Dark alleys light breath to read. And

In the cemetery, over a fresh earthen mound stands new cross oak, strong, heavy, smooth.

April, the days are gray; the monuments of the cemetery, spacious, county, are still far away visible through the bare trees, and cold wind jingles and jingles a porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross.

A fairly large, convex porcelain medallion is embedded in the cross itself, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.

This is Olya Meshcherskaya.

As a girl, she did not stand out in any way in the crowd of brown gymnasium dresses: what could be said about her, except that she was one of the pretty, rich and happy girls, that she was capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions that she was given by cool lady? Then it began to flourish, to develop by leaps and bounds. At fourteen, she had thin waist and slender legs, breasts and all those forms, the charm of which has never yet been expressed by a human word, were already well outlined; at fifteen she was already a beauty. How carefully some of her friends combed their hair, how clean they were, how they watched their restrained movements! And she was not afraid of anything - neither ink stains on her fingers, nor a flushed face, nor disheveled hair, nor a knee that became naked when she fell on the run. Without any of her worries and efforts, and somehow imperceptibly, everything that distinguished her in the last two years from the whole gymnasium came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, a clear sparkle in her eyes ... No one danced at balls like Olya Meshcherskaya , no one skated like she did, no one was looked after at balls as much as she was, and for some reason no one was loved so much junior classes like her. She imperceptibly became a girl, and her gymnasium fame imperceptibly strengthened, and there were already rumors that she was windy, could not live without admirers, that the schoolboy Shenshin was madly in love with her, that she seemed to love him too, but was so changeable in her treatment of him. that he attempted suicide.

During her last winter, Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun, as they said in the gymnasium. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty, the sun set early behind the high spruce forest of the snowy gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun tomorrow, a walk on Cathedral Street, a skating rink in the city garden, pink evening, music and this in all directions the crowd sliding on the skating rink, in which Olya Meshcherskaya seemed the most carefree, the happiest. And then one day, at a big break, when she was running like a whirlwind around the assembly hall from the first-graders chasing after her and squealing blissfully, she was unexpectedly called to the headmistress. She stopped in a hurry, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar female movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders and, beaming her eyes, ran upstairs. The headmistress, youthful but gray-haired, calmly sat with knitting in her hands at the desk, under the royal portrait.

Hello, mademoiselle Meshcherskaya,” she said in French, without looking up from her knitting. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have been forced to call you here to speak with you about your behavior.

I’m listening, madam,” Meshcherskaya answered, going up to the table, looking at her clearly and vividly, but without any expression on her face, and sat down as lightly and gracefully as she alone could.

It will be bad for you to listen to me, I, unfortunately, was convinced of this, ”said the boss, and, pulling the thread and wrapping a ball on the lacquered floor, which Meshcherskaya looked at with curiosity, she raised her eyes. "I won't repeat myself, I won't speak at length," she said.

Meshcherskaya really liked this unusually clean and large office, which on frosty days breathed so well with the warmth of a brilliant Dutch and the freshness of lilies of the valley on the desk. She looked at the young king, painted to his full height in the midst of some brilliant hall, at the even parting in the milky, neatly ruffled hair of the boss, and was expectantly silent.

You are no longer a girl, - the boss said meaningfully, secretly starting to get annoyed.

Yes, madame, - Meshcherskaya answered simply, almost cheerfully.

But not a woman either, - the boss said even more significantly, and her dull face turned slightly red. - First of all, - what kind of hairstyle is this? It's a woman's hair!

It’s not my fault, madame, that I have good hair, ”Meshcherskaya answered, and slightly touched her beautifully trimmed head with both hands.

Oh, that's how, you're not to blame! - said the boss. - You are not to blame for your hair, you are not to blame for these expensive combs, you are not to blame for ruining your parents for shoes worth twenty rubles! But, I repeat to you, you completely lose sight of the fact that you are still only a schoolgirl...

And then Meshcherskaya, without losing her simplicity and calmness, suddenly politely interrupted her:

Excuse me, madam, you are mistaken: I am a woman. And to blame for this - you know who? Friend and neighbor of the pope, and your brother Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin. It happened last summer in the village...

And a month after this conversation, a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance, who had absolutely nothing to do with the circle to which Olya Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her on the station platform, among a large crowd of people who had just arrived with the train. And the incredible confession of Olya Meshcherskaya, which stunned the boss, was completely confirmed: the officer told the judicial investigator that Meshcherskaya had lured him, was close to him, swore to be his wife, and at the station, on the day of the murder, seeing him off to Novocherkassk, she suddenly told him that she and never thought to love him, that all this talk about marriage was just her mockery of him, and gave him to read that page of the diary that spoke about Malyutin.

I ran through these lines and right there, on the platform where she was walking, waiting for me to finish reading, I shot at her, - said the officer. - This diary, here it is, look what was written in it on the tenth of July last year. The following was written in the diary: “It is now the second hour of the night. I fell asleep soundly, but immediately woke up ... Today I have become a woman! Dad, mom and Tolya, they all left for the city, I was left alone. I was so happy to be alone! In the morning I walked in the garden, in the field, was in the forest, it seemed to me that I was alone in the whole world, and I thought, as well as never in my life. I dined alone, then whole hour I played, to the music I had the feeling that I would live without end and be as happy as anyone. Then I fell asleep in my father's office, and at four o'clock Katya woke me up and said that Alexei Mikhailovich had arrived. I was very happy with him, it was so pleasant for me to receive him and occupy him. He arrived on a pair of his vyatki, very beautiful, and they stood at the porch all the time, he stayed because it was raining, and he wanted it to dry out by evening. He regretted that he did not find dad, he was very lively and behaved like a gentleman with me, he joked a lot that he had long been in love with me. When we were walking in the garden before tea, the weather was lovely again, the sun shone through the whole wet garden, although it became quite cold, and he led me by the arm and said that he was Faust with Marguerite. He is fifty-six years old, but he is still very handsome and always well dressed - the only thing I did not like was that he arrived in a lionfish - he smells of English cologne, and his eyes are very young, black, and his beard is elegantly divided into two long parts and is completely silver. We were sitting at tea on the glass veranda, I felt as if I was unwell and lay down on the couch, and he smoked, then moved to me, began again to say some courtesies, then to examine and kiss my hand. I covered my face with a silk scarf, and he kissed me several times on the lips through the scarf ... I don’t understand how this could happen, I went crazy, I never thought that I was like that! Now I have one way out ... I feel such disgust for him that I can not survive this! ... "

During these April days, the city became clean, dry, its stones turned white, and it is easy and pleasant to walk on them. Every Sunday after mass, a little woman in mourning, wearing black kid gloves, and carrying an ebony umbrella, walks down Cathedral Street, which leads out of the city. She crosses a dirt square along the highway, where there are many smoky forges and fresh field air blows; farther, between the monastery and the prison, the cloudy slope of the sky turns white and the spring field turns gray, and then, when you make your way among the puddles under the wall of the monastery and turn to the left, you will see, as it were, a large low garden, surrounded by a white fence, over the gate of which the Assumption of the Mother of God is written. The little woman makes a small cross and habitually walks along the main avenue. Having reached the bench opposite the oak cross, she sits in the wind and in the spring cold for an hour or two, until her feet in light boots and her hand in a narrow husky are completely cold. Listening to the spring birds singing sweetly even in the cold, listening to the sound of the wind in a porcelain wreath, she sometimes thinks that she would give half her life if only this dead wreath were not in front of her eyes. This wreath, this mound, this oak cross! Is it possible that under him is the one whose eyes shine so immortally from this convex porcelain medallion on the cross, and how to combine with this pure look that terrible thing that is now connected with the name of Olya Meshcherskaya? “But in the depths of her soul, the little woman is happy, like all people devoted to some passionate dream.

This woman is the classy lady of Olya Meshcherskaya, a middle-aged girl who has long been living in some kind of fiction that replaces her real life. At first, her brother, a poor and unremarkable ensign, was such an invention - she united her whole soul with him, with his future, which for some reason seemed brilliant to her. When he was killed near Mukden, she convinced herself that she was an ideological worker. The death of Olya Meshcherskaya captivated her with a new dream. Now Olya Meshcherskaya is the subject of her relentless thoughts and feelings. She goes to her grave every holiday, keeps her eyes on the oak cross for hours, recalls the pale face of Olya Meshcherskaya in the coffin, among the flowers - and what she once overheard: once, at a big break, walking in the gymnasium garden, Olya Meshcherskaya quickly, she quickly said to her beloved friend, plump, tall Subbotina:

I'm in one of my dad's books - he has a lot of old funny books, - I read what beauty a woman should have ... There, you understand, it is said so much that you won’t remember everything: well, of course, black eyes boiling with tar - by golly, it’s written: boiling with tar! - black as night, eyelashes, gently playing a blush, a thin camp, longer than an ordinary arm, - you know, longer than usual! - a small leg, moderately large breasts, correctly rounded calves, shell-colored knees, sloping shoulders - I learned a lot almost by heart, so all this is true! But more importantly, you know what? - Easy breath! But I have it, - you listen to how I sigh, - is it true, is it?

Now that light breath has dissipated again in the world, in that cloudy sky, in that cold spring wind.

In the cemetery, over a fresh earthen mound, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth.

April, the days are gray; the monuments of the cemetery, spacious, county, are still far away visible through the bare trees, and the cold wind tinkles and tinkles the china wreath at the foot of the cross.

A fairly large, convex porcelain medallion is embedded in the cross itself, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.

This is Olya Meshcherskaya.

As a girl, she did not stand out in the crowd of brown gymnasium dresses: what could be said about her, except that she is one of the pretty, rich and happy girls, that she is capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions that the class lady gives her ? Then it began to flourish, to develop by leaps and bounds. At fourteen, with a thin waist and slender legs, her breasts and all those forms were already well outlined, the charm of which the human word had never yet expressed; at fifteen she was already a beauty. How carefully some of her friends combed their hair, how clean they were, how they watched their restrained movements! And she was not afraid of anything - neither ink stains on her fingers, nor a flushed face, nor disheveled hair, nor a knee that became naked when she fell on the run. Without any of her worries and efforts, and somehow imperceptibly, everything that distinguished her in the last two years from the whole gymnasium came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, a clear sparkle in her eyes ... No one danced at balls like Olya Meshcherskaya , no one ran on skates like she did, no one was looked after at balls as much as she was, and for some reason no one was loved as much by the lower classes as she was. She imperceptibly became a girl, and her gymnasium fame imperceptibly strengthened, and there were already rumors that she was windy, could not live without admirers, that the schoolboy Shenshin was madly in love with her, that she seemed to love him too, but was so changeable in her treatment of him. that he attempted suicide.

During her last winter, Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun, as they said in the gymnasium. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty, the sun set early behind the high spruce forest of the snowy gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun tomorrow, a walk on Cathedral Street, a skating rink in the city garden, pink evening, music and this in all directions the crowd sliding on the skating rink, in which Olya Meshcherskaya seemed the most carefree, the happiest. And then one day, at a big break, when she was running like a whirlwind around the assembly hall from the first-graders chasing after her and squealing blissfully, she was unexpectedly called to the headmistress. She stopped in a hurry, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar female movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders, and, shining in her eyes, ran upstairs. The headmistress, youthful but gray-haired, calmly sat with knitting in her hands at the desk, under the royal portrait.

Hello, mademoiselle Meshcherskaya,” she said in French, without looking up from her knitting. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have been forced to call you here to speak with you about your behavior.
"I'm listening, madame," Meshcherskaya replied, going up to the table, looking at her clearly and vividly, but without any expression on her face, and sat down as lightly and gracefully as she alone could.
“You will listen to me badly, I, unfortunately, was convinced of this,” said the headmistress, and, pulling the thread and twisting a ball on the lacquered floor, at which Meshcherskaya looked with curiosity, she raised her eyes. "I won't repeat myself, I won't speak at length," she said.

Meshcherskaya really liked this unusually clean and large office, which on frosty days breathed so well with the warmth of a brilliant Dutch and the freshness of lilies of the valley on the desk. She looked at the young king, painted to his full height in the midst of some brilliant hall, at the even parting in the milky, neatly ruffled hair of the boss, and was expectantly silent.

You are no longer a girl, - the boss said meaningfully, secretly starting to get annoyed.
“Yes, madam,” Meshcherskaya answered simply, almost cheerfully.
“But not a woman either,” the headmistress said even more significantly, and her dull face turned slightly red. - First of all, what is this hairstyle? It's a woman's hairstyle!
“It’s not my fault, madame, that I have good hair,” Meshcherskaya answered, and slightly touched her beautifully trimmed head with both hands.
- Oh, that's how, you're not to blame! - said the boss. - You are not to blame for your hair, you are not to blame for these expensive combs, you are not to blame for ruining your parents for shoes worth twenty rubles! But, I repeat to you, you completely lose sight of the fact that you are still only a schoolgirl ...

And then Meshcherskaya, without losing her simplicity and calmness, suddenly politely interrupted her:

Excuse me, madam, you are mistaken: I am a woman. And to blame for this - you know who? Friend and neighbor of the pope, and your brother Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin. It happened last summer in the village...

And a month after this conversation, a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance, who had absolutely nothing to do with the circle to which Olya Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her on the station platform, among a large crowd of people who had just arrived with the train. And the incredible confession of Olya Meshcherskaya, which stunned the boss, was completely confirmed: the officer told the judicial investigator that Meshcherskaya had lured him, was close to him, swore to be his wife, and at the station, on the day of the murder, seeing him off to Novocherkassk, she suddenly told him that she and never thought to love him, that all this talk about marriage was just her mockery of him, and gave him to read that page of the diary that spoke about Malyutin.

I ran through these lines and right there, on the platform where she was walking, waiting for me to finish reading, I shot at her, ”said the officer. - This diary, here it is, look what was written in it on the tenth of July last year. The following was written in the diary: “It is now the second hour of the night. I fell asleep soundly, but immediately woke up ... Today I have become a woman! Dad, mom and Tolya, they all left for the city, I was left alone. I was so happy to be alone! In the morning I walked in the garden, in the field, was in the forest, it seemed to me that I was alone in the whole world, and I thought as well as ever in my life. I dined alone, then played for an hour, to the music I had the feeling that I would live without end and be as happy as anyone. Then I fell asleep in my father's office, and at four o'clock Katya woke me up and said that Alexei Mikhailovich had arrived. I was very happy with him, it was so pleasant for me to receive him and occupy him. He arrived on a pair of his vyatki, very beautiful, and they stood at the porch all the time, he stayed because it was raining, and he wanted it to dry out by evening. He regretted that he did not find dad, was very animated and behaved like a gentleman with me, he joked a lot that he had been in love with me for a long time. When we were walking in the garden before tea, the weather was lovely again, the sun shone through the whole wet garden, although it became quite cold, and he led me by the arm and said that he was Faust with Marguerite. He is fifty-six years old, but he is still very handsome and always well dressed - I only did not like that he arrived in a lionfish - he smells of English cologne, and his eyes are very young, black, and his beard is elegantly divided into two long parts and completely silver. We were sitting at tea on the glass veranda, I felt as if I was unwell and lay down on the couch, and he smoked, then moved to me, began again to say some courtesies, then to examine and kiss my hand. I covered my face with a silk handkerchief, and he kissed me several times on the lips through the handkerchief ... I don’t understand how this could happen, I went crazy, I never thought that I was like that! Now there is only one way out for me ... I feel such disgust for him that I can’t survive this! .. ”

During these April days, the city became clean, dry, its stones turned white, and it is easy and pleasant to walk on them. Every Sunday, after mass, a little woman in mourning, wearing black kid gloves, and carrying an ebony umbrella, walks down Cathedral Street, which leads out of the city. She crosses a dirt square along the highway, where there are many smoky forges and fresh field air blows; further, between monastery and a prison, the cloudy slope of the sky turns white and the spring field turns gray, and then, when you make your way among the puddles under the wall of the monastery and turn to the left, you will see, as it were, a large low garden, surrounded by a white fence, above the gate of which the Assumption of the Mother of God is written. The little woman makes a small cross and habitually walks along the main avenue. Having reached the bench opposite the oak cross, she sits in the wind and in the spring cold for an hour or two, until her feet in light boots and her hand in a narrow husky are completely cold. Listening to the spring birds singing sweetly even in the cold, listening to the sound of the wind in a porcelain wreath, she sometimes thinks that she would give half her life if only this dead wreath were not in front of her eyes. This wreath, this mound, this oak cross! Is it possible that under him is the one whose eyes shine so immortally from this convex porcelain medallion on the cross, and how to combine with this pure look that terrible thing that is now connected with the name of Olya Meshcherskaya? “But in the depths of her soul, the little woman is happy, like all people devoted to some passionate dream.

This woman is a classy lady Olya Meshcherskaya, a middle-aged girl who has long been living in some kind of fiction that replaces her real life. At first, her brother, a poor and unremarkable ensign, was such an invention - she united her whole soul with him, with his future, which for some reason seemed to her brilliant. When he was killed near Mukden, she convinced herself that she was an ideological worker. The death of Olya Meshcherskaya captivated her with a new dream. Now Olya Meshcherskaya is the subject of her relentless thoughts and feelings. She goes to her grave every holiday, keeps her eyes on the oak cross for hours, recalls the pale face of Olya Meshcherskaya in the coffin, among the flowers - and what she once overheard: once, at a big break, walking in the gymnasium garden, Olya Meshcherskaya quickly, she quickly said to her beloved friend, plump, tall Subbotina:

In one of my father's books - he has a lot of old funny books - I read what beauty a woman should have ... There, you know, so much is said that you can’t remember everything: well, of course, black eyes boiling with tar - by golly , and it is written: boiling with pitch! - black as night, eyelashes, gently playing a blush, a thin camp, longer than an ordinary arm, - you know, longer than usual! - a small leg, moderately large breasts, correctly rounded calves, shell-colored knees, sloping shoulders - I learned a lot almost by heart, so all this is true! But more importantly, you know what? - Easy breath! But I have it, - you listen to how I sigh, - is it true, is it?

Now that light breath has dissipated again in the world, in that cloudy sky, in that cold spring wind.

The story was suggested by our reader,
Alyona

Easy breath

Easy breath

“A summer evening, a coachman's troika, an endless desert highway ...” You can’t confuse Bunin’s music of prose writing with any other, colors, sounds, smells live in it ... Bunin did not write novels. But he brought the purely Russian genre of the story or short story, which received worldwide recognition, to perfection.

This book includes the most famous novels and stories of the writer: Antonov apples”, “Village”, “Dry Valley”, “Easy breathing”.

Ivan Bunin Easy breathing

In the cemetery, over a fresh earthen mound, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth.

April, the days are gray; the monuments of the cemetery, spacious, county, are still far away visible through the bare trees, and the cold wind tinkles and tinkles the china wreath at the foot of the cross.

A fairly large, convex porcelain medallion is embedded in the cross itself, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.

This is Olya Meshcherskaya.

As a girl, she did not stand out in the crowd of brown gymnasium dresses: what could be said about her, except that she is one of the pretty, rich and happy girls, that she is capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions that the class lady gives her ? Then it began to flourish, to develop by leaps and bounds. At fourteen, with a thin waist and slender legs, her breasts and all those forms were already well outlined, the charm of which the human word had never yet expressed; at fifteen she was already a beauty. How carefully some of her friends combed their hair, how clean they were, how they watched their restrained movements! And she was not afraid of anything - not ink stains on her fingers, not a flushed face, not disheveled hair, not a knee that became naked when she fell on the run. Without any of her worries and efforts, and somehow imperceptibly, everything that distinguished her so much in the last two years from the whole gymnasium came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, a clear sparkle in her eyes ... Nobody danced at balls like Olya Meshcherskaya , no one ran on skates like she did, no one was looked after at balls as much as she was, and for some reason no one was loved as much by the lower classes as she was. She imperceptibly became a girl, and her gymnasium fame imperceptibly strengthened, and there were already rumors that she was windy, could not live without admirers, that the schoolboy Shenshin was madly in love with her, that she seemed to love him too, but was so changeable in her treatment of him. that he attempted suicide...

During her last winter, Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun, as they said in the gymnasium. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty, the sun set early behind the high spruce forest of the snowy gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun tomorrow, a walk on Cathedral Street, a skating rink in the city garden, pink evening, music and this in all directions the crowd sliding on the skating rink, in which Olya Meshcherskaya seemed the most carefree, the happiest. And then one day, at a big break, when she was running like a whirlwind around the assembly hall from the first-graders chasing after her and squealing blissfully, she was unexpectedly called to the headmistress. She stopped in a hurry, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar female movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders, and, shining in her eyes, ran upstairs. The headmistress, youthful but gray-haired, calmly sat with knitting in her hands at the desk, under the royal portrait.

“Hello, mademoiselle Meshcherskaya,” she said in French, without looking up from her knitting. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have been forced to call you here to speak with you about your behavior.

“I’m listening, madam,” Meshcherskaya answered, going up to the table, looking at her clearly and vividly, but without any expression on her face, and sat down as lightly and gracefully as she alone could.

“It will be bad for you to listen to me, I, unfortunately, was convinced of this,” the headmistress said, and, pulling the thread and twisting a ball on the lacquered floor, at which Meshcherskaya looked with curiosity, she raised her eyes. “I won't repeat myself, I won't speak at length,” she said.

Meshcherskaya really liked this unusually clean and large office, which on frosty days breathed so well with the warmth of a brilliant Dutch and the freshness of lilies of the valley on the desk. She looked at the young king, painted to his full height in the midst of some brilliant hall, at the even parting in the milky, neatly ruffled hair of the boss, and was expectantly silent.

“You are no longer a girl,” the headmistress said meaningfully, secretly starting to get annoyed.

“Yes, madam,” Meshcherskaya answered simply, almost cheerfully.

“But not a woman either,” the headmistress said even more significantly, and her matte face flushed slightly. First of all, what is this hairstyle? It's a woman's hairstyle!

“It’s not my fault, madame, that I have good hair,” Meshcherskaya answered, and slightly touched her beautifully trimmed head with both hands.

“Ah, that’s how it is, it’s not your fault! - said the headmistress. “You are not to blame for your hair, you are not to blame for these expensive combs, you are not to blame for ruining your parents for shoes worth twenty rubles!” But, I repeat to you, you completely lose sight of the fact that you are still only a schoolgirl ...

And then Meshcherskaya, without losing her simplicity and calmness, suddenly politely interrupted her:

“Excuse me, madame, you are mistaken: I am a woman. And to blame for this - you know who? Friend and neighbor of the pope, and your brother Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin. It happened last summer in the village...

And a month after this conversation, a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance, who had absolutely nothing in common with the circle to which Olya Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her on the station platform, among a large crowd of people who had just arrived with the train. And the incredible confession of Olya Meshcherskaya, which stunned the boss, was completely confirmed: the officer told the judicial investigator that Meshcherskaya had lured him, was close to him, swore to be his wife, and at the station, on the day of the murder, seeing him off to Novocherkassk, she suddenly told him that she and never thought to love him, that all this talk about marriage was just her mockery of him, and gave him to read that page of the diary that spoke about Malyutin.

“I ran through these lines and right there, on the platform where she was walking, waiting for me to finish reading, I shot at her,” said the officer. - This diary is here, look what was written in it on the tenth of July last year.

The following was written in the diary:

“It is now the second hour of the night. I fell asleep soundly, but immediately woke up ... Today I have become a woman! Dad, mom and Tolya, they all left for the city, I was left alone. I was so happy to be alone! In the morning I walked in the garden, in the field, was in the forest, it seemed to me that I was alone in the whole world, and I thought as well as never before in my life. I dined alone, then played for an hour, to the music I had the feeling that I would live without end and be as happy as anyone. Then I fell asleep in my father's office, and at four o'clock Katya woke me up and said that Alexei Mikhailovich had arrived. I was very happy with him, it was so pleasant for me to receive him and occupy him. He arrived on a pair of his vyatki, very beautiful, and they stood at the porch all the time, he stayed because it was raining, and he wanted it to dry out by evening. He regretted that he did not find dad, was very animated and behaved like a gentleman with me, he joked a lot that he had been in love with me for a long time. When we were walking in the garden before tea, the weather was lovely again, the sun shone through the whole wet garden, although it became quite cold, and he led me by the arm and said that he was Faust with Marguerite. He is fifty-six years old, but he is still very handsome and always well dressed - the only thing I did not like was that he arrived in a lionfish - he smells of English cologne, and his eyes are very young, black, and his beard is elegantly divided into two long parts and completely silver. We were sitting at tea on the glass veranda, I felt as if I was unwell and lay down on the couch, and he smoked, then moved to me, began again to say some courtesies, then to examine and kiss my hand. I covered my face with a silk handkerchief, and he kissed me several times on the lips through the handkerchief ... I don’t understand how this could happen, I went crazy, I never thought that I was like that! Now there is only one way out for me ... I feel such disgust for him that I can’t survive this! .. ”

During these April days, the city became clean, dry, its stones turned white, and it is easy and pleasant to walk on them. Every Sunday, after mass, a little woman in mourning, wearing black kid gloves, and carrying an ebony umbrella, walks down Cathedral Street, which leads out of the city. She crosses a dirt square along the highway, where there are many smoky forges and fresh field air blows; farther, between the monastery and the prison, the cloudy slope of the sky turns white and the spring field turns gray, and then, when you make your way among the puddles under the wall of the monastery and turn to the left, you will see, as it were, a large low garden, surrounded by a white fence, over the gate of which the Assumption is written Mother of God. The little woman makes a small cross and habitually walks along the main avenue. Having reached the bench opposite the oak cross, she sits in the wind and in the spring cold for an hour or two, until her feet in light boots and her hand in a narrow husky are completely cold. Listening to the spring birds singing sweetly even in the cold, listening to the sound of the wind in a porcelain wreath, she sometimes thinks that she would give half her life if only this dead wreath were not in front of her eyes. This wreath, this mound, this oak cross! Is it possible that under him is the one whose eyes shine so immortally from this convex porcelain medallion on the cross, and how to combine with this pure look that terrible thing that is now connected with the name of Olya Meshcherskaya? But in the depths of her soul, the little woman is happy, like all people devoted to some passionate dream.

This woman is a cool lady Olya Meshcherskaya, a middle-aged girl who has long been living in some kind of fiction that replaces her real life. At first, her brother, a poor and unremarkable ensign, was such an invention - she united her whole soul with him, with his future, which for some reason seemed brilliant to her. When he was killed near Mukden, she convinced herself that she was an ideological worker. The death of Olya Meshcherskaya captivated her with a new dream. Now Olya Meshcherskaya is the subject of her relentless thoughts and feelings. She goes to her grave every holiday, does not take her eyes off the oak cross for hours, recalls the pale face of Olya Meshcherskaya in the coffin, among the flowers - and what she once overheard: once at a big break, walking in the gymnasium garden, Olya Meshcherskaya quickly, quickly she said to her beloved friend, plump, tall Subbotina:

- I read in one of my father's books - he has a lot of old, funny books - I read what beauty a woman should have ... There, you know, so much is said that you can’t remember everything: well, of course, black eyes boiling with tar - by golly , and it is written: boiling with pitch! - black as night, eyelashes, gently playing a blush, a thin figure, longer than an ordinary arm, - you know, longer than usual! - a small leg, moderately large breasts, correctly rounded calves, shell-colored knees, sloping shoulders - I learned a lot almost by heart, so all this is true! But the main thing, you know what? Easy breath! But I have it, - you listen to how I sigh, - is it true, is it?

Now that light breath has dissipated again in the world, in that cloudy sky, in that cold spring wind.

Ivan Bunin

Easy breath

In the cemetery, over a fresh earthen embankment, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth.

April, the days are gray; the monuments of the cemetery, spacious, county, are still far away visible through the bare trees, and the cold wind tinkles and tinkles the china wreath at the foot of the cross.

A fairly large, convex porcelain medallion is embedded in the cross itself, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.

This is Olya Meshcherskaya.

As a girl, she did not stand out in the crowd of brown gymnasium dresses: what could be said about her, except that she is one of the pretty, rich and happy girls, that she is capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions that the class lady gives her ? Then it began to flourish, to develop by leaps and bounds. At fourteen, with a thin waist and slender legs, her breasts and all those forms were already well outlined, the charm of which the human word had never yet expressed; at fifteen she was already a beauty. How carefully some of her friends combed their hair, how clean they were, how they watched their restrained movements! And she was not afraid of anything - neither ink stains on her fingers, nor a flushed face, nor disheveled hair, nor a knee that became naked when she fell on the run. Without any of her worries and efforts, and somehow imperceptibly, everything that distinguished her in the last two years from the whole gymnasium came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, a clear sparkle in her eyes ... No one danced at balls like Olya Meshcherskaya , no one ran on skates like she did, no one was looked after at balls as much as she was, and for some reason no one was loved as much by the lower classes as she was. She imperceptibly became a girl, and her gymnasium fame imperceptibly strengthened, and there were already rumors that she was windy, could not live without admirers, that the schoolboy Shenshin was madly in love with her, that she seemed to love him too, but was so changeable in her treatment of him. that he attempted suicide.

During her last winter, Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun, as they said in the gymnasium. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty, the sun set early behind the high spruce forest of the snowy gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun tomorrow, a walk on Cathedral Street, a skating rink in the city garden, pink evening, music and this in all directions the crowd sliding on the skating rink, in which Olya Meshcherskaya seemed the most carefree, the happiest. And then one day, at a big break, when she was running like a whirlwind around the assembly hall from the first-graders chasing after her and squealing blissfully, she was unexpectedly called to the headmistress. She stopped in a hurry, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar female movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders and, beaming her eyes, ran upstairs. The headmistress, youthful but gray-haired, calmly sat with knitting in her hands at the desk, under the royal portrait.

Hello, mademoiselle Meshcherskaya,” she said in French, without looking up from her knitting. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have been forced to call you here to speak with you about your behavior.

I’m listening, madam,” Meshcherskaya answered, going up to the table, looking at her clearly and vividly, but without any expression on her face, and sat down as lightly and gracefully as she alone could.

It will be bad for you to listen to me, I, unfortunately, was convinced of this, ”said the boss, and, pulling the thread and wrapping a ball on the lacquered floor, which Meshcherskaya looked at with curiosity, she raised her eyes. "I won't repeat myself, I won't speak at length," she said.

Meshcherskaya really liked this unusually clean and large office, which on frosty days breathed so well with the warmth of a brilliant Dutch and the freshness of lilies of the valley on the desk. She looked at the young king, painted to his full height in the midst of some brilliant hall, at the even parting in the milky, neatly ruffled hair of the boss, and was expectantly silent.

You are no longer a girl, - the boss said meaningfully, secretly starting to get annoyed.

Yes, madame, - Meshcherskaya answered simply, almost cheerfully.

But not a woman either, - the boss said even more significantly, and her dull face turned slightly red. - First of all, - what kind of hairstyle is this? It's a woman's hair!

It’s not my fault, madame, that I have good hair, ”Meshcherskaya answered, and slightly touched her beautifully trimmed head with both hands.

Oh, that's how, you're not to blame! - said the boss. - You are not to blame for your hair, you are not to blame for these expensive combs, you are not to blame for ruining your parents for shoes worth twenty rubles! But, I repeat to you, you completely lose sight of the fact that you are still only a schoolgirl...

And then Meshcherskaya, without losing her simplicity and calmness, suddenly politely interrupted her:

Excuse me, madam, you are mistaken: I am a woman. And to blame for this - you know who? Friend and neighbor of the pope, and your brother Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin. It happened last summer in the village...

And a month after this conversation, a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance, who had absolutely nothing to do with the circle to which Olya Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her on the station platform, among a large crowd of people who had just arrived with the train. And the incredible confession of Olya Meshcherskaya, which stunned the boss, was completely confirmed: the officer told the judicial investigator that Meshcherskaya had lured him, was close to him, swore to be his wife, and at the station, on the day of the murder, seeing him off to Novocherkassk, she suddenly told him that she and never thought to love him, that all this talk about marriage was just her mockery of him, and gave him to read that page of the diary that spoke about Malyutin.

I ran through these lines and right there, on the platform where she was walking, waiting for me to finish reading, I shot at her, - said the officer. - This diary, here it is, look what was written in it on the tenth of July last year. The following was written in the diary: “It is now the second hour of the night. I fell asleep soundly, but immediately woke up ... Today I have become a woman! Dad, mom and Tolya, they all left for the city, I was left alone. I was so happy to be alone! In the morning I walked in the garden, in the field, was in the forest, it seemed to me that I was alone in the whole world, and I thought as well as ever in my life. I dined alone, then played for an hour, to the music I had the feeling that I would live without end and be as happy as anyone. Then I fell asleep in my father's office, and at four o'clock Katya woke me up and said that Alexei Mikhailovich had arrived. I was very happy with him, it was so pleasant for me to receive him and occupy him. He arrived on a pair of his vyatki, very beautiful, and they stood at the porch all the time, he stayed because it was raining, and he wanted it to dry out by evening. He regretted that he did not find dad, he was very lively and behaved like a gentleman with me, he joked a lot that he had long been in love with me. When we were walking in the garden before tea, the weather was lovely again, the sun shone through the whole wet garden, although it became quite cold, and he led me by the arm and said that he was Faust with Marguerite. He is fifty-six years old, but he is still very handsome and always well dressed - the only thing I did not like was that he arrived in a lionfish - he smells of English cologne, and his eyes are very young, black, and his beard is elegantly divided into two long parts and is completely silver. We were sitting at tea on the glass veranda, I felt as if I was unwell and lay down on the couch, and he smoked, then moved to me, began again to say some courtesies, then to examine and kiss my hand. I covered my face with a silk scarf, and he kissed me several times on the lips through the scarf ... I don’t understand how this could happen, I went crazy, I never thought that I was like that! Now I have one way out ... I feel such disgust for him that I can not survive this! ... "

In the cemetery, over a fresh earthen mound, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth.

April, the days are gray; the monuments of the cemetery, spacious, county, are still far away visible through the bare trees, and the cold wind tinkles and tinkles the china wreath at the foot of the cross.

A fairly large, convex porcelain medallion is embedded in the cross itself, and in the medallion is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes.

This is Olya Meshcherskaya.

As a girl, she did not stand out in the crowd of brown gymnasium dresses: what could be said about her, except that she is one of the pretty, rich and happy girls, that she is capable, but playful and very careless about the instructions that the class lady gives her ? Then it began to flourish, to develop by leaps and bounds. At fourteen, with a thin waist and slender legs, her breasts and all those forms were already well outlined, the charm of which the human word had never yet expressed; at fifteen she was already a beauty. How carefully some of her friends combed their hair, how clean they were, how they watched their restrained movements! And she was not afraid of anything - not ink stains on her fingers, not a flushed face, not disheveled hair, not a knee that became naked when she fell on the run. Without any of her worries and efforts, and somehow imperceptibly, everything that distinguished her so much in the last two years from the whole gymnasium came to her - grace, elegance, dexterity, a clear sparkle in her eyes ... Nobody danced at balls like Olya Meshcherskaya , no one ran on skates like she did, no one was looked after at balls as much as she was, and for some reason no one was loved as much by the lower classes as she was. She imperceptibly became a girl, and her gymnasium fame imperceptibly strengthened, and there were already rumors that she was windy, could not live without admirers, that the schoolboy Shenshin was madly in love with her, that she seemed to love him too, but was so changeable in her treatment of him. that he attempted suicide...

During her last winter, Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun, as they said in the gymnasium. The winter was snowy, sunny, frosty, the sun set early behind the high spruce forest of the snowy gymnasium garden, invariably fine, radiant, promising frost and sun tomorrow, a walk on Cathedral Street, a skating rink in the city garden, pink evening, music and this in all directions the crowd sliding on the skating rink, in which Olya Meshcherskaya seemed the most carefree, the happiest. And then one day, at a big break, when she was running like a whirlwind around the assembly hall from the first-graders chasing after her and squealing blissfully, she was unexpectedly called to the headmistress. She stopped in a hurry, took only one deep breath, straightened her hair with a quick and already familiar female movement, pulled the corners of her apron to her shoulders, and, shining in her eyes, ran upstairs. The headmistress, youthful but gray-haired, calmly sat with knitting in her hands at the desk, under the royal portrait.

“Hello, mademoiselle Meshcherskaya,” she said in French, without looking up from her knitting. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have been forced to call you here to speak with you about your behavior.

“I’m listening, madam,” Meshcherskaya answered, going up to the table, looking at her clearly and vividly, but without any expression on her face, and sat down as lightly and gracefully as she alone could.

“It will be bad for you to listen to me, I, unfortunately, was convinced of this,” the headmistress said, and, pulling the thread and twisting a ball on the lacquered floor, at which Meshcherskaya looked with curiosity, she raised her eyes. “I won't repeat myself, I won't speak at length,” she said.

Meshcherskaya really liked this unusually clean and large office, which on frosty days breathed so well with the warmth of a brilliant Dutch and the freshness of lilies of the valley on the desk. She looked at the young king, painted to his full height in the midst of some brilliant hall, at the even parting in the milky, neatly ruffled hair of the boss, and was expectantly silent.

“You are no longer a girl,” the headmistress said meaningfully, secretly starting to get annoyed.

“Yes, madam,” Meshcherskaya answered simply, almost cheerfully.

“But not a woman either,” the headmistress said even more significantly, and her matte face flushed slightly. First of all, what is this hairstyle? It's a woman's hairstyle!

“It’s not my fault, madame, that I have good hair,” Meshcherskaya answered, and slightly touched her beautifully trimmed head with both hands.

“Ah, that’s how it is, it’s not your fault! - said the headmistress. “You are not to blame for your hair, you are not to blame for these expensive combs, you are not to blame for ruining your parents for shoes worth twenty rubles!” But, I repeat to you, you completely lose sight of the fact that you are still only a schoolgirl ...

And then Meshcherskaya, without losing her simplicity and calmness, suddenly politely interrupted her:

“Excuse me, madame, you are mistaken: I am a woman. And to blame for this - you know who? Friend and neighbor of the pope, and your brother Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin. It happened last summer in the village...

And a month after this conversation, a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance, who had absolutely nothing in common with the circle to which Olya Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her on the station platform, among a large crowd of people who had just arrived with the train. And the incredible confession of Olya Meshcherskaya, which stunned the boss, was completely confirmed: the officer told the judicial investigator that Meshcherskaya had lured him, was close to him, swore to be his wife, and at the station, on the day of the murder, seeing him off to Novocherkassk, she suddenly told him that she and never thought to love him, that all this talk about marriage was just her mockery of him, and gave him to read that page of the diary that spoke about Malyutin.