it is bold to the point of audacity, but is it not reasonable from the point of view of the goal I have set? And it was precisely my inclination towards pretense, quite reasonably explained to you, that could have suggested this plan to me. An uplifting thought - but is genius really insanity? Coolness—but why must a murderer necessarily tremble, turn pale, and hesitate? Cowards always tremble, even when they hug their maids, and is courage really madness?

And how simply my own doubts about my health are explained! Like a real artist, an artist, I entered the role too deeply, temporarily identified with the person being portrayed and for a moment lost the ability to self-report. Would you say that even among the jury, the actors who break down every day, there are none who, while playing Othello, feel a real need to kill?

Quite convincing, isn't it, gentlemen. scientists? But don't you feel one strange thing: when I prove that I am crazy, it seems to you that I am healthy, and when I prove that I am healthy, you hear that I am crazy.

Yes. This is because you don’t believe me... But I don’t believe myself either, because who in myself will I trust? A vile and insignificant thought, a lying slave who serves everyone? He is only good for cleaning boots, but I made him my friend, my god. Down from the throne, pathetic, powerless thought!

Who am I, Messrs. experts, crazy or not?

Masha, dear woman, you know something that I don’t know. Tell me, who should I ask for help?

I know your answer, Masha. No it's not that. You are a kind and nice woman,

Masha, but you don’t know either physics or chemistry, you’ve never been to the theater and don’t even suspect that the thing on which you live, receiving, serving and putting away, is spinning. And she spins, Masha, spins, and we spin with her.

You are a child, Masha, you are a stupid creature, almost a plant, and I envy you very much, almost as much as I despise you.

No, Masha, you are not the one who will answer me. And you don't know anything, it's not true. IN

In one of the dark closets of your simple house there lives someone who is very useful to you, but in my case this room is empty. He died long ago, the one who lived there, and on his grave I erected a magnificent monument. He died. Masha died and will not rise again.

Who am I, Messrs. experts, crazy or not? Forgive me for sticking to you with such impolite insistence with this question, but you

“men of science,” as my father called you when he wanted to flatter you, you

There are books, and you have clear, precise and infallible human thought. Of course, half of you will remain with one opinion, the other with another, but I will believe you, gentlemen. scientists - I will believe first and believe second.

Tell me... And to help your enlightened mind I will give you an interesting, very interesting fact.

On one quiet and peaceful evening, which I spent among these white walls, on Masha’s face, when it caught my eye, I noticed an expression of horror, confusion and submission to something strong and terrible. Then she left, and I sat down on the prepared bed and continued to think about what I wanted. But I wanted strange things. I, Dr. Kerzhentsev, wanted to howl. Not to scream, but to howl, like that one over there. I wanted to tear my dress and scratch myself with my nails. Take the shirt at the collar, first pull it a little, just a little, and then - once! - all the way to the bottom. And I wanted, Dr.

Kerzhentsev, get on all fours and crawl. And all around it was quiet, and the snow was knocking on the windows, and somewhere nearby Masha was silently praying. And I deliberately chose for a long time what to do. If you howl, it will come out loud and there will be a scandal. If you tear your shirt, they will notice tomorrow. And quite sensibly I chose the third: crawling. No one will hear, and if they see me, I will say that a button has come off and I am looking for it.

And while I was choosing and deciding, it was good, not scary and even pleasant, so, I remember, I dangled my leg. But here I thought:

"Why crawl? Am I really crazy?"

And it became scary, and I immediately wanted everything: crawl, howl, scratch.

And I got angry.

“Do you want to crawl?” I asked.

But it was silent, it no longer wanted.

No, you want to crawl?” I insisted.

And it was silent.

Well, crawl!

And, rolling up my sleeves, I got down on all fours and crawled. And when I had only walked around half the room, I felt so funny at this absurdity that I sat down right there on the floor and laughed, laughed, laughed.

With the habitual and still unextinguished belief that it is possible to know something, I thought that I had found the source of my crazy desires. Obviously, the desire to crawl and others were the result of self-hypnosis. The persistent thought that I was crazy also caused crazy desires, and as soon as I fulfilled them, it turned out that there were no desires and I was not crazy. The reasoning, as you can see, is very simple and logical. But...

But after all, I crawled? Was I crawling? Who am I - a making excuses crazy person or a healthy person driving himself crazy?

Help me, you highly learned men! Let your authoritative word tip the scales in one direction or the other and resolve this terrible, wild question.

So, I'm waiting!..

I'm waiting in vain. Oh my sweet tadpoles - aren't you me? Isn’t it the same vile, human thought, always lying, changeable, illusory, working in your bald heads, like mine? And why is mine worse than yours? You will prove that I am crazy, I will prove to you that I am healthy; If you try to prove that I am healthy, I will prove to you that I am crazy. You will say that you cannot steal, kill and deceive, because this is immorality and a crime, but I will prove to you that you can kill and rob, and that this is very moral. And you will think and speak, and I will think and speak, and we will all be right, and none of us will be right. Where is the judge who can judge us and find the truth?

You have an enormous advantage, which knowledge of the truth gives you alone: ​​you have not committed a crime, are not on trial, and have been invited to examine the state of my psyche for a decent fee. And that's why I'm crazy. And if you were put here, Professor Drzhembitsky, and I was invited to observe you, then you would be crazy, and I would be an important bird - an expert, a liar, who differs from other liars only in that he lies only under oath .

True, you did not kill anyone, did not commit theft for the sake of stealing, and when you hire a cab driver, you are sure to bargain with him for a ten-kopeck piece, which proves your complete mental health. You are not crazy. But something completely unexpected can happen...

Suddenly, tomorrow, now, this very minute, when you are reading these lines, a terribly stupid, but careless thought came to you: am I crazy too? Who will you be then, Mr. Professor? Such a stupid, absurd thought - because why are you going crazy? But try to drive her away. You drank milk and thought it was whole milk until someone said it was mixed with water. And it's over -

there is no more whole milk.

You're crazy. Would you like to crawl on all fours? Of course you don’t want to, because what healthy person would want to crawl! Well, but still? Don't you have such a slight desire, a very slight, completely trivial desire that you want to laugh at - to slide out of your chair and crawl a little, just a little? Of course, he doesn’t, where could he appear from a healthy man who was just drinking tea and talking with his wife.

But don’t you feel your legs, although you didn’t feel them before, and don’t you think that something strange is happening in your knees: a severe numbness is struggling with the desire to bend your knees, and then... Indeed, Mr.

Drzhembitsky, can anyone really hold you back if you want to crawl a little?

But wait, crawl. I still need you. My struggle is not over yet.

SHEET EIGHT

One of the manifestations of the paradoxical nature of my nature: I really love children, very young children, when they just begin to babble and look like all small animals: puppies, kittens and baby snakes. Even snakes can be attractive in childhood. And this fall, on a fine sunny day, I happened to see such a picture. A tiny girl in a cotton coat and a hood, from under which only her pink cheeks and nose were visible, wanted to approach a very tiny dog ​​on thin legs, with a thin muzzle and a cowardly tail tucked between her legs. And suddenly she became scared, she turned around and, like a small white ball, rolled towards the nanny who was standing right there and silently, without tears or screaming, hid her face in her lap. And the tiny dog ​​blinked affectionately and fearfully tucked its tail, and the nanny’s face was so kind and simple.

“Don’t be afraid,” the nanny said and smiled at me, and her face was so kind and simple.

I don’t know why, but I often remembered this girl both in freedom, when I was carrying out the plan to kill Savelov, and here. At the same time, looking at this lovely group under the clear autumn sun, I had a strange feeling, as if the solution to something, and the murder I had planned seemed to me like a cold lie from some other, completely special world. And the fact that both of them, the girl and the dog, were so small and sweet, and that they were ridiculously afraid of each other, and that the sun was shining so warmly - all this was so simple and so full of meek and deep wisdom, as if right here, in this group lies the solution to existence. That was the feeling. And I said to myself:

“I need to think about this carefully,” but I didn’t.

And now I don’t remember what happened then, and I’m painfully trying to understand, but I can’t. And I don’t know why I told you this funny, unnecessary story, when I still have so much serious and important stuff to tell you. Need to cum.

Let's leave the dead alone. Alexei was killed, he had long since begun to decompose; he’s not there - to hell with him! There is something nice about the plight of the dead.

Let's not talk about Tatyana Nikolaevna. She is unhappy, and I willingly join in the general regrets, but what does this misfortune mean, all the misfortunes in the world in comparison with what I, Dr. Kerzhentsev, am experiencing now!

You never know how many wives in the world lose their beloved husbands, and you never know how many will lose them.

Let's leave them - let them cry.

But here, in this head...

You understand, Messrs. experts, how terribly this happened. I did not love anyone in the world except myself, and in myself I did not love this vile body that vulgar people love - I loved my human thought, my freedom. I didn’t know and don’t know anything higher than my thoughts, I idolized her - and wasn’t she worth it?

Didn’t she, like a giant, fight against the whole world and its errors? She carried me to the top of a high mountain, and I saw how deep below people were swarming with their petty animal passions, with their eternal fear of life and death, with their churches, masses and prayer services.

Wasn't I great, and free, and happy? Like a medieval baron, perched as if in an eagle’s nest in his impregnable castle, proudly and imperiously looking at the valleys below, so invincible and proud I was in my castle, behind these black bones. A king over myself, I was also a king over the world.

And they cheated on me. Mean, insidious, how women, slaves and -

thoughts. My castle has become my prison. Enemies attacked me in my castle. Where is the salvation? In the inaccessibility of the castle, in the thickness of its walls, is my death. The voice does not come out. And who is strong to save me? Nobody. For no one is stronger than me, and I - I am the only enemy of my “I”.

The vile thought betrayed me, the one who believed in it and loved it so much. It has not become any worse: it is the same light, sharp, elastic, like a rapier, but its hilt is no longer in my hand. And she kills me, her creator, her master, with the same stupid indifference as I killed others with her.

Night falls, and a frenzied horror seizes me. I was firmly on the ground, and my feet stood firmly on it, - and now I am thrown into the emptiness of infinite space. Great and formidable loneliness, when I, the one who lives, feels, thinks, who is so dear and is the only one, when I am so small, infinitely insignificant and weak and ready to go out every second. Ominous loneliness, when I am only an insignificant particle of myself, when within myself I am surrounded and strangled by gloomily silent, mysterious enemies.

Wherever I go, I carry them with me everywhere; alone in the emptiness of the universe, and I have no friend in myself. Crazy loneliness, when I don’t know who I am, lonely, when unknown people speak with my lips, my thoughts, my voice.

You can't live like that. And the world sleeps peacefully: husbands kiss their wives, scientists give lectures, and a beggar rejoices at the thrown penny. Mad world, happy in its madness, your awakening will be terrible!

Who's strong will give me a helping hand? Nobody. Nobody. Where will I find that eternal thing to which I could cling with my pitiful, powerless, terribly lonely

"I"? Nowhere. Nowhere. Oh, dear, dear girl, why are my bloody hands reaching out to you now - after all, you are also a person and just as insignificant, and lonely, and subject to death. Do I feel sorry for you, or do I want you to feel sorry for me, but, as if behind a shield, I would hide behind your helpless little body from the hopeless emptiness of centuries and space. But no, no, it's all a lie!

I will ask you for a big, huge favor, gentlemen. experts, and if you feel at least a little human in yourself, you will not refuse her. I hope we understand each other enough to not trust each other. And if I ask you to say in court that I am a healthy person, then I will least of all believe your words. You can decide for yourself, but for me no one will solve this issue:

Did I pretend to be crazy in order to kill, or did I kill because I was crazy?

But the judges will believe you and give me what I want: hard labor. I ask you not to misinterpret my intentions. I don't regret that I killed

Savelov, I am not looking for atonement for sins in punishment, and if, to prove that I am healthy, you need me to kill someone for the purpose of robbery, I will gladly kill and rob. But in hard labor I am looking for something else, something I don’t even know myself.

I am drawn to these people by some vague hope that among them, who have violated your laws, murderers, robbers, I will find sources of life unknown to me and will again become my friend. But even if this is not true, even if hope deceives me, I still want to be with them. Oh, I know you! You are cowards and hypocrites, you love your peace most of all, and you would gladly hide any thief who stole a roll of bread in a madhouse - you would rather admit the whole world and yourself are crazy than dare to touch your favorite inventions. I know you. The criminal and crime are your eternal anxiety, this is the menacing voice of the unknown abyss, this is the inexorable condemnation of your entire rational and moral life, and no matter how tightly you plug your ears with cotton, it passes, it passes! And I want to go to them. I, Doctor Kerzhentsev, will join the ranks of this terrible army for you, as an eternal reproach, as one who asks and waits for an answer.

I do not humbly ask you, but I demand: tell me that I am healthy. Lie if you don't believe it. But if you cowardly wash your learned hands and put me in an insane asylum or set me free, I friendly warn you: I will cause you big trouble.

For me there is no judge, no law, nothing prohibited. Everything is possible. Can you imagine a world in which there are no laws of gravity, in which there is no up or down, in which everything obeys only whim and chance? I, Doctor Kerzhentsev, this new world. Everything is possible. And I, Doctor Kerzhentsev, will prove this to you. I'll pretend to be healthy. I will achieve freedom. And for the rest of my life I will study. I will surround myself with your books, I will take from you all the power of your knowledge, of which you are proud, and I will find one thing that is long overdue. This will be an explosive. So strong that people have never seen it before: stronger than dynamite, stronger than nitroglycerin, stronger than the very thought of it. I am talented, persistent, and I will find it. And when I find him, I will blow up your damned land, which has so many gods and no one eternal God.

At the trial, Dr. Kerzhentsev behaved very calmly and remained in the same, silent position throughout the entire hearing. He answered questions indifferently and indifferently, sometimes forcing me to repeat them twice.

Once he made a select audience laugh, filling the courtroom in huge numbers. The chairman addressed some kind of order to the bailiff, and the defendant, apparently not hearing enough or being absent-minded, stood up and asked loudly:

What, do you need to go out?

Where to go? - the chairman was surprised.

Don't know. Did you say something.

The audience laughed, and the chairman explained to Kerzhentsev what was going on.

Four psychiatric experts were called, and their opinions were equally divided. After the prosecutor’s speech, the chairman addressed the accused, who had refused a defense lawyer:

Accused! What do you have to say in your defense?

Doctor Kerzhentsev stood up. With dull, seemingly sightless eyes, he slowly looked around the judges and looked at the audience. And those on whom this heavy, unseeing gaze fell experienced a strange and painful feeling: as if the most indifferent and silent death was looking at them from the empty orbits of the skull.

“Nothing,” answered the accused.

And once again he looked around at the people who had gathered to judge him, and repeated:

April 1902

See also Andreev Leonid - Prose (stories, poems, novels...):

Alarm
I That hot and ominous summer, everything was burning. Entire cities, villages and...

On the river
Alexey Stepanovich, a machinist at the Bukovskaya mill, woke up in the middle of the night...

From his youth, Andreev was amazed at people’s undemanding attitude towards life, and he exposed this undemanding attitude. “The time will come,” the high school student Andreev wrote in his diary, “I will paint people an amazing picture of their lives,” and I did. Thought is the object of attention and the main tool of the author, who is turned not to the flow of life, but to thinking about this flow.

Andreev is not one of the writers whose multi-color play of tones creates the impression of living life, as, for example, in A. P. Chekhov, I. A. Bunin, B. K. Zaitsev. He preferred the grotesque, the tear, the contrast of black and white. Similar expressiveness and emotionality distinguishes the works of F. M. Dostoevsky, Andreev’s favorite V. M. Garshin, E. Poe. His city is not big, but “huge”; his characters are oppressed not by loneliness, but by the “fear of loneliness”; they do not cry, but “howl”. Time in his stories is “compressed” by events. The author seemed to be afraid of being misunderstood in the world of the visually and hearing impaired. It seems that Andreev is bored in the current time, he is attracted by eternity, the “eternal appearance of man”; it is important for him not to depict a phenomenon, but to express his evaluative attitude towards it. It is known that the works “The Life of Vasily of Fiveysky” (1903) and “Darkness” (1907) were written under the impression of the events told to the author, but he interprets these events in his own completely different way.

There are no difficulties in the periodization of Andreev’s work: he always depicted the battle of darkness and light as a battle of equivalent principles, but if in the early period of his work in the subtext of his works lay a ghostly hope for the victory of light, then by the end of his work this hope was gone.

Andreev by nature had a special interest in everything inexplicable in the world, in people, in himself; the desire to look beyond the boundaries of life. As a young man, he played dangerous games that allowed him to feel the breath of death. The characters of his works also look into the “kingdom of the dead,” for example, Eleazar (story “Eleazar,” 1906), who received there “cursed knowledge” that kills the desire to live. Andreev’s work also corresponded to the eschatological mindset that was then emerging in the intellectual environment, to the intensified questions about the laws of life, the essence of man: “Who am I?”, “The meaning, the meaning of life, where is it?”, “Man? Of course, beautiful, and proud, and impressive - but where is the end? These questions from Andreev’s letters lie in the subtext of most of his works1. All theories of progress caused the writer's skepticism. Suffering from his unbelief, he rejects the religious path of salvation: “To what unknown and terrible limits will my denial reach?.. I will not accept God...”

The story "Lies" (1900) ends with a very characteristic exclamation: "Oh, what madness to be a man and to seek the truth! What pain!" St. Andrew's narrator often sympathizes with a person who, figuratively speaking, falls into the abyss and tries to grab onto something. “There was no well-being in his soul,” G.I. Chulkov reasoned in his memoirs about his friend, “he was all in anticipation of a catastrophe.” A. A. Blok also wrote about the same thing, who felt “horror at the door” while reading Andreev4. There was a lot of the author himself in this falling man. Andreev often “entered” into his characters, sharing with them a common, in the words of K. I. Chukovsky, “spiritual tone.”

Paying attention to social and property inequality, Andreev had reason to call himself a student of G. I. Uspensky and C. Dickens. However, he did not understand and present the conflicts of life like M. Gorky, A. S. Serafimovich, E. N. Chirikov, S. Skitalets, and other “knowledge writers”: he did not indicate the possibility of their resolution in the context of the current time. Andreev looked at good and evil as eternal, metaphysical forces, and perceived people as forced conductors of these forces. A break with the bearers of revolutionary beliefs was inevitable. V.V. Borovsky, classifying Andreev “primarily” as a “social” writer, pointed out his “incorrect” coverage of the vices of life. The writer did not belong either among the “right” or among the “left” and was burdened by creative loneliness.

Andreev wanted, first of all, to show the dialectics of thoughts, feelings, and the complex inner world of the characters. Almost all of them, more than hunger and cold, are oppressed by the question of why life is built this way and not otherwise. They look inside themselves and try to understand the motives for their behavior. No matter who his hero is, everyone has their own cross, everyone suffers.

“It doesn’t matter to me who “he” is - the hero of my stories: a non, an official, a good-natured person or a brute. All that matters to me is that he is a man and, as such, bears the same hardships of life.”

There is a bit of exaggeration in these lines of Andreev’s letter to Chukovsky, his author’s attitude towards the characters is differentiated, but there is also truth. Critics rightly compared the young prose writer with F. M. Dostoevsky - both artists showed the human soul as a field of collisions between chaos and harmony. However, a significant difference between them is also obvious: Dostoevsky ultimately, provided humanity accepted Christian humility, predicted the victory of harmony, while Andreev, by the end of the first decade of creativity, almost excluded the idea of ​​harmony from the space of his artistic coordinates.

The pathos of many of Andreev's early works is determined by the desire of the heroes for a “different life.” In this sense, the story “In the Basement” (1901) about embittered people at the bottom of their lives is noteworthy. A deceived young woman “from society” ends up here with a newborn. Not without reason, she was afraid of meeting thieves and prostitutes, but the resulting tension is relieved by the baby. The unfortunate are drawn to a pure “gentle and weak” being. They wanted to keep the boulevard woman away from the child, but she heartrendingly demands: “Give!.. Give!.. Give!..” And this “careful, two-finger touch on the shoulder” is described as a touch on a dream: “small life, weak , like a light in the steppe, vaguely called them somewhere..." The romantic "somewhere" passes from story to story in the young prose writer. A dream, a Christmas tree decoration, or a country estate can serve as a symbol of a “different”, bright life, or a different relationship. The attraction to this “other” in Andreev’s characters is shown as an unconscious, innate feeling, for example, like in the teenager Sashka from the story “Angel” (1899). This restless, half-starved, offended “wolf cub”, who “at times... wanted to stop doing what is called life,” happened to be in a rich house for a holiday and saw a wax angel on the Christmas tree. A beautiful toy becomes for a child a sign of the “wonderful world where he once lived,” where “they don’t know about dirt and abuse.” She must belong to him!.. Sashka suffered a lot, defending the only thing he had - pride, but for the sake of the angel he falls to his knees in front of the “unpleasant aunt”. And again passionate: “Give!.. Give!.. Give!..”

The position of the author of these stories, who inherited pain for all the unfortunate from the classics, is humane and demanding, but unlike his predecessors, Andreev is tougher. He sparingly measures out a bit of peace for the offended characters: their joy is fleeting, and their hope is illusory. The “lost man” Khizhiyakov from the story “In the Basement” shed happy tears, it suddenly seemed to him that he would “live a long time, and his life would be wonderful,” but - the narrator concludes his words - at his head “silently predatory death was already sitting down” . And Sashka, having had enough of playing with the angel, falls asleep happy for the first time, and at this time the wax toy melts either from the breath of a hot stove, or from the action of some fatal force: Ugly and motionless shadows were carved on the wall...” The author dottedly indicates almost in each of his works. The characteristic figure of evil is built on different phenomena: shadows, night darkness, natural disasters, unclear characters, mystical “something”, “someone”, etc. “The little angel started up, as if to fly, and fell with a soft knocking on hot plates." Sashka will have to endure a similar fall.

The errand boy from the city hairdresser in the story “Petka in the Dacha” (1899) also survives the fall. The “aged dwarf,” who knew only labor, beatings, and hunger, also longed with all his soul to the unknown “somewhere,” “to another place about which he could not say anything.” Having accidentally found himself in the master's country estate, "entering into complete harmony with nature," Petka is externally and internally transformed, but soon a fatal force in the person of the mysterious owner of the hairdressing salon pulls him out of the "other" life. The inhabitants of the hairdressing salon are puppets, but they are described in sufficient detail, and only the owner-puppeteer is depicted in the outline. Over the years, the role of an invisible black force in the twists and turns of the plots becomes more and more noticeable.

Andreev has no or almost no happy endings, but the darkness of life in the early stories was dispelled by glimmers of light: the awakening of Man in man was revealed. The motive of awakening is organically connected with the motive of Andreev’s characters’ desire for “another life.” In "Bargamot and Garaska" the antipodean characters, in whom, it seemed, everything human had died forever, experience an awakening. But outside the plot, the idyll of a drunkard and a policeman (a “relative” of the guard Mymretsov G.I. Uspensky, a classic of “creepy propaganda”) is doomed. In other typologically similar works, Andreev shows how difficult and how late Man awakens in a person (“Once upon a time,” 1901; “In the Spring,” 1902). With awakening, Andreev's characters often come to realize their callousness ("The First Fee", 1899; "No Forgiveness", 1904).

The story “Hostinets” (1901) is very much in this sense. The young apprentice Senista is waiting for master Sazonka in the hospital. He promised not to leave the boy “to be a sacrifice to loneliness, illness and fear.” But Easter came, Sazonka went on a spree and forgot his promise, and when he arrived, Senista was already in the dead room. Only the death of the child, “like a puppy thrown into the trash heap,” revealed to the master the truth about the darkness of his own soul: “Lord!” Sazonka cried<...>raising your hands to the sky<...>“Aren’t we people?”

The difficult awakening of Man is also spoken of in the story “The Theft Was Coming” (1902). The man who was about to “perhaps kill” is stopped by pity for the freezing puppy. The high price of pity, "light<...>among the deep darkness..." - this is what is important for the humanist narrator to convey to the reader.

Many of Andreev’s characters suffer from their isolation and existential worldview1. Their often extreme attempts to free themselves from this illness are in vain ("Valya", 1899; "Silence" and "The Story of Sergei Petrovich", 1900; "The Original Man", 1902). The story “The City” (1902) talks about a petty official, depressed by both everyday life and the existence taking place in the stone sack of the city. Surrounded by hundreds of people, he suffocates from the loneliness of a meaningless existence, against which he protests in a pitiful, comic form. Here Andreev continues the theme of the “little man” and his desecrated dignity, set by the author of “The Overcoat”. The narration is filled with sympathy for a person who has the disease “influenza” - the event of the year. Andreev borrows from Gogol the situation of a suffering person defending his dignity: “We are all people! We are all brothers!” - drunken Petrov cries in a state of passion. However, the writer changes the interpretation of a well-known topic. Among the classics of the golden age of Russian literature, the “little man” is suppressed by the character and wealth of the “big man.” For Andreev, the material and social hierarchy does not play a decisive role: loneliness weighs down. In "The City" the gentlemen are virtuous, and they themselves are the same Petrovs, but at a higher level of the social ladder. Andreev sees the tragedy in the fact that individuals do not form a community. A remarkable episode: a lady from the “institution” laughs at Petrov’s proposal to get married, but “squeals” in understanding and fear when he talks to her about loneliness.

Andreev’s misunderstanding is equally dramatic, inter-class, intra-class, and intra-family. The divisive force in his artistic world has a wicked humor, as represented in the story "The Grand Slam" (1899). For many years, “summer and winter, spring and autumn,” four people played vint, but when one of them died, it turned out that the others did not know whether the deceased was married, where he lived... What struck the company most of all was that the deceased will never know about his luck in the last game: "he had a sure-fire grand slam."

This power affects any well-being. Six-year-old Yura Pushkarev, the hero of the story “A Flower Under Your Foot” (1911), was born into a wealthy family, loved, but, suppressed by the mutual misunderstanding of his parents, he is lonely, and only “pretends that living in the world is very fun.” The child “leaves people”, escaping in a fictional world. The writer returns to the adult hero named Yuri Pushkarev, an outwardly happy family man and talented pilot, in the story “Flight” (1914). These works form a small tragic duology. Pushkarev experienced the joy of existence only in the sky, where in his subconscious the dream of remaining forever in the blue expanse was born. The fatal force threw the car down, but the pilot himself “to the ground... never returned.”

“Andreev,” wrote E.V. Anichkov, “made us imbued with an eerie, chilling awareness of the impenetrable abyss that lies between man and man.”

Disunity gives rise to militant egoism. Doctor Kerzhentsev from the story “Thought” (1902) is capable of strong feelings, but he used all his intelligence to plan the insidious murder of a more successful friend - the husband of the woman he loved, and then to play with the investigation. He is convinced that he controls thought, like a fencer with a sword, but at some point the thought betrays and plays tricks on its bearer. She was tired of satisfying “outside” interests. Kerzhentsev lives out his life in a madhouse. The pathos of this Andreevsky story is the opposite of the pathos of M. Gorky’s lyrical and philosophical poem “Man” (1903), this hymn to the creative power of human thought. After Andreev’s death, Gorky recalled that the writer perceived thought as “the devil’s evil joke on man.” They said about V. M. Garshin and A. P. Chekhov that they awaken the conscience. Andreev was awakened by reason, or rather, anxiety about its destructive potential. The writer surprised his contemporaries with his unpredictability and passion for antinomies.

“Leonid Nikolaevich,” M. Gorky wrote reproachfully, “strangely and painfully sharply for himself, he was digging in two: in the same week he could sing “Hosanna!” to the world and proclaim “Anathema!” to him.

This is exactly how Andreev revealed the dual essence of man, “divine and insignificant,” as defined by V. S. Solovyov. The artist returns again and again to the question that worries him: which of the “abyss” predominates in a person? Regarding the relatively light story “On the River” (1900) about how a “stranger” man overcame his hatred for the people who offended him and, risking his life, saved them in the spring flood, M. Gorky enthusiastically wrote to Andreev:

“You love the sun. And this is magnificent, this love is the source of true art, real, that very poetry that enlivens life.”

However, Andreev soon creates one of the most terrible stories in Russian literature - “The Abyss” (1901). This is a psychologically compelling, artistically expressive study of the fall of humanity in man.

It’s scary: a pure girl was crucified by “subhumans.” But it’s even more terrible when, after a short internal struggle, an intellectual, a lover of romantic poetry, a reverently in love behaves like an animal. Just a little “before” he had no idea that the beast-abyss was hidden within him. “And the black abyss swallowed him up” - this is the final phrase of the story. Some critics praised Andreev for his bold drawing, others called on readers to boycott the author. At meetings with readers, Andreev insistently asserted that no one is safe from such a fall1.

In the last decade of his work, Andreev spoke much more often about the awakening of the beast in man than about the awakening of Man in man. Very expressive in this series is the psychological story “In the Fog” (1902) about how a prosperous student’s hatred of himself and the world found a way out in the murder of a prostitute. Many publications mention words about Andreev, the authorship of which is attributed to Leo Tolstoy: “He scares, but we are not afraid.” But it is unlikely that all readers familiar with the above-mentioned works of Andreev, as well as with his story “Lie,” written a year before “The Abyss,” or with the stories “Curse of the Beast” (1908) and “Rules of Good” (1911) will agree with this. , telling about the loneliness of a person doomed to struggle for survival in the irrational flow of existence.

The relationship between M. Gorky and L. N. Andreev is an interesting page in the history of Russian literature. Gorky helped Andreev enter the literary field, contributed to the appearance of his works in the almanacs of the Knowledge Society, and introduced him to the Sreda circle. In 1901, with Gorky's funds, the first book of Andreev's stories was published, which brought the author fame and approval from L.N. Tolstoy and A.P. Chekhov. Andreev called his senior comrade “his only friend.” However, all this did not straighten their relationship, which Gorky characterized as “friendship-enmity” (the oxymoron could have been born when he read Andreev’s letter1).

Indeed, there was a friendship between great writers, according to Andreev, who hit “one bourgeois face” of complacency. The allegorical story "Ben-Tobit" (1903) is an example of St. Andrew's blow. The plot of the story moves as if by a dispassionate narration about seemingly unrelated events: a “kind and good” resident of a village near Golgotha ​​has a toothache, and at the same time, on the mountain itself, the decision of the trial of “some Jesus” is being carried out. The unfortunate Ben-Tobit is outraged by the noise outside the walls of the house; it gets on his nerves. "How they scream!" - this man, “who did not like injustice,” is indignant, offended by the fact that no one cares about his suffering.

It was a friendship of writers who glorified the heroic, rebellious principles of personality. The author of “The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men” (1908), which tells about a sacrificial feat, and more importantly about the feat of overcoming the fear of death, wrote to V.V. Veresaev: “And a person is beautiful when he is brave and mad and tramples death with death.”

Many of Andreev's characters are united by the spirit of resistance; rebellion is an attribute of their essence. They rebel against the power of gray everyday life, fate, loneliness, against the Creator, even if the doom of the protest is revealed to them. Resistance to circumstances makes a person a Man - this idea lies at the basis of Andreev’s philosophical drama “The Life of a Man” (1906). Mortally wounded by the blows of an incomprehensible evil force, a Man curses her at the edge of the grave and calls her to fight. But the pathos of opposition to “walls” in Andreev’s works weakens over the years, and the author’s critical attitude towards the “eternal appearance” of man intensifies.

At first, a misunderstanding arose between the writers, then, especially after the events of 1905-1906, something truly reminiscent of enmity. Gorky did not idealize man, but at the same time he often expressed the conviction that the shortcomings of human nature are, in principle, correctable. One criticized the "balance of the abyss", the other - "cheerful fiction". Their paths diverged, but even during the years of alienation, Gorky called his contemporary “the most interesting writer... of all European literature.” And one can hardly agree with Gorky’s opinion that their polemics interfered with the cause of literature.

To a certain extent, the essence of their disagreements is revealed by a comparison of Gorky’s novel “Mother” (1907) and Andreev’s novel “Sashka Zhegulev” (1911). Both works are about young people who went into the revolution. Gorky begins with naturalistic imagery and ends with romantic imagery. Andreev's pen goes in the opposite direction: he shows how the seeds of the bright ideas of the revolution sprout into darkness, rebellion, "senseless and merciless."

The artist examines phenomena from the perspective of development, predicts, provokes, warns. In 1908, Andreev completed work on the philosophical and psychological story-pamphlet “My Notes.” The main character is a demonic character, a criminal convicted of a triple murder, and at the same time a seeker of truth. "Where is the truth? Where is the truth in this world of ghosts and lies?" - the prisoner asks himself, but in the end the newly minted inquisitor sees the evil of life in people’s craving for freedom, and feels “tender gratitude, almost love” towards the iron bars on the prison window, which revealed to him the beauty of limitation. He reinterprets the well-known formula and states: “Unfreedom is a conscious necessity.” This “masterpiece of polemic” confused even the writer’s friends, since the narrator hides his attitude towards the beliefs of the poet of the “iron grid.” It is now clear that in “Notes” Andreev approached what was popular in the 20th century. genre of dystopia, predicted the danger of totalitarianism. The builder of "Integral" from E.I. Zamyatin's novel "We" in his notes, in fact, continues the reasoning of this character Andreev:

“Freedom and crime are as inextricably linked as... well, like the movement of an aero and its speed: the speed of an aero is 0, and it does not move, the freedom of a person is 0, and it does not commit crimes.”

Is there one truth “or are there at least two of them,” Andreev joked sadly and looked at phenomena from one side or the other. In "The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men" he reveals the truth on one side of the barricades, in the story "The Governor" - on the other. The problematics of these works are indirectly connected with revolutionary affairs. In "The Governor" (1905), a representative of the government is doomedly awaiting the execution of the death sentence passed on him by a people's court. A crowd of strikers “of several thousand people” came to his residence. First, impossible demands were put forward, and then the pogrom began. The governor was forced to order the shooting. Among those killed were children. The narrator is aware of both the justice of the people's anger and the fact that the governor was forced to resort to violence; he sympathizes with both sides. The general, tormented by pangs of conscience, ultimately condemns himself to death: he refuses to leave the city, travels without security, and the “Avenger Law” overtakes him. In both works, the writer points out the absurdity of life in which a person kills a person, the unnaturalness of a person’s knowledge of the hour of his death.

The critics were right; they saw in Andreev a supporter of universal human values, a non-partisan artist. In a number of works on the theme of revolution, such as “Into the Dark Distance” (1900), “La Marseillaise” (1903), the most important thing for the author is to show something inexplicable in a person, the paradox of action. However, the Black Hundred considered him a revolutionary writer, and, fearing their threats, the Andreev family lived abroad for some time.

The depth of many of Andreev’s works was not immediately revealed. This happened with “Red Laughter” (1904). The author was prompted to write this story by newspaper news from the fields of the Russo-Japanese War. He showed war as madness begetting madness. Andreev stylizes his narrative as fragmentary memories of a front-line officer who has gone crazy:

“This is red laughter. When the earth goes crazy, it begins to laugh like that. There are no flowers or songs on it, it has become round, smooth and red, like a head from which the skin has been torn off.”

A participant in the Russo-Japanese War, the author of realistic notes “At War,” V. Veresaev, criticized Andreev’s story for not corresponding to reality. He spoke about the ability of human nature to “get used to” any circumstances. According to Andreev’s work, it is precisely directed against the human habit of elevating to the norm what should not be the norm. Gorky urged the author to “improve” the story, reduce the element of subjectivity, and introduce more specifics and realistic images of the war1. Andreev answered sharply: “To make it healthy means to destroy the story, its main idea... My topic: madness and horror." It is clear that the author valued the philosophical generalization contained in The Red Laughter and its projection into the coming decades.

Both the already mentioned story “Darkness” and the story “Judas Iscariot” (1907) were not understood by contemporaries, who correlated their content with the social situation in Russia after the events of 1905 and condemned the author for an “apology for betrayal.” They ignored the most important - philosophical - paradigm of these works.

In the story “Darkness,” a selfless and bright young revolutionary, hiding from the gendarmes, is struck by the “truth of the brothel” that was revealed to him in the question of the prostitute Lyubka: what right does he have to be good if she is bad? He suddenly realized that the rise of him and his comrades was bought at the cost of the fall of many unfortunates, and concludes that “if we cannot illuminate all the darkness with flashlights, then let’s turn off the lights and all climb into the darkness.” Yes, the author illuminated the position of the anarchist-maximalist to which the bomber switched, but he also illuminated the “new Lyubka”, who dreamed of joining the ranks of the “good” fighters for another life. This plot twist was omitted by critics, who condemned the author for what they thought was a sympathetic portrayal of the renegade. But the image of Lyubka, which was ignored by later researchers, plays an important role in the content of the story.

The story “Judas Iscariot” is harsher, in it the author draws the “eternal appearance” of humanity, which did not accept the Word of God and killed the one who brought it. “Behind her,” wrote A. A. Blok about the story, “the author’s soul is a living wound.” In the story, the genre of which can be defined as “The Gospel of Judas,” Andreev changes little in the plot line outlined by the evangelists. He attributes episodes that may have taken place in the relationship between the Teacher and the disciples. All the canonical Gospels also differ in their episodes. At the same time, Andreev’s, so to speak, legal approach to characterizing the behavior of participants in biblical events reveals the dramatic inner world of the “traitor.” This approach reveals the predestination of the tragedy: without blood, without the miracle of resurrection, people will not recognize the Son of Man, the Savior. The duality of Judas, reflected in his appearance, his throwing, mirrors the duality of Christ’s behavior: they both foresaw the course of events and both had reason to love and hate each other. "Who will help poor Iscariot?" - Christ meaningfully answers Peter when asked to help him in power games with Judas. Christ bows his head sadly and understandingly, having heard the words of Judas that in another life he will be the first to be next to the Savior. Judas knows the price of evil and good in this world, and painfully experiences his righteousness. Judas executes himself for betrayal, without which the Advent would not have taken place: the Word would not have reached humanity. The act of Judas, who until the very tragic ending hoped that the people on Calvary would soon see the light, see and realize who they were executing, is “the last stake of faith in people.” The author condemns all humanity, including the apostles, for their insensitivity to goodness3. Andreev has an interesting allegory on this topic, created simultaneously with the story - “The story of a snake about how it got poisonous teeth.” The ideas of these works will germinate into the final work of the prose writer - the novel “The Diary of Satan” (1919), published after the death of the author.

Andreev was always attracted to artistic experiments in which he could bring together the inhabitants of the existent world and the inhabitants of the manifest world. He brought together both of them in a rather original way in the philosophical fairy tale “Earth” (1913). The Creator sends angels to earth, wanting to know the needs of people, but, having learned the “truth” of the earth, the messengers “betray”, cannot keep their clothes unstained and do not return to heaven. They are ashamed to be “pure” among people. A loving God understands them, forgives them and looks with reproach at the messenger who visited the earth, but kept his white robes clean. He himself cannot descend to earth, because then people will not need heaven. There is no such condescending attitude towards humanity in the latest novel, which brings together the inhabitants of opposite worlds.

Andreev spent a long time trying out the “wandering” plot associated with the earthly adventures of the devil incarnate. The implementation of the long-standing idea to create “the devil's notes” was preceded by the creation of a colorful picture: Satan-Mephistopheles sits over the manuscript, dipping his pen into the Chersi inkwell1. At the end of his life, Andreev enthusiastically worked on a work about the stay on earth of the leader of all evil spirits with a very non-trivial ending. In the novel "Satan's Diary" the fiend of hell is a suffering person. The idea of ​​the novel is already visible in the story “My Notes”, in the image of the main character, in his thoughts that the devil himself, with all his “reserve of hellish lies, cunning and cunning,” is capable of being “led by the nose.” The idea for the essay could have arisen in Andreev while reading “The Brothers Karamazov” by F. M. Dostoevsky, in the chapter about the devil who dreams of incarnating himself as a naive merchant’s wife: “My ideal is to enter the church and light a candle from the bottom of my heart, by God so. Then the limit my suffering." But where Dostoevsky’s devil wanted to find peace, an end to “suffering.” The Prince of Darkness Andreeva is just beginning his suffering. An important uniqueness of the work is the multidimensionality of the content: one side of the novel is turned to the time of its creation, the other - to “eternity”. The author trusts Satan to express his most disturbing thoughts about the essence of man, in fact, he questions many of the ideas of his earlier works. “The Diary of Satan,” as Yu. Babicheva, a long-time researcher of L.N. Andreeva’s work, noted, is also “the personal diary of the author himself.”

Satan, in the guise of a merchant he killed and with his own money, decided to play with humanity. But a certain Thomas Magnus decided to take possession of the alien’s funds. He plays on the alien’s feelings for a certain Mary, in whom the devil saw the Madonna. Love transformed Satan, he was ashamed of his involvement in evil, and the decision came to become just a man. Atonement for past sins, he gives the money to Magnus, who promised to become a benefactor of people. But Satan is deceived and ridiculed: the “earthly Madonna” turns out to be a figurehead, a prostitute. Thomas ridiculed the devil's altruism, took possession of money in order to blow up the planet of people. In the end, in the scientist chemist, Satan sees the bastard son of his own father: “It is difficult and insulting to be this little thing that is called on earth a man, a cunning and greedy worm...” reflects Satan1.

Magnus is also a tragic figure, a product of human evolution, a character who has suffered through his misanthropy. The narrator understands both Satan and Thomas equally. It is noteworthy that the writer gives Magnus an appearance reminiscent of his own (this can be seen by comparing the character’s portrait with the portrait of Andreev, written by I. E. Repin). Satan gives a person an assessment from the outside, Magnus – from the inside, but in the main their assessments coincide. The climax of the story is parodic: the events of the night “when Satan was tempted by man” are described. Satan cries, seeing his reflection in people, and the earthly people laugh “at all the ready devils.”

Crying is the leitmotif of Andreev’s works. Many, many of his characters shed tears, offended by the powerful and evil darkness. God's light cried - the darkness began to cry, the circle closed, there was no way out for anyone. In “The Diary of Satan” Andreev came close to what L. I. Shestov called “the apotheosis of groundlessness.”

At the beginning of the 20th century, in Russia, as well as throughout Europe, theatrical life was in its heyday. Creative people argued about ways to develop the performing arts. In a number of publications, primarily in two “Letters on the Theater” (1911 - 1913), Andreev presented his “theory of new drama”, his vision of a “theater of pure psychism” and created a number of plays that corresponded to the tasks put forward2. He proclaimed “the end of everyday life and ethnography” on the stage and contrasted the “obsolete” A. II. Ostrovsky to the “modern” A.P. Chekhov. Not that moment is dramatic, Andreev argues, when the soldiers shoot the rebellious workers, but the one when the manufacturer struggles with “two truths” on a sleepless night. He leaves entertainment for the café and cinema; The theater stage, in his opinion, should belong to the invisible - the soul. In the old theater, the critic concludes, the soul was “contraband.” The innovative playwright is recognizable as Andreev the prose writer.

Andreev's first work for the theater was the romantic-realistic play "To the Stars" (1905) about the place of the intelligentsia in the revolution. This topic also interested Gorky, and for some time they worked together on the play, but the co-authorship did not take place. The reasons for the gap become clear when comparing the issues of two plays: “To the Stars” by L. N. Andreev and “Children of the Sun” by M. Gorky. In one of Gorky’s best plays, born in connection with their common concept, one can find something “Andreev’s”, for example, in the contrast of “children of the sun” with “children of the earth,” but not much. It is important for Gorky to present the social moment of the intelligentsia’s entry into the revolution, for Andreev the main thing is to correlate the determination of scientists with the determination of revolutionaries. It is noteworthy that Gorky's characters are engaged in biology, their main tool is a microscope, Andreev's characters are astronomers, their tool is a telescope. Andreev gives the floor to revolutionaries who believe in the possibility of destroying all “walls,” to philistine skeptics, to neutrals who are “above the fray,” and they all have “their own truth.” The movement of life forward - the obvious and important idea of ​​the play - is determined by the creative obsession of individuals, and it does not matter whether they devote themselves to revolution or science. But only people who live with soul and thought turned to the “triumphant vastness” of the Universe are happy with him. The harmony of the eternal Cosmos is contrasted with the crazy fluidity of the life of the earth. The cosmos is in agreement with the truth, the earth is wounded by the collision of “truths”.

Andreev has a number of plays, the presence of which allowed contemporaries to talk about the “theater of Leonid Andreev.” This series opens with the philosophical drama "The Life of Man" (1907). Other most successful works of this series are “Black Masks” (1908); "Tsar Famine" (1908); "Anatema" (1909); "Ocean" (1911). Close to these plays are Andreev’s psychological works, for example, “Dog Waltz”, “Samson in Chains” (both 1913-1915), “Requiem” (1917). The playwright called his works for the theater “performances,” thereby emphasizing that this is not a reflection of life, but a play of the imagination, a spectacle. He argued that on stage the general is more important than the specific, that the type speaks more than a photograph, and the symbol is more eloquent than the type. Critics noted the language of modern theater that Andreev found - the language of philosophical drama.

The drama "A Man's Life" presents the formula of life; the author “frees himself from everyday life” and moves in the direction of maximum generalization1. The play has two central characters: Human, in whose person the author proposes to see humanity, and Someone in gray, called He, - something that combines human ideas about a supreme external force: God, fate, fate, the devil. Between them are guests, neighbors, relatives, good people, villains, thoughts, emotions, masks. Someone in gray acts as a messenger of the “circle of iron destiny”: birth, poverty, labor, love, wealth, glory, misfortune, poverty, oblivion, death. The transience of human existence in the “iron circle” is reminiscent of a candle burning in the hands of a mysterious Someone. The performance involves characters familiar from the ancient tragedy - the messenger, the Moirai, and the chorus. When staging the play, the author demanded that the director avoid halftones: “If he is kind, then like an angel; if stupid, then like a minister; if ugly, then in such a way that children are afraid. Sharp contrasts.”

Andreev strove for unambiguity, allegory, and symbols of life. It has no symbols in the symbolist sense. This is the style of painters of popular prints, expressionist artists, and icon painters who depicted the earthly journey of Christ in squares bordered by a single frame. The play is tragic and heroic at the same time: despite all the blows of an outside force, the Man does not give up, and at the edge of the grave he throws down the gauntlet to the mysterious Someone. The ending of the play is similar to the ending of the story "The Life of Vasily of Fivey": the character is broken, but not defeated. A. A. Blok, who watched the play staged by V. E. Meyerhold, noted in his review that the hero’s profession was no coincidence - he, in spite of everything, is a creator, an architect.

““The Life of a Man” is clear proof that Man is a man, not a doll, not a pitiful creature doomed to decay, but a wonderful phoenix overcoming the “icy wind of boundless spaces.” Wax melts, but life does not diminish.”

The play "Anatema" seems to be a kind of continuation of the play "Human Life". In this philosophical tragedy reappears Someone guarding the entrances - the dispassionate and powerful guardian of the gates beyond which stretches the Beginning of Beginnings, the Great Mind. He is the guardian and servant of eternity-truth. He is opposed Anathema, the devil, cursed for his rebellious intentions to learn the truth

Universe and become equal to the Great Mind. The evil spirit, cowardly and vainly hovering at the feet of the guardian, is a tragic figure in its own way. “Everything in the world wants good,” the damned reflects, “and does not know where to find it, everything in the world wants life - and only encounters death...” He comes to doubt the existence of Reason in the Universe: is the name of this rationality a Lie? ? Out of despair and anger that she cannot know the truth on the other side of the gate, Anathema tries to know the truth on this side of the gate. He conducts cruel experiments on the world and suffers from unjustified expectations.

The main part of the drama, which tells about the exploit and death of David Leizer, “the beloved son of God,” has an associative connection with the biblical tale of the humble Job, with the gospel story of the temptation of Christ in the desert. Anathema decided to test the truth of love and justice. He endows David with enormous wealth, pushes him to create a “miracle of love” for his neighbor, and contributes to the development of David’s magical power over people. But the devil's millions are not enough for all those who suffer, and David, as a traitor and deceiver, is stoned to death by his beloved people. Love and justice turned into deception, good into evil. The experiment was carried out, but Anathema did not get a “clean” result. Before his death, David does not curse people, but regrets that he did not give them his last penny. The epilogue of the play repeats its prologue: the gate, the silent guardian Someone and the seeker of truth Anathema. With the ring composition of the play, the author talks about life as an endless struggle of opposing principles. Soon after it was written, the play, directed by V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, was successfully staged at the Moscow Art Theater.

In Andreev’s work, artistic and philosophical principles merged together. His books feed the aesthetic need and awaken thought, disturb the conscience, awaken sympathy for man and fear for his human component. Andreev encourages a demanding approach to life. Critics spoke of his “cosmic pessimism,” but in him the tragic is not directly connected with pessimism. Probably, anticipating a misunderstanding of his works, the writer more than once asserted that if a person cries, this does not mean that he is a pessimist and does not want to live, and vice versa, not everyone who laughs is an optimist and has fun. He belonged to the category of people with a heightened sense of death due to an equally heightened sense of life. People who knew him closely wrote about Andreev’s passionate love for life.