The story of the pince-nez is short. Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin “Pince-nez”
Answer from Chris[guru]
The first sentence of M. A. Osorgin’s story “Pince-nez” contains the statement that things “live their own lives.” The writer’s “clock is ticking, he’s sick, he’s coughing,” “the stove is hissing,” “the scissors are screaming.” Osorgin actively uses personification, with the help of which inanimate objects acquire animate qualities. For example, a clock does not go, but walks, just as a cough conveys the chime of a clock. Metaphor is often used, so in Osorgin everyday household things acquire their own special character: “working things,” “democratic glass.” Osorgin sees “something amazing” in jewelry, subtly noticing all the little things, he puts them together, drawing not an object, but a human character.
The history of pince-nez is indicative. The author talks about how things live their own lives, about their intentions and actions. He uses as an example the fact that things are suddenly lost and found just as unexpectedly. This humorous statement is akin to the “law of meanness.” The author talks about the missing pince-nez, which disappeared while reading. Having searched all the pockets, the chair, the book, the whole room and finally the apartment, I still couldn’t find him. But the history of the search for pince-nez has reached spring cleaning, but despite the fact that “the whole apartment was updated and brightened,” it was not possible to find the missing pince-nez. His friend came to the author’s aid and tried to solve this riddle logically by drawing a plan of the room, which he had been thinking about for a long time. However, these thoughts yielded absolutely nothing. The missing pince-nez was found completely unexpectedly, but the fact of its discovery is considered as something completely natural: “you should have seen the face of my pince-nez, returning from a long walk.”
The author treats this subject as an animate being, with its own character, needs, living own life. Like any living creature, pince-nez dies. His death is described by the author according to all the canons of drama: “this pince-nez ended tragically,” breaking into small fragments.
A unique approach to depicting Osorgin’s things makes this story unique and at the same time funny
link
Answer from Akhtos Beytullaev[newbie]
The pince-nez was found a month later, when a new, tight and irritating thing already appeared on the bridge of its owner’s nose. The loss was discovered against the wall, behind the chair. The author asks strange questions, considering that we're talking about about an inanimate object. He asks: “Where have you been?”, “What have you seen?”
The author then describes the find using adjectives that are usually used to describe a person: guilty, pathetic, and so on. The hero of the story punished the “reveler” and forced him to lie on the bookshelf for several hours. And then the pince-nez suddenly fell and broke. The author expresses the hope that this case cannot be considered “suicide.” +
This is the content of the story, which Osorgin dedicated to his pince-nez. Summary(“Brifley” and other Internet resources) can be read for reference. But it is worth remembering that no presentation can replace the original.
Class: 8
Presentation for the lesson
Back forward
Attention! Slide previews are for informational purposes only and may not represent all the features of the presentation. If you are interested in this work, please download the full version.
Lesson objectives. To arouse students’ interest in the work of M.A. Osorgina.
Equipment: interactive whiteboard.
During the classes
I. introduction teachers.
Often we all lack communication, trust, and understanding.
We find ourselves in an atmosphere of relaxed, unartificial conversation thanks to the work of M.A. Osorgina. The author does not invent, does not embellish, but “simply” tells what happened, without literary pretensions.
Much in his stories may seem “naive and sensitive” (in his own words), but the reader is created with a complete illusion of simplicity and truth.
“Love of life” is the author’s only philosophy.
II. Reading an article from O. Avdeeva’s textbook about M.A. Osorgine.
Mikhail Andreevich Ilyin (Osorgin is the writer’s pseudonym) was born in Perm. His memories of childhood were bright, he called on them in the most difficult moments - they helped him live. The kindness of loved ones and the pictures of nature that completely filled the world in his childhood years remained with him forever. The boy fell in love with books early. He was a 7th grade high school student when the magazine “For Everyone” published his story “Father.”
The writer is a big worker. The work for his soul was the implementation of the plan of his first novel “Sivtsev Vrazhek” - about the tragedy of the Russian intelligentsia in difficult, troubled times.
All of Osorgin’s work was permeated by two sincere thoughts: a passionate love for nature and attachment to the world of ordinary, imperceptible things. The second idea formed the basis of the story “Pince-nez”.
Participated in revolutionary activities, was expelled from the country.
III. Work with text.
Mikhail Osorgin's story evokes surprise from the very first question of the author. What is the question?
This is a rhetorical question: “That things live their own special life - who can doubt it?”
What should no one doubt?
Parallel to the life of a person, there is the life of things - active and “animate”.
What does the narrator want to convince us of?
Everyday objects have their own “face”, their own “character”, moreover, they are endowed with “mind”.
IV. Be careful with the word.
Working with slides
“Unusual” life" of things".
Things have human qualities, they are endowed with a sense of humor: “a hanging coat always has a pitiful soul and slight drunkenness”.
…some things have “wanderlust.” Moreover, things have their own social status and political beliefs: “a democratic glass, a reactionary stearin candle, an intellectual thermometer, a loser from the philistines - a handkerchief, an eternally young and fussy gossip - a postage stamp.”
The qualities inherent in objects arise from the similarity of sounds, shapes, and content. Give examples metaphors from the text.
For example, “spread scissors scream” because they resemble a mouth open in a scream; “the clock is walking” is the implementation of the metaphor “the clock is walking”, “the chair is sitting”, because its outline resembles a sitting person, etc.
Conclusion. The entire story is permeated with a sense of humor and filled with the author’s unbridled imagination.
It seems to the reader that the objects Osorgin is talking about exist on their own, regardless of the writer, he is part of this long-vanished beautiful world, recognizes the familiar and the forgotten, lives in it, without looking back at the author. And he stands aside in the modest role of a guide.
What artistic techniques are used to achieve this effect?
Numerous long rows of homogeneous members, appeals to the reader; grammatical - the use of second-person verbs in the present tense (“rummage, search, get angry, ... look, get up, climb, look in”, etc., which achieves the effect of the reader’s presence in the action; intonation (many exclamation marks, interrogative sentences), use of colloquial words, imitation colloquial speech: “the face” of the hat, “a drunken actor”, “little soul”, “an oversight”, “wandering around”, “No-one!”, “And suddenly - once! - and the pencil falls.”
VI. Retelling fragments of text.
What is the history of the pencil? What journeys does he make when people are looking for him?
What happened to the pince-nez? What story happened to him?
Give examples of epithets that serve to animate pince-nez.
There are many expressive epithets in the story: “crystal soul” pince-nez, “pathetic guilty” pince-nez, which “revealed a picture of such slavish humility, such cowardice...”, “spun glass.”
Would it be possible to think that the disappearance of the pince-nez was a manifestation of his individuality?
Things have the right to express their will, to express their individuality.
VII. Develop the gift of words.
/Presentation of works “History of Objects”./
Each of us has things that can disappear without a trace for a while, but then unexpectedly return. In such cases, I wonder: don’t such things have a life of their own? Everything is possible.
I’ll tell you about one of my little things that I pick up a hundred times a day - a mobile phone case. It should be on or near the phone.
When I go to bed, the phone, as usual, lies on the table by the bed, but the case can lie all night in an unknown place. I can look for him all evening without any success, and in the morning, getting ready for school, I can find him without any problems.
But very often, especially in the summer, I leave it somewhere and forget.
One day it happened that I was talking on the phone in the garden, and I put the case in my pocket and lost it. I looked for him for a long time, but did not find him. A week later, leaving the house, I saw him lying on the porch. It turns out that my dog brought it. I don’t even know where he found it.
Another one amazing story happened to my sister. In the fall she bought herself gloves. But soon she lost her left glove. She put the second one at home. A lot of time passed, my sister bought the same pair of gloves.
One winter, returning home from school, she saw a glove hanging on a tree branch. It was her! That lost glove! Where was she all this time and how did she return to her owner?
The story of an old textbook
I am an old and wise Textbook and have seen a lot in my time. Throughout my life I have met many guys. Communication with them left me with either warm memories or unpleasant marks.
For example, when I lived with Nadya, I always felt comfortable and good, because she rarely took me out of the shelf, and even more rarely opened it. My pages then were clean, white, and the cover was bright and colorful.
Artyom communicated with me much more often than Nadya. He carried me to school in a big beautiful backpack, where my book friends lay nearby. To prevent us from rubbing against each other and to prevent our roots from being torn off, the boy dressed us in bright, elegant covers from the very beginning of the school year. We felt fashionable and beautiful.
And then a dark streak came in my life. I fell into the hands of the book villain Andrei. What have I not experienced! It was terrible! Andrey tried to redraw my inserts with reproductions in his own way famous paintings, took me with dirty, sticky hands, and sometimes even tore out sheets of paper from me and made airplanes. I was especially shocked by Andrei’s attempt to convince his friend of something: he hit him on the head with me! From such a strong blow I almost crumbled into all the leaves!
Now I’m standing in the library: I’ve become old, they won’t let anyone take me, I can only use it in the reading room. And rightly so, I feel calmer this way.
We are surrounded a large number of various items. Often in Everyday life we don't pay much attention to them. But sometimes I began to notice that the things around me had their own lives, independent of people. They disappear and reappear whenever they please. This happens to me very often.
I have a disc on which I recorded my favorite songs. And one day I wanted to listen to him. I was surprised when I didn’t find it in its usual place. It usually sits on a shelf next to the computer along with other drives. But this time he wasn't there. Maybe I just didn’t see it among all the other discs. I looked more closely, but didn't find him. It wasn't in my room either. I started to panic. Where could I put it? I searched the whole house for the disk, but it was still nowhere to be found. After unsuccessful searches, I got busy with more important things, and for some time I even forgot about the disk.
One day, on a day off, I was cleaning the house, and by chance my gaze fell on the shelf where the disk usually lay. He, as if nothing had happened, lay in the very place where he was supposed to lie. I was glad that he had finally been found, but it became unclear to me why I had not seen him earlier. I started thinking, what if all things live “their own” life? And we people simply don’t notice this. We think that we moved things somewhere else or gave them to someone else to use and simply forgot about it. But, nevertheless, things continue to exist separately from us. They get lost and find themselves again whenever they want.
Lesson summary.
How does the story combine the real and the fantastic? Give examples.
All objects described by Osorgin are real. It is also true that some objects often disappear and are suddenly found in the most amazing places. It’s fantastic that objects live a completely independent life, have soul, character, mood, and a thirst for travel. The author's imagination endows things with human qualities.
The first sentence of M. A. Osorgin’s story “Pince-nez” contains the statement that things “live their own lives.” The writer “walks for hours, gets sick, coughs.” “The stove hisses.” "The scissors are screaming." Osorgin actively uses personification, with the help of which inanimate objects acquire animate qualities.
For example, a clock does not go, but walks, just as a cough conveys the chime of a clock. Metaphor is often used, so in Osorgin everyday household things acquire their own special character: “cloth workers.” "democratic glass"
Osorgin sees “something amazing” in jewelry, subtly noticing all the little things, he puts them together, no longer drawing an object, but a human character.
The history of pince-nez is indicative. The author talks about how things live their own lives, about their intentions and actions. He uses as an example the fact that things are suddenly lost and found just as unexpectedly. This humorous statement is akin to the “law of meanness.” The author talks about the missing pince-nez, which disappeared while reading. Having searched all the pockets, the chair, the book, the whole room and finally the apartment, I still couldn’t find him. But the history of the search for pince-nez has reached the point of general cleaning,
But despite the fact that “the whole apartment has been updated and brightened.” The missing pince-nez was never found.
His friend came to the author’s aid and tried to solve this riddle logically by drawing a plan of the room, which he had been thinking about for a long time. However, these thoughts yielded absolutely nothing. The missing pince-nez was found completely unexpectedly, but the fact of its discovery is considered as something completely natural: “you should have seen the face of my pince-nez, returning from a long walk.”
The author treats this subject as an animate being, with its own character, needs, living its own life. Like any living creature, pince-nez dies. His death is described by the author according to all the canons of drama: “this pince-nez ended tragically.” breaking into small fragments.
Essays on topics:
- The story "The Gifts of the Magi" was written back in 1906. A little more than a hundred years have passed since then. During this time...
- The story begins like this: “I was brought to the hospital with typhoid fever.” The hero came across “some special hospital”, where he did not like it...
- K. Paustovsky - the story “Meshcherskaya Side”. Nature for K. Paustovsky is not only beautiful pictures of fields, hills, rivers and...
- The main character of the story - a weirdo, with whom something constantly happens - is going to the Urals, to visit his brother, who has been missing for twelve years...
M. A. Osorgin “Pince-nez”
Lesson Objectives: briefly introduce the biography and work of Osorgin; develop expressive reading skills and text analysis.
Method. techniques: teacher's story, conversation on centuries, expressive reading, elements of text analysis.
Equipment: presentation
During the classes
Conversation on the article on p. 131 -132.
Osorgin made the work of biographers easier: he himself spoke about his life in the book “Times”, written at the end of his life, IN DOZENS OF ESSAYS.
Osorgin is a pseudonym. Ilyin belonged to one of the ancient noble families.
In 1897 he entered law school. Fak. Moscow. Uni is the same. Advocate. Practice.
But legal. the field was not Mikhail Andreevich’s calling. His “dream road” is l–ra. Since his high school years he has been published in newspapers.
In the essay “The Year 905” (1930), he recalls that it was not so much himself that was a participant in the revolution, but his apartment: revolutionaries were hiding here, it was kept illegally. l-ra, weapons.
Osorgin was sentenced to 3 years of exile in the Tomsk region. In May 1906, he miraculously found himself free. At first he hid near Moscow, then he moved to Finland, and then ended up in Italy, at Villa Maria - in the shelter of many Russian political emigrants.
For 10 years in the newspaper “Russian Vedomosti” in Italy. Over 10 years, more than 400 Osorgin materials appeared in this newspaper alone: reports. Articles, essays about various aspects of life in Italy, a country that he later called “ the novel of my youth»
In these same years. are printed in “Russian Messenger” stories “Emigrant”, “My Daughter”, “Ghosts”, “Old Villa”. In their heroes it is not difficult to guess the author himself. This is an emigrant who bitterly doubts the ghostly business that crippled his fate.
In 1916 he returned to his homeland. February revolution. I received it enthusiastically. the main task Osorgin the publicist at that time - not to lose the gains of the revolution. Do not allow bloodshed to occur.
Mikhail Andreevich, together with other authors, participates in the creation and operation of the Writers' Book Shop in Moscow. It became not just a second-hand bookstore, but a meeting place for writers and readers. Here writers could also sell handwritten books - after all, there was nowhere to publish them.
In the fall of 1922, together with other writers and scientists, Osorgin was expelled from the country on the “philosophical ship”.Formally for 3 years, but with a verbal explanation: “That is, forever.” ("Philosophical Ship" - government campaignon the expulsion of Russian intellectuals disliked by the authorities abroad in September and November. commented on this action: “We expelled these people because there was no reason to shoot them, and it was impossible to tolerate ».
“Philosophical steamer” in the narrow sense is a collective name for two voyages of German passenger ships “Oberbürgermeister Haken” (September 29-30) and “Prussia” (November 16-17), delivering from V more than 160 people. Expulsions were also carried out on ships from And and by train from Moscow to Latvia and Germany. Among those expelled in the summer-autumn of 1922 (abroad and to remote areas of the country), the highest percentage were university teachers and, in general, people in the humanitarian professions. Out of 225 people: doctors - 45, professors, teachers - 41, economists, agronomists, cooperators - 30, writers - 22, lawyers - 16, engineers - 12, politicians- 9, religious figures - 2, students - 34.
In 2003, a memorial sign was installed on the Lieutenant Schmidt embankment in St. Petersburg. Inscription on a granite parallelepiped: “From this embankment in the fall of 1922, outstanding figures of Russian philosophy, culture and science went into forced emigration / The memorial sign was installed under the care of the St. Petersburg Philosophical Society / 11/15/2003
He lived in Berlin, traveled to Italy, gave lectures there, and worked on stories. Osorgin’s artistic talent was revealed precisely in the West - “there was no time to write in Russia. But almost all the books he wrote are about Russia. Themes, ideas, images - everything comes from there.
Osorgin spent most of the year on his property near Paris - closer to the land, a passionate craving for which he carried throughout his life. His “garden” notes compiled the book “Incidents of the Green World” (1938) - a real hymn to the earth and its dumb inhabitants.
In Paris, Osorgin grew not only into a major writer, but also into a deep, original thinker. He thought a lot about the fate of Russia and Europe, fascism and communism, and saw the contradictions of contemporary life. Literary scholars noted that he “ love for language and history combined with love for people».
With the outbreak of World War II, Osrgin and his wife were forced to leave Paris. He settled in the town of Chabris. And when they returned, they found the apartment sealed, the library and archives taken away.
Many times he asked Gorky to publish in Russia: “It’s an unbearable shame not to be read at all... in his homeland.” And further: " My happiness is not that this is her future.”.
Now Osorgin’s books are returning to the reader. Today we are going to get acquainted with his story “Pince-nez”
Conversation on the story "Pince-nez"
Page 137 Textbook questions.
Additional centuries:
Did you like the story? Did he help you think about familiar objects in a special way, as animate objects endowed with intelligence?
personifications. Things live their own way. An independent life that does not depend on a person:
- « the clock is ticking, sick, coughing,”
- “the stove thinks”(the stove was heated with wood and was quite large in size. The wood crackled, the flame hummed with different voltages, creating the impression of the mental work of a large important person after throwing in suitable ideas (firewood),
- “the sealed letter winks and draws” (The letters were, as a rule, handwritten, with a peculiar handwriting, which still had to be deciphered, to understand its “style”, “character” (“is drawn”); opening and closing the envelope, one can imagine a winking eye.,
- “the spread scissors are screaming” (if you look at the spread scissors from the side “in profile”, you get the impression of an open mouth. Well, since the mouth is so large compared to other parts of the body and is open wide and long, then it must definitely “scream »,
- “the chair is sitting”(the narrator is referring to squat chairs with a thick back and seat. They were wide and clumsy and could give the impression of tired fat guys, especially since they could be completely occupied by just such guys ,
- “books breathe, speak, echo on the shelves» (when you shake off the dust or turn over the pages. They “breathe.” On the shelves, when there are a lot of them, it gives the impression of a multi-story building, where sociable neighbors constantly call to each other from open windows and from balconies. Depending on their size, they orate , that is, they broadcast something, complete importance from their size and the knowledge stored in them, or they simply call out to each other
Things are inherent human qualities, they are endowed with a sense of humor:
- « the hat imitates its owner»,
- « She has her own face, like a drunken actor.”
- “teapot – “good-natured comedian”,
- “a hanging coat always has a pitiful soul and slight drunkenness”,
- some things have wanderlust.
Little of, things even have social status And political beliefs:
«
democratic glass"
"reactive stearic suppository"
"intelligent thermometer"
“a loser from the philistines - a handkerchief»
“the forever young fussy gossip is a postage stamp.”
The qualities inherent in objects arise from similarity of sounds, shapes, content.
For example, " spread scissors scream "because they resemble the one revealed in the ike mouth;
« the clock is ticking" - implementation of the metaphor "the clock is ticking"; (At that time there were only mechanical watches; in a large mechanism - especially if it was a wall one - the second hand could click loudly (“ are walking")
« chair sitting", because its outline resembles a sitting person, etc.
The whole story is permeated with feeling humor, filled unrestrained fantasy author.
Find other bad techniques in the story, determine their role
Syntactic techniques:
A rhetorical question: " that things live their own special lives - who doubts?»;
Numerous long rows of homogeneous members
Appeals to the reader
Grammatical - the use of verbs 2nd person in the present tense (“ fumble, search, get angry... look, get up, climb, look etc.), which achieves the effect of the reader’s presence in the action;
Intonation (many exclamation marks, interrogative sentences), use of colloquial words, imitation of colloquial speech: “ face» hats « bogus actor», « little soul», « an oversight”, “wandered around”, “No way!”, “And suddenly - once! – and the pencil falls" etc.
The story contains many expressive epithets that serve to animate objects: “ crystal soul"pince-nez, " pathetic, guilty"pince-nez, which " showed a picture of such slavish humility, such cowardice…»: « spree glass pieces" etc.)
Retelling the text.
What is the history of the pencil? What journeys does he make when he is looking for him?
What happened to the pince-nez? What happened to him?
Is it possible to think that the disappearance of the pince-nez was a manifestation of his individuality?
Lesson summary. How does the story combine the real and the fantastic? Give examples.
All items, described by Osorgin, are real
It is also true that some items are often disappear and suddenly are in the most amazing places.
Fantastic that objects live completely independent life, have soul, character, mood, traction To travel. The author's imagination endows things with human qualities.
Which of the writers of the 8th century did you use the techniques that are in Osorgin’s story?
Loved using this technique Chekhov. The state of the hero in the story "Three years" conveys an extremely expressive external detail: « At home, he saw an umbrella on a chair, forgotten by Yulia Sergeevna, grabbed it and kissed it greedily. The umbrella was silk, no longer new, secured with an old elastic band; the handle was simple. white bone, cheap. Laptev opened his cash with him, and it seemed to him that there was even a smell of happiness around him»
It’s very interesting to use this technique Gogol("Dead Souls"
D. z. Make up a story about something
That things live their own special lives - who doubts? The clock is walking, sick, coughing, the stove is thinking, the sealed letter is winking and drawing, the spread scissors are screaming, the chair is sitting, accurately copying the old fat uncle, the books are breathing, speaking, calling to each other on the shelves. A hat hanging on a nail certainly imitates its owner, but it has its own face, that of a drunken actor. A hanging coat always has a pitiful soul and slight drunkenness. Something parasitic is felt in the ring and especially in the earrings - and they are treated with noticeable contempt by hard-working things: a democratic glass, a reactionary stearin candle, an intellectual thermometer, a loser from the philistine - a handkerchief, an eternally young and fussy gossip - - Postage Stamp.Only a completely insensitive person can deny that the teapot, this good-natured comedian, is a living being; namely the teapot, since the coffee pot, for example, lives a life less individual and noticeable.
But I have always been especially fascinated by one curious feature in the life of things - not all, but some. This is wanderlust. These are: a box of matches, a pencil, a cigarette holder, a comb, a neck cufflink, and a few more. Having carefully and lovingly studied their lives for many years, I first assumed, and later became convinced, that these things go out for a walk from time to time - for a minute, for an hour, sometimes for a very long time. There are historical cases (the seven-branched candlestick, the blue diamond, the historical work of Titus Livius, etc.), but human will, chance, and malicious intent are partly involved in such disappearances; Using the example of small things, it is easier to establish complete independence of actions.
Usually we explain such disappearances either by our absent-mindedness, or by someone else’s carelessness, and often by theft. I used to think so myself, and if it had not occurred to me to observe the life of things without a preconceived idea of their passivity and “inanimateness,” I would still think so elementary.
Everyone who reads in bed knows how persistently a pencil, a cutting knife, or a box of matches gets “lost” in the folds of the blanket. With a familiar gesture, you place a pencil on the blanket. A minute later - there is no pencil. You fumble, search, get angry: no and no. You pull back the sheets, look under the pillow, on the rug, on the table: it’s nowhere. You get up grumbling, climb into your shoes, look under the bed, find matches, a cufflink, an open letter - but there is no pencil. Shivering from the cold, you trudge to the table, take another pencil (usually it turns out to be unrepaired), fix it, and return. Having tucked a blanket under you to keep warm, you finally pick up the book, put aside because there was nothing to mark the right place with. You open the book - there is a pencil in it.
It is clear that he himself could not get into it, but it is no less clear that you did not put him there, could not put him.
Usually people pass by such facts without attaching any importance to them. In vain! Take a closer look, and a whole new world things living parallel to the life we imagined for them.
I remember an amazing incident with my pince-nez: a simple pince-nez, without a frame - two glasses and a light bow.
Sitting in a chair against the wall, I read; At the next chapter I wanted to wipe the glass, took out a handkerchief, and suddenly the pince-nez disappeared. Experienced in these matters, I searched not only all the pockets, the folds of clothing, the cracks in the chair, the small table nearby, the pages of the book - absolutely everything. The pince-nez was nowhere to be found; It couldn’t have happened before, since I’m very far-sighted and can’t read fine print without glass.
Don’t think that my pince-nez was on my nose; in such cases, I first of all feel the bridge of my nose; there were two fresh pits on it - and nothing more. I pushed back the chair, examined all the tassels and buttons on it, which Kozma Prutkov said were invented by the stupidest man in the world - and everything was fruitless.
It was so monstrous and ridiculous that I undressed, shook out my clothes, and swept the parquet floor myself from the wall to the very middle of the room. Doubting myself, I searched the desk in the next room, looked at the coat rack, shyly glanced at the bathroom - all in vain.
Then I remembered that I clearly heard the sound of the pince-nez falling; I was also glad that - judging by the sound - it did not break. And so I crawl along the floor again, look from the side, look from below, look from above, stamp my feet - just to crush him, damn it, and finally calm down. No way!
And so it disappeared - like a failure. But there was not a single crack in the parquet.
A week or more has passed. I did not forget about this incident and talked about it many times, showing the scene of the incident. As usual, the skeptics laughed, the practitioners felt the chair and inspected the floor, the servants wiped all the objects with a cloth, swept away all the dust particles and even washed the back staircase (to the next floor). The whole apartment was updated, freshened up - but there were no pince-nez.
One of my friends, interested in the case, wanted to get to the solution inductively. He wrote down the number of the pince-nez, drew a plan of the room, noting the arranged furniture, asked if there was a monkey, a cat or a magpie in my apartment, where I had spent the evening the previous day - and spent the whole day thinking, using mainly the method of elimination. In the evening, giving me his hand incredulously and unfriendly, he left. His wife later said that he moaned all night. Previously, he was a calm person, of moderate political convictions, and an expert in Spanish literature.
And so one day I was sitting in the same chair by the same wall, only with a different book, as usual, marking out with a pencil the smartest and most stupid places. On my nose I already had another pince-nez, new, tight, irritating. And suddenly - once! - and the pencil falls. Frightened (not joking! This is a most curious mental experience!), I rush after him. For some reason it seemed to me that the pencil should disappear without a trace. But he lay calmly against the wall, and... next to him, quietly, tightly pressed upright to the wall, two glasses with a thin bow flashed.
You can, of course, laugh and claim that I am blind (this is not true! I am farsighted, but I see perfectly well), that all my friends are blind, the servants who swept every inch of the floor every day are blind, that this is just a funny incident, and so on. A realistically thinking person has a ready answer to everything. But you had to see the face of my pince-nez, returning from a long walk, to understand that this was not an accident or an oversight.
Still gleaming with cloudy, dusty glass, pitiful, guilty, as if pressed into the wall, it showed a picture of such slavish humility, such cowardice, as if it were not it that was the rider of my nose, as if it were not I without it, but it could not exist without me.
Where has it been? What has it seen (in an exaggerated form, of course!)? And how can we explain such a strange attachment of things to a person, forcing them to return, even if they managed to so cleverly deceive his vigilance?
All these questions are difficult to answer. But that my pince-nez walked, and walked for a long time, to the point of exhaustion, satiety and terrible mental fatigue - I, a witness of his return, cannot doubt this.
I punished the reveler severely. I made it stand against the wall for several more hours, showed it to the servants and acquaintances, from whom, however, I heard nothing but flat rationalistic arguments about how it “strangely fell.” Really strange! For some reason this never happens to people!
An acquaintance of mine, an expert in Spanish literature, later brought it to my attention that a mistake had been made in the chain of his logical reasoning: he was looking for a pince-nez, like a flat object (?!), only in two dimensions, whereas it turned out to be precisely in the third. In my opinion, this is nonsense.
By the way, this pince-nez ended tragically. That same evening, taking down a dusty folder of manuscripts from the top shelf, I sneezed; The pince-nez fell flat on the floor and broke into tiny fragments.
Let it be an accident - it’s easier for me to think that way. I was deeply upset if there were objective data to consider this “case” a suicide. And what could prompt this essentially crystalline soul to take a fatal step? Walking around the world? A view of the world exaggerated by one diopter? Or the public shame with which I framed the return of my spree glass pieces?
I feel sorry for the poor thing! We lived together for a long time and together read many good and stupid books, in which passions, reason, and consciousness of actions are attributed to people, while things are denied the right to the slightest expression of will, to the smallest manifestation of individuality.
- The most unusual space objects (6 photos) The most famous space objects
- Interesting facts about the dish
- What is Martini made from: production technology and composition What is the difference between the composition of different types of Martini
- Brodsky Joseph - biography Joseph Brodsky biography and personal