The main idea of ​​the story is two landowners. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. Literary direction and genre

Two landowners, respectable, well-intentioned, respected people.

One of them is retired Major General Vyacheslav Illarionovich Khvalynsky. Tall, once slender, he has aged a little and is flabby, but he still “performs briskly, laughs loudly, jingles his spurs, twirls his mustache.”

He has some quirks. When talking “with nobles who are not rich or not of high rank,” he somehow looks at them in a special way, pronounces his words somehow differently. He cannot communicate with them as with his equals. And he treats people “at the lower levels of society even more strangely: he doesn’t look at them at all. But “with the governor or some official person” he is very nice: “and he smiles, and nods his head, and looks into their eyes - he just smells like honey...”.

The general had never been to war; in his younger years he served as “adjutant to some significant person” and, apparently, was a servitor. In addition, he was stingy, “there lived a terrible” and “terrible hunter of the fair sex.” He lives alone, is still considered a groom, but his housekeeper is prominent, smart, about 35 years old. He reads little, does not have the gift of words, and avoids long conversations. “In front of higher persons, Khvalynsky is mostly silent, and to lower persons, whom he apparently despises,... he keeps his speeches abrupt and sharp”: “but this is what you are saying in vain” or: “you must, however, know who you are dealing with”...

“Out of stinginess,” he refuses the title of leader of the nobility. He explains this by saying that he “decided to devote his leisure time to solitude.” In general, as you can see, the type is, to put it mildly, unattractive: a Pharisee, a boor, a rogue, etc.

The second landowner, Mardarii Apollonych Stegunov, is a short, plump, bald old man, with a double chin, soft arms and a decent belly. He is a great hospitable and joker; lives, as they say, for his own pleasure; winter and summer he wears a striped dressing gown with cotton wool. He only agreed on one thing with General Khvalynsky: he is also a bachelor.”

He deals with his estate “rather superficially.” The serfs are treated unceremoniously, “in the old way.” His main principle: “if he’s a master, he’s a master, and if he’s a man, he’s a man.”

He was sitting on the balcony with a guest, the author of “Notes,” drinking tea, but suddenly stopped and listened: “the sound of measured and frequent blows” was heard “in the direction of the stables.” The patriarchal old man “said with the kindest smile: “Chyuki-chyuki-chuk!” Chuki-chuk! Chyuki-chuk!

" - What is it? - I asked in amazement.

And there, on my orders, the little naughty girl is punished... Vasya, the bartender, do you know?

What Vasya?

Yes, that’s what he served us at dinner the other day.”

“Driving through the village, I saw the barman Vasya. He walked down the street and gnawed nuts. I told the coachman to stop the horses and called him over.

What, brother, were you punished today? - I asked him.

How do you know? - Vasya answered.

Your master told me.

The master himself?

Why did he order you to be punished?

And rightly so, father, rightly so. We don’t punish people for trifles; We don’t have such an establishment - no, no. Our master is not like that; We have a gentleman... you won’t find such a gentleman in the whole province.

Our master is not like that; We have a gentleman... you won’t find such a gentleman in the whole province.

Let's go! - I said to the coachman. “Here it is, old Rus'!” I thought on the way back.”

Any form of slavery corrupts the souls of slaves and masters for a long time, for centuries. For a long, long time, for centuries, Vaska the barman and his (now freer) descendants will idolize their idols, bow before false prophets, trustingly repeat false ideas inspired by someone, slowly and painfully parting with them.

And this is not only in Rus'. No matter how you fence it off from the rest of the rather terrible world, the Kingdom of God cannot be built in one single country. “The Kingdom of God will not come in a visible way - it is within us.”

The story “Two Landowners” from the series “Notes of a Hunter” was supposed to be published in Sovremennik No. 10 for 1847, but was not allowed through the censorship. So it appeared only in a separate edition of “Notes of a Hunter” (1852).

The original title was “Two Neighbors.” The story was rejected by censors twice more, in 1851 in the Illustrated Almanac and in the collection Comet. Censor Lvov, who allowed the publication of “Two Landowners,” was removed “for neglect of duty.”

Literary direction and genre

The story is written in the Gogolian traditions of realism. Not without irony and even with a certain amount of sarcasm, Turgenev describes two “wonderful people” who, in reality, turn out to be morally insignificant. Their personalities became a natural product of serfdom.

The story has the features of a portrait sketch. The images of the two landowners are connected only by their proximity to the narrator-hunter. They show their true character in their interactions with their neighbor-landowner.

Issues

The main problem of the story is the influence of serfdom, which kills human dignity not only in serfs, but also in landowners who either strive for honors or live in the old fashioned way, thoughtlessly adopting the tyranny of their fathers.

Plot and composition

The story begins with the narrator addressing the readers. He immediately announces his intention to talk about two landowners and begins with a story about the retired Major General Khvalynsky. Turgenev first lists the landowner’s features as cute and even funny, such as the lilac color of Khvalynsky’s hair, which he dyed with a composition bought from a swindler (“a Jew posing as an Armenian”). This initial deception is the whole essence of the duality of the heroes of the story.

About Khvalynsky, the reader learns that he talks differently with people more or less rich and high-ranking, reads only with guests, and has never been to war, even though he is a general. The story about the housekeeper is very close to the story about one of Gogol’s Ivans, who was not married, but his housekeeper had many children who called him aunt.

In general, General Khvalynsky lives up to his telling name, that is, he wants to seem much better than he really is, but he is an empty person.

The second landowner, Stegunov, is initially opposed to the first in everything, including appearance, life and activities. The reader already seems that this landowner will be more sympathetic. But then the hunter tells how he stayed with the dear, hospitable Stegunov, and “we still have quite a lot of such landowners in Rus'.” Upon closer acquaintance, the good-natured landowner turns out to be inhumanly cruel, capable of poisoning a person like a forest animal, and not caring about his serfs. He deals with serfs for the slightest offense and gets real pleasure from it.

Thus, the second landowner turns out to be much worse than the first, because, although he does not show his contempt for the rootless peasants, he humiliates their human dignity.

The climax and denouement of the story is a conversation with the just whipped barman Vasya, who considers his master the best in the entire province. His human dignity had already disappeared, spoiled by the good master.

The last words of the story - the narrator's thought about old Rus' - were offensive to many contemporaries, who believed that the heroes of the story were a rarity.

Heroes

Turgenev gives a detailed description of his characters, describing their appearance, home, habits, actions, character and speech. Like Gogol, who created a gallery of landowners in Dead Souls, Turgenev, based on his task, makes the second landowner more lost and morally hopeless than the first. It is difficult to even understand whether Turgenev uses the grotesque as a method of ridiculing the landowners or whether such outlandish people were actually found in Rus' in the mid-19th century.

Khvalynsky's appearance is ambiguous. On the one hand, the author calls him a man “at a mature age, in the very... pores,” on the other hand, it is reported that he is missing some teeth, his cheeks are sagging, he himself is flabby, and his sparse hair has changed color. Judging by the hero’s clothes, we can conclude that he strives to look dandy.

Khvalynsky is called a very kind man, but his habits tell a different story: in conversations with lower ranks, he swallows words contemptuously, strives for honor, but refuses the title of leader, because this requires action! In short, the general is strong where he needs to make an impression.

Turgenev speaks skeptically about the intelligence of Khvalynsky, who reads books only in front of guests and avoids arguments, especially with young people. Khvalynsky is a curmudgeon and does not know how to run a farm, but his neighbors consider him an excellent landowner, a selfless person, “with rules.”

Compared to him, Stegunov (his last name is also telling, he takes pleasure in whipping his serfs) seems open and sincere. He is naturalness itself, does not try to seem like something else. Stegunov did not serve anywhere, he is a short, plump old man with a paunch. His clothes are a striped dressing gown with cotton wool. His life is patriarchal. His house is similar to many houses of other landowners, where books are forgotten, people are dressed in the old way, and traditionally address guests. Stegunov is hospitable.

It is not without reason that Turgenev emphasizes several times that his hero does nothing. Such idleness leads to moral perversions, which are manifested in catching other people's chickens on his plot (the landowner asks five times in a row whose chickens are walking on his plot), persecution of serfs or corporal punishment.

Stylistic features

In the story “Two Landowners” Turgenev showed himself as an admirer and follower of Gogol’s traditions. The story was supposed to make readers laugh through their tears. In describing the landowners, Turgenev uses hyperbole, irony, and grotesque. Or maybe there really were such landowners in his time? This is the conclusion the reader should come to and be horrified by.

"was written in the period 1847 - 1874. The collection was first published as a separate edition in 1852.

I have already had the honor of introducing to you, gracious readers, some of my gentlemen neighbors; allow me now, by the way (for our brother the writer, everything is by the way), to introduce you to two more landowners with whom I often hunted, very respectable people, well-intentioned and universally respected in several districts.

First, I will describe to you retired Major General Vyacheslav Illarionovich Khvalynsky. Imagine a tall and once slender man, now somewhat flabby, but not at all decrepit, not even outdated, a man in adulthood, in his prime, as they say. True, the once correct and now still pleasant features of his face have changed a little, his cheeks have drooped, frequent wrinkles are located radially around his eyes, other teeth are no longer there, as Saadi said, according to Pushkin; brown hair, at least all those that remained intact, turned purple thanks to the composition purchased at the Romny horse fair from a Jew posing as an Armenian; but Vyacheslav Illarionovich speaks smartly, laughs loudly, jingles his spurs, twirls his mustache, and finally calls himself an old cavalryman, while it is known that real old men never call themselves old men. He usually wears a frock coat, buttoned to the top, a high tie with starched collars, and gray trousers with a sparkle, military cut; he puts the hat directly on his forehead, leaving the entire back of his head exposed. He is a very kind person, but with rather strange concepts and habits. For example: he cannot in any way treat nobles who are not rich or unofficial as equals. When talking to them, he usually looks at them from the side, leaning his cheek heavily into the hard and white collar, or suddenly he will illuminate them with a clear and motionless gaze, remain silent and move all his skin under the hair on his head; He even pronounces words differently and does not say, for example: “Thank you, Pavel Vasilich,” or: “Come here, Mikhailo Ivanovich,” but: “Bold, Pall Asilich,” or: “Come here, Mikhail Vanich.” He treats people at the lower levels of society even more strangely: he doesn’t look at them at all and, before he explains his desire to them or gives them an order, he repeats several times in a row, with a preoccupied and dreamy look: “What’s your name?” . what is your name?”, striking unusually sharply on the first word “how,” and pronouncing the rest very quickly, which gives the whole saying a fairly close resemblance to the cry of a male quail. He was a troublemaker and a terrible man, and a bad master: he took as his manager a retired sergeant, a Little Russian, an unusually stupid man. However, in the matter of economic management, no one has yet surpassed one important St. Petersburg official, who, seeing from the reports of his clerk that his barns were often subject to fires on his name day, as a result of which a lot of grain was lost, gave the strictest order: do not plant ahead until then sheaves into the barn until the fire goes out completely. The same dignitary decided to sow all his fields with poppy, as a result of a very apparently simple calculation: poppy, they say, is more expensive than rye, therefore it is more profitable to sow poppy. He ordered his serf women to wear kokoshniks according to the model sent from St. Petersburg; and indeed, women on his estates still wear kokoshniks... only on top of their kicheks... But let’s return to Vyacheslav Illarionovich. Vyacheslav Illarionovich is a terrible hunter of the fair sex and, as soon as he sees a pretty person on the boulevard in his district town, he immediately sets off after her, but immediately goes lame - that’s what a remarkable circumstance. He likes to play cards, but only with people of lower rank; They say to him: “Your Excellency,” but he pushes them and scolds them as much as his heart desires. When he happens to play with the governor or with some official person, an amazing change occurs in him: he smiles, and nods his head, and looks into their eyes - he makes such a difference... He even loses and doesn’t complains. Vyacheslav Illarionich reads little, and while reading he constantly moves his mustache and eyebrows, first his mustache, then his eyebrows, as if he were sending a wave up and down his face. This wave-like movement on the face of Vyacheslav Illarionich is especially remarkable when he happens (in front of guests, of course) to run through the columns of the Journal des Débats. He plays a fairly significant role in the elections, but due to his stinginess he refuses the honorary title of leader. “Gentlemen,” he usually says to the nobles approaching him, and speaks in a voice full of patronage and independence, “I am very grateful for the honor; but I decided to devote my leisure time to solitude.” And, having said these words, he will move his head several times to the right and to the left, and then with dignity he will place his chin and cheeks on his tie. In his younger years, he was an adjutant to some significant person, whom he does not call by name or patronymic; they say that he took on more than just adjutant duties, as if, for example, dressed in full dress uniform and even fastening the hooks, he steamed his boss in the bathhouse - but not every rumor can be trusted. However, General Khvalynsky himself does not like to talk about his official career, which is generally quite strange; It seems he had never been to war either. General Khvalynsky lives in a small house, alone; He has not experienced marital happiness in his life and therefore is still considered a groom, and even a profitable suitor. But his housekeeper, a woman of about thirty-five, black-eyed, black-browed, plump, fresh-faced and with a mustache, wears starched dresses on weekdays, and puts on muslin sleeves on Sundays. Vyacheslav Illarionovich is good at large dinner parties given by landowners in honor of governors and other authorities: here he, one might say, is completely at ease. In such cases, he usually sits, if not at the right hand of the governor, then not far from him; at the beginning of dinner, he adheres more to his sense of self-esteem and, leaning back, but without turning his head, gazes from the side down the round backs of the heads and standing peaks of the guests; but by the end of the table he is cheerful, begins to smile in all directions (he has been smiling in the direction of the governor since the beginning of dinner), and sometimes even proposes a toast in honor of the fair sex, the adornment of our planet, in his words. General Khvalynsky is also not bad at all ceremonial and public events, exams, meetings and exhibitions; The master also approaches the blessing. At crossings, crossings and other similar places, Vyacheslav Illarionich’s people do not make noise or shout; on the contrary, when pushing people aside or calling for a carriage, they say in a pleasant throaty baritone: “Let me, let me, let General Khvalynsky pass,” or: “General Khvalynsky’s crew...” The crew, however, Khvalynsky’s uniform is quite old; on the footmen the livery is rather shabby (the fact that it is gray with red piping seems to hardly need to be mentioned); the horses have also lived well and served in their lifetime, but Vyacheslav Illarionich has no pretensions to panache and does not even consider it proper for his rank to show off. Khvalynsky does not have a special gift of speech, or perhaps does not have the opportunity to show his eloquence, because he does not tolerate not only argument, but generally objections and carefully avoids any long conversations, especially with young people. It is indeed truer; Otherwise, there’s a problem with the current people: they will just fall out of obedience and lose respect. In front of higher persons, Khvalynsky is mostly silent, and to lower persons, whom he apparently despises, but with whom he only knows, he keeps his speeches abrupt and sharp, constantly using expressions similar to the following: “This, however, you empty -ki say”; or: “I am finally forced, my dear Lord, to show you”; or: “Finally, you must, however, know who you are dealing with,” etc. Postmasters, permanent assessors and station wardens are especially afraid of him. He does not receive anyone at home and, as you can hear, lives as a miser. With all that, he is a wonderful landowner. “An old servant, a disinterested man, with rules, vieux grognard (old curmudgeon (French) )),” the neighbors say about him. One provincial prosecutor allows himself to smile when they mention in his presence the excellent and solid qualities of General Khvalynsky - but what does envy not do!..

However, let’s now move on to another landowner.

Mardarii Apollonych Stegunov was in no way like Khvalynsky; he hardly served anywhere and was never considered handsome. Mardarius Apollonich is an old man, short, plump, bald, with a double chin, soft arms and a decent belly. He is a great hospitable and joker; lives, as they say, for his own pleasure; winter and summer he wears a striped dressing gown with cotton wool. He only agreed on one thing with General Khvalynsky: he is also a bachelor. He has five hundred souls. Mardary Apollonych deals with his estate rather superficially; To keep up with the times, I bought a threshing machine from Butenop in Moscow about ten years ago, locked it in a barn and calmed down. Perhaps on a nice summer day he orders the racing droshky to be laid and goes to the field to look at the grain and pick cornflowers. Mardary Apollonych lives in a completely old way. And his house is of ancient construction: in the hall there is a proper smell of kvass, tallow candles and leather; immediately to the right there is a cupboard with pipes and cleaning utensils; in the dining room there are family portraits, flies, a large pot of erani and sour pianofortes; in the living room there are three sofas, three tables, two mirrors and a hoarse clock, with blackened enamel and bronze, carved hands; in the office there is a table with papers, bluish screens with pasted pictures cut out from various works of the last century, cabinets with stinking books, spiders and black dust, a plump armchair, an Italian window and a tightly boarded door to the garden... In a word, everything is as usual. Mardarius Apollonich has a lot of people, and everyone is dressed in the old-fashioned way: in long blue caftans with high collars, dull trousers and short yellowish vests. They say to guests: “father.” His housekeeping is managed by a peasant bailiff with a beard that covers his entire sheepskin coat; home - an old woman, tied with a brown scarf, wrinkled and stingy. In the stables of Mardarius Apollonych there are thirty horses of different sizes; he leaves in a home-made carriage that weighs one and a half hundred pounds. He receives guests very cordially and treats them to glory, that is: thanks to the intoxicating properties of Russian cuisine, he deprives them until the very evening of any opportunity to do anything other than show preference. He himself never does anything and even stopped reading the Dream Book. But we still have quite a lot of such landowners in Rus'; the question arises: why on earth did I talk about him and why?.. But instead of answering, let me tell you one of my visits to Mardarius Apollonych.

I came to him in the summer, around seven in the evening. His all-night vigil had just passed, and the priest, a young man, apparently very timid and recently graduated from the seminary, was sitting in the living room near the door, on the very edge of his chair. Mardarii Apollonich, as usual, received me extremely kindly: he was genuinely happy with every guest, and he was generally a kind person. The priest stood up and took his hat.

“Wait, wait, father,” Mardarius Apollonych spoke, without letting go of my hand, “don’t go... I told you to bring me some vodka.”

“I don’t drink, sir,” the priest muttered with confusion and blushed to his ears.

- What nonsense! How can you not drink in your rank! - answered Mardary Apollonych. - Bear! Yushka! vodka for father!

Yushka, a tall and thin old man of about eighty, came in with a glass of vodka on a dark painted tray, speckled with flesh-colored spots.

The priest began to refuse.

“Drink, father, don’t break down, it’s not good,” the landowner remarked reproachfully.

The poor young man obeyed.

- Well, now, father, you can go.

The priest began to bow.

“Well, okay, okay, go... A wonderful man,” Mardarius Apollonych continued, looking after him, “I’m very pleased with him; one thing - still young. He keeps preaching, but he doesn’t drink wine. But how are you, my father?.. What are you, how are you? Let's go to the balcony - see, what a nice evening.

We went out onto the balcony, sat down and started talking. Mardaria Apollonych looked down and suddenly became terribly excited.

-Whose chickens are these? whose chickens are these? - he shouted, - whose chickens are these walking around the garden?.. Yushka! Yushka! Go find out now, whose chickens are these walking around the garden?.. Whose chickens are these? How many times have I forbidden, how many times have I spoken!

Yushka ran.

- What a riot! - repeated Mardary Apollonich, - this is horror!

The unfortunate chickens, as I now remember, two speckled and one white with a crest, calmly continued to walk under the apple trees, occasionally expressing their feelings with prolonged cackling, when suddenly Yushka, without a hat, with a stick in his hand, and three other adult servants, all rushed together in unison on them. It's fun. The chickens screamed, flapped their wings, jumped, clucked deafeningly; the courtyard people ran, stumbled, fell; The gentleman from the balcony shouted like a frenzy: “Catch, catch!” catch, catch! catch, catch, catch!.. Whose chickens are these, whose chickens are these?” Finally, one yard man managed to catch a tufted hen, pressing her chest to the ground, and at the same time, a girl of about eleven, all disheveled and with a twig in her hand, jumped over the fence of the garden, from the street.

- Oh, those are the chickens! - the landowner exclaimed triumphantly. - Ermila the chicken coachman! He sent his Natalka to drive them out... I suppose he didn’t send Parasha away,” the landowner added in an undertone and grinned significantly. - Hey, Yushka! Give up the chickens: catch Natalka for me.

But before the out of breath Yushka managed to reach the frightened girl, out of nowhere, the housekeeper grabbed her hand and slapped the poor girl on the back several times...

“Here you go, here you go,” the landowner picked up, “those, those, those!” those, those, those!.. And take away the chickens, Avdotya,” he added in a loud voice and with a bright face turned to me: “What kind of persecution was it, father?” I'm even sweating, look.

And Mardarii Apollonych burst out laughing.

We stayed on the balcony. The evening was truly unusually good.

We were served tea.

“Tell me,” I began, “Mardarius Apollonych, have your yards been evicted, over there, on the road, behind the ravine?”

- Mine... what?

- How are you, Mardary Apollonych? After all, this is a sin. The huts allotted to the peasants are nasty and cramped; you won’t see any trees around; I’m not even sorry; there is only one well, and even that one is no good. Couldn't you find another place?.. And, they say, you even took away their old hemp plants?

- What will you do about the disengagement? - Mardary Apollonych answered me. — For me, this demarcation sits here. (He pointed to the back of his head.) And I don’t foresee any benefit from this demarcation. As for the fact that I took away the hemp plants from them and didn’t dig up their planters or something, I know about that, father, I myself know. I'm a simple person - I do things the old way. In my opinion: if he’s a master, then he’s a master, and if he’s a man, then he’s a man... That’s it.

There was, of course, no answer to such a clear and convincing argument.

“And besides,” he continued, “the men are bad, disgraced.” Especially there are two families; Even the deceased father, God grant him the kingdom of heaven, did not favor them, he did not favor them painfully. And I, I’ll tell you, have this sign: if the father is a thief, then the son is a thief; whatever you want... Oh, blood, blood - a great thing! To be honest with you, I was from those two families, and I donated them as soldiers without waiting lists, and so I put them in all sorts of places; Yes they don’t translate, what are you going to do? Fruits, damned.

Meanwhile, the air became completely silent. Only occasionally the wind came in streams and, dying for the last time near the house, brought to our ears the sound of measured and frequent blows heard in the direction of the stables. Mardary Apollonych had just brought the poured saucer to his lips and was already widening his nostrils, without which, as you know, not a single native Russian takes in tea - but he stopped, listened, nodded his head, took a sip and, putting the saucer on the table, said with with the kindest smile and, as if involuntarily, echoing the blows: “Chyuki-chyuki-chuk! Chuki-chuk! Chyuki-chuk!

- What is it? - I asked in amazement.

- And there, on my orders, the little naughty girl is punished... Do you want to know Vasya the bartender?

- What Vasya?

“Yes, that’s what he served us at dinner the other day.” He also walks around with such big sideburns.

The fiercest indignation could not withstand the clear and meek gaze of Mardarius Apollonich.

- What are you, young man, what are you? - he spoke, shaking his head. - What am I, a villain or something, that you are staring at me like that? Love and punish: you yourself know.

A quarter of an hour later I said goodbye to Mardarii Apollonych. Driving through the village, I saw the barman Vasya. He walked down the street and gnawed nuts. I told the coachman to stop the horses and called him over.

- What, brother, were you punished today? - I asked him.

- How do you know? - answered Vasya.

- Your master told me.

- The master himself?

- Why did he order you to be punished?

- Serves it right, father, serves it right. We don’t punish people for trifles; We don’t have such an establishment - neither, nor. Our master is not like that; We have a gentleman... you won’t find such a gentleman in the whole province.

- Let's go! - I said to the coachman. “Here it is, old Rus'!” — I thought on the way back.

Let me introduce you to two landowners with whom I often hunted. The first of them is retired Major General Vyacheslav Illarionovich Khvalynsky. Tall and once slender, he was now not at all decrepit. True, the once regular features of his face have changed a little, his cheeks have drooped, wrinkles have appeared, but Vyacheslav Illarionovich speaks smartly, laughs loudly, jingles his spurs and twirls his mustache. He is a very kind person, but with rather strange habits. He cannot treat poor nobles as equals; even his speech changes.

He was a troublemaker and a terrible man, and a bad owner: he took a retired sergeant, an unusually stupid man, as his manager. Khvalynsky is a big lover of women. He only likes to play cards with people of lower rank. When he has to play with his superiors, he changes a lot and doesn’t even complain about losing. Vyacheslav Illarionovich reads little; when reading, he constantly moves his mustache and eyebrows. He plays a significant role in the elections, but due to stinginess he refuses the honorary title of leader.

General Khvalynsky does not like to talk about his military past. He lives alone in a small house and is still considered a profitable groom. His housekeeper, a plump, fresh-faced, black-eyed and black-browed woman of about 35, wears starched dresses on weekdays. At large dinner parties and public celebrations, General Khvalynsky feels at ease. Khvalynsky does not have a special gift for words, so he does not tolerate long arguments.

Mardarii Apollonych Stegunov is similar to Khvalynsky in only one way - he is also a bachelor. He did not serve anywhere and was not considered handsome. Mardarius Apollonych is a short, plump old man, bald, with a double chin, soft arms and a belly. He is a hospitable and joker, lives for his own pleasure. Stegunov deals with his estate rather superficially and lives in the old way. His people are dressed in the old-fashioned way, the farm is run by a mayor of men, and the house is run by a wizened and stingy old woman. Mardary Apollonych welcomes guests cordially and treats them to delight.

One day I came to see him on a summer evening, after the all-night vigil. After Stegunov dismissed the young priest, treating him to vodka, we sat on the balcony. Suddenly he saw strange chickens in the garden and sent the yard servant Yushka to drive them out. Yushka and three other servants rushed at the chickens, and fun ensued. It turned out that these were Ermil the coachman’s chickens and Stegunov ordered them to be taken away. Then the conversation turned to the settlements, which were given a bad place. Mardarii Apollonych said that disgraced men live there, especially two families who cannot be removed. In the distance I heard strange sounds. It turned out that they were punishing Vaska the barman, who served us at lunch.

A quarter of an hour later I said goodbye to Stegunov. Driving through the village, I met Vasya and asked why he was punished. He replied that they were punished for the deed, and such a master as theirs could not be found in the whole province.