Karamzin's story tells about the love of the main characters of "Poor Liza." A young girl, a peasant woman, fell in love with a rich nobleman. The description of the unhappy love of people of different social status and genre is a short story. The plot of the work was based on a sentimental story, and the very first publication of this new work brought unprecedented popularity to the young writer, who was barely 25 years old. The main motives for creating a story about love were awakened in the writer by the walls of the Simonov Monastery, next to which he was visiting a friend at his dacha.
Characteristics of the characters “Poor Lisa”
Main characters
Lisa |
A young, attractive girl, at the age of 15 she was left without a father. Hardworking and diligent Lisa works hard to help her old mother. She knits socks, makes canvases, summer time collects berries and flowers, and carries it all for sale in Moscow. This is a pure and modest girl, with a sensitive and vulnerable soul. Having fallen in love with a young officer, he completely surrenders to his feelings. Trusting and naive, she sincerely believes in Erast's love. Having learned about his marriage, she cannot survive the betrayal and commits suicide. |
Erast |
In “Poor Liza,” the characters not only evoke sympathy, but also make one doubt the authenticity of feelings. Erast’s behavior in the case of Lisa - shining example this discrepancy between words and deeds. Erast is a young, rich nobleman, an intelligent and kind man. At the same time, he is weak-willed and weak-willed. Having fallen in love with Lisa, he experiences new feelings, encountering moral purity for the first time. Having taken possession of Lisa, he became himself again. Having lost his fortune, he marries a rich lady of his circle. |
Minor characters
Lisa's mother |
An elderly woman, sick, is very worried about the death of her husband. She is very kind and sensitive, loves and takes pity on Lisa. Her dream is to marry her daughter to good man. A sociable old lady, she loves to talk with Erast. She likes the young man, but she does not imagine him as Liza’s husband, since she understands social inequality well. Hearing about the death of her daughter, the old woman’s heart could not stand it, and she died after her. |
Author |
The author talks about the unhappy love of two young people, whose story he learned from Erast. This is a good and honest person who knows how to deeply feel and compassion. With tenderness and admiration, the author describes the image of the unfortunate girl, and treats Erast with understanding and sympathy. He does not judge young people, and visits Liza’s grave with the best intentions. |
Anyuta |
A young girl, Lisa's neighbor. It is to her that Lisa turns before her death. Anyuta is an honest and reliable girl who can be trusted. Lisa asked Anyuta to give her mother the money and explain to her the reason for her action. Confused by Lisa’s crazy speech and her sudden throw into the river, Anyuta was unable to help her drowning neighbor, and ran crying to the village for help. |
Lisa's father |
During his lifetime he was a wealthy peasant, led a sober lifestyle, knew how and loved to work, which he taught to his daughter. Was loving husband and a caring father, his death brought much suffering to the family. |
Rich widow |
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The story of a touching and unhappy love of a peasant girl for a man from another circle became an example of a new direction in literature, called “sentimentalism.”
List of characters from Karamzin's story " Poor Lisa"and the characteristics of the characters can be used for the reader's diary.
Work test
The story “Poor Liza,” written by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, became one of the first works of sentimentalism in Russia. The love story of a poor girl and a young nobleman won the hearts of many of the writer’s contemporaries and was received with great delight. The work brought unprecedented popularity to the then completely unknown 25-year-old writer. However, with what descriptions does the story “Poor Liza” begin?
History of creation
N. M. Karamzin was distinguished by his love for Western culture and actively preached its principles. His role in the life of Russia was enormous and invaluable. This progressive and active man traveled extensively throughout Europe in 1789-1790, and upon his return he published the story “Poor Liza” in the Moscow Journal.
Analysis of the story indicates that the work has a sentimental aesthetic orientation, which is expressed in interest in people, regardless of their social status.
While writing the story, Karamzin lived at his friends’ dacha, not far from which he was located. It is believed that he served as the basis for the beginning of the work. Thanks to this, the love story and the characters themselves were perceived by readers as completely real. And the pond not far from the monastery began to be called “Liza’s Pond.”
“Poor Liza” by Karamzin as a sentimental story
“Poor Liza” is, in fact, a short story, a genre in which no one had written in Russia before Karamzin. But the writer’s innovation is not only in the choice of genre, but also in the direction. It was this story that secured the title of the first work of Russian sentimentalism.
Sentimentalism arose in Europe back in the 17th century and focused on the sensual side of human life. Issues of reason and society faded into the background for this direction, but emotions and relationships between people became a priority.
Sentimentalism has always strived to idealize what is happening, to embellish it. Answering the question about what descriptions the story “Poor Liza” begins with, we can talk about the idyllic landscape that Karamzin paints for readers.
Theme and idea
One of the main themes of the story is social, and it is connected with the problem of attitude noble class to the peasants. It is not for nothing that Karamzin chooses a peasant girl to play the role of bearer of innocence and morality.
Contrasting the images of Lisa and Erast, the writer is one of the first to raise the problem of contradictions between the city and the countryside. If we turn to the descriptions with which the story “Poor Liza” begins, we will see a quiet, cozy and natural world that exists in harmony with nature. The city is frightening, terrifying with its “huge houses” and “golden domes.” Lisa becomes a reflection of nature, she is natural and naive, there is no falsehood or pretense in her.
The author speaks in the story from the position of a humanist. Karamzin depicts all the charm of love, its beauty and strength. But reason and pragmatism can easily destroy this wonderful feeling. The story owes its success to its incredible attention to a person’s personality and his experiences. “Poor Liza” aroused sympathy among its readers thanks to amazing ability Karamzin to depict all the emotional subtleties, experiences, aspirations and thoughts of the heroine.
Heroes
A complete analysis of the story “Poor Liza” is impossible without a detailed examination of the images of the main characters of the work. Lisa and Erast, as noted above, embodied different ideals and principles.
Lisa is an ordinary peasant girl, main feature which is the ability to feel. She acts according to the dictates of her heart and feelings, which ultimately led to her death, although her morality remained intact. However, there is little peasant in the image of Lisa: her speech and thoughts are closer to book language, but the feelings of a girl who has fallen in love for the first time are conveyed with incredible truthfulness. So, despite the external idealization of the heroine, her inner experiences are conveyed very realistically. In this regard, the story “Poor Liza” does not lose its innovation.
What descriptions does the work begin with? First of all, they are in tune with the character of the heroine, helping the reader to recognize her. This is a natural, idyllic world.
Erast appears completely different to the readers. He is an officer who is only puzzled by the search for new entertainment; life in society tires him and makes him bored. He is intelligent, kind, but weak in character and changeable in his affections. Erast truly falls in love, but does not think at all about the future, because Lisa is not his circle, and he will never be able to take her as his wife.
Karamzin complicated the image of Erast. Typically, such a hero in Russian literature was simpler and endowed with certain characteristics. But the writer makes him not an insidious seducer, but a sincerely in love with a person who, due to weakness of character, could not pass the test and preserve his love. This type of hero was new to Russian literature, but immediately took root and later received the name “ extra person».
Plot and originality
The plot of the work is quite simple. This is the story of the tragic love of a peasant woman and a nobleman, the result of which was the death of Lisa.
What descriptions does the story “Poor Liza” begin with? Karamzin draws a natural panorama, the bulk of the monastery, a pond - it is here, surrounded by nature, that the main character lives. But the main thing in a story is not the plot or descriptions, the main thing is feelings. And the narrator must awaken these feelings in the audience. For the first time in Russian literature, where the image of the narrator has always remained outside the work, a hero-author appears. This sentimental narrator learns a love story from Erast and retells it to the reader with sadness and sympathy.
Thus, there are three main characters in the story: Lisa, Erast and the author-narrator. Karamzin also introduces the technique of landscape descriptions and somewhat lightens the ponderous style of the Russian literary language.
The significance of the story “Poor Lisa” for Russian literature
Analysis of the story, thus, shows Karamzin’s incredible contribution to the development of Russian literature. In addition to describing the relationship between city and village, the appearance of the “extra person,” many researchers note the emergence of “ little man- in the image of Lisa. This work influenced the work of A. S. Pushkin, F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy, who developed the themes, ideas and images of Karamzin.
The incredible psychologism that brought Russian literature worldwide fame also gave rise to the story “Poor Liza.” What descriptions does this work begin with! There is so much beauty, originality and incredible stylistic lightness in them! Karamzin’s contribution to the development of Russian literature cannot be overestimated.
Despite words and tastes
And contrary to wishes
On us from the faded line
Suddenly there is an air of charm.
What a strange thing for these days,
It is by no means a secret for us.
But there is dignity in it too:
She's sentimental!
Lines from the first play “Poor Liza”,
libretto by Yuri Ryashentsev
In the era of Byron, Schiller and Goethe, on the eve of the French Revolution, in the intensity of feelings characteristic of Europe in those years, but with the ceremoniality and pomp of the Baroque still remaining, the leading trends in literature were sensual and sensitive romanticism and sentimentalism. If the appearance of romanticism in Russia was due to translations of the works of these poets, and was later developed by Russia’s own works, then sentimentalism became popular thanks to the works of Russian writers, one of which is “Poor Liza” by Karamzin.
According to Karamzin himself, the story “Poor Liza” is “a very simple fairy tale.” The narrative about the fate of the heroine begins with a description of Moscow and the author’s confession that he often comes to the “deserted monastery” where Lisa is buried, and “listens to the dull groan of times, swallowed up by the abyss of the past.” With this technique, the author indicates his presence in the story, showing that any value judgment in the text is his personal opinion. The coexistence of the author and his hero in the same narrative space was not familiar to Russian literature before Karamzin. The title of the story is based on the connection own name heroine with an epithet characterizing the sympathetic attitude of the narrator towards her, who constantly repeats that he has no power to change the course of events (“Ah! Why am I writing not a novel, but a sad true story?”).
Lisa, forced to work hard to feed her old mother, one day comes to Moscow with lilies of the valley and meets her on the street young man, who expresses a desire to always buy lilies of the valley from Lisa and finds out where she lives. The next day, Lisa waits for a new acquaintance, Erast, to appear, without selling her lilies of the valley to anyone, but he only comes the next day to Lisa’s house. The next day, Erast tells Lisa that he loves her, but asks her to keep their feelings secret from her mother. For a long time“their embrace was pure and immaculate,” and to Erast “all the brilliant amusements of the great world” seem “insignificant in comparison with the pleasures with which the passionate friendship of an innocent soul nourished his heart.” However, soon the son of a rich peasant from a neighboring village wooes Lisa. Erast objects to their wedding and says that, despite the difference between them, for him in Lisa “the most important thing is the soul, the sensitive and innocent soul.” Their dates continue, but now Erast “could no longer be content with just innocent caresses.” “He wanted more, more, and finally, he couldn’t want anything... Platonic love gave way to feelings that he couldn’t be proud of and that were no longer new to him.” After some time, Erast informs Lisa that his regiment is setting off on a military campaign. He says goodbye and gives Lisa’s mother money. Two months later, Liza, having arrived in Moscow, sees Erast, follows his carriage to a huge mansion, where Erast, freeing himself from Lisa’s embrace, says that he still loves her, but the circumstances have changed: on the hike he lost almost all of his money at cards. estate, and is now forced to marry a rich widow. Erast gives Lisa a hundred rubles and asks the servant to escort the girl from the yard. Lisa, having reached the pond, under the shade of those oak trees that just “a few weeks before had witnessed her delight,” meets the neighbor’s daughter, gives her money and asks her to tell her mother with the words that she loved a man, and he cheated on her. After this he throws himself into the water. The neighbor's daughter calls for help, Lisa is pulled out, but it is too late. Lisa was buried near the pond, Lisa's mother died of grief. Until the end of his life, Erast “could not console himself and considered himself a murderer.” The author met him a year before his death, and learned the whole story from him.
The story made a complete revolution in the public consciousness of the 18th century. For the first time in the history of Russian prose, Karamzin turned to a heroine endowed with emphatically ordinary features. His words “even peasant women know how to love” became popular. It is not surprising that the story was very popular. Many Erasts appear at once in the lists of nobles - a name that was previously infrequent. The pond, located under the walls of the Simonov Monastery (a 14th-century monastery, preserved on the territory of the Dynamo plant on Leninskaya Sloboda Street, 26), was called the Fox Pond, but thanks to Karamzin’s story it was popularly renamed Lizin and became a place of constant pilgrimage. According to eyewitnesses, the bark of the trees around the pond was cut with inscriptions, both serious (“In these streams, poor Liza passed away her days; / If you are sensitive, passer-by, sigh”), and satirical, hostile to the heroine and the author (“Erastova died in these streams bride. / Drown yourself, girls, there’s plenty of room in the pond”).
“Poor Liza” became one of the pinnacles of Russian sentimentality. It is here that the refined psychologism of Russian artistic prose, recognized throughout the world, originates. Karamzin's artistic discovery was important - the creation of a special emotional atmosphere corresponding to the theme of the work. The picture of pure first love is painted very touchingly: “Now I think,” says Lisa to Erast, “that without you life is not life, but sadness and boredom. Without your eyes the bright month is dark; without your voice the nightingale singing is boring..." Sensuality - the highest value of sentimentalism - pushes the heroes into each other's arms, giving them a moment of happiness. The main characters are also drawn characteristically: chaste, naive, joyfully trusting of people, Lisa seems to be a beautiful shepherdess, less like a peasant woman, more like a sweet society young lady brought up on sentimental novels; Erast, despite his dishonorable act, reproaches himself for it until the end of his life.
In addition to sentimentalism, Karamzin gave Russia a new name. The name Elizabeth is translated as “who worships God.” In biblical texts, this is the name of the wife of the high priest Aaron and the mother of John the Baptist. Later, the literary heroine Heloise, Abelard's friend, appears. After her, the name is associatively associated with a love theme: the story of the “noble maiden” Julie d’Entage, who fell in love with her modest teacher Saint-Preux, is called by Jean-Jacques Rousseau “Julia, or the New Heloise” (1761). Until the early 80s of the XVIII century, the name "Liza" almost never appeared in Russian literature. By choosing this name for his heroine, Karamzin broke the strict canon of European literature of the 17th-18th centuries, in which the image of Lisa, Lisette, was associated primarily with comedy and with the image of a maid-maid, which is usually quite frivolous and understands at a glance everything connected with a love affair. The gap between the name and its usual meaning meant going beyond the boundaries of classicism, weakening the connections between the name and its bearer in literary work. Instead of the “name - behavior” connection familiar to classicism, a new one appears: character - behavior, which became a significant achievement of Karamzin on the way to the “psychologism” of Russian prose.
Many readers were struck by the author's audacious style of presentation. One of the critics from Novikov’s circle, which once included Karamzin himself, wrote: “I don’t know whether Mr. Karamzin made an era in the history of the Russian language: but if he did, it’s very bad.” Further, the author of these lines writes that in “Poor Liza” “bad morals are called good manners”
The plot of “Poor Lisa” is as generalized and condensed as possible. Possible lines of development are only outlined; often the text is replaced by dots and dashes, which become its “ significant minus" The image of Lisa is also only outlined, each trait of her character is a theme for the story, but not yet the story itself.
Karamzin was one of the first to introduce the contrast between city and countryside into Russian literature. In world folklore and myth, heroes are often able to act actively only in the space allotted to them and are completely powerless outside of it. In accordance with this tradition, in Karamzin's story, a village man - a man of nature - finds himself defenseless when he finds himself in urban space, where laws different from the laws of nature apply. No wonder Lisa’s mother tells her: “My heart is always out of place when you go to town.”
The central feature of Lisa’s character is sensitivity - this is how the main advantage of Karamzin’s stories was defined, meaning by this the ability to sympathize, to discover the “tenderest feelings” in the “curves of the heart,” as well as the ability to enjoy the contemplation of one’s own emotions. Lisa trusts the movements of her heart and lives with “tender passions.” Ultimately, it is ardor and ardor that lead to her death, but it is morally justified. Karamzin’s consistent idea that for the mentally rich, sensitive person doing good deeds naturally removes the need for normative morality.
Many people perceive the novel as a confrontation between honesty and frivolity, kindness and negativity, poverty and wealth. In fact, everything is more complicated: this is a clash of characters: strong - and accustomed to going with the flow. The novel emphasizes that Erast is a young man “with a fair amount of intelligence and kind hearted, kind by nature, but weak and flighty.” It was Erast, who from the point of view of Lysia’s social stratum is the “darling of fate,” who was constantly bored and “complained about his fate.” Erast is presented as an egoist who seems to be ready to change for the sake of a new life, but as soon as he gets bored, he, without looking back, changes his life again, without thinking about the fate of those he abandoned. In other words, he thinks only about his own pleasure, and his desire to live, unencumbered by the rules of civilization, in the lap of nature, is caused only by reading idyllic novels and oversaturation with social life.
In this light, falling in love with Lisa is only a necessary addition to the idyllic picture being created - it is not for nothing that Erast calls her his shepherdess. Having read novels in which “all the people walked blithely along the rays, swam in clean springs, kissed like turtle doves, rested under roses and myrtles,” he decided that “he found in Lisa what his heart had been looking for for a long time.” That’s why he dreams that he will “live with Liza, like brother and sister, I will not use her love for evil and I will always be happy!”, and when Liza gives herself to him, the sated young man begins to cool in his feelings.
At the same time, Erast, being, as the author emphasizes, “kind by nature,” cannot just leave: he is trying to find a compromise with his conscience, and his decision comes down to paying off. The first time he gives money to Liza’s mother is when he doesn’t want to meet with Liza anymore and goes on a campaign with the regiment; the second time is when Lisa finds him in the city and he informs her about his upcoming marriage.
The story “Rich Liza” opens the theme of the “little man” in Russian literature, although the social aspect in relation to Liza and Erast is somewhat muted.
The story caused many outright imitations: 1801. A.E. Izmailov “Poor Masha”, I. Svechinsky “Seduced Henrietta”, 1803. "Unhappy Margarita." At the same time, the theme of “Poor Lisa” can be traced in many works of high artistic value, and plays a variety of roles in them. Thus, Pushkin, moving to realism in his prose works and wanting to emphasize both his rejection of sentimentalism and its irrelevance for contemporary Russia, took the plot of “Poor Lisa” and turned the “sad story” into a story with a happy ending “The Young Lady - a Peasant Woman” . Nevertheless, the same Pushkin in “The Queen of Spades” has a line later life Karamzin's Liza: the fate that would have awaited her if she had not committed suicide. An echo of the theme of the sentimental work is also heard in the novel “Sunday” written in the spirit of realism by L.T. Tolstoy. Seduced by Nekhlyudov, Katyusha Maslova decides to throw herself under the train.
Thus, the plot, which existed in literature before and became popular after, was transferred to Russian soil, acquiring a special national flavor and becoming the basis for the development of Russian sentimentalism. Russian psychological, portrait prose and contributed to the gradual retreat of Russian literature from the norms of classicism to more modern literary movements.
History of creation and publication
The story was written and published in 1792 in the Moscow Journal, the editor of which was N.M. Karamzin himself. In 1796, “Poor Liza” was published in a separate book.
Plot
After the death of her father, a “prosperous villager,” young Lisa is forced to work tirelessly to feed herself and her mother. In the spring, she sells lilies of the valley in Moscow and there she meets the young nobleman Erast, who falls in love with her and is even ready to leave the world for the sake of his love. The lovers spend all their evenings together. However, with the loss of her innocence, Lisa lost her attractiveness for Erast. One day he reports that he must go on a campaign with the regiment, and they will have to part. A few days later, Erast leaves.
Several months pass. Liza, once in Moscow, accidentally sees Erast in a magnificent carriage and finds out that he is engaged (During the war, he lost his estate at cards and now, having returned, he is forced to marry a rich widow). In despair, Lisa throws herself into the pond near which they were walking.
Artistic originality
The plot of this story was borrowed by Karamzin from European love literature, but transferred to “Russian” soil. The author hints that he is personally acquainted with Erast (“I met him a year before his death. He himself told me this story and led me to Lisa’s grave”) and emphasizes that the action takes place in Moscow and its environs, describes, for example , Simonov and Danilov monasteries, Vorobyovy Gory, creating the illusion of authenticity. This was an innovation for Russian literature of that time: usually the action of works took place “in one city.” The first readers of the story perceived Lisa's story as a real tragedy of a contemporary - it is no coincidence that the pond under the walls of the Simonov Monastery was named Liza's Pond, and the fate of Karamzin's heroine received a lot of imitations. The oak trees growing around the pond were covered with inscriptions - touching ( “In these streams, poor Lisa passed away her days; If you are sensitive, passer-by, sigh!”) and caustic ( “Here Erast’s bride threw herself into the water. Drown yourself, girls, there’s enough room for everyone in the pond!”) .
However, despite the apparent plausibility, the world depicted in the story is idyllic: the peasant woman Liza and her mother have sophistication of feelings and perceptions, their speech is literate, literary and no different from the speech of the nobleman Erast. The life of poor villagers resembles a pastoral:
Meanwhile, a young shepherd was driving his flock along the river bank, playing the pipe. Lisa fixed her gaze on him and thought: “If the one who now occupies my thoughts was born a simple peasant, a shepherd, - and if he were now driving his flock past me: ah! I would bow to him with a smile and say affably: “Hello, dear shepherd!” Where are you driving your flock? And here green grass grows for your sheep, and here flowers grow red, from which you can weave a wreath for your hat.” He would look at me with an affectionate look - maybe he would take my hand... A dream! A shepherd, playing the flute, passed by and disappeared with his motley flock behind a nearby hill.
The story became an example of Russian sentimental literature. In contrast to classicism with its cult of reason, Karamzin affirmed the cult of feelings, sensitivity, compassion: “Ah! I love those objects that touch my heart and make me shed tears of tender sorrow!” . Heroes are important first of all for their ability to love and surrender to feelings. There is no class conflict in the story: Karamzin sympathizes equally with both Erast and Lisa. In addition, unlike the works of classicism, “Poor Liza” is devoid of morality, didacticism, and edification: the author does not teach, but tries to evoke empathy for the characters in the reader.
The story is also distinguished by its “smooth” language: Karamzin abandoned Old Slavonicisms and pomposity, which made the work easy to read.
Criticism about the story
“Poor Liza” was received by the Russian public with such enthusiasm because in this work Karamzin was the first to express the “new word” that Goethe said to the Germans in his “Werther.” The heroine’s suicide was such a “new word” in the story. The Russian public, accustomed in old novels to consoling endings in the form of weddings, who believed that virtue is always rewarded and vice is punished, met for the first time in this story the bitter truth of life.
"Poor Lisa" in art
In painting
Literary reminiscences
Dramatizations
Film adaptations
- 1967 - “Poor Liza” (television play), directed by Natalya Barinova, David Livnev, starring: Anastasia Voznesenskaya, Andrei Myagkov.
- - “Poor Lisa”, director Idea Garanina, composer Alexey Rybnikov
- - “Poor Lisa”, directed by Slava Tsukerman, starring Irina Kupchenko, Mikhail Ulyanov.
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Literature
- Toporov V. N. 1 // “Poor Liza” by Karamzin: Reading experience: To the bicentenary of its publication = Liza. - Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities, 1995.
Notes
Links
Excerpt characterizing Poor Lisa
– In the mosaic briefcase that he keeps under his pillow. “Now I know,” said the princess without answering. “Yes, if there is a sin behind me, a great sin, then it is hatred of this scoundrel,” the princess almost shouted, completely changed. - And why is she rubbing herself in here? But I will tell her everything, everything. The time will come!While such conversations took place in the reception room and in the princess's rooms, the carriage with Pierre (who was sent for) and with Anna Mikhailovna (who found it necessary to go with him) drove into the courtyard of Count Bezukhy. When the wheels of the carriage sounded softly on the straw spread under the windows, Anna Mikhailovna, turning to her companion with comforting words, was convinced that he was sleeping in the corner of the carriage, and woke him up. Having woken up, Pierre followed Anna Mikhailovna out of the carriage and then only thought about the meeting with his dying father that awaited him. He noticed that they drove up not to the front entrance, but to the back entrance. While he was getting off the step, two people in bourgeois clothes hurriedly ran away from the entrance into the shadow of the wall. Pausing, Pierre saw several more similar people in the shadows of the house on both sides. But neither Anna Mikhailovna, nor the footman, nor the coachman, who could not help but see these people, paid no attention to them. Therefore, this is so necessary, Pierre decided to himself and followed Anna Mikhailovna. Anna Mikhailovna walked with hasty steps up the dimly lit narrow stone staircase, calling Pierre, who was lagging behind her, who, although he did not understand why he had to go to the count at all, and even less why he had to go up the back stairs, but , judging by the confidence and haste of Anna Mikhailovna, he decided to himself that this was necessary. Halfway up the stairs, they were almost knocked down by some people with buckets, who, clattering with their boots, ran towards them. These people pressed against the wall to let Pierre and Anna Mikhailovna through, and did not show the slightest surprise at the sight of them.
– Are there half princesses here? – Anna Mikhailovna asked one of them...
“Here,” the footman answered in a bold, loud voice, as if now everything was possible, “the door is on the left, mother.”
“Maybe the count didn’t call me,” Pierre said as he walked out onto the platform, “I would have gone to my place.”
Anna Mikhailovna stopped to catch up with Pierre.
- Ah, mon ami! - she said with the same gesture as in the morning with her son, touching his hand: - croyez, que je souffre autant, que vous, mais soyez homme. [Believe me, I suffer no less than you, but be a man.]
- Right, I'll go? - asked Pierre, looking affectionately through his glasses at Anna Mikhailovna.
- Ah, mon ami, oubliez les torts qu"on a pu avoir envers vous, pensez que c"est votre pere... peut etre a l"agonie. - She sighed. - Je vous ai tout de suite aime comme mon fils. Fiez vous a moi, Pierre. Je n"oublirai pas vos interets. [Forget, my friend, what was wronged against you. Remember that this is your father... Maybe in agony. I immediately loved you like a son. Trust me, Pierre. I will not forget your interests.]
Pierre did not understand anything; again it seemed to him even more strongly that all this should be so, and he obediently followed Anna Mikhailovna, who was already opening the door.
The door opened into the front and back. An old servant of the princesses sat in the corner and knitted a stocking. Pierre had never been to this half, did not even imagine the existence of such chambers. Anna Mikhailovna asked the girl who was ahead of them, with a decanter on a tray (calling her sweet and darling) about the health of the princesses and dragged Pierre further along the stone corridor. From the corridor, the first door to the left led to the princesses' living rooms. The maid, with the decanter, in a hurry (as everything was done in a hurry at that moment in this house) did not close the door, and Pierre and Anna Mikhailovna, passing by, involuntarily looked into the room where the eldest princess and Prince Vasily. Seeing those passing by, Prince Vasily made an impatient movement and leaned back; The princess jumped up and with a desperate gesture slammed the door with all her might, closing it.
This gesture was so unlike the princess’s usual calmness, the fear expressed on Prince Vasily’s face was so uncharacteristic of his importance that Pierre stopped, questioningly, through his glasses, looked at his leader.
Anna Mikhailovna did not express surprise, she only smiled slightly and sighed, as if showing that she had expected all this.
“Soyez homme, mon ami, c"est moi qui veillerai a vos interets, [Be a man, my friend, I will look after your interests.] - she said in response to his gaze and walked even faster down the corridor.
Pierre did not understand what the matter was, and even less what veiller a vos interets meant, [to look after your interests,] but he understood that all this should be so. They walked through the corridor into a dimly lit hall adjacent to the count's reception room. It was one of those cold and luxurious rooms that Pierre knew from the front porch. But even in this room, in the middle, there was an empty bathtub and water was spilled on the carpet. A servant and a clerk with a censer came out to meet them on tiptoe, not paying attention to them. They entered a reception room familiar to Pierre with two Italian windows leading out into winter Garden, with a large bust and a full-length portrait of Catherine. All the same people, in almost the same positions, sat whispering in the waiting room. Everyone fell silent and looked back at Anna Mikhailovna who had entered, with her tear-stained, pale face, and at fat, big Pierre, who, with his head down, obediently followed her.
Anna Mikhailovna's face expressed the consciousness that the decisive moment had arrived; She, with the manner of a businesslike St. Petersburg lady, entered the room, not letting Pierre go, even bolder than in the morning. She felt that since she was leading the one whom the dying man wanted to see, her reception was guaranteed. Having quickly glanced at everyone who was in the room, and noticing the count's confessor, she, not only bending over, but suddenly becoming smaller in stature, swam up to the confessor with a shallow amble and respectfully accepted the blessing of one, then another clergyman.
“Thank God we made it,” she said to the clergyman, “all of us, my family, were so afraid.” This young man is the count’s son,” she added more quietly. - A terrible moment!
Having uttered these words, she approached the doctor.
“Cher docteur,” she told him, “ce jeune homme est le fils du comte... y a t il de l"espoir? [This young man is the son of a count... Is there hope?]
The doctor silently, with a quick movement, raised his eyes and shoulders upward. Anna Mikhailovna raised her shoulders and eyes with exactly the same movement, almost closing them, sighed and walked away from the doctor to Pierre. She turned especially respectfully and tenderly sadly to Pierre.
“Ayez confiance en Sa misericorde, [Trust in His mercy,”] she told him, showing him a sofa to sit down to wait for her, she silently walked towards the door that everyone was looking at, and following the barely audible sound of this door, disappeared behind it.
Pierre, having decided to obey his leader in everything, went to the sofa that she showed him. As soon as Anna Mikhailovna disappeared, he noticed that the glances of everyone in the room turned to him with more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed that everyone was whispering, pointing at him with their eyes, as if with fear and even servility. He was shown respect that had never been shown before: a lady unknown to him, who was speaking with the clergy, stood up from her seat and invited him to sit down, the adjutant picked up the glove that Pierre had dropped and handed it to him; the doctors fell silent respectfully as he passed them, and stood aside to give him room. Pierre wanted to sit in another place first, so as not to embarrass the lady; he wanted to lift his glove himself and go around the doctors, who were not standing in the road at all; but he suddenly felt that this would be indecent, he felt that this night he was a person who was obliged to perform some terrible ritual expected by everyone, and that therefore he had to accept services from everyone. He silently accepted the glove from the adjutant, sat down in the lady's place, putting his big hands on his symmetrically extended knees, in the naive pose of an Egyptian statue, and decided to himself that all this should be exactly like this and that this evening, in order not to get lost and not do anything stupid, he should not act according to his own considerations, but should be left to himself completely at the will of those who led him.
"Poor Liza" is a sentimental story by Russian writer Nikolai Mikhailovich. Date of writing: 1792. Feelings are the main thing in Karamzin’s work. This is where his passion for sentimental stories came from. In the 18th century, this story became one of the first to be published in the style of sentimentalism. The work caused great amount positive emotions Among Karamzin's contemporaries, young people accepted this with particular delight, and critics did not have a single unkind word.
The narrator himself becomes part of the story. He tells us with particular sadness and regret about the fate of a simple village girl. All the heroes of the work shock the reader’s mind with the sincerity of their feelings, the image is especially noteworthy main character. The main thing in the story is to show how sincere and pure the feelings of a poor peasant woman and the low, vile feelings of a rich nobleman can be.
The first thing we see in the story is the outskirts of Moscow. Sentimentalist writers generally paid a lot of attention to describing the landscape. Nature closely watches the development of relations between lovers, but does not empathize with them, but on the contrary, remains deaf in the most important points. Lisa is a kind girl by nature, with with an open heart and soul.
The main place in Lisa's life was occupied by her beloved mother, whom she adored to the depths of her soul, treated her with great respect and reverence, and helped her in everything until Erast appeared. “Not sparing her tender youth, her rare beauty, she worked day and night - weaving canvas, knitting stockings, picking flowers in the spring, taking berries in the summer - and selling them in Moscow” - these are lines from the story, from which it is clear how the girl tried to everyone to be useful to the mother and protected her from everything. Her mother sometimes pressed her to her chest and called her her joy and nurse.
The girl's life proceeded calmly, until one day she fell in love with the young nobleman Erast. He is a smart, educated, well-read man. He loved to remember those times when people lived from holiday to holiday, did not care about anything and lived only for their own pleasure. They met when Lisa was selling flowers in Moscow. Erast immediately liked the girl; he was captivated by her beauty, modesty, kindness and gullibility. Lisa's love came from the bottom of her heart, and the power of this love was so great that the girl completely trusted Erast with both soul and heart. This was the first feeling for her. She wanted a long and happy life with Erast, but happiness was not as lasting as she pictured in her dreams.
Lisa's lover turned out to be a mercantile, low and vain person. All her feelings seemed like mere fun to him, because he was a man who lived one day at a time, without thinking about the consequences of his actions. And Lisa initially captivated him with her purity and spontaneity. They declare their love to each other and promise to keep their love forever. But having received the desired intimacy, he no longer wants anything. Lisa was no longer an angel for him, which delighted and replenished Erast’s soul.
At the meeting, Erast reported about the military campaign and forced absence. Lisa cries, worried about her beloved. He comes to say goodbye to her mother and gives her money, not wanting to sell Liza’s work to others in his absence. But he’s not sad at all, he’s not so much serving as he’s having fun. He lost almost all his fortune at cards. In order not to think about this headache, he decides to marry a rich widow.
Two months have passed since the breakup. Lisa accidentally saw Erast when she came to the city to buy rose water. He is forced to admit his sins in his office, giving her a hundred rubles and apologizing, asking the servant to escort the girl from the yard. Poor Lisa herself doesn’t know how she ended up near the pond. She asks the neighbor girl passing by to give her mother money and words that she loved one person, and he cheated on her. She then throws herself into the pond.
Betrayal of a loved one is too much swipe for Lisa's fragile soul. And he became deadly in her life. Her life has become too much work, and she decides to die. A moment, and the girl is taken out from the bottom of the river, lifeless. This is how the story of the poor peasant woman ends. The mother, unable to bear the death of her only daughter, dies. Erast lived a long, but completely unhappy life, constantly reproaching himself for ruining the life of the good and kind Liza. It was he who told the author this story a year before his death. Who knows, maybe they have already reconciled.
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