The events of the story take place in Moscow in 1973. Olga Vasilievna lost her husband 7 months ago. Sergei died of a heart attack. Olga reasons, trying to justify herself. The story is her internal monologue, interspersed with memories of the past. Olga relives all 17 years of life with her husband, from the moment they met to the last events of his life.
Olga falls asleep in the middle of the night and thinks about death. She recalls how difficult it was to live with her mother-in-law, Alexandra Prokofievna, who was lonely and loved her 16-year-old granddaughter. The mother-in-law was not particularly attentive to her daughter-in-law. She supported her son in everything.
The mother-in-law's husband died in 1941 as a volunteer in the militia near Moscow. Women don't sympathize with each other. The mother-in-law is against buying a TV, for which Seryozha raised money, and Olga buys it out of spite at the request of her daughter Irinka.
Past
The husband usually talked about secrets at night and once admitted that if it weren’t for Irinka, he would have separated from his wife. A few months later he wanted to go alone to a holiday home for the New Year. Olga suspected him of treason. Her husband told her about his four women before her. Olga hated them. She took a day off and went with Irinka to Peresvetovo, where he was forgiven.
Olga was introduced to her husband by Vlad Polysaev, a medical student whom Olga’s mother dreamed of seeing as her son-in-law. Vlad became friends with Sergei at a student camp in Zvenigorod. Sergei was a historian, he knew how to read words backwards, which captivated Olga.
Olga's own father died when she was 6 years old. Mother met stepfather Georgy Maksimovich during evacuation. The mother was 17 years younger than the stepfather. When Sergei appeared, Georgiy Maksimovich was 60 and had recently suffered a heart attack.
In the summer after meeting, the four of us went south to Gagra: Olya with her friend Rita and Vlad with Sergei. They rented only one room far from the sea, where the boys lived, and the girls settled in a shack near the beach. Olga fell in love. Even then, a model of their relationship was formed, in which he allegedly obeys, and she teaches him.
During a night swim, Olga kissed Sergei for the first time. Vlad guessed everything and left ahead of time. At night Sergei came to Olga. From then on, they insatiably got to know each other. In September, when Olga first came to her future mother-in-law, she told her about Svetlana, who was allegedly expecting a child from Sergei. This turned out to be a hoax. But the truth was that Sergei went to Svetlana in August, after returning from the south, as he claimed, out of pity. Olga took Sergei’s action as a test and forgave him. The wedding took place in October and was like a “party” with vodka and snacks.
In the spring it was discovered that there would be a child. Times were hard. Olga worked at school and was looking for an easier job, Sergei ruined his relationship with the museum authorities and was about to leave. It was necessary to look for a doctor, because abortions were prohibited, they were done at home, behind closed doors, but my stepfather categorically forbade it.
The present
Now everyone has forgotten that they didn’t want Irinka. She was born at seven months old and is now the tallest in her class. After the death of her husband, Olga looked to her daughter for support. But the daughter, like her friend Faina, believed that she needed to start a different life and look for a husband.
Past
Olga squeezed out all the bad things from her memory, for example, the story with the artist Vasin’s wife Zika, which happened 14 years ago. Olga was jealous and did not allow Sergei to see her; she expected submission from him as a manifestation of love.
Soon the family moved to Shabolovka to live with their mother-in-law, whose daughter died. After 40 years, Sergei was overcome by mental turmoil, and besides, after a quiet library, he found himself at an institute where passions were in full swing. Sergei rushed about, changing the topic of his dissertation. His wife described him as a loser always rushing somewhere, but did not reproach him for anything. It seemed to the mother that her son deserved a better fate, and the wife was free from the pangs of vanity.
The present
People from the trade union committee came to Olga to express formal sympathy after her loss. Bezyazychny spoke about 160 rubles that Sergei took from the mutual aid fund 2 years ago, in 1971. Olga immediately thought about the woman. She said she didn't have that kind of money.
Bezyazhyny also asked for materials from Sergei’s unpublished dissertation in order to publish the work through the institute.
In the evening, at the grocery store, Olga met Irinka and her friends. The girls spent money on cakes and cigarettes. Olga quarreled with her daughter, who refused to obey and go home, and made peace with her when her daughter returned.
Late in the evening, the woman who came with Bezyazychny called in the morning. She told him not to worry about the debt, because it would be written off, and not to give Sergei’s materials.
Past
Olga remembered the events of eight years ago, when Klimuk burst into their room, having left 2 days ago with Fedya Praskukhin in his new Moskvich to the south. The car was in an accident. Fedya drove into the oncoming lane so as not to hit a deaf grandfather who was crossing the road, and he was hit by a Maz. Fedya died in the hospital, and Klimuk escaped with minor bruises. Olga did not let her husband go on this trip; she threatened divorce, so she believed that she saved his life.
Fedya was a true friend. He dragged Sergei into the institute, achieved a salary increase, and convinced the director to change the topic of his dissertation. Fedya was a scientific secretary, whose position after his death was taken by Gena Klimuk, who immediately moved away. In order to get one of 4 trips to France for Sergei, necessary for work, Olga invited him and his wife to the dacha in Vasilkov.
Klimuk brought the deputy director of the Kislovsky Institute with his mistress to leave them overnight, but Sergei refused. After a night of swimming, they argued about historical expediency. From that evening on, a confrontation began to develop between Seryozha and the others.
After 2 days at the institute, Sergei talked with Klimuk, who reassured him about Paris. Olga asked her mother for money, but Sergei did not take the money because he saw that his stepfather felt sorry for him.
Sergei lost interest in France, and besides, he could not write a dissertation, despite 36 general notebooks with extracts. Olga believed that he lacked the main idea. One day, during his departure to Leningrad, Klimuk came and urged Sergei to be careful, because “he was ruining himself, he had gone somewhere wrong, he had lost his guiding thread.”
After 2 years, Sergei’s case was examined, his method, which he called “tearing up graves,” was criticized. Its essence was to search for threads between the past, the even more distant past and the future. Man is the nerve of history.
After Sergei’s dissertation was “ruined” during the discussion and the defense was postponed for at least a year, Olga reproached him for not talking to the right people first.
The next day after the discussion, Klimuk came, with whom Sergei had a huge quarrel, because Klimuk was trying to persuade Sergei to give the materials to Kislovsky, who needed them for his doctoral dissertation. These were lists of secret secret police officers for the 10s, until February 17. Sergei bought these lists from a degenerate man, whose grandfather was connected with the secret police, for 30 rubles.
In the 20th of September, Sergei left alone for Vasilkov, and Olga suffered, realizing her humiliating dependence on him. Having received an official letter from the institute that the defense was being postponed, Olga rushed to Vasilkov to the dacha, which had been rented since Irina was 4 years old. The real reason for her haste was jealousy and suspicion.
At the dacha, the owners of the house, Aunt Pasha and her husband, came home from work: they were digging potatoes. Their son Kolka arrived on a motorcycle. Sergei has come to terms with Olga's arrival. At night he consulted on how to improve relations with Klimuk. Sergei was a loser, like everyone else in his family. Neither father nor mother made a career, the sister died an old maid, all her life she loved a pathetic school friend, without reciprocating the one who loved her.
At night, Sergei admitted that he was a continuation of his ancestors, runaway peasants, schismatics and other dissenters. Sergei had the idea of traveling to Gorodets to find Koshelkov, one of the secret employees of Sergei’s lists, thereby verifying their authenticity. The trip to Gorodets reminded Olga of the three of them arriving in Vasilkov in March and talking with 10-year-old Irinka about happiness.
The present
In March, Olga returned from a business trip from Leningrad. Irinka complained that her grandmother was too strict with her, and her mother-in-law complained that her granddaughter was unruly, unhelpful, impertinent. Olga realized that her daughter’s contradictory character was due to her unsystematic upbringing.
Olga remembered how Sergei got Irina tickets to the theater. Now the girl went with Dasha to the Mossovet theater and returned upset that Dasha had been whispering with another friend all evening. Olga has a hard time letting Irina go to the dacha with friends, just as she never let her father go.
Past
The wallets found in Gorodets did not remember anything, because Sergei was trying to write down the events of 53 years ago.
Klimuk demanded that Sergei confirm that Kislovsky asked for documents about the secret police, and in return promised support, but Sergei refused.
Louise, Fedya's wife, invited guests to the wake 6 years after her husband's death. Sergei and Klimuk pointedly did not communicate at a party. During lunch, Sergei accused Klimuk of taking advantage of his position as a scientific secretary. Klimuk objected that Sergei was jealous of him.
Sergei was occupied by 3 names from the list of secret employees, designated by nicknames. Friends who remained at the wake advised me to contact a medium and professor Daria Mamedovna Nigmanova. Olga was alarmed by this woman.
In winter, Aunt Pasha came from Vasilkov: their son Kolya was arrested, who faces a long sentence for being wounded with an ax in a fight. Alexandra Prokofyevna decided to help and found a lawyer.
Olga was annoyed that her mother-in-law was trying so hard for strangers. Her stepfather was seriously ill, he underwent surgery, Olga was worried about her mother and suspected her husband of treason.
The mother-in-law ensured that Nikolai received 3 years instead of 7, but was indifferent to the grief of Olga’s mother. Olga quarreled with her husband over her mother-in-law, and he went to Fedorov, a friend from the museum. Sergei did not hide the fact that he would meet Daria there and stay overnight.
Since then, Sergei has gotten into the habit of going to Fedorov after every remark from his wife. Olga was afraid that he would leave forever. Sergei became interested in parapsychology.
Feeling sorry for herself, Olga sobbed louder than anyone else at her stepfather’s funeral. Sergei was not at the wake. He went home with Irinka. He lived a separate life.
Olga did not believe in spiritualism and thought that Daria Mamedovna had bewitched her husband. Olga also attended a seance, which seemed false to her. I was especially impressed by the psychography session when a woman allegedly wrote on paper Herzen’s words: “My refuge is the river.” They argued about whether Herzen could have made a mistake.
Olga had a private conversation with Daria, who knew that Olga was dealing with problems of psychological compatibility. She explained that not everything is known, and told how she became a parapsychologist: she dreamed of her husband who died in a plane crash.
Sergei conducted experiments with his family on instilling thoughts at a distance and tried to involve Irinka, whom he suspected of having special abilities, but her grandmother was against it.
Her friends felt sorry for Olga. For the first time in the summer, the dacha was not rented. In the fall we went mushroom hunting with her institute. Sergei explained in the forest that Klimuk was now deputy director and pushed Kislovsky away. The scientific secretary, the iron baby, 28-year-old Sharipov, asked if it was true that Sergei attended spiritualistic seances. Sergei believed that we need to start a different life, do what truly excites us, and Olga believed that everything is the same everywhere.
Dream
There were few mushrooms. In search of gaps, they got lost. 12-year-old Irinka appeared and walked next to her. Then she disappeared, and Olga asked about Daria. Seryozha said that this is not true. About 160 rubles from the mutual aid fund, he said that he did not waste it, but people took it and did not give it back. They got lost and came to a fence where men who looked like patients and a woman were sitting. Nobody knew where the highway was. The woman undertook to guide them, led them until dark and led them to the swamp.
Yuri Valentinovich Trifonov, short biography
The action takes place in Moscow. Several months have passed since Sergei Afanasyevich Troitsky passed away. His wife Olga Vasilievna, a biologist, still cannot come to her senses after the loss of her husband, who died at the age of forty-two from a heart attack. She still lives in the same apartment with his mother Alexandra Prokofievna, a woman of the old school. Alexandra Prokofyevna is a lawyer by profession, retired, but gives advice to the newspaper. She blames Olga Vasilievna for Sergei’s death, reproaching her with the fact that Olga Vasilievna bought a new TV, and this indicates, in her opinion, that her daughter-in-law is not very saddened by her husband’s death and is not going to deny herself entertainment. She does not recognize her right to suffer.
However, Alexandra Prokofievna had a difficult relationship with her son. Olga Vasilyevna vindictively recalls that he did not like the excessive straightforwardness of his mother, of whom she was proud, her categoricalness, bordering on intolerance. This intolerance also manifests itself in relations with his sixteen-year-old granddaughter Irina. Her grandmother promised her money for winter boots, but she doesn’t give it only because Irina is going to buy them from speculators. The daughter is indignant, Olga Vasilievna feels sorry for Irina, who was left without a father so early, but she also knows her character well, as strange as Sergei’s: something unstable, tough...
Everything that surrounds Olga Vasilievna is connected for her with memories of Sergei, whom she truly deeply loved. The pain of loss does not go away and does not even become less acute. She recalls their entire life together, starting from the very first day they met. She was introduced to Troitsky by her friend Vlad, then a student at the medical institute, who was in love with her. Sergei, a history student, masterfully read the words backwards and on the very first evening he ran for vodka, which Olga Vasilievna’s mother immediately did not like, who also wanted the reliable and prudent Vlad to become her husband. However, everything happened differently. The decisive event in the relationship between Olga Vasilievna and Sergei was a trip to Gagra with her friend Rita and the same Vlad. Gradually, Olga Vasilievna and Sergei began a serious romance.
Even then, Olga Vasilievna began to detect something shaky in his character, which later became a subject of special concern for her and caused a lot of suffering - primarily due to the fear of losing Sergei. It seemed to her that thanks to this very property another woman could take him away. Olga Vasilievna was jealous not only of the new women who appeared on Sergei’s horizon, but also of those who came before her. One of them, named Svetlanka, appeared immediately after their return from the south and blackmailed Sergei with an imaginary pregnancy. However, Olga Vasilievna managed to overcome this test, as she herself determined the onslaught of her rival. And a month later there was a wedding.
At first they lived with Olga Vasilievna’s mother and her stepfather, artist Georgy Maksimovich. Once Georgy Maksimovich studied in Paris, he was called “Russian Van Gogh.” He destroyed the old works and now lives quite tolerably, drawing ponds and groves, being a member of the purchasing commission, etc. A gentle and kind man, Georgy Maksimovich once showed firmness. Olga Vasilievna then became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion, because the circumstances were not going well: Sergei had quarreled with the director of the museum and wanted to leave, she worked at a school, it was a long way to travel to work, and money was tight. Georgy Maksimovich, having found out by chance, categorically forbade it, thanks to which Irinka was born. Olga Vasilyevna also had problems in that house, in particular because of the artist Vasin’s wife Zika. Sergei often ran to Vasin, especially in moments of melancholy, because he had left the museum and did not know what to do with himself. Olga Vasilievna was jealous of Sergei for Zika, they often quarreled over her. With Zika herself, after a short friendship, Olga Vasilievna established a hostile relationship. Soon Sergei’s sister died, and they moved to their mother-in-law on Shabolovka.
Remembering, Olga Vasilyevna asks herself what her and Sergei’s life really was like - good, bad? And is it really her fault for his death? When he was alive, she felt like a rich woman, especially next to her best friend Faina, whose personal life was not going well. She told Faina that yes, she was good. What was she really like? One thing is clear to her: this was their life and together they formed a single organism.
After forty, Sergei, according to Olga Vasilievna, like many men at this age, was overcome by mental turmoil. At the institute, where his friend Fedya Praskukhin dragged him, it began: promises, hopes, projects, passions, groups, dangers at every step. She thinks it was his throwing that ruined him. He got carried away, then cooled down and was eager for something new. Failures deprived him of strength, he bent, weakened, but some core inside him remained intact.
Sergei spent a long time fiddling with the book “Moscow in 1818”; he wanted to publish it, but nothing came of it. Then a new topic appeared: the February revolution, the tsarist secret police. After Sergei’s death, Olga Vasilievna was approached from the institute and asked to find a folder with materials - supposedly in order to prepare Sergei’s work for publication. These materials, including lists of secret agents of the Moscow secret police, are unique. To confirm their authenticity, Sergei looked for people associated with those who were on the lists, and even found one of the former agents - Koshelkov, born in 1891 - alive and well. Olga Vasilievna went with Sergei to the village near Moscow where this Koshelkov lived.
Sergei was looking for threads that connected the past with an even more distant past and with the future. For him, a person was a thread stretching through time, the thinnest nerve of history, which can be split off, isolated and - from it, a lot can be determined. He called his method “tearing apart graves,” but in fact it was touching a thread, and he began with his own life, with his father, after a civil educator, a student at Moscow University who participated in a commission that examined the archives of the gendarmerie department. This was the source of Sergei's passion. In his ancestors and in himself, he discovered something in common - disagreement.
Sergei was eagerly engaged in new research, but everything began to change dramatically after the death of his friend Fedya Praskukhin, a scientist-secretary of the institute, who died in a car accident. Olga Vasilievna then did not allow Sergei with him and another old friend of theirs, Gena Klimuk, to go south. Klimuk, who was also in the car, remained alive, he took the place of the scientific secretary instead of Fedya, but their relationship with Sergei from friendly quickly became hostile. Klimuk turned out to be an intriguer; he encouraged Sergei to create his own “small, cozy little band” with him. One day the opportunity arose to go on a tourist trip to France. For Sergei, this was not only an opportunity to see Paris and Marseille, but also to look for materials needed for work. Much depended on Klimuk. They invited him and his wife to their dacha in Vasilkovo. Klimuk arrived, bringing with him the deputy director of the Kislovsky Institute with some girl. Klimuk asked to allow them to spend the night. Olga Vasilievna objected. At the same time, a furious dispute arose between the tipsy Klimuk and Sergei about historical expediency, which Sergei denied, caustically joking: “I wonder who will determine what is expedient and what is not? Academic Council by majority vote?
But even after this skirmish, Sergei continued to hope for a trip to France. Georgy Maksimovich promised to give part of the money, who decided to solemnly arrange the presentation of the amount, since he had nostalgic memories associated with Paris. Olga Vasilievna and Sergei went to see him, but it all ended almost in a scandal. Irritated by his father-in-law’s statements, Sergei unexpectedly refused the money. Soon the question of the trip disappeared: the group shrank, and Sergei seemed to have cooled down. Shortly before discussing the dissertation, Klimuk persuaded Sergei to give some materials to Kislovsky, who needed them for his doctoral dissertation. Sergei refused. The first dissertation discussion failed. This meant that protection was postponed indefinitely.
Then Daria Mamedovna appeared, an interesting woman, philosopher, psychologist, parapsychology specialist, about whom they said that she was unusually smart. Sergei became interested in parapsychology, hoping to learn something useful for his research. Once, together with Olga Vasilievna, they participated in a spiritualistic seance, after which Olga Vasilievna had a conversation with Daria Mamedovna. She was worried about Sergei, his relationship with this woman, and Daria Mamedovna was interested in the problems of biological incompatibility, which Olga Vasilievna dealt with as a biochemist. The main thing was that Sergei was moving away, living his own life, and this hurt Olga Vasilyevna.
After the death of Sergei, it seems to Olga Vasilievna that life is over, only emptiness and cold remain. However, unexpectedly another life begins for her: a person appears with whom she develops a close relationship. He has a family, but they meet, go for walks in Spasskoye-Lykovo, talk about everything. This man is dear to Olga Vasilievna. And she thinks that it is not her fault, because there is a different life around.
Retold
The story “Another Life” was written in 1975 and published in 1976 in Moscow. It was included in the cycle of so-called “Moscow stories”. The story is dedicated to Alla, Trifonov's second wife, whom he married after the sudden death of his first wife. So the plot of the story is a mirror reflection of the writer’s own family situation.
Genre originality
Family and everyday stories of the “Moscow cycle” include elements of a philosophical story about the meaning of life, a psychological and social story.
Issues
The most important problem of the story is the problem of the historical past. History seems to the main character as an ingot of simplicity and mystery, a queue where eras, states and great people stand at the back of her head. The role of the historian is to put it all in order. This primitive view of history is contrasted with the method of “tearing up graves”, which was discovered by Olga’s husband. He puts a personality at the head of historical events, which he calls a thread stretching through time.
One of the problems of the story is Chekhov's favorite problem of understanding. Olga argues that family clans are different people from different bowels of the earth. Marriage is called dual worlds, a collision of two clans and two worlds. The 17-year marriage has already died, but the relatives' war continues.
The characters misunderstand each other's motives, actions and words. At the same time, they do not try to talk, but withdraw into themselves or blame others, make scandals and quarrel. Dialogue as the basis of mutual understanding is alien to the heroes.
The story raises the philosophical problem of the transience of human life. What has already been lived is like a moment, but what we have today stretches on endlessly.
The social problem of the existence of Soviet people in the era of stagnation is relevant. Life seems hopeless, the same everywhere. For example, after work everyone rushes home to put on their slippers and watch TV.
The problem of historical expediency, about which the heroes argue, cannot be resolved, because no one has the right to take the decision on what is expedient, but they do. This is the problem of the criterion of truth, insoluble in human life.
Plot and composition
The story is an internal monologue of the main character, in which she comprehends the present and the past. Sometimes she delves into the events of the distant past, remembering how her mother got married a second time, how she met her husband. Sometimes she thinks about the events that happened shortly before her husband’s death. The layer of modernity dates back to 1973. The death of her husband happened six months before.
At the end of the story, memories are intertwined with dreams. Only the mention of 12-year-old Ira in events during which she should have been 16 explains to the reader the illusory nature of what is happening.
The last paragraphs are the heroine’s new present, her “other life”, in which she got rid of guilt and found new love. The daughter Irina, who is about to get married, becomes the only temporary milestone for the reader.
The composition of the story is retrospective, which is not typical for the story as a genre, but is typical for Trifonov’s stories.
The heroine's 42-year-old husband, with whom she lived for 17 years, dies of a heart attack. She lives with her mother-in-law, who blames her daughter-in-law for her husband's death, and her 16-year-old daughter.
Olga believes that her marriage with her husband was happy. Marriage is like a once living organism. Olga is trying to understand why she and Sergei gradually moved away from each other, why her husband began to live his own life.
To justify herself, Olga indulges in memories, trying to understand the reasons for Sergei’s actions, the foundations of his character, and her own mistakes.
Several questions remain unresolved for Olga. For example, why did Sergei take 160 rubles from the mutual aid fund? She receives the answer to this question in a dream. And it doesn’t matter how close the husband’s explanation in the dream is to the truth. The main thing is that the heroine finds peace.
The story is written in the third person, but from the point of view of Olga Vasilievna. Agreeing or disagreeing with the heroine, the reader is imbued with her thoughts, reflects, already taking into account her point of view.
Heroes of the story
Olga Troitskaya is the main character of the story, which is presented as an internal monologue of the heroine: her reasoning about the present, connected with the death of her husband 7 months ago, and memories of the past, about 17 years of their conscience.
Olga is a biochemist and head of the laboratory. She knows how to work for results and is not afraid of difficulties. In her youth, she disappeared at school, then found a job at an institute, where, unlike her husband, she got along well with people. She and her boss struggled with the formula for a biological compatibility stimulator. Olga is a biologist and materialist who does not believe in immortality, even in a symbolic sense. From her point of view, everything begins and ends with chemistry, which, however, cannot explain the pain of loss.
Olga is confident that she is right; often she does not distinguish between what is important and what is not. The heroine is very touchy, and she herself does not understand when she offends others. Olga is lonely. She has a friend Faina, but you can’t tell her much. Olga is trying to get closer to her daughter Irina.
Olga sees her loneliness symbolically as an elevator in which you can shout, read the inscriptions on the walls, but you will not receive an answer. Unexpectedly, the dispatcher answers her scream, so Olga understands that if you scream, you will get an answer.
Olga's mother devoted herself entirely to serving Georgy Maksimovich, Olga's stepfather. When Irinka was born, her mother tried to help, but did not have time. When Sergei’s sister died, I had to move in with my mother-in-law.
Georgy Maksimovich is Olga Vasilyevna’s stepfather. Her father died when she was 6 years old during the war. Mother met Georgy Maksimovich during evacuation. He was a good artist who studied before the revolution. But Olga did not like his paintings; they looked like ancient paintings of the past. Before the war, he fell into disgrace, but during the evacuation he worked a lot and wrote a series of paintings on the theme of labor. After the war he became respected and was given a room in the artists' house and a studio. The artist's paintings sold well.
Sergei, Olga’s husband, is a historian. Olga met him thanks to her childhood friend Vadim, whom they dreamed of marrying her to. Sergei amazed her with his ability to pronounce words backwards. He worked for a long time in a quiet library, but he quarreled with his superiors and moved to an institute seething with passions. His wife described him to herself as a loser always rushing somewhere.
Sergei did what he liked, and didn’t do what he didn’t like. He wrote a dissertation on the Moscow secret police on the eve of the February Revolution. 36 general notebooks were filled with extracts. But he lost interest, so he could not finish the work.
The idea of studying the secret police came to Sergei when he learned that his father, who died during the war, worked after February on a commission that identified secret employees of the former security department. Sergei became interested in his ancestry.
Another “unlucky” quality of Sergei is his inability to leave on time. Sergei does not know how to negotiate or smooth out conflicts. He is uncompromising and straightforward. Much earlier than his wife, he understands that he needs to live a “different life” in which there is no routine. He dies “from a life” that he cannot come to terms with.
The action takes place in Moscow. Several months have passed since Sergei Afanasyevich Troitsky passed away. His wife Olga Vasilyevna, a biologist, still cannot come to her senses after the loss of her husband, who died at the age of forty-two from a heart attack. She still lives in the same apartment with his mother Alexandra Prokofievna, a woman of the old school. Alexandra Prokofyevna is a lawyer by profession, retired, but gives advice to the newspaper. She blames Olga Vasilievna for Sergei’s death, reproaching her with the fact that Olga Vasilievna bought a new TV, and this indicates, in her opinion, that her daughter-in-law is not very saddened by her husband’s death and is not going to deny herself entertainment. She does not recognize her right to suffer.
However, Alexandra Prokofievna had a difficult relationship with her son. Olga Vasilievna vindictively recalls that he did not like his mother’s excessive straightforwardness, of which she was proud, her categoricalness, bordering on intolerance. This intolerance also manifests itself in relations with his sixteen-year-old granddaughter Irina. Grandmother promised her money for winter boots, but she doesn’t give it only because Irina is going to buy them from speculators. The daughter is indignant, Olga Vasilievna feels sorry for Irina, who was left without a father so early, but she also knows her character well, as strange as Sergei’s: something unstable, tough...
Everything that surrounds Olga Vasilievna is connected for her with memories of Sergei, whom she truly deeply loved. The pain of loss does not go away and does not even become less acute. She recalls their entire life together, starting from the very first day they met. She was introduced to Troitsky by her friend Vlad, then a student at the medical institute, who was in love with her. Sergei, a history student, masterfully read the words backwards and on the very first evening he ran for vodka, which Olga Vasilievna’s mother immediately did not like, who also wanted the reliable and prudent Vlad to become her husband. However, everything happened differently. The decisive event in the relationship between Olga Vasilievna and Sergei was a trip to Gagra with her friend Rita and the same Vlad. Gradually, Olga Vasilievna and Sergei began a serious romance.
Even then, Olga Vasilyevna began to detect something shaky in his character, which later became a subject of special concern for her and caused a lot of suffering - primarily due to the fear of losing Sergei. It seemed to her that thanks to this very property another woman could take him away. Olga Vasilievna was jealous not only of the new women who appeared on Sergei’s horizon, but also of those who came before her. One of them, named Svetlanka, appeared immediately after their return from the south and blackmailed Sergei with an imaginary pregnancy. However, Olga Vasilievna managed to overcome this test, as she herself determined the onslaught of her rival. And a month later there was a wedding.
At first they lived with Olga Vasilievna’s mother and her stepfather, artist Georgy Maksimovich. Once Georgy Maksimovich studied in Paris, he was called “Russian Van Gogh.” He destroyed the old works and now lives quite tolerably, drawing ponds and groves, being a member of the purchasing commission, etc. A gentle and kind man, Georgy Maksimovich once showed firmness. Olga Vasilievna then became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion, because the circumstances were not going well: Sergei had quarreled with the director of the museum and wanted to leave, she worked at a school, it was a long way to travel to work, and money was tight. Georgy Maksimovich, having found out by chance, categorically forbade it, thanks to which Irinka was born. Olga Vasilyevna also had problems in that house, in particular because of the artist Vasin’s wife Zika. Sergei often ran to Vasin, especially in moments of melancholy, because he had left the museum and did not know what to do with himself. Olga Vasilievna was jealous of Sergei for Zika, they often quarreled over her. With Zika herself, after a short friendship, Olga Vasilievna established a hostile relationship. Soon Sergei’s sister died, and they moved to their mother-in-law on Shabolovka.
Remembering, Olga Vasilyevna asks herself what her and Sergei’s life really was like - good, bad? And is it really her fault for his death? When he was alive, she felt like a rich woman, especially next to her best friend Faina, whose personal life was not going well. She told Faina that yes, she was good. What was she really like? One thing is clear to her: this was their life and together they formed a single organism.
After forty, Sergei, according to Olga Vasilievna, like many men at this age, was overcome by mental turmoil. At the institute, where his friend Fedya Praskukhin dragged him, it began: promises, hopes, projects, passions, groups, dangers at every step. She thinks it was his throwing that ruined him. He got carried away, then cooled down and was eager for something new. Failures deprived him of strength, he bent, weakened, but some core inside him remained intact.
Sergei spent a long time fiddling with the book “Moscow in 1818”; he wanted to publish it, but nothing came of it. Then a new topic appeared: the February revolution, the tsarist secret police. After Sergei’s death, the institute came to Olga Vasilievna and asked to find a folder with materials - supposedly in order to prepare Sergei’s work for publication. These materials, including lists of secret agents of the Moscow secret police, are unique. To confirm their authenticity, Sergei looked for people associated with those on the lists, and even found one of the former agents - Koshelkov, born in 1891 - alive and well. Olga Vasilievna went with Sergei to the village near Moscow where this Koshelkov lived.
Sergei was looking for threads that connected the past with an even more distant past and with the future. For him, a person was a thread stretching through time, the thinnest nerve of history that can be split off, isolated, and a lot can be determined from it. He called his method “tearing apart graves,” but in fact it was touching a thread, and he began with his own life, with his father, after a civil educator, a student at Moscow University who participated in a commission that examined the archives of the gendarmerie department. This was the source of Sergei's passion. In his ancestors and in himself, he discovered something in common - disagreement.
Sergei was eagerly engaged in new research, but everything began to change dramatically after the death of his friend Fedya Praskukhin, a scientist-secretary of the institute, who died in a car accident. Olga Vasilievna then did not allow Sergei with him and another old friend of theirs, Gena Klimuk, to go south. Klimuk, who was also in the car, remained alive; he took the place of the scientific secretary instead of Fedya, but their relationship with Sergei quickly turned hostile from friendly. Klimuk turned out to be an intriguer; he encouraged Sergei to create his own “small, cozy little band” with him. One day the opportunity arose to go on a tourist trip to France. For Sergei, this was not only an opportunity to see Paris and Marseille, but also to look for materials needed for work. Much depended on Klimuk. They invited him and his wife to their dacha in Vasilkovo. Klimuk arrived, bringing with him the deputy director of the Kislovsky Institute and some girl. Klimuk asked to allow them to spend the night. Olga Vasilievna objected. At the same time, a furious dispute arose between the tipsy Klimuk and Sergei about historical expediency, which Sergei denied, caustically joking: “I wonder who will determine what is expedient and what is not? Academic Council by majority vote?”
But even after this skirmish, Sergei continued to hope for a trip to France. Georgy Maksimovich promised to give part of the money, who decided to solemnly arrange the presentation of the amount, since he had nostalgic memories associated with Paris. Olga Vasilievna and Sergei went to see him, but it all ended almost in a scandal. Irritated by his father-in-law’s statements, Sergei unexpectedly refused the money. Soon the question of the trip disappeared: the group shrank, and Sergei seemed to have cooled down. Shortly before discussing the dissertation, Klimuk persuaded Sergei to give some materials to Kislovsky, who needed them for his doctoral dissertation. Sergei refused. The first dissertation discussion failed. This meant that protection was postponed indefinitely.
Then Daria Mamedovna appeared, an interesting woman, philosopher, psychologist, parapsychology specialist, about whom they said that she was unusually smart. Sergei became interested in parapsychology, hoping to learn something useful for his research. Once, together with Olga Vasilievna, they participated in a spiritualistic seance, after which Olga Vasilievna had a conversation with Daria Mamedovna. She was worried about Sergei, his relationship with this woman, and Daria Mamedovna was interested in the problems of biological incompatibility, which Olga Vasilievna dealt with as a biochemist. The main thing was that Sergei was moving away, living his own life, and this hurt Olga Vasilyevna.
After the death of Sergei, it seems to Olga Vasilievna that life is over, only emptiness and cold remain. However, unexpectedly another life begins for her: a person appears with whom she develops a close relationship. He has a family, but they meet, go for walks in Spasskoye-Lykovo, talk about everything. This man is dear to Olga Vasilievna. And she thinks that it is not her fault, because there is a different life around.
Option 2
Several months have passed since the death of Sergei Troitsky. His wife, Olga Vasilievna, still lives with Sergei’s mother, Alexandra Prokofievna. The women do not get along because the mother believes that Olga has no right to suffer because of her husband.
However, Olga really loved her husband. The objects around her remind her very much of her loved one who passed away so early in life. She recalls how she met Sergei and the further development of their relationship. They took each other seriously, and a month later, after returning from Gagra, they got married.
At first, they lived with Olga's mother and her stepfather. It was a difficult time. There was a catastrophic lack of money, and Olga decided to have an abortion. Then her stepfather dissuaded her from such an act. As a result, a daughter, Ira, was born. After the death of Sergei’s sister, they moved to his mother, on Shabolovka.
Remembering her life with Sergei, Olga thinks about whether they were truly happy. She was often jealous of her husband towards different girls. But he proved that he loved her.
When Sergei turned forty, he began to suffer from mental anguish due to a midlife crisis. He began to rush around in search of something unknown. His mood became changeable, but his internal state remained unchanged. He wanted to publish his book, but nothing worked out. But he did not despair, and was looking for new materials for his book. One day, he had the opportunity to travel to France. This was a great idea, since Sergei could find the necessary materials for his book in Paris. But he had a heated argument with his boss, who could have canceled the trip. However, Sergei continued to hope that he would go. Soon the proposal for the trip was dropped, and Sergei came to terms with it.
After the death of her husband, Olga Vasilievna was very worried. It seemed to her that her life was over. Suddenly a new person appears in her life, with whom she begins a new relationship. He is married, but this does not stop them from dating. They walk around Moscow and talk about different things. This man became dear to Olga. She believes that she has the right to a relationship, since there is a different life around her.
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The action of the story takes place in Moscow. Several months have passed since Troitsky Sergei Afanasyevich died. His wife Olga Vasilyevna, a biologist, still cannot come to her senses after the death of her husband, who died at forty-two from a heart attack. She still lives with his mother Alexandra Prokofievna in the same apartment. His mother is a woman of the old school. Alexandra Prokofyevna is a lawyer by profession, now retired, but still gives advice to the newspaper. She blames Olga Vasilievna for Sergei’s death, reproaching her with the fact that Olga Vasilievna acquired a new TV, and this suggests that her daughter-in-law does not really miss her husband, and also does not and does not want to deny herself entertainment.
But Alexandra Prokofievna also had a difficult relationship with her son. Olga Vasilievna gloatingly recalls that he did not like the straightforwardness of his mother, of whom his mother was proud, her categoricalness, which bordered on cruelty. This cruelty is also visible in his relationship with his granddaughter Irina. Grandma said that she would give her money for winter boots, but she didn’t, because Irina wanted to buy them from speculators.
Everything around Olga Vasilievna is connected for her with memories of Sergei, whom she loved very much. The pain of loss does not go away and does not even become less acute. She begins to remember their entire life together. She was introduced to Troitsky by her friend Vlad, who was in love with her. Sergei was a history student who, on the first evening of their acquaintance, ran for vodka, but Olga Vasilievna’s mother did not like all this, who wanted her daughter to marry the prudent and reliable Vlad. But everything happened differently. On a trip to Gagra, Olga Vasilievna and Sergei began a serious romance.
Even then, Olga Vasilyevna began to notice something insecure in Sergei’s character, which later became a matter of great concern for her and caused a lot of suffering. Olga Vasilievna was very jealous of all Sergei’s women. One of them, Svetlanka, blackmailed Sergei with a non-existent pregnancy. But Olga Vasilievna passed this test, and a month later the wedding took place.
At first they lived at home with Olga Vasilievna’s mother and her stepfather Georgy Maksimovich, who was an artist. Georgy Maksimovich had talent and he even studied in Paris, he was called the Russian Van Gogh. He destroyed his old works and now paints ponds and groves. He was a kind and gentle man, but once he showed his firmness. Olga Vasilyevna was pregnant then and wanted to have an abortion, because the circumstances were not the best for the birth of a child, since Sergei had quarreled with the director of the museum and now wanted to leave, and she worked at school, and money was bad. When Georgy Maksimovich accidentally found out about this, he categorically forbade having an abortion, and thanks to this, Irinka appeared. Olga Vasilyevna also had problems because of Vasin’s wife Zika. Sergei ran to Vasin quite often, since he had left the museum and did not know what to do. And Olga Vasilievna Sergei was jealous of Zika, and they very often quarreled because of her. Then Olga Vasilievna and Zika began to have a hostile relationship. Then Sergei’s sister died, and they moved to Shabolovka to live with their mother-in-law.
When Olga Vasilievna remembers her relationship with Sergei, she thinks about how bad or good their life was. With her husband alive, Olga Vasilievna felt like a rich woman, especially when she was next to her best friend Faina, whose personal life was not going well.
When Sergei turned forty, he became somewhat restless. At the institute, where his friend Fedya Praskukhin dragged him, promises, projects, hopes, passions, dangers at every step, groups began. She thinks the throwing killed him. At first Sergei got carried away, and then cooled down and again strived for something new.
Sergei wanted to publish the book “Moscow in 1988,” and he worked a lot on it, but nothing worked out. Then other topics appeared: the Tsarist secret police, the February revolution. And after Sergei died, Olga Vasilievna came from the institute and asked to find a folder with materials in order to publish Sergei’s work. These materials were unique. And in order to confirm their authenticity, Sergei looked for people who were on the lists.
Sergei was looking for threads that connected the past with the past and with the future. For Sergei, a person was a thread that stretches through time. He called his method tearing up graves. The beginning of Sergei’s passion came from his life with his father, who participated in the commission that sorted the archives of the gendarmerie department.
Sergei was engaged in new research with interest, but everything changed after the death of his friend Fedya Praskukhin, who was a scientist-secretary of the institute, and who died in a car accident. That day, Olga Vasilievna did not allow Sergei and him and another friend of theirs, Gena Klimuk, to go south. Klimuk, who was also in the car, but survived, and he took Fedya’s place and became a scientific secretary, but for some reason their relationship with Sergei became hostile. Klimuk was an intriguer, and encouraged Sergei to create a small jar with him. Once the opportunity arose to go to France on a tourist trip. For Sergei, this was also an opportunity to see Marseille and Paris and also look for materials that were needed for work, but then a lot depended on Klimuk. They invited him and his wife to their dacha in Vasilkovo. Klimuk arrived together with the deputy director of the institute, Kislovsky. Klimuk asked Kislovsky to spend the night with his passion. Olga Vasilievna was against it. And then a dispute arose between Sergei Klimuk about historical expediency, to which Sergei had a negative attitude.
But even after this quarrel, Sergei still hoped for a trip to France. Georgy Maksimovich wanted to give part of the money. Olga Vasilievna and Sergei went to see him, but then a scandal almost happened. Sergei was annoyed by his father-in-law’s statements and he refused the money. Then Sergei cooled down for the trip. Before discussing the dissertation, Klimuk asked Sergei to transfer the materials to Kislovsky for his doctoral dissertation. Sergei did not do this. The first discussion of the dissertation failed, which meant that the defense was postponed indefinitely.
Then Daria Mamedovna came, who was a psychologist, philosopher, and parapsychology specialist. Sergei became interested in parapsychology, in the hope that he would find something interesting for his research. Once Sergei, together with Olga Vasilievna, took part in a spiritualistic seance. After the session, Olga Vasilievna had a conversation with Daria Mamedovna. She was worried about Sergei's relationship with this woman. Olga Vasilievna was hurt by the fact that Sergei was moving away from her very much.
When Sergei died, it seemed to Olga Vasilyevna that life was over, and only cold and emptiness remained. But suddenly another life begins for her, she has a person with whom she is very close. He has his own family, but they still meet, they talk about everything and even go for a walk in Spasskoye-Lykovo. For Olga Vasilievna, this person is very dear. And she understands that Sergei’s death is not her fault, because there is another life around her.
Please note that this is only a brief summary of the literary work “Another Life”. This summary omits many important points and quotes.
