Marker notes

Petersburg , the beginning of the 1850s. The young man who arrived from the village, Anatoly Nekhlyudov, became interested in playing billiards, however, at first he refused to play for money.

In three balls , an alager , a pyramid - I recognized everything. He became brave, met everyone and began to play decently.

Over time, he made acquaintance with the regular billiard prince and his friend Fedotka. With new “friends”, they were ridiculed that they did not know women, and a “dedication” was held. Involved by them, as it were, by chance in a game for money, and having lost a lot, the gambling Nekhlyudov began to play for money. Soon he began to play for money not only in billiards, but also in cards, after some time noticing that he had already given ten thousand to Fedotka.

Marker, seeing how to cash in on Nekhlyudov, somehow also played with him, but intentionally lost in the end, and having arrived for a small debt to his house, he learned from the valet that

St. Petersburg does not have any honor or benefit from this. We went from the village, we thought: we will be like a gentleman under the dead, the kingdom of heaven, according to princes, counts and generals; they thought: let us take to ourselves which of the countesses I am stealing and live in a noble way; but it turns out that we only run on tracheti. ... If only he would serve something or not: he took up cards and other things ... From the lady the richest estate remained: a thousand souls too, thousands in three hundred forests. He has laid everything now, he has sold the forest, he ruined the peasants, and everything is nothing. ... After all, how many, how many, they spent the winter here, let down eighty thousand; and now there is no silver ruble in the house!

Every day, Nekhlyudov went to the billiard room, made it a habit to start the day with a glass of absinthe washed with port , he lost his former gloss: dull, thin, yellow.

Once Nekhlyudov suggested that the visiting hussar play a bottle of wine for dinner and lost, but when they sat down at the table and ordered wine, and the owner did not let Nekhlyudov go on loan, he secretly left the billiard room.

Marker considered that Nekhlyudov would not appear after such a shame, however, he arrived the very next morning. Having played a couple of batches with a marker, he asked for paper and a pen and sent the marker to order a cabman. Upon returning, the marker found that Nekhlyudov, having left a note, shot himself.

The story was written in September 1853 in Zheleznovodsk where Tolstoy came during a service in the Caucasus from the Starogladkovskaya village on vacation to see his sister Maria Nikolaevna , who had arrived there from central Russia, together with her husband gr. V.P. Thick. At that time, Tolstoy was working on the third edition of the novel " Adolescence ", the work on which was difficult.

Tolstoy wrote the story quickly - in a draft for two days, another two days took editing.

On September 13, he wrote in his diary: “ In the morning there was a terrible longing ... the thought came of Z [list] M [arker], surprisingly well, he wrote, went to watch the meeting and again wrote Z [apiska] M [arker]. It seems to me that only now I write by inspiration; that’s good . ” The very next day the story was written in draft and in the diary of September 14 it was noted:

He finished in draft and wrote a blank sheet in the evening. I am writing with such enthusiasm that it’s hard even for me: my heart skips a beat.

The manuscript shows that Tolstoy worked especially carefully on the note by Nekhlyudov, redid it several times noticeably reducing the text.

September 15, again described the work on the story: “Morning wrote, did not have lunch, walked ... From 8 (evening) wrote until 11. Well, but too wrong syllable. More than half is written . ” September 16 noted in the diary: “ Well done! I worked nicely. Cum ".

The title of the story - the word "Notes", appeared already in the first manuscript, but instead of the crossed out word "Story": apparently, it was supposed to be "Story of the marker." But Tolstoy presented the editor with the right to choose a name: either keep the title of the “Notes marker”, or make it a subheading, and put “Suicide” in front.

Publish a story

The day after finishing work on the story, September 17, 1953, Tolstoy sent the manuscript to the editor of the journal Sovremennik, Nekrasov, while in the letter he insisted that he not edit the story, but leave it in the form in which it is, and if if changes are made, then coordinate them with him or return the manuscript.

At the very end of 1953, in No. 12 of Sovremennik, an announcement was placed that Tolstoy’s Marker's Story was supposed to be printed in the first half of 1854.

However, a month later, on October 25, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “I am beginning to regret that I sent the Notes of the marker too hastily. In terms of content, I would hardly have found much to change or add to them. But the form is not entirely carefully finished. ” In February 1954, Nekrasov sent Tolstoy a letter with comments on the story, where he noted the form that the author had chosen incorrectly: “Having chosen this form, you unnecessarily constrained yourself, the story came out rude and the best things disappeared in it.” ^[one]

Correspondence between the author and the publisher was delayed due to the work of the post office and the change of addresses of Tolstoy - Nekrasov sent letters to the old address, while Tolstoy had already left the Caucasus for Yasnaya Polyana , then for the Danube Army . Already from the village of Eski-Orda in Crimea, Tolstoy wrote at the end of 1954 asking about the story and asked to send letters to Chisinau to the address of the General Staff of the Southern Army:

Either mine, or your letters, or both, do not reach — otherwise I cannot explain to myself your six-month silence; but meanwhile I would be very interested to know from you. Are marker story and adolescence printed and when will they be printed? Please notify me of this and the letter of insurance, so that it would be more accurate.

- Tolstoy L.N. - Nekrasov N.A., December 19, 1852,

In December 1854, censorship permission was received to print the story, and on January 12, 1855, a ticket was issued by the Petersburg Censorship Committee to issue the journal.

The story was first published in January 1855 in the journal Sovremennik, in No. 1 for January 1855, with the signature “ L. N. T. ”

The story was published without copyright alteration and refinement, but with a noticeable correction of censorship. In a letter to Tolstoy, Nekrasov wrote about the story that " he was cut off in the press, however, nothing was touched, " noting that " we must also note that our censor is the best, " the state adviser V.N. was the censor. Beketov. In the story, the rude words of the marker, the mention of a duel, drunkenness, abuse and abuse were eliminated or replaced; that the master "ruined the peasants"; the words " large adjutant " are replaced by the words "large guest"; significantly edited Nekhlyudov's note.

After a year and a half N.A. Nekrasov decided to include the story in the collection "For easy reading." Tolstoy substantially corrected the story: added lines and whole paragraphs that were not in the magazine, Nekhlyudov's note was significantly supplemented, having doubled in volume. The collection was approved by censorship (with the accession to the throne of Alexander II, censorship became softer), however, until 1903, in all Tolstoy’s collected works, the story was reprinted from the text of Sovremennik.

Censorship Review

According to the publication of the story, a special censorship review of the court adviser N. Rodzianko was given: a report dated February 10, 1855 addressed to the Minister of Education A.S. He reported to Nosov that the Sovremennik magazine “ printed an unseemly story under the heading“ Notes of a marker ”.”

On each page, the censor noted “a lot of indecent judgments and ulcers, ” for example, his attention was drawn to the fact that the prince and his comrades were represented “ in a humiliating and indecent title , ” and, as a result, Rodzianko concluded:

The author’s goal can not be called anything but well-intentioned: no doubt, with this venomous tale, written with remarkable talent, he wanted to present a sad picture, as a warning and edification for readers, debauchery and death, to which an idle, humdrum, especially inn life in Petersburg can bring .
Despite, however, such a moral goal and even, perhaps, the most moral truth of this story ... the story seems to me printed in contravention of the rules of censorship, on the grounds that in the places I have marked, moral decency is more or less violated . It is especially unseemly that this story comes out of the pen of the inn servant about the nobles, among whom the main person, by the law of his origin and condition, is represented as belonging to the higher Petersburg society.

- from the report of the censor N. Rodzianko ^{[2] [3]}

At the report, the minister put forward a resolution: “ He was already in mind, and was declared harmless, ” a ministerial official left a note on the decision: “The minister ordered: leave without consequences .”

Criticism of Contemporaries

The story received several positive responses, for example, the journal " Domestic Notes " in number 2 in 1855 wrote:

The story is imbued with life and truth. Subtle observation, artistic skill are visible in the construction of the story ... If Mr. L.N.T. will continue as it began, then Russian literature will acquire in him a writer with a truly wonderful talent. And now we have the right to desire not that he wrote better, but only that he wrote more. He is obliged to use the talent with which he is gifted.

- The journal " Domestic Notes " in number 2 for 1855

Tolstoy was familiar with the responses, about which he left a note in the diary:

It was most pleasant to me to read reviews of magazines about "Notes of a marker" - the reviews are the most flattering. It is joyful and useful in that, setting fire to self-esteem, prompts to activity.

- Leo Tolstoy, diary, March 27, 1855

A year later, the magazine " Son of the Fatherland ", notifying readers of the release of the new collection "For easy reading," noted " lively, lively story of gr. Leo Tolstoy - "Notes marker ". ^[four]

A.V. In 1856, Druzhinin wrote in the journal “ Library for Reading ” that the story showed the writer as a person who understood well many of the sad aspects of modern life, and comparing with Tolstoy’s first story “ The Raid ” he noted that he had one thing that constantly complemented another: “ Sad the realism of Marker is completely different from the subtle charm of the Raid. ” ^[five]

N.G. Chernyshevsky in his article on Tolstoy in 1856, noted that the story “Notes of the marker” presents “the story of the fall of the soul, created with a noble direction, ” while noting that this story “ could only be conceived and executed in such a striking and true way by talent that preserved primitive purity . " ^[6]

But K.S. Aksakov, in his 1857 review of contemporary literature, noted that the story, Notes of the Marker, is weaker than Tolstoy's other stories. ^[7]

Literary criticism

It is noted that in the story “Notes of the marker” and the novel “Family Happiness”, Tolstoy tried to create various forms of narration without direct author participation. ^[eight]

Dmitry Dmitrievich Blagoy noted that the conflict of the story is similar to that which lies at the basis of the writer's autobiographical trilogy:

The story “Notes of the marker” poses one of the central problems of Tolstoy’s creativity - the problem of educating a person. The hero of the story is a man with a large supply of internal, spiritual strengths, with a pure soul and pure thoughts. He appears, like all the best heroes of Tolstoy, in an environment that has a detrimental effect on everything that is good in him.

- Dmitry Dmitrievich Blagoy ^[9]

Mikhail Gershenzon noted that the story is “ curious in form ” because the idea of ​​putting a story about the fall of a pure soul in the mouth of a inn servant far from any ideas is “a witty technique that guaranteed the reader against naked moralization ” and as a result only a visual picture without logical commentary was obtained - " That is, genuine art ." However, Gershezon called the author’s attempt to add morality as a suicide note a mistake. Gershenzon also noted that the reason for the death of Nekhlyudov in “Notes of the Marker” - the hero stopped hearing his “inner voice” - is then found in almost every Tolstoy story. ^[ten]

Tolstovedov noted autobiographical story. ^[11] “Notes of the marker” appeared during the period when the writer was working on the third edition of the autobiographical “ Adolescence ”, an attempt to pour content important for the author into a new form and was made in “Notes of the marker”. The main characters of both works are named by the same name: Nekhlyudov ^{[K 1]} . As Rafael Leuvenfeld pointed out: “ The presence in the story of Nekhlyudov already indicates that there is an autobiographical element in the Notes of the Marker. ” ^[12]

The surname of Princess Rtishcheva is taken from the family history of the Tolstoy and Volkonsky. In the surname of Oliver, there is a clear consonance with the surname of the head of Tolstoy in the Caucasus, staff captain Olifer, whom in one of his diary entries (December 3, 1853) Tolstoy called " a highly anti-decent person ." ^{[K 2]}

Life in Petersburg and the game of billiards

According to the biographer, personal secretary of Tolstoy, N.N. Gusev , the story reflects the St. Petersburg period of the writer's life - Tolstoy arrived and lived in Petersburg for the first time from late January to late May 1849: having arrived with good intentions to take exams, he ran away from the city in debt four months later and rarely recalled this period own life:

... in this morally bad city. There are all the temptations of a magnificent capital ... I remember how in my youth I stunned with a special, immoral stun in this luxurious city without any principles other than meanness and servility.

- Leo Tolstoy, letter to his wife of November 5, 1892

Tolstoy suddenly left for St. Petersburg, and as his aunt wrote, he simply joined the company with his friends and got on the stagecoach and went with them. On February 13, 1849, he wrote to his brother that he “intended to remain forever” in St. Petersburg and was full of plans to pass the exam at Petersburg University (and passed two in civil and criminal law) and begin to serve. However, apparently, in addition to exams, there were classes.

In the city, he entered the family of a friend of his father A.M. Having made friends with Islavina, he fell under the influence of his son Konstantin, a first-year student at the Faculty of Law, whom Tolstoy described in his Memoirs as a “ very attractive, but deeply immoral person ” who in St. Petersburg “ was able to spoil me like these five months I spent there, that I have no more unpleasant memories . "

Tolstoy recalled in his letter V.A. Islavin from 1878 about how he "bought" him from billiard. According to V. A. Islavin, it was a question of a case when Tolstoy lost to a marker in the billiard room, but not having money to pay the loss, promised to give it back tomorrow, but the marker did not believe him and didn’t let him out of the billiard room, and only arrived on time Islavin settled paying the debt situation.

At the end of May, Tolstoy left St. Petersburg, owing to one of his acquaintances, the restaurant Dussault and the tailor Sharmer ^{[K 3]} .

Prior to his departure, in a letter dated May 1, 1849, Tolstoy asked his brother S.N. Tolstoy to sell the village of Malaya Vorotynka and send him money to St. Petersburg to pay Petersburg debts, and a part of his forest to pay Moscow card debts in the amount of 1200 rubles.

The surname of one of the characters in the story - Prince Vorotyntsev, definitely indicates the name of the village Malaya Vorotynka, which Tolstoy sold to pay off his debts. And the surname of the tyrant-governor Seleznev, to whom the protagonist of the story Nekhlyudov left his peasants, is the real name of the Tula landowner Seleznev, to whom Tolstoy passed this very village with 22 peasants' souls. ^{[K 4]} .

Six months before writing the story, Tolstoy left a note in his diary about his game of billiards:

The passion for the game stems from a passion for money, but for the most part (especially those people who lose more than win), once they start to play with nothing to do, out of imitation and out of a desire to win, they don’t have a passion for winning, but they get a new passion for the game itself - to the sensations. The source of this passion is therefore in one habit; and the means to destroy the passion is to destroy the habit. That's exactly what I did. The last time I played at the end of August was therefore over 6 months, and now I don’t feel any urge to play. In Tiflis, I began to play with the [scam <nick>] marker on the game and lost something to him about 1000 games; at that moment I could lose everything.

- L.N. Tolstoy, entry in the diary of March 20, 1853

However, Tolstoy retained the “urge to play”, so after almost 10 years - in 1962, Tolstoy lost a thousand rubles to a traveling officer in billiards in a Moscow club . However, he didn’t have money, and the editor of the magazine “Russian Bulletin” M.N. paid for it . Katkov . In payment of his debt, Tolstoy handed the magazine “The Cossacks ” to the magazine. ^[13]

Nekhlyudov's “Initiation” Episode

An episode where young people, having learned that Nekhlyudov is inexperienced with women, persuade him to go with them and after the trip congratulate him on "dedication", and he regrets what he did and cries - also from the life of Tolstoy himself. ^[14] . For example, N.N. Gusev believed that - "this scene, without touching the details, undoubtedly has an autobiographical character." ^[15]

So, according to the story of a friend of Tolstoy, M. A. Schmidt , in 1911 she heard a story from Tolstoy himself:

When my brothers brought me to a brothel for the first time and I committed this act, I then stood by the woman’s bed and cried.

Tolstoy scholars believe that this incident is connected with the older brothers Sergey and Nikolai Tolstoy and it happened until February 1846 in Kazan . ^[sixteen]

The first attempt to give such an episode in the hero’s life was made by Tolstoy in the same 1853 in the incomplete story “Holy Night” (this story was never completed, was not published during Tolstoy’s life, first published in 1928), individual moments and scenes from which went to the "Notes marker." Tolstoy later included a similar episode in the drafts of War and Peace. ^{[K 5]}

In the manuscript of the story "Marker's Notes", more detailed editions of the scene are preserved, where after the words "as for anything else, I didn’t understand at all." Follows:

Already I looked, as soon as they had taken them near the billiard room, they had taken the mamzel there - Esterva, so they called her. After all, what kind of Esterva was, just what Esterva! Thin, nasal, drunk. And that only gentlemen found in it. After all, how much has passed through it: Tulupov, B. Ovchinnikov [?], K [elb] Surguchin. Because of her, purely because of her, they all squandered, and from P [Petersburg] they fled from debt. - That the Frenchwoman <When I was in front of [Ozelskiy] said that he had never [had] a woman.> So at this time and began to deal with mamzels. And Esther was eaten together [somehow] together; God already knows how they had calculations, but they all traveled together. It has already been said: gentlemen, what they will not invent.

- the text is given according to the manuscript, the spelling of the author and the pre-reform spelling are preserved

Based on the story in 1976, the Polish director G. Zalewski shot the film “ Green is the Past ... ”.

• The story mentions only one toponym of St. Petersburg - the Blue Bridge , while the restaurant Dussaud, which remained due to have left Tolstoy in 1849, was nearby - in the house number 11 on Bolshaya Morskaya .

• Burnasheva N.I. - Comments // Tolstoy L.N. Complete works: In 100 vols. - Artistic works: In 18 vols. - M .: Nauka, 2000 - T. 2: 1852-1856. - 2002 - pp. 275-567.
• Gusev N.N. - L.N. Tolstoy. Materials for a biography from 1828 to 1855 , Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 1954
• History of writing and description of manuscripts of the story
• Manuscript story options