Summary Dressed with a stone
OD Forsh
Dressed in stone
The main heroes of the novel are the first revolutionary terrorists of the 60s of the XIX century.
“Dressed as a stone for Empress Catherine II.”
The inscription on the Trubetskoi bastion
Part I I and Vera Lagutina grew up together, played, studied. At the age of seventeen, the nightingale listened and should have been married, if it were not for my own stupidity. I brought my comrade Mikhail to his last vacation in the Ugriya. In the year 59 he entered from the Kiev Vladimir Cadet Corps directly to the third year. He was unsociable, but he was very kind of himself, like an Italian: his eyes are burning, and his eyebrows are allied. He was originally from Bessarabia: his father was not Romanian, not Moldavian.
On March 12, 1923, the day when I, Sergey Rusanin, was 83 years old, I decided to publicize what I kept in my life for the rest of my life. I was born in the fortieth year, survived four emperors and
Mysterious fate of Michael has long worried the researchers. One of them, back in 1905, addressed all to the press, asking for any information about the case. I was not ready yet. Only now I can say aloud: the traitor of Michael Beideman is me.
I live in a big house with a historical past. The son of my co-worker, Comrade Petya Tulupov, attached me to a nanny’s dwelling for the grandchildren of Ivan Potapich, the former lackey of the last owner. When I’m not in the fishery, you can write. And I have one trade – alms.
The first time I saw Michael, when the newcomers passed me to the bath. He stood out among all, and seemed to me very handsome. After that it turned out that his bed was next to mine. On that first evening in the dormitory they read aloud the “Prince of Silver”. Mikhail spoke sharply about this work.
My aunt, Countess Kushina, collected on Sundays a salon in which all the famous people of that time visited. Aunt Dostoevsky also visited. On my way to my aunt, I asked Mikhail to express his opinion without sharpness, but rather keep it to myself. Mikhail did not fulfill my request. Flushed with the conversation with Dostoevsky, he delivered a heated speech about socialism. It is not known what would be the final of this performance, if there was not one accident. The waiter, who had brought a huge kettle of hot water to his aunt, slipped and had to brew Lagutin, if not for Mikhail. He shielded himself from the old man and got the whole kettle of boiling water on his right hand. Auntie rolled up her sleeve and began to make him a bandage. It was then that I saw a birthmark on his arm, slightly above the wrist, exactly like a spider. Bowing out, Dostoevsky invited Michael to his room to continue the conversation, and the old man Lagutin called him on vacation to his estate. Among the guests there was only one person, to whom the cooked hand of Michael did not produce an action that obscured the daring phrase about socialism. It was a handsome young man, a general, Count Pyotr Shuvalov, the head of the third branch.
Mikhail flatly refused to attend the aunt’s salon. At that time, he did not take me seriously. Even then, all the feelings of Michael were only a means to approach the villainous intention with which he was obsessed… Now I ask myself: what if Mikhail was right, giving his freedom, his brave mind for this new life.
In that year, Vera finished the Smolny Institute, and I took Mikhail to another Christmas party. It was there that he met Vera. Vera and Mikhail immediately had a serious conversation. It could not be otherwise: Vera read the abyss of books. Being the granddaughter of the Decembrist, she was especially concerned with all liberal nonsense, and in the table she had a volume of Ryleeva locked.
Balls in the Smolny often visited the Emperor Alexander II. It happened that evening. One of the classiest ladies, a young cheerful Italian, allowed the girls to meet in their room with their brothers and cousins. There we went during one of the intermission, taking with a stupid Kitty. From behind the doors of the adjoining room we heard voices: a female crying and a comforting man’s – interrupted by the sound of kisses. Even in this love prattle it was impossible not to recognize the voice of Alexander II. We rushed to the exit, but Michael remained with a distorted face and burning eyes. From the corridor we heard the door to the adjacent room open, someone left, and Mikhail’s deaf voice said: “This is baseness!”. Then the tsar passed by us in a hurried, runaway step. Mikhail disappeared, and we returned to the ballroom.
On Easter I went to Lagutino. It was the sixtieth year. Serfdom survived the last days. At that time there were noblemen, over whom neither God nor human laws had any power. Such an assurance was the father of Vera Erast Petrovich Lagutin, one of the most intelligent people of his time. There was Erast Petrovich a widow and a great woman. Vera grew up under the tutelage of French women, who often changed, and had unlimited access to the huge father’s library. Three versts from the estate lived the artist Linuchenko with his wife Karelia Petrovna. He was Vera’s uncle on the lateral line and her crony friend, protector and mentor.
After the incident in Smolny, Mikhail and I quarreled, but I could not prevent his arrival in Lagutino. Nevertheless, I was sure that there was no passion between Vera and Mikhail – their conversations were too boring and serious.
Arriving in Lagutino, we got to the Easter festivities. On the hill in front of the house the fortress girls in elegant sarafans rolled eggs on the wooden grooves, painted in different colors. One of the women, Martha, liked Erast Petrovich, and he decided to give her husband Peter to the soldiers, despite stubborn resistance to this Faith. To arrange these nasty fun Erast Petrovich helped his manager and confidant, the Frenchman Charles Delmas, nicknamed the peasants Maceich.
Before dinner we decided to walk to the farmstead for Linuchenka, but they were not at home: Karelia Petrovna fell ill, and her husband took her to the south. I could not look at the Faith. In her lean body, in her narrow shoulders was a submissive femininity. When she walked, bowing her head, came to the memory of a mediocre, submissive wife. But in Vera’s eyes a different face appeared. The eyes were gray, solid, with a secret thought, which he did not want – he would not.
Not far from the Linuchenkov hamlet there was a strange place – a round lake at the foot of the hills. According to local legend, the daughter of an old landowner died here. Her mother cursed her for escaping with the visiting hussar. When they passed through this place, the earth opened and tightened them together with the horses and the carriage, and the lake spilled over the top. The people called him Witch Eye.
Vera sat down on a large rock by the lake, we are near. Suddenly Martha appeared, rushed to her feet to Vera, and begged her to intercede for Peter. Vera, as she could, consoled the unfortunate woman and promised to do everything she could.
Returning to the estate, Mikhail and I changed into uniforms on the occasion of the masquerade ball, which was arranged by Erast Petrovich. Apart from us, another guest was not costumed-Prince Nelsky, a rich neighbor, no longer a young, very enlightened and humane man. Mikhail and I were very similar in masks. Vera whispered to me: “Come quickly to the arbor”, and only after that I realized that I’m not Mikhail. Jealousy shook me. I hid in the bushes at the gazebo and heard their conversation, interrupted by kisses. Mikhail confessed to Vera that he was capable of sacrificing love for his cause, that he almost killed a woman who had taken possession of him too much. “With you, my dear, – on the block” – she answered. Then they agreed on escaping. Vera planned to take Martha and Peter with her.
After dinner, Erast Petrovich announced the engagement of Vera and Prince Nelsky. Vera was calm – she already knew about it. By dawn I climbed into that arbor where Michael and Vera’s night meeting passed. Under the bench something whitened. I bent down and with disgust I picked up the sheets of the overseas “Bell”. Apparently, Michael forgot them here. I did not notice Maseich coming into the summer-house. He somehow already knew about the relationship between Vera and Mikhail and persuaded me to give him the “Bell”. Then I betrayed Michael for the first time. I was not ashamed, I had to save the Faith. Maseich overheard Vera telling Martha the plan of escape. Everything was immediately reported to Erast Petrovich, and the escape failed.
That day I wandered around with a gun for a long time, and when I returned I found out that Peter had been flogged and given to soldiers, and Marfa Erast Petrovich took himself. Vera had to marry the prince. Before I left, I managed to see Vera. She gave me a letter for Michael, in which she described the unsuccessful escape and assured her of her love. I did not give this letter. It is now with me.
When I returned from vacation, Michael was not yet. After all, I was in a nervous fever and fell into a three-day unconsciousness. Having met a week later with Mikhail, I finally decided not to tell the whole truth. This was my second betrayal.
The production day came – we, the cadets, received shoulder straps of officers. At our factory there was a sovereign. He noticed Michael and recognized him. Mikhail quickly left, covering his face with a handkerchief. Learning his name, the sovereign repeated it twice. In the evening I was summoned by the newsman, who informed me that I was waiting for a lower rank, unknown to anyone. I went out into the anteroom and was amazed: before me stood Peter, the husband of Martha. He brought a letter to Beidemann from Vera. Peter said that Vera married Prince Nelsky. Martha, whom Vera asked his father for a dowry, also sent a message, where it was said that the young are going abroad and want to take Martha with them. In the letter, Vera asked me to take Peter to my batmen. After reading the letter, Mikhail realized that I had deceived him, but he looked exultant, as if he were not a prince, and he married Vera himself. He looked sharply into my eyes and said that for their common cause it turned out that it is better not to think up, but he is leaving right now in Lesnaya to mother. I became more and more convinced that this fanatic loved only a moment.
I volunteered to accompany Mikhail to the post coach. On the way we met a middle-aged civilian in a beard, not too well dressed. It was Dostoevsky. He recognized Michael and invited us to his place. I was captivated by his charm, but Mikhail said that he was disappointed in him. Dostoevsky talked with Mikhail quietly and carefully. Seeing us off, he walked ahead with candles. As the elder brother, who long ago took his cross, shone on the way narrow “Dostoevsky to his younger brother – Mikhail.
I managed to transfer Peter to our unit and take me to batmen. Everything pointed to the fact that the marriage of the Faith and the Prince was some kind of false one. The fact that Vera’s love for Michael did not pass, I did not doubt. Soon Mikhail Beideman disappeared. The old mother, whom he assured that he was going to Finland, knew nothing about him. Cruel, like all fanatics, Beydeman did not think of any of the people associated with him. With Vera Michael was supposed to come to Italy.
I was going on vacation on the affairs of Ugrya, when suddenly a relay race came from Mikhail’s mother. At the meeting, she begged me to go to Vera and find out about her about Mikhail. I got into the carriage and went to Prince Nelsky’s estate. Driving past Lagutin’s house, I paid attention to the remnants of burnt barn. From the driver I learned that there was a peasant revolt in Lagutin.
Vera was glad to see me. She lived with Prince Gleb Rodionovich, as with his brother. The prince released all his men to freedom, and those who did not want to leave gave large plots of land. Because of this old man Lagutin stopped to go to them. The best time in my life I survived then, in the prince’s estate. I learned that not only Prince and Vera, but also Linuchenko, are connected with Mikhail’s business. Under the influence of the moment, I offered them my help. I had to, hating their political ideas, to help them by feeling to Vera. Suddenly a messenger came up to the porch and shouted that the rebellious peasants were about to set fire to the house of Lagutin. The prince and I decided to take different paths: I went to the mill, he went to the manor.
My horse suddenly jumped, snoring: on the road lay a dead body. I flew out of the saddle and, hit my head, fainted. Subsequently, I learned that it was the corpse of the peasant Ostap, shot by Erast Petrovich. Lagutin was immediately tied up and, while I was unconscious, was thrown into the pool under the mill. I was found and locked in a barn. All night I lay there in fear for the Faith. In the morning I was released by the Cossack detachment. From them I learned that Prince Gleb Rodionovich died in a fire. There were no bones left from Moseich. Vera was alive and unharmed. Fate unleashed all the knots in the life of Vera and Michael. In the person of the old man Lagutin, the only enemy of Mikhail who could have harmed him was out of order. I, who, knocked out of the solidity of my former way of life and who did not adhere to theirs, would have been better off now to die.
When Vera recovered a little from the shock, I brought her with Martha to the capital to the mother of Beideman. This old woman was amazing: with extreme love for her son, her faith in him and respect were even more love. Linuchenko came with his wife from the south, brought a letter from Mikhail to Vera. He wrote that he learned from the newspapers about the misfortune in Lagutin, and, not expecting Faith in Paris, he himself will come to Russia, especially since this is required by the case.
In the studio of Linuchenko, I had a strange meeting with a man who had become my only support in terrible years. Yakov Stepanich, a little old man, all fluffy and gray-haired, in gentle fine wrinkles, was known as a seer and on Vasilievsky Island, where he lived, was very famous. I’m confused. Because of my love for Vera, I became involved in hostile acquaintances and could not unite the unconnected. Yakov Stepanych felt my confusion and gave me his address.
In the studio Linuchenka entered my batman Peter. He too was a member of the organization and behaved with everyone as an equal. I was furious, but I forgot everything, when Peter reported that Mikhail was arrested while crossing the border. No one else, as I have to, using the connections of my aunt, to worry about Michael’s release.
Count Pyotr Andreevich Shuvalov I met at my aunt’s house, where he did not dare enter. After spending the evening in the salon, the Count took me to his room; we had a conversation about Beideman. Shuvalov said that he intends to involve Vera for interrogation. During the search, Mikhail found a fraudulent manifesto on behalf of the emperor Constantine I with the call to overthrow the illegal power. Wishing one – to shield Vera from the case, I described Mikhail as a stubborn detached proud person, who wanted to carry out his actions, not uniting with anyone, but only managing everything, his revolutionary intentions. The Earl suggested that Beydeman might just be a miserable madman, but I furiously rejected this assumption, thereby completely killing Mikhail. For this third treachery, I received the order. Count Shuvalov informed the emperor of my own words.
This was in the spring of 1862. Vera sold everything that was inherited from her father and her husband, and when a large sum was being made, she insanely demanded that we arrange the escape of Mikhail. Vera got her way, Linuchenko decided to make an attempt. Peter found a man who undertook to bribe the sentries and other guards. It was the assistant of one of the guards Ravelin Tulmasov. Linuchenko warned that Tulmasov did not like him, and his plan was read from a cheesy novel and, apart from risk, would not give anything. But Vera did not want to hear anything.
At night, Peter and I swam by boat to the fortress wall, where bribed sentries with a rope ladder were to leave. As soon as we flashed fire, giving an agreed sign, two shots were heard from two opposite bushes. I leaned back, taking out my revolver, and both bullets hit Peter’s head. Peter silently slipped into the water and disappeared into the waves. I buried to the shore, where Vera and unhappy Martha were waiting for me.
Michael spent twenty-seven years in solitary confinement of Alekseevsky ravelin. First – the camera number 2, then number 13. What did Mikhail feel like wearing a stone, all in the same conclusion, realizing that life continues beyond the wall. This rich, motley life was not acquired by him, but I, his former friend and traitor. Dressed in stone, as was Michael in 1861, I in 1923 – become his place.
Part two
Sergei Rusanin and Mikhail Baidemann are one. I learned about the permeability of bodies in the hospital of the mentally ill. This mystery was told to me by the artist Vrubel, who took the image of a man with a black beard. After spending a week here, I realized that crazy people are the freest of people. The senior doctor let me go with Potapich, instructing him not to let me out of the house. “Hemorrhage in the brain can happen again,” he said.
The first evidence of mutual communication through thought I experienced back in 1863, when I was carrying Mother Beideman to the Crimea. After the failed child’s attempt to save Michael, his mother announced that she must resort to the last resort – to personally pray to the emperor for pardon. I could not let her go alone. On the way, she fell ill. We had to stop in a crap town, in a hotel. Before her death, she gave me a hard paper with a gray envelope with the inscription: “Larissa Polynovoi” and said that this woman loved Mikhail, she is close to the court and will do everything for him. After that, my mother closed her eyes. A little later she told me quietly, but it’s clear: “Seryozha, let’s go to my son Mikhail.” I took her hands and found myself in Mikhail’s cell. He tried to hang himself on a towel. He was taken out of the loop and took away bed linen. Michael saw us.
I have not written for a long time. Mihailov’s torment was serving. He was dressed as a stone, like a Trubetskoi bastion. Then he put on a mask and took up his pen.
Only in the early spring I was able to fulfill my mother’s errand. After a short vacation, I raced to Yalta in search of Larisa Polynova. As soon as I saw Larissa, I fell in love with her. Larissa was a rich young widow and lived with a striking independence. In my first meeting I gave her an envelope and reminded me of my love for Mikhail. She took the envelope and kicked me out. My promise to Mother Michael was fulfilled, but now this woman has become enticing by herself.
When I came to Larissa’s house for the second time, she was going to go to her old friend the shepherd and agreed to take me with her, provided that I kept silent all the way. The shepherd lived in a goat’s cottage far away in the mountains. Larissa showed me a precipice, steeply rising from the deep bottom of the gorge. Mikhail wanted to dump this precipice. Fortunately, the old shepherd-vedenn was ripe in time. Full of anger and revenge against Beideman, I said: “So you know what he is like!” He told another woman, whom he did not fear to love, about this incident with you. “
This night we spent in a goat’s lodge, which the old shepherd gave us. In the morning, when I woke up, Larissa was no longer around. I rushed to her house. Larisa met me coldly. When I talked about helping Mikhail, she said that she was not going to bother about him. “It was you who aroused my resentment and my worst forces, if you were true to him, and I turned out to be different, but you betrayed Beideman to me.” I betrayed people, not wanting to betray.
Faith no longer believed in the possibility of Michael’s liberation and sent all his forces to revolutionary activity. At Linuchenko, with whom Vera lived in the same apartment, the wife died in the farm, and he went to bury her. I poured all my strength into the Faith to hope for the liberation of Mikhail through Larisa Polynov. Vera gave me a promise that she would not take part in the risky business until my return. Now I went to Petersburg as a scoundrel, who was entrusted with the last value, and he squandered it at his whim. I told Vera that Larissa had died, and I was not able to catch her alive. After me a man entered the apartment and handed Linuchenko a note from Mikhail, in which he pleaded for help, because he felt impending madness. I was told that he wanted to hang himself. That’s what I saw then, the day of my mother’s death, during my first trip.
Not further, as this morning, I again went into the cell to Michael. I took him to Vera and Larissa and was glad that our unfortunate friend found a moment of oblivion.
After receiving the note, Mikhail’s sister, Viktoria, came, a tall woman, very like her face, silently firm. On behalf of her composed a petition for pardon. This note through third hands was reported to the chief of the gendarmes, Prince Dolgoruky. He refused. Faith melted before our eyes. Full of inexpressible pity and love, I begged her to go with me to the Caucasus and start a new life. Instead of an answer, she introduced me to a sullen young blonde. “Here is my new fiancé, whose fiancée I dare to be without changing Michael, but only a bride,” she said. For the first time in my life I ventured off with hostility to Vera and went to the regiment. I spent the winter disgustingly, but neither wine nor maps let me forget. In order not to perish in this mud, I applied for the expulsion of me for training in the General Staff Academy and went to Petersburg.
A few days after my return to St. Petersburg, I again met Vera with that blond man. Despising Faith for an imaginary new feeling and infidelity to Michael, I went headlong into secular life. One night I was told that a stranger wanted to see me. In the entrance I recognized the bride of Vera. He was very sick. He told me that at five o’clock in the Summer Garden something fatal happened and asked to hand over to the Faith a clay cockerel from those sold at the fair for a nickle – the memory of childhood, a gift from my mother. I still regret that I did not keep it.
Exactly at five at the Summer Garden, he made an unsuccessful attempt on the sovereign. I wandered the streets for a long time, clutching a clay cockerel in my coat pocket. The name of the criminal – Karakozov – and the rank of a nobleman were discovered by chance. Soon he was transferred to Alexandrovsky Ravelin, and then publicly hung under a drum roll.
Today, Mikhail and I made our way to the cell of Karakozov. With him was Father Palisadov, a playful, vain person who had lived in Paris for a long time. What comfort could this fashionable shepherd give to a suicide bomber? Karakozov could not see us – he was still unbreakable with his flesh.
On September 2, I saw the execution of Karakozov. He hoped until the last second that he was given a life.
I write after a long interval. Two weeks ago I climbed under the bed: I was frightened by drums calling for execution. Ivan Potapich found me forcibly and did not let me write for a long time, forced me to knit a stocking to calm my nerves. He wanted immediately to set me up for the Black Vrubel, but time had not yet come for that. Thanks to the intercession of my young friend, Comrade Petit, I received the last reprieve. I need to hold out until the October celebrations. This day is a conditional meeting with the Black Vrubel. I asked Comrade Petya to come here on the eve of the October festivities, pick up my manuscript and, possibly, print.
After the execution of Karakozov, I drank impenetrable for a week. Having woken up, I without hesitation went to the chief of gendarmes Shuvalov with the request to deliver the opportunity to Michael Beideman to be interrogated personally by a sovereign. The count promised to do everything possible. On Sunday I went to my aunt and received from Count Shuvalov the answer: the request can not be respected, it is not on the lists. Another graph hinted to me that in time Mikhail might be transferred to the Kazan House of the insane. I went home to shoot myself. I was stopped by one: who would give the clay cockerel for Vera? It seemed to me that everyone around them had pancakes instead of faces. There was not a real person near me. And suddenly the address of Yakov Stepanich surfaced in front of me. Without reasoning, I went.
It turned out that Yakov Stepanich had a case with Shuvalov. With the help of the count, he secretly attended the meeting of Beideman with the sovereign. Yakov Stepanych described me in detail everything that he had seen and heard. The meeting took place at night in the count’s house. The Emperor well remembered Beideman – an involuntary witness of his long-standing love affair. Despite the fact that the prisoner was already half-mad, the emperor said: “Let the prisoner be restored to the original place.” For example. ”
I was enlightened: that everything, as Black Vrubel said, should be swallowed up the wheel of fortune, so that it would be inserted into an Adam’s apple, like a propeller, and then let the air in so that the rotation of the wheel began. The wheel will be cut out of the girl’s newspaper paper, and I need scissors to put it in my throat. Now, only one thing: by October 25, steal the scissors.
After the execution, I went to Linuchenka village to give the clay cock to Vera. She was sick, lying in bed. Obeying difficult and hardly good feelings, not sparing her weakness, I told her about Mikhail. The next morning I went to the Caucasus. Before I left, I came to say goodbye to Vera, and at that moment the last terrible misfortune happened: I fell out of love with her. I felt suddenly bored, but also extremely easy, as if I had become completely empty. She felt it and took from me a promise to come to the rescue at her first call – in memory of Michael and the one who gave the clay cockerel.
I distinguished myself in the Caucasus. And yet: the one who fought with the non-peaceful mountaineers, was wounded and awarded, he was not I, but the devil knows who. I was and remained an expressionless artist. I gathered three faces from human faces: the face of Michael, the face of the one who was hanged and the face of Vera, who died for my heart. The rest of me were pancakes, and I was a pancake myself. But for the honor of the officer, I held on. And, when the relay from Kazan came from Vera with a request to go immediately – I left.
I write at night. The wheel swallowed. It is installed in the Adam’s apple. I’m speechless, moo. Instead of names, Mikhail and Sergei came out with a new name: Mirhil.
In the corridor of the madhouse exactly six, when the bribed feldsher Horlenko held me and Vera to the mysterious insane prisoner at number 14, 16, 36, 40, 66, 35, and so on, struck in the hallway of the madhouse. Under these figures was encrypted: Michael Beydeman.
It was the end of November 1887. I have not seen Vera for twenty years, so now she, like me, went to 47. Faith was not an old woman – cheeks burned with a blush, eyes glittered. She was left alone: Martha took the typhus in the spring. Vera herself was sick with tuberculosis. Now she was the head of the organization, young people crowded in her apartment from morning till night.
We went into solitary confinement. On the hospital bed sat a creature in which there was not a single feature of Michael. We learned it only by birthmark in the form of a spider. We left. Together with the paramedic I drove Vera home. The next day she was lying on the table, covered with white, as alien as Mikhail.
I did not fulfill my last request. I did not tell anyone how Michael was tortured. In the archives everything was known without me. And I, not wishing myself trouble, lived in his village and very often went drunk. Then Verin hoopoe wound up in my head and knocked day and night.
In the cerebellum, something develops the pressure of all atmospheres. I throw a pen, keep my head, teach my hands to the wings. In the throat – once, head in the glass – two.
Mirgil flew!
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