In the works of Turgenev of the 1860s and 70s, there is often a mention of fog. This recurring motif acts as a comparison, a metaphor, a detail of the landscape, endowed with symbolic meaning. It becomes especially noticeable in Turgenev's "mysterious stories".

The genre of " Ghosts "was designated by the writer as" fantasy"; Turgenev asked the reader not to look for any allegory or hidden meaning in the proposed fantasy, but simply to see in it a series of pictures connected with each other rather superficially. The connecting element in this series of paintings is a mysterious figure named Ellis. A number of fantasy episodes of" Ghosts " are united by the high (literally and figuratively) position of the hero in relation to human life (individual and collective), history, and the values of civilization. Ellis allows the hero to stand on the "point of view of eternity". Trying to unravel the nature of the mysterious Ellis, some saw in her an allegorical image of Turgenev's muse (Vetrinsky Ch. The Vampire Muse / / Turgenev's Work, Moscow, 1920), others - a spirit for which the hero of the story was a medium (Fischer V. M. Mysterious in Turgenev // A wreath to Turgenev. Odessa, 1919. pp. 91-104).

It is important for us that Ellis appears to the hero as a being who embodies one of the innermost secrets of life, spirit, and the universe. And Turgenev seeks not only to solve this mystery, but also to discover its very existence, an unexpected invasion of reality by the forces of the world

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other. Ellis is neither spirit nor matter, she seemed to the hero "woven from a translucent milky mist" (Turgenev I. S. Poln. sobr. soch. i pis: In 28 vols. M.-L., 1960-1968. Vol. IX. P.81; further - only volume and p.). This image varies repeatedly in the work, it appears at the first appearance of a mysterious ghost: "Before me, draughty as a fog, a white woman stands motionless" (IX, 78). Disappearing, " the ghost quietly swayed forward, all mixed up, easily agitated like smoke , and the moon again peacefully turned white on the smooth floor "(Ibid.). "What are you, smoke, air, steam?" - the hero asks (IX, 81). "A lifeless, misty ghost, a shadow," he repeats further (IX, 106). He sees a "hazy whiteness"in her face. At the end of the date, Ellis disappeared, "melting away like steam "(IX, 88). Note that the fog motif forms a synonym series here: fog-smoke-steam. The hero is particularly struck and even frightened by the impression that appeared on one of the white nights in St. Petersburg, where Ellis transported him: "Ellis's appearance disappeared completely, melted away like a morning mist in the July sun "(IX, 104).

When the hero tries to solve the mystery of Ellis and turns to her with questions, she suddenly puts a fog on him - he should not be too persistent in his attempts to find out the forbidden. This same white veil envelops him during sudden movements in space, and it has a narcotic effect, stupefies the hero's consciousness: "Ellis threw the end of her long hanging sleeve over my head. I was immediately enveloped in a kind of white haze with the soporific smell of poppies. Everything disappeared at once: every light, every sound - and almost consciousness itself. One sense of life remained - and that was not unpleasant" (XI, 99). Such protection is necessary for the consciousness of the hero, who is endowed with only human capabilities and is unable to adapt independently to the world that Ellis opens up to him. This white veil, similar to fog, is mentioned several times in the text. The hero himself asks: "Cover my head with your veil, otherwise I feel bad" (IX, 104).

A similar meaning (veil, protection) is given to the marked motif in the story "Unhappy". The fog separates the heroine, intoxicated with happiness, from the world of lies, evil, and violence that surrounds her and threatens to destroy her fragile bliss.: "I've already given myself up to the future: I couldn't see anything around me, as if I were floating on a beautiful, smooth, but fast-moving river, surrounded by fog. And we were watched, guarded. From time to time I noticed the evil eyes of my fiefdom, heard his ugly laugh... But the laughter and the eyes also seemed to come out of the fog, for a moment... I shuddered, but immediately forgot and again gave myself up to that beautiful, fast river... " (X, 128-129). Turgenev under-

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he emphasizes the fragility of this protection, its illusory nature. The defense turns out to be imaginary, the heroine is misled, she does not notice that a catastrophe is brewing around her, which will soon inevitably break out and to which she will become a victim. The meaning of this plot situation is revealed by the introduction of the fog motif.

The motif is most often found in landscape descriptions. Here are some examples from "Ghosts".

"We were at the dam of my pond. Right in front of me, through the sharp leaves of the brooms, I could see its wide expanse with here and there fibers of fluffy fog sticking to it" (IX, 87-88); "The moon shines indistinctly, shrouded in steam, and the thinnest smoke seems to spread out on the ground. The eye cannot make out what it is: moonlight or fog? " (IX, 101); "Here it is, the land of legends! The same thin moon smoke that struck me in Schweizingen is everywhere, and the farther the mountains spread, the thicker this smoke is "(IX, 102-103).

Fog is associated with the natural principle that hides the deepest secrets of life, which is mentioned in the prose poem "Sea Voyage": "It was completely calm. The sea stretched out in a circle like a motionless leaden tablecloth. It did not seem very large; a thick fog lay on it, covering the very ends of the masts, and blinding and tiring the eyes with a soft mist. The sun hung like a dull red spot in this gloom, and before evening it would glow all over and redden mysteriously and strangely " (XIII, 194). The sea, a vast expanse of water - a symbol of the eternity of nature, its immeasurable power. The mention of fog over the sea in this work is philosophically significant.

A similar detail of the landscape is found in "Trip to Polesie". Description of the Polessky forest, boundless as the sea, and gloomy, serves the purpose of contrasting the eternity of nature and the transience of human life. In this connection, the mention of fog takes on symbolic significance: "... a thin, dim fog, the eternal fog of Polesie hung in the distance... "(VII, 52). Fog is associated here not just with mystery, but with the terrible mystery of death: "the absence of life, something dead" blows from this landscape.

The theme of death is largely associated with the fog motif in one of the episodes of the story "Dream". This motif appears for the first time in the hero's dream, and we are talking about a repeatedly repeated, obsessive dream, which turns out to be prophetic. This dream gives rise to doubt in the hero and the desire to find out the truth about his origin, and it is not by chance that it always ends with the figure of his real father disappearing in the fog. The fog serves here as an indication of the mystery surrounding the image of the hero's father. The secret doesn't come to him until he gets it right.-

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this is an auspicious moment. A new mention of the fog is found in the chapter describing the hero's quest: "I am looking down a long, narrow, and completely empty street; the morning fog has filled it all with its dull leaden color , but my eyes can reach all the way to the end of it, and I can read all its buildings... and not a single living thing moves anywhere! " (XI, 282). The fog, which fills the street like a dull lead, gives it a mute and as if dead appearance, but does not prevent you from seeing it all to the end. This dead color is associated with the subsequent disappointment of the hero - there was no one in the house where he was expected to meet his father - and the final search that leads him to the lifeless body of his father.

The theme of death is addressed by the fog motif in the prose poem "Masha". A terrible illness takes away a young woman who is mourned by her husband, a cab driver. The theme of death here, as usual with Turgenev, is solved in a tragic way: death is an "insatiable womb" that devours everyone indiscriminately, it is an irrational, senseless, merciless force. The mention of "the snowy tablecloth of a deserted street, drenched in the gray fog of a January frost" sounds like the final chord that defines the gloomy key of the entire work.

The fog motif finds another very special expression in "Ghosts". Among other pictures that open up to the hero from a height, the author puts a satirical panorama of Parisian life. The big city is compared to an anthill, the atmosphere of Paris seems to him saturated with some stinking steam, noise and smoke fill it. The metaphor "chad" expresses disappointment and the author's harsh assessment of what is depicted. Fog (steam) turns into smoke when it comes to contemporary social life of the author. This world is the quintessence of lies and vice. The sharpness of the author's assessment is enhanced here by the fact that the hero is given an unusual position, which became available to him after meeting Ellis, who revealed to him the secret hidden in the depths of life. However, the hero is internally ready for such an assessment.

In "Ghosts", the fog motif varies extremely widely, forming a synonym series: fog-smoke-steam-chad. A similar construction is found in the novel "Smoke", but here it expresses the final assessment of the hero of what happened to him. This symbolic motif is introduced, as is often the case with Turgenev, by a metaphor that forms a metaphorical chain - a series of symbolic motifs synonymous in this context, the main one being smoke: fog-smoke-steam-dust-dust. This row extends the range of values of the main character, extending it to the social area as well

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related issues: "Everything was already moving towards a denouement, and the immediate future was being outlined more clearly and clearly, when suddenly an event occurred that dispelled all those assumptions and plans like a light road dust "(IX, 186); " I just wanted to tell you that out of all this dead past, out of all these-into smoke and dust. ashes of the converted-beginnings and hopes, there is only one living, indestructible thing left: my love for you " (IX, 299); "Smoke, smoke," he repeated several times; and suddenly everything seemed to him like smoke, everything, his own life, Russian life - everything human, especially everything Russian. Everything is smoke and steam, he thought; everything seems to be constantly changing, new images are everywhere, phenomena are running after phenomena, but in essence everything is the same and the same; everything is in a hurry, hurrying somewhere - and everything disappears without a trace, achieving nothing; another wind has blown - and everything has rushed in the opposite direction and there again the same restless, disturbing and unnecessary game "(IX, 315); " The last traces of the charm that had taken hold of him have also disappeared: Everything that had happened in Baden came back to him like a dream... And Irina? And she turned pale and disappeared too, and Litvinov only vaguely sensed something dangerous under the fog that gradually enveloped her image "(IX, 319).

The considered series of symbols tends to the general meaning of disappointment, the futility of hopes, the meaninglessness of existence and any action. In the novel "Smoke", it takes on a clearly evaluative character, which is sometimes devoid of in novels. It is "Ghosts" and "Smoke" that allow us to consider the links of the synonymous chain of symbols as a single whole and combine the areas of their content. This generalization reveals new meanings for each of the links, thus allowing for a broader interpretation of the text.

In the story "The Dog", which also belongs to the "mysterious" works of Turgenev, the fog motif is used in the landscape description. An unusual incident with the narrator, which confirmed the prediction of the" clairvoyant " Prokhorych, occurred on one of the days of a dry, hot summer:"...The drought was then such that no one will remember; there is either smoke or fog in the air, it smells like burning, mist, the sun is like a hot core, but you can't get rid of the dust! " (IX, 133). The fog motif, which forms a synonym series here (fog-smoke-smoke-mist-dust), is not just an expressive landscape detail. This is the leitmotif of the entire description, performing a compositional role, setting an associative link between the upcoming dramatic events in the story and the atmosphere in which they mature. This motif can also be called symbolic because it indicates the participation of mysterious, irrational forces in the fate of the narrator.

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The fog motif also appears in the story "A Strange Story", the hero of which comes into contact with a person endowed with either hypnotic or telepathic abilities.

As a rule, the realm of the irrational and mysterious seems to Turgenev to be external to man. "A strange story" may be the only work of his, the hero of which discovers the amazing and incomprehensible in the human psyche itself. During the "session", he gets a sleep-like numbness. His eyes close together, the figure of the clairvoyant hypnotist doubles in front of him and, being absorbed by the incoming fog, disappears completely, and after a while, again out of the fog, the image of a long-dead person appears. Here and in some other works, the fog appears as a substance that gives rise to ghosts, and is ghostly in itself. "The ghost of bliss rises and beckons in the midst of the fog," writes the hero of the story "Correspondence "(VI, 170).

The function of this symbolic motif is particularly important in the story "Knock... A knock... Knock!", which reveals a connection with Lermontov's "Fatalist". Everything that happens in it is shown in a double perception: skeptic (narrator) and mystic (hero).

The plot of the story takes place in a natural environment. Of all the details of the landscape that create a special setting in which events begin to unfold, the first place is given to fog; it is also important that the conversation about the mysterious phenomena that precede the development of the action takes place at night. The hero claims that "on such a night exactly... a student of his acquaintance, who had just entered the tutorship of two orphans and was placed with them in the pavilion in the garden, saw a female figure bent over their beds, and the next day recognized this figure in a portrait that he had not noticed until then, depicting the mother of these very orphans "(X, 273).. The narrator reports: "The fantastic appearance of this night affected us: it set us up for the fantastic" (Ibid.).

Thus, the fantastic setting of the night affects even the sceptical narrator, which, however, does not prevent him from conceiving and implementing a joke that took a tragic turn at the end. The narrator himself appears in this story as a "personified plot circumstance" (the expression of Yu.M. Lotman).

It is he who initiates subsequent events, which, however, could not have happened if there was no fog. "The fog still enveloped all objects - and for twenty steps almost nothing could be seen," the narrator reports in the course of the story (X, 277). The plot-forming role of this motif is obvious. The plot of the story is based on accidental coincidences, and an unusual combination of circumstances leads to the death of the hero. Is it accidental?

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But in the very confluence of circumstances, something fatal is seen. And maybe the narrator, whose prank became the first link in this chain, does not act on his own impulse, but in accordance with some rigid purpose, as if fulfilling someone's evil will? This assumption is expressed by Teglev. The one who gives the hero the second sign (call), followed by the first (knock), does not suspect at all that he is participating in someone else's drama.

Strange circumstances are in full accordance with the character and general mood of the hero. Mysterious forces act not only as external, but also as internal. The confluence of events does not depend on the hero, but their interpretation is already a manifestation of his own "I". Even if the narrator had admitted to Turgenev in time that he was playing a practical joke, the latter would hardly have believed him. This is exactly what happened afterwards. An explanation occurred between them, but it didn't change anything. The narrator admits that Teglev inspired him with something like regret: "It seemed to me that in addition to his assumed fatality, a tragic fate really weighed on him, which he himself did not suspect" (X, 271).

By mentioning the fog at the beginning of his story, the narrator tries to convey the environment in which the action takes place, and the mood of the characters. "The dull whiteness of the 'mist' is worse than darkness, blinding and blunting the eye "(X, 279). It is the fog that gives rise to events. "Strange night", the conversation irritates the nerves of the narrator, insomnia gives rise to a desire to make fun of Teglev. The second incident is directly caused by fog. The voice calling in the fog connects the hero with the previous event - the mysterious knock gets an explanation. This is how events are arranged in a logical chain. The fog motif is being pumped up, its plot-forming role is becoming more noticeable. Here it symbolizes the mystery that has always attracted the hero, his entry into the realm of the forbidden, which leads to his death, and at the same time the hero's delusion, fainting with some invisible demonic forces that play with him, tease him and destroy him in the end. All the narrator's attempts to prevent the tragic outcome that he anticipates are futile precisely because of the fog. At the moment when, as it seemed to him, he could still convince Teglev, the latter disappeared in the fog, "as if he had sunk into the ground" (X, 287).

Turgenev describes in detail the search process undertaken by the narrator and Teglev's servant, Semyon. The fog makes it impossible for them to navigate. They each express their attitude to what is happening in their own way. The narrator is driven to despair: "I was ready to cry... I was reminded of the jester's words in King Lear: "This one

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the night will drive us all crazy... "" (X, 292). Semyon interprets the incident as a game of demonic forces: "'The goblin has passed us over, sir,' replied the bewildered servant. "There's a reason for that... This is an impure business! "(Ibid.).

Teglev is found only by the sound of a gunshot that ended his life. With the death of the hero, the action of mystical forces seems to stop.

The ending of the story serves the purpose of exposing Teglev's misconceptions. Everything that happened is presented, at first glance, as a chain of errors and random coincidences. However, the author's decision, as in Lermontov's "Fatalist", does not look unambiguous. Recall that the narrator always thought that Teglev was burdened by a "tragic fate", which he himself did not know about. In the light of Turgenev's concept of individual human existence, Teglev's death is not at all accidental, just as Bazarov's death in Fathers and Sons, who died from a minor wound on his arm, is not accidental. It was as if Teglev had been joked at, not by his companion, but by fate itself, which had arranged the coincidence of so many accidents - one after another, and this coincidence became possible only in the midst of a thick, incessant fog. The fog motif, therefore, plays an important compositional and semantic role in the story.

So, in its most general meaning, this motif can be attributed to the sphere of worldview, the area of its content is connected with the problem of knowing the world, understanding life, touching the mystery of being. The riddle of life has always worried Turgenev. Trying to solve it and realizing that it was impossible, the writer sometimes fell into grave doubt about its very existence: "The terrible thing is that there is nothing terrible, that the very essence of life is petty and uninteresting and beggarly flat "(IX, 118).

The riddle of life, in Turgenev's view, is hidden in the realm of nature. The symbolic motif of fog often acts as a detail of the landscape description, which at the same time receives a philosophical load. In such a landscape, behind the outlines of the real world, another appears-shaky, wavering, inexplicable. This second world, whose features are elusive, and attracts the hero, and repels him.

In the knowledge of the world, Turgenev's hero is usually guided by his intuition, which does not always lead him the right way. The fog motif often acts as a symbol of human delusions and mistakes, incorrect orientation in relation to the world as a whole and in specific life situations.

One of the particular meanings of the considered motif is the cover, the protection that a person needs when a collision is possible

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It is associated with the secret forces of life that pose a direct threat or potential danger to it. Turgenev's hero is fully aware of the limitations of his abilities in understanding the laws of life, his smallness and weakness in comparison with the power of the natural and social world, and this protection seems necessary to him. However, in a particular life situation, such protection may be unreliable or imaginary. In this case, the fog motif also symbolizes the hero's delusion or unwillingness to know the truth that is dangerous for him.

In general, the fog motif is strongly associated by the writer with the realm of the irrational, the unknown and, perhaps, the unknowable in general, it reflects the complexity of a person's position in the world around him.

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