Essay

VG Korolenko The river plays Tyulin – the hero of the story, the carrier on the river Vetluga. He has a youthful face, “almost without a beard and mustache, with expressive features,” a bassy chest voice, “slightly hoarse, as if from a strong hangover,” but there are “notes as direct and naive as this church, … Read more

N. V. Gogol Portrait The tragic story of the artist Chartkov began before a shop in the Shchukinsky yard, where, among the many paintings depicting peasants or landscapes, he discerned one and, having given the last twenty-ruble for her, brought home. This is a portrait of an old man in Asian clothes, it seemed unfinished, … Read more

The action takes place in 1890-1918. The work is written in the form of the author’s memories of his peer, a young English officer who died in France at the very end of the First World War. His name appeared in one of the last lists of those who died on the battlefield, when hostilities … Read more

Autumn. In the spacious hut of the well-to-do, morbid peasant Peter – the wife of Anisya, Akulina, his daughter from the first marriage, they sing songs. The owner himself again calls and scolds, threatening to calculate Nikita, a dapper boy of about twenty-five, an employee of a lazy and walking man. For him, Anisya angrily … Read more

In the ancient castle on the shore of the lake live a baron and a baroness. Fortunately, there seems to be no limit, especially since they found it already in adulthood. Edward loved Charlotte from his youth, but he had to marry a wealthy woman, who was much older than him, under the compulsion of … Read more

Leni Pfeiffer, nee Grüten, German. She is forty-eight years old, she is still beautiful – and in her youth was a true beauty: a blonde, with a beautiful stately figure. She does not work, she lives almost in poverty, she may be evicted from the apartment, or rather, from the house that once belonged to … Read more