My first friend, my priceless friend. Alexander Pushkin - Pushchin: Verse My best friend is my priceless friend

I. I. Pushchin

Notes

I. I. PUSHCHIN. My first friend, my priceless friend!. It was not published during Pushkin's lifetime. Written December 13, 1826, in Pskov.

The poem was sent to Pushchin in Siberia for hard labor along with a message to the Decembrists "In the depths of Siberian ores."

For the first stanza of this poem, Pushkin took without changes the first 5 verses of the unfinished message to Pushchin, written back in 1825. See "From early editions."

From earlier editions

In an unfinished message to I. I. Pushchin in 1825, the verse "Your bell has announced" followed:

Forgotten shelter, disgraced hut You suddenly revived with joy, On the deaf and distant side You shared the day of exile, the sad day With a sad friend. Tell me where the years have gone, Days of hope and freedom> Tell me what are ours? what friends? Where are these linden vaults? Where is youth? Where are you? Where I am? Fate, fate with an iron hand Has broken our peaceful lyceum, But you are happy, O dear brother, On your chosen line. You defeated prejudices And from grateful citizens You knew how to demand respect, In the eyes of public opinion You exalted the dark rank. In its humble foundation You observe justice, You honor ........... ...................

Unfinished message of 1825. The message was caused by Pushchin's arrival in Mikhailovskoye, where he spent one day with Pushkin. At the end of the message, it is said about the position of the judge, elected by Pushchin after his departure from the guard¤

Yuri Markovich Nagibin

My first friend, my priceless friend

We lived in the same building, but didn't know each other. Not all the guys in our house belonged to the yard freemen. Other parents, protecting their children from the pernicious influence of the court, sent them for a walk to the grand garden at the Lazarev Institute or to the church garden, where old palmate maples overshadowed the tomb of the boyars Matveevs.

There, languishing from boredom under the supervision of decrepit devout nannies, the children stealthily comprehended the secrets about which the court spoke at the top of its voice. Fearfully and greedily they sorted out the rock inscriptions on the walls of the boyar tomb and the pedestal of the monument to the state councilor and cavalier Lazarev. My future friend, through no fault of his own, shared the fate of these miserable, greenhouse children.

All the children of the Armenian and adjacent lanes studied in two adjacent schools, on the other side of Pokrovka. One was in Starosadsky, next to the German church, the other - in Spasoglinishevsky Lane. I was not lucky. In the year I entered, the influx was so great that these schools could not accept everyone. With a group of our guys, I ended up in school No. 40, very far from home, in Lobkovsky Lane, behind Chistye Prudy.

We immediately realized that we would have to solo. The Chistoprudnys reigned here, and we were considered strangers, uninvited aliens. Over time, everyone will become equal and united under the school banner. At first, a healthy instinct for self-preservation kept us in a tight group. We united at breaks, went to school in a group and returned home in a group. The most dangerous was the crossing of the boulevard, here we kept the military formation. Having reached the mouth of Telegraph Lane, they relaxed somewhat, behind Potapovsky, feeling completely safe, they began to fool around, yell songs, fight, and, with the onset of winter, start dashing snow battles.

In the Telegraph I first noticed this long, thin, pale freckled boy with large gray-blue eyes half a face wide. Standing aside and tilting his head to his shoulder, he observed our valiant amusements with quiet, unenvious admiration. He shuddered a little when a snowball, thrown by a friendly but alien to condescension hand, covered someone's mouth or eye socket, smiled sparingly at especially outrageous antics, a faint blush of constrained excitement painted his cheeks. And at some point, I caught myself screaming too loudly, gesticulating exaggeratedly, feigning inappropriate, out of play, fearlessness. I realized that I was exhibiting myself in front of a strange boy, and I hated him. Why is he rubbing near us? What the hell does he want? Has he been sent by our enemies? .. But when I expressed my suspicions to the guys, they laughed at me:

Have you eaten henbane? Yes, he is from our house! ..

It turned out that the boy lives in the same building as me, on the floor below, and studies at our school, in a parallel class. It's amazing we never met! I immediately changed my attitude towards the grey-eyed boy. His imaginary stubbornness turned into subtle delicacy: he had the right to keep company with us, but did not want to be imposed, patiently waiting to be called. And I took it upon myself.

During another snow fight, I started throwing snowballs at him. The first snowball that hit him on the shoulder confused and seemed to upset the boy, the next caused an indecisive smile on his face, and only after the third did he believe in the miracle of his communion and, grabbing a handful of snow, fired a return shell at me. When the fight was over, I asked him:

Do you live below us?

Yes, the boy said. - Our windows overlook the Telegraph.

So you live near Aunt Katya? Do you have one room?

Two. The second is dark.

We too. Only light goes to the trash. - After these secular details, I decided to introduce myself. - My name is Yura, and yours?

And the boy said:

... Tom is forty-three years old ... How many acquaintances there were later, how many names sounded in my ears, nothing compares to that moment when, in a snow-covered Moscow lane, a lanky boy quietly called himself: Pavlik.

What a reserve of individuality this boy, then a young man, had - he did not happen to become an adult - if he managed to enter so firmly into the soul of another person, by no means a prisoner of the past, with all his love for his childhood. There are no words, I am one of those who willingly evokes the spirits of the past, but I do not live in the darkness of the past, but in the harsh light of the present, and Pavlik is not a memory for me, but an accomplice in my life. Sometimes the feeling of his continuing existence in me is so strong that I begin to believe: if your substance has entered the substance of the one who will live after you, then you will not die completely. Let this not be immortality, but still a victory over death.

The narrator reminisces about his friend, whom he lost forty years ago. The story is told in the first person.

All the guys from the old Moscow court studied at the two nearest schools, but Yura was not lucky. In the year when he went to study, there was a large influx of students, and some of the children were sent to a school far from home. This was "foreign territory". To avoid a fight with the locals, the guys went to and from school. big company. Only on "their territory" did they relax and start playing snowballs.

During one of the snowy battles, Yura saw an unfamiliar boy - he was standing on the sidelines and smiling timidly. It turned out that the boy lives in Yuri's entrance, it's just that his parents spent all his childhood "walking" him in the church garden, away from bad company.

The next day, Yura involved the boy in the game, and soon he and Pavlik became friends.

What a reserve of individuality this boy had, then the young man‹…› if he managed to enter so firmly into the soul of another person.

Before meeting Pavlik, Yura "was already tempted in friendship" - he had a childhood bosom friend, handsome, cut like a girl, Mitya - "weak-hearted, sensitive, tearful, capable of hysterical outbursts of rage." From his father, a lawyer, "Mitya inherited the gift of great speech" and used it when Yura noticed that a friend was jealous of him or was talking to him.

Mitya's absurdity and constant readiness for a quarrel seemed to Yura "an indispensable attribute of friendship," but Pavlik showed him that there is another, real friendship. At first, Yura patronized the timid boy, “introduced him into the world,” and gradually everyone began to consider him the main one in this pair.

In fact, friends did not depend on each other. Communicating with Mitya, Yura got used to "moral conciliation", and therefore Pavlik's moral code was stricter and cleaner.

Forgiving betrayal is little different from betrayal itself.

Parents took care of Pavlik only in early childhood. As he grew up, he became completely independent. Pavlik loved his parents, but did not allow them to control his life, and they switched to his younger brother.

Pavlik never entered into a deal with his conscience, because of which his friendship with Yura once almost ended. Thanks to the tutor, Yura knew perfectly well from childhood German. The teacher loved him for his "true Berlin pronunciation", and never asked for homework, especially since Yura considered teaching him below his dignity. But one day the teacher called Yura to the blackboard. Yura did not learn the poem given by him - he was absent for several days and did not know what was asked. Justifying himself, he said that Pavlik had not informed him about his homework. In fact, Yura himself did not ask what was asked.

Pavlik took this as a betrayal and did not talk to Yura for a whole year. He tried many times to make peace with him without clarifying the relationship, but Pavlik did not want this - he despised workarounds, and he did not need that Yura, as he revealed himself in the German lesson. Reconciliation occurred when Pavlik realized that his friend had changed.

The nature of friendship is different from that of love. It is easy to love for nothing and very difficult for anything.

Pavlik was a "mental" boy, but his parents did not provide him with a "nutrient environment." Pavlik's father was a watchmaker and was only interested in watches. His mother seemed to be a woman who "did not know that printing had been invented," although her brothers, a chemist and biologist, were prominent scientists. The cult of books reigned in Yura's family, and Pavlik needed it like air.

With each passing year, the friends became closer to each other. The question "Who to be?" stood before them much earlier than before their peers. The guys had no pronounced predilections, and they began to look for themselves. Pavlik decided to follow in the footsteps of one of his famous uncles. Friends boiled shoe polish, which did not give shoes a shine, and red ink, which stained everything except paper.

Realizing that they would not become chemists, the guys switched to physics, and after it - to geography, botany, and electrical engineering. In breaks, they learned to balance by holding on the nose or chin miscellaneous items, which horrified Yuri's mother.

Meanwhile, Yura began to write stories, and Pavlik became an amateur stage actor. Finally, the friends realized that this was their calling. Yura entered the screenwriting department of the Institute of Cinematography. Pavlik, on the other hand, “failed at the director’s”, but the next year he brilliantly passed the exams not only at VGIK, but also at two other institutes.

On the first day of the war, Pavlik went to the front, and Yura was "rejected". Soon Pavlik died. The Germans surrounded his detachment, seated in the building of the village council, and offered to surrender. Pavlik had only to raise his hands, and his life would have been saved, but he turned out to be and burned alive along with the soldiers.

Forty years have passed, and Yura is still dreaming of Pavlik. In a dream, he returns from the front alive, but does not want to approach a friend, to talk to him. Waking up, Yura goes over his life, trying to find in it the guilt that deserves such an execution. It begins to seem to him that he is guilty of all the evil that is happening on earth.

We are all guilty before each other and a hundred times stronger - before the dead. And we must always remember this guilt of ours - perhaps then the most sacred dream will come true: <...> to return to life the departed ...

One day, a friend invited Yura to a dacha he had recently bought - to go mushroom picking. Walking through the forest, Yura stumbled upon the traces of long-standing battles and suddenly realized that Pavlik had died somewhere here. For the first time he thought that in the village council surrounded by enemies “it was not death that was going on, but last life Pavlik.

Our responsibility to each other is great. At any moment, a dying person, a hero, a tired person, or a child can call us. It will be "a call for help, but at the same time for judgment."

In the presence of the Pskov governor, the collegiate secretary Alexander Pushkin gave a signature stating that he undertakes to live indefatigably on the estate of his parent, to behave in good manners, not to engage in any indecent writings and judgments, reprehensible and harmful to public life, and not to distribute them anywhere. On August 9, they brought me to Mikhailovskoye. Oh, what a terrible fate fell on my head! Double supervision - the supervision of the father, the supervision of the church authorities entangled me with iron chains. Day by day I lead an empty and joyless existence. All letters addressed to me are immediately printed out, and I am accused of godlessness and bringing punishment to the family. In the wilderness of the pine forests of the Pskov province is my link. A linden alley leads to our estate. On the right is a huge lake with flat shores, on the left is another, smaller one. Below, the river Sorot winds its way through the meadow. I live in a small, one-story grandfather's house. Nearby is the nanny and parents, who by chance became my overseers. Oh, how many times I wrote to the king, prayed for a transfer from here, at least to a fortress! All to no avail. No answer, nothing. At times I feel like an invisible, faceless ghost, whose words and letters disappear with a fair wind to nowhere. And what about high school friends? I haven't received any news for a long time. I seem to be cut off from the outside world, and the only friend of my days is Arina Rodionovna. My room is modest: a simple wooden bed, a tattered card table, and shelves of books - that's all the decoration. The rest of the rooms are boarded up from prying eyes. "Boris Godunov" and "Eugene Onegin" are my joy. They keep me occupied during hours full of melancholy. However, staying in Mikhailovsky is not without rare happiness. I don’t know what impulses my father gave in to, but my parents suddenly made such a fuss, packed up and left the village, dragging both my sister and brother with them. I was left alone in the care of a nanny. Over time, I got used to it. I saw that creative calm, bestowed on me from above. My genius grows here.

And I'll be a scoundrel if I don't tell you how beautiful today's frosty day is! January 11th, early sunbeams come through the window, flood my bed and sparkle on the hardwood floor. As usual, I ran out into the yard, picked up a handful of the purest snow and rubbed my face with it. A pleasant burning sensation on my cheeks, crystal water flowing between my fingers, delighted me like never before. - Alexander? Someone's insinuating, painfully familiar quiet voice was heard from the side of the door. I turned around. - Pushchin! I rushed to my native figure and put him in a strong hug. The unprecedented joy of reunion swept me from my feet to the very top of my head. I remembered the Lyceum years and pressed Ivan tighter to my chest. - Well, we met, dear friend ... - he half-asleep croaked sweet words, and I, having come to my senses, unclenched my grip. - When did you arrive? - Recently, only in the morning. But come on, you'll catch a cold! Grabbing me in an armful, involuntarily burying my face in the fur collar of my fur coat, he dragged me into the house and threw me onto the bed. Laughing, I pushed Pushchin away and sat down. - Well, what a habit - to go out in such a frost in one shirt! - he lightly pushed me in the chest with his fist and moved to the table, where the tea carefully poured by the nanny was smoking in cups, - I recognize my former comrade. - Come on, Ivan, - I pulled off his clothes and landed next to him, begging him to tell all the news that had not reached me during my stay in Mikhailovsky. There was alcohol in the bins, and we, having clinked glasses, disappeared for long hours in an intoxicating conversation. Much has changed in our situation in the five years that have passed before this meeting. I became a famous poet. In the silence of Mikhailovsky, my genius fully matured. I, as I said before, was now working on Onegin and Godunov, and already finishing both works. Pushchin, as I learned, managed to transform from a brilliant guards officer into a modest judicial official. In 1823 he quit military service and following the example of Ryleev, who served in court, he took a judicial seat in the Criminal Chamber - first in St. Petersburg, and then in Moscow. Having talked enough, towards evening I became more cheerful than ever and, with considerable effort, fished my friend out into the street and led him to the lake. The hitherto dull landscape, secluded and quiet, was now firmly held together with the joy of our rendezvous. - Come on, catch it! Pushchin's peppy cry cut through the silence and mixed with a swift snowball that flew right into my neck and chilled my skin. - Hey! I laughed, rubbing my hand over the impact site. Ivan rushed to run to the lake, covered with ice, but before he reached the shore, I scooped up more snow, crumpled it with my fingers frozen from the cold and let it go after my friend. - Past! The second projectile reached the target that very second, and it fell into the nearest snowdrift. - Order? I jumped up to my friend and held out my hand. When in a playful mood, do not forget that friends can fool you. Before his hand touched mine, my elbow was in a tenacious grip, and I fell into the snow next to Pushchin. He hung over me, crushing my legs with his hips, cutting off the path to retreat and deftly raking prickly heaps of heavenly fluff by my collar. Breathing heavily from the struggle, I still managed to knock him over and bend him down. In the light of the moon, Ivan's hair was scattered on a white surface, his cheeks were flushed, and his smile revealed a row of even white teeth. I leaned closer to his face, touching my comrade's cheek with the tip of my nose and feeling hot convulsive breath on my skin. - Alexander... Childishness has taken over. At such a quiet moment, my friend's face twisted into a displeased grimace as soon as my hand pressed an icy handful to his cheek. - And do not expect to defeat me! I jumped to my feet and rushed to the gleam of light gleaming in the window of the estate, barely making out the creaking steps behind me. The door gave way easily, the house was empty, and, running through a short corridor, I flew into my room and collapsed onto the bed. I spread my arms and took a deep breath, laughing out loud. - Yeah, I got it, - Pushchin jumped up to me, hitting the wooden corner of the bed with his knee, and crushed it with his body, - now you can’t run anywhere! - Iva-a-n, - I irritably stretched out his name and began to pull off my friend's fur coat covered with snow, throwing it to the side. I could feel the pillow underneath me soaking up the moisture in my hair. Our loud sniffling carried through the little room, and the smell of alcohol hitherto hung in the air. He brazenly straddled my hips, crossed his arms over his chest and looked down triumphantly, like a victorious predator looks down on his prey in moments of triumph. The burning lampada weakly illuminated the two figures on the narrow bed and outlined the contours of Pushchin's face. I lay below and, not without pleasure, looked at him, long-awaited, happy and intoxicated with fun. His face softened, his fingers tangling the curls of my hair. He rested his elbow on my left, and our lips met in a timid, virginal kiss. At what point were we almost naked? The hem of the shirt was stretched out, exposing the often heaving breasts. I felt the touch of a hot body and leaned forward myself, towards his hips and hands supporting me under the waist. The impulse traveled up my spine, hitting my temples, and the dull, fading pain still made me arch in the sheets. He squeezed the bottom of my stomach with his palm, and with the other hand he now supported under the knee. He whispered something in my ear in a broken, hoarse voice, and I, as if in a delirium, heard only the endings of words and with each push I called out his name more and more loudly. The flickering light of the lamp spread in circles before my eyes, and, sighing deeply, Pushchin buried himself in the pillow next to me. I drew him closer and stroked his hair, going down and running my short nails around the vertebra on the back of the neck.

It was long past twelve when I woke up from a rustle. The seat next to me was empty, and the front door creaked plaintively. I grabbed the candle and ran barefoot onto the porch. - Are you leaving already? I couldn't put into words my surprise. - I have to go, I promised ... I'm sure we'll meet again in Moscow. I walked through the snow, despite the frost, and clung to the fur collar of his fur coat, as I had done that morning. - Goodbye, dear friend - we shook hands, and he jumped into the carriage. I hardly saw his carriage, but still, out of habit, I continued to stand in the snow, looking into the distance, following the departing comrade, until the nanny suddenly returned in the middle of the night and forcibly took me into the house. And in the meantime, new lines were born in my head. My first friend, my priceless friend! And I blessed fate, When my yard is secluded, Covered with sad snow, Your bell sounded...

Yuri Markovich Nagibin

My first friend, my priceless friend

Have you eaten henbane? Yes, he is from our house! ..

Do you live below us?

Yes, the boy said. - Our windows overlook the Telegraph.

So you live near Aunt Katya? Do you have one room?

Two. The second is dark.

We too. Only light goes to the trash. - After these secular details, I decided to introduce myself. - My name is Yura, and yours?

And the boy said:

I know I can't really write about Pavlik yet. And I don't know if I'll ever be able to write. A lot of things are incomprehensible to me, well, at least what the death of twenty-year-olds means in the symbolism of being. And yet he should be in this book, without him, in the words of Andrei Platonov, the people of my childhood are incomplete.

At first, our acquaintance meant more to Pavlik than to me. I was already tempted in friendship. In addition to ordinary and good friends, I had a bosom friend, dark-haired, thick-haired, cut like a girl, Mitya Grebennikov. Our friendship began at a tender age, three and a half years old, and at the time described was five years old.

Mitya was a resident of our house, but a year ago his parents changed the apartment. Mitya ended up next door, in a large six-story building on the corner of Sverchkovo and Potapovsky, and was terribly proud. The house was, however, anywhere, with luxurious front doors, heavy doors and a spacious smooth elevator. Mitya, tirelessly, boasted of his house: “When you look at Moscow from the sixth floor ...”, “I don’t understand how people do without an elevator ...”. I delicately reminded him that just recently he lived in our house and got along just fine without an elevator. Looking at me with moist, dark eyes like prunes, Mitya said disgustedly that this time seemed to him a terrible dream. This should have been punched in the face. But Mitya not only looked like a girl in appearance - he was weak-hearted, sensitive, tearful, capable of hysterical outbursts of rage - and a hand was not raised against him. And yet, I gave it to him. With a heart-rending roar, he grabbed a fruit knife and tried to stab me. However, as a womanly quick-witted, he climbed to put up almost the next day. “Our friendship is greater than ourselves, we have no right to lose it” - these are the phrases he knew how to bend, and even worse. His father was a lawyer, and Mitya inherited the gift of eloquence.

Our precious friendship almost collapsed on the very first day of school. We ended up in the same school, and our mothers took care to seat us at the same desk. When they chose class self-government, Mitya offered me to be a nurse. And I did not name him when they put forward candidates for other public posts.