Gorky Vassa Zheleznova summary. Online reading of the book by Vassa Zheleznova
Maksim Gorky
Vassa Zheleznova
Second option
Characters
Vassa Borisovna- 42 years old, it seems - younger.
Sergei Petrovich- 60 years old, was a captain, sailed in the Black Sea, then served on river steamers.
Prokhor Borisovich Khrapov- 57 years old, Vassa's brother.
Daughters of Vassa
Natalia- 18 years
Ludmila- 16 years
Rachel- daughter-in-law, under 30 years old.
Anna Onoshenkova- for 30 years, Vassa's secretary and confidante.
Melnikov- Member of the District Court.
Evgeniy- his son.
Gury Krotkikh- manager of the shipping company.
Maids
Lisa
fields
Pyaterkin- 27-30 years old, a former soldier and sailor of the river shipping company, on his head - a turban of thick, coarse hair, a well-groomed mustache.
First act
Large room, corner of the house; Vassa has lived here for ten years and spends most of the day. A large work table, in front of it is a light chair with a hard seat, a fireproof wardrobe, on the wall there is an extensive, brightly colored map of the upper and middle reaches of the Volga - from Rybinsk to Kazan; under the map - a wide ottoman covered with a carpet, on it a pile of pillows; in the middle of the room is a small oval table, chairs with high backs; double glass doors to the terrace to the garden, two windows - also to the garden. A large leather armchair, geraniums on the windowsills, a laurel tree in a tub in the wall between the windows on the floor. A small shelf, on it is a silver jug, the same gilded ladles. Near the ottoman there is a door to the bedroom, in front of the table there is a door to other rooms. Morning. Through the door and windows, the room is very cheerfully illuminated by the late March sun. In general, the room is very spacious, bright, cheerful. Enter Vassa, the Meek.Vassa. Three and a half for a thousand poods - thirty-five hundredths of a kopek from a pood, this, of course, is not enough for loaders of commodity-passenger shipping companies - they have to carry loads for twenty fathoms and beyond. They produce an average of a ruble per day, but they eat a lot and without meat - they do not live. You should pay attention to this, order an article in the newspapers, find a little man to talk to the loaders. Find one?
meek (fun). Let's find!
Vassa. Here you go! We need to squeeze the big shipping companies, but our economy is small, and the cargo is small, we have our own sailors to transfer it from the ship to the pier, we use loaders occasionally, as you know.
Meek. This is not entirely true. For sailors, two rubles out of a thousand is not enough!
Vassa. And for what more? Here you arrange for Kavkaz-Mercury and others to raise the price up to five thousand poods, then our steamboats will be more willing to load, well, we will add to the sailors. So that! Excuse me, I reject this note of yours.
meek (grimaces). You see, Vassa Borisovna...
Vassa. But you would have a talk with the potters, with small millers, in general with handicrafts, you would make a concession to them so that they would give us goods, that would be useful ...
meek (not without pride). Last year ended well, the profit is solid!
Vassa. What is it: everything is good and good? It needs to be even better, otherwise it will be boring to live everything only in good. Well, bless you! Things are floating on me.
Meek silently bows, leaves.(Listens.) Anyuta!
Anna enters.Here you go, make copies perky! Guriy grumbles?
Anna. Yes, dissatisfied.
Vassa. What did you say?
Anna. Didn't take it apart. Something about conservatism.
Vassa. Of course. Socialist, you see! And socialism is to him, like Prokhor is a god: out of habit he prays, but with his soul he does not believe. Don't believe his rhetoric... What did you talk about yesterday?
Anna. He spoke about the cooperation of the German socialists with their king.
Vassa. Look, no matter how he crushes your belly with his socialism.
Anna. No, I'm already trained! He takes care of Natalya Sergeevna.
Vassa. I know. Well, Natka is not stupid.
Anna. He is also behind Ludochka ...
Vassa. See how… versatile.
Telephone call.Yes I. Please. I'm waiting. This tenant is Melnikov. (He releases her with a wave of his hand. He stands at the table, thinking, sorting through the papers and rearranging things, frowns, looking ahead.)
Melnikov (from Anna's room). Good morning dear.
Vassa. Thank you. Close the door. Sit down. Well?
Melnikov. The news is sad. The preliminary investigation is over, the prosecutor received. The investigator assures that he softened as soon as he could.
Vassa. For three thousand, he could have completely softened it.
Melnikov. Impossible. I read the testimony of this bawdy woman, she confessed there, as if in confession.
Vassa. So there will be a trial?
Melnikov. Inevitably.
Vassa. What's the punishment?
Melnikov. Possibly hard labor.
Vassa. What is your name?
Melnikov. What exactly?
Vassa. Pampering is ... with children?
Melnikov. Corruption…
Vassa. And some word ... sticky! Now - what will happen?
Melnikov. The prosecutor will draw up an indictment, hand the act to the accused, and arrest him.
Vassa. All three? And a matchmaker?
Melnikov. Of course.
Vassa. And the prosecutor can still ... soften?
Melnikov. The prosecutor may. But ours is aiming for a high career and is unlikely to dare. Although there is a rumor that on the part of the accomplices ... the deeds are busy.
Vassa. Aha! Come on, let's clap and we. Try, please. Offer the prosecutor a deal not to make a fuss. I need to fuck this thing, really fuck it! I have daughters.
Melnikov. Vassa Borisovna, with all due respect to you and with all my gratitude for your generosity...
Vassa. You are short! We will talk about gratitude when we finish this peacefully and decently. Take action.
Melnikov I'm completely unable to... I can't.
Vassa. Keep in mind, I don’t feel sorry for the money ... for this case! It will be possible - I return your bills to you. I can add another thousand and a half. There will be five. Enough?
Melnikov. Yes, but... still I...
Vassa. And you are bolder!
Melnikov. It's better if you...
Vassa. Well, it will be too fat for the prosecutor for me to bow to him. Pay - I agree, but bow - no! Besides, I am a rough and direct person. For me, it won't work. Today, please! Then call and say the number. I wish you success. Well, sir?
Melnikov. Allow me to take my leave ... I hasten to court.
Vassa. Yes, yes, hurry up! (He sits with his eyes closed. She pulled out the drawer of the table, looking for something. She found the box, examines the contents, stirring it with the insertion of a pen. Noise behind the doors. She quickly put the box in her pocket.)
Ludmila enters.Lyudmila. Hello, mother Vasya! My dear, I had an amazing dream, amazingly beautiful ...
Vassa (kissing her). For you, Lyudok, and reality is good.
Lyudmila. No, listen...
Vassa. Tell me over dinner.
Lyudmila. There Natka will laugh, or someone else will interfere, or I will forget. Dreams are awfully easy to forget. You listen here.
Vassa. No, Ludok, go! And send me Lisa perky.
Lyudmila. Oh my god! How bad are you today!
Vassa (alone, grunts). Unkind…. Eh fool...
Lisa has arrived.Your brother complains that you don't listen to him, you haven't oiled the locks.
Lisa. Vassa Borisovna, I don't have time. One for everyone, for the whole house ... It's hard for me! Give me a helper, some girl...
Vassa. Don't wait for this! I can't stand extra people in the house. The ladies help you. You get - well, try. Sleep less. Is your brother at home?
Lisa. No.
Vassa. Call Sergei Petrovich to me. (Stands in the middle of the room, thinks, snaps his fingers, feels his pocket.)
Zheleznov - in a dressing gown, disheveled curly hair, cheeks, chin not shaved for a long time, thick gray mustache.
Just got up or going to bed?
Zheleznov. What do you want?
Vassa (Closing tightly the door to Anna Onoshkova's room). Do not scream. Not terrible.
Zheleznov returns to the door.(She walked around him, closed this door too.) Your accusation was approved by the public prosecutor.
Zheleznov (grabs the back of a chair). I do not believe! You're lying.
Vassa (calmly). Approved.
Zheleznov. I lost nine thousand cards to him, the scoundrel. I hinted to him ... I would give eleven more ...
Vassa Borisovna Zheleznova is an influential woman, she owns a large shipping company. She is 42 years old, she lives in her own house with her sixty-year-old husband Sergei Petrovich, a former captain, a lover of cognac and women. They have two daughters, Natalya and Lyudmila, who live with them in the house, and a son, Fedor. He lives with his wife Rasheli and their children abroad. Another owner's brother, Prokhor Borisovich Khrapov, lives in the house, careless and drinking like a man. From the servants in the house live the young secretary of Vassa Anna, who perfectly copes with the role of a house spy, the gambler Lisa. The Melnikovs' father and son live as lodgers in the house. The father is a member of the district court, and the younger Evgeny is a cadet, he shows signs of attention to Natalya, she accepts them, but more out of boredom. The sailor Pyaterkin takes care of Lisa, entertains her with songs and dances in the secret hope of getting rich by marrying her.
Sergey Petrovich walked all his life and brought lecherous girls. His daughters saw all this from childhood, all this had a bad effect on the impressionable Lyudmila - she grew up weak-minded, incapable of learning. And here is the result of a dissolute life: Sergei Petrovich is accused of seducing a minor. Now he faces hard labor. Vassa is sure that no one will marry her daughters because of this, and offers her husband the only reasonable way out, in her opinion, to avoid trial - suicide. When Sergei Petrovich refused, his wife poisoned him. For the sake of her children and her business, Vassagotova will do anything.
When the maid Liza suffered from Khrapov and hanged herself in the bathhouse, they hid this, telling everyone that she had lost her mind. And Vassa hid her grandson Kolya in the village from her own mother. The hostess decided to make the boy her heir, because he is the only one in the family who will be able to manage the shipping company. She wrote fifty thousand to her daughters, and she believes that this is a lot for them.
And now, when Fedor became very ill and he had two or three months left to live, Rachel arrives. The mother-in-law immediately says that she will not give the child to her, and if Rachel insists, she will hand her over to the police. Rachel is a socialist revolutionary, she is wanted, and therefore came illegally. Kolya's mother thought to send Kolya to live abroad with her sister, because she did not want to be raised by Zheleznova.
Natalya suggested that Rachel steal her son, she said that it was impossible to leave him here. Prokhor Khrapov, in order to inject his sister, supported this idea, even offered to involve Pyaterkin in this. Anna overheard this conversation and reported everything to the hostess. She ordered the secretary to go abroad with Natalya, take the letter to Fedor, and if everything is very bad, then wait for his death. But first she must inform the gendarmes about Rachel. While Anna was absent for tea, Vassa became ill. Returning, the secretary found the lifeless hostess, quickly pulled out the keys to the safe from her and, taking the money, ran out.
The death of the hostess shocked only poor Lyudmila, the rest reacted to this without much emotion. Prokhor Khrapov declared that now he is the guardian of minors, and reached into the safe. So unexpectedly and absurdly ended the life of a rich and powerful owner of a steamship company.
Please note that this is only summary literary work "Vassa Zheleznova". This summary omits many important points and quotations.
A.M. Gorky
Vassa Zheleznova. (Mother)
CHARACTERS:
V a sa P e t r o v n a Z h e l e z n o v a.
Semyon | - her kids.
P a v e l |
N a talya - Semyon's wife.
Lyudmila is Paul's wife.
P r o k h o r Zhelezn ov.
Mikhailo Vasilyev - managing director.
Dunechka is a distant relative of the Zheleznovs.
A n and with I | - maids.
STEP ONE
Early morning on a winter day. The large room is Vassa Zheleznova's bedroom and study. Closely. In the corner, behind the screens - a bed, to the left - a table littered with papers, tiles instead of a paperweight. Near the table is a high desk, behind it, under the window, is a couch. Lamps with green shades. In the right corner there is a tiled couch, next to it there is a fireproof cupboard and a door to the prayer room. Papers are pinned to the screens, when they pass by they move. In the back wall are wide doors to the dining room; a table is visible, a chandelier is above it. A candle is burning on the table. Dunechka is collecting dishes for tea. L and pa brings in a boiling samovar.
Dunechka (quietly). Back?
Linden. No.
D u n e h k a. Ouch! What will happen now?
Linden. Do I know? .. (Goes to the mistress's room and examines it.)
(Vassa comes out of the door of the prayer room, straightening his glasses and hair on his temples. He looks at the wall clock over the table.)
In a with with a. Why were you late? Quarter past seven, see?
Linden. In the morning, Zakhar Ivanovich was again ill.
V a s s a (passing to the table). No despatch?
Linden. No.
In a with with a. Is everyone up?
Linden. Pavel Zakharovich hasn't gone to bed yet...
In a with with a. Unwell?
Linden. Ludmila Mikhailovna did not spend the night at home.
B a with a (quietly). Watch out, Olympias!.. I'll... show you!
L and p a (frightened). For what?
In a with with a. But for what is unpleasant to me ... you say with taste ...
Linden. Vassa Petrovna! Yes, I am...
In a with with a. Go, call everyone for tea. Doo, give me my cup here. Olympics, stop! If Ludmila is still sleeping, don't wake her up, do you understand? She spent the night at her father's. Send him to me...
D u n I (brings tea). Hello Vassushka...
In a with with a. Be healthy.
D u n i. Oh, Vassonka, how bad it was for Zakharushka...
In a with with a. Didn't say anything?
D u n i. Where is it! Only blinks his eyes.
In a with with a. You listen to what they will talk about Lyudmilka. Go to the table.
(Dunya has gone away. Vassa, putting her hands on the table, frowned, raised her glasses to her forehead, and moved her lips.)
M and x a and l (entering). Good morning-s...
In a with with a. Where is the daughter? Parent... eh!
M and x a and l. I can't do anything... beyond my strength...
In a with with a. Lost a guy...
M and x a and l. And her...
In a with with a. She spent the night with you... Got it?
M and x a and l. I understand, sir.
In a with with a. For her braids ... (She chuckled.) How is Zakhar?
M and x a and l. Bad s...
B a with a (quietly). Couldn't sign the paper?
M and x a and l. No.
In a with with a. Pop agree?
M and x a and l. Three hundred asks.
In a with with a. To hell with him, let him use it. What about others?
M and x a and l. Everything is fine.
B a with a (sighing). It's all over - let's think about what to do with children ...
M and x a and l. Necessary business, sir! Trouble may be...
B a with a (thoughtfully). Not going A n na, not going! And there is no dispatch... Dunya, tea! Who's come?
P A VEL (in the dining room). I...
In a with with a. What are you hiding? Say hello to your mother...
P A V E L (entering). Please - with Good morning! Father-in-law... huh? Where is your daughter?
M and x a and l (sullenly). I will ask you about this - the law gave it to the church ...
In a with with a. Go, Mikhailo Vasilyevich...
Paul. Mom - I'm ashamed, I'm unbearable ... help somehow, because you love me, I know ... mom!
In a with with a. Well, that's enough, that's enough... wait...
Paul. What should I expect? My strength is not.
In a with with a. I said - she is not a couple for you! Marry a quiet...
Paul. On a freak? I myself am a freak - and my wife is a freak? Crooked-sided? Lame?
B a with a (extinguishes the candle). Stop it!... They laugh at tears and complaints now... stop it!
Paul. God! Zheleznova's wife - walking! Mother, is it really not tormenting you ... are you not ashamed?
In a with with a. She said stop it! Well? Go, drink tea... (Goes into the dining room.) Why don't you put out the light, monastic crow?
Paul. Mother, give me some money, I'll go to the city... I can't... I can't...
In a with with a. Father is in danger, and you are in the city? What else do you think? Clever!..
Paul. Well, what should I do?!.
(He threw himself on the couch, crying angrily. In the dining room - Natalya goes up to her mother-in-law, kisses her hand. Vassa looks at Pavel through glasses.)
In a with with a. Overslept?
Natalia. I was on duty with my father until three o'clock. (Listening, frightened.) Who is crying?
In a with with a. Pavel - be ashamed! Whoops!..
NATALIA (goes into the office). What are you? Dunyasha, give me water!
In a with with a. Oh, Lord! .. (Dunya looks at her inquiringly.) Well, what did you say? Give me some water... Eh, Pavel, I wish I could hide you somewhere...
Paul. Yes, I know... you are not ashamed of me, you are ashamed of me...
Natalia. You are a man, it is not good for you to cry.
Paul. Don't touch me... you disdain me... my wife walks...
(Mikhail enters the dining room, tugging at his mustache, following his son-in-law with a sullen look.)
In a with with a. What are you?
M and kha and l (heading to her room). Please come here.
In a with with a. Well? Dunya, get out!
M and x a and l. Ludmila left with her uncle...
B a with a (grasping the wall). Where?
M and x a and l. To the farm...
In a with with a. Oh ... I already thought - far ... completely! You scared me... Pavel - knows?
M and x a and l. She finds out... I'm scared... And my daughter - died... and the cause, which I served all my life, is being destroyed.
B a with a (with annoyance). You wouldn’t groan ... I don’t groan here ... So, therefore, Pr o k o r ...
M and x a and l. He is everyone's enemy!
In a with with a. Don't croak, I say! The case is collapsing... It's still - we'll see!
M and x a and l (with fury). They consider him kind ... conscientious, they say ... I know these things - conscience and kindness! I saw them... They are in business - like sand in a car... And all this is one game, no one needs kindness, no one! Give me as much as I'm worth, nothing more ... Keep caresses and jokes for yourself, yes, sir! This is when a person has nothing to deserve attention, he plays in conscience! And everyone around him is crying because of his game ... and no business can go right ... He is a harmful person ...
In a with a (waking up). What will you do with it?
M and x a and l. What? Eh...
In a with with a. Well? Speak.
M and x a and l (not suddenly). Wait, sir... You should go to the owner...
In a with with a. And really... But there is still no dispatch from Anna... no!
M and x a and l. Why are you so hopeful for her?
B a c a (going). You don't know her... shut up!
M and x a and l (following her). Hard...
In a with with a. Easy to live - simple. Only from an easy life they soon become stupid, I heard ...
(Gone. Dunya appears noiselessly, sits down at the table, crosses herself and whispers.)
D u n i. Lord - save, have mercy on your servants in all ways ... Lord!
L and p a (runs in). Where is the mistress? Arrived!
D u n i. Anna?
Linden. Lyudmilka! I was walking with my uncle at night - ah-ah! That's the way things are!
Semyeong (walking). What's up, huh?
L and p a (running away). So sir...
S e m y n. Quack-sir! Stupid! Come on, Dunya, pour me a drink.
D u n i. Good morning Senechka.
S e m y n. Well, you too. As Father?
D u n i. Oh bad...
S e m y n. Hm... suffers for a long time. (Yawns.) Is everyone drunk yet?
Semyeong (pleasantly surprised). Yes, uh?
D at n I (choking). Yes Yes! With P r o ch o rum, listen, Zach ...