"A House with a Mezzanine" is one of the most famous stories by the master of short prose Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. The work was published in 1896. It describes the love feeling that arose between a bored artist and a young landowner's daughter, and also touches upon socially important issues of the plight of the Russian peasantry and possible ways to change the current state of affairs.

In the story "House with a Mezzanine" there are 5 main characters:

• Artist(aka the narrator) - a bored intellectual who came to the village to unwind from the bustle of the city, but in fact continued to be bored, depressed and lead an idle lifestyle;
• Belokurov- the landowner, a friend of the Artist, the storyteller came to his estate to visit;
• Ekaterina Pavlovna Volchaninova- landowner, Belokurov's neighbor;
• Lida- the eldest daughter of Volchaninova, a beauty, an activist, an ardent fighter for transformation, an adherent of the “small deeds” method;
• Zhenya(for domestic Misya) - the youngest daughter of Volchaninova, a dreamy, cheerful, open person, the subject of the Artist's ardent passion.

The main character paints watercolors, he is an artist. True, for a long time art practically did not inspire him. Nothing excites the main character, no persistent emotion or strong experience resonates in his soul. To change the situation, he goes to the village to his friend the landowner Belokurov. The latter leads a no more active lifestyle. He sits without a break in his estate. From an idle way of life, his speech acquired some kind of viscous character. Belokurov is even too lazy to marry, he is quite content with a cohabitant, according to the narrator, more like a beefy goose.

However, Belokurov is not tormented by such a life, he is quite happy in his blissful idleness. But for our Artist, idleness is tedious. It's like he's doomed to do nothing. Existence in the village began to merge into one long, long day. But one day the guest met the Volchaninov girls, and everything changed.

There were two of them. Both are very beautiful, but each in its own way. The eldest, Lida, was thin, white-skinned, stately, with a mop of thick brown hair spread over her shoulders. With this beauty, a thin stubborn mouth and a stern expression were discordant. The second, Zhenya (at home she was called by the cheerful nickname Misya, as little Zhenya called the French governess), thin, miniature, like a doll, big-mouthed, big-eyed. It was these open, sincere eyes that delighted the Artist. Missus followed the stranger with an enthusiastic curious look, while Lida barely glanced at the man.

Soon the Volchaninovs' neighbors invited the Artist to visit. During the first visit, it became clear who was the boss in the house. Lida's loud voice was already heard from the threshold, giving some orders. Matushka Ekaterina Pavlovna was shy with her daughter, but Misya childishly agreed with any authoritative decision of her elder sister.

From the very first visit between the Artist and the charming Misyu, a love arose. He seemed to wake up after a long sleep. This little white fairy brought him back to life. But the more the Artist became attached to his younger sister, the more tense his relationship with his older sister became.

Lida Volchaninova was a member of the Zemstvo, an ardent fighter for active reforms. She initiated the opening of pharmacies, libraries, schools for the poor peasantry. “True, we are not saving humanity. But we do what we can, and we are right." The key “and we are right” characterizes the self-confident Lida in the best possible way. The lack of flexibility, self-criticism, the ability to listen and hear leads Lida to a long and, alas, fruitless ideological debate with the Artist.

“I was unsympathetic to her,” noted the Artist. “She didn’t like me because I was a landscape painter and did not depict people’s needs in my paintings and that I, as it seemed to her, was indifferent to what she believed so strongly in.”

With each new argument, the gulf between Lida and the Artist widened. In the end, the imperious sister sent the youngest first to another province, and then abroad. Missus could not resist the will of Lida, and the Artist turned out to be too inert to save his love.

main idea

In the story "House with a mezzanine" two plot layers can be distinguished: love and ideological lines. If we talk about the love line, here Chekhov first of all focused on how often people do not value their happiness. Anton Pavlovich wrote: "... people so easily look through, miss life, they themselves refuse happiness."

And here you need to look wider than the love story of Miss and the Artist, because in fact the “House with a Mezzanine” is a story about three unfulfilled happiness. The happiness of the Artist and Misyu did not work out, the landowner Belokurov vegetates in the wilderness and the active Lida, who decided to put her life in the service of the people, also refuses personal happiness for the sake of an idea that has completely mastered her.

The ideological line can be traced mainly in the disputes between Lida and the Artist. It is a mistake to attribute the side of one of the characters to the author (traditionally, Chekhov is identified with the narrator). The author did not set out to discredit the theory of "small deeds", he only showed two types of a person's attitude to life. So, Lida is convinced that you need to start small: open pharmacies, libraries, schools. An intelligent person simply cannot sit idly by when there is poverty, illiteracy, and death all around. According to the Artist, all these "first-aid kits and libraries" will not change the state of affairs. This is just a deception, the appearance of activity. When someone sits on a chain, it will not be easier for him if this chain is painted with different colors. However, the Artist does not offer any specific plan of action. He, like the majority of idle philosophers, is too lazy to firmly take on the changes in the fate of the people.

And, finally, the main thing is that an idea (whatever it may be) should not have power over a person, it cannot run counter to his interests and the interests of those around him. So, Lida became obsessed with her “small deeds”, helping distant “others”, she did not notice that she had become a tyrant for her loved ones.

On our website you can also read a summary of the story "House with a mezzanine". Links to texts and summaries of other works by A.P. Chekhov - see below in the block "More on the topic ..."

I

That was six or seven years ago, when I lived in one of the counties of the T-th province, on the estate of the landowner Belokurov, a young man who got up very early, walked around in a coat, drank beer in the evenings and kept complaining to me that he was nowhere to be seen. and finds no sympathy in anyone. He lived in the garden in an outbuilding, and I lived in an old manor house, in a huge hall with columns, where there was no furniture except a wide sofa on which I slept, and even a table on which I played solitaire. Here, even in calm weather, something was always buzzing in the old Amos stoves, and during a thunderstorm the whole house trembled and seemed to crack into pieces, and it was a little scary, especially at night, when all ten large windows were suddenly lit by lightning.

Doomed by fate to constant idleness, I did absolutely nothing. For whole hours I looked out of my windows at the sky, at the birds, at the alleys, read everything that was brought to me from the post office, and slept. Sometimes I left home and wandered somewhere until late in the evening.

One day, returning home, I accidentally wandered into some unfamiliar estate. The sun was already hiding, and evening shadows were stretched on the flowering rye. Two rows of old, closely planted, very tall firs stood like two solid walls, forming a gloomy beautiful alley. I easily climbed over the fence and walked along this alley, sliding along the spruce needles, which here covered the ground by an inch. It was quiet, dark, and only high on the peaks a bright golden light trembled here and there and shimmered like a rainbow in the webs of a spider. There was a strong, stuffy smell of pine needles. Then I turned down a long linden alley. And here, too, desolation and old age; last year's leaves rustled sadly underfoot, and in the twilight shadows hid between the trees. To the right, in an old orchard, an oriole sang reluctantly, in a weak voice, which must also be an old woman. But now the lindens are over; I walked past a white house with a terrace and a mezzanine, and suddenly a view unfolded in front of me of the manor’s courtyard and the wide pond with a bath, with a crowd of green willows, with a village on the other side, with a high narrow bell tower, on which a cross burned, reflecting in the setting sun. For a moment, I felt the charm of something familiar, very familiar, as if I had already seen this very panorama once in my childhood.

And at the white stone gate that led from the courtyard into the field, at the ancient strong gate with lions, stood two girls. One of them, older, thin, pale, very beautiful, with a whole shock of chestnut hair on her head, with a small stubborn mouth, had a stern expression and hardly paid any attention to me; the other, still quite young - she was seventeen or eighteen years old, no more - also thin and pale, with a big mouth and big eyes, looked at me with surprise when I passed by, said something in English and became embarrassed , and it seemed to me that these two lovely faces had long been familiar to me. And I came home feeling like I had a good dream.

A.P. Chekhov "House with a mezzanine". audiobook

Soon after that, one afternoon, when Belokurov and I were walking near the house, suddenly, rustling through the grass, a spring-loaded carriage drove into the yard, in which one of those girls was sitting. It was the eldest. She came with a signature sheet to ask for fire victims. Without looking at us, she very seriously and in detail told us how many houses had burned down in the village of Siyanov, how many men, women, and children were left homeless, and what the Fire Combat Committee, of which she was now a member, intended to do at first. After giving us our signatures, she hid the sheet and immediately began to say goodbye.

“You have completely forgotten us, Pyotr Petrovich,” she said to Belokurov, offering him her hand. - Come, and if monsieur N. (she gave my last name) wants to see how admirers of his talent live, and come to us, then mother and I will be very happy.

I bowed.

When she left, Pyotr Petrovich began to talk. This girl, according to him, was from a good family, and her name was Lidia Volchaninova, and the estate in which she lived with her mother and sister, as well as the village on the other side of the pond, was called Shelkovka. Her father once occupied a prominent place in Moscow and died in the rank of Privy Councilor. Despite their good means, the Volchaninovs lived in the country without a break, summer and winter, and Lydia was a teacher in a zemstvo school in Shelkovka and received twenty-five rubles a month. She spent only this money on herself and was proud that she lived on her own account.

“Interesting family,” Belokurov said. “Perhaps we should visit them sometime. They will be very happy to see you.

Somehow after dinner, on one of the holidays, we remembered the Volchaninovs and went to see them in Shelkovka. They, mother and both daughters, were at home. My mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna, once, apparently, beautiful, but now damp beyond her years, sick with shortness of breath, sad, absent-minded, tried to keep me talking about painting. Having learned from her daughter that I might come to Shelkovka, she hastily recalled two or three of my landscapes, which she had seen at exhibitions in Moscow, and now asked what I wanted to express in them. Lydia, or, as she was called at home, Lida, talked more with Belokurov than with me. Serious, not smiling, she asked him why he did not serve in the Zemstvo and why until now he had not been to any Zemstvo meeting.

"It's not good, Pyotr Petrovich," she said reproachfully. - Not good. Ashamed.

“It’s true, Lida, it’s true,” the mother agreed. - Not good.

“Our entire district is in the hands of Balagin,” Lida continued, turning to me. - He himself is the chairman of the council and distributed all the positions in the district to his nephews and sons-in-law and does what he wants. We must fight. The youth should make up a strong party, but you see what kind of youth we have. Shame on you, Pyotr Petrovich!

The younger sister, Zhenya, was silent while talking about the Zemstvo. She did not take part in serious conversations, her family did not yet consider her an adult and, like a little girl, they called her Misya, because in her childhood she called her miss, her governess. All the time she looked at me with curiosity and, when I looked at the photographs in the album, she explained to me: “This is uncle ... This is the godfather,” and ran her finger over the portraits and at that time touched me like a child with her shoulder, and I was close I saw her weak, undeveloped chest, thin shoulders, braid and thin body, tightly tied with a belt.

We played croquet and lown-tennis, walked around the garden, drank tea, then had a long supper. After the huge empty hall with columns, I somehow felt uneasy in this small cozy house, in which there were no oleographs on the walls and the servants said “you”, and everything seemed young and clean to me thanks to the presence of Lida and Misyu, and everything breathed decency. At dinner, Lida again spoke with Belokurov about the Zemstvo, about Balagin, about school libraries. She was a lively, sincere, convinced girl, and it was interesting to listen to her, although she spoke a lot and loudly - perhaps because she was used to talking at school. On the other hand, my Pyotr Petrovich, who had retained from his student days the habit of turning every conversation into an argument, spoke dully, languidly and at length, with a clear desire to appear intelligent and progressive. Gesticulating, he knocked over the gravy boat with his sleeve, and a large puddle formed on the tablecloth, but, apart from me, no one seemed to notice this.

When we got home it was dark and quiet.

“A good upbringing is not that you won’t spill the sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won’t notice if someone else does it,” Belokurov said and sighed. - Yes, a wonderful, intelligent family. I fell behind good people, oh how I fell behind! And all things, things! Affairs!

He talked about how hard you have to work when you want to become a model farmer. And I thought: what a heavy and lazy fellow! When he spoke about something seriously, he pulled out “uh-uh” with tension and worked the same way as he spoke - slowly, always late, missing deadlines. I had little confidence in his efficiency, if only because the letters that I instructed him to send to the post office, he carried around in his pocket for whole weeks.

“The hardest thing,” he muttered, walking beside me, “the hardest thing is that you work and you don’t find sympathy in anyone. No sympathy!

II

I began to visit the Volchaninovs. I usually sat on the lower step of the terrace; I was tormented by dissatisfaction with myself, I was sorry for my life, which was passing so quickly and uninterestingly, and I kept thinking about how good it would be to tear out of my chest the heart that had become so heavy in me. And at this time they were talking on the terrace, the rustle of dresses was heard, they were turning over the pages of a book. I soon got used to the fact that during the day Lida received patients, handed out books and often went to the village with her head uncovered, under an umbrella, and in the evening spoke loudly about the Zemstvo, about schools. This thin, beautiful, unfailingly strict girl with a small, elegantly contoured mouth, whenever a business conversation began, said to me dryly:

- This is of no interest to you.

I was unsympathetic to her. She did not like me because I was a landscape painter and did not depict people's needs in my paintings, and because, as it seemed to her, I was indifferent to what she believed so strongly in. I remember when I was driving along the shore of Lake Baikal, I met a Buryat girl in a shirt and blue daba pants, riding a horse; I asked her if she would sell me her pipe, and while we were talking, she looked with contempt at my European face and at my hat, and in one minute she got tired of talking to me, she whooped and galloped away. And Lida, in the same way, despised the stranger in me. Outwardly, she did not express her dislike for me in any way, but I felt it and, sitting on the lower step of the terrace, felt irritated and said that treating peasants without being a doctor means deceiving them and that it is easy to be a benefactor when you have two thousand acres. .

And her sister, Missus, had no worries and spent her life in complete idleness, like me. Getting up in the morning, she immediately took up a book and read, sitting on the terrace in a deep armchair, so that her legs barely touched the ground, or hid with a book in a linden alley, or went through the gate into the field. She read all day, looking greedily at the book, and only because her eyes sometimes became tired, stunned and her face turned very pale, one could guess how much this reading tired her brain. When I came, she, seeing me, blushed slightly, left the book and with animation, looking into my face with her big eyes, told me about what had happened: for example, that soot had caught fire in the staff room or that a worker had caught a big fish in a pond. fish. On weekdays she usually went about in a light shirt and a dark blue skirt. We walked together, picked cherries for jam, rode in a boat, and when she jumped to get a cherry, or worked with oars, her thin, weak hands shone through her wide sleeves. Or I wrote a sketch, and she stood near and looked with admiration.

One Sunday, at the end of July, I came to the Volchaninovs in the morning, about nine o'clock. I walked around the park, keeping away from home, and looked for porcini mushrooms, which were very numerous that summer, and put marks near them, so that later I could pick them up with Zhenya. A warm wind blew. I saw how Zhenya and her mother, both in bright festive dresses, walked home from the church and Zhenya held her hat out of the wind. Then I heard tea being drunk on the terrace.

For me, a carefree person, looking for an excuse for my constant idleness, these summer festive mornings in our estates have always been unusually attractive. When the green garden, still wet with dew, is all shining from the sun and seems happy, when the house smells of mignonette and oleander, the young people have just returned from church and are drinking tea in the garden, and when everyone is so nicely dressed and cheerful, and when you know, that all these healthy, well-fed, beautiful people will do nothing all day long, I want my whole life to be like that. And now I thought the same thing and walked around the garden, ready to walk like that without work and without purpose all day, all summer.

Zhenya came with a basket; she had an expression as if she knew or had a presentiment that she would find me in the garden. We picked mushrooms and talked, and when she asked about something, she stepped forward to see my face.

“A miracle happened in our village yesterday,” she said. - Lame Pelageya was sick for a whole year, no doctors and medicines helped, but yesterday the old woman whispered, and it passed.

“It doesn't matter,” I said. – One should not look for miracles only around the sick and old women. Isn't health a miracle? What about life itself? What is incomprehensible is a miracle.

“Aren’t you afraid of what you don’t understand?”

- Not. To phenomena that I do not understand, I approach cheerfully and do not submit to them. I am above them. A man must be aware of himself above lions, tigers, stars, above everything in nature, even above what is incomprehensible and seems wonderful, otherwise he is not a man, but a mouse that is afraid of everything.

Zhenya thought that I, as an artist, know a lot and can correctly guess what I don’t know. She wanted me to lead her into the realm of the eternal and beautiful, into this higher world, in which, in her opinion, I was my own person, and she spoke to me about God, about eternal life, about the miraculous. And I, who did not admit that I and my imagination would perish forever after death, answered: “Yes, people are immortal”, “Yes, eternal life awaits us.”

And she listened, believed and did not require proof.

As we were walking towards the house, she suddenly stopped and said:

Our Linda is a wonderful person. Is not it? I love her dearly and could sacrifice my life for her every minute. But tell me, - Zhenya touched my sleeve with her finger, - tell me, why are you arguing with her? Why are you annoyed?

Because she's wrong.

Zhenya shook her head, and tears appeared in her eyes.

- How incomprehensible! she said.

At this time, Lida had just returned from somewhere and, standing near the porch with a whip in her hands, slender, beautiful, lit by the sun, ordered something to the worker. Hurrying and talking loudly, she received two or three patients, then, with a businesslike, preoccupied look, she walked around the rooms, opening first one closet, then another, and went to the mezzanine; they searched for her for a long time and called for dinner, and she came when we had already eaten the soup. For some reason I remember and love all these small details, and I remember vividly all that day, although nothing special happened. After dinner Zhenya was reading, lying in a deep armchair, and I was sitting on the bottom step of the terrace. We were silent. The whole sky was covered with clouds, and a rare, fine rain began to drizzle. It was hot, the wind had died down long ago, and it seemed that this day would never end. Ekaterina Pavlovna came out to our terrace, sleepy, with a fan.

“Oh, mother,” Zhenya said, kissing her hand, “it’s bad for you to sleep during the day.”

They adored each other. When one went into the garden, the other was already standing on the terrace and, looking at the trees, called out: “Ay, Zhenya!”, Or: “Mommy, where are you?” They always prayed together, and both equally believed and understood each other well, even when they were silent. And they treated people the same way. Ekaterina Pavlovna also soon got used to and became attached to me, and when I did not appear for two or three days, she sent to me to find out if I was healthy. She also looked at my sketches with admiration, and with the same talkativeness and as frankly as Missus, she told me what had happened, and often confided to me her household secrets.

She was in awe of her eldest daughter. Lida never caressed, spoke only about serious things; she lived her own special life, and for her mother and sister she was just as sacred, a little mysterious person, as for the sailors the admiral, who always sits in his cabin.

“Our Lida is a wonderful person,” her mother would often say. - Is not it?

And now, while it was raining, we were talking about Lida.

“She’s a wonderful person,” said the mother, and added in an undertone in the tone of a conspirator, looking around in fright: “Look for such people in the afternoon with fire, although, you know, I’m starting to worry a little. School, first aid kits, books - all this is good, but why extremes? After all, she is already twenty-four years old, it's time to seriously think about yourself. That way, behind books and first-aid kits, you won’t see how life will pass ... You need to get married.

Zhenya, pale from reading, with her hair rumpled, raised her head and said, as if to herself, looking at her mother:

- Mom, everything depends on the will of God!

And again plunged into reading.

Belokurov came in a jacket and an embroidered shirt. We played croquet and lown-tennis, then, when it got dark, we had a long supper, and Lida again talked about schools and about Balagin, who had taken over the whole district. Leaving the Volchaninovs that evening, I carried away the impression of a long, long, idle day, with the sad realization that everything in this world ends, no matter how long it may be. Zhenya escorted us to the gate, and perhaps because she spent the whole day with me from morning to evening, I felt that without her I seemed to be bored and that all this dear family was close to me; and for the first time in the whole summer I felt like writing.

- Tell me, why do you live so boring, so not colorful? I asked Belokurov as I walked home with him. - My life is boring, hard, monotonous, because I am an artist, I am a strange person, I have been tormented from my youth by envy, dissatisfaction with myself, disbelief in my work, I am always poor, I am a vagabond, but you, you, healthy, normal a man, a landowner, a gentleman—why do you live so uninterestingly, why do you take so little from life? Why, for example, have you still not fallen in love with Lida or Zhenya?

“You forget that I love another woman,” Belokurov replied.

He was talking about his girlfriend, Lyubov Ivanovna, who lived with him in the wing. Every day I saw how this lady, very stout, plump, important, like a well-fed goose, walked around the garden, in a Russian costume with beads, always under an umbrella, and the servants called her now and then to eat, then to drink tea. About three years ago she rented one of the outbuildings as a dacha, and so she remained to live with Belokurov, apparently forever. She was ten years older than him and ruled him strictly, so that when he left home, he had to ask her permission. She often sobbed in a man's voice, and then I sent to tell her that if she did not stop, then I would move out of the apartment; and she stopped.

When we got home, Belokurov sat down on the sofa and frowned in thought, and I began to walk around the hall, feeling quiet excitement, as if in love. I wanted to talk about the Volchaninovs.

“Lida can only fall in love with a zemstvo who is just as passionate about hospitals and schools as she is,” I said. - Oh, for the sake of such a girl, you can not only become a zemstvo, but even wear out, as in a fairy tale, iron shoes.

And Missus? What a charm this Missus!

Belokurov long, stretching "uh-uh ...", spoke about the disease of the century - pessimism. He spoke confidently and in such a tone as if I were arguing with him. Hundreds of miles of deserted, monotonous, burnt-out steppe cannot overtake such despondency as one person, when he sits, talks and it is not known when he will leave.

“It's not about pessimism or optimism,” I said irritably, “but about the fact that ninety-nine out of a hundred have no mind. Belokurov took it personally, got offended and left.

III

“The prince is visiting Malozyomov, he bows to you,” Lida said to her mother, returning from somewhere and taking off her gloves. - He told a lot of interesting things ... He promised to again raise the issue of a medical center in Malozyomov in the provincial assembly, but he says: there is little hope. - And, turning to me, she said: - Sorry, I keep forgetting that this cannot be interesting for you.

I felt annoyed.

Why isn't it interesting? I asked and shrugged. “You do not want to know my opinion, but I assure you that this question interests me keenly.

- Yes. In my opinion, a medical center in Malozyomov is not needed at all.

My irritation was transferred to her; She looked at me with narrowed eyes and asked:

– What is needed? Landscapes?

And you don't need landscapes. Nothing is needed there.

She finished taking off her gloves and unfolded the newspaper that had just arrived from the post office; after a minute she said quietly, obviously restraining herself:

Anna died of childbirth last week, and if there was a medical center nearby, she would still be alive. And gentlemen landscape painters, it seems to me, should have some convictions on this score.

“I have a very definite conviction about this, I assure you,” I replied, and she covered me with a newspaper, as if not wanting to listen. - In my opinion, medical stations, schools, libraries, first-aid kits, under existing conditions, serve only enslavement. The people are entangled in a great chain, and you do not cut this chain, but only add new links - that's my conviction.

She looked up at me and smiled mockingly, and I continued, trying to catch my main idea:

– It is not important that Anna died from childbirth, but the fact that all these Annas, Moors, Pelagias bend their backs from early morning until dark, get sick from overwork, tremble all their lives for hungry and sick children, all their lives they are afraid of death and disease , they are treated all their lives, fade early, grow old early and die in dirt and stench; their children, growing up, begin the same music, and so hundreds of years pass, and billions of people live worse than animals - only for the sake of a piece of bread, experiencing constant fear. The whole horror of their situation lies in the fact that they have no time to think about the soul, no time to remember their own image and likeness; hunger, cold, animal fear, a mass of labor, like snowfalls, blocked all their paths to spiritual activity, precisely to that very thing that distinguishes man from animals and is the only thing worth living for. You come to their aid with hospitals and schools, but by doing this you do not free them from their fetters, but, on the contrary, enslave them even more, because by introducing new prejudices into their lives, you increase the number of their needs, not to mention the fact that they have to pay the zemstvos for flies and books and, therefore, bend their backs more strongly.

"I'm not going to argue with you," said Lida, lowering the newspaper. – I already heard it. I can only tell you one thing: you can not sit idly by. It is true that we do not save mankind and, perhaps, we are mistaken in many ways, but we do what we can, and we are right. The highest and most sacred task of a cultured person is to serve others, and we try to serve as best we can. You don't like it, but you can't please everyone.

“It’s true, Lida, it’s true,” said the mother.

She was always shy in Lida's presence, and when she talked, looked at her anxiously, afraid to say something superfluous or inappropriate; and she never contradicted her, but always agreed: true, Lida, true.

“People’s literacy, books of miserable instructions and jokes, and medical stations cannot reduce either ignorance or mortality, just as the light from your windows cannot illuminate this vast garden,” I said. “You don’t give anything; by interfering in the lives of these people, you only create new needs, a new reason to work.

“Oh, my God, but you have to do something! - Lida said with annoyance, and it was evident from her tone that she considered my arguments insignificant and despises them.

“We need to free people from hard physical labor,” I said. “It is necessary to lighten their yoke, give them a respite so that they do not spend their whole lives at the stoves, troughs and in the field, but they would also have time to think about the soul, about God, they could show their spiritual abilities more widely. The vocation of every person in spiritual activity is in the constant search for truth and the meaning of life. Make rough, animal labor unnecessary for them, let them feel free, and then you will see what, in essence, these books and first-aid kits are a mockery. Once a person is aware of his true vocation, then only religion, science, the arts can satisfy him, and not these trifles.

- Free from work! Linda smiled. - Is it possible?

- Yes. Take a share of their work. If all of us, city dwellers and country dwellers, all without exception, agreed to share among ourselves the labor that is expended by mankind in general for the satisfaction of physical needs, then each of us, perhaps, would have to spend no more than two or three hours a day. Imagine that all of us, rich and poor, work only three hours a day, and the rest of the time we have free time. Imagine again that in order to be even less dependent on our bodies and to work less, we invent machines that replace labor, we try to reduce the number of our needs to a minimum. We temper ourselves, our children, so that they are not afraid of hunger, cold, and we would not constantly tremble for their health, as Anna, Mavra and Pelageya tremble. Imagine that we do not get medical treatment, do not keep pharmacies, tobacco factories, distilleries - how much free time do we have in the end! We all give this leisure together to the sciences and arts. Just as men sometimes repair the road in peace, so we all together, in peace, would seek the truth and the meaning of life, and - I am sure of this - the truth would be discovered very soon, a person would get rid of this constant painful, depressing fear of death, and even from death itself.

“However, you contradict yourself,” said Lida. - You say - science, science, but you yourself deny literacy.

- Literacy, when a person has the opportunity to read only signs on taverns and occasionally books that he does not understand - such literacy has been with us since the time of Rurik, Gogol's Petrushka has long been reading, meanwhile, the village that was under Rurik has remained so to this day . Not literacy is needed, but freedom for the wide manifestation of spiritual abilities. We need not schools, but universities.

– You and medicine deny.

- Yes. It would be needed only for the study of diseases as natural phenomena, and not for their treatment. If perishing treat, then not disease, and their causes. Eliminate the main cause - physical labor - and then there will be no disease. I do not recognize science that heals,” I continued excitedly. - The sciences and arts, when they are real, strive not for temporary, not for private goals, but for the eternal and general - they are looking for truth and the meaning of life, they are looking for God, the soul, and when they are fastened to the needs and annoyances of the day, to first-aid kits and libraries, they only complicate, clutter up life. We have many doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, there are many literate people, but there are no biologists, mathematicians, philosophers, poets at all. All the mind, all the spiritual energy was spent on satisfying temporary, transient needs ... Scientists, writers and artists are in full swing, by their grace the conveniences of life are growing every day, the needs of the body are multiplying, meanwhile, the truth is still far away, and a person still remains the most predatory and the most unscrupulous animal, and everything tends to ensure that humanity in its majority degenerates and loses all vitality forever. Under such conditions, the life of an artist does not make sense, and the more talented he is, the more strange and incomprehensible his role, since it turns out that he works for the amusement of a predatory unscrupulous animal, maintaining the existing order. And I don’t want to work and I won’t ... Nothing is needed, let the earth fall into tartarara!

“Misyuska, come out,” Lida said to her sister, obviously finding my words harmful for such a young girl.

Zhenya looked sadly at her sister and mother and went out.

“Such nice things are usually said when they want to justify their indifference,” said Lida. – Denying hospitals and schools is easier than treating and teaching.

“It’s true, Lida, it’s true,” the mother agreed.

“You threaten not to work,” Lida continued. You obviously appreciate your work. Let's stop arguing, we will never sing, because I put the most imperfect of all libraries and first aid kits, about which you just spoke so contemptuously, above all landscapes in the world. - And immediately, turning to her mother, she spoke in a completely different tone: - The prince has become very thin and has changed a lot since he was with us. He is sent to Vichy.

She told her mother about the prince so as not to talk to me. Her face burned, and in order to hide her excitement, she bent low, as if short-sighted, to the table and pretended to read a newspaper. My presence was unpleasant. I said goodbye and went home.

It was quiet outside; the village on the other side of the pond was already asleep, not a single light was visible, and only on the pond were the pale reflections of the stars barely shining. Zhenya stood motionless at the gate with lions, waiting for me to see me off.

“Everyone in the village is asleep,” I told her, trying to make out her face in the darkness, and saw dark sad eyes fixed on me. - Both the tavern keeper and the horse thieves sleep peacefully, and we, decent people, annoy each other and argue.

It was a sad August night, sad because it already smelled of autumn; covered with a crimson cloud, the moon rose and barely illuminated the road and on its sides the dark winter fields. The stars often fell. Zhenya walked beside me along the road and tried not to look at the sky so as not to see the shooting stars, which for some reason frightened her.

"I think you're right," she said, shivering from the dampness of the night. – If people, all together, could devote themselves to spiritual activity, they would soon know everything.

- Certainly. We are higher beings, and if we really realized the full power of human genius and lived only for higher purposes, then in the end we would become like gods. But this will never happen - humanity will degenerate, and there will be no trace of genius.

When the gate was no longer visible, Zhenya stopped and hurriedly shook my hand.

“Good night,” she said tremblingly; her shoulders were covered with only one shirt, and she shrank from the cold. - Come back tomorrow.

I became terrified at the thought that I would be left alone, irritated, dissatisfied with myself and people; and I myself was already trying not to look at the shooting stars.

“Stay with me for another minute,” I said. - I ask you to.

I loved Zhenya. I must have loved her because she met and saw me off, because she looked at me tenderly and with admiration. How touchingly beautiful were her pale face, thin neck, thin hands, her weakness, her idleness, her books! And the mind? I suspected she had a remarkable mind, I admired the breadth of her views, perhaps because she thought differently than the strict, beautiful Lida, who did not love me. Zhenya liked me as an artist, I won her heart with my talent, and I passionately wanted to write only for her, and I dreamed of her as my little queen, who, together with me, would own these trees, fields, fog, dawn, this nature, wonderful, charming, but among which I still felt hopelessly alone and unnecessary.

“Stay a minute longer,” I said. - I beg you.

I took off my coat and covered her chilled shoulders; she, afraid to seem ridiculous and ugly in a man's coat, laughed and threw it off, and at that time I hugged her and began to shower kisses on her face, shoulders, hands.

- Till tomorrow! she whispered, and carefully, as if afraid to break the silence of the night, she hugged me. - We have no secrets from each other, I have to tell my mother and sister everything now ... It's so scary! Mom is nothing, mom loves you, but Lida!

She ran to the gate.

- Farewell! she called.

And then for about two minutes I heard her running. I did not want to go home, and there was no need to go there. I stood a little thoughtful and quietly trudged back to take another look at the house in which she lived, a sweet, naive, old house, which, it seemed, looked at me through the windows of its mezzanine, as though with eyes, and understood everything. I walked past the terrace, sat down on a bench near the lown-tennis court, in the dark under an old elm tree, and looked out at the house from there. In the windows of the mezzanine in which Misya lived, a bright light flashed, then a dead green light - this lamp was covered with a lampshade. Shadows moved… I was full of tenderness, silence and self-satisfaction, contentment that I was able to be carried away and love, and at the same time I felt uncomfortable at the thought that at the same time, a few steps away from me, in one of the rooms of this Lida lives at home, and she does not love, perhaps hates me. I sat and kept waiting to see if Zhenya would come out, listening, and it seemed to me that they were talking on the mezzanine.

It's been about an hour. The green fire went out, and no shadows could be seen. The moon was already high above the house and illuminated the sleeping garden, paths; the dahlias and roses in the flower garden in front of the house were clearly visible and seemed to be all the same color. It was getting very cold. I left the garden, picked up my coat on the road and walked slowly home.

When I came to the Volchaninovs the next day after dinner, the glass door to the garden was wide open. I sat on the terrace, waiting for Zhenya to appear behind the flower garden on the landing or on one of the alleys, or to hear her voice from the rooms; then I went into the living room, into the dining room. There was not a soul. From the dining room I walked down a long corridor to the hall, then back. There were several doors in the corridor, and Lida's voice was heard behind one of them.

“The crow is somewhere… god…” she spoke loudly and drawlingly, probably dictating. - God sent a piece of cheese ... Crow ... somewhere ... Who is there? she called suddenly, hearing my footsteps.

- BUT! Sorry, I can't go out to you now, I'm studying with Dasha.

- Ekaterina Pavlovna in the garden?

- No, she and her sister left this morning to visit her aunt, in the Penza province. And in the winter they will probably go abroad…” she added after a pause. - A crow somewhere ... god sent a piece of cheese ... Wrote?

I went out into the anteroom and, without thinking about anything, stood and looked from there at the pond and at the village, and I heard:

- A piece of cheese ... Somewhere God sent a piece of cheese to a crow ...

And I left the estate the same way that I came here for the first time, only in the reverse order: first from the yard to the garden, past the house, then along the linden alley ... Then the boy caught up with me and submitted a note. “I told my sister everything, and she demands that I leave you,” I read. “I would not have been able to upset her with my defiance. God will give you happiness, forgive me. If you knew how my mother and I weep bitterly!”

Then a dark spruce avenue, a collapsed hedge... In that field where then rye blossomed and quails called, now cows and tangled horses roamed. In some places on the hills the winter was bright green. A sober, everyday mood took possession of me, and I felt ashamed of everything that I said at the Volchaninovs, and as before, life became boring. Arriving home, I packed my bags and left for St. Petersburg in the evening.

I never saw the Volchaninovs again. Somehow recently, on my way to the Crimea, I met Belokurov in the carriage. He was still in his undershirt and embroidered shirt, and when I asked him about his health, he replied: "With your prayers." We started talking. He sold his estate and bought another, smaller one, in the name of Lyubov Ivanovna. He said little about the Volchaninovs. Lida, according to him, still lived in Shelkovka and taught children at school; Little by little, she managed to gather around her a circle of people she liked, who made up a strong party and in the last zemstvo elections "rolled" Balagin, who until that time had held the entire county in his hands. About Zhenya, Belokurov only said that she did not live at home and was unknown where.

I am already beginning to forget about the house with the mezzanine, and only occasionally, when I am writing or reading, all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, will I remember either the green fire in the window, or the sound of my steps heard in the field at night, when I, in love, returned home. and rubbed his hands against the cold. And even more rarely, at moments when I am tormented by loneliness and I am sad, I remember vaguely, and little by little, for some reason, it begins to seem to me that they also remember me, they are waiting for me and that we will meet ...

A.P. Chekhov's story "A House with a Mezzanine" was published in 1896. It was written in the form of a memoir by an artist who was closely acquainted with the writer about the events of six or seven years ago. The writer entered the literature of the early 80s of the 19th century under the pseudonym Antosh Chekhonte and made a name for himself on short humorous and satirical stories. But by the middle of the same decade, he begins to change the characteristics of his work, in his works the psychologism in the depiction of the characters of the heroes increases, instead of funny characters, he begins to create deeper and more contradictory characters. During this period, the manner of presentation peculiar only to Chekhov begins to take shape. It was in it that the story "The House with the Mezzanine" was written.

History of the creation of the story

In the autumn of 1889, A.P. Chekhov met a young gymnasium teacher, Lika Mizinova. The sister of Anton Pavlovich Maria, who was friends with her, introduced him to this beautiful, intelligent and charming girl. Lika often visits the Chekhovs' house. In the summer of 1891, the Chekhovs rested in Aleksino, where Lika was with them. On the way to Aleksino, she met the owner of the Bogimovo estate in the Kaluga province, Bylim-Kolosovsky. Having learned from her that his beloved writer Chekhov lives in a dacha not far from him, he invites him to his estate for the whole summer. Anton Pavlovich accepted the invitation. The Bogimov summer of 1891 and the owner's estate formed the basis of the story. Bylim-Kolosovsky himself became the prototype of Belokurov. Like Lika, the prototype of Volchaninova Lida.

Story analysis

Plot

It is based on a story of failed love. The story is told on behalf of the artist, who is well acquainted with the author of the story. Arriving for the summer at the estate of his friend Belokurov, he spends some time alone until a friend introduces him to the Volchaninov family, consisting of his mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna Volchaninova, and her two daughters, Lida and Zhenya. The eldest Lida leads an active social life, works as a school teacher and is proud that she does not depend on her father's condition. The younger Zhenya spends all her days reading books. The relationship between the author of the story and the elder Lida did not work out initially on the basis of some disagreements in views on public life.

With the younger Zhenya, relations rapidly developed to mutual sympathy and love. One evening there was a declaration of love. Zhenya, who considered it her duty to tell her elder sister about everything, tells Lida about their feelings. However, the older sister, who does not have the most friendly feelings for the artist, wanting to stop the further development of his relationship with Zhenya, urgently sends her to another province and further to Europe. Six or seven years pass, the artist accidentally meets Belokurov, who tells him that Lida and Ekaterina Pavlovna live there, and Zhenya never returned home, her traces were lost.

Heroes of the work

There are five main characters in this story. The first is the narrator himself, the artist, who is resting with his friend. The person is far from stupid, educated, but completely passive. This is evidenced by his attitude to the news of the departure of his beloved woman. He is informed that she was sent somewhere at the request of her older sister, and he, knowing that Zhenya also loves him, calmly leaves without doing anything. You can at least imagine what a normal man in love would do. I would turn the whole world, but I would find my beloved. Here we see only sorrowful sighs and nothing more. This type of people does not cause much sympathy. Passivity and inaction are his main qualities. All he can do is rant, philosophize and do nothing. Although this is the main disease of most of the Russian intelligentsia.

The next hero of the story is a provincial landowner, a friend of the narrator Belokurov, to whom he came to visit. To imagine his image, you just need to remember one very famous hero I.A. Goncharova. This is Oblomov, or rather one of his varieties.

Volchaninova Ekaterina Pavlovna, the widow of a Privy Councillor, a provincial landowner who lives on her estate next to Belokurov. Unlike Lida, she does not burden herself with thoughts about saving the world, but agrees with her opinion in everything. In the process of getting to know the heroes of the story, one involuntarily gets the feeling that she is simply afraid of her.

Volchaninova Lida is the eldest daughter of Ekaterina Pavlovna. The lady is amazing in every way. She is beautiful, very active and active. Today, she would be called a social worker. Despite her not very plausible act, when she separated two lovers with her strong-willed decision, she evokes sympathy. Lida is a kind of Rakhmetov in a skirt. If they met in life, most likely, she would fall in love with him and follow him anywhere. In any case, it is difficult to imagine her in the place of the narrator, who passively listens to the departure of a loved one. Just the same, she would not sigh and silently watch how she was separated from her loved one. She is a new type of women in pre-revolutionary Russia. Most likely, the reader would not be very surprised to see her, for example, on the barricades of 1905.

And, finally, Volchaninova Zhenya, the youngest daughter of Ekaterina Pavlovna, whom everyone affectionately calls Misya. The author talks about her with special warmth and tenderness. This is a pure romantic creature, madly in love with her mother and sister. Volchaninova Zhenya and Natasha Rostova are two sisters. Having fallen in love with the artist, she believes that she should tell her older sister about this. Not out of fear of her, no, by no means! It's just that her spiritual purity does not even imagine the possibility of hiding something from the people closest to her. This is one of those pure female images of Russian women that were described by great writers. Pushkin has Tatyana Larina, Tolstoy has Natasha Rostov.

Chekhov, describing scenes from the life of his heroes, does not take the side of this or that hero, leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions. His characteristics do not directly say whether this or that hero is bad or good. But, arguing over the actions of the heroes, the reader himself begins to draw very specific conclusions and judgments.

"House with a mezzanine" is a story about unfulfilled human happiness and the responsibility for this lies with the heroes themselves. Zhenya could not resist her sister's decision because of her youth, and the artist because of her infantility. Although, as they say, things could be different. Lida, too, could hardly be happy, due to her character. Women like her need a man who is stronger than her. Judging by the story of Belokurov, this was not found. Having destroyed, quite possibly, Zhenya's happiness, she was never able to build her own.

With a mezzanine, which have become a symbol and decoration of St. Petersburg suburban villages and the Russian hinterland, romantics and lovers of retro style may be interested. Houses with mezzanines were traditionally built by wealthy villagers in small towns or suburbs of the capital of pre-revolutionary Russia. The mezzanine, today undeservedly forgotten and a thing of the past, was a successful replacement for the attic.

Country houses with mezzanines have unique advantages. Despite the fact that the mezzanine is an incomplete floor, but rather a semi-tier, the living space in it significantly expands the total area and convenience of living.

In addition, the mezzanine looks beautiful and respectable. The house is immediately perceived not as a small wooden one-story building, but as a small two-story mansion. The architectural feature of the house with a mezzanine is the symmetry of the main and courtyard facades, as well as porticoes in the center of the building, side walls without windows and a hipped roof.

Since the mezzanine is often designed and built with a balcony, this creates additional comfortable conditions for residents. A mezzanine room with a huge window and a small open terrace-balcony where you can have breakfast outdoors or drink tea in the evening and admire the garden will become your favorite place in the house. At the same time, the construction of such a house with a mezzanine, per square meter, will cost less than with a full-fledged second floor.

Description and cost

The house was designed in the tradition of Russian pre-revolutionary urban construction, but is also suitable for rural areas. It is distinguished from modern houses by a nostalgic cozy mezzanine, arranged instead of the attic that is familiar to us. The facades of the house are stylized antique, and the internal arrangement is adapted to the modern way of life: on the ground floor there is a kitchen, a boiler room, a dining room, a double-height sofa room with a staircase; and two bedrooms with a bathroom in a separate wing. The mezzanine has two bedrooms with walk-in closets and balconies and a bathroom. The entrance to the mezzanine is arranged from the gallery, open to the sofa room. The house has no internal load-bearing walls, which allows you to vary the composition and size of the premises. Classic details made of polyurethane, railings of the mezzanine balconies and stairs are cast iron. The style of the facades allows you to place the house both freestanding and "implant" into the building of the street. You can also block several of these houses by changing the small details of the facade for a change.

Sale of the project - without a contract. 51 000 rubles

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