My poor friend is my priceless friend. My first friend, my priceless friend

The narrator remembers his friend, whom he lost forty years ago. The narration is told in the first person.

All the children from the old Moscow courtyard studied at two nearby schools, but Yura was unlucky. The year he started studying, there was a large influx of students, and some of the children were sent to a school far from home. This was “foreign territory”. To avoid fights with locals, the children went to and from school in a large group. Only on “their territory” did they relax and start playing in the snow.

During one of the snow battles, Yura saw an unfamiliar boy - he stood on the sidelines and smiled timidly. It turned out that the boy lives in Yura’s entrance; his parents simply “walked” him throughout his childhood in the church kindergarten, away from bad company.

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

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

Before meeting Pavlik, Yura “was already experienced in friendship” - he had a childhood bosom friend, handsome, with a girl’s haircut, Mitya - “weak-hearted, sensitive, tearful, capable of hysterical outbursts of rage.” From his father, a lawyer, “Mitya inherited the gift of eloquence” and used it when Yura noticed that his friend was jealous of him or was lying to him.

Mitya’s quarrel and constant readiness to quarrel seemed to Yura “an indispensable part of friendship,” but Pavlik showed him that there is a different, real friendship. At first, Yura patronized the timid boy, “introduced him into society,” and gradually everyone began to consider him the main one in this couple.

In fact, friends did not depend on each other. Communicating with Mitya, Yura got used to “moral compromise,” and therefore Pavlik’s moral code was stricter and purer.

Forgiving betrayal is not much different from betrayal itself.

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

Pavlik never entered into a deal with his conscience, which is why his friendship with Yura once almost ended. Thanks to the tutor, Yura knew German perfectly since childhood. The teacher loved him for his “true Berlin pronunciation,” and never asked for his homework, especially since Yura considered teaching it beneath his dignity. But one day the teacher called Yura to the blackboard. Yura did not memorize the poem he was assigned - he was absent for several days and did not know what was asked. Justifying himself, he said that Pavlik did not inform him about his homework. In fact, Yura himself did not ask what was asked.

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

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

Pavlik was a “mental” boy, but his parents did not provide him with a “nutritive environment.” Pavlik's father was a watchmaker and was exclusively interested in watches. His mother seemed to be a woman who “did not know that printing had been invented,” although her brothers, a chemist and a biologist, were major scientists. A cult of books reigned in Yura’s family, and Pavlik needed this like air.

Every year the friends became closer to each other. The question “Who should I be?” stood up to them much earlier than to their peers. The guys had no obvious preferences, and they began to look for themselves. Pavlik decided to follow in the footsteps of one of his famous uncles. Friends made shoe polish, which did not give shoes shine, and red ink, which stained everything except paper.

Realizing that they would not make chemists, the guys switched to physics, and after that - to geography, botany, and electrical engineering. During breaks, they learned how to balance by holding various objects on their nose or chin, which horrified Yuri’s mother.

Meanwhile, Yura began writing stories, and Pavlik became an amateur stage actor. Finally, the friends realized that this was their calling. Yura entered the screenwriting department of the Institute of Film Arts. Pavlik “failed in directing,” but the next year he brilliantly passed exams not only at VGIK, but also at two other institutes.

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

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

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

One day, a friend invited Yura to a dacha he had recently bought to go mushroom picking. Walking through the forest, Yura came across traces of ancient battles and suddenly realized that Pavlik died somewhere here. For the first time he thought that in the village council surrounded by enemies, “it was not death that was happening, but Pavlik’s last life.”

Our responsibility to each other is great. At any moment, we can be called upon by a dying person, a hero, a tired person, or a child. This will be “a call for help, but at the same time for judgment.”

In the presence of the Pskov governor, the collegiate secretary Alexander Pushkin signed a statement that he undertakes to live continuously on his parent’s estate, to behave well, not to engage in any indecent writings and judgments, reprehensible and harmful to public life, and not to disseminate them anywhere.

On August 9 I was brought to Mikhailovskoye. Oh, what a terrible fate has fallen on my head! Double supervision - the supervision of my father, the supervision of church authorities entangled me with iron chains. Day after day I drag out an empty and joyless existence.
All letters addressed to me are immediately printed, and I am accused of godlessness and bringing punishment on the family.

My exile is located in the depths of the pine forests of the Pskov province. The linden alley leads to our estate. On the right is a huge lake with flat shores, on the left is another, smaller one. Below, the Sorot River meanders through the meadow. I live in my grandfather's small, one-story house. Nearby are my nanny and parents, who by chance became my guards.

Oh, how many times have I written to the Tsar, begging to be transferred from here, even to a fortress! It's all to no avail. No answer, nothing. At times I feel invisible, a faceless ghost whose words and letters disappear with the tailwind into nowhere.

What about my lyceum friends? I haven't heard from you for a long time. It’s as if I’m cut off from the outside world, and the only friend of my days is Arina Rodionovna.

My room is modest: a simple wooden bed, a tattered card table and shelves with books - that’s all the decoration. The remaining rooms are boarded up from prying eyes.

"Boris Godunov" and "Eugene Onegin" are my joy. They occupy me during hours full of melancholy.

However, staying in Mikhailovsky is not without rare happiness. I don’t know what impulses my father gave in to, but my parents suddenly created such a commotion, packed up and left the village, dragging both my sister and brother with them. I was left alone in the care of a nanny.

Over time I got used to it. I saw the creative calm that was given to me from above. My genius is growing here.

Alexander?

Someone's insinuating, painfully familiar quiet voice was heard from the direction of the door. I turned around.

I rushed to the familiar figure and embraced him in a tight hug. The unprecedented joy of reunion covered me from my feet to the very top of my head. I remembered my lyceum years and hugged Ivan tighter to my chest.

Well, here we are, dear friend... - he half-asleeply croaked words that were sweet to the ear, and I, coming to my senses, unclenched the grip of my hands.

When did you arrive?

Recently, just in the morning. But let's go, you'll catch a cold!

Grabbing me in his arms, involuntarily burying my face in the fur collar of my fur coat, he dragged me into the house and threw me onto the bed. Laughing, I pushed Pushchin away and sat down.

What a habit it is to go out in such cold weather in just a shirt! - He lightly pushed me in the chest with his fist and moved to the table, where the tea carefully poured by the nanny was steaming in the cups, - I recognize my former comrade.

Come on, Ivan,” I pulled off his clothes and landed next to him, begging him to tell him all the news that had not reached me during my stay in Mikhailovsky. There was alcohol in the bins, and we, clinking our glasses, disappeared for many hours in an intoxicating conversation.

Much has changed in our situation in the five years that have passed before this meeting. I became a famous poet. In the silence of Mikhailovsky, my genius fully matured. As I said earlier, I was now working on Onegin and Godunov, and was already finishing both works.

Pushchin, as I learned, managed to transform from a brilliant guards officer into a modest judicial official. In 1823, he left military service and, following the example of Ryleev, who served in court, took a judicial seat in the Criminal Chamber - first in St. Petersburg, and then in Moscow.

Having talked, towards evening I became more cheerful than before and, with considerable effort, fished my friend out into the street and led him to the lake. The hitherto dull landscape, secluded and quiet, was now firmly anchored with the joy of our date.

Come on, catch it!

Pushchin’s cheerful shout cut through the silence and mixed with the rapid snowball that flew straight into my neck and chilled my skin.

Hey! - I laughed, rubbing my palm over the site of the blow.

Ivan rushed to run towards the ice-covered lake, but before he could reach the shoreline, I scooped up more snow, crumpled it with my fingers frozen from the cold and sent it after my friend.

The second shell immediately reached its target, and he fell into the nearest snowdrift.

Order? - I jumped up to my friend and extended my hand.

When you're in a joking mood, don't forget that your friends can trick you. Before his hand had time to touch mine, my elbow was in a tenacious grip, and I fell into the snow next to Pushchin. He hovered over me, pressing my legs with his thighs, cutting off the path to retreat and deftly raking prickly piles of heavenly fluff down my collar.

Breathing heavily from the struggle, I still managed to knock him over and crush him down. In the light of the moon, Ivan’s hair was scattered across the white surface, his cheeks were flushed, and his smile revealed a row of even white teeth. I bent closer to his face, touching the tip of my nose to my comrade’s cheek and feeling the hot, convulsive breath on my skin.

Alexander...

Childishness took over. At such a quiet moment, my friend’s face distorted into a displeased grimace as soon as my hand pressed an icy handful to his cheek.

And don't expect to defeat me!

I jumped to my feet and rushed towards the light sparkling in the window of the estate, barely making out the creaking steps behind me. The door gave in easily, the house was empty, and after running a short corridor, I flew into my room and collapsed on the bed. I spread my arms and took a deep breath, laughing loudly.

Yeah, I gotcha,” Pushchin jumped up to me, touching the wooden corner of the bed with his knee, and pressed him with his body, “now you can’t run away anywhere!”

Iva-a-n,” I irritably called out his name and began to pull the snow-covered fur coat from my friend’s shoulders, throwing it to the side.

I could feel the pillow underneath me absorbing the moisture from my hair. Our loud snoring echoed throughout the little room, and the smell of alcohol still hung in the air. He brazenly straddled my hips, crossed his arms over his chest and looked down triumphantly, like a victorious predator looks at his prey in moments of triumph.

The dying lamp faintly illuminated two figures on a narrow bed and outlined the contours of Pushchin’s face. I lay below and looked at him, not without pleasure, long-awaited, happy and intoxicated by fun.

His face softened, his fingers tangled the curls of my hair. He rested his elbow on my left, and our lips met in a timid, virginal kiss.

At what point did we find ourselves almost naked? The hem of the shirt spread out, revealing her frequently heaving chest. I felt the touch of a hot body and I leaned forward, towards his hips and hands supporting me under the lower back.

The impulse passed up the spine, hit my temples, and the dull, subsiding pain still made me arch over the sheets. He pressed my lower abdomen with his palm, and now supported my knee with his other hand.

He whispered something in my ear in an intermittent, hoarse voice, and I, as if in delirium, heard only the endings of the words and with each thrust I moaned his name louder.

The flickering light of the lamp spread in circles before my eyes, and, taking a deep breath, Pushchin buried himself in the pillow next to me. I pulled him closer and stroked his hair, going lower and tracing the vertebra on the back of his neck with my short nails.

Are you leaving already? - I couldn’t express my surprise in words.

It’s time for me to go, I promised... I’m sure we’ll meet again in Moscow.

I walked through the snow, despite the frost, and pressed myself against the fur collar of his coat, just like that morning.

Goodbye, dear friend,” we shook hands, and he jumped into the carriage.

I hardly saw his carriage, but out of habit I continued to stand in the snow, looking into the distance, following my departing comrade, until in the middle of the night the nanny suddenly returned and forcibly took me into the house. Meanwhile, new lines were born in my head.

My first friend, my priceless friend!

 And I blessed fate

When my yard is secluded,

 Covered in sad snow,

Your bell rang...

Yuri Markovich Nagibin

My first friend, my priceless friend

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

There, languishing with boredom under the supervision of decrepit, pious nannies, the children secretly comprehended the secrets that the court was broadcasting at the top of their voices. Fearfully and greedily they examined the rock writings on the walls of the boyar tomb and the pedestal of the monument to the state councilor and gentleman Lazarev. My future friend, through no fault of his own, shared the fate of these pitiful, hothouse children.

All the children from Armyansky and adjacent lanes studied in two nearby schools, on the other side of Pokrovka. One was located in Starosadsky, next to the German church, the other was in Spasoglinishchevsky Lane. I was unlucky. The year I entered, the influx was so great that these schools could not accept everyone. With a group of our guys, I ended up at School No. 40, very far from home, on Lobkovsky Lane, behind Chistye Prudy.

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

In Telegraphny, I first noticed this long, thin, pale, freckled boy with large gray-blue eyes that filled half his face. Standing to the side and tilting his head to his shoulder, he watched our brave fun with quiet, unenvious admiration. He shuddered slightly when a snowball thrown by a friendly, but alien to condescension hand covered someone’s mouth or eye socket, he smiled sparingly at particularly dashing antics, a faint blush of constrained excitement colored his cheeks. And at some point I caught myself screaming too loudly, gesticulating exaggeratedly, feigning inappropriate, out-of-game fearlessness. I realized that I was exposing myself to a strange boy, and I hated him. Why is he rubbing around us? What the hell does he want? Was he sent by our enemies?.. But when I expressed my suspicions to the guys, they laughed at me:

Have you eaten too much henbane? Yes, he’s from our house!..

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

During another snow battle, I began throwing snowballs at him. The first snowball that hit him on the shoulder confused and seemed to upset the boy, the next one brought a hesitant smile on his face, and only after the third did he believe in the miracle of his communion and, grabbing a handful of snow, fired a return missile at me. When the fight ended, I asked him:

Do you live below us?

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

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

Two. The second one is dark.

We do too. Only the light one goes to the trash heap. - After these secular details, I decided to introduce myself. - My name is Yura, what about you?

And the boy said:

...He is forty-three years old... How many acquaintances there were later, how many names sounded in my ears, nothing compares with that moment when, in a snowy Moscow alley, a lanky boy quietly called himself: Pavlik.

What a reserve of individuality this boy, then the young man, had - he never had the chance to become an adult - if he was able to so firmly enter the soul of another person, who was by no means a prisoner of the past, despite all the love for his childhood. There are no words, I am one of those who willingly evokes the spirits of the past, but I live not in the darkness of the past, but in the harsh light of the present, and Pavlik for me is not a memory, but an accomplice in my life. Sometimes the feeling of his continuing existence in me is so strong that I begin to believe: if your substance has entered the substance of the one who will live after you, then you will not all die. Even if this is not immortality, it is still a victory over death.

190 years ago the most famous poem about friendship was born

I.I. Pushchina

My first friend
my priceless friend!
And I blessed fate
When my yard is secluded,
Covered in sad snow,
Your bell rang.
I pray to Holy Providence:
Yes my voice to your soul
Gives the same consolation
May he illuminate the imprisonment
A ray of lyceum clear days!

Alexander Pushkin 1826

The friends met in Mikhailovskoye at eight o'clock in the morning on January 11 (23rd New Style) 1825 and spent the whole day, evening and part of the night talking.
Pushchin's arrival was a huge event for the disgraced poet. After all, even relatives did not dare to visit the exile; they and Pushchin dissuaded him from the trip.
The unexpected joy of meeting illuminated not only that short January day, but also much that awaited the friends ahead. When, thirty years later, Ivan Ivanovich Pushchin takes up his pen to describe his meeting with Pushkin in Mikhailovsky, every letter in his manuscript will shine with happiness. “Notes about Pushkin” is one of the brightest works created in the memoir genre in Russian.
Shortly before parting, the friends remembered how they talked through a thin wooden partition at the Lyceum. Pushchin had the thirteenth room, Pushkin the fourteenth. It's right in the middle of the long corridor. From a boy’s point of view, the location is advantageous ─ while the tutor is walking from one end or the other, the neighbors will warn you about the danger. But Pushkin and Pushchin had a common window; a partition divided it strictly in half.
Reviews about the lyceum students of the warden Martyn Piletsky have been preserved; this is what he wrote about the 13-year-old Pushchin:

"...Nobility, good nature with courage and subtle ambition, especially prudence ─ are his excellent qualities."

Who could have known then how useful both this courage and this prudence would be to Ivan...
In Mikhailovskoye, the thirteenth number brought the fourteenth three bottles of Clicquot champagne, the manuscript “Woe from Wit,” a letter from Ryleev, gifts from Uncle Vasily Lvovich, a lot of news, and took away the beginning of the poem “Gypsies,” letters... He left after midnight, at three o’clock January 12.

"...The coachman had already harnessed the horses, the bell rang at the porch, the clock struck three. We still clinked glasses, but we drank sadly: as if it felt like we were drinking together for the last time, and that we were drinking into eternal separation! Silently, I threw my fur coat over my shoulders and ran away in the sleigh. Pushkin said something else after me; hearing nothing, I looked at him: he stopped on the porch with a candle in his hand. I heard: “Farewell, friend!” .."

When Pushkin begins to finish writing his message to Pushchin, he will have been in prison for almost a year - first in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and then in the Shlisselburg Fortress. After the verdict, Ivan Pushchin and Wilhelm Kuchelbecker were erased from the “Memorable Book of the Lyceum”, as if they did not exist at all.
In October 1827, Pushchin, shackled in hand and leg shackles, was sent along a convoy to the Chita prison. The journey took three months.

“On the very day of my arrival in Chita, Alexandra Grigorievna Muravyova calls me to the stockade and gives me a piece of paper on which was written in an unknown hand: “My first friend, my priceless friend!”

This was at the beginning of 1828. But Pushchin saw the original poem only in 1842.

Dmitry Shevarov "Motherland", No. 5, 2016

Illustration ─ Nikolay Ge. "Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin in the village of Mikhailovskoye" (1875): Pushkin and Pushchin reading "Woe from Wit."

My first friend, my priceless friend!
And I blessed fate
When my yard is secluded,
Covered in sad snow,
Your bell rang.

Analysis of the poem “I.I. Pushchina" by Pushkin

Pushkin often turned to friends in his work. Among them, the closest was I. I. Pushchin, whom the poet met while studying at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. The young people had similar interests and views on the future of Russia. Pushchin turned out to be one of those who did not lose affection for Pushkin during his exile. In 1825 he visited the great poet in the village. Mikhailovskoe. The poem “I.” is dedicated to the memory of these happy days. I. Pushchin."

It is known that the Decembrists hid plans for an armed uprising from Pushkin, since they did not want to bring suspicion on the poet. They understood the significance of his talent and wanted to preserve it for the future. During his visit to Mikhailovskoye, Pushchin also did not say anything to Pushkin about the upcoming speech. The poet learned about him while still in exile. Pushchin was convicted and sent to settle in Siberia. Pushkin wrote several times to the Tsar asking for a mitigation of his punishment, but was invariably refused. In 1826 he wrote the poem “I. I. Pushchin” and sent him to distant Siberia. The unfortunate convict was very grateful to Pushkin for this literary news.

From the first lines, Pushkin addresses his comrade with very touching words (“first friend”, “priceless friend”). Pushkin was bored and lonely in the village. His only joy was his nanny, Arina Rodionovna. He is eternally grateful to his friend for his visit, which is associated with the ringing of a bell. Russian poets and writers often note the magical sound of a bell, awakening a godforsaken village from hibernation and symbolizing the unexpected arrival of a guest.

Pushkin compares his rural exile with Pushchin’s Siberian imprisonment. He, of course, understands that the size of the punishment is not comparable. But both friends suffered for their sincere convictions, which they formed at the same time during the Lyceum. By reminding Pushchin of the “clear days of the lyceum,” Pushkin emphasizes his unshakable commitment to youthful ideals.

The poet guessed that even close friends were keeping something back. Subsequently, he realized that he could well have shared the fate of the Decembrists. Exile to Mikhailovskoye became an unexpected salvation for the poet, as it made it impossible for him to stay in the capital. The poem "I. I. Pushchin" is also a kind of apology from Pushkin to his friend.