In the Research Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library, in the personal fund of V. I. Dahl, an unpublished manuscript of the memoirs of his granddaughter O. P. Demidova is kept. In her extensive memoirs (168 pages long), two chapters devoted to the last period of V. I. Dahl's life in Moscow are of the greatest interest. They contain unknown information about the family life, hobbies, leisure activities, and friends and acquaintances of Vladimir Ivanovich.

Memoirs are published in a slightly reduced format.

Dali in Moscow

Absolutely everyone liked the new home. The house was extremely well bought. Now it is hard to believe that for 40,000 rubles it was possible to purchase such a property. It was located in Presnya on the corner of Bolshaya Gruzinskaya Street, just opposite the Zoological Garden. The house itself stood at the back of the courtyard and was separated from the street by a cast-iron grating with two gates at each end. Between the front of the house and the railings was a large and beautiful lawn lined with trees. The one-story house was built in a chamber, the legs of which (with a mezzanine above them) were turned into the courtyard, between them was a shady garden.

Outbuildings, kitchens, barns, cellars, stables - there were more than enough. The house belonged to a big gentleman, Ivanenko, a southern landowner, and in a bitter moment was let down for a song with all the furniture. Its modest new owners could only shake their heads at the thought of its heating costs. Under the word environment I mean-

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I don't buy paintings, statues, collections, or family silverware, but only furniture and household utensils, but that's enough to keep me from spending any more money.

There were about three dozen rooms in the house. That was the expanse!

Big hall, little hall, big living room, little living room, and all that sort of thing. There was a place for everyone and everything. In addition to the bedroom, my grandmother had her own room, where she could shut out the light and block out the draft as much as she wanted. Grandfather, true to his habit, had set up his desk in the middle of the large living room that served as a gathering point for the whole family.

His workbench fit in a light carpenter's shop. Billiards occupied one end of the great hall. It also provided a safe haven for the piano, which her grandmother hated, and from which she was now separated by many closed doors.

Daughters (V. I. Dahl. - V. M.) received a room each. One of the mezzanines was reserved for Lev (V. I. Dahl named his first-born son, born on July 11, 1834 in Orenburg, in honor of his beloved brother Leo. The family also called him Arslan, which means Lion in Bashkir ) and his drawings and drawings. There was a room for Anna Alexandrovna's grandmother and Natasha, and for all grandmothers in general (in the house of V. I. Dahl lived his mother Yulia Khristoforovna, the mother of his first wife who died early - Minna Ivanovna Andre, the mother of the second wife - Anna Alexandrovna Sokolova. - V. M.), which will be discussed later. Still, many of the rooms were empty and unused.

The sisters were busy unpacking and arranging things. When the house was put in order, Olga missed poke, but all the search was in vain - poke as if sunk into the water. "He must have fallen off a cart somewhere," people said.

Many years later, Olga Dahl, already being Olga Demidova and the mother of several children (including the author of these memoirs. - V. M. ) in St. Petersburg, at A. N. Aksakov's office, I suddenly saw a familiar stool on three legs in his office.

- Alexander Nikolaevich! Poke! "Oh, my God!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, poke," the landlord replied with a sly grin, " and he's been living with me since we moved from Nizhny Novgorod.

So an adult man outsmarted a rebellious teenager.

They settled down, settled down in the Distance and began to gradually get acquainted with Moscow and its society.

First of all, through Alexander Nikolaevich, they met Sergey Timofeyevich Aksakov and his family, and then with the rest of the Slavophil circle-Samarin, Khomyakov, Pogodin, Kireevsky, Koshelev, etc.

As far as I remember, my grandfather used to know many of them, like Yuri Fyodorovich Samarin.

His love for Russian everyday life and the Russian language should definitely

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It was difficult to draw him towards the Slavophiles, although his Dano-German blood and traditions helped him to stay away from their extremes.

A relationship was established with the editor of the Russian Archive, Bartenev. St. Petersburg writers and foreign writers from Slavic lands came, for example, Kolarzh. There were a lot of interesting people in the house. Before she knew it, poor Granny was in the position of a hen who's been hatching ducklings. At first, the children started studying foreign literature with Aksakov, which was interrupted by the move, but very soon this alone was not enough: Masha needed singing lessons, Olga-drawing and piano, Katya, if I'm not mistaken, Czech and Polish, and all together aspired to museums, exhibitions, lectures, concerts and theaters.

My grandmother sighed, became ill, and turned to Aksakov's mediation to delay the breakdown of her system, but this did not help.

Young people called for the help of the same Alexander Nikolaevich and led a patient siege of their parents. Aksakov's position was unenviable; both sides were dissatisfied with him: the mother because he was too inferior to the young, and the daughters because, as if sympathizing with them, at the decisive moment he found himself on the side of the elders. Olga especially did not forgive him for his treacherous behavior and even gave him the nickname Prince of Orange,which remained with him in the language of the three sisters.

I later asked my mother about this nickname:

"What Orange?"

"Well, the famous one, Wilhelm the Silent.

"That's very flattering, isn't it?" Such a big personality...

"It's a big one, but he gave Egmont away after all.

We had just read Egmont. Singing, music, and drawing classes were easy, but the field trips were more difficult. Who will accompany the sisters? Young girls were not supposed to be left alone at that time, and my mother, as I have said, never went out. That's where the "grandmothers" come on stage...

I mentioned that there were once five Putyatin princesses. Anna Alexandrovna was the eldest of them. All of her sisters married Tver and Novogorod landlords and maintained the most intimate relationship with her older sister.

When the Dalis moved to Moscow, the grandmothers began to stay on Presnya for a long time and brought a kind of stream into their lives. They came with their own lordly tastes and habits, with stories about the life of the landlords, with an avid and naive curiosity about Moscow and its curiosities. The young people were very fond of these attacks. The sisters listened eagerly to the endless stories of their grandmothers and traveled with them around Moscow even more willingly.

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A special favorite was grandmother Elena Alexandrovna Ushakova, the same "Alyonushka"who, by order of her aunt, fell to the share of Ushakov instead of the beloved Annushka. Lively, cheerful, talkative, she is always ready to go everywhere with her granddaughters.

She had a great respect for Anna Alexandrovna.

These two old women made a ridiculous picture. The older one treated the younger one like a naughty girl and called her "sister". The younger one said "sis" and "you" and objected with great caution...

A year passed, then another. Teenagers became young girls.

An important event occurred in Leo's life. After graduating brilliantly from the Academy of Fine Arts, he was sent abroad at state expense for three years, which he spent for the most part in Italy.

Meanwhile, Julia in Moscow has become seriously ill. Homeopathy didn't work. Doctors found major problems in the lungs and recommended a change of climate.

Having learned about the situation of his sister, Lev discharged her to his home. Despite the impending separation, Olga sincerely rejoiced at her sister's departure, realizing how happy it was for her to be unexpectedly free and live with her brother. She saw Yulia off cheerfully and fully believed in her recovery. My father saw things differently: he saw his mother's fatal inheritance and did not hope for a good outcome, but, of course, he did not tell the children about his fears.

Masha's health was also not much better than Yulia's: she had spent all her youth on the verge of consumption. Tall, slender, with dark bronze curly hair and brown eyes, with regular features, she is said to have been very beautiful, but pale as chalk. Incessant headaches to the point of nausea and fever poisoned her life.

Olga also had very beautiful, lush hair of a very unusual shade. When she was still a girl, N. I. Pirogov once stroked her on the head and called her a cub. Sure enough, her dark hair was like steel. Her face was very much like her father's: the same gray-blue eyes, a hooked nose, and a beautifully shaped, slightly large mouth in a dark, oblong face. Her whole large figure was full of strength and health and was full of life. A few years later, the artist Baron Klodt in St. Petersburg begged her to pose for him for the painting "Yaroslavna cries on Putivl".

"I don't have time, Mikhail Petrovich," my mother used to say. - Where will I leave the guys? You'll find the right kind without me.

"That's what I won't find," replied Klodt, " because now what a lot of people have gone; all the young people are thin, and Yaroslavna is a force (...).

I'm going to have to talk mostly about Olga, willy-nilly -

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not just because she was my mother, but because she was, by her very nature, the focal point in which all family impressions and interests were collected and reflected.

She had two hobbies-Slavophilism and music in the person of their main exponents - Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov and Nikolai Grigoryevich Rubinstein.

The older Slavophiles, A. S. Khomyakov and Yu. F. Samarin, were stars of too large a magnitude for a young girl to ever decide to put herself on the same plane as them. She listened with avidity and reverence to Khomyakov's speech, which was as fervent and weighty as a hammer, and Samarin's conversation, full of elegant erudition; she read everything that came out from their pen, but worshipped them from afar.

A favorable fate brought her much closer to Ivan Sergeyevich Aksakov. Acquaintance with the author of the "Family Chronicle" and his eldest son Konstantin was conducted at the Dals from Nizhny Novgorod times. I am afraid to confuse the chronology, but it seems to me that by the Moscow period of Dalev's life, Konstantin Sergeyevich had either already died or was about to die. Sergei Timofeyevich was alive, but already very old and almost blind.

I am not going to describe the Aksakov family, which is so well known because of family correspondence and other sources. I can't add anything new, but I will have to talk about her, because these people touched my mother intimately, and their communication left a deep impression on her soul.

Ivan Sergeyevich was a young man compared to his grandfather, he highly valued him as an expert in the Russian language and often read his works to him before giving them to the press, and grandfather slightly laughed at him for the fact that despite all his contempt for Europe, he could not do without foreign words in Russian.

Shortly after the Daley family moved to Moscow, the following incident occurred:

Ivan Sergeyevich, reading the article to his grandfather, uttered the word mirage. Grandpa grimaced.

- Why a foreign word? "No," he said. "As if they don't have any of their own!"

- What do you call a mirage in Russian? Aksakov asked.

- It's a hassle.

"What are you doing, Vladimir Ivanovich? Moroka is even less understood than mirage. No one knows that word.

"No, the Russian people will understand; if they don't, they'll guess. At that moment Olga entered the room.

"Olenka," her father said, " have you ever heard the word moroka?

"No," she said, surprised.

"What do you think it means?"

The girl thought for a moment and said:

"Probably some kind of deception.

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"That's great! Aksakov exclaimed and crossed out the wrong word.

However, he did not dare to publish it without an explanation, and in the article after the word moroka there was a mirage in parentheses.

Whether it was from the stories of Alexander Nikolaevich, or from his affection for his grandfather, old Olga Semyonovna Aksakova and her daughters - and there were a great many of them - became interested in the young ladies of Dahl and began to invite them to their homes. No matter how much my grandmother sighed, she couldn't find a plausible excuse to keep her daughters out of such a respectable and serious home.

However, Katya somehow did not get vaccinated there, and Olga and Masha visited more (when she was healthy). The closest thing they came to was the youngest of Olga Semyonovna's daughters, Nadezhda Sergeevna, who was still much older than them.

Obviously, many things in the structure of the Dalevsky house seemed strange to the ladies ' half of the Aksakov family. Ekaterina Lvovna's closed life and her passion for Swedenborg, "Sasha Aksakov" as the tutor of three young girls, all this was very interesting and unusual.

Olga chatted freely and openly about domestic affairs and her own life, and probably often amused the reserved and somewhat prim Aksakovs with her resolute judgment and boldness, while still having a completely childish understanding of life.

And she had plenty of guts. Once, at the Aksakovs ' house, she spent a whole evening in a heated argument with "some gentleman" who, in her opinion, had adopted a completely wrong view of Peter the Great. Those present were silent and smiled good-naturedly as they listened to her talk. So did her opponent. After he left, she found out that it was the history professor Nil Alexandrovich Popov. "I've never felt so ashamed in my life," my mother told me. "I can imagine what he thought of me!"

In turn, Olga learned a lot and marveled at the Aksakovs. First of all, she was struck by the Orthodox church structure of the family, who attended services, observed fasts and honored holidays. Old Olga Semyonovna, for health reasons, could not bear the fast table, but in spite of that she fasted throughout Lent, contenting herself with almost nothing but crackers made from baked bread, which always stood next to her in a basket.

Olga was also struck by the close friendship between parents and children. It was touching to see a father admiring his son, and a son admiring his father. A particularly tender spiritual bond existed between the old man Aksakov and his late son Konstantin, who showed his father childlike obedience until his last days. Lev Dahl told his sisters how he once rode with Konstantin Aksakov in a cart in the winter from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod. Lev did not like closed carriages and immediately got on

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the coachman's box, and Konstantin Sergeyevich, who was suffering terribly from rolling over potholes, suffered all the way with the windows closed, because he had promised "otesinka" not to open them.

After the death of Konstantin Sergeevich, Ivan Sergeevich became the center and idol of the house. He himself, his articles, his newspaper, his literary friends and opponents-all this was the main common interest. Needless to say, Olga tirelessly asked questions, and Nadezhda Sergeevna told about everything that concerned Ivan.

On Fridays, he had large and interesting meetings, and the pium desiderum ("the greatest wish." - Translated from Latin) Olga became-to get to "Midsummer's Friday". But this desire proved unfeasible. "Even Ivan Sergeyevich's sisters,"my mother told me," thought they didn't belong there, and girls like me weren't allowed in."

Ivan Sergeyevich had constant clashes with the censors, which upset him and infuriated all his relatives. Vladimir Ivanovich also suffered a lot in his time. For one of his fairy tales, it seems, "About Ivan, the young sergeant," he paid the price of a major nuisance.

My mother had a lifelong feeling of hatred and contempt for censors, "tongue-cutters", passed on by her and all her children. For her, the censor was not much better than the executioner, and she could not understand how people who respected human thought and dignity could go to such a position.

During those years, the Aksakovs had to go through several heavy family losses: Konstantin Sergeyevich died, Sergei Timofeyevich himself died, and their daughters died. The younger generation of Aksakovs was short-lived. As time passed, all the sisters died one by one. Maria Sergeyevna lived the longest; she was the only one of her sisters who was married. She was very small in stature, and Ivan Sergeyevich wrote a poem to her, which is now included with various versions in almost all children's books and song collections, and even set to music by Tchaikovsky: "My Lizochek is so small, so small...": "My Marichen is so small, so small..."

The Aksakovs were deeply affected by family losses: with each new mourning, they not only closed up and left all their friends and acquaintances, but even changed their apartment, which was overshadowed by a serious event. Even when they emerged from their confinement after a long time, their stern, sad faces imposed an involuntary oppression on those around them. They would have considered it the height of tactlessness if anyone had dared to speak to them about their grief; they should have pretended to know nothing.

Grandfather Vladimir Ivanovich disapproved of this

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It seems that after Sergei Timofeyevich's death, he once told Ivan Sergeyevich that the deceased's friends shared the family's grief with all their hearts, and yet they could not express their sympathy in any way, because this subject could not even be approached.

"Yes," said Aksakov, " it is true: our grief is always starched.

Olga's second passion, as I said, was music and Nikolai Rubinstein. At that time, the Russian Musical Society and conservatories were just being born. In St. Petersburg, Anton Rubinstein was at the head of the case, in Moscow - Nikolai. Both capitals competed with the talents of their brilliant brothers. Of course, it was difficult to challenge the fame of Anton Rubinstein: his mere composing activity gave him an advantage over his brother, who in his entire life wrote, it seems, only two small piano pieces, but Moscow stood up for its truly charming favorite and assured that his playing was un je ne sais quoi (which is what he did)."something indescribable. - Translated from French), which, for all his virtuosity, Anton could never achieve. Nikolai Rubinstein himself thought very highly of his brother and did not equate himself with him.

The directors of the Russian Musical Society, apart from Nikolai Grigoryevich Rubinstein, were prominent people in Moscow like Prince Nikolai Petrovich Trubetskoy and Prince Vladimir Fyodorovich Odoyevsky (...).

My grandchildren will hardly know who Prince V. F. Odoevsky was. There is a very interesting book about his personality and activities, but it will certainly not catch their eyes. Meanwhile, both of them, each in his own time, were fond of the "Tales of Grandfather Irenaeus" and especially loved the "Town in a snuffbox", not suspecting that they belonged to the pen of Prince Odoyevsky.

Prince Odoyevsky was a highly educated man and musician. He did not consider himself a composer, although he sometimes wrote piano pieces on the sly. Not only did he have absolute hearing, but he claimed that he could not stand the piano and orchestra being connected, because he could hear the difference in the chromaticism of both (...).

In the first pages of my story, I said that one of the daughters of Vasily Lvovich's great-grandfather, Paraskovya Vasilyevna, married Ivan Gavrilovich Polivanov. She did not live long and died, leaving her son Lev and daughter Masha. Their upbringing was taken up by her own sister, Marya Vasilyevna Sushchova (...).

For Masha and Olga Dahl, the house of the young Polivanovs was a treasure trove. Nowhere did they feel so good as there, nowhere could they chatter so freely about domestic events and misunderstandings, about concerts, about singing songs, about Rubinstein. Marie was very interested in everything.

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The host's cousin, young Platon Demidov, was often present at these friendly conversations. Soon he also felt sympathy for the Russian Musical Society and decided to join the choir

(...).

The summer passed like any other summer: the Dalis never went out to the country or to the countryside. Olga went to visit the Aksakovs in Abramtsevo, visited two or three other familiar houses near Moscow, and spent the rest of the time in Presnya.

In the autumn, the Polivanovs returned from the village. Platon Demidov also arrived for his last university year. Choral chants began. Young people saw each other more often and got closer. Finally, Plato plucked up the courage and decided to somehow get into the enchanted fence of the Dalevsky house...

The wedding was decided to be held in early summer, as soon as Plato finished the course. I received a letter from the Demidovs. Sincerely and heartily asked the parents to give them a young daughter-in-law. Grandfather calmed down completely and answered, as always without second thoughts, with full favor to the future matchmaker and matchmaker.

Olga also wrote to them. In general, he and Plato had to write a lot of letters, since his relatives were very large.

The bride and groom began visiting all their Moscow acquaintances. Plato made a great impression everywhere, and everyone was happy for Olga.

The choir was also having fun about the engagement of two of its members, and Rubinstein made fun of both of them.

The heroes of the occasion themselves were beaming and enjoying the wave of festive mood and general affection in which they bathed.

- And what about Alexander Nikolaevich Aksakov? - someone will ask. - Where is he and how did he react to this important event?

For me, this question is dark, as is the whole history of his subsequent relationship with the Daly family. It seems to me that he was no longer in Moscow at that time.

After so many years of close friendship and almost living together with the Daly people, Aksakov suddenly parted from them for no apparent reason or need, and not just parted, but parted so deeply that he could not stay in the same city with them. All this quarrel went on so secretly that the young people overlooked it and only found out that Alexander Nikolaevich was moving to St. Petersburg, after which he really disappeared from their horizon.

I have always been interested in this question, but my mother did not explain it to me either in her notes or in words.

The husband of my aunt, Maria Vladimirovna, once told me that Alexander Nikolaevich had wooed his mother, but was refused and left. I couldn't calm down and asked my mother this question.

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"What nonsense! she said, laughing. "It never happened. Many years later, Alexander Nikolaevich himself spoke to me about this time.

"You know how friendly I was with your grandparents, and it turned out that in the end we were completely at odds with them. Why? It's all the same. There are certain beliefs, such as religious ones, which neither side will give up and which will always stand as a wall between people.

So I didn't really learn anything, and, to tell the truth, the last thing I could do was allow people who had studied each other far and wide and had been so in tune with each other for so many years that each knew beforehand what the other would think and say.

In St. Petersburg Aksakov very soon married Mrs. Manukhina, a widow with two children. His wife did not live long, and he continued his life as an old bachelor. He treated his stepson and stepdaughter well and took care of them, the stepson, Sergei Sergeyevich Manukhin, was later the Minister of Justice under Nicholas II, and the stepdaughter Sofya Sergeevna married the famous revolutionary emigrant L. A. Deutsch.

Dear Moscow! Dear Dalevsky home!

Entering it was the happiest time of my childhood. I consider Moscow my spiritual homeland, because it was there that my adult life began, and Presnensky house was its cradle.

In Moscow, we were welcomed with open arms. We were assigned rooms (with a separate entrance) in the left wing of the house behind the great hall. Upstairs were children's rooms and a bedroom, and downstairs a living room and an office. The whole house had breakfast, lunch, and tea together in the great hall.

In fact, I never sat in our room under the supervision of a grumpy babysitter. The whole house was at my service, and I was welcomed everywhere...

I don't remember my peers and friends at all in my childhood. I've never been in homes with children. The only exception was the Polivanov family. Their eldest daughter, Olya, and I used to see each other and play together.

In addition to close relatives, there are several other people who for me are inextricably linked with the Dalevsky house. I can't say for sure that they all appeared in the first year of our arrival, but that doesn't really matter to posterity.

Every Sunday, despite all the weather, the former Decembrist Dmitry Irinarkhovich Zavalishin came to dinner. He was a comrade of my grandfather's in the Marine Corps...

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Zavalishin was exiled to Siberia. I don't know if he worked hard labor; he spent most of his exile in the Chita settlement, where he exasperated his superiors with his restless nature. He could not stand to see injustice and abuse, and despite the disenfranchised position of a political exile, he fought them tirelessly and fearlessly. He snuck in everywhere-to prisons, to public places, and especially willingly to schools and orphanages, and then started calling about riots and illegal actions found. If they did not listen to his words, he began to write first to his direct superiors, then to the superiors of his superiors, and so on, all the way to St. Petersburg. There was no way to silence him. They threatened him with deportation from Chita to the north, and he replied:"I don't care where you want to go; I'm lonely and I'll live everywhere." And they say that with his annoying buzzing, he achieved a lot.

At the time I am writing about, he was a short old man with a clean-shaven, wrinkled face and black hair that showed no signs of gray. He walked winter and summer in a black frock coat and white nankeen trousers, carrying a huge umbrella under his arm that made him look like a grandfather from Andersen's fairy tales.

At dinner, he ate a lot and greedily, although before each meal he said: "I don't want to do that." He had lived in Chita for so long and had become so used to it that almost every story (and he had an incalculable number of them) began with the words: "we are in Chita." And what they didn't have in Chita! According to him, even grapes grew there. In general, he was a great talker and did not let anyone get a word in. He had a habit that annoyed my grandmother: every plate that was put out for him, he carefully wiped with a napkin.

"You'd think he'd be served unwashed plates," she said indignantly.

Once, in the heat of a story, he helped himself to a full plate of spinach and then, forgetting himself, quickly wiped it off with a napkin. You can imagine what happened and what turned into white nankeen trousers, over which this maneuver took place.

Dmitry Irinarkhovich kept up a large correspondence and was offended that his middle name was not remembered.

- What, what addresses I don't get: to Aristarkhovich, Vinarkhovich, and Eparkhovich, and yesterday I finally got Monarchovich! It's not like anything else.

In our house, he was called old Irinarch. He was on your level with his grandfather, but he considered himself younger than him. In 1870, my grandfather was 69 years old, and Zavalishin was 65 years old, at least.

And then one day an unprecedented thing happened - the Irinarch did not show up for Sunday dinner. Grandpa was even worried.

"Is the old man ill?" - he said.

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The following Sunday, however, Irinarch and his umbrella arrived at our usual time.

"What happened to you last Sunday?" Grandpa asked him. "Why didn't you come?"

"I couldn't. I was married that Sunday.

"Who was married?" Vladimir Ivanovich repeated, thinking that he had misheard.

— me.

"Are you kidding?"

"What a joke, Vladimir Ivanovich. I've been thinking about this for a long time: the years go by, and by old age you'll be a complete mess. I found a beautiful bride: a modest, beautiful, young girl and very well disposed to me. Well, and a noble family, too, although poor.

Leaving home, Zavalishin said that he would bring his wife to meet him.

A couple of days later, a cab pulled up to the porch, and a stout, round figure in a sky-blue dress and white hat jumped out after Irinarch.

The two young men went into the large drawing-room and sat for a ceremonious visit for about ten minutes. Dmitry Irinarkhovich's wife, despite her nobility, did not know how to connect two words, called her husband "they", blushed at every question and did not know what to do with her hands, on which rings glittered over her kid gloves...

I still remember the winter of 1870-71 with rumors and rumors about the Franco-Prussian War. In our house, lint was plucked assiduously for the wounded. As if in a dream, I remember the names-Strasbourg, Metz, Sedan, Napoleon III, Bazaine, I remember the surprise mixed with horror caused by the lightning success of the "Prussians". Our surgeon friend Nikolai Pavlovich Betling was on his way to the Theater of war.

"No, what are they doing! What speed! What do the French think? "I could hear adults talking.

"Grandfather, won't the Prussians get here?" I asked once with a secret fear.

"No, they won't; they're coming just the other way from us," he reassured me.

I didn't know anything about politics, but I felt that the French were both poor and guilty, and that the Germans were hurting them.

Kolya Betling was the son of the Nizhny Novgorod landowner Pavel Logginovich Betling, with whose daughters his mother and aunts were friends as a child...

I did not like it very much when the screamer Pogodin came (Pogodin M. P. (1800-1875) - historian, publicist, academician, collector of materials on the history of Russia and Slavic peoples. - V. M. ) . I could not appreciate his intelligence, and his unkempt, unkempt figure and rough cry made me think that he was a good boy.

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I have a repulsive impression. I always thought he was swearing, and I didn't understand how he dared to yell at Grandpa.

In words and expressions Pogodin really did not hesitate. I've heard such a story about him. On one of the tsar's visits to Moscow, Pogodin was at the highest exit in the Kremlin. The master of ceremonies, Prince V. F. Odoevsky, was arranging the audience in the hall and noticed that Pogodin's star was poorly attached.

"Your star is falling off," he said.

"The worm! Pogodin snapped.

"Mikhail Petrovich! Can I call it that? After all, it's a royal favor.

"I'm not scolding her... my wife... what is he looking at? Pogodin snapped just as sharply and abruptly, struggling with the ill-fated star.

My grandfather used to have a lot of people, but of course I didn't see all of them, and not all of them remained in my memory.

One day a Czech named Fyodor Ivanovich Yezbera came to Moscow. I think he was a professor, and he came with an ethnographic Slavic exhibition. He was staying at our house, and I couldn't stop looking at his dolls in various folk clothes. I only disliked him: his broken speech seemed to me a deliberate affectation, and I was ashamed that he was so big and broke. As if on purpose, he was flirting with me:

"Barishnya, look, my dolls are bowing to you," he drawled through his nose. I was particularly interested in his locker, which was low but always locked. They put it in our great hall. Many times I'd caressed him and tried scratching at the door, but it wouldn't budge. One morning I went to it again, and as there was no one in the hall, I tried the door again. To my great surprise, it opened easily, and I was stunned with delight: in the closet there was a multi-headed church like St. Basil's, with golden crosses, stucco images, paintings and even glass in the windows. It was obviously a model of some cathedral. Just as I was examining it, I heard footsteps; I had to slam the closet shut and run for my life. When I went to it the next morning, it was locked up again, and a few days later it disappeared from our house altogether. So my fleeting vision, which I could not forget for a long time, was hidden.

But the most curious guest of the Dalevsky house was the Montenegrin priest Matvey Savvich, or, as he was called, Priest Mato. He came to Russia to collect money for Montenegrin churches, which sometimes remained without vestments, without icons, and even without vessels. For a long time he lived in our house with his youngest son Savva, whom, by the way, he brought to Moscow to teach. Pop Matho was a dashing young man with a handsome, expressive face. He was about 50 years old, and his hair and beard were streaked with gray. Despite his holy orders, he wore a Montenegrin dress.

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a dress hung and studded with daggers and pistols, or, as he called them, "pishtoles." He was a perfect savage, could only read the church seal, and it was not without difficulty, and he was quite weak in writing.

He called his grandfather father, his grandmother mother, and all the others by their first names, and you told them all. A natural mountain warrior, his manner was marked: he walked with great strides, but with the silent, cat-like gait, and his strength was extraordinary.

Once, in his presence, Nikolai Pavlovich Betling boasted of his art of jumping and, it seems, jumped over a chair. Pop Matho laughed.

"Is that how you jump?" Look! - he said and began to build a whole barricade of furniture. Then, undeterred by the presence of the ladies, he threw off his boots and stockings and began to gallop. almost a fathom off the floor. Silently, like an animal, he darted from end to end of the room, jumping over everything and everyone in his path. The audience caught their breath at the sight of the galloping giant.

"That's how they jump," he said, pausing to catch his breath. "I'll show you now."..

"No, Father Matho, my dear fellow, don't do that," my grandmother pleaded. "You'd better show me that in the garden, but it's scary out here."

On another occasion, he began to describe the outfit of Turkish women and their way of covering their heads and faces.

"Masha, come here," he called to Aunt Manya. "Stop!" And seizing his grandmother's shawl, he quickly wrapped Aunt Manya in it so that only her forehead and black eyes were visible.

Pop Matho looked at her in silence for a few moments, and then, gritting his teeth, said, " Ugh! Ssobaka!" And how much hatred for the imaginary Turkish woman sounded in this exclamation.

Priest Matho's picturesque outfit of white and crimson cloth and his weapons aroused such surprise and curiosity in the street that a crowd of onlookers followed him around like Krylov's elephant. It confused his companions, but pleased him.

"Everyone goes and looks at my pishtoli," he boasted... The Elagins were a very close home for my grandfather. At the beginning, I mentioned the daughters of Professor Moyer of Dorpat. Katenka Moyer had long been Ekaterina Ivanovna Elagina and the mother of two grown-up children, Masha and Alyosha, but with her grandfather she kept the relationship of a close, kind comrade, often lost with him in German and called him nothing other than Mein Lieber Dahl (my beloved Dahl. - Translated from German). It was an intelligent, enlightened family of the Slavophile type.

I once went to the Elagins ' Christmas tree. I was petted and given gifts. Happy Aunt Masha played with me all evening. Not far from the tree sat an old lady who called me over and also caressed me. It was Avdotya Petrovna's sister, Anna Petrovna Sontag, the author of a famous book.

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at one time, "Sacred History for Children". I was reading her History of the Old Testament, so I looked at her with curiosity and respect. By the way, I will note that I still do not know a better presentation of the New Testament for children than in A. P. Sontag...

The funeral of my grandmother (Ekaterina Lvovna Dahl. - V. M.) for some reason I do not remember; it is possible that I was not taken to them. She was buried at the Vagankovo cemetery.

From the conversations of my elders, I overheard that my grandmother died of some kind of liver degeneration.

I won't have to talk about her again, and as I say goodbye to her image in these pages, I must admit that she did a lot for my childish soul. The first beginnings of religious education were laid by her, and it must have been in her old age that she began to feel closer to the Orthodox Church, because it was she who explained to me the meaning of holidays, fasts, Orthodox services and prayers.

My grandfather must have converted to Orthodoxy a year before her death; I vaguely remember receiving congratulations on this occasion, but I can't say exactly when.

Winter was coming. Life gradually improved. My grandmother's rooms were bright, empty, and open. Grandpa not only sat, but also slept in the big living room. He could no longer write, and his usual occupation was plucking lint. His grandchildren were always at his feet, and he loved their presence: they distracted him from his sad thoughts and memories. My duties included reading the papers to him. My mother encouraged me to sit with my grandfather and watch over each other: on the one hand, I was already approaching seven years old and was not content with the company of nannies and tiny children, and on the other, it was not safe to leave my grandfather with his weak legs: he was about to go for something or a book and stumbles. He noticed and disliked the presence of adults on duty around him, but he got used to me and willingly used me for small services.

This time of my grandfather's illness stands out most clearly in my memory: what, what we haven't read and talked about in these months! It seems that Wolff's collected works were published that winter. Grandpa picked up a stack of green books. With a trembling hand, he made an inscription in pencil on the first volume and gave them to me. "To my granddaughter Lala from my grandfather," was on the cover.

I ran with my treasure to my mother, dropping books on the way that were not held in children's hands, and the first thing my mother did was tear off the cover with the gift of my grandfather's note. I gasped.

"You'll wear out the book and lose this leaf, and it's supposed to be a memory for you for the rest of your life," my mother explained to me. "We'll hide it and put it back when the books are bound."

"Can I read these books?" I asked.

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"You can; read as much as you want.

And now a new source of pleasure has opened up for me. I still didn't understand much; there were stories that I skirted, but there were some that I reread an infinite number of times, like Fairy Tales. For explanations, I resorted to the author himself.

Sometimes we were driven out of the big living room for a couple of weeks or more, and we were told that Grandpa was having another stroke. Uncle Lelya would come; my mother and aunt would go around looking worried; the doctors would show up. Then things gradually calmed down, and Grandpa came back to life.

The doctors predicted that he would die from the third stroke, but he died from the seventh. Of course, each time he recovered more slowly and became weaker, but his clarity of thought was restored to full extent. He understood his situation perfectly, and not only did he not fear death, but he even seemed to yearn for it.

"What else is holding me back?" What didn't I do? he often said, rubbing his face, as if trying to remember or figure something out.

Sometimes he would walk up and down the rooms, usually accompanied by one of his daughters, and laugh at his own gait.

"Well, we started the car, now you can't stop it," he said. And this was true: it was as if he was walking at a run, on springs, and only stopped when he held on to something with his hand.

Once, with childish thoughtlessness, I suggested it to him myself:

"Did you start the car again, Grandpa?"

My mother, who was walking beside me in silence, looked at me.

"Why did you say that?" "What is it?" she asked me later.

"That's what Grandpa always says," I said defensively.

"Grandpa can laugh at himself if he wants to, but we don't laugh at him, we feel sorry for him.

I remember feeling terribly ashamed...

Everyone marveled at my grandfather's meekness and patience. He was happy with everything, grateful to everyone. His own mental clarity dispelled the anxiety of others.

During this time, a new face appeared in the house, introduced by Aunt Katya and unpleasant to everyone, not excluding grandfather himself. It was the priest Ternovsky. How this acquaintance came about I do not know, but Aunt Katya completely submitted to Ternovsky's influence and made him her directeur de conciel. - Translated from French). She brought him to his grandfather, probably finding it useful for an old man on the threshold of eternity to have a spiritual guide.

Ternovsky was a tall, heavyset old man with big flowing hair and a pointed Napoleon beard. Her eyes twinkled slyly behind gold glasses, and her lips smiled sweetly.

When I was told about him, my grandfather would wince and send me away, and Aunt Katya would catch me in the small hall, lead me to the blessing and say:

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she taught me to kiss my father's hand. If this science had come from someone else, I probably would have taken it for granted; but since Aunt Katya demanded it, I decided that all this was "breaking", that it was even "shameful", and the first thing I hated was Ternovsky.

I have often heard Aunt Manya, not embarrassed by my presence, call him Katya's priest and a cunning Jesuit in conversation with my mother. I was very interested in the last name, and without hesitation, I turned to Aunt Katya herself for clarification of the unfamiliar word. Unsuspectingly, she explained to me who the Jesuits were and what bad people they were. After that, Ternovsky became quite clear to me.

What they talked about with my grandfather - I do not know, but probably Ternovsky did not achieve his goal, because his visits became less and less frequent.

Easter was late that year. I was seven years old. During Lent, I also went to confession for the first time with the adults. My father explained to me the meaning of this sacrament.

In general, the direction of our religious upbringing was always given by our father, as a person more ecclesiastical than our mother. He insisted that I go to Mass on Sundays and sometimes explain the service to me, which he knew perfectly well. But at that time, no one systematically dealt with the Law of God with me. I myself read the Old and New Testaments and the Lives of Saints willingly, knew a few prayers, and read Slavonic well, but that was all.

Spring came, and we were told that we would not go to Gremyachy because my mother could not leave her sick grandfather. I was very happy with this decision, because we probably lived more freely on Presnya than on the Farm. The lawn in front of the house and the garden behind it seemed to us like steppes and woods, on the lawn the grass was so thick and high that it covered our heads, and in the honeysuckle bushes that grew in the middle of it, we made ourselves a gazebo and hid in it from prying eyes.

In the garden there were beds of flowers and two magnificent trees - an old, huge linden tree that spread its tent from one wing of the house to the other, and an equally beautiful weeping birch tree that bowed its branches almost to the ground. In a corner of the garden, near our rooms, a mountain of sand was piled up for the delight and amusement of all the lesser brethren. We went out into the garden through the window of the great hall, to which two staircases were attached for the summer-one inside, the other outside. Only Presnya was inferior to the Farm: there was no river for swimming, which was my favorite pleasure...

In Vasil lived a young zemstvo doctor Semyon Nikolaevich Zenenko, a Little Russian by birth. He generally treated the Demidov family, and during the last illness of his grandfather (A. V. Demidov. - V. M.) he spent all his free time on the farm. In addition to the desire to ease the sufferings of the patient, he was attracted to the meek, black-eyed Aunt Katya. In the form of-

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whether that was all, no one could tell how the young girl felt about the doctor. Always calm and calm, preoccupied with her father's illness and the household, she did not avoid his company, but neither did she seek it out. The family hoped that Semyon Nikolaevich would refrain from making the offer while Alexander Vasilyevich was still alive, and give Aunt Katya the opportunity to make her choice freely, but obviously the young man could not wait, and he decided to learn his fate at once. Aunt Katya, anticipating a fateful moment, did not let her brother Kolya go anywhere, so as not to be left alone with the doctor, but one evening the boy cheated on her and rushed off from the balcony where she was standing with Zenenko. A quarter of an hour later, Aunt Katya came to her mother in tears and told her that the doctor had proposed to her.

After a conversation with my grandmother, consent was given, but all the relatives were outraged by the groom's forced method.

"What was poor Katya supposed to do?" - said the aunts. "To refuse was to lose a good doctor in such a difficult moment.

I don't know if there was any truth in these assumptions. In the district, Zenenko was disliked for his heavy, touchy nature and harsh language, so everyone pitied Aunt Katya. I will say that it is very difficult to analyze sympathies and their causes. Aunt Katya and Uncle Senya are still alive. Both of them have had a lot of hard times in their lives, but I'm sure it never occurred to either of them to regret their choice. And for us, Uncle Senya over time became a close and beloved person and the most reliable friend during the trials.

The groom was in a hurry with the wedding, and the grandmother did not delay it, realizing that the end of the grandfather was near and that then she would have to postpone the wedding of her daughter for a long time. We had a quiet and sad wedding in July, and the next day Grandfather Alexander Vasilyevich passed away.

Dad went to the farm, taking a long vacation. In Moscow, the same thing continued. In the summer, my grandfather had another stroke, very hard, and no one thought that he would stay alive. However, the powerful nature took its toll, and grandfather recovered this time, although he no longer tried to walk around the rooms.

I forgot to tell you that in the last year of his life, Pavel Tretyakov asked his grandfather's permission to paint a portrait of him for his gallery. Grandpa shrugged.

"For what?" Who needs it? "No," he said.

But Tretyakov begged so hard that it was difficult to refuse, and the daughters persuaded their father to agree to this request.

The portrait was commissioned by the artist Perov, who painted it quite satisfactorily. It's just a pity that Tretyakov didn't think to do it earlier, when his grandfather was healthy; then he would have received a portrait of a living person. Now it was a portrait of a dying old man with eyes looking "beyond the boundaries of earthly existence."

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Summer passed. September came.

- Will Plato be back soon? Grandpa asked my mother longingly. "I won't live to see it."

And my father was detained on the farm by my grandmother, who had to help sort out the affairs of the estate, which turned out to be in a big mess after my grandfather's death. She herself decided to go to Nizhny Novgorod and raise the Karger children, and for the estate it was necessary to find an intelligent manager.

- Olga, write to Plato to come soon! Grandpa begged.

My mother wrote and even telegraphed. When Uncle Lelya heard about his father's troubled situation, he also came.

"Well, Arslan, you're all here now," Grandpa said with a sigh of relief. "If only Plato would hurry!"

Dad arrived unannounced on the morning of September 17, his birthday.

"Platon Alexandrovich has arrived! "it went all over the house. Grandfather, who had not tried to walk for a long time, got out of bed at this news and went out into the hall without help to meet the dear guest, which frightened all the family. They picked him up and led him back to the living room.

"Thank God! thank god! he kept repeating with tears in his eyes. "So I waited for you!" he patted Dad's shoulder.

All day long he was as cheerful and animated as ever, and inquired sympathetically and in detail about his grandmother Anastasia Nikolaevna and the state of family affairs in general.

"Well, now you're all here! he repeated several times, looking at the assembled children.

During the night, my grandfather had his seventh and final stroke, after which he no longer regained consciousness, but lived for another three days.

On September 22, 1872, he died.

His death was peaceful and peaceful, just as his soul was peaceful. He had so prepared for it, so waited for it, that it was like the crown of his desires and left no bitterness in anyone.

My grandfather had arranged for his burial beforehand. First of all, fearing to be buried alive, he made the children promise that they would not put him in the ground until there were obvious signs of decomposition. Then he asked me to put myself in a simple oak coffin without any decorations, without flowers or wreaths.

So everyone did. In the small hall, my grandfather's body stood for four days without any signs of decay, and only on the fifth day it was taken to the church. After the invited doctors categorically confirmed the certainty of death. Many memorial services were served, and many people stayed who wanted to say goodbye to V. I. Dahl.

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They didn't take me to the funeral for some reason. Neither was Aunt Manya, who was so afraid of the dead that she could never bring herself to go up and look at her father's face.

Together with my grandfather, the soul of the old house flew away and the family huddled around it broke up.

1922

The publication was prepared by V. F. Molchanov, Candidate of Historical Sciences

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