Karamzin is his work poor Lisa. Poor Lisa (story)

Retelling plan

1. Lisa's life in her mother's house.
2. Lisa meets Erast.
3. A young man comes to Lisa’s house.
4. Experiences of the heroes.
5. Heroes begin to meet every day.
6. Erast deprives Lisa of her innocence, and his attitude towards her changes.
7. Lisa meets Erast in Moscow and learns that he is to marry a rich widow.
8. Lisa's suicide.
9. The death of the girl’s mother from grief. Erast's pangs of conscience.

Retelling

Lisa lived with her old mother in a hut near a birch grove. Her father was a fairly wealthy villager, but after his death, Lisa and her mother had to rent out the land. The rental income was very small, so Lisa knitted and embroidered bedspreads and napkins, and then sold them. In the summer she also picked flowers and berries and sold them in Moscow. Her mother only dreamed of giving her daughter to a good man, then she could die in peace.

One day Lisa went into town with a bouquet of lilies of the valley. A young, well-dressed man approached her. Instead of five kopecks, he offered her a ruble, but Lisa did not take too much. Then the young man asked her not to sell flowers to anyone but him, to find out where she lived. Lisa really liked this young man. She told her mother about him, but the old woman asked her to be careful, since there are many evil people in the world who could harm the poor honest girl.

The next day, Lisa again went to Moscow with lilies of the valley, but that man did not appear. Then Lisa threw flowers into the river with the words: “No one can own you!”

The next day Lisa sat by the window and spinned. Looking out the window, she suddenly saw that young man again. He looked at her with adoration. He had such a kind face that Lisa’s mother could not think anything bad about him. He asked for milk, and while Lisa ran to the cellar, her mother told the stranger about her husband and his death. After this, the stranger asked that Lisa sell her work only to him, and then he would be able to come to them, and the girl would not have to leave her mother for a long time. In parting, the stranger said his name: Erast. After he left, Liza’s mother began to dream of such a husband for her daughter, only that he would turn out to be a simple man, and not as noble as their guest.

Erast was indeed a very rich young man, and at the same time kind, but weak and flighty. “He led an absent-minded life, thought only about his own pleasure, looked for it in secular amusements, but did not find it.” In Lisa he saw the embodiment of what he read about in novels and idylls. He decided to leave the big light for a while.

After meeting with him, Lisa did not sleep all night. The next day she went for a walk, saw a shepherd and began to dream that Erast was the same simple shepherd. If he were like that, he could walk up to her, take her hand and make her his wife. At that moment, the boat in which Erast was sitting moored to the shore. He approached Lisa and took her hand, kissed her and confessed his love. They began to meet every evening, but Lisa did not tell her mother anything. “All the brilliant amusements of the great world seemed insignificant to Erast in comparison with the pleasures with which the passionate friendship of an innocent soul nourished his heart.” He decided that he would live with Lisa like brother and sister, and would never use her love for evil. Several weeks passed like this.

One evening Lisa told Erast that her mother wanted to marry her to the son of a rich peasant. She does not agree to such a marriage, but only feels very sorry for her mother. “She threw herself into his arms - and at that hour her integrity had to perish.” Lisa did not understand her feelings, and Erast did not know what to tell her. Suddenly lightning flashed in the sky, and Lisa decided that this was a bad sign. Since then, their relationship has changed. “For Erast, Lisa was no longer that angel of purity that had previously inflamed his imagination and soul.” If before their feelings were something new for him, now he received what he had already had so many times. Now they didn't see each other every day. And then one day Erast said that he needed to go to war, and if he did not do this, then his name would be covered with shame. Lisa cried, she even wanted to go with him, but then she remembered her old mother and stayed.

Two months later, Lisa went to Moscow and saw Erast there. She rushed to him, but he took her to his office and said that everything was over between them. He still loves her, but duty forces him to marry another woman. It turns out that Erast did not fight in the war, but played cards and lost almost all of his fortune. Now he needs to marry a rich old widow who has been in love with him for a long time. Lisa came to her senses only on the street. She decided that he kicked her out because now he loves someone else. With such thoughts, she left the city and found herself on the shore of the pond, where she had previously met her lover. There she met her friend, gave her the money and told her to take it to Lisa’s mother, and tell her that she loved one person who betrayed her, and now she has no reason to live. With these words she rushed into the pond. When they came running from the village to pull her out, she was already dead.

The old woman could not bear such grief and also died.” Erast was not happy until the end of his life. When he learned about Lisa's fate, he decided that he was her killer. A year before his death, he met the narrator and told him this sad story.

Poor Lisa (story)

History of creation and publication

Plot

After the death of her father, a “prosperous villager,” young Lisa is forced to work tirelessly to feed herself and her mother. In the spring, she sells lilies of the valley in Moscow and there she meets the young nobleman Erast, who falls in love with her and is even ready to leave the world for the sake of his love. The lovers spend all evenings together, sharing a bed. However, with the loss of innocence, Lisa lost her attractiveness for Erast. One day he reports that he must go on a campaign with the regiment and they will have to part. A few days later, Erast leaves.

Several months pass. Liza, once in Moscow, accidentally sees Erast in a magnificent carriage and finds out that he is engaged (he lost his estate at cards and is now forced to marry a rich widow). In despair, Lisa throws herself into the pond.

Artistic originality

Simonov Monastery

The plot of the story was borrowed by Karamzin from European love literature, but transferred to “Russian” soil. The author hints that he is personally acquainted with Erast (“I met him a year before his death. He himself told me this story and led me to Lisa’s grave”) and emphasizes that the action takes place in Moscow and its environs, describes, for example , Simonov and Danilov monasteries, Vorobyovy Gory, creating the illusion of authenticity. This was an innovation for Russian literature of that time: usually the action of works took place “in one city.” The first readers of the story perceived Lisa's story as a real tragedy of a contemporary - it is no coincidence that the pond under the walls of the Simonov Monastery was named Liza's Pond, and the fate of Karamzin's heroine received a lot of imitations. The oak trees growing around the pond were covered with inscriptions - touching ( “In these streams, poor Lisa passed away her days; If you are sensitive, passer-by, sigh!”) and caustic ( “Here Erast’s bride threw herself into the pond. Drown yourself, girls: there’s plenty of room in the pond!”) .

However, despite the apparent plausibility, the world depicted in the story is idyllic: the peasant woman Liza and her mother have sophistication of feelings and perceptions, their speech is literate, literary and no different from the speech of the nobleman Erast. The life of poor villagers resembles a pastoral:

Meanwhile, a young shepherd was driving his flock along the river bank, playing the pipe. Lisa fixed her gaze on him and thought: “If the one who now occupies my thoughts was born a simple peasant, a shepherd, - and if he were now driving his flock past me: ah! I would bow to him with a smile and say affably: “Hello, dear shepherd!” Where are you driving your flock? And here green grass grows for your sheep, and here flowers grow red, from which you can weave a wreath for your hat.” He would look at me with an affectionate look - maybe he would take my hand... A dream! A shepherd, playing the flute, passed by and disappeared with his motley flock behind a nearby hill.

The story became an example of Russian sentimental literature. In contrast to classicism with its cult of reason, Karamzin affirmed the cult of feelings, sensitivity, compassion: “Ah! I love those objects that touch my heart and make me shed tears of tender sorrow!” . Heroes are important first of all for their ability to love and surrender to feelings. There is no class conflict in the story: Karamzin sympathizes equally with both Erast and Lisa. In addition, unlike the works of classicism, “Poor Liza” is devoid of morality, didacticism, and edification: the author does not teach, but tries to evoke empathy for the characters in the reader.

The story is also distinguished by its “smooth” language: Karamzin abandoned Old Slavonicisms and pomposity, which made the work easy to read.

Criticism about the story

“Poor Liza” was received by the Russian public with such enthusiasm because in this work Karamzin was the first to express the “new word” that Goethe said to the Germans in his “Werther.” The heroine’s suicide was such a “new word” in the story. The Russian public, accustomed in old novels to consoling endings in the form of weddings, who believed that virtue is always rewarded and vice is punished, met for the first time in this story the bitter truth of life.

"Poor Lisa" in art

In painting

Literary reminiscences

Dramatizations

Film adaptations

• 1967 - “Poor Liza” (television play), directed by Natalya Barinova, David Livnev, starring: Anastasia Voznesenskaya, Andrei Myagkov.
• - “Poor Lisa”, director Idea Garanina, composer Alexey Rybnikov
• - “Poor Lisa”, directed by Slava Tsukerman, starring Irina Kupchenko, Mikhail Ulyanov.

Literature

• Toporov V. N.“Poor Liza” by Karamzin: Reading experience: To the bicentenary of its publication. - Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities, 1995.

Notes

Links

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

See what “Poor Lisa (story)” is in other dictionaries:

POOR LISA- Story by N.M. Karamzin. Written in 1792 and then published in the Moscow Journal, which was published by the writer himself. The plot of the story, which had been reproduced many times before in European bourgeois drama of the 18th century, is simple. This is a love story... ... Linguistic and regional dictionary

Cover of one of Leo Tolstoy's stories. The story is a prose genre that does not have a stable volume and occupies an intermediate place between the novel, on the one hand ... Wikipedia

The request "Karamzin" is redirected here; see also other meanings. Nikolai Karamzin ... Wikipedia

1790 1791 1792 1793 1794 See also: Other events in 1792 Contents 1 Events 2 Prizes ... Wikipedia

Historiographer, b. December 1, 1766, d. May 22, 1826 He belonged to a noble family, descended from the Tatar Murza, named Kara Murza. His father, a Simbirsk landowner, Mikhail Egorovich, served in Orenburg under I. I. Neplyuev and ... Large biographical encyclopedia

Nikolai Mikhailovich (1766 1826) an outstanding writer and literary figure, the head of Russian sentimentalism (see). R. and grew up on the estate of his father, an average Simbirsk nobleman, a descendant of the Tatar Murza Kara Murza. He studied with a village sexton, later... ... Literary encyclopedia

Karamzin Nikolai Mikhailovich - .… … Dictionary of the Russian language of the 18th century

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin (1766-1826) greatly influenced the development of Russian literature, transforming the Russian language, freeing it from complex Latin constructions and Slavicisms, bringing it closer to living human speech.

Features of sentimentalism

The writer’s creativity cultivates feelings, calls for kindness and mercy. This is how a new direction in Russian literature was born - sentimentalism, which assigned the main role to the inner world of man.

Perhaps today the work “Poor Liza” seems somewhat distant from life, and the feelings of the characters seem unnatural. However, it should be remembered that Karamzin worked in And the work “Poor Liza,” written in 1792, served as a source of inspiration for subsequent Russian writers, being an excellent example of this genre. Sentimentalism is characterized by acute conflicts, often leading to the death of the hero, and “Poor Lisa” is no exception. The death of the girl shocks and makes many generations of readers empathize.

New name

In addition to a new genre, Karamzin gave our country a new name and made it popular. Translated, Elizabeth means “who worships God.” This was the name of the mother of the wife of the high priest Aaron. This name was practically not found among Russian writers until the 80s of the 18th century. It is worth noting that in European literature this name was often associated with the image of a maid, a servant, usually frivolous and flirtatious, and was used mainly in comedies. The image of Lisa in the story of the work (read below), however, does not follow this tradition. Breaking the usual framework of the meaning of the word, Karamzin also broke with classicism and its established definitions.

The image of Lisa in the story “Poor Lisa” played an important role in the development of Russian literature as a whole, so I would like to dwell on it in more detail. You will see that she was a strong character, not at all the way European authors are used to portraying her. We propose to consider the image of Lisa in the story “Poor Lisa” with quotes and a summary of the work.

Characters, plot

But first, let us indicate the other characters in the story and briefly describe its main events. In addition to the peasant woman Lisa, the main characters include: her mother, Erast and the narrator. The plot of the work is generally not new: a man seduces a young girl and then abandons her. However, this story had its own characteristics. The author described a situation typical for Russia in the 18th century: a nobleman, a landowner, knowing his impunity and taking advantage of it, seduces a peasant woman, a young girl. What is striking about this story is that at that time, in this situation, society did not at all seek to condemn the landowner, and in any case the truth was on his side.

Already in the title one can guess the attitude of the author himself towards his heroine: he calls Lisa poor.

First meeting with the heroine

The story begins with a description of Moscow, where some events subsequently take place, and also in the vicinity of which the heroine was subsequently buried.

For the first time on the pages of the work, the author describes Lisa to us through the eyes of the narrator. When talking about her, he uses many epithets (“dear,” “beautiful,” etc.), so that the reader may even get the idea that the narrator loved Lisa. However, the ending of the story makes it clear that he simply feels sorry for her. It should be noted that in this story the narrator expresses the attitude of the author himself towards his heroine. Why does Karamzin love and feel sorry for Liza?

Lisa's past

Let's turn to the heroine's past and briefly describe the image of Lisa in the story "Poor Lisa". This girl is a peasant by birth, lives in a poor hut with her old mother. When our heroine was 15 years old, her father, a “wealthy villager,” died, and after his death the family became poor and was forced to rent out the land for a very small fee. Due to poor health, her mother was unable to work, and Lisa had to work very hard to somehow feed herself and her mother. The girl was engaged in various crafts - she knitted stockings, weaved canvas, collected and sold flowers in Moscow in the spring, and berries in the summer. We don’t know Lisa personally yet, but we already understand that she is selfless, ready to make sacrifices for the sake of her loved ones, and hardworking.

Lisa's character

As the plot develops, the character of the main character, the image of Lisa in the story “Poor Lisa” by N. M. Karamzin, is revealed. Poor Lisa is a very attractive heroine. We understand that this is a pure and deep soul with a receptive and soft heart. Lisa was often sad about her father’s death, but she tried not to show it to her mother and tried to appear “calm and cheerful.” The girl is timid and shy by nature. When she first met Erast, she “showed him the flowers and blushed.”

This is the image of Lisa in the story "Poor Lisa". The plan of this image is complemented by one more detail. It is necessary to note the honesty of the heroine. When Erast wanted to buy flowers from her and offered a ruble instead of five kopecks, she said that she didn’t want anything extra. Lisa is naive, sometimes to the extreme: she immediately tells a complete stranger where she lives.

Main character's speech

Analyzing this, we can say that the image of Liza in the story “Poor Liza” was not worked out carefully enough: her speech is sometimes not like that of a peasant woman, but like that of a girl from high society. It is clear that an uneducated simple girl simply could not express herself like that. Despite this, the image of Lisa in the story “Poor Liza” by Karamzin is considered the first image of a woman from the lower class in Russian literature. The depiction of a girl from the people in the 18th century was very progressive and atypical, especially as the heroine of a romance novel. Karamzin put a deep meaning into the image of Liza in the story “Poor Liza”: before God and love there are no classes, all people are equal, “and peasant women know how to love.”

Later, A.S. Pushkin, in his work “The Young Lady-Peasant Woman,” continued this theme, but it was Karamzin who first introduced it into literature.

A new attitude towards women

Another innovation of the writer was his attitude towards women. After all, in the 18th century she was considered lower than a man, she had no freedom. A woman could not love whoever she wanted; her parents were looking for a chosen one for her daughter. Of course, in such a situation it was rare to meet happy married couples. Those who tried to love against the will of their parents were disgraced in the eyes of society; such love was considered immoral. The image of Lisa in the story “Poor Lisa” by N. M. Karamzin clearly shows this. Later, the theme was developed by other writers, in particular Ostrovsky.

Lisa's crime was that she dared to fall in love contrary to public opinion. And Russian peasant women have always been able to love passionately, ardently and forever. Refusing to marry a rich peasant son from a neighboring village, Lisa devoted herself entirely to her lover.

Erast's betrayal

But Erast turned out to be a scoundrel, abandoning Lisa. The heroine only accidentally finds out about his betrayal. Having gone to Moscow to buy rose water, she accidentally runs into his carriage on the street. Lisa rushes towards her, but the carriage passes her and stops in the courtyard of a large house. The heroine runs up and hugs her lover, but he calmly announces that he is getting married (as it turns out later, he married a rich widow to improve his situation, since he lost almost all his money at cards during the campaign) and asks to leave him alone, trying pay off Lisa with money. And Karamzin does not justify his hero at all, but openly condemns him. Erast will be punished for his betrayal: he is destined to be unhappy for the rest of his life and blame himself for Lisa’s death. At the end of the work he dies.

Continuing to analyze the image of Lisa in Karamzin's story "Poor Liza", we must note one more important detail - she loved Erast, but at the same time did not forget about her mother, and it was caring for her that stopped Lisa from trying to go to war for her lover . Although the heroine was very worried about Erast, she was afraid that he would be killed in the war. After all, Lisa couldn’t even write messages to her lover, because she simply didn’t know how to do it.

The death of a poor girl

Lisa's suicide is a very important episode in revealing her character. After all, this girl seemed to be the embodiment of Christian virtues. How could such a pure soul decide to commit such a grave sin? The heroine decides to drown herself by throwing herself into the water. But one cannot blame Lisa - grief deprived her of her last strength, and the heroine simply could not stand it. Even before her death, she does not forget about her mother: going to the pond to drown herself, she gives a neighbor girl one hundred rubles with a request to give them to her mother and say that her daughter loved a man, and he cheated on her. Although the writer does not justify the heroine’s suicide, he still forgives Lisa. Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin believes that, despite the severity of the crime, Lisa’s soul will go to heaven.

The meaning of the story

Many writers of the 19th century (Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Ostrovsky, Goncharov, Tolstoy) drew inspiration from this image and created many bright female characters, as pure and selfless as the image of Lisa in the story “Poor Lisa”.

In this story, the author touched upon important themes of the imperfection of the structure of society and the shortcomings of human nature. We cannot fix something on our own; we can only accept it as a fact, and it is pointless to condemn and reproach someone. There is no villain in the work, there is only a man belonging to a secular circle, acting in accordance with generally accepted opinions. Erast had a naturally kind heart, but the “artificial” upbringing and education he received spoiled his character. The writer sympathizes with him, since in this situation it is not the person who should be blamed, but the mores of the era and society under which the hero lived.

Immediately after its publication (in 1792), the work aroused great interest, which continued unabated for several decades. Even outright imitations appeared, for example, “Seduced Henrietta” by Svechinsky (1803), “Poor Masha” by Izmailov (1801).

The image of Lisa in the story “Poor Lisa,” a summary of which you have just reviewed, was remembered by readers for a long time. And even now it is not forgotten, because humanistic ideas are always relevant.

The literary movement of sentimentalism came to Russia from France at the end of the 18th century and addressed mainly the problems of the human soul.

Karamzin's story "Poor Liza" tells about the love of a young nobleman

Erast and the peasant woman Liza. Lisa lives with her mother in the outskirts of Moscow. The girl sells flowers and here she meets Erast. Erast is a man “with a fair amount of intelligence and a kind heart, kind by nature, but weak and flighty.” His love for Lisa turned out to be fragile. Erast plays cards. In an effort to improve matters, he is going to marry a rich widow, so he leaves Lisa. Shocked by Erast's betrayal, Lisa throws herself into the pond in despair and drowns. This tragic end is largely predetermined by the class inequality of the heroes. Erast is a nobleman. Lisa is a peasant woman. Their marriage is impossible. But the ability to love and be happy do not always coincide. In the story, the author values ​​not nobility and wealth, but spiritual qualities, the ability to deeply feel.

Karamzin was a great humanist, a man with a subtle soul. He denied serfdom, not recognizing the power of people to control the lives of other people. Although the heroine of the story is not a serf girl, but a free peasant woman, nevertheless, the class wall between her and her lover is insurmountable. Even Lisa's love could not break this barrier.

Reading the story, I am completely on Lisa’s side, experiencing the delight of love and grieving over the death of the girl. Turning to the lofty theme of unrequited love, Karamzin understood and felt that the drama of human feelings cannot be explained only by social reasons. The image of Erast in this sense is very interesting, his character is contradictory; He has a gentle, poetic nature and is handsome, which is why Lisa fell in love with him. At the same time, Erast is selfish, weak-willed, and capable of deception; with cold cruelty he takes Lisa out of his house, but upon learning of her death, he could not be consoled and considered himself a murderer. The author emphasizes that no class superiority frees a person from responsibility for his actions.

Maybe no one living in Moscow knows the surroundings of this city as well as I do, because no one is in the field more often than I am, no one more than me wanders on foot, without a plan, without a goal - wherever the eyes look - through the meadows and groves , over hills and plains. Every summer I find new pleasant places or new beauty in old ones.

But the most pleasant place for me is the gloomy, Gothic towers of the Si...nova Monastery. Standing on this mountain, you see on the right side almost the whole of Moscow, this terrible mass of houses and churches, which appears to your eyes in the image of a majestic amphitheater: a magnificent picture, especially when the sun shines on it, when its evening rays glow on countless golden domes, on countless crosses ascending to the sky! Below are lush, densely green flowering meadows, and behind them, along the yellow sands, flows a bright river, agitated by the light oars of fishing boats or rustling under the helm of heavy plows that sail from the most fertile countries of the Russian Empire and supply greedy Moscow with bread. On the other side of the river one can see an oak grove, near which numerous herds graze; there young shepherds, sitting under the shade of trees, sing simple, sad songs and thus shorten the summer days, so uniform for them. Further away, in the dense greenery of ancient elms, the golden-domed Danilov Monastery shines; even further, almost at the edge of the horizon, the Sparrow Hills are blue. On the left side you can see vast fields covered with grain, forests, three or four villages and in the distance the village of Kolomenskoye with its high palace.

I often come to this place and almost always see spring there; I come there and grieve with nature on the dark days of autumn. The winds howl terribly within the walls of the deserted monastery, between the coffins overgrown with tall grass, and in the dark passages of the cells. There, leaning on the ruins of tombstones, I listen to the dull groan of times, swallowed up by the abyss of the past - a groan from which my heart shudders and trembles. Sometimes I enter cells and imagine those who lived in them - sad pictures! Here I see a gray-haired old man, kneeling before the crucifix and praying for a quick release from his earthly shackles, for all the pleasures in life had disappeared for him, all his feelings had died, except for the feeling of illness and weakness. There a young monk - with a pale face, with a languid gaze - looks into the field through the lattice of the window, sees cheerful birds swimming freely in the sea of ​​​​air, sees - and sheds bitter tears from his eyes. He languishes, withers, dries up - and the sad ringing of a bell announces to me his untimely death. Sometimes on the gates of the temple I look at the image of miracles that happened in this monastery, where fish fall from the sky to feed the inhabitants of the monastery, besieged by numerous enemies; here the image of the Mother of God puts the enemies to flight. All this renews in my memory the history of our fatherland - the sad history of those times when the ferocious Tatars and Lithuanians devastated the environs of the Russian capital with fire and sword and when unfortunate Moscow, like a defenseless widow, expected help from God alone in its cruel disasters.

But what most often attracts me to the walls of the Si...nova Monastery is the memory of the deplorable fate of Lisa, poor Lisa. Oh! I love those objects that touch my heart and make me shed tears of tender sorrow!

Seventy yards from the monastery wall, near a birch grove, in the middle of a green meadow, there stands an empty hut, without doors, without endings, without a floor; the roof had long since rotted and collapsed. In this hut, thirty years before, the beautiful, amiable Liza lived with her old woman, her mother.

Lizin's father was a fairly prosperous villager, because he loved work, plowed the land well and always led a sober life. But soon after his death, his wife and daughter became poor. The lazy hand of the mercenary poorly cultivated the field, and the grain ceased to be produced well. They were forced to rent out their land, and for very little money. Moreover, the poor widow, almost constantly shedding tears over the death of her husband - for even peasant women know how to love! – day by day she became weaker and could not work at all. Only Lisa, who remained after her father for fifteen years, only Lisa, not sparing her tender youth, not sparing her rare beauty, worked day and night - weaving canvases, knitting stockings, picking flowers in the spring, and taking berries in the summer - and selling them in Moscow. The sensitive, kind old woman, seeing her daughter’s tirelessness, often pressed her to her weakly beating heart, called her divine mercy, nurse, the joy of her old age, and prayed to God to reward her for all that she does for her mother. “God gave me hands to work with,” said Lisa, “you fed me with your breasts and followed me when I was a child; Now it’s my turn to follow you. Just stop breaking down, stop crying; Our tears will not revive the priests.” But often tender Liza could not hold back her own tears - ah! she remembered that she had a father and that he was gone, but to reassure her mother she tried to hide the sadness of her heart and seem calm and cheerful. “In the next world, dear Liza,” answered the sad old woman, in the next world I will stop crying. There, they say, everyone will be happy; I will probably be happy when I see your father. Only now I don’t want to die - what will happen to you without me? To whom should I leave you? No, God grant that we get you a place first! Maybe a kind person will soon be found. Then, having blessed you, my dear children, I will cross myself and calmly lie down in the damp earth.”

Two years have passed since the death of Lizin's father. The meadows were covered with flowers, and Lisa came to Moscow with lilies of the valley. A young, well-dressed, pleasant-looking man met her on the street. She showed him the flowers and blushed. “Are you selling them, girl?” – he asked with a smile. “I’m selling,” she answered. - “What do you need?” - “Five kopecks.” - “It's too cheap. Here's a ruble for you." - Lisa was surprised, she dared to look at the young man, she blushed even more and, looking down at the ground, told him that she would not take the ruble. - “For what?” - “I don’t need anything extra.” “I think that beautiful lilies of the valley, plucked by the hands of a beautiful girl, are worth a ruble. When you don’t take it, here’s your five kopecks. I would like to always buy flowers from you; I would like you to tear them just for me.” “Lisa gave the flowers, took five kopecks, bowed and wanted to go, but the stranger stopped her by the hand. - “Where are you going, girl?” - “Home.” - “Where is your house?” – Lisa said where she lives, she said and went. The young man did not want to hold her, perhaps because those passing by began to stop and, looking at them, grinned insidiously.