The idea to start the diary came to Chelkaturin on March 20. Soon the rivers will open. Together with the last snow, they will take away his life.
Who should tell their gloomy thoughts in the last hour? Nearby is only the old and narrow-minded Terentyevna. We must at least tell ourselves our own lives, try to understand why we have lived thirty years.
Chelkaturin's parents were quite wealthy landowners. But his father, a passionate player, quickly let everything go, and they only had the village of Sheep Waters, where now their son was dying of consumption in a miserable house.
Mother was a lady with character and overwhelming proud virtue. She suffered family misfortune stoically, but in her humility there was a certain deliberate and reproached others. The boy was alien to her, passionately loved his father, grew up "badly and sadly." Childhood almost left no bright memories.
Moscow, where they moved after the death of their father, did not add impressions. Parental home, university, the life of a petty official, few acquaintances, "pure poverty, humble occupations, moderate desires." Is it worth telling such a life? Life is completely superfluous in the world of man. Chelkaturin himself likes this word. No other conveys so completely the essence of it.
Best of all, the accuracy of the chosen definition of self and fate could be confirmed by one episode of his life. Somehow he had to spend six months in the county town of O., where he met with one of the county’s chief officials, Kirill Matveevich Ozhogin, who had four hundred souls and hosted the best society of the city. He was married, and he had a daughter, Elizaveta Kirillovna, who was very good-natured, lively and gentle. A young man fell in love with her, in fact, it’s very awkward with women, but here he is somehow found and “bloomed with his soul”. For three weeks he was happy with his love, the opportunity to be in a house where the warmth of normal family relationships was felt.
Lisa was not in love with her admirer, but accepted his company. Once, Lisa’s mother, a small official Bezmenkov, Lisa herself and Chelkaturin went to a grove outside the city. Young people enjoyed a quiet evening, opening from the cliffs of the dales and a crimson sunset. The proximity of the man in love with her, the beauty of the environment, the feeling of being full awakened in the seventeen-year-old girl “the quiet fermentation that precedes the transformation of a child into a woman”. And Chelkaturin was a witness to this change. Standing over a cliff, amazed and deeply touched by the beauty revealed to her, she suddenly burst into tears, then was embarrassed for a long time and for the most part was silent. A turning point occurred in her, "she, too, began to wait for something." The young man in love attributed this change to his account: “The misfortune of people who are lonely and timid - from the pride of the timid - consists precisely in the fact that they, having eyes ... see nothing ..."
Meanwhile, a slender, high military man appeared in the city, and then near the Ozhogins - Prince N. He came from St. Petersburg to take recruits. Chelkaturin felt the hostile feeling of a timid dark Muscovite towards a brilliant metropolitan officer, good-looking, clever and self-confident.
Unaccountable hostility grew into alarm, and then into despair, when, left alone in the hall of the Ozhoginsky house, the young man began to look at his vague outlines in the mirror and suddenly saw in the glass how quietly Lisa came in, but, seeing her lover, carefully slipped out away. She clearly did not want to see him.
The next day, Chelkaturin returned to the Ozhogins with the same suspicious, strained man as he had been since childhood and from which he began to get rid of under the influence of feelings. The family gathered in the living room was in the best mood. Prince N. stayed with them all evening yesterday. Hearing this, our hero pouted and assumed the appearance of being offended in order to punish Lisa with his disfavor.
But then the prince appeared again, and by the blush, by the way Lisa's eyes sparkled, it became clear that she passionately fell in love with him. The girl still has not seen anything in her dream at least a little like a brilliant, intelligent, cheerful aristocrat. And he fell in love with her — partly because of nothing to do, partly out of habit of spinning a woman’s head.
By a constantly tense smile, arrogant silence, behind which there was jealousy, envy, a sense of his own insignificance, impotent anger, the prince realized that he was dealing with an eliminated rival. Therefore, he was polite and gentle.
The meaning of what was happening was also clear to those around, and Chelkaturin was spared as a patient. His behavior became more and more unnatural and tense. The prince fascinated everyone with the ability to ignore anyone, and the art of small talk, and playing the piano, and the talent of the draftsman.
Meanwhile, on one of the summer days, the county leader gave a ball. Gathered "the whole county." And all, alas, revolved around his sun - the prince. Lisa felt like the queen of the ball and beloved. Nobody paid attention to the rejected, not noticed even by forty-eight-year-old girls with red acne on Chelkaturin's forehead. But he watched a happy couple, died of jealousy, loneliness, humiliation and exploded, calling the prince an empty St. Petersburg upstart.
The duel took place in the same grove, almost at the very cliff. Chelkaturin easily wounded the prince. He shot into the air, finally crushing the opponent into the ground. The Burns House closed for him. They began to look at the prince as at a groom. But he soon left, without making an offer. Lisa suffered a stoic blow. Chelkaturin was convinced of this by accidentally overhearing her conversation with Bezmenkov. Yes, she knows that everyone is throwing stones at her now, but she will not exchange her misfortune for their happiness. The prince did not love her for long, but he loved her! And now she has memories, and their life is rich in them, she is happy that she was loved and loves. Chelkaturin is disgusting to her.
Two weeks later, Lizaveta Kirillovna married Bezmenkov.
“Well, tell me now, am I not an extra person?” - the author of the diary asks. He is bitter that he is dying deaf, stupid. Farewell to all and forever, goodbye, Lisa!
