But your secret covered your features. Analysis of the poem "Among the noisy ball, by chance" A

Count Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1817–1875) would remain in the history of Russian poetry and literature thanks to his lyrical masterpiece “Among the Noisy Ball...”. But he created the mighty historical canvas “Prince Silver”, the famous dramatic trilogy about the Russian tsars, the unfading satire “The History of the Russian State...”, topical to this day. His contribution to the works of the well-known Kozma Prutkov is invaluable. The noble talent of A.K. Tolstoy and his work still remain a living literary phenomenon.

In the midst of a noisy ball

...I have so many contradictory characteristics that come into collision, so many desires, so many needs of the heart that I try to reconcile, but as soon as I touch it lightly, it all comes into motion, enters into struggle; From you I expect harmony and reconciliation of all these needs. I feel that no one but you can heal me, because my whole being is torn to pieces. I stitched and corrected all this as best I could, but a lot still needs to be redone, changed, healed. I do not live in my environment, I do not follow my calling, I do not do what I want, there is complete discord in me, and this, perhaps, is the secret of my laziness, because I, in essence, am active by nature... Those elements of which my being was composed are themselves good, but they were taken at random and the proportions were not respected. There is no ballast in my soul or in my mind. You must return my balance... In your diary I found the following lines: “To achieve the truth, you must once in your life free yourself from all acquired views and rebuild the entire system of your knowledge.” With what joy I would have worked on this restructuring with your help. I am like some kind of barn or a spacious room full of all sorts of things, very useful, sometimes very precious, but somehow piled one on top of the other; I would like to sort things out with you and put things in order.

...I try to be interested in opera and other things, but as soon as I forget myself for a moment, I immediately plunge into oblivion. I swear to you, as I would swear before the judgment seat of the Lord, that I love you with all my abilities, all my thoughts, all my movements, all the sufferings and joys of my soul. Accept this love for what it is, don’t look for a reason for it, don’t look for a name for it, like a doctor looks for a name for a disease, don’t assign a place to it, don’t analyze it. Take her as she is, take her without delving into it, I can’t give you anything better, I gave you everything that was most precious to me, I have nothing better... You’re telling me that I can’t love you like that forever. I know this myself; This is not news, it is in the order of things that such enthusiastic excitement passes: this is how it is and this is how it should be. The flower disappears, but the fruit remains, the plant remains; Believe me, what remains will still be quite beautiful... We know that love is not an eternal feeling. But should this scare us? Let us boldly go forward, without looking ahead and without looking back, or better yet, let us look forward, let us meet face to face the gentle brotherly friendship stretching out its hands to us, and bless God for sending it to us... I am, to a much greater extent, you than - myself.

...There are such torments and such desires that cannot be expressed in words; every word seems dead to me, everything I could say seems too weak to me. My friend, my soul is heavy, I came from a masquerade ball, where I was not of my own accord, but only out of decency - for the sake of the Grand Duke, whom I saw this morning. I left at half past twelve. To return as soon as I see the Grand Duke. And he just invited me to dine with him at half past one; I drove home in a hurry to talk with you during this interval.

How sad I was there! Never go to these nasty masquerade balls!

I would so much like to refresh your poor heart, I would so much like to give you a break from your whole life! Poor child, since you were thrown into life, you have known only storms and thunderstorms. Even in the best moments, those when we were together, you were worried by some nagging concern, some premonition, some fear.

When I think about it, I see a house half hidden by trees. I see the village, hear the sounds of your piano and this voice, from which I immediately perked up. And everything that opposes this life, calm and blissful, all the bustle of the world, ambition, vanity etc., all the artificial means necessary to maintain this unnatural existence to the detriment of conscience, all this appears before me in the distance, as if in an unkind fog. And it’s as if I hear your voice penetrating straight into my soul: “I forever give up this for the sake of love for you.” And then a feeling of undivided happiness takes possession of me, and the words you said resound and reverberate in my soul, like an assurance that from now on nothing can harm you, and I then understand that all this happiness was created by a dream, this house, this a blissful and calm life, all this is in ourselves. It's your heart that sings with happiness, and mine listens to it, and since all this is in ourselves, it cannot be taken away from us, and even among the bustle of the world we can be alone and be happy. My character is intense, it is sensitive to the slightest touch, but there is no pettiness in it - I give you my word...

From a letter from A.K. Tolstoy to S.A. Miller

...Think that until the age of 36 I had no one to confide in my sorrows. There is no one to pour out my soul to. Everything that saddened me - and this happened often, although imperceptibly to prying eyes - everything that I would like to find a response in the mind, in the heart of a friend, I suppressed in myself, and while my uncle was alive, the trust that I had in him was constrained by the fear of upsetting him, sometimes irritating him, and by the confidence that he would with all his ardor rebel against certain ideas and certain aspirations that constituted the essence of my mental and spiritual life. I remember how I hid from him the reading of some of the books from which I then drew my Puritan principles, for in the same source were contained those principles of love of freedom and the Protestant spirit, with which he would never have been reconciled and which I did not want and could not refuse. This resulted in constant awkwardness, despite the enormous trust that I had in him.

From a letter from A.K. Tolstoy to S.A. Miller

...He (I.S. Turgenev) also told how at a masquerade, together with the poet A.K. Tolstoy, he met a graceful and interesting mask that spoke intelligently to them. They insisted that she take off her mask then, but she revealed herself to them only a few days later, inviting them to her place.

- What did I see then? - said Turgenev. – The face of a Chukhon soldier in a skirt.

This mask later married A.K. Tolstoy. His poem “Among the Noisy Ball” is inspired by this first acquaintance with his future wife. I think that Turgenev exaggerated her ugliness. I subsequently met Countess Sofya Andreevna, the widow of A.K. Tolstoy, she was not at all ugly and, moreover, she was undoubtedly an intelligent woman.

S. L. Tolstoy

...Tolstoy and Sofa (the name “Sofa” was used to refer to A.K. Tolstoy’s wife Sofya Andreevna) were for me an unattainable ideal of kindness, everything for me came from them, they gave me answers to all my doubts and aspirations; I realized that I not only loved, but also feared them, and at the same time I invested all my trust, all my heart, all my ideals in them; apart from them, nothing could exist for me. Sometimes Tolstoy’s character, nervous and hot-tempered, frightened me, but the confidence in his friendship and love for me was unshakable. I always felt sorry for Sofa, she always carried a burden that was too heavy... But as soon as Sofa with a word waved away the influx of daily squabbles and illuminated his troubled soul with her all-understanding mind, he returned with young, pure strength. Suffering, evil, pain, sadness had no power over the vigor and purity of his spirit...

S. P. Khitrovo

... From all the stories it is clear that from an early age Sofa was smart and developed beyond her years and always stood out from others with her intelligence and charm. – When she was five years old, her grandmother took all her children to the Sarov Hermitage for a blessing to Father Seraphim, and when he baptized and blessed them all, he knelt down in front of the baby Sophia and kissed her feet, predicting an amazing future for her. “We, the children, saw and understood that everyone in the house adored Sofa and that she was always, everywhere and for everyone, the first person, and we blindly believed that there was no one better than her in the world, and so, all her life, she stood more radiant for us.” and above all. Our love for her was very special, and no matter what she said, everything was good and unshakable. “My father, like others, treated her with some reverence, almost enthusiastically, and in the name of his feelings for her he called me and my sister Sophia and said that if he had twelve daughters, they would all be Sophia.

S. P. Khitrovo

...Count Tolstoy was gifted with an exceptional memory. We often tested each other's memory as a joke, and Alexey Tolstoy amazed us with the fact that after quickly reading an entire large page of any prose, closing the book, he could convey verbatim everything he had read without making a single mistake; none of us, of course, could do this.

The count's eyes are azure, his youthfully fresh face, his elongated oval face, the light fluff of his beard and mustache, his blond hair curly at his temples—nobility and artistry.

Judging by the width of her shoulders and her muscles, it was impossible not to notice that the model was not one of the pampered and weak young people. Indeed, Alexei Tolstoy was of extraordinary strength: he bent horseshoes, and by the way, I kept a silver fork for a long time, from which he twisted not only the handle, but also each tooth separately with a screw with his fingers.

A. V. Meshchersky

In the middle of a noisy ball, by chance,

In the anxiety of worldly vanity,

I saw you, but it's a mystery

Your features are covered.

Like the sound of a distant pipe,

Like a playing shaft of the sea.

I liked your thin figure

And your whole thoughtful look,

And your laughter, both sad and ringing,

Since then it has been ringing in my heart.

In the lonely hours of the night

I love, tired, to lie down -

I see sad eyes

I hear cheerful speech;

And sadly I fall asleep like that,

And I sleep in unknown dreams...

Do I love you - I don’t know

But it seems to me that I love it!

...Count Tolstoy was at that time (1843) a handsome young man, with beautiful blond hair and a blush all over his cheek. He looked even more like a beautiful maiden than Prince Baryatinsky; to such an extent tenderness and delicacy permeated his entire figure. You can imagine my amazement when the prince once told me: “You know, this is the greatest strongman!” At this news, I could not help but smile in the most incredulous, not to say contemptuous way; I myself, belonging to the breed of strong people, having seen many real strongmen in my time, I immediately thought that Count Tolstoy, this ruddy and gentle young man, was an aristocratic strongman and amazed his circle with some kind of gymnastic tricks. Noticing my disbelief, the prince began to tell many real experiments of Tolstoy’s strength: how he rolled silver spoons into a tube, drove nails into the wall with his finger, unbent horseshoes. I didn't know what to think. Subsequently, reviews from many other people positively confirmed that this delicate shell hides the real Hercules. At the same time, the prince told me that Tolstoy was the heir’s family man and came to him without reporting.

V. A. Insarsky

... His (D.V. Grigorovich) story about Countess Tolstoy, the wife of Count Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy (poet) is interesting. She is born Bakhmetyeva. Neighbors with Grigorovich. We lived. Her mother tried not only to sell her, but to sell her. It didn't work out. She met Prince Vyazemsky, he fathered a child for her. Her brother challenged the prince to a duel. But thanks to Vyazemsky, the duel did not take place: with the help of his connections, he arranged it so that Bakhmetyev was exiled to the Caucasus. Returning from there, he wrote a letter to Prince Vyazemsky: if he does not come to fight with him, he will publicly insult him. Prince Vyazemsky came and killed him in a duel, for which he was imprisoned in the fortress. His sister married Miller, who was passionately in love with her, but she couldn’t stand him and soon left him. She traveled with Grigorovich and became friends with him. When Grigorovich returned to the Bakhmetyevs, he found Mrs. Miller lying and weak. At her feet sat Count Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, passionately in love with her. He came with Al. Al. Tatishchev. “I didn’t want to interfere,” says Dmitry Vasilyevich, “and we parted.”

A. Suvorin. "Diary"

With a gun over his shoulders, alone, under the moon,

I'm riding across the field on a good horse.

I gave up the reins, I think about her,

Go, my horse, on the grass more cheerfully!

I think so quietly, so sweetly, but here

An unknown companion pesters me,

He is dressed like me, on the same horse,

The gun behind his shoulders glitters in the moonlight.

“You, companion, tell me, tell me, who are you?

It’s as if I recognize your features.

Tell me, what brought you to this hour?

Why are you laughing so bitterly and evilly?”

“I laugh, comrade, at your dreams,

I laugh that you are ruining the future;

“In the midst of a noisy ball, by chance...” Alexey Tolstoy

In the middle of a noisy ball, by chance,
In the anxiety of worldly vanity,
I saw you, but it's a mystery
Your features are covered.

I liked your thin figure
And your whole thoughtful look,
And your laughter, both sad and ringing,
Since then it has been ringing in my heart.

In the lonely hours of the night
I love, tired, to lie down -
I see sad eyes
I hear cheerful speech;

And sadly I fall asleep like that,
And I sleep in unknown dreams...
Do I love you - I don't know
But it seems to me that I love it!

Analysis of Tolstoy’s poem “Among a noisy ball, by chance...”

The Russian poet and writer Alexei Tolstoy was not a rake or a womanizer, but at the age of 33 he still compromised himself with an affair with the married Sofia Alekseevna Miller. He met her at one of the social events and was struck not so much by the woman’s beauty as by her brilliant erudition. According to eyewitnesses, Sophia Miller knew perfectly 14 foreign languages, was interested not only in music, painting and literature, but also in the natural sciences. However, at that time, only a select few could appreciate her talents, one of whom was Alexei Tolstoy.

Almost immediately after meeting this extraordinary woman, the poet wrote the poem “In the midst of a noisy ball, by chance...”, in which he tried to convey the impressions of his first meeting with the one who would later become his wife. The author was immediately struck by the fact that Sophia Miller was above the bustle of society and kept herself apart, while a certain imprint of mystery lay on her face. “Only the eyes looked sad, and the voice sounded so wonderful,” the poet notes.

The acquaintance with Sophia Miller was brief - she was introduced to Tolstoy, who subsequently watched the woman all evening and caught himself thinking that he was fascinated by her. “I liked your thin figure and your whole thoughtful appearance,” the poet later wrote. However, what impressed him most was the contrast between the sadness in his eyes and the childish joy in his ringing voice.. At that time, Alexey Tolstoy did not know that his chosen one was keeping a shameful and sad secret, which cost the life of her brother, Pyotr Bakhmetyev. As a teenager, Sophia Miller fell in love with the experienced womanizer Prince Vyazemsky, who took the opportunity to seduce the girl, but soon successfully married a wealthier person. As a result, Sophia’s brother challenged the offender to a duel, during which he died. Alexei Tolstoy would learn all these details of his beloved’s personal life much later, and at the time of creating the poem “Among a noisy ball, by chance...” he idealizes his chosen one, noting that he dreams of her both in his sleep and in reality. However, the fact that Sophia Miller is a married lady serves as a serious obstacle to the romance. Therefore, Alexey Tolstoy trusts his secret thoughts and desires only to poetry: “I don’t know whether I love you, but it seems to me that I do!”

Fate decreed that soon after the memorable ball, Miller and Tolstoy had a chance to meet again. It was then that an explanation occurred between them, which gave the poet hope for reciprocity. Sophia Miller admitted that she family life things didn’t work out, and she’s been trying to get a divorce from her husband for several years now. In turn, Alexey Tolstoy assured his chosen one that he was ready to wait for her all his life. At the same time, he handed her the poem “In the midst of a noisy ball, by chance...” as a sign of the sincerity of his feelings and the seriousness of his intentions.

Sofia Miller and Alexei Tolstoy were lovers for 7 long years, which caused a lot of gossip in high society. When the poet’s chosen one managed to get the long-awaited divorce, Tolstoy’s mother declared that such a shameful and unequal marriage would not happen. Moreover, the old countess very skillfully weaved intrigues against a woman whom she considered unworthy of her son. However, everything turned out to be in vain, since by that time Sophia Miller had become for Alexei Tolstoy not only the closest person, but also his muse. And 7 years after they met, the couple finally got married, which caused a huge amount of gossip in society, which, however, could not overshadow the happiness of the newlyweds. Their marriage lasted almost 20 years and became the brightest period in Tolstoy’s life and work.

... From all the stories it is clear that from an early age Sofa was smart and developed beyond her years and always stood out from others with her intelligence and charm. – When she was five years old, her grandmother took all her children to the Sarov Hermitage for a blessing to Father Seraphim, and when he baptized and blessed them all, he knelt down in front of the baby Sophia and kissed her feet, predicting an amazing future for her. “We, the children, saw and understood that everyone in the house adored Sofa and that she was always, everywhere and for everyone, the first person, and we blindly believed that there was no one better than her in the world, and so, all her life, she stood more radiant for us.” and above all. Our love for her was very special, and no matter what she said, everything was good and unshakable. “My father, like others, treated her with some reverence, almost enthusiastically, and in the name of his feelings for her he called me and my sister Sophia and said that if he had twelve daughters, they would all be Sophia.

S. P. Khitrovo

...Count Tolstoy was gifted with an exceptional memory. We often tested each other's memory as a joke, and Alexey Tolstoy amazed us with the fact that after quickly reading an entire large page of any prose, closing the book, he could convey verbatim everything he had read without making a single mistake; none of us, of course, could do this.

The count's eyes are azure, his youthfully fresh face, his elongated oval face, the light fluff of his beard and mustache, his blond hair curly at his temples—nobility and artistry.

Judging by the width of her shoulders and her muscles, it was impossible not to notice that the model was not one of the pampered and weak young people. Indeed, Alexei Tolstoy was of extraordinary strength: he bent horseshoes, and by the way, I kept a silver fork for a long time, from which he twisted not only the handle, but also each tooth separately with a screw with his fingers.

In the middle of a noisy ball, by chance,

In the anxiety of worldly vanity,

I saw you, but it's a mystery

Your features are covered.

Like the sound of a distant pipe,

Like a playing shaft of the sea.

I liked your thin figure

And your whole thoughtful look,

And your laughter, both sad and ringing,

Since then it has been ringing in my heart.

In the lonely hours of the night

I love, tired, to lie down -

I see sad eyes

I hear cheerful speech;

And sadly I fall asleep like that,

And I sleep in unknown dreams...

Do I love you - I don’t know

But it seems to me that I love it!

...Count Tolstoy was at that time (1843) a handsome young man, with beautiful blond hair and a blush all over his cheek. He looked even more like a beautiful maiden than Prince Baryatinsky; to such an extent tenderness and delicacy permeated his entire figure. You can imagine my amazement when the prince once told me: “You know, this is the greatest strongman!” At this news, I could not help but smile in the most incredulous, not to say contemptuous way; I myself, belonging to the breed of strong people, having seen many real strongmen in my time, I immediately thought that Count Tolstoy, this ruddy and gentle young man, was an aristocratic strongman and amazed his circle with some kind of gymnastic tricks. Noticing my disbelief, the prince began to tell many real experiments of Tolstoy’s strength: how he rolled silver spoons into a tube, drove nails into the wall with his finger, unbent horseshoes. I didn't know what to think. Subsequently, reviews from many other people positively confirmed that this delicate shell hides the real Hercules. At the same time, the prince told me that Tolstoy was the heir’s family man and came to him without reporting.

... His (D.V. Grigorovich) story about Countess Tolstoy, the wife of Count Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy (poet) is interesting. She is born Bakhmetyeva. Neighbors with Grigorovich. We lived. Her mother tried not only to sell her, but to sell her. It didn't work out. She met Prince Vyazemsky, he fathered a child for her. Her brother challenged the prince to a duel. But thanks to Vyazemsky, the duel did not take place: with the help of his connections, he arranged it so that Bakhmetyev was exiled to the Caucasus. Returning from there, he wrote a letter to Prince Vyazemsky: if he does not come to fight with him, he will publicly insult him. Prince Vyazemsky came and killed him in a duel, for which he was imprisoned in the fortress. His sister married Miller, who was passionately in love with her, but she couldn’t stand him and soon left him. She traveled with Grigorovich and became friends with him. When Grigorovich returned to the Bakhmetyevs, he found Mrs. Miller lying and weak. At her feet sat Count Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, passionately in love with her. He came with Al. Al. Tatishchev. “I didn’t want to interfere,” says Dmitry Vasilyevich, “and we parted.”

With a gun over his shoulders, alone, under the moon,

I'm riding across the field on a good horse.

I gave up the reins, I think about her,

Go, my horse, on the grass more cheerfully!

In the middle of a noisy ball, by chance,
In the anxiety of worldly vanity,
I saw you, but it's a mystery
Your features are covered.

I liked your thin figure
And your whole thoughtful look,
And your laughter, both sad and ringing,
Since then it has been ringing in my heart.

In the lonely hours of the night
I love, tired, to lie down -
I see sad eyes
I hear cheerful speech;

And sadly I fall asleep like that,
And I sleep in unknown dreams...
Do I love you - I don't know
But it seems to me that I love it!

Many remember these poems by Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1817–1875), and the melody of Tchaikovsky’s romance that merges with them. But not everyone knows that behind the poem there are living events: the beginning of extraordinary romantic love.

They first met at a masquerade ball in the winter of 1850–51 at the St. Petersburg Bolshoi Theater. He accompanied the heir to the throne, the future Tsar Alexander II, there. From childhood, he was chosen as a playmate for the Tsarevich and, secretly burdened by this, regularly bore the burden of being chosen. She appeared at the masquerade because, after breaking up with her husband, Horse Guardsman Miller, she was looking for an opportunity to forget and disperse. For some reason, in the secular crowd, he immediately noticed her. The mask hid her face. But grey eyes looked intently and sadly. Beautiful ashen hair crowned her head. She was slender and graceful, with a very thin waist. Her voice was mesmerizing - a thick contralto.
They did not speak for long: the bustle of the colorful masquerade ball separated them. But she managed to amaze him with the accuracy and wit of her fleeting judgments. She, of course, recognized him. In vain he asked her to open her face, take off her mask... But she took his business card, making a sly promise not to forget him. But what would have happened to him, and to both of them, if she had not come to that ball then? Perhaps it was on that January night in 1851, when he was returning home, that the first lines of this poem formed in his mind.

This poem will become one of the best in Russian love lyrics. Nothing was invented in it, everything is as it was. It is full of real signs, documentary, like a report. Only this is a “report” that poured out from the poet’s heart and therefore became a lyrical masterpiece. And added another immortal portrait to the gallery of “muses of Russian romances.”

Tolstoy rarely wrote love lyrics. He did not consider it necessary to share deeply personal experiences with the reader. To anyone who reads the poem “In the midst of a noisy ball, by chance...” by Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, it may seem that the poet is stingy with emotions. But that's not true.

The poem was written in 1851. It is dedicated to S. Miller, the poet’s lover and later wife. By the time she met Tolstoy, she was married. But this did not prevent the development of a beautiful novel. The text of Tolstoy’s poem “In the midst of a noisy ball, by chance...”, which is taught in a literature lesson in the 8th grade, is lyrical. The hero, struck by the contrast of “sad eyes and cheerful speech,” reflects on the depth and strength of his feelings for his new acquaintance.

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In the middle of a noisy ball, by chance,
In the anxiety of worldly vanity,
I saw you, but it's a mystery
Your features are covered.

I liked your thin figure
And your whole thoughtful look,
And your laughter, both sad and ringing,
Since then it has been ringing in my heart.

In the lonely hours of the night
When I’m tired, I like to lie down -
I see sad eyes
I hear cheerful speech;

And sadly I fall asleep like that,
And I sleep in unknown dreams...
Do I love you - I don’t know
But it seems to me that I love it!