Leo Tolstoy: “Eating too much is a shame.” Leo Tolstoy - so what should we do?

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy
WHY DO PEOPLE GET STUPID?

What is the use of intoxicating substances - vodka, wine, beer, hashish, opium, tobacco, and other less common ones: ether, morphine, fly agaric? Why did it begin and spread so quickly and is spreading among all kinds of people, wild and civilized alike?..

What is the use of intoxicating substances - vodka, wine, beer, hashish, opium, tobacco, and other less common ones: ether, morphine, fly agaric? Why did it begin and spread so quickly and is spreading among all kinds of people, wild and civilized alike? What does it mean that everywhere, wherever there is vodka, wine, beer, there is opium or hashish, fly agaric and others, and tobacco everywhere?
Why do people need to get drugged?
Ask a person why he started drinking wine and why he drinks it. He will answer you: “It’s nice, everyone drinks,” and will also add: “For fun.” Some, those who have never taken the trouble to think about whether it is good or bad that they drink wine, will add that wine is healthy and gives strength, that is, they will say something that has long been proven to be unfair. .
Ask a smoker why he started smoking tobacco and smokes now, and he will answer the same: “so, out of boredom, everyone smokes.”
Consumers of opium, hashish, morphine, and fly agaric will probably respond the same way.
“So, out of boredom, for fun, everyone does this.” But it’s good, out of boredom, for fun, because everyone does it, to twirl their fingers, whistle, sing songs, play the pipe, etc., that is, to do something that does not require the destruction of natural resources, nor the expenditure of large labor forces, to do something that does not bring obvious harm to oneself or others.But for the production of tobacco, wine, hashish, opium, often among of the population in need of land, millions and millions of the best lands are occupied with crops of rye, potatoes, hemp, poppy, vines, tobacco, and millions of workers - in England 1/8 of the total population - are occupied their whole lives in the production of these intoxicating substances. substances are obviously harmful, produces terrible, well-known and universally recognized disasters, from which more people die than from all wars and infectious diseases combined. And people know this; so it cannot be that it was done like that, out of boredom, for fun , just because everyone is doing it.
There must be something else here. Constantly and everywhere you meet people who love their children, who are ready to make all kinds of sacrifices for their good and at the same time living on vodka, wine, beer or smoking on opium or hashish and even tobacco, which would either completely feed the poor and starving children , or at least would relieve them of hardship. It is obvious that if a person, forced to choose between the deprivation and suffering of his family, whom he loves, and abstinence from intoxicating substances, nevertheless chooses the first, then something more important prompts him to do this than the fact that everything they do it and that it feels good. It is obvious that this is not done out of boredom, for fun, but that there is some more important reason here.
This reason, as far as I was able to understand it from reading about this subject and observing other people and especially myself when I drank wine and smoked tobacco, this reason, according to my observations, is the following.
During the period of conscious life, a person can often notice two separate beings in himself; one is blind, sensual, and the other is sighted, spiritual. A blind animal creature eats, drinks, rests, sleeps, reproduces and moves like a running car; a seeing spiritual being associated with an animal does nothing itself, but only evaluates the activity of an animal being by agreeing with it when it approves of this activity, and diverging from it when it does not approve of it.
This sighted being can be compared to the arrow of a compass, pointing with one end to Nord, the other to the opposite - Sud and covered in its extension by a plate, invisible until what carries the arrow moves in its direction, and protrudes and becomes visible as soon as what the arrow carries deviates from the direction it indicates.
In the same way, a sighted spiritual being, the manifestation of which we colloquially call conscience, always points with one end to good, the other - the opposite - to evil and is not visible to us until we deviate from the direction it gives, that is, from evil to good. But it's worth doing something disgusting direction of conscience, and the consciousness of the spiritual being appears, indicating the deviation of animal activity from the direction indicated by conscience. And just as a sailor could not continue to work with oars, a machine or a sail, knowing that he was not going where he wanted, until he gave his movement the direction corresponding to the compass needle, or hid it from himself deviation, just like every person, having felt a split in his conscience with animal activity, cannot continue this activity until he either brings it into agreement with his conscience, or hides from himself the instructions of his conscience about the wrongness of animal life.
The whole of human life, one might say, consists only of these two activities: 1) bringing one’s activities into agreement with one’s conscience and 2) hiding from oneself the instructions of one’s conscience in order to be able to continue life.
Some do the first, others do the second. To achieve the first, there is only one way: moral enlightenment - increasing the light in oneself and paying attention to what it illuminates; for the second - to hide the instructions of conscience from oneself - there are two ways: external and internal. The external method consists of activities that distract attention from the instructions of conscience; internal - consists in darkening the conscience itself.
Just as a person can hide an object in front of him from his vision in two ways: by externally diverting his vision to other, more striking objects, and by clogging his eyes, so exactly can a person hide the indications of his conscience from himself in two ways; external - distracting everyone's attention occupation, worries, fun, games, and internal - clogging the very organ of attention. For people with a dull, limited moral sense, external distractions are often quite enough to not see the indications of conscience about the wrongness of life. But for morally sensitive people these means are often not enough.
External methods do not completely distract attention from the awareness of the discord between life and the demands of conscience; this consciousness interferes with living; and people, in order to be able to live, resort to the undoubted internal way darkening of the conscience itself, consisting of poisoning of the brain with intoxicating substances.
Life is not what it should be according to the requirements of conscience. There is no strength to turn life around in accordance with these requirements. The entertainment that would be derived from the consciousness of this discord is not sufficient or they become boring, and in order to be able to continue living, despite the instructions of conscience about the wrongness of life, people poison that organ, temporarily stopping its activity , through which the instructions of conscience are manifested, just as a person who deliberately clogged his eye would hide from himself what he would like to see.

The meal does not depend on the amount of money, but on the way of thinking and on our attitude to life. IN Yasnaya Polyana this process had its own unique gastronomic surroundings, the quintessence of which was the Ankova pie. The persistent everyday life was manifested here in such little things as table aromas, the smell of coffee, tea drinking under linden trees among flower beds, hearty dinners that began at the signal of a bell. The winged wit of Emile Zola “a man is what he eats” was supplemented here with another component - How he eats.

Not only the author of Gargantua and Pantagruel, but also the creator of Ulysses showed interest in the digestive processes. Leo Tolstoy did not stand aside. He contributed to the understanding of the burning topic related to the gastronomic preferences of his heroes. So, for example, Pierre Bezukhov loved to have a good dinner and a good drink, although he considered it immoral and humiliating, he could not refrain from bachelor amusements, in which he certainly participated. Tolstoy built his literary image not without the help of the gastronomic concept, which changed more than once throughout his long life. He paid due attention to issues related to the functioning of the intestines, having gone a long way from a gourmet to an ascetic vegetarian. During his life he visited

the role of a servant of the stomach, and an incredible gourmet, glutton, fan of simple healthy food. We are interested in everything about the fate of the classic, including whether he loved to “eat” like Turgenev, could he eat up to 30 pancakes in one sitting, like Pushkin, did he receive guests in a dressing gown and nightcap like Tyutchev?

Lev Nikolaevich's grandfather, I. A. Tolstoy, always had exclusively French wines and Bohemian crystal. He was extremely hospitable, very cheerful and generous. The whole district came to visit him, and he “fed and soldered” everyone, thus squandering the enormous fortune of his wife, a great lover of giving balls. He represented classic sample old nobility. The brilliant grandson could not help but describe his colorful ancestor on the pages of War and Peace. Count I.A. Tolstoy was the foreman on duty at the Moscow English Club. He had the opportunity to act as a “priest of the feast” and guardian of the dinner ritual, demonstrating his skills during a club gala dinner in honor of Bagration, who won the Battle of Shengraben. “The table was set for 300, that is, for all club members and 50 guests. The decoration was magnificent; there was nothing to say about the provisions. Everything that could be found, the best and rarest of meats, fish, herbs, wines and fruits, was all found and bought at a high price. Much was delivered free of charge by wealthy owners of greenhouses near Moscow. Everyone vying with each other tried to show their zeal and participation in the treat in some way,” S.P. Zhikharev reported about this significant event in the Russian Archive. In the novel “War and Peace” Tolstoy described the famous dinner given in honor of Bagration, following Zhikharev’s story in everything, adding artistic details - the participation of I. A. Rostov in this solemn event: “In all the rooms of the English Club there was a groan of talking voices... and, like bees on their spring migration, they scurried back and forth,” “300 people were seated in the dining room according to rank and importance;

Polina sterlet, they began to pour champagne. After the fish - toast..."

In everyday life, the surroundings were much more modest, but the dinners were just as “deadly filling.” Depending on whether the meal was fast or fast, invited or ordinary. The dishes of each new “change” - cold, hot, sweet - were prepared by a special cook. The table was set by waiters, of whom there were approximately the same number as those sitting at the table. Dishes were served during “recesses” from the “white kitchen” to the dining room. The standard set is four courses of three dishes each. Lunch lasted about two hours. We always had a real dinner at a party. It happened that there was a meal without silver, precious porcelain and crystal, but certainly in the presence of an exquisitely clean tablecloth and perfectly starched napkins

As culinary connoisseurs said, everyone eats, but only a select few dine. The art of dining involves the triad of where and how to dine, with whom to dine and, finally, what to eat. These components affect the quality of life. But not only. As the poet argued, inspiration depends on nutritious and regular food.

To the question of where to sit and how to dine, Leo Tolstoy answered, describing the countess’s name day in “War and Peace”: “He (Count Rostov - Ya. Ya.) walked through the flower and waiter's room into the large marble hall, where they were serving a table for eighty kuverts (cutlery. - //. I), and, looking at the waiters wearing silver and porcelain, arranging tables and unrolling damask tablecloths, he called Dmitry Vasilyevich, the nobleman who was in charge of all his affairs, and said: “ Well, well, Mitenka, make sure everything is fine." Looking around the huge spread table with pleasure, he added: “The main thing is the setting. That's it..." Soon the sounds of home music were replaced by the sounds of knives and forks, the conversation of guests, the quiet steps of waiters...". At one end of the table the countess sat at the head; at the other end are the count and male guests; on one side of the long table are older youth; on the other - children, tutors and governesses. The owner of the table looked out from behind the crystal, bottles and vases of fruit, pouring

guilt to your neighbors. The Countess looked at the guests from behind the pineapples, not forgetting about the duties of the hostess. On the ladies' end a steady babble was heard, and on the men's end the voices grew louder and louder. Soups were served, one a la tortue(tortoiseshell - N.N.), kulebyaki, hazel grouse. The wine was poured by the butler, holding a bottle wrapped in a napkin. The wines served were: Dray Madeira, Hungarian and Rhine wine. Each device had four crystal glasses with a count's monogram.

During the time of I.A. Tolstoy and his literary double the dishes were simple: cabbage soup, okroshka, corned beef, porridge, which were served in large quantities. Lunches and dinners were prepared fresh each time and were very satisfying. All dishes were placed on the table at the same time. Up to eight dishes were prepared for dinner parties. IN summer time A servant with a broom was assigned to such meals to ward off evil flies from those present. All kinds of snacks and snacks were accompanied by a glass of drink. The Russian table was mainly preserved during Lent, since in the 70s of the 18th century the “European” style of dinner came into fashion, when dishes were placed on a separate table, and footmen carried them around the table, putting food directly on the plates. Lunches "on a quick fix"were prepared from chickens and eggs, which were in abundance on the estate. A completely different matter is fish dishes, which were considered expensive. Valuable fish had to be bought. Everything else - meat, vegetables, fruits, including exotic ones - was our own. Tolstoy brilliantly described “sensual”, delicious dinners in his novels, fully demonstrating his perfection as a “secret seer of the flesh.”

The cult of food was familiar to him since childhood. Cook Nikolai Mikhailovich Rumyantsev prepared “excellent dinners,” which greatly contributed to little Leva growing up healthy. He remembered the skill of the pastry chef Maxim Ivanovich, delicious dinners of five or six courses, desserts, preserves, left-handed cookies, pies, named after the cook “with the sighs of Nikolai.” The only food he didn't recognize was broth. To buy seasonings, vegetable oil and coffee in Yasnaya Polyana,

It was from 100 to 125 rubles per month. Everything else - poultry, meat, milk and fish - was ours.

As a young man, Tolstoy became acquainted with Caucasian cuisine. In Tiflis, he visited dukhans, small restaurants in which they hung lamb, fresh, fatty, very attractive, and bunches of grapes. Since then, he fell in love with grapes and once confessed to S. Vengerov: “I love grapes, in the summer I want to eat half a pound of them, but I can’t: my conscience will hurt.” But there was a time, which his sister’s friend E.I. Sytina told about, when his conscience had not yet “gone in”: “He once sent to buy a pound large grapes, which then cost fifty dollars, Lev Nikolaevich at that time loved to feast on it, like all non-smokers. Maria Nikolaevna (the writer’s sister - N.N.) and I were hanging around right there. When the bellhop brought the grapes, Lev Nikolaevich took it in his hands and, after thinking a little, remarked embarrassedly and jokingly:

You know, mesdames, if this pound is divided into three parts, then no one will have any pleasure, I’d rather eat it all.

We, of course, reluctantly agreed and gave Lev Nikolaevich the Lion’s share in its entirety. He ate and we< мотрели. Однако же ему становилось совестно, и он, держа виноград, прерывал еду словами:

But still, mesdames, wouldn’t you like it?!

We generously refused every time.”

The writer also had other passions that helped awaken his imagination, such as coffee, tea, chocolate, and Einem candies. He had a sweet tooth, he put a large bonbonniere in front of him, selected his favorite filled chocolates from it, and did not chew them, but sucked them slowly to prolong the pleasure.

Coffee, “the wonderful gift of happy Arabia,” constantly caressed his taste. He got up early and greeted the day with a cup of coffee, which was served to him on a tray in a small cup. Holding her handle with two fingers, his thumb and forefinger, he slowly drank the coffee in small sips, each sip accompanied by a long half-sigh: phew! Having finished his coffee, he looked into the cup as usual, clearly regretting that

shaya with the hero " A sentimental journey"meat dish with seasonings, developed a sacred attitude towards food that reconciled the soul with the body. He understood the intricacies of an elegant feast, which did not involve noise and an abundance of servants. The beauty of dinners lay in something completely different - in the decoration of the space, the location of the feast and the luxury of communication. This was the main tuning fork of the dinner.

In Paris he “dined with Philippe”, in “ Restaurant Philippe", considered one of the best restaurants. I often visited Club des Grands estomacs(Big Stomachs Club - Ya Ya), where connoisseurs of good cuisine gathered; visited the restaurant more than once "Les Plaisires de Paris" famous for its fish dishes (regulars of this restaurant refer to its remark “lovely weirdos”), I couldn’t pass by "Freres Provensaux"("Provençal brothers." - Ya. Ya), an old restaurant in the Palais Royal, which was very popular. Tolstoy also visited Cafd-des-Aveugles"("Cafe of the Blind." - Ya. Ya), located under the arch of the Palais Royal and named after the orchestra of blind musicians who played there. The public was attracted here by the famous ventriloquist ( ventrioque) - gigantic drummer

In St. Petersburg, Tolstoy visited the Passage confectionery, the Saint-Georges and Clay restaurants, and dined at Chevalier’s, where, according to his own recollections, he “drank well.” He took part in artistic lunches and dinners, attended Nekrasov’s famous, so-called “general” dinners, Turgenev’s modest feasts, as well as social events organized by the editors of Sovremennik.

At the age of 25, Tolstoy developed “Rules” for himself, one of which was to “be self-controlled in food and drink.” However, two years later he admitted that he overeats. Those close to him more than once noticed his great appetite, which did not leave him even in old age. Watching him during lunch, Alexandra Andreevna Tolstaya “always found that he eats like a hungry man, too quickly and too greedily.” Once during Lent, when adults were served exclusively Lenten dishes, and meat for children, Leo

Nikolaevich turned to his son Ilya with a request to “serve cutlets.” Sofya Andreevna, having heard this, said that he probably forgot that “today is fasting.” And in response I heard: No, I haven’t forgotten, I won’t fast anymore and don’t order fasting food for me anymore.” To the horror of those around him, Lev Nikolaevich began to feast on cutlets and praise them. Subsequently, the father's behavior led to "religious indifference" among the children. Only at the end of his life did he come to the conclusion that one cannot “make pleasure” out of food. “If people ate only when they were very hungry, and ate simple, pure and healthy food, then they would not know disease.”

Usually, when sitting down at the dinner table, Tolstoy raised his large beard with his left hand, and with his right hand he tucked the end of a snow-white napkin into the collar of his blouse. He carefully straightened the rest of it on his chest. All this was done with graceful, refined and familiar movements. Having finished the meal, he hastily pulled out the end of the napkin from under the collar of his blouse, crumpled it up, put it on the table, placed his fingers in a graceful semicircle on the table and, leaning on them, easily, as if on springs, rose and pushed back the chair. Tolstoy knew the cultural semantics of a meal thoroughly, demonstrating it brilliantly not only in everyday life, but also in his novels.

The writer, who loved to eat well, of which there is a lot of evidence, and who attached such great importance to food culture, could easily abstract from conventions. The bachelor life of an officer accustomed Tolstoy to a Spartan lifestyle. For all the Tolstoy brothers, this desire “read” something of the family. This is how their friend, poet Afanasy Fet, talked about it. He recalled his trip to Nikolskoye on Trinity Day to visit the dear Tolstoy brothers, who arranged a meal in his honor: “Driving past a small, obviously kitchen window, I spotted a scalded and plucked chicken, convulsively pressing her own navel and liver with her wings... The servant led her out of the entryway into a rather spacious two-light room. All around along the walls were chintz and Turkish sofas mixed with a hundred

rinse chairs and armchairs. In front of the sofa, to the right of the entrance, there was a table, and above the sofa protruded deer and elk antlers, with oriental, Circassian guns hanging on them. This weapon not only caught the eyes of the guests, but also reminded those sitting on the sofa and who had forgotten about their existence with unexpected blows to the back of the head. In the front corner there was a huge image of the Savior in a silver robe... It was clear that Nikolai Nikolaevich, who lived in Moscow, now with two brothers and his beloved sister, now with us or on a hunt, did not look at the Nikolsky wing as a permanent, settled home, requiring a certain amount of support, but as a temporary camping apartment, in which they use what they can without sacrificing anything for improvement. Even the flies testified to this temporary revival of the secluded Nikolsky wing.

As long as no one entered the large room, they were almost invisible there, but with human movement, a huge swarm of flies, silently sitting on the walls and deer antlers, little by little took off and filled the room in incredible numbers. Lev Nikolayevich, with his characteristic vigilance and imagery, said about this: “When my brother is not at home, nothing edible is brought into the outbuilding, and flies, submissive to fate, silently settle on the walls, but as soon as he returns, the most energetic ones begin to little by little start talking to their neighbors: “there he is, there he comes; Now he’ll go to the closet and drink vodka; Now they will bring some bread and snacks. Well, yes, good, good; get up more friendly." And the room is filled with flies... “After all, they’re so vile,” says the brother, “I didn’t have time to pour a glass, but two have already tumbled in” “...

At about five o'clock in the evening, the servant set the table in front of the sofa for three cutlery, placing at each plate an antique silver spoon with an iron fork and a knife with wooden handles. When the lid was removed from the soup cup, when pouring the soup, we immediately recognized the familiar chicken cut into pieces. For the soup came the life-saving dish on landowners' farms, over which the late Pikulin had so much scorn.

dish: spinach with eggs and croutons. Then three small chickens and a salad bowl with young lettuce appeared on the platter.

Why didn’t you serve either mustard or vinegar? - asked Nikolai Nikolaevich.

And the servant immediately corrected his negligence by placing on the table mustard in a lipstick jar and vinegar in a bottle from Musatov’s cologne.

While the zealous owner was stirring the salad dressing he had made on a separate plate with an iron blade of a knife, the vinegar, oxidizing the iron, managed to greatly darken the sauce; but then, when the owner began to stir the salad with the same knife and fork, the latter came out completely “under the mob.” In this unpretentious, camp spirit, a festive dinner performed by Nikolai Tolstoy was organized.”

After his marriage, a lot changed in Leo Tolstoy’s daily life. In Yasnaya Polyana they sat down at the table at the same time: at nine in the morning they drank coffee or tea, at one in the afternoon they had breakfast, at four they drank coffee, at six they had lunch, and at eight in the evening they had dinner, after which they drank tea again. At eleven everyone went to bed.

What did the inhabitants of Yasnaya Polyana eat, besides the vegetables grown here? After all, not all of them were vegetarians, like Tolstoy and his daughters. In six months they ate about ten pounds of butter, six and a half pounds of cream, three pounds of sour cream, two and a half pounds of cottage cheese, and about ten pounds of milk. And this, as the writer’s wife noted in her reports, was intended exclusively for the “Count’s House”. There was another additional list, entitled “For the Servants,” which listed: 51 pounds of milk, 29 pounds of butter, 12 pounds of cream and 24 pounds of cottage cheese. Over six months in Yasnaya Polyana they ate about 450 chicken eggs.

The consumption of such a quantity of products was possible thanks to a well-developed subsistence economy, in which there were 18 cows, 12 calves, 3 bulls and 7 cows, 21 rams, 38 horses, 18 old and 15 young chickens, 18 turkeys, 5 drakes and 16 ducks, 17 pigs. Impressive farm, isn't it? Especially if

Take into account that by this time the family had broken up, many children lived separately on their estates.

The jam in Yasnaya Polyana was made according to the recipe of the Moscow doctor Anke, whose secret was to add as little water as possible. They drank tea from the Batashov samovar. Jam was served for every taste: from pineapple strawberries and Spanish strawberries, from red and green gooseberries, from pears, melons, lingonberries, china, cherries, plums and currants. In gooseberry jam, as in apple jam, either vanilla or lemon were certainly added. Jelly was also prepared for future use, mainly from red currants and bitter rowan. Beginning in June, intensive preparation of jam for the winter began. The reserves were considerable: from 46 to 50 cans. They didn’t have time to eat the jam in one winter, and it was stored until the next year.

The huge farm required seeds for planting garden crops, and Sofya Andreevna regularly sent applications for them to Myasnitskaya in Moscow. She purchased seeds of cucumbers, radishes, beets, cabbage, carrots, lettuce, radishes, spinach, parsnips, savory, parsley, celery, leeks, beans, watermelon, and melons for the amount of 16 rubles 27 kopecks. Flower seeds were ordered for a large amount - 28 rubles 55 kopecks. These include asters, balsam, immortelle, verbena, violas, carnations, petunias, gillyflowers, nasturtiums, sweet peas, primrose, phlox and much more.

When the family gathered for tea around a multi-layer Ankovsky pie made from crumbly shortcrust pastry, the cake layers of which were soaked in lemon filling, it seemed that happiness reigned in the house.

We offer fans of culinary art a recipe for Anke pie, which was baked in Yasnaya Polyana for the holiday:

1 pound of flour (pound - 453 g), "/g pound of butter, "/4 pounds of crushed sugar, 3 yolks, 1 glass of water. The oil should be colder straight from the cellar.

Sour cream pie (Anke) was also popular:

10 eggs, 20 tablespoons of sour cream, a cup of sugar,

2 tablespoons of coarse flour. Line the bottom of the salad bowl with jam, pour this mixture into it and place in the oven.

This Ankovsky pie, which became a symbol of the prosperity and stability of the Tolstoy family, was wonderfully prepared by chef Nikolai, who came from the Bersov family and took deep roots in Yasnaya Polyana. Tutors, lessons, infants who were fed by Sofya Andreevna, family foundations - all this was part of his circle of concerns. For his good service, he was allowed to “eat delicious food and sleep on an expensive mattress.”

Leo Tolstoy, like Pushkin, who ate “30 pieces of pancakes” at a time, washing them down with a sip of water, without experiencing “the slightest heaviness in the stomach,” could eat a huge number of pancakes. Only in his old age did the writer come to the idea that it was necessary to “eat slowly, chew well and take your time,” unlike, for example, the way little Seryozha eats. “Why are you eating so fast? - the mother once asked the child. “If I ate slowly, I wouldn’t get pancakes, others would eat them.” Tolstoy as well as great poet, loved baked potatoes. It was interesting to watch him eat it. First, I poured a small pile of salt on a plate and placed a piece of salt next to it. butter, then took a large potato with a golden brown crust from a bowl covered with a white napkin and cut it in half. To avoid burning his fingers, he placed one half of it on the corner of the napkin that hugged his chest, and kept it in front of him in his left hand all the time. In his right hand he held a teaspoon, with which he broke off a piece of butter on a plate and touched the salt with it. After this, he took a piece of potato out of the skin with a spoon, blew on it to cool it, and then ate it. So, with great pleasure he ate three potatoes.

Leo Tolstoy, without error, recognized a person’s character and way of thinking by his culinary preferences. In his works, the writer paid great attention not only to the food itself, but also to the environment in which the dinner takes place, and especially to communication during the meal, and to the semantics of the behavior of those sitting at the table. The meal has its own language, which I was trying to decipher

Tolstoy, describing the dinners of Stiva Oblonsky and Konstantin Levin in the novel Anna Karenina:

“- To “England” or to “Hermitage”?

I don't care.

Well, to “England,” said Stepan Arkadyevich, choosing “England” because there, in “England,” he was more indebted than in the “Hermitage.” That’s why he considered it bad to avoid this hotel.”

On the way to the restaurant, each of Tolstoy’s heroes thinks about his own: “Levin thought about what this change in expression on Kitty’s face meant, and then assured himself that there was hope, then fell into despair -

Stepan Arkadyevich was composing the menu on the way.”

For one, dinner with its materiality is something vulgar, while for another it is poetic and ritual.

“When Levin entered the hotel with Oblonsky, he could not help but notice a certain peculiarity of expression, a kind of restrained radiance on the face and in the whole figure of Stepan Arkadyevich...

Here, your Excellency... - said a particularly clingy old whitish Tatar with a wide pelvis and a tailcoat that flared over it. “Please give me your hat, your Excellency,” he said to Levin, as a sign of respect for Stepan Arkadyevich, while also courting his guest.

So, shouldn't we start with oysters and then change the whole plan? A?

I don't care. The best thing for me is cabbage soup and porridge; but that’s not the case here.

Porridge, a la russe, would you like? - said the Tatar, like a nanny over a child, bending over Levin.

No, no joke; whatever you choose is good. I went skating and I’m hungry. And don’t think,” he added, noticing a dissatisfied expression on Oblonsky’s face, “that I don’t appreciate your choice.” I'll be happy to eat well.

Still would! Whatever you say, this is one of the pleasures of life,” said Stepan Arkadyevich. - Well, then, my brother, give us two oysters, or a few - three dozen, soup with roots...

"Prentanier," the Tatar picked up. But Stepan Arkadyevich, apparently, did not want to give him the pleasure of calling the food in French.

With roots, you know? Then turbot with a thick sauce, then... roast beef; Yes, make sure it’s good. Yes, capons, or something, and canned food.

The Tatar, remembering Stepan Arkadyevich’s manner of not naming dishes according to the French map, did not repeat after him, but gave himself the pleasure of repeating the entire order according to the map: “Soup prentanière, turbot saus Beaumarchais, poulard à lestragon, macédoine de fruy...”

Would you like some of your cheese?

Well, yes, Parmesan. Or do you love someone else?

“No, I don’t care,” Levin said, unable to hold back his smile.”

It is curious that Levin and Oblonsky speak as if in different languages, however, this does not prevent them from understanding each other.

Tolstoy was well versed in all the intricacies of “artistic” dinners, for which a special “program” was prepared, providing for the composition, symmetry, and “pointe” of this event. Stiva Oblonsky, as the reader has just seen, “loved to have lunch.” But he loved even more to give a dinner that was refined in its quality. This concerned not only food and drinks, but also the choice of invited persons. The lunch program this time included live fish, asparagus, wonderful roast beef and fine wines. Inviting noble people to dinner was a kind of ritual.

In his novel “Resurrection,” Tolstoy described an English-style dinner that had become fashionable among the nobility, when all the dishes were placed on the table without following any sequence. For the final part of the feast, “delicacies” were served. No one cut the dishes. Lunch at the Charskys on the pages of Tolstoy's novel took place in the context of new traditions.

We dined at Countess Ekaterina Ivanovna's at half past seven, and dinner was served in a new way, still unknown to Nekhlyudov. The dishes were placed on the table, and the footmen immediately left, so that the diners themselves

they took the dishes they liked. The men did not allow the ladies to bother themselves with unnecessary movements and, like the stronger sex, courageously bore the brunt of serving the ladies and themselves food and pouring drinks. When one dish was eaten, the countess pressed the electric bell button in the table, and the footmen silently entered, quickly cleaned up, changed the cutlery and brought the next change. The dinner was exquisite, and so were the wines. A French chef and two assistants worked in a large, bright kitchen. Six of us dined: the count and countess, their son, a gloomy guards officer who rested his elbows on the table, Nekhlyudov, a French lecturer, and the count’s chief steward, who had arrived from the village. Well, the dinner turned out to be quite smart. Only truffles were missing here, as were all kinds of bronze antique jewelry, which were no longer aesthetic attributes.

By this time, French table setting had been pushed out of the table, as had toasts in honor of the chefs. After all, Baudelaire also said that in Balzac, for example, every cook was distinguished by talent.

The descriptions of dinners in Tolstoy's texts are very eloquent and significant. Thus, in the novel “Resurrection” the majesty of barmen, starched napkins tucked into their waistcoats, sensual lips of participants in the feast with fat necks, silver vases, large pouring spoons, handsome footmen with sideburns, lobsters, caviar, cheeses, plump figures - all this, starting from the doorman to the flattering lackeys, evoked a feeling of protest in Dmitry Nekhlyudov.

Where, how and with whom to have lunch? Tolstoy believed that this was a whole science with which one could demonstrate savoir invre, your tact and your importance in society. Nice dish- the privilege of the cook, and wine was considered the prerogative of the owner himself. During dinners, unlike parties, it was not permissible to talk, argue, or reason a lot. It was appropriate here to exchange short witty phrases, tickling the ear of the interlocutor. The Yasnaya Polyana cellars were filled with the Perfilyevs’ homemade foam wine, prepared from birch

crushed coal and yeast from white grape wine, Zakharin water, champagne infused with currant leaves with the addition of yeast and lemons, Shostak kvass and Prince Shakhovsky beer. All these drinks gave the owner of Yasnaya Polyana a pleasant thought, joy, and a feeling of flight. He experienced the beneficial influence of wine and its life-giving power until the end of his life. Erasmus of Rotterdam even tried to treat his diseased kidneys with wine. A glass of good wine, drunk at the moment of creativity, helped Tolstoy get off the ground and rise to the heights of Mont Blanc. The main thing, in his opinion, was not to overdo it. He noted with bitterness passages in Schiller's masterpieces that indicated that their author drank much more champagne than usual. In everything, including wine, Tolstoy valued a sense of proportion, the famous “a little bit.” This is the only way “the wine of her charm can go to your head,” he liked to say about his heroine Natasha Rostova.

Before the crisis, the writer loved to smoke loose cigarettes stuffed with his wife, and before dinner he loved to drink a homemade herbal potion or a glass of white Vorontsov wine. Despite the almost complete absence of teeth, he continued to eat quickly, chewing food poorly. Realizing that this was harmful, he said: “To be healthy, you need to walk well and chew well.” When he was sick, he was treated with wine, usually strong - Madeira or port. He considered “alcohol and nicotine” consumed in large quantities to be a great sin. Nevertheless, he still called wine the “greatest deprivation.”

Tolstoy also considered meat-eating a great sin. In his opinion, the writing process was most hampered by the cutting of chickens, their heart-rending screams, beating them on the ground, wiping their bloody knives on the grass. How can you eat them after that! The writer's sons argued that, despite everything, it was still very tasty, and the wife referred to the servants who wanted to eat meat. Tolstoy believed that in 40 years educated people will stop eating meat and become vegetarians. He shared the concept of the American nutritionist Haig, who

was that meat and legumes should not be consumed due to their harmful effects on uric acid. Therefore, he limited food intake to two times a day, and water to 30 ounces, that is, up to five glasses. The morning started with fresh apples The most difficult thing for him was to quit smoking, as well as to give up sturgeon. But, according to Sofia Andreevna, Tolstoy was sometimes tempted by meat dishes.

Having finished his morning work, Tolstoy went out to breakfast, quickly and with indifference ate a soft-boiled egg: he opened it in a small glass and crumbled a piece into it white bread. Then I ate another small portion of buckwheat porridge. Lunch was usually served at six o'clock. Lev Nikolaevich, as a rule, was late and appeared when the first course had already been eaten. He rarely talked about his favorite dishes, or indeed about the food itself. His lunch consisted of soup, flour or dairy dishes and sweets for dessert. In summer, berries were also served on the table. Sofya Andreevna usually prepared tea for her husband on a spirit lamp, and Tolstoy jokingly noted that she should have married Robinson, who milked the llama.

But more often Tolstoy prepared an unpretentious dinner for himself. I poured water from the samovar into a saucepan, poured a few tablespoons of flour into it, added lemon, and put the saucepan on the alcohol stove. Then he began to eat the stew with great appetite. I drank tea with lemon and ate raisins instead of sugar. For dinner he usually cooked himself porridge from oatmeal, which Sofya Andreevna herself bought for him in boxes.

I usually had breakfast alone in the hall. I ate either Provençal butter with lemon juice and white bread, or feta cheese, brought by doctor Makovitsky from Slovakia, washed down with tea and cognac. I gravitated more and more towards the “lonely feast”. Sometimes he took a cup of tea with bagels and went into the office.

Vegetarianism in Yasnaya Polyana made the life of the housewife extremely difficult, dividing the family into two camps. One day Sofya Andreevna solemnly announced at the table that their She will never “allow her children to become vegetarians.” with their own she named those who were not yet

twelve years old. She was convinced that the food her husband ate - bread, potatoes, cabbage, mushrooms - was very harmful to his chronically diseased liver. During the next bilious attacks, she skillfully added meat broths to all his dishes, and Lev Nikolaevich did not notice this or did not want to notice, as happened, they say, with some monks.

At one o'clock in the afternoon the family usually had breakfast. At two o'clock, after the end of the common breakfast, when the dishes were still on the table, the writer appeared in the hall. At this time, one of those present ordered Lev Nikolaevich to be served breakfast. A few minutes later, a servant brought warmed oatmeal and a small pot of yogurt. And so - every day - the same thing.

Lev Nikolaevich had his own menu. The time of his meal was not determined in advance, and Sofya Andreevna complained that he had to put already cooked oatmeal or beans in the oven twice and keep them there for a very long time. As a result, they became barely edible. It happened that the writer skipped his first breakfast completely.

Lev Nikolaevich loved to crumble an egg into his oatmeal. The result was a grayish-yellowish mass, unattractive in appearance. He ate it with a dessert spoon, chewing it lightly. It would be difficult to guess that he has no teeth at all. He was not yet forty years old when he lost them. Usually he helped himself to a second portion and ate it with no less appetite than the first, saying: “The good thing about oatmeal is that you can never finish it. I can not stop". Doctors believed that Tolstoy was not eating properly, eating too much. Indeed, he often ate two to four eggs a day and ate a lot of bread. Doctors advised him to lead a lifestyle more appropriate for an elderly person burdened with illness. But he didn't want it. As O. K. Dieteriks recalled on January 2, 1902, Tolstoy “drank up to three bottles of kefir, five eggs, several cups of coffee with lemon a day, ate oatmeal or mashed rice, a blown pie or something like that three times.” And during illness, sometimes I didn’t eat anything for more than two days.

Tolstoy’s passion for vegetarianism aroused indignation among Sofya Andreevna, who was also joined by her sister-in-law. Together they reproached Lev Nikolayevich for confusing his daughters with his refusal to eat meat, who became “green and thin” due to vegetarianism. He said that he had absolutely nothing to do with it, that this was their conscious choice, dictated inner beliefs. The wife did not mince words, called him a “fool”, and her daughters - sottes(stupid - N.N.). In a word, the scandal flared up out of nowhere. Lev Nikolaevich had to constantly laugh it off.

In fact, he attached great importance to vegetarianism in the context of ongoing social addictions associated with the emergence of new symbols. He lamented the fact that in Moscow, along with such religious and scientific temples as the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and Moscow University, there also appeared a “temple of gluttony” - Eliseev’s store on Tverskaya Street, which took possession of the stomachs of the townspeople.

Lev Nikolaevich himself did not always pass the test of strength. Therefore, sometimes the following entries appeared in his diary: “I upset my health by overeating. Ashamed!"; “I drink coffee - it’s too much.” Doctor Flerov, who treated Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana, told how his famous patient fell ill due to Maslenitsa days: the writer ate as many pancakes “as would be enough for two healthy people».

“He dined as if alone and especially. A footman in white gloves and a tailcoat served him on a silver tray jelly and porridge, something else that was not solid and, of course, kill-free,” recalled Vasily Rozanov. “He sat at the same table, mingling and not mingling with the others.”

For the first time, the readers are offered the Yasnaya Polyana menu of 1910, a kind of unique gastronomic canon of the Tolstoy family, compiled by Sofia Andreevna and containing her notes for the cooks. At this time, Lev Nikolaevich, Sofya Andreevna and Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy permanently lived in the estate.

Oatmeal soup. Toast. Chicken with rice. Blancmange. Table wine Bori. Place rice and hard-boiled eggs; cut them into halves and place them in a circle.

Breakfast-.

Semolina milk porridge. Scrambled eggs. Yesterday's porridge cutlets, add stewed mushrooms, cold tongue.

Pearl barley soup, pies, chicken cutlets, mashed potatoes and vermicelli, special tomato, pureed apples and prunes.

Breakfast:

Cold ham, cool oatmeal, mincemeat, pork with mushrooms.

Soup with dumplings and roots, pies, fried chicken in half, pasta, fish soufflé with carrots, raspberry jelly.

Breakfast

Rice cutlets. Potato salad with beets. Scrambled eggs.

Oatmeal soup, mashed potatoes, mushroom pie, rice, Hollandaise or white sauce, eggs, fried chicken, 3 pieces. Pancakes for the Count, yesterday's biscuit.

Breakfast:

Semolina porridge in mushroom broth, 10 soft-boiled eggs, remaining fish or fry the beef that was purchased.

Noodle soup, pies, cutlets with fried potatoes, green beans and rice, cream in cups.

Breakfast:

Vegetable vinaigrette, semolina dairy. The rest.

Borscht, porridge in a frying pan, fish and potatoes, hot compote.

Breakfast:

Millet milk porridge, leftover.

Soup, pies, fried chicken, cauliflower, hot jelly. Breakfast-

Scrambled eggs and ham, baked potatoes.

Creamy oatmeal soup, yesterday's pies, fried lamb, boiled pork with potatoes. Breakfast:

Leftover fish, scrambled eggs with black bread, stuffed cutlets.

Borscht, porridge, beef cutlets, apple pancakes. Breakfast:

Vinaigrette, baskets of eggs.

Carrot soup, cabbage pie, fried veal, cranberry jelly, almond milk. Breakfast:

Boiled rice, gardener

Semolina soup, pies, peas with eggs, fried mushrooms. Breakfast

Cold veal, pasta.

Broth, veal cutlets, baked rice, stewed mushrooms, compote, pureed apples. Breakfast:

Eggs with ham, millet milk porridge.

Creamy oatmeal soup, pies, roast turkey with potatoes, blancmange. Breakfast:

Stuffed tomatoes, millet porridge.

Borscht, porridge, fried veal, mushrooms, apple pies. Breakfast

Forshmak, vinaigrette.

Pearl barley soup, pies, bits in sour cream, rice cutlets, apple sbiten. Breakfast

Scrambled eggs with black bread, carrot soufflé.

Soup, pies, vinaigrette, boiled rice, compote.

Breakfast

All the rest.

Cabbage soup, porridge, gardener, fried mushrooms. Breakfast

Scrambled eggs, millet porridge.

Creamy oatmeal soup, pies, fried turkey, biscuit. Breakfast

Rice porridge, scrambled eggs.

Cauliflower soup, pancake pie, stuffed tomatoes, yesterday's pie. Breakfast: Vinaigrette, porridge.

Borscht, soup, porridge in a frying pan, ham in a pot.

Pritonier soup with omelette, pies, duck with apples, rice cutlets with beans, apple cream. Breakfast:

Cold ham, fried mushrooms, millet porridge.

Soup/cabbage soup, porridge, cauliflower, cream in cups.

Breakfast:

Ask Sasha.

Rice soup, pies, boiled fish, potatoes, hot jelly. Breakfast

Scrambled eggs, cold ham, porridge with milk.

Borscht, porridge croutons, fish solyanka, rice, compote. Breakfast

Ask Sasha. Do not serve fish, save for lunch.

Skip to menu

Creamy oatmeal soup, pies, rice cutlets, potato salad with beets. Sweet roots, blancmange.

Breakfast

Smolensk porridge, soft-boiled eggs.

Rice soup. Yesterday's pies, pasta, tomatoes separately, dry peas with egg, hot jelly.

Breakfast

Rice milk porridge, mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts, jam.

Cream soup, croutons with cheese, jellied fish, canned peas, eggs.

Breakfast

Stuffed cabbage, lean mincemeat, herring. Hercules for Tatyana Lvovna and the Count. I'll give the Count some more soft-boiled eggs.

Oatmeal soup, pies, fish soufflé with carrots, hot jelly.

Breakfast

What's left is cabbage pie, if there's not much left, I didn't see it, then add something.

Chowder soup, pies, eggs in tomato. Roasted sweet roots, cream in cups. The Count has the same soup as yesterday. Egg. Manioca on wine.

Breakfast

Liquid milk semolina porridge, potato cutlets with red or white cabbage. Count oatmeal and egg.

Pearl barley soup. For all of us - borscht. Pies with porridge. Baked rice, white sauce. Mashed potatoes and Bruss. Mashed apples with prunes. Count - a cup of tea with semolina porridge with almond milk.

Breakfast

Fried potatoes with onions, oatmeal cereal and egg to the count.

Soup with rice, pies. Fried hazel grouse for us, scrambled eggs. Cauliflower, sponge cake with whipped cream.

Breakfast:

Liquid milk porridge semolina. Everything is yesterday. Boiled fish for three people, boiled potatoes. A glass of oatmeal and an egg.

Puree pearl barley soup, small crackers, carrot sauce with milk, boil better. Eggs, tomatoes. Liquid semolina, chocolate porridge.

Breakfast:

Millet milk porridge, mincemeat. Count - oatmeal and eggs.

Borscht, porridge croutons. Pasta, fried sweet roots. Baked apples.

Breakfast:

Solyanka with black croutons, buckwheat mess with onions.

Creamy rice soup, pies, potato cutlets with canned peas, vermicelli, blown pie.

Breakfast

Hercules Count and Egg. Fried potatoes. Syrniki.

Cabbage soup, porridge in a frying pan. (Wipe the grouse.) Fry the black grouse. Place baskets of eggs. Pear. Hollandaise sauce. Jelly.

Breakfast

Stuffed head of cabbage, liquid semolina porridge. Scrambled eggs.

Noodle soup, pies. Rice garnished with hard-boiled eggs, white or hollandaise sauce. Turnips and baked potatoes. Apple pies.

Breakfast

Buckwheat porridge in a frying pan. (The sheet is torn off.)

Lazy cabbage soup, grated porridge. Carrot sauce + fresh beans (divide them in half on a plate). Almond soufflé, syrup.

Breakfast:

Tolstoy always came to tea on time. Over the years, he became a big fan of it, betraying coffee for its “illusory energy,” under the influence of which a person “writes, writes, composes quickly and a lot, like Balzac, but it’s all to no avail.” Tea and coffee divided the world into two halves. Russia, like England, China, India, and Japan, was a stronghold of tea. It is no coincidence that A. Dumas the father claimed that “the best tea is drunk in St. Petersburg.”

Tolstoy, according to Russian tradition, always drank tea from a glass with a glass holder. The most important thing for him in the tea ceremony was not jam or pie, but thoughtful conversations, during which only one thing was prohibited: “farting and cursing the government.”

10 days before his death, 82-year-old Tolstoy left his own estate in Yasnaya Polyana. What was he running from? The decadents of the early twentieth century considered his behavior a sophisticated form of suicide. The communists, following Lenin, saw in this act a rebellion against the autocracy. In fact, Tolstoy’s flight from his beloved Yasnaya Polyana with 50 rubles in his pocket had domestic reasons. 3 months before his death, Tolstoy signed a secret will, according to which all copyrights to works were transferred not to his wife Sofya Andreevna, but to his daughter Alexandra and best friend Chertkov. After the wife found out about this from the diary stolen from Tolstoy, life on the estate turned into hell. His wife's hysterics and open confrontation with almost all of his adult children persuaded Tolstoy to do what he had planned 25 years earlier - to escape. “I can’t stand it!”, “they are tearing me apart,” “I hate Sofya Andreevna,” he wrote in those days. Having learned about the escape, the wife twice ran to the pond and drowned herself, beat herself in the chest with heavy objects and shouted: “I will find him, I will run away from home, I will run to the station! Oh, if only I could find out where he is! Then I won’t let him out, I’ll watch day and night, I’ll sleep at his door!”

Myth II. Evil wife

But the obvious conclusion that only his hysterical wife is to blame for the death of a brilliant writer is also a myth. Family life Tolstykh was, directly from a quote from Anna Karenina, so “unhappy in her own way” that researchers around the world are still trying to figure her out. “Martyr and martyr” - this is how Sofya Andreevna herself aptly named one of the chapters of her book “My Life”. Until recently, almost nothing was known about Sofia Andreevna’s literary talents. She was, as it were, in the shadow of her great husband. But after the recent publication of her stories “Whose fault?” and “Song without Words” it turned out that in Russian literature of the 19th-20th centuries. there was another bright “star”. To a certain extent, Tolstoy himself recognized his wife’s talents - Natasha Rostova was largely inspired by Sofia Andreevna’s youthful manuscript “Natasha”. Unfortunately, this work was destroyed by her - sometimes manuscripts still burn! Sofya Andreevna, unlike her husband with “unfinished higher education,” was well educated. She knew two foreign languages ​​and herself translated Tolstoy's philosophical works. In addition, she managed the entire household and accounting of the “planned unprofitable” Yasnaya Polyana, sheathed and tied all big family Tolstykh. At the same time, Sofya Andreevna realized that she lived under the same roof with a genius. “I lived with Lev Nikolaevich for forty-eight years,” she said shortly after his death, “and I never found out what kind of person he was!”

Myth III. Excommunication

It is known that Tolstoy was excommunicated from the church and buried in 1910 without a funeral service. At the same time, in the act of the Synod of 1901 the word “excommunication” is absent. Church officials (probably the text of the act was compiled by the Chief Prosecutor of the Synod, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, and the inspiration was John of Kronstadt) wrote that Tolstoy, with his errors and false teachings, had long ago placed himself outside the Church and was not perceived by the Church as its member. However, in the end, this brilliant example of church-bureaucratic bureaucracy caused the opposite effect in the Russian society of that time. Literally everyone read the same thing between the lines - Tolstoy was excommunicated!

Myth IV. Tolstoyans

It is believed that the Tolstoyan movement was founded by Leo Tolstoy himself. This is wrong. Lev Nikolaevich treated with caution, if not disgust, the numerous organizations of people who considered themselves his followers. After escaping from Yasnaya Polyana last place, in which Tolstoy was ready to find shelter - the Tolstoy community. As you know, Tolstoy gave up alcohol in adulthood. But he did not approve of the creation of temperance societies throughout the country. “So, this is when they gather so as not to drink vodka? - the Great Elder mocked the teetotalers. - Nonsense. In order not to drink, there is no need to gather. And if you’re going to get ready, you need to drink.” Ivan Bunin, author of the book “The Liberation of Tolstoy,” wrote that Lev Nikolayevich treated some provisions of his own teaching without fanaticism. The following example is indicative: once Tolstoy, his family and close friend The family (as well as the “chief Tolstoyan”) Vladimir Chertkov dined on the terrace. It was summer and mosquitoes were pestering us. One particularly impudent bloodsucker settled on Chertkov’s bald head and was immediately killed by a well-aimed blow from Tolstoy’s palm. Everyone laughed, and only Chertkov frowned and said reproachfully: “What have you done, Lev Nikolaevich! You have taken the life of a living creature! Shame on you?"

Myth V. Womanizer

We know about Tolstoy’s sexual “exploits” mainly from his own words. “In my youth, I led a very bad life,” he wrote in his diary, “and two events of this life especially torment me to this day... These events were: a relationship with a peasant woman from our village before my marriage... The second - this is a crime that I committed with the maid Gasha, who lived in my aunt’s house. She was innocent, I seduced her, she was driven away, and she died.” The mentioned peasant woman's name was Aksinya Bazykina. “In love as never before in my life,” Tolstoy wrote about her in his diary. 2 years before marrying Sofya Andreevna, they had a son, Timofey, who over the years turned into a hefty man. He was very much like his father and was not a fool to drink. Everyone in Yasnaya Polyana knew about the “lord’s son” and his mother, including his legal wife. Sofya Andreevna even went to look at her “rival” and later wrote down: “Just a woman, fat, white, terrible.” Intimate life- the main “plot” of Tolstoy’s diaries of his youth. “I want a woman,” “voluptuousness torments me again,” “I want a woman terribly,” “I had a girl in the evening” - these are the typical notes of the then-beginning spiritual prophet and moral teacher. True, almost all Russians lived in one way or something like this at that time. They lived and were not tormented by belated repentance. But Sofya Andreevna was completely different. “For him, the physical side of love plays a huge role,” she wrote, “for me, none.” At the same time, she gave birth to 13 children, losing 5 of them. "Lyovochka" was her first and the only man. He was faithful to her throughout the 48 years of their marriage.

Shame not only keeps physical manifestations within certain limits, but is one of the main principles moral life a person, making him sensitive to the opinions of others and protecting him from everything that is morally shameful. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy understood this condition perfectly well. In his article “Why do people become intoxicated” he writes: “...The reason for the worldwide spread of hashish, opium, wine, tobacco lies not in taste, not in pleasure, not in entertainment, not in fun, but only in the need to hide remorse from oneself.” ... A sober person is ashamed of something that a drunk person is not ashamed of... If a person wants to do an act that his conscience forbids him, he becomes stupefied. Nine-tenths of crimes are committed like this: “For the courage to drink”... Not only do people themselves become stupefied in order to drown out their conscience, knowing how wine works, they, wanting to force other people to do an act that is contrary to their conscience, stupefy them in order to deprive them of conscience.

All French soldiers during the Sevastopol assaults were drunk. Everyone knows people who have become completely drunk as a result of crimes that tormented their conscience. Everyone can notice that people who live immorally are more prone to intoxicating substances than others. Robbers, gangs of thieves, prostitutes - cannot live without wine.

In a word, it is impossible not to understand that the use of intoxicating substances in large or small doses, periodically or constantly, in a higher or lower circle, is caused by the same reason - the need to drown out the voice of conscience in order not to see the discord between life and the demands of consciousness.
Who could support the authority of the country. And vice versa, they may not allow those people to go abroad. who would exalt the glory of the Motherland if these people are somehow personally disliked by the boss with atrophied feelings of patriotism and conscience.

Another feeling that is easily lost by drunkards is the feeling of fear. Fear in a normal person is expressed in a slowdown and subsequent acceleration of heart activity, difficulty breathing and contraction of small vessels. This is a characteristic feature this feeling, which disappears among drunkards. The reason for this is vascular paralysis caused by alcohol. In an objective sense, their feeling of fear takes the form of confusion. The pattern that Darwin identified in children is observed: a mixture of fear, timidity and shyness - something undifferentiated, similar to the timidity of an undomesticated animal. This suggests that lower undifferentiated forms of feelings appear here and indicate deep mental dullness and perversion occurring in a person.
Reducing fear can, according to psychiatrists, have important consequences. If we remember that fear in its highest manifestations turns into fear of evil and fear of the consequences of evil, then the health significance of this feeling in matters of morality becomes clear.

Alcoholic “drinks”, as they are consumed, as they affect the brain and its functions, lead to a sharp change in a person’s character. Irritability and pronounced emotional disturbances appear very early, which disappear so quickly and unexpectedly, as can only be seen in patients. These types of phenomena include resentment, suspiciousness, confusion, etc. The manifestation of these worries is an indicator of decreased mental and increased emotional excitability.

The feeling of fear and shame is profoundly altered in drunkards, losing its most essential parts. Other feelings do not change so much, but still lose some of their properties and, as a result, lose subtlety and completeness, become coarse and stereotyped. According to this, facial expressions also change. These changes can be so significant that it is difficult to determine from the physiognomy of such a person what feelings predominate in him and what his mood is. This is one of the reasons for frequent misunderstandings in relationships between drunkards. It is interesting to note that even dogs notice these facial features of drunkards and get angrier at them than at sober ones. The following changes in the feelings of drunkards are noted: - joy is often devoid of its pure character, but takes the form of unmotivated frivolity and carelessness.

Often it is expressed by cheerfulness, that is, external factors, containing a significant number of motor manifestations, but little deep internal content.

- the sense of honor and self-esteem loses its high character and almost exclusively takes the form of pride, arrogance and conceit, which is formed by the well-known aphorisms of alcoholics: “a drunk is smarter than another sober” or “drunk and smart are two things in him.”

— affection, love, affection easily turn into unpleasant, and sometimes cynical, repulsive manifestations.

— anger often takes the form of brutal anger and rage. The transformation of anger into anger is a significant event in the psychology of drunkards and indicates a painful change in character. By its nature, anger is a person’s emotional disturbance caused by an attack on him; anger is the desire to do evil, harm. Anger can be just or excusable, but anger - a bad feeling of purely animal origin - indicates a painful change in the character of the drunkard. The appearance of this feeling in drunkards often coincides with gloominess. Two psychological states: anger and gloominess - lead to a further change in character, as they easily join other emotional disturbances.

Observations of drinkers show that their characteristic irritability has its own characteristics, which are determined by that. that unrest occurs completely in isolation, which we do not observe in non-drinkers. This is explained by the fact that a person’s emotional disturbances are always complex; Along with one feeling (for example, anger), he has a whole range of other, more subtle and sublime feelings, fears for the consequences of this anger, etc.

In a drunkard, the feeling appears in isolation, apparently due to the lack of subtle associative feelings, and, having arisen, covers the person completely. That is why communication with such a person is difficult; he does not listen to reason or logic. The emotional unrest of drinkers differs significantly from the unrest of normal people, not only in quantitative, but also in qualitative terms. For example, anger sometimes takes the form of anger, fear - jealousy, shame - embarrassment or anger.

Drinkers, as a rule, are lazy and like to spend time idle. If they are wealthy, then they do not hesitate to work and sleep a lot or are in the company of people, just like them, who indulge in drunkenness. Cynicism takes on the most varied and often disgusting forms among them.

Under the influence of even a small dose of wine, first of all, a weakening of feelings occurs and only later a weakening physical strength. This means that under the influence of alcohol, thin human power turns into a rough, animalistic one.

IN to a large extent and very early alcohol destroys the intellect of drinkers. Doctors, even in mild cases, find a decrease in intellectual functions in them. Their perception of external impressions is superficial. Memory weakens. Tasks are completed carelessly. Concentration of attention when performing a task is reduced; reaction time is slow. There is rapid fatigue and difficulty in solving complex issues. Ability to creative work decreases or is completely lost. The circle of interests narrows, attention to work and family is lost. Falsehood is characteristic feature drinkers. The decline in intelligence is so significant that it gives us the right to talk about clearly defined alcoholic dementia.

If we take into account the number of long-term drinkers who are not included in the category of drunkards and alcoholics, if we take into account the birth rate of defective and mentally retarded children from such parents, then we have the right to talk about the stupidity of any people among whom drunkenness has become widespread. And along with stupidity comes moral degradation, an increase in crime, and moral decay occurs.

On this topic

A patient suffering from chemical dependence rarely lives in complete isolation. Usually he has a family. When chemical dependence develops, relatives willy-nilly become involved in what is happening, do not leave the patient without help, and begin to fight

Wine destroys people's physical health, destroys mental capacity, destroys the well-being of families and, what is most terrible, destroys the souls of people and their offspring, and, despite this, every year the use of alcoholic beverages and the resulting drunkenness are becoming more and more widespread. The contagious disease is affecting more and more people: women, girls, and children are already drinking. And adults not only do not interfere with this poisoning, but, being drunk themselves, encourage them. It seems to both rich and poor that it is impossible to be cheerful otherwise than drunk or half-drunk; it seems that at any important occasion in life: funeral, wedding, christening, separation, date - the best way to show your grief or joy is to become stupefied and, having lost the human image, become like an animal.

And what is most surprising is that people die from drunkenness and destroy others, without knowing why they are doing it. In fact, if everyone asks himself why people drink, he will never find any answer. It is impossible to say that wine is tasty, because everyone knows that wine and beer, if they are not sweetened, seem unpleasant to those who drink them for the first time. One gets used to wine, like another poison, tobacco, little by little, and one likes wine only after a person gets used to the intoxication that it produces. It is also impossible to say that wine is good for health now, when many doctors, dealing with this matter, have admitted that neither vodka, nor wine, nor beer can be healthy, because they have no nutritional value, but only poison, which harmful. It’s also impossible to say that wine adds strength, because not once, not twice, but hundreds of times it was noticed that a team that drinks the same number of people as a team that doesn’t drink will work much less. And in hundreds and thousands of people you can notice that people who drink water alone are stronger and healthier than those who drink wine. They also say that wine warms, but this is not true either, and everyone knows that a drunk person warms up only for a short time, and is more likely to freeze for a long time than a non-drinker. To say that if you drink at funerals, at christenings, at weddings, during dates, during separations, when buying, selling, then you will better think about the matter for which you have gathered, is also absolutely impossible, because in all such cases you need not to become stupefied from wine, and discuss the matter with a fresh head. What's more important is to be sober, not drunk. It cannot be said that it would be harmful to give up wine to someone who is accustomed to it, because every day we see how drinkers end up in prison and live there without wine and only get healthier. Nor can we say that wine is more fun. It is true that wine briefly makes people feel warm and cheerful, but both do not last long. And just as a person warms up from wine and becomes even more chilled, so a person becomes cheerful from wine and becomes even more boring. You only have to go into a tavern and sit and watch the fight, the screaming, the tears, to understand that wine does not make a person happy. It cannot be said that drunkenness is not harmful. Everyone knows about its harm to both body and soul.

So what? And wine is not tasty, and does not nourish, and does not strengthen, and does not warm, and does not help in business, and is harmful to the body and soul - and yet so many people drink it, and what goes on, more and more. Why do they drink and ruin themselves and other people? “Everyone drinks and treats, it’s impossible for me not to drink and treat,” many answer this, and, living among drunk people, these people literally imagine that everyone around them drinks and treats. But this is not true. If a person is a thief, then he will hang out with thieves, and it will seem to him that everyone is a thieve. But as soon as he gives up stealing, he will start hanging out with honest people and see that not everyone is a thieve.

It's the same with drunkenness. Not everyone drinks and treats. If everyone drank, people would not live for long: everyone would die; but God will not allow this: and there have always been and now there are many, many millions of people who do not drink and who understand that to drink or not to drink is no joke. If people who drink and sell wine have joined hand in hand and step on other people and want to make the whole world drunk, then it’s time for intelligent people to understand that they too need to join hand in hand and fight evil so that they and their children are not drunken by lost people . It's time to come to your senses!