The meaning of the epigraph and the "silent scene" in N. V. Gogol's comedy "The Inspector General"

Revizor - best Russian comedy. Both in reading and in staging on stage, it is always interesting. Therefore, it is generally difficult to talk about any failure of the "Auditor". But, on the other hand, it is also difficult to create a real Gogol performance, to make those sitting in the audience laugh with a bitter Gogol laugh. As a rule, something fundamental, deep, escapes the actor or viewer, on which the whole meaning of the play is based.

The premiere of the comedy, which took place on April 19, 1836 on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, according to contemporaries, was a huge success. Gorodnichy was played by Ivan Sosnitsky, Khlestakov was played by Nikolai Dyur, the best actors of that time. "The general attention of the audience, applause, sincere and unanimous laughter, the challenge of the author <...> - Prince Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky recalled, - there was no shortage of anything" (Vyazemsky P. A. Aesthetics and Literary Criticism, Moscow, 1984, p. 143).

At the same time, even the most ardent fans of Gogol did not fully understand the meaning and significance of the comedy; the majority of the public perceived it as a farce. Many saw the play as a caricature of Russian officialdom, and its author as a rebel. According to S. T. Aksakov, there were people who hated Gogol from the moment the Inspector General appeared. So, Count F. I. Tolstoy (nicknamed the American) said in a crowded meeting that Gogol was "an enemy of Russia and that he should be sent to Siberia in shackles" (Gogol in the Memoirs of contemporaries, Moscow, 1952, p. 122). Censor A.V. Nikitenko wrote in his diary on April 28, 1836: "Gogol's comedy" The Inspector General " made a lot of noise.<...> Many people believe that the government is wrongly approving this play, in which it is so cruelly condemned" (Nikitenko A.V. Diary, Moscow, 1955, Vol. 1, p. 182).

Meanwhile, it is well known that the comedy was allowed to be staged on stage (and therefore to be printed) with the highest permission. Emperor Nicholas I read the comedy in the manuscript and approved it. On April 29, 1836, Gogol wrote to M. Shchepkin: "If it were not for the high intercession of the Sovereign, my play would not have been on the stage for anything, and there were already people who were trying to ban it. Gosu-

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The Emperor not only attended the premiere himself, but also ordered the ministers to watch The Inspector General. During the performance, he clapped and laughed a lot, and when he left the box, he said: "Well, the play! Everyone got it, and I got it more than everyone else! "(written by P. P. Karatygin from the words of his father, actor P. A. Karatygin. Historical Bulletin, 1883, No. 9, p. 736).

A striking contrast to the seemingly unquestionable success of the play is Gogol's bitter confession: "The Inspector General has been played - and my heart is so vague, so strange... I expected, I knew in advance how things would go, and for all that, a sad and vexingly painful feeling came over me. My own creation seemed to me disgusting, wild and as if it was not mine at all " ("Excerpt from a letter written by the author shortly after the first presentation of the "Inspector" to a certain writer").

Gogol was, it seems, the only one who perceived the first production of The Inspector General as a failure. What did not satisfy him? This was partly due to the discrepancy between the old vaudeville techniques in the design of the performance and the completely new spirit of the play, which did not fit into the framework of ordinary comedy. Gogol insistently warned: "Most of all, one should be careful not to fall into caricature. Nothing should be exaggerated or trivial even in the last roles." ("Forewarning for those who would like to play the proper 'Examiner'").

Creating images of Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky, Gogol imagined them "in the skin" (in his words) Shchepkin and Vasily Ryazantsev - famous comic actors of that era. In the play, "it was a caricature that came out": "Already before the performance began," he shares his impressions, " When I saw them costumed, I gasped. These two little men, in their essence rather neat, plump, with decently smoothed hair, found themselves in some ungainly, short gray wigs, disheveled, untidy, disheveled, with huge shirt fronts pulled out; and on the stage they turned out to be such antics that it was simply unbearable."

Meanwhile, Gogol's main attitude is the complete naturalness of characters and the plausibility of what is happening on stage: "The less an actor thinks about making people laugh and being funny, the more ridiculous the role he has taken will be revealed. The funny thing will naturally show up in the very seriousness with which each of the characters depicted in the comedy is engaged in their own work."

Why, let us ask again, was Gogol dissatisfied with the premiere? The main reason was not even in the farcical nature of the performance - the desire to make the audience laugh, but in the fact that with the caricature manner of the actors ' play, those sitting in the audience perceived what was happening on stage without applying it to themselves, since the characters were exaggeratedly funny. Meanwhile, Gogol's idea was designed for just the opposite perception: to involve the viewer in the performance, to give the audience a chance to see the audience.

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to feel that the city indicated in the comedy exists not somewhere, but to some extent anywhere in Russia, and the passions and vices of officials are in the soul of each of us. Gogol appeals to everyone. This is the great social significance of the "Auditor". This is the meaning of the famous remark of the Mayor: "What are you laughing at? You're laughing at yourself! " - directed to the audience (specifically to the audience, since no one is laughing on stage at this time). This is also indicated by the epigraph: "On the mirror necha blame, if the face is crooked." In his original theatrical commentaries on the play - "Theater Trip" and "Inspector General's Denouement" - where the audience and actors discuss the comedy, Gogol seems to be trying to destroy the invisible wall separating the stage and the auditorium.

Regarding the epigraph that appeared later, in the 1842 edition, we can say that this folk proverb means the Gospel by the mirror, which Gogol's contemporaries, who spiritually belonged to the Orthodox Church, knew perfectly well and could even support the understanding of this proverb, for example, Krylov's famous fable "The Mirror and the Monkey". Here the Monkey, looking in the mirror, turns to the Bear:

"Look," he says, " my dear godfather!

What's that face?

What antics and jumps she has!

I would have choked myself out of boredom,

Whenever I looked a little like her.

But, admit it, there is

Of my gossips, there are five or six such antics;

I can even count them on my fingers." -

"What gossips consider to work.

Wouldn't it be better to turn on yourself, godfather?" -

Mishka answered her.

But Mishenka's advice was only wasted.

The spiritual concept of the Gospel as a mirror has long and firmly existed in the Orthodox consciousness. For example, St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, one of Gogol's favorite writers, whose works he read repeatedly, says: "Christians! As for the sons of this world, may the gospel and the immaculate life of Christ be unto us. They look into mirrors and correct their bodies and purify the vices of their faces. < ... > Let us also offer this pure mirror before our spiritual eyes and see in it: is our life consistent with the life of Christ?" (The Works of our Holy Father Tikhon Zadonsky, Moscow, 1889, vol. 4, p. 145. / Reprint edition. Holy Dormition Pskov-Pechersk Monastery, 1994).

Saint John of Kronstadt, in his diaries published under the title "My Life in Christ," remarks: "those who do not read the Gospels":

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"Are you pure, holy, and perfect without reading the Gospel, and without having to look in that mirror? Or are you very ugly mentally and afraid of your ugliness?... " (Poly. collected works of Archpriest John Ilyich Sergiev. St. Petersburg, 1893. Vol. 5. P. 380. / Reprint edition. St. Petersburg, 1994).

In Gogol's extracts from the holy Fathers and teachers of the Church, we find an entry: "Those who want to purify and whiten their faces usually look in the mirror. A Christian! Your mirror is the Lord's commandments; if you put them in front of you and look intently in them, they will reveal to you all the spots, all the blackness, all the ugliness of your soul" (Gogol N. V. Collected works: In 9 vols. Vol. 8. p. 529; further-only volume and page).

It is noteworthy that Gogol also addressed this image in his letters. Thus, on December 20, 1844, he wrote to M. P. Pogodin from Frankfurt: "... always keep a book on your desk that will serve you as a spiritual mirror"; and a week later-to A. O. Smirnova: "Look also at yourselves. Have a spiritual mirror on the table for this purpose, that is, some book in which your soul can look...".

It is known that Gogol never parted with the Gospel. "It is impossible to invent anything higher than what is already in the Gospel," he said. - How many times has humanity already recoiled from it and how many times has it been converted " (6, 383).

In The Inspector General's Denouement, Gogol puts into the mouth of the First comic Actor the idea of what will happen to a person on the day of the Last Judgment: "... let us look at ourselves at least somewhat through the eyes of Someone Who will call all people to a confrontation, before whom even the best of us, do not forget this, will look down with shame in land your eyes, and let's see if any of us have the heart to ask: "But do I have a crooked face?"". Here Gogol answers many people, and in particular, the writer Mikhail Nikolaevich Zagoskin, who was particularly indignant against the epigraph, saying:: "But where is my face crooked?".

It is impossible, of course, to create any other "mirror" like the Gospel. But just as every Christian is obliged to live according to the Gospel commandments, imitating Christ (to the best of his human abilities), so Gogol the playwright, to the best of his talent, arranges his mirror on the stage, that is, the moral meaning of the play. The Krylov monkey could have been any of the spectators. However, it turned out that this viewer saw in the characters of the play others, and not himself. Gogol later said the same thing in his address to readers in Dead Souls: "You will even laugh heartily at Chichikov, maybe even praise the author <...> And you will add: "But I must admit that people in some provinces are strange and grotesque, and that they are a good many scoundrels, too!". And who among you, full of Christian humility <...> will deepen into the depths of his own soul this heavy request: "Is there not also in me some part of Chichikov?" Yes, as if not so!".

The Mayor's remark, which appeared, like the epigraph, in 1842, also has its parallel in "Dead Souls". In the tenth chapter, razmy-

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reflecting on the mistakes and misconceptions of all mankind, the author notes: "The current generation now sees everything clearly, marvels at the errors, laughs at the folly of its ancestors, and it is not for nothing that <...> a piercing finger is pointed at it from everywhere, at the current generation, but the current generation laughs and presumptuously, proudly begins a series of new errors, which posterity will also laugh at later."

The main idea of the "Auditor" is the idea of the inevitable spiritual retribution that every person should expect. Gogol, dissatisfied with the way "The Inspector General" is put on stage and how the audience perceives it, tried to reveal this idea in "The Inspector General's Denouement". "Look closely at this city, which is displayed in the play! - says Gogol through the mouth of the First comic actor. - Everyone agrees that there is no such city in all of Russia < ... > But what if it is our own spiritual city and it is sitting in each of us? <...> Whatever you say, but the inspector who is waiting for us at the door of the coffin is terrible. As if you don't know who this auditor is? What to pretend? This auditor is our awakened conscience, which will make us suddenly and at once look with all our eyes at ourselves. Nothing will be hidden from this auditor, because he has been sent by the Supreme Command of his Name and will be announced when it is already impossible to take a step back. Suddenly there will be revealed to you, in you, such a horror that the hair will rise from horror. It is better to make an audit of everything that is in us, at the beginning of life, and not at the end of it."

We are talking here about the Last Judgment. And now the final scene of "The Inspector General"becomes clear. It is a symbolic picture of the Last Judgment. The appearance of a gendarme announcing the arrival of a real inspector general from St. Petersburg "by personal order" has a stunning effect on the characters of the play. Gogol emphasizes this in his remark: "The spoken words strike everyone like thunder. The sound of astonishment is unanimous on the ladies ' lips; the whole group, having suddenly changed their position, remains petrified."

The writer attached exceptional importance to this "silent scene". He defines its duration as one and a half minutes, and in the " Excerpt from the letter..."it even talks about two or three minutes of petrification of the characters. Each of the characters shows with his whole figure that he can no longer change anything in his fate, move even a finger - he is in front of the Judge. According to Gogol's plan, at this moment there should be a silence of universal reflection in the hall.

In The Denouement, he did not offer a new interpretation of the" Inspector", as is sometimes thought, but only laid bare its main idea. On November 2, 1846, Gogol wrote to Ivan Sosnitsky from Nice: "Pay your attention to the last scene of The Inspector General. Think it over, think it over again. In the final play, "The Examiner's Denouement," you will understand why I care so much about this last scene and why it is so important to me that it has the full effect. I'm sure you'll take a look for yourself.

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with my eyes on the "Auditor" after this conclusion, which, for many reasons, could not be issued to me then and only now is it possible."

It follows from these words that the Denouement did not give a new meaning to the "silent scene", but only clarified its meaning. Indeed, at the time of the creation of the "Inspector General" in the "Petersburg Notes of 1836", Gogol's lines appear that directly precede the "Denouement": "Great Lent is calm and terrible. A voice seems to be heard saying, ' Stop, Christian, look back on your life.'"

However, Gogol's interpretation of the county town as a "spiritual city" and its officials as the embodiment of the passions rampant in it, made in the spirit of the patristic tradition, came as a surprise to his contemporaries and caused rejection. Shchepkin, who was supposed to be the First comic actor, after reading the new play, refused to play in it. On May 22, 1847, he wrote to Gogol: "... so far I have studied all the characters of The Revizor as living people... Don't give me any hints that these are not officials, but our passions, no, I don't want such a change: these are people, real living people, among whom I grew up and almost grew old <...> You have gathered several people from the whole world in one collective place, in one group, with these people. At the age of ten, I have become completely akin to people, and you want to take them away from me" (Correspondence of N. V. Gogol: In 2 vols., 1988. Vol. 1. p. 469).

However, Gogol's intention was not to turn "living people" - full-blooded artistic images-into an allegory. The author only laid bare the main idea of the comedy, without which it looks like a simple denunciation of morals. "'The inspector' is 'the Inspector,' "Gogol replied to Shchepkin around July 10, 1847," and the application to oneself is an indispensable thing that every spectator should do with everything, even if not with the Inspector, but which is more appropriate for him to do about the Inspector."

In the second edition of the end of Denouement, Gogol explains his point. Here the First comic Actor responds to one of the doubting characters in such a way that the proposed interpretation of the play corresponds to the author's intention: "The author, even if he had this idea, would still act badly if he found it clearly. The comedy would then have strayed into an allegory, and it might have turned out to be some pale moral sermon. No, his task was simply to portray the horror of material disturbances not in an ideal city, but in one that is on earth < ... > His task was to portray this dark one so strongly that everyone felt that they had to fight with it, so that the viewer was thrown into awe - and the horror of the riots would penetrate him through and through. That's what he had to do. And it's up to us to give a moral lesson. We are not children, thank God. I thought about what kind of moral lesson I could draw out for myself, and I came across the one I've just told you."

And then to the questions of others, why only he was the only one who brought out such a distant, according to their concepts, moral teaching, the First comic

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The actor replies: "First of all, how do you know that I was the only one who brought out this moral message? And secondly, why do you consider it remote? I think, on the contrary, that the closest thing to us is our own soul. I had my soul in my mind at that time, and I was thinking of myself, and that is why I drew up this moral lesson. If others had meant themselves first, they would probably have drawn the same moral lesson that I did. But does every one of us approach a writer's work as a bee approaches a flower, in order to extract from it what we need? No, we are looking for moralizing in everything for others, not for ourselves. We are ready to stand up for and defend the whole society, carefully cherishing the morality of others and forgetting about our own. After all, we like to laugh at others, not at ourselves...".

It is impossible not to notice that these reflections of the main character of the "Denouement" not only do not contradict the content of the" Auditor", but they correspond exactly to it. Moreover, the ideas expressed here are organic to all of Gogol's work.

The idea of the Last Judgment should have been developed in "Dead Souls", as it follows from the idea of the work. One of the rough sketches, which relates to the unfulfilled continuation of the poem, directly paints a picture of the Last Judgment: "Why didn't you remember Me, that I was looking at you, that I was yours? Why did you expect people to give you rewards, attention, and encouragement instead of Me? What business would it be for you to pay attention to how an earthly landowner spends your money when you have a Heavenly Landowner? Who knows what would have happened if you'd gone all the way without being afraid? Would you be surprised by the greatness if you reached the end without being afraid? You would surprise with greatness of character, you would finally prevail and make people wonder, you would leave a name as an eternal monument of valor, and streams of tears would fall, streams of tears about you, and like a whirlwind you would fan the flame of good in our hearts." The steward hung his head, ashamed, and did not know where to go. And many officials and noble, beautiful people who began to serve and then left the field, sadly hung their heads after him " (5,462).

Gogol uses here one of the patristic teaching techniques, which consists in the fact that the pastor, recalling certain commandments in his speech, conveys them in the first person, and they come as if from the mouth of God Himself. Such examples Gogol could meet at least in the publications of the magazine "Christian Reading".

In conclusion, the theme of the Last Judgment permeates Gogol's entire work, reflecting his desire for a spiritual life, for monasticism. And a monk is a person who has left the world, preparing himself for the answer at the Judgment of Christ. Gogol remained a writer and, as it were, a monk in the world. In his writings, he shows that it is not man who is bad, but the sin that lives in him. Orthodox monasticism has always maintained the same thing. Gogol believed in the power of the artistic word to point the way to moral regeneration. With this belief, he created the "Auditor".

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