Startsev description. Quotes. The ideological meaning of the work

In the center of T. Tolstoy's stories - modern man with his emotional experiences, life's drinking experiences, and the peculiarities of everyday life. The story “Okkervil River”, written in 1987, raises the topic of “Man and Art”, the influence of art on a person, the relationships of people in modern world, these are thoughts about the relationship between dreams and reality.

The story is built on the principle of “linking associations”, “stringing images”. Already at the beginning of the work the picture comes together natural disaster- floods in St. Petersburg - and a story about the lonely Simeonov, who is beginning to grow old, and his life. The hero enjoys the freedom of solitude, reading and listening to rare gramophone recordings of the once famous, but today completely forgotten singer Vera Vasilievna.

In the story, three time layers can be distinguished: present, past and future. Moreover, the present is inseparable from the past. The author reminds us that time is cyclical and eternal: “When the zodiac sign changed to Scorpio, it became very windy, dark and rainy.”

St. Petersburg is animated, its image is woven from metaphors, an abundance of epithets, romantic and realistic details, where the creator, but scary Peter The first and his weak, frightened subjects: “the city beating against the windows with the wind behind the defenseless, uncurtained bachelor window seemed then to be Peter’s evil intention. The rivers, having reached the swollen, terrifying sea, rushed back, raising their watery backs in museum basements, licking fragile collections falling apart with damp sand, shamanic masks made of rooster feathers. Crooked overseas swords, sinewy legs of angry employees awakened in the middle of the night.” Petersburg – special place. Time and space store masterpieces of music, architecture, and painting. The city, the elements of nature, art are fused together. Nature in the story is personified, it lives its own life - the wind bends glass, rivers overflow their banks and flow backwards.

Simeonov's bachelor life is brightened up by reading and enjoying the sounds of an old romance. T. Tolstaya masterfully conveys the sound of the old, “anthracite-cast circle”:

No, not you! so ardent! I love! - jumping, crackling and hissing, Vera Vasilievna quickly spun under the needle; a divine, dark, low, first lacy and dusty, then swelling with underwater pressure, swaying with lights on the water, rushed from the scalloped orchid, - psch - psch - psch, an inflated voice like a sail - no, it was not him that Vera Vasilievna loved so ardently, but still, in essence, only him alone, and this was mutual between them. Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” The singer’s voice is associated with a caravel rushing through “the night water splashing with lights, the radiance blooming in the night sky. And the details of modest life fade into the background: “processed cheese fished out of the window pane or ham scraps,” a feast on a spread newspaper, dust on the work table.

The inconsistency present in the hero’s life is emphasized by the details of the hero’s portrait: “On days like these, Simeonov installed the gramophone, feeling especially big-nosed, balding, especially feeling his old age around his face.”

Simeonov, like the hero of T. Tolstoy’s story “Blank Slate” Ignatiev, rests his soul in another, associative world. Creating in his imagination the image of the young, Blok-like beautiful and mysterious singer Vera Vasilievna, Simeonov tries to distance himself from the realities of modern life, brushing aside the caring Tamara. The real world and the imagined one are intertwined, and he wants to be only with the object of his dreams, imagining that Vera Vasilievna will give her love only to him.

The title of the story is symbolic. “Okkervil River” is the name of the final tram stop, a place unknown to Simeonov, but which occupies his imagination. It may turn out to be beautiful, where there is a “greenish stream” with a “green sun”, silvery willows”, “wooden humpbacked bridges”, or maybe there is “some nasty little factory splashing out pearlescent poisonous waste, or something else, hopeless , outlying, vulgar.” The river, symbolizing time, changes its color - at first it appears to Simeonov as a “muddy green stream”, later as “already blooming poisonous greenery”.

Having heard from a gramophone record seller that Vera Vasilievna is alive, Simeonov decides to find her. This decision is not easy for him - two demons are fighting in his soul - a romantic and a realist: “one insisted on throwing the old woman out of his head, locking the doors tightly, living as he lived before, loving in moderation, languishing in moderation, listening in solitude to the pure sound of the silver trumpet , another demon - a crazy young man with a consciousness darkened from translating bad books - demanded to go, run, look for Vera Vasilievna - the blind, poor old woman, shout to her after years and hardships that she was a wondrous peri, destroyed and raised him - Simeonov, the faithful knight, - and, crushed by her silver voice, all the frailty of the world fell down,”

The details surrounding the preparation of the meeting with Vera Vasilievna predict failure. Yellow The chrysanthemums bought by Simeonov mean some kind of disharmony, some kind of sick beginning. The same thing, in my opinion, is evidenced by the transformation of the green color of the river into poisonous green.

Another trouble awaits Simeonov - someone’s fingerprint imprinted on the jelly surface of the cake. The following detail also speaks of the disharmony of the upcoming meeting: “The sides (of the cake) were sprinkled with fine confectionery dandruff.”

The meeting with the dream, with the living but different Vera Vasilievna, completely crushed Simeonov. When he attended the singer’s birthday, he saw the routine, the lack of poetry, and even vulgarity in the face of one of the singer’s many guests, Potseluev. Despite the romantic surname, this character has his feet firmly on the ground, is purely businesslike and enterprising. A feature of T. Tolstoy’s style is the use of sentences of complex construction, an abundance of tropes when describing the stream of consciousness of the characters and their experiences. Simeonov's conversation with Potseluev is written in short phrases. Potseluev’s efficiency and down-to-earth nature are conveyed in abrupt phrases and reduced vocabulary: “Uh, muzzle. His voice is still like that of a deacon.” He combines his search for a rare recording of the romance “Dark Green Emerald” with the search for an opportunity to get smoked sausage.

At the end of the story, Simeonov and other fans help brighten up the singer’s life. This is humanly very noble. But poetry and charm have disappeared, the author emphasizes this with realistic details: “Bent over in his lifelong obedience,” Simeonov rinses the bath after Vera Vasilievna, washing away “gray pellets from the dried walls, scooping out gray hairs from the drain hole.”

A distinctive feature of T. Tolstoy’s prose is that the author empathizes with his characters and takes pity on them. She also sympathizes with Simeonov, who is looking for true beauty and does not want to accept reality. Vera Vasilievna, who so early lost the main thing in life - her son, her job, who does not have basic household amenities in her old age, Tamara, who brings her beloved cutlets in a jar and is forced to “forget” either his hairpins or a handkerchief.

The story ends, as it began, with the image of a river. “The gramophone started the kisses, one could hear a wondrous, growing thunderous voice soaring over the steamed body of Verunchik, drinking tea from a saucer, over everything that cannot be helped, over the approaching sunset, over nameless rivers flowing backwards, overflowing their banks, raging and flooding the city, like Only rivers can make things.”

Tatiana Tolstaya

Okkervil River

When the zodiac sign changed to Scorpio, it became very windy, dark and rainy. The wet, flowing, wind-beating city behind the defenseless, uncurtained, bachelor window, behind the processed cheeses hidden in the cold between the windows, seemed then to be the evil intent of Peter the Great, the revenge of the huge, bug-eyed, gaping-mouthed, toothed carpenter king, who was catching up with everything in nightmares, with a ship's hatchet in his raised hand, his weak, frightened subjects. The rivers, having reached the swollen, terrifying sea, rushed back, snapped cast-iron hatches with a hissing pressure and quickly raised their watery backs in museum basements, licking fragile collections falling apart with damp sand, shaman masks made of rooster feathers, curved overseas swords, beaded robes, sinewy legs angry employees woken up in the middle of the night. On days like these, when the white, curdled face of loneliness emerged from the rain, the darkness, and the bending glass of the wind, Simeonov, feeling especially big-nosed, balding, especially aware of his old age around his face and the cheap socks far below, on the border of existence, put the kettle on, He wiped the dust off the table with his sleeve, cleared the space of books with their white bookmarks sticking out, set up the gramophone, selecting a book of the right thickness to slip under its lame corner, and in advance, blissfully in advance, extracted Vera Vasilievna from the torn, yellow-stained envelope - an old, heavy, anthracite-shimmering circle, not split into smooth concentric circles - one romance on each side.

- No, not you! so ardent! I! I love! – jumping, crackling and hissing, Vera Vasilyevna quickly twirled under the needle; hissing, crackling and whirling curled like a black funnel, expanded with a gramophone pipe, and, triumphant in victory over Simeonov, rushed from the scalloped orchid divine, dark, low, at first lacy and dusty, then swelling with underwater pressure, rising from the depths, transforming, swaying with lights on the water , - psch-psch-psch, psch-psch-psch, - a voice puffing like a sail, - ever louder, - breaking the ropes, rushing uncontrollably, psch-psch-psch, like a caravel on the night water splashing with lights - ever stronger, - spreading its wings, picking up speed, smoothly breaking away from the lagging thickness of the stream that gave birth to it, from the small one remaining on the bank of Simeonov, who raised his balding, barefoot head to a gigantically grown, shining, eclipsing half of the sky voice, emanating in a victorious cry - no, it was not him that Vera Vasilievna loved so passionately , and yet, in essence, only him, and this was mutual between them. H-sch-sch-sch-sch-sch-sch-sch.

Simeonov carefully removed the silent Vera Vasilievna, rocked the disk, clasping it with straightened, respectful palms; looked at the old sticker: eh, where are you now, Vera Vasilievna? Where are your white bones now? And, turning her over on her back, he set the needle, squinting at the prune reflections of the swaying thick disk, and again listened, languishing, about the long-faded chrysanthemums in the garden, where they met her, and again, growing in an underwater flow, throwing off dust, lace and years, Vera Vasilievna crackled and appeared like a languid naiad - an unsportsmanlike, slightly overweight naiad of the beginning of the century - oh sweet pear, guitar, sloping champagne bottle!

And then the kettle began to boil, and Simeonov, having fished out processed cheese or ham scraps from the interwindow, put the record on from the beginning and feasted like a bachelor, on a spread newspaper, enjoying himself, rejoicing that Tamara would not overtake him today and would not disturb his precious date with Vera Vasilievna . He felt good in his solitude, in a small apartment, alone with Vera Vasilyevna, and the door was tightly locked from Tamara, and the tea was strong and sweet, and the translation of an unnecessary book from a rare language was almost finished - there would be money, and Simeonov would buy it from one crocodile for a high price, a rare record where Vera Vasilievna yearns that spring will not come for her - a male romance, a romance of loneliness, and the disembodied Vera Vasilievna will sing it, merging with Simeonov into one yearning, hysterical voice. O blissful solitude! Loneliness eats from a frying pan, fishes a cold cutlet out of a cloudy liter jar, brews tea in a mug - so what? Peace and freedom! The family rattles the china cabinet, sets traps for cups and saucers, catches the soul with a knife and fork, grabs it under the ribs on both sides, strangles it with a teapot cap, throws a tablecloth over its head, but the free, lonely soul slips out from under the linen fringe and passes snake through the napkin ring and - hop! catch it! she is already there, in a dark magic circle filled with lights, outlined by the voice of Vera Vasilievna, she runs out after Vera Vasilievna, following her skirts and fan, from the bright dancing hall to the night summer balcony, to a spacious semicircle above the garden fragrant with chrysanthemums, however, their the smell, white, dry and bitter - this is an autumn smell, it already foreshadows autumn, separation, oblivion, but love still lives in my sick heart - this is a sick smell, the smell of decay and sadness, somewhere you are now, Vera Vasilievna, perhaps in Paris or Shanghai, and what kind of rain - the blue of Paris or the yellow of China - is drizzling over your grave, and whose soil is chilling your white bones? No, it’s not you that I love so passionately! (Tell me! Of course, me, Vera Vasilievna!)

Trams passed by Simeonov's window, once shouting their bells, swinging with hanging loops like stirrups - Simeonov kept thinking that there, in the ceilings, horses were hidden, like portraits of the tram's great-grandfathers, taken out into the attic; then the bells fell silent, only the knocking, clanging and grinding at the turn could be heard, finally, the red-sided solid carriages with wooden benches died, and the carriages began to run round, silent, hissing at stops, you could sit down, plop down on the soft chair that gasped and gave up the ghost under you and ride into the blue distance, to the final stop, which beckoned with the name: “Okkervil River”. But Simeonov never went there. The end of the world, and there was nothing for him to do there, but that’s not even the point: without seeing, without knowing this distant, almost no longer Leningrad river, he could imagine anything he wanted: a muddy greenish stream, for example, with a slow, muddy the green sun floating in it, silvery willows, branches quietly hanging from the curly bank, red brick two-story houses with tiled roofs, wooden humpbacked bridges - a quiet world, slowed down like in a dream; but in reality there are probably warehouses, fences, some nasty little factory spitting out pearlescent toxic waste, a landfill smoking with stinking smoldering smoke, or something else, hopeless, outlying, vulgar. No, don’t be disappointed, go to the Okkervil River, it’s better to mentally line its banks with long-haired willows, arrange steep-topped houses, let in leisurely residents, perhaps in German caps, striped stockings, with long porcelain pipes in their teeth... or better yet, pave the Okkervils with paving stones embankments, fill the river with clean gray water, build bridges with turrets and chains, level granite parapets with a smooth pattern, put tall gray houses along the embankment with cast-iron gateway grates - let the top of the gate be like fish scales, and nasturtiums peeking out from the forged balconies, settle a young woman there Vera Vasilyevna, and let her walk, pulling on a long glove, along the cobblestone pavement, placing her feet narrowly, narrowly stepping in black, blunt-toed shoes with round, apple-like heels, in a small round hat with a veil, through the quiet drizzle of the St. Petersburg morning, and the fog like that serve blue for the occasion.

Tatiana Tolstoy's work "The Okkervil River" tells the story of an aging, bald bachelor Simeonov living in St. Petersburg. His life is boring and monotonous. He lives in a small apartment, where he sometimes translates books.

Every day he enthusiastically listened to Vera Vasilievna’s records about love and took her kind words personally. In principle, that’s how it was. Simeonov's feelings for her were mutual. The relationship with this lady suited him; nothing could compare with them.

One autumn day, a bachelor was purchasing another Vera record, and learned from the seller that she was already old and lived somewhere in Leningrad, but already in poverty. Her popularity quickly faded, and along with her money, her husband, jewelry and other blessings of life disappeared. At this moment, Simeonov was tormented by doubts about how to live further. On the one hand, he wanted peace, he did not intend to let anyone into his established life, except perhaps Tamara. But, on the other hand, he dreamed of finding the old woman and showing her how much he loved her, and as a result, receiving boundless gratitude and love in return.

Nevertheless, the hero got hold of the address of the object of his affection, and, armed with flowers and a cake, went to the meeting. Ringing the doorbell and entering the apartment, Simeonov was stunned by what he saw. Vera Vasilievna was well made up and sat at a table surrounded by a crowd, she was celebrating her birthday. It turned out that every month fans visited her and helped in any way they could. They asked Simeonov if he had a bath. Having received a positive answer, the crowd joyfully offered to bring Vera to him for a swim. His world was destroyed, the bachelor finally decided to return home and marry Tamara. Vera Vasilievna died for him on this day.

The next evening she was brought to wash with a depressed bachelor. After the bath procedures, she came out to him in a robe, steamed and satisfied. And he went to wash off the pellets and take her gray hair out of the drain hole.

Picture or drawing Tolstaya - Okkervil River

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The main character of Chekhov's story is a symbol of the spiritual degradation of man and people in general. We see the life of the city through his eyes, his thoughts, simple and reasonable, characterize the morals and life of society. But time passes and main character Ionych understands that, having achieved a lot, he has lost something very important. His ardent feelings for Ekaterina Ivanovna subsided as quickly as they appeared. Startsev traded his dream and desire for development for stability and comfort. The description of Ionych’s life at the end of the work is dull and gray: a fat, uncultured old doctor, always shouting at his patients.

Characteristics of the heroes “Ionych”

Main characters

Minor characters

In the story “Ionych” the heroes live a calm, established life; Chekhov masterfully portrays the absurdity and monotony of their existence. Only main character is changing, and in the worst side. The author shows that only a person who fulfills his calling develops and lives a full life. Everything else is a gray and dull existence, wasting life in vain. In the table of characteristics of the heroes, the image of Startsev is the only one undergoing changes; the other heroes seem to freeze in development, which enhances the effect of their degradation.

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Amazing thing - a classic! Re-reading the works of masters of words at a new stage of your life, you never cease to be amazed at what is rediscovered in the process of reading. An example would be Chekhov's stories. They provide an opportunity to evaluate present time, the criteria that determine vital interests, actions, when material values take precedence over spirituality when a person does not even spare himself for the sake of profit. The story “Ionych” is especially interesting in this regard. It was written in the 90s of the 19th century. In this decade, motifs of movement and change are increasingly heard in Chekhov’s work.

Chekhov's heroes are tested by their involvement in life, by their ability to hear time, to understand the issues of time, and are determined by the quality of their dreams and the ways of realizing them. But these are all problems of our time. Therefore, approaches to studying the story “Ionych” and understanding the essence of the main character may be different. If each piece of art we evaluate from the position of the unity of content and form, then, speaking about content, we can set the following goal: to trace how a person, climbing the steps up the ladder of material well-being, slides even faster down to moral devastation; trace how his attitude towards people changes; see pictures of the fall of man, so as not to repeat his mistakes.

The events are recounted in chronological sequence, they are separated by insignificant periods of time, but during these small periods of time big changes occur in the life and appearance of the hero. The plot develops all the faster because the background (the city of S. and the Turkin family), on which the action unfolds, remains completely motionless from beginning to end. Time passes, but life in the Turkins’ house stands as if enchanted, as if time is passing them by.

Already in the first chapter, the author’s remark about the main character is alarming, that he succumbs to the general hobby, appreciating the skill of Kotik. It seems that nothing yet portends a collapse, but this word involuntarily attracts attention, like the author’s other remarks: he did not yet have his own horses; “When I had not yet drunk tears from the cup of existence...” (lines from the romance). There will be horses, and a troika with bells, and a coachman in a velvet vest, and there will be tears. But that comes later. In the meantime, he is young, healthy, he has interesting job, a noble goal is to help the suffering, to serve the people. He is full of hope, expectation of happiness, and does not feel tired. This is what is called the scent of youth. Although the epigraph for the entire narrative is best suited to be the words of Ionych himself: “How are we doing here? No way. We get older, we get fatter, we get worse.”

The hero will say them a little later, when he has not yet lost the ability to give an honest assessment of his actions. In Chekhov's stories there are often interesting characteristics life: sleepy, short, wingless, colorless. It seems that they all accurately express the process that took place with the young doctor. If in the first chapter, which can be called an exposition, only a hint is given, then in the second he is already a victim, although death is still far away. The scene of the failed date in the cemetery makes it clear that the illusion is over. “I’m tired,” he says, and the reader becomes sad, offended and sorry for Startsev, who just recently returned home smiling. We don’t want to forgive him either his prudence or his solidity, and it becomes a shame that he has lost his former freshness and spontaneity.

Chapter 3 is a new and turning point in the doctor’s life: the beginning of the decline of his youth and emerging commercialism, when he thinks not about his beloved, but about the dowry, when he betrays his youthful dream and the idea inherent in his profession (“Besides, if you marry her< … >then her relatives will force you to quit your zemstvo service and live in the city... Well, then? In the city, so in the city"). The author also draws attention to how Startsev was dressed (“Dressed in someone else’s tailcoat and a stiff white tie, which somehow kept puffing up and wanted to slide off his collar, he was sitting in a club at midnight...”), The author does not spare Startsev, because that he no longer loves his hero, who has entered a new phase of his life. His words about love, spoken to Kotik, did not at all agree with the thoughts about the dowry that were spinning in his head when he paid a visit to the Turkins to propose.

Startsev suffered after Kotik’s refusal for only three days: “His heart stopped beating restlessly and, apparently, forever.” The next four years (four in total!) brought Startsev a lot of practice, three horses with bells. He does not walk among people, but rides past them. In Panteleimon, as in a mirror, Startsev is vaguely reflected: the more (Panteleimon) grew in width, the sadder he sighed - wasn’t the same thing happening with Startsev?

Only Startsev was silent, did not sigh or complain - there was no one to complain to, and there was even no one to simply talk to. When visiting, “Startsev avoided conversation, but only had a snack and played vint, and when he found a family holiday in some house and he was invited to eat, he sat down and ate in silence, looking at his plate; and everything that was said at that time was uninteresting, unfair, stupid. He felt irritated and worried, but remained silent.”

What are his new entertainments, if he avoided the theater and concerts? The most powerful pastime, besides cards, was one that he got involved in unnoticed: in the evenings he took out pieces of paper from his pockets, obtained through practice. Seven lines - and what a picture of the moral decline of man! And what is the smell of money! There is grief, suffering, tears, anxiety, hope, and death. He saves money, not experiences in life. He does not read the pages of human destinies in them, he counts them. This is complete alienation from people. And it's scary. What is still left of the old Startsev?

Of course, it is his intelligence that sets him apart from the common people; convictions remained, but he buried them in the depths of his soul; hard work remained, but it was now stimulated not by noble aspirations, but by the interests of profit, which he himself speaks of as follows: “Profit in the day, club in the evening.” The treatment of rural patients became secondary; here he received them in a hurry, and most importantly - urban patients who paid in cash. There was energy left, but it turned into vanity in pursuit of profit (he left every morning and returned home late at night). The ability to enjoy remains. But with what? In his youth - by nature, conversations with Kitty, love for her, later - by comforts, and now by vices: playing cards and acquisitiveness.

Does Startsev understand what is happening to him? Does he give an account of his actions? Perhaps yes. When Kotik, returning from Moscow, began to say that she was a failure, that she lived in illusions, and he had a real job, a noble goal in life, that she remembered how he loved to talk about his hospital, that it was happiness to be a zemstvo doctor, to help to the sufferers, to serve the people, he remembered the pieces of paper that he took out of his pockets with such pleasure in the evenings, and the light in his soul went out. Now definitely forever.

In the last chapter, the author shows us how much Startsev has changed not only externally, but also internally. He has lost all respect for people, he is unceremonious when he walks around a house scheduled for auction, when he shouts at patients and hits the floor with a stick. Tenth-graders understand well why he bought two houses and is looking at a third.

But not everyone can answer the question of whether the work of a doctor and commerce in the form shown through Ionych are compatible, since today’s children do not see the disadvantages in such a union. And Chekhov, back in the 90s of the 19th century, made us think about an active civic position, about a person’s responsibility for his work, profession, place in life and society. Gorky understood this well and wrote to Chekhov: “You are doing a great job with your little stories - arousing in people disgust for this sleepy, half-dead life...” The story “Ionych” is relevant in all respects. The work of a doctor and profit are incompatible concepts.

That's how it should be though counter examples our life today gives a lot. Hence the indifference that reaches the point of callousness, callousness to the point of cruelty, rudeness to the point of rudeness. In the era of current changes, you can see everything, and the teacher’s task is to ensure that students understand and appreciate not only the hero, not only his principles, but also relate them to what is encountered in life more and more often.

But when understanding the story “Ionych”, you can think about another aspect related to its artistic originality, basing the conversation on the study of time. The category of time can even be singled out as the main one. If the student understands the movement of time, then he will also understand everything that happens to Startsev.

So, the time used in the story is 10 years. On the surface it is clearly visible as if forward motion: young hero - maturity - old age. And deep down there is a reverse movement: from living reactions to mortification, the loss of normal human feelings.

And the title foreshadows the ending. The story is narrated in chapter V, the last, in the present tense, and in chapters
I-IV - in the past. This compositional structure is also interesting, since it is in Chapter V that the temporal center of the narrative is located. Here the author's attitude towards the hero is most clearly expressed. In chapters I-IV there is an excursion into the past, where the situation of life and
Doctor Startsev’s internal resources, which led him to Ionych.

Words are constantly repeated in the story: more, already, before, now, situations, actions, movements and thoughts are repeated. For example, time leaves its mark on the appearance of Vera Iosifovna; Ivan Petrovich does not change at all, he is frozen both physically and spiritually. Kotik’s relationship with time turned out to be more complex: both her appearance and inner world, there was a revaluation of values. She was able to understand her ordinariness, but her attitude towards Startsev was the same: what was desired was taken as reality.

Why is the main character subjected to the greatest test of time? Startsev does not stand the test of time, does not
withstands tests of resistance to the case environment, although he believes that he is not like the ordinary people (chapter IV: “Startsev visited different houses and met many people, but did not get close to anyone. The ordinary people were annoying with their conversations, views on life, and even their appearance him." And at the end of Chapter IV - about the Turkins family: "All this irritated Startsev. Sitting in the carriage and looking at the dark house and garden, which were so dear and dear to him once, he remembered everything at once - and Vera’s novels. Iosifovna, and the noisy play of Kotik, and the wit of Ivan Petrovich, and the tragic poses of Pava, and I thought that if the most talented people in the whole city are so mediocre, then what must the city be like).

Did he have the right to such an opinion in Chapter 1? Yes. In Chapter 1, the author’s attitude to what is happening coincides with Startsev’s attitude. He does not feel intoxicated in relation to the Turkins. He has his own ideals and dreams. But in Chapter IV, Startsev loses this right; he only distinguishes himself by inertia. He sees no change in himself. He freezes in time, just like Ivan Petrovich’s puns. It is during this period of life that Startsev undergoes the test of love. Of the entire stream of time allotted for Startsev’s life (10 years), the author singles out two days, pages from chapters 2-3, where he talks about the hero’s love.

It was on these two days that those qualities of nature manifested themselves that could have taken him out from among ordinary people, and those that could not resist (“I haven’t seen you for a whole week,< … >and if you only knew what suffering this is!< … >I haven't heard from you for so long."). I crave, I long for your voice.” “She delighted him with her freshness, the naive expression of her eyes and cheeks... she seemed very smart to him... With her he could talk about literature, about art, about anything...” And in the same chapter a little further: “... Is it becoming for him, a zemstvo doctor, an intelligent, respectable man, to sigh... to do stupid things...

Where will this novel lead? What will your comrades say when they find out? When a person starts asking such questions, it means that something in the relationship is not as it should be if it is love. And the ending of Chapter 2 is not surprising: “I’m tired... Oh, I shouldn’t get fat!” The chapter is not long, but how succinctly it is said about the changes in Doctor Startsev, about the emerging contradictions. In chapters 2-3, the author carefully examines the climactic moment associated with the hero’s love, because for Chekhov’s heroes it is love that often becomes a test of strength, of the title of personality. Love is a way out into the world, since in love a person becomes more attentive to life in general. So the lover Startsev begins to worry about philosophical questions and the state of his soul. He not only opens the world, but he himself is accessible to the world. But the light goes out.

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