Garnet bracelet, what was the telegraph operator's last name? Characteristics of Zheltkov from “Garnet Bracelet”: what’s special about this hero

The hero of the story “The Garnet Bracelet” is one of the most touching images in literature. The author himself cried over the manuscript of this work. Kuprin claimed that it was the most chaste of all that he created. Characteristics of the heroes (“Garnet Bracelet”) is the topic of this article.

Faith

The main characters are the Sheina spouses. It is noteworthy that the characteristics of the heroes (“Garnet Bracelet”) are given by the author very unevenly. Kuprin did not consider it necessary to describe the character of Princess Vera and her habits. He described the heroine’s appearance, comparing her with her sister Anna.

He has a flexible figure, a gentle, cold and proud face. That's almost all that is said about the main character. Her sister is depicted in more detail, although her presence in the story does not affect the plot in any way.

Each of the images is a kind of means for revealing main topic works, namely the themes of love. And therefore the writer characterizes the characters quite selectively. “The Garnet Bracelet” is a story in which fate and inner world characters can be understood from short phrases what they said, and various small details.

Princess Vera is a kind, sensitive and honest woman. The ending of the story speaks about her ability to sympathize, when she comes to the house of the deceased Zheltkov to say goodbye to him. Honesty is indicated by the remorse of conscience that she experiences in one of the scenes. When a dispute breaks out between Vasily and Vera’s brother Nikolai about correspondence, which allegedly compromises all family members, Shein coldly notes that this epistolary phenomenon is exclusively one-sided. At her husband’s words, the princess blushes deeply. After all, only one single message was received by the person who presented this ill-fated garnet bracelet.

The main characters, whose characteristics are finally revealed in the denouement, are secondary characters throughout the main part.

Vasily Shein

Even less is said about this hero than about Vera Nikolaevna. As already noted, in the work “The Garnet Bracelet” the main characters, whose characteristics are given by the author at the beginning of the story laconically and restrainedly, at the end show their best qualities. Vasily Shein goes to Zheltkov and, unlike Vera’s brother, who accompanies him, behaves tactfully, politely and somewhat confused. The prince is able to see a huge tragedy in a man who has been in love with his wife for eight years. He knows how to feel someone else's pain even when someone else would only show hostility and acute irritation.

Later, after Zheltkov commits suicide, Vasily conveys to Vera his impressions of what he saw: “This man loved you, and he was not mad,” he says, and at the same time treats with understanding the princess’s desire to say goodbye to the deceased.

But at the same time, both Vera and Vasily are arrogant people. Which, however, is not surprising, given their position in society. This quality is not negative. This is not arrogance, nor is it a kind of condescension that manifests itself in their attitude towards people outside their circle. Vera is characterized by coldness and an authoritative tone. Vasily treats his wife’s secret admirer with excessive irony. And perhaps all this led to the tragedy.

After reading summary the work creates the impression that love, which is so little in real life, dedicated Kuprin “Garnet Bracelet”. The characteristics of the heroes, which are revealed in the story, give, however, credibility and truthfulness to this plot. To understand this, you need to read carefully and thoughtfully.

Anosov

The author gave the image of this hero most of fourth chapter. The image of Anosov plays an important role in revealing the main idea of ​​the story. In one of the fragments, he talks with the heroine about true love, which he has never experienced in his entire long life, because such a feeling is born once every hundred years. And in response to Vera’s story about Zheltkov, he suggested that this was that rare case.

Zheltkov

This man is pale and has a gentle girlish face. There is no need to talk about the qualities of his character, since the meaning of his life is Vera Nikolaevna. In his last letter, he confesses to her that after he saw her for the first time, he stopped being interested in anything. The image of Zheltkov is central to the plot, but little is said about him. The strength of the feeling he experienced for the last eight years of his life is much more important than his personality.

Using a small diagram, you can summarize the analysis of images in the story “Garnet Bracelet”

Characteristics of heroes (table)

This is the characteristic of heroes. “Garnet Bracelet” - despite its small volume, is a profound work. The article presents brief description images, and are missing important details and quotes.

Composition

And the heart will no longer respond

It's all over... And my song rushes

On an empty night where you are no longer there.

A. Akhmatova

A. I. Kuprin is an original writer of the 20th century, in whose work the precepts of Russian classical literature with its democracy, passionate desire to solve the problems of social existence, humanism, and deep interest in the life of the people. Loyalty to traditions, the influence of L. N. Tolstoy and A. P. Chekhov, the influence of the creative ideas of M. Gorky determined the originality literary prose Kuprin, his place in literary process beginning of the century.

Writers whose work was formed during the years of revolutionary upsurge were especially close to the theme of the “epiphany” of the ordinary Russian person, greedily truth seeker V social life. Therefore, the center of the works invariably turns out to be little man, the average intellectual truth-seeker, and the main theme is bourgeois civilization devouring thousands human lives and entailing the vulgarization of people's relationships." In such a situation, it is natural to turn to one of the eternal themes - the theme of love. A. Kuprin also addresses the theme of love, as one of the mysteries of existence.

Following “Olesya” (1898) and “The Duel” (1905), in the 1910s, from his pen came a kind of “trilogy” about love, which is formed by the works “Shulamith”, “Garnet Bracelet” and “The Pit” ( the latter depicts anti-love). Love for Kuprin is a saving force that protects the human soul from the destructive influence of civilization; a phenomenon of life, an unexpected gift that illuminates life in the midst of everyday reality and established life. But love in his works is associated with the idea of ​​death.

Kuprin's heroes most often die when faced with the world of cruelty, lack of spirituality and generally accepted philistine morality of the modern world.

The meaning and content of the life of the protagonist of the story “The Garnet Bracelet” became a great, but, unfortunately, unrequited love. G. S. Zheltkov is a young man of pleasant appearance, an employee of the control chamber. He is musical, endowed with a sense of beauty, has a subtle feeling and knows how to understand people. Despite his poverty, Zheltkov has a “pedigree”; his sofa is covered with a “worn, beautiful Tekin carpet.”

But its main value is “seven years of hopeless and polite love.” The object of his admiration is eldest daughter the late Prince Mirza-Bulat-Tuganovsky, wife of the leader of the nobility in the city of K., Vera Nikolaevna Sheina. She married a childhood friend for love, and now feels for her husband “a feeling of lasting, faithful, true friendship.” Both Vera Nikolaevna herself and those around her consider her marriage happy. Vera Nikolaevna is endowed with “aristocratic” beauty. She attracts “with her tall flexible figure, gentle but cold and proud face, beautiful, although rather large hands and that charming sloping shoulders that can be seen in ancient miniatures.”

The heroine is a sensitive, subtle person with many talents. But Vera does not respond to Zheltkov’s feelings. She perceives his attention, his letters and the gift of a garnet bracelet as something unnecessary, which also disrupts the usual measured flow of life. The princess is used to taking life seriously. She soberly assesses the family’s financial situation and tries to “help the prince avoid complete ruin,” denying herself a lot and saving in the household. At the Sheins wide circle acquaintances, and reputation is very important for Princess Vera; she is afraid of looking funny or ridiculous. The very same fan "with funny last name She considers Zheltkov “a madman” who “pursues her with his love,” and even once asks him in writing “not to bother her anymore with his love outpourings.” The love of our hero is incomprehensible to the princess and seems burdensome.

For Zheltkov, his whole life lies in Vera Nikolaevna. He is no longer interested in anything: “neither politics, nor science, nor philosophy, nor concern for the future happiness of people.” Zheltkov’s heart is always near his beloved, at her feet, “every moment of the day is filled” with Vera Nikolaevna, thoughts and dreams about her. But Zheltkov’s love is “not a disease, not a manic idea.” He fell in love with Vera “because there is nothing in the world like her, there is nothing better, there is no beast, no plant, no star, no person more beautiful... and more tender.” This great love- a gift from heaven, “tremendous happiness.” This is love, “with which God was pleased to reward me for something,” he writes, experiencing “reverence, eternal admiration” and boundless gratitude for the woman he loves just for the fact that she exists. The princess, without knowing it, painfully wounds Zheltkov, pushes him to commit suicide with the words: “Oh, if you only knew how tired I am of this whole story. Please stop it as soon as possible.” But he asked for such a small thing: “to stay in the city so that he can see her at least occasionally, of course, without showing his face to her.”

For the hero, saying goodbye to Vera Nikolaevna is tantamount to saying goodbye to life. But, knowing full well about the inseparability of his feelings, Zheltkov hopes and is “even sure” that Vera Nikolaevna will someday remember him. And indeed, after Zheltkov’s death, saying goodbye to him, she understands that she has lost something important and very valuable, that “the great love that is repeated only once in a thousand years,” “the love that every woman dreams of, has passed past her." Shocked by this realization, Vera asks the pianist to play something, without doubting that Jenny will play the very passage from the Second Sonata that Zheltkov asked for. And when she listened to “this exceptional, unique work of depth,” “her soul seemed to split in two.” It was filled with music and poetry that ended with words from farewell letter loving person: "Hallowed be Thy name" ...

Musical theme"Appassionata" states high strength love. Music in the story generally plays a very important role; it is no coincidence that the title of Beethoven’s second sonata is included in the epigraph. It serves as the key to understanding the entire work. “Prayer for Love” runs as a leitmotif throughout the entire work and sounds powerfully in its finale. What the lovelorn official of the control chamber could not express in words was “told” by the music of the great composer. As we see, mutual, perfect love did not take place, but this lofty and poetic feeling, albeit concentrated in one soul, opened the way to the beautiful rebirth of another. After all, every woman in the depths of her heart dreams of such love - “united, all-forgiving, ready for anything, modest and selfless.”

Just a few pages, a few lines from a letter, and a person’s life passed before us. Is life real? Is the image of the main character real?

According to the memoirs of L. Arsenyeva, a younger contemporary of the writer, in the late 1920s in Paris, the aging A. Kuprin challenged his interlocutor to a duel, who allowed himself to doubt the plausibility of the plot of the “Garnet Bracelet”. Kuprin rarely resorted to pure fiction in his work. All his works are realistic, based on real events, personal impressions from meetings with people, from conversations. The writer heard the love story that formed the basis of the story in the summer of 1906 while visiting State Council member Dmitry Nikolaevich Lyubimov. The Lyubimovs showed Kuprin family album. There were illustrations for letters that Lyubimov’s wife received from a person signing with the initials P.P.Zh. (he turned out to be a minor postal official Pyotr Petrovich Zheltikov). Kuprin creatively rethought what he heard and, with the power of his talent, turned an ordinary episode into a love story that has been dreamed and yearned for for centuries." the best minds and the souls of humanity - poets, novelists, musicians, artists." Unlike the hero of Kuprin's story, Zheltikov did not shoot himself, but was transferred to the provinces, where he then got married. But he served real prototype to create a hero who won our hearts with the strength and purity of his feelings.

Zheltkov’s image is real. Real because in the world, contrary to the opinion of General Anosov, there is still love, which is not touched by “any of life’s conveniences, calculations and compromises,” and there are men who are capable of “ strong desires, To heroic deeds, to tenderness and adoration." I would like to believe that in modern world perhaps a bright, humane feeling, reckless, “hopeless and polite,” knightly, heroic love; love is strong and pure, the love that God sends to the chosen ones, “like enormous happiness.” The kind of love “for which to accomplish any feat, to give one’s life, to undergo torture is not work at all, but one joy.” But such love cannot and should not end in a fatal outcome. Why die? You need to live knowing that you are just nearby, in the same city, in the same country, on the same planet with the person you love, and this makes life filled with meaning and becomes beautiful.

Despite tragic ending“Kuprin’s story is optimistic, life-affirming, because in “The Garnet Bracelet” the author, probably stronger and more vividly than in other works, glorifies eternal values life, mental strength and purity, nobility and the ability to sacrifice in the name of love. And, of course, love itself is the most sublime and beautiful of all human feelings.

Other works on this work

Introduction
“Garnet Bracelet” is one of the most famous stories Russian prose writer Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin. It was published in 1910, but for the domestic reader it still remains a symbol of unselfish, sincere love, the kind that girls dream about, and the one that we so often miss. We previously published this wonderful work. In this same publication we will tell you about the main characters, analyze the work and talk about its problems.

The events of the story begin to unfold on the birthday of Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina. They celebrate at the dacha with their closest people. At the height of the fun, the hero of the occasion receives a gift - a garnet bracelet. The sender decided to remain unrecognized and signed the short note only with the initials of the HSG. However, everyone immediately guesses that this is Vera’s long-time admirer, a certain petty official who has been inundating her with love letters for many years. The princess's husband and brother quickly figure out the identity of the annoying suitor and the next day they go to his home.

In a wretched apartment they are met by a timid official named Zheltkov, he meekly agrees to take the gift and promises never to appear in front of the respectable family again, provided that he makes a final farewell call to Vera and makes sure that she does not want to know him. Vera Nikolaevna, of course, asks Zheltkov to leave her. The next morning the newspapers will write that a certain official took his own life. In his farewell note, he wrote that he had squandered government property.

Main characters: characteristics of key images

Kuprin is a master of portraiture, and through appearance he draws the character of the characters. The author pays a lot of attention to each character, devoting a good half of the story to portrait characteristics and memories, which also reveal characters. The main characters of the story are:

• – princess, central female image;
• - her husband, the prince, the provincial leader of the nobility;
• - a minor official of the control chamber, passionately in love with Vera Nikolaevna;
• Anna Nikolaevna Friesse– Vera’s younger sister;
• Nikolai Nikolaevich Mirza-Bulat-Tuganovsky– brother of Vera and Anna;
• Yakov Mikhailovich Anosov- general, military comrade of Vera’s father, close friend family.

Vera is the ideal representative high society both in appearance, and in manners, and in character.

“Vera took after her mother, a beautiful Englishwoman, with her tall, flexible figure, gentle but cold and proud face, beautiful, albeit rather large hands and that charming sloping shoulders that can be seen in ancient miniatures.”

Princess Vera was married to Vasily Nikolaevich Shein. Their love had long ceased to be passionate and moved into that calm stage of mutual respect and tender friendship. Their union was happy. The couple did not have children, although Vera Nikolaevna passionately wanted a baby, and therefore gave all her unspent feelings to her children younger sister.

Vera was royally calm, coldly kind to everyone, but at the same time very funny, open and sincere with close people. She was not characterized by such feminine tricks as affectation and coquetry. Despite his high status Vera was very prudent, and knowing how unsuccessfully things were going for her husband, she sometimes tried to deprive herself so as not to put him in an uncomfortable position.

Vera Nikolaevna’s husband is a talented, pleasant, gallant, noble person. He has an amazing sense of humor and is a brilliant storyteller. Shein keeps a home journal in which she records true stories with pictures about the life of the family and its relatives.

Vasily Lvovich loves his wife, perhaps not as passionately as in the first years of marriage, but who knows how long passion actually lasts? The husband deeply respects her opinion, feelings, and personality. He is compassionate and merciful to others, even those who are much lower in status than him (this is evidenced by his meeting with Zheltkov). Shein is noble and endowed with the courage to admit mistakes and his own wrongness.

We first meet Official Zheltkov towards the end of the story. Until this moment, he is present in the work invisibly in the grotesque image of a klutz, an eccentric, a fool in love. When the long-awaited meeting finally takes place, we see before us a meek and shy person, such people are usually not noticed and called “little”:

“He was tall, thin, with long, fluffy, soft hair.”

His speeches, however, are devoid of the chaotic whims of a madman. He is fully aware of his words and actions. Despite his apparent cowardice, this man is very courageous; he boldly tells the prince, Vera Nikolaevna’s legal husband, that he is in love with her and cannot do anything about it. Zheltkov does not fawn over the rank and position in society of his guests. He submits, but not to fate, but only to his beloved. And he also knows how to love – selflessly and sincerely.

“It so happened that I am not interested in anything in life: neither politics, nor science, nor philosophy, nor concern for the future happiness of people - for me life lies only in you. I now feel that I have crashed into your life like some kind of uncomfortable wedge. If you can, forgive me for this"

Analysis of the work

Kuprin got the idea for his story from real life. In reality, the story was more anecdotal in nature. A certain poor telegraph operator named Zheltikov was in love with the wife of one of Russian generals. One day this eccentric was so brave that he sent his beloved a simple gold chain with a pendant in the form easter egg. It's hilarious and that's it! Everyone laughed at the stupid telegraph operator, but the inquisitive writer’s mind decided to look beyond the anecdote, because behind the apparent curiosity there can always be a real drama hidden.

Also in “The Pomegranate Bracelet,” the Sheins and their guests first make fun of Zheltkov. Vasily Lvovich even has a funny story about this in his home magazine called “Princess Vera and the telegraph operator in love.” People tend not to think about other people's feelings. The Sheins were not bad, callous, soulless (this is proven by the metamorphosis in them after meeting Zheltkov), they simply did not believe that the love in which the official admitted could exist..

There are many symbolic elements in the work. For example, a garnet bracelet. Garnet is a stone of love, anger and blood. If a feverish person picks it up (a parallel with the expression “love fever”), the stone will take on a more saturated hue. According to Zheltkov himself, this special kind pomegranate (green pomegranate) gives women the gift of foresight, and protects men from violent death. Zheltkov, having parted with his amulet bracelet, dies, and Vera unexpectedly predicts his death.

Another symbolic stone - pearls - also appears in the work. Vera receives pearl earrings as a gift from her husband on the morning of her name day. Pearls, despite their beauty and nobility, are an omen of bad news.
The weather also tried to predict something bad. The day before fateful day A terrible storm broke out, but on my birthday everything calmed down, the sun came out and the weather was calm, like a calm before a deafening clap of thunder and an even stronger storm.

Problems of the story

The key problem of the work is the question “What is true love? In order for the “experiment” to be pure, the author provides different types“love.” This is the tender love-friendship of the Sheins, and the calculating, convenient love of Anna Friesse for her indecently rich old man-husband, who blindly adores her soul mate, and the long-forgotten ancient love of General Amosov, and the all-consuming love-worship of Zheltkov for Vera.

The main character herself cannot understand for a long time whether it is love or madness, but looking into his face, albeit hidden by the mask of death, she is convinced that it was love. Vasily Lvovich draws the same conclusions after meeting his wife’s admirer. And if at first he was somewhat belligerent, then later he could not be angry with the unfortunate man, because, it seems, a secret was revealed to him that neither he, nor Vera, nor their friends could comprehend.

People are selfish by nature and even in love, they first of all think about their feelings, masking their own egocentrism from their other half and even themselves. True love, which occurs between a man and a woman once every hundred years, puts the beloved in first place. So Zheltkov calmly lets Vera go, because that’s the only way she will be happy. The only problem is that he doesn’t need life without her. In his world, suicide is a completely natural step.

“Garnet Bracelet”, a petty official who is unrequitedly in love with the princess. He pursues the object of his passion with letters, and at the end of the story he commits suicide.

History of creation

Alexander Kuprin worked on the “Garnet Bracelet” in Odessa in the fall of 1910. The work was originally conceived as a story, but grew into a story. The work dragged on, and at the beginning of December, judging by Kuprin’s letters, the story was not yet finished.

The plot was based on true story which happened to the wife of State Council member D.N. Lyubimova. The prototype of Zheltkov was a certain petty telegraph official Zheltikov, who was unrequitedly in love with this lady.

"Garnet Bracelet"

Zheltkov is a minor official of the control chamber, 30-35 years old. A tall and thin man with soft and long hair. Zheltkov’s appearance reveals a subtle mental organization - pale skin, a gentle “girlish” face, a childish chin with a dimple, blue eyes and nervous thin fingers. The hero's hands constantly betray him nervous condition- trembling, fiddling with buttons, “running” across the face and clothes.

The hero earns little and considers himself a person devoid of subtle taste, therefore he has neither the opportunity nor the right to present expensive gifts to the object of his unrequited passion - the princess. The hero saw a lady in a circus box and immediately fell in love with her. Eight years have passed since then, and all this time the lover Zheltkov has been writing letters to Vera. At first, the hero was still waiting for reciprocity and thought that the young lady from the box would answer his letters, but Vera never paid attention to the unlucky admirer.

Over time, Zheltkov ceases to hope for reciprocity, but continues to write to Vera from time to time and secretly monitor her life. In his letters, Zheltkov describes exactly where and with whom he saw Vera, even what dress she was wearing. Apart from the object of his passion, the hero is not interested in anything - neither science, nor politics, nor the lives of his own and other people.

The hero keeps Vera's things. A handkerchief that the lady forgot at the ball, and the hero appropriated. The exhibition program that Vera left on the chair, and so on. Even a note written by Vera, in which she forbade the hero to write to her, became a relic for Zheltkov. Zheltkov sees the only meaning in Vera own life, however, despite all this, he does not consider himself a maniac, but only a lover.

One day Zheltkov sends the princess a gift for her name day - a family garnet bracelet that belonged to the hero’s great-grandmother, and then to his late mother. The princess's brother, Nikolai, loses his temper over this gift and decides to intervene in order to stop Zheltkov's "harassment" once and for all.

Nikolai finds where the hero lives and demands that he stop pursuing his sister, and otherwise threatens to take action. Vera herself also treats Zheltkov unfriendly and asks him to leave her alone. That same evening the hero dies by committing suicide, but in suicide note doesn't blame Vera for own death, but still writes about his love for that one. Only at parting did Vera realize that she strong love, which every woman dreams of, was so close, but she abandoned it.

Zheltkov had a soft and tactful character. The landlady called the hero a “wonderful man” and treated him like her own son. Zheltkov is sincere and incapable of lying, he is decent. The hero has a weak voice and calligraphic handwriting. The man loves music, especially. The hero has one brother among his relatives.

The hero rented a room in a multi-story building on Lutheran Street. This is a poor house, where the stairwells are dark and smell of kerosene, mice and laundry. Zheltkov’s room is poorly lit, has a low ceiling, and is poorly furnished. The hero has only a narrow bed, a shabby sofa and a table.

Zheltkov is a contradictory character who showed cowardice in love, but considerable courage when deciding to shoot himself.

Film adaptations

In 1964, a film adaptation of “The Pomegranate Bracelet” was released, directed by Abram Room. The image of Zheltkov in this film was embodied by actor Igor Ozerov. Mr. Zheltkov, whose exact name is not indicated in the story, is called Georgiy Stepanovich in the film. In the story, the hero signs with the initials G.S.Zh., and the landlady from whom Zheltkov rented a house called the hero “Pan Ezhiy,” which corresponds to the Polish version of the name “George.” However, it is impossible to say for sure what the hero’s name was.

The film also starred actors Yuri Averin (in the role of Gustav Ivanovich von Friesse) and in the role of Prince Shein, husband main character Vera Sheina, whose role was played by the actress.

Quotes

“It so happened that I am not interested in anything in life: neither politics, nor science, nor philosophy, nor concern for the future happiness of people - for me, my whole life lies only in you.”

“Think about what I should have done? Run away to another city? All the same, my heart was always near you, at your feet, every moment of the day was filled with you, with thoughts about you, dreams about you...”

“I checked myself - this is not a disease, not a manic idea - this is love.”

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

The history of the novel

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

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

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

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

Analysis of the work

Description of the work

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

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

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

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

Main characters

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

Official Georgy Zheltkov

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

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

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

Nikolai Nikolaevich Mirza-Bulat-Tuganovsky

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

General Anosov

Old military general ex-friend late father of Vera, Anna and Nikolai. Participant Russian-Turkish war, was wounded. Has no family or children, but is close to Vera and Anna biological father. He is even called “grandfather” in the Sheins’ house.

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

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