And Bunin gentleman from San Francisco. He was firmly convinced that he had every right to rest, to enjoy

Woe to you, Babylon, strong city.

Apocalypse

A gentleman from San Francisco - no one remembered his name either in Naples or Capri - went to the Old World for two whole years, with his wife and daughter, solely for the sake of entertainment.

He was firmly convinced that he had every right to rest, to pleasure, to a long and comfortable journey, and who knows what else. For such confidence, he had the reason that, firstly, he was rich, and secondly, he had just embarked on life, despite his fifty-eight years. Until that time, he had not lived, but only existed, though not badly, but still placing all his hopes on the future. He worked tirelessly - the Chinese, whom he ordered to work for him by the thousands, knew well what this meant! - and, finally, he saw that a lot had already been done, that he had almost caught up with those whom he had once taken as a model, and decided to take a break. The people to whom he belonged used to start enjoying life with a trip to Europe, to India, to Egypt. He did and he did the same. Of course, he wanted to reward himself first of all for the years of work; however, he was also happy for his wife and daughter. His wife was never particularly impressionable, but all elderly American women are passionate travelers. And as for the daughter, an aged and slightly sickly girl, for her the trip was absolutely necessary - not to mention the health benefits, isn't there happy meetings in travel? Here sometimes you sit at the table or look at the frescoes next to the billionaire.

The route was developed by a gentleman from San Francisco extensive. In December and January, he hoped to enjoy the sun of southern Italy, the monuments of antiquity, the tarantella, the serenades of itinerant singers, and what people at his age feel especially subtly - the love of young Neapolitan women, even if not entirely disinterested, he thought of holding a carnival in Nice, in Monte Carlo, where the most selective society flocks at this time - the very one on which all the benefits of civilization depend: the style of tuxedos, and the strength of thrones, and the declaration of war, and the well-being of hotels - where some enthusiastically indulge in automobile and sailing racing, others roulette, others to what is commonly called flirting, and fourth to shooting pigeons, which soar very beautifully from cages over an emerald lawn, against the backdrop of a sea the color of forget-me-nots, and immediately knock white lumps on the ground; he wanted to dedicate the beginning of March to Florence, to come to Rome to the passions of the Lord, to listen to the Miserere there; Venice, and Paris, and a bullfight in Seville, and swimming in the English Isles, and Athens, and Constantinople, and Palestine, and Egypt, and even Japan were included in his plans - of course, already on the way back ... And everything went first Great.

It was the end of November, and all the way to Gibraltar we had to sail now in icy haze, now in the middle of a storm with sleet; but sailed quite well.

There were many passengers, the ship - the famous "Atlantis" - looked like a huge hotel with all the amenities - with a night bar, with oriental baths, with its own newspaper - and life on it proceeded very measuredly: they got up early, with trumpet sounds, abruptly resounding along the corridors even in that gloomy hour, when the dawn was so slow and unfriendly over the gray-green water desert, which was heavily agitated in the fog; having put on flannel pajamas, they drank coffee, chocolate, cocoa; then they sat down in the marble baths, did gymnastics, stimulating the appetite and feeling good, made daily toilets and went to the first breakfast; up to eleven o'clock it was supposed to walk briskly on the decks, breathing the cold freshness of the ocean, or play sheffle board and other games to re-stimulate the appetite, and at eleven to refresh themselves with broth sandwiches; having refreshed themselves, they read the newspaper with pleasure and calmly waited for the second breakfast, even more nutritious and varied than the first; the next two hours were devoted to rest; all the decks were then filled with long chairs, on which travelers lay, covered with rugs, looking at the cloudy sky and at the foamy hillocks flashing overboard, or dozing sweetly; at five o'clock they, refreshed and cheerful, were given strong fragrant tea with biscuits; at seven they announced with trumpet signals what constituted the main goal of this entire existence, its crown ... And then the gentleman from San Francisco, rubbing his hands from a surge of vitality, hurried to his rich luxury cabin - to get dressed.

The ocean roared behind the wall in black mountains, the blizzard whistled strongly in the heavy gear, the steamer trembled all over, overcoming both it and these mountains, - as if with a plow, breaking apart their unsteady, now and then boiling up and high foamy tails huge masses, the siren, choked with mist, groaned in mortal anguish, the watchmen on their tower froze from the cold and went crazy from the unbearable strain of attention, to the gloomy and sultry bowels of the underworld, its last, ninth circle was like the underwater womb of a steamboat, - the one where the gigantic fireboxes, devouring with their red-hot mouths of heaps of coal, with a roar thrown into them, drenched in acrid, dirty sweat and waist-deep naked people, crimson from the flames; and here, in the bar, they carelessly threw their legs on the arms of their chairs, sipped cognac and liqueurs, floated in waves of spicy smoke, everything in the dance hall shone and poured out light, warmth and joy, couples either spun in waltzes, then bent into tango - and the music insistently, in a kind of sweet, shameless sadness, she prayed all about one thing, all about the same ... Among this brilliant crowd there was a certain great rich man, shaven, long, like a prelate, in an old-fashioned tailcoat, there was a famous Spanish writer, there was a universal beauty, there was an elegant couple in love, whom everyone watched with curiosity and who did not hide their happiness: he danced only with her, and everything came out with them so subtly, charmingly, that only one commander knew that this couple was hired by Lloyd to play love for good money and has long been floating on one ship or another.

In Gibraltar, everyone was happy with the sun, it was like early spring; a new passenger appeared on board the Atlantis, arousing general interest in himself - the crown prince of an Asian state, traveling incognito, a small man, all made of wood, broad-faced, narrow-eyed, wearing gold glasses, slightly unpleasant - because his large black mustache showed through his him, like a dead man, in general, sweet, simple and modest. The Mediterranean smelled of winter again, there was a large and flowery wave, like a peacock's tail, which, with a bright brilliance and a completely clear sky, was parted by a tramontana merrily and furiously flying towards. Then, on the second day, the sky began to turn pale, the horizon became foggy: the earth was approaching, Ischia, Capri appeared, through the binoculars Naples, piled at the foot of something gray-gray, was already visible in lumps of sugar ... Many ladies and gentlemen had already put on light coats, fur up, fur coats; unanswered, always in a whisper speaking fights - the Chinese, bow-legged teenagers with resin braids to the toes and with girlish thick eyelashes, gradually pulled blankets, canes, suitcases, travel bags up the stairs ... The daughter of a gentleman from San Francisco stood on the deck next to the prince, last night, by a lucky chance presented to her, she pretended to stare intently into the distance, where he pointed to her, explaining something, telling something hastily and quietly; he seemed like a boy among the others in stature, he was not at all good-looking and strange - glasses, a bowler hat, an English coat, and the hair of a rare mustache looked like a horse, the dark, thin skin on a flat face seemed to be stretched and as if slightly varnished - but the girl listened to him and from excitement did not understand what he was saying to her; her heart beat with an incomprehensible delight before him: everything, everything in him was different from the others - his dry hands, his clean skin, under which flowed ancient royal blood, even his European, quite simple, but as if especially neat clothes were fraught with an inexplicable charm. And the gentleman from San Francisco himself, in gray leggings on patent-leather boots, kept looking at the famous beauty standing near him, a tall, amazingly built blonde with eyes painted in the latest Parisian fashion, holding a tiny, bent, mangy dog on a silver chain and talking all the time. with her. And the daughter, in some kind of vague awkwardness, tried not to notice him.

He was quite generous on the way and therefore fully believed in the care of all those who fed and watered him, served him from morning to evening, forestalling his slightest desire, guarded his cleanliness and peace, dragged his things, called for him porters, delivered him chests in hotels. So it was everywhere, so it was in navigation, so it should have been in Naples. Naples grew and approached; the musicians, shining with copper wind instruments, already crowded on the deck and suddenly deafened everyone with the triumphant sounds of the march, the giant commander, in full dress, appeared on his bridges and, like a merciful pagan god, waved his hand in greeting to the passengers - and to the gentleman from San Francisco, just like everyone else, it seemed that it was for him alone that the march of proud America was thundering, that it was his commander who greeted him with a safe arrival. And when the Atlantis finally entered the harbor, rolled up to the embankment with its multi-storey bulk dotted with people, and the gangway rumbled - how many porters and their assistants in caps with gold galloons, how many all kinds of commission agents, whistling boys and hefty ragamuffins with bundles colored postcards in their hands rushed to meet him with an offer of services! And he grinned at these ragamuffins, going to the car of the very hotel where the prince could also stay, and calmly spoke through his teeth in English, then in Italian:

Life in Naples immediately went on as usual: early in the morning - breakfast in a gloomy dining room, cloudy, unpromising sky and a crowd of guides at the lobby door; then the first smiles of the warm pinkish sun, the view from the high-hanging balcony of Vesuvius, shrouded to the foot in radiant morning vapors, of the silver-pearl ripples of the bay and the delicate outline of Capri on the horizon, of the tiny donkeys in gigs running below, along the sticky embankment, and of the detachments small soldiers marching somewhere with cheerful and defiant music; then - exit to the car and slow movement along the crowded narrow and gray corridors of the streets, among the tall, multi-windowed houses, viewing the deadly clean and evenly, pleasantly, but boringly, snow-lit, museums or cold, wax-smelling churches, in which everywhere one and the same thing: a majestic entrance, covered with a heavy leather curtain, and inside - a huge emptiness, silence, quiet lights of the menorah, reddening in the depths on a throne decorated with lace, a lonely old woman among dark wooden desks, slippery coffin slabs underfoot and someone " Descent from the Cross”, certainly famous; at one o'clock in the afternoon on Mount San Martino, where by noon many people of the very first class come together and where one day the daughter of a gentleman from San Francisco almost became ill: it seemed to her that a prince was sitting in the hall, although she already knew from the newspapers, that he is in Rome; at five o'clock in the hotel, in a smart salon, where it is so warm from the carpets and blazing fireplaces; and there again preparations for dinner - again the powerful, authoritative rumble of a gong on all floors, again strings of low-cut ladies rustling on the stairs and reflected in the mirrors, again the wide and hospitable hall of the dining room, and the red jackets of musicians on the stage, and a black crowd of lackeys near head waiter, with extraordinary skill pouring thick pink soup on plates ... Dinners were again so plentiful and dishes, and wines, and mineral waters, and sweets, and fruits, that by eleven o'clock in the evening maids carried rubber bladders with hot water to all rooms to warm stomachs.

However, December was not entirely successful that year: the porters, when they talked to them about the weather, only raised their shoulders guiltily, muttering that they would not remember such a year, although for more than a year they had to mutter this and refer to the fact that “ something terrible is happening everywhere ”: unprecedented downpours and storms on the Riviera, snow in Athens, Etna is also all covered and shines at night, tourists from Palermo, fleeing the cold, scatter ... The morning sun deceived every day: from noon it invariably turned gray and began sow rain, but it’s getting thicker and colder: then the palm trees at the entrance of the hotel shone with tin, the city seemed especially dirty and cramped, the museums were too monotonous, the cigar butts of fat cabbies in rubber capes fluttering in the wind with wings - unbearably smelly, the vigorous clapping of their whips over with thin-necked nags obviously false, the shoes of the gentlemen who sweep the tram rails are terrible, and the women splashing in the mud, in the rain, with black open heads, are ugly short-legged; about the dampness and the stench of rotten fish from the foaming sea near the embankment and there is nothing to say.

The gentleman and lady from San Francisco began to quarrel in the morning; their daughter either went about pale, with a headache, then came to life, admired everything and was then both sweet and beautiful: beautiful were those tender, complex feelings that awakened in her meeting with an ugly man in whom unusual blood flowed, for after all, in the end - in the end, maybe it doesn’t matter what exactly awakens the girl’s soul - is it money, is it fame, is it nobility of the family ... Everyone assured that it’s not at all the same in Sorrento, on Capri - it’s warmer, and sunny, and lemons bloom , and morals are more honest, and wine is more natural. And so the family from San Francisco decided to go with all their trunks to Capri, so that, after examining it, walking on the stones on the site of the palaces of Tiberius, visiting the fabulous caves of the Azure Grotto and listening to the Abruzzo pipers wandering around the island for a whole month before Christmas and singing praises to the Virgin Mary, to settle in Sorrento.

On the day of departure - very memorable for the family from San Francisco! - even in the morning there was no sun. A heavy fog hid Vesuvius to its very foundation, low gray over the leaden swell of the sea. Capri was not visible at all - as if he had never existed in the world. And the little steamboat heading towards it was so swaying from side to side that the family from San Francisco was lying in layers on the sofas in the miserable wardroom of this steamboat, wrapping their legs in rugs and closing their eyes from dizziness. Mrs. suffered, as she thought, most of all; she was overwhelmed several times, it seemed to her that she was dying, and the maid, who came running to her with a basin, - for many years, day after day, swaying on these waves in heat and cold, and yet tireless, - only laughed.

Miss was terribly pale and held a slice of lemon in her teeth. Mister, who was lying on his back, in a wide coat and a large cap, did not open his jaws all the way; his face became dark, his mustache white, his head ached severely: the last days, thanks to bad weather, he drank too much in the evenings and admired too much "living pictures" in some brothels. And the rain fell on the rattling glass, it flowed from them on the sofas, the wind howled at the masts and sometimes, together with the oncoming wave, laid the steamer completely on its side, and then something rolled down with a roar. At the stops, at Castellammare, at Sorrento, it was a little easier; but even here it waved terribly, the coast with all its cliffs, gardens, pines, pink and white hotels and smoky, curly-green mountains flew up and down outside the window, as if on a swing; boats banged against the walls, third-graders screamed excitedly, somewhere, as if crushed, a child choked on a cry, a damp wind blew at the doors, and, not ceasing for a minute, piercingly screamed from a rocking barge under the flag of the Royal Hotel, a burry boy who lured travelers : "Kgoya-al! Hotel Kgoya-al!..” And the gentleman from San Francisco, feeling himself as he should be - quite an old man - was already thinking with longing and malice about all these "Royal", "Splendid", "Excelsior" and about those greedy, garlic-smelling little people called Italians; once during a stop, opening his eyes and rising from the sofa, he saw under a rocky sheer a bunch of such miserable, moldy stone houses stuck to each other near the water, near the boats, near some rags, tins and brown nets, that, remembering that this was the real Italy he had come to enjoy, he felt despair... Finally, already at dusk, the island began to move with its blackness, as if drilled through with red lights at the foot, the wind became softer, warmer, more fragrant, like black oil, golden boas flowed from the lanterns of the pier ... Then suddenly an anchor thundered and splashed into the water, furious cries of boatmen rushed from everywhere - and immediately it became easier on the soul, the cabins shone brighter - the company, I wanted to eat, drink, smoke, move ... Ten minutes later, the family from San Francisco got into a large barge, after fifteen they stepped on the stones of the embankment, and then got into a bright trailer and, with a buzzing m stretched up the slope, among the stakes in the vineyards, dilapidated stone fences and wet, gnarled, covered in some places with thatched canopies of orange trees, with a gleam of orange fruits and thick glossy foliage sliding downhill, past the open windows of the trailer ... It smells sweet in Italy is the land after the rain, and each of its islands has its own special smell!

The island of Capri was damp and dark tonight. But then he came to life for a moment, lit up in some places. On the top of the mountain, on the platform of the funicular, there was again a crowd of those whose duty it was to worthily receive the gentleman from San Francisco. There were other visitors, but not worthy of attention - a few Russians who settled in Capri, slovenly and absent-minded, with glasses, beards, with turned up collars of old coats, and a company of long-legged, round-headed German youths in Tyrolean suits and with canvas bags over their shoulders. , who do not need anyone's services, feel at home everywhere and are not at all generous in spending. The gentleman from San Francisco, who calmly avoided both of them, was immediately noticed. He and his ladies were hurriedly helped out, they ran ahead of him, showing the way, he was again surrounded by boys and those hefty Capri women who carry suitcases and chests of respectable tourists on their heads. There was a pounding on a small, like an opera square, over which an electric ball was swaying from a damp wind, their wooden footstools, a horde of boys whistled like a bird and tumbled over their heads - and how a gentleman from San Francisco walked along the stage among them to some medieval an arch under the houses merged into one, behind which a ringing street led slopingly to the hotel entrance shining ahead with a swirl of palm trees over flat roofs to the left and blue stars in the black sky above, in front. And again it seemed that it was in honor of the guests from San Francisco that a stone damp town on a rocky island in the Mediterranean came to life, that they made the owner of the hotel so happy and hospitable that only a Chinese gong was waiting for them, howling on all floors of the gathering for dinner as soon as they entered the lobby.

The polite and elegant bow of the host, the remarkably elegant young man who met them, for a moment struck the gentleman from San Francisco: looking at him, the gentleman from San Francisco suddenly remembered that this night, among other confusion that besieged him in a dream, he saw this particular gentleman, exactly the same as this one, in the same business card with round edges and with the same mirror-combed head.

Surprised, he almost stopped. But since not even the mustard seed of any so-called mystical feelings remained in his soul for a long time, his surprise immediately faded: he jokingly told his wife and daughter about this strange coincidence of dream and reality, walking along the corridor of the hotel. His daughter, however, looked at him with alarm at that moment: her heart was suddenly gripped by melancholy, a feeling of terrible loneliness on this alien, dark island ...

A high-ranking person who was visiting Capri has just departed - Flight XVII. And the guests from San Francisco were given the very apartments that he occupied. They were assigned the most beautiful and skillful maid, a Belgian, with a thin and hard waist from the corset and in a starched cap in the form of a small jagged crown, the most prominent of the lackeys, a coal-black, fire-eyed Sicilian, and the most efficient bellhop, small and plump Luigi, who has changed many such places in his lifetime. And a minute later, a French maitre d' lightly knocked on the door of the gentleman's room from San Francisco, who had come to find out if the gentlemen would have dinner, and in the case of an affirmative answer, in which, however, there was no doubt, to report that today lobster, roast beef, asparagus, pheasants and so on. Paul was still walking under the gentleman from San Francisco—that wretched Italian steamboat rocked him—but he slowly, with his own hand, although unaccustomed and not quite deftly, closed the window that slammed at the head waiter’s entrance, from which smelled the smell of the distant Kitchen and wet flowers in the garden, and with leisurely distinctness answered that they would dine, that a table for them should be placed away from the doors, in the very back of the hall, that they would drink local wine, and the head waiter echoed his every word in a wide variety of intonations, which, however, had only the meaning that there is not and cannot be any doubt about the correctness of the desires of the gentleman from San Francisco and that everything will be executed exactly. Finally, he bowed his head and delicately asked:

All sir?

And, having received a slow “yes” in response, he added that today they had a tarantella in their lobby - Carmella and Giuseppe, known throughout Italy and the whole world of tourists, are dancing.

I saw her on postcards,” said the gentleman from San Francisco in an expressionless voice. “And this Giuseppe is her husband?”

Cousin, sir, the head waiter replied.

And after a pause, after thinking something, but without saying anything, the gentleman from San Francisco dismissed him with a nod of his head.

And then he again began to get ready for the wedding: he turned on electricity everywhere, filled all the mirrors with the reflection of light and brilliance, furniture and open chests, began to shave, wash and call every minute, while other impatient calls rushed and interrupted him along the entire corridor - from the rooms of his wife and daughter. And Luigi, in his red apron, with the ease characteristic of many fat men, making grimaces of horror that amused the maids who ran past with tiled buckets in their hands to tears, rolled head over heels at the bell and, knocking on the door with his knuckles, with feigned timidity, with idiocy respectfully asked:

On sonato, signore?

And from behind the door came a slow and creaky, insultingly polite voice:

Yes, come in…

What did the gentleman from San Francisco feel, what did he think on this so significant evening for him? He, like anyone who has experienced a toss, only really wanted to eat, dreamed with pleasure of the first spoonful of soup, the first sip of wine, and performed the usual business of the toilet even in some excitement, which left no time for feelings and reflections.

Having shaved, washed, properly inserted several teeth, he, standing in front of the mirrors, moistened and pinched with brushes in a silver frame the remnants of pearl hair around a swarthy-yellow skull, pulled on a strong senile body with a waist plump from enhanced nutrition, and on dry legs with flat feet - black silk stockings and ball shoes, crouching, he put in order black trousers and a snow-white shirt with a protruding chest, which were highly pulled up with silk straps, set the cufflinks into the shiny cuffs and began to suffer with catching under the hard collar of the cufflinks of the neck. The floor was still swaying under him, his fingertips were very painful, the cufflink sometimes bit hard on the flabby skin in the recess under the Adam's apple, but he was persistent and, finally, with eyes shining from tension, all gray from the excessively tight collar that squeezed his throat, still finished the job - and in exhaustion sat down in front of the dressing table, all reflected in it and repeated in other mirrors.

Oh, it's terrible! - he muttered, lowering his strong bald head and not trying to understand, not thinking what exactly was terrible, then habitually and attentively looked at his short fingers, with arthritic hardening on the joints, their large and protruding almond-colored nails and repeated with conviction: - This is terrible. …

But then, loudly, as if in a pagan temple, a second gong rang throughout the house And, hastily getting up, the gentleman from San Francisco pulled his collar even more with a tie, and his stomach with an open waistcoat, put on a tuxedo, straightened his cuffs, once again looked at himself in the mirror . “This Carmella, swarthy, with affected eyes, similar to a mulatto, in a flowery outfit, where Orange color He must be dancing unusually,” he thought. And, cheerfully leaving his room and walking across the carpet to the next woman, he loudly asked if they were soon?

In five minutes! - a girl's voice answered loudly and already cheerfully from behind the door.

Great, said the gentleman from San Francisco.

And he slowly walked down the corridors and stairs, covered with red carpets, down, looking for a reading room. Oncoming servants huddled against him against the wall, and he walked, as if not noticing them. An old woman late for dinner, already stooped, with milky hair, but low-cut, in a light gray silk dress, hurried with all her might, but funny, like a chicken, and he easily overtook her Near the glass doors of the dining room, where everyone was already assembled and began to eat, he stopped in front of a table cluttered with boxes of cigars and Egyptian cigarettes, took a large manilla and threw three lire on the table; on the winter veranda he casually glanced out the open window: from the darkness a gentle air blew on him, he imagined the top of an old palm tree, spreading its fronds across the stars, which seemed gigantic, he heard the distant steady sound of the sea ... In the reading room, cozy, quiet and bright only above the tables, standing a grey-haired German resembling Ibsen, in round silver glasses and with crazy, astounded eyes, was rustling through the newspapers. his head from the collar that was choking him, covered himself with a sheet of newspaper. He quickly skimmed through the titles of some articles, read a few lines about the never-ending Balkan war, turned over the newspaper with a habitual gesture, when suddenly the lines flashed in front of him with a glassy sheen, his neck tensed up, his eyes bulged, his pince-nez flew off his nose ... He rushed forward, wanted to take a sip air - and wildly wheezed; his lower jaw fell off, illuminating his entire mouth with gold fillings, his head fell on his shoulder and rolled around, his shirt chest bulged out like a box - and his whole body, wriggling, raising the carpet with his heels, crawled to the floor, desperately fighting with someone.

If there hadn’t been a German in the reading room, they would have quickly and deftly managed to hush up this terrible incident in the hotel, instantly, in reverse, they would have dashed off by the legs and head of the gentleman from San Francisco to hell - and not a single soul from the guests would have known what they had done he. But the German escaped from the reading room with a cry, he aroused the whole house, the whole dining room, and many jumped up for food, overturning chairs, many, turning pale, ran to the reading room, it was heard in all languages:

"What? What happened?" - and no one answered plainly, no one understood anything, because people still marvel even more than anything and do not want to believe in death for anything. The host rushed from one guest to another, trying to delay the fleeing and calm them down with hasty assurances that this was so, a trifle, a small swoon with one gentleman from San Francisco ... But no one listened to him, many saw how lackeys and bellboys tore off this gentleman a tie, a waistcoat, a crumpled tuxedo, and even for some reason ballroom shoes with black silk legs with flat feet. And he still fought. He persistently struggled with death, did not want to succumb to it for anything, right. Suddenly and rudely fell on him. He shook his head, wheezed, as if stabbed to death, rolled his eyes like a drunk ... When they hurriedly carried him in and laid him on the bed in room forty-three - the smallest, worst, dampest and coldest, at the end of the lower corridor - his daughter came running, with her hair loose, in a bonnet open, with a bare chest raised by a corset, then a big, heavy wife, already completely dressed up for dinner, whose mouth was round with horror ... But then he stopped shaking his head.

A quarter of an hour later everything was somehow in order in the hotel. But the evening was irreparably ruined. Some, returning to the dining room, finished their dinner, but silently, with offended faces, while the owner approached one person after another, shrugging his shoulders in impotent and decent irritation, feeling guilty without guilt, assuring everyone that he perfectly understands “how unpleasant it is,” and giving the word that he will take “every measure in his power” to eliminate the trouble; the tarantella had to be canceled, the extra electricity was turned off, most of the guests went to the pub, and it became so quiet that the ticking of the clock in the lobby was clearly audible, where only one parrot woodenly mumbled something fiddling before going to bed in his cage, managing to fall asleep with the ridiculously raised up on the top a pole with a paw... A gentleman from San Francisco was lying on a cheap iron bed, under coarse woolen blankets, on which a single horn shone dimly from the ceiling. An ice pack hung down on his wet and cold forehead. The gray, already dead face gradually cooled, the hoarse gurgling that escaped from the open mouth, "lit by the reflection of gold, weakened. It was no longer the gentleman from San Francisco - he was no more - but someone else. Wife, daughter, doctor the servants stood and looked at him. Suddenly, what they had been waiting for and fearing happened, the wheezing stopped. And slowly, slowly, in front of everyone, pallor flowed over the face of the deceased, and his features began to thin, brighten, - beauty, already long suited to him.

The owner entered. "Gia e morto," the doctor told him in a whisper. The owner shrugged his shoulders with an impassive face. Mrs., with tears quietly rolling down her cheeks, went up to him and timidly said that now it was necessary to transfer the deceased to his room.

Oh no, madam, - hastily, correctly, but already without any courtesy, and not in English, but in French, the owner objected, who was not at all interested in those trifles that visitors from San Francisco could now leave in his cashier. “It is absolutely impossible, madam,” he said, and added in explanation that he greatly appreciated these apartments, that if he granted her desire, then all of Capri would know about it and tourists would begin to avoid them.

Miss, who had been looking at him strangely all the time, sat down on a chair and, covering her mouth with a handkerchief, began to sob. Mrs.'s tears immediately dried up, her face flushed. She raised her tone, began to demand, speaking in her own language and still not believing that respect for them was finally lost. The owner, with polite dignity, rebuked her: if Madame does not like the order of the hotel, he does not dare to detain her; and firmly stated that the body should be taken out this very day at dawn, that the police had already been given to know that their representative would immediately appear and carry out the necessary formalities ... Is it possible to get at least a simple ready-made coffin in Capri, Madame asks? Unfortunately, no, in no case, and no one will have time to do it. He'll have to do something else... Soda English water, for example, he gets in big and long boxes... partitions can be removed from such a box...

The whole hotel was asleep at night. They opened the window in the forty-third room - it looked out into the corner of the garden, where a stunted banana grew under a high stone wall, studded along the ridge with broken glass - they put out the electricity, locked the door with a key and left. The dead man remained in the dark, blue stars looked at him from the sky, a cricket sang with sad carelessness in the wall ... In the dimly lit corridor, two maids sat on the windowsill, darning something. Luigi entered with a bunch of dresses on his arm, in shoes.

Pronto? he asked anxiously in a ringing whisper, pointing with his eyes at the terrible door at the end of the corridor. He waved his free hand lightly in that direction. - Partenza! - he shouted in a whisper, as if seeing off a train, what is usually shouted in Italy at the stations when trains depart, - and the maids, choking on soundless laughter, fell their heads on each other's shoulders.

Why, bouncing softly, ran up to the very door, knocked lightly on it, and, tilting his head to one side, in an undertone, most respectfully asked:

On sonato, signore?

And, squeezing his throat, thrusting out his lower jaw, creakingly, slowly and sadly answered himself, as if from behind a door:

Yes, come in…

And at dawn, when it turned white outside the window of number forty-three and the damp wind rustled the torn banana leaves, when the blue morning sky rose and stretched over the island of Capri and turned golden against the sun rising behind the distant blue mountains of Italy, the clean and clear peak of Monte Solaro, when the masons went to work, fixing the paths for tourists on the island, - they brought a long box of soda water to the forty-third room. Soon he became very heavy - and firmly crushed the knees of the junior porter, who drove him very fast in a one-horse cab along a white highway, winding back and forth along the slopes of Capri, among stone fences and vineyards, all the way down and down to the sea. The driver, a scrawny man with red eyes, in an old jacket with short sleeves and knocked-down shoes, was hungover - he played dice all night in the trattoria - and kept whipping his strong horse, dressed in Sicilian style, hastily rattling all sorts of bells on a bridle in colored woolen pompoms and on the points of a high copper saddle, with a yard-long bird feather shaking as it runs, sticking out of a trimmed bang. The driver was silent, depressed by his dissoluteness, his vices, by the fact that he had lost every penny to the last penny all those coppers with which his pockets were full. But the morning was fresh, in such air, in the midst of the sea, under the morning sky, the hop soon disappears and carelessness soon returns to the person, but the driver was consoled by the unexpected income that some gentleman from San Francisco gave him, shaking his dead head in a box behind him ... The steamboat, lying far below like a beetle, on the tender and bright blue of which the Gulf of Naples is poured so thickly and completely, was already giving its last whistles - and they cheerfully echoed throughout the island, every bend of which, every ridge, every stone was so clearly visible from everywhere, as if there was no air at all. Near the pier, the younger porter was overtaken by the older one, who was speeding in the car with Miss and Mrs., pale eyes with tears and a sleepless night. And ten minutes later the steamboat again rustled with water and again ran to Sorrento, to Castellammare, forever taking away the family from San Francisco from Capri ... And peace and tranquility again settled on the island.

On this island, two thousand years ago, there lived a man who was completely entangled in his cruel and dirty deeds, who for some reason took power over millions of people and who, himself confused by the senselessness of this power and fear that someone would kill him from around the corner, did cruelty beyond all measure - and humanity will forever remember him, and those who, in their totality, are just as incomprehensible and, in essence, just as cruel as he, now rule the world, from all over the world come to look at the remains of the stone house where he lived on one of the steepest slopes of the island. On this wonderful morning, everyone who had come to Capri for this very purpose was still sleeping in the hotels, although little mouse donkeys under red saddles were already being led to the entrances of the hotels, on which again, young and old Americans and American women, having woken up and ate, were to perch again today. , Germans and Germans, and after whom they again had to run along stony paths, and all uphill, right up to the very top of Monte Tiberio, impoverished old Capri women with sticks in their sinewy hands. Reassured by the fact that the dead old man from San Francisco, who was also going to go with them, but instead of only scaring them with a reminder of death, had already been sent to Naples, the travelers slept soundly, and the island was still quiet, the shops in the city were still closed . Only the market in a small square traded - fish and greens, and there were only ordinary people among whom, as always, without any business, stood Lorenzo, a tall old boatman, a carefree reveler and a handsome man, famous throughout Italy, who more than once served as a model many painters: he brought and already sold for a song two lobsters he caught at night, rustling in the apron of the cook of the very hotel where the family from San Francisco spent the night, and now he could calmly stand until evening, glancing around with regal habit, showing off with his rags , a clay pipe and a red woolen beret, lowered over one ear. And along the cliffs of Monte Solaro, along the ancient Phoenician road carved into the rocks, along its stone steps, two Abruzzo mountaineers descended from Anacapri. One, under a leather cloak, had a bagpipe - a large goat fur with two pipes, the other - something like a wooden tong. They walked - and a whole country, joyful, beautiful, sunny, stretched under them: and the rocky humps of the island, which lay almost entirely at their feet, and that fabulous blue in which he swam, and the shining morning vapors over the sea to the east, under the dazzling sun, which was already warming hotly, rising higher and higher, and the misty-azure, unsteady massifs of Italy, its near and distant mountains, the beauty of which is powerless to express the human word. Halfway they slowed down: above the road, in the grotto of the rocky wall of Monte Solaro, all illuminated by the sun, all in its warmth and brilliance, stood in snow-white plaster clothes and in a royal crown, golden-rusty from bad weather, the Mother of God, meek and merciful , with eyes raised to heaven, to the eternal and blessed abodes of her thrice-blessed son. They bared their heads, put their torsos to their lips - and naive and humbly joyful praises poured out of their sun, morning, her, the immaculate intercessor of all those who suffer in this evil and beautiful world, and born from her womb in the cave of Bethlehem, in a poor shepherd's shelter, in the distant land of Judah ...

The body of the dead old man from San Francisco was returning home, to the grave, on the shores of the New World. Having experienced many humiliations, a lot of human inattention, after a week of space from one port warehouse to another, it finally landed again on the same famous ship on which so recently, with such honor, they carried it to the Old World. But now they were already hiding him from the living - they lowered him deep into a black hold in a tarred coffin.

And again, again, the ship went on its distant sea route. At night he sailed past the island of Capri, and his lights, slowly hiding in the dark sea, were sad for those who looked at them from the island. But there, on the ship, in bright halls shining with chandeliers and marble, there was, as usual, a crowded ball this night.

He was on the second and on the third night - again in the midst of a furious blizzard, sweeping over the ocean, humming like a funeral mass, and walking mournful from the silver foam mountains. The countless fiery eyes of the ship were barely visible behind the snow to the Devil, who was watching from the rocks of Gibraltar, from the stony gates of the two worlds, behind the ship leaving into the night and blizzard. The Devil was huge as a cliff, but even bigger than him was the ship, many-tiered, many-trumpeted, created by the pride of a New Man with an old heart. On its uppermost roof rose alone among the whirlwinds of snow those cozy, dimly lit chambers, where, immersed in a sensitive and anxious drowsiness, its overweight driver, resembling a pagan idol, sat over the whole ship. He heard heavy howls and furious squeals of a siren choked by a storm, but he calmed himself by the proximity of that, ultimately for him the most incomprehensible, what was behind his wall of that large, as it were, armored cabin, which every now and then was filled with a mysterious rumble, trembling and dry crackling blue lights flashing and bursting around a pale-faced telegraph operator with a metal half-hoop on his head. At the very bottom, in the underwater womb of the Atlantis, the thousand-pound bulks of boilers and all sorts of other machines oozed dimly with steel, steam whistled and oozed with boiling water and oil, that kitchen, heated from the bottom by hellish furnaces, in which the movement of the ship was cooked - terrible in their concentration bubbling forces transmitted to its very keel, into an infinitely long dungeon, into a round tunnel, faintly illuminated by electricity, where slowly, with rigor overwhelming the human soul, a gigantic shaft rotated in its oily bed, like a living monster stretching in this tunnel, similar to a vent. . And the middle of the "Atlantis", its dining rooms and ballrooms poured out light and joy, buzzed with the dialect of a smart crowd, fragrant with fresh flowers, sang with a string orchestra. And again writhing painfully and sometimes convulsively collided among this crowd, among the brilliance of lights, silks, diamonds and naked female shoulders, a thin and flexible pair of hired lovers: a sinfully modest, pretty girl with lowered eyelashes, with an innocent hairstyle and a tall young man with black, as if with glued hair, pale from powder, in the most elegant patent leather shoes, in a narrow tailcoat with long tails - a handsome man, like a huge leech. And no one knew either that this couple had long been bored with pretending to suffer their blissful torment to shamelessly sad music, or that the coffin stands deep, deep below them, at the bottom of the dark hold, in the vicinity of the gloomy and sultry bowels of the ship, heavily overcoming the darkness, the ocean, the blizzard...

Vasilevskoe. 10. 1915.

A gentleman from San Francisco - no one remembered his name either in Naples or Capri - went to the Old World for two whole years, with his wife and daughter, solely for the sake of entertainment.

He was firmly convinced that he had every right to rest, to pleasure, to a long and comfortable journey, and who knows what else. For such confidence, he had the reason that, firstly, he was rich, and secondly, he had just embarked on life, despite his fifty-eight years. Until that time, he had not lived, but only existed, though not badly, but still placing all his hopes on the future. He worked tirelessly - the Chinese, whom he ordered to work for him by the thousands, knew well what this meant! - and, finally, he saw that a lot had already been done, that he was almost equal to those whom he had once taken as a model, and decided to take a break. The people to whom he belonged used to start enjoying life with a trip to Europe, to India, to Egypt. He did and he did the same. Of course, he wanted to reward himself first of all for the years of work; however, he was also happy for his wife and daughter. His wife was never particularly impressionable, but all elderly American women are passionate travelers. And as for the daughter, an aged and slightly sickly girl, for her the trip was absolutely necessary - not to mention the health benefits, isn't there happy meetings in travel? Here sometimes you sit at the table or look at the frescoes next to the billionaire.

The route was developed by a gentleman from San Francisco extensive. In December and January, he hoped to enjoy the sun of southern Italy, the monuments of antiquity, the tarantella, the serenades of itinerant singers and what people at his age feel! especially subtly - with the love of young Neapolitan women, even if not entirely disinterested, he thought of holding a carnival in Nice, in Monte Carlo, where at that time the most selective society flocks - the very one on which all the benefits of civilization depend: and the style of tuxedos , and the strength of thrones, and the declaration of war, and the well-being of hotels - where some enthusiastically indulge in automobile and sailing races, others in roulette, others in what is commonly called flirting, and fourth in shooting pigeons, which soar very beautifully from the cages over the emerald lawn, against the background of the sea, the color of forget-me-nots, and immediately knock white lumps on the ground; he wanted to dedicate the beginning of March to Florence, to come to Rome to the passions of the Lord, to listen to the Miserere there; Venice, and Paris, and a bullfight in Seville, and swimming in the English Isles, and Athens, and Constantinople, and Palestine, and Egypt, and even Japan were included in his plans - of course, already on the way back ... And everything went first Great.

It was the end of November, and all the way to Gibraltar we had to sail now in icy haze, now in the middle of a storm with sleet; but sailed quite well. There were many passengers, the steamer - the famous "Atlantis" - looked like a huge hotel with all the amenities - with a night bar, with oriental baths, with its own newspaper - and life on it proceeded very measuredly: they got up early, with trumpet sounds, sharply resounding along the corridors even in that gloomy hour, when the dawn was so slow and unfriendly over the gray-green water desert, which was heavily agitated in the fog; having put on flannel pajamas, they drank coffee, chocolate, cocoa; then they sat down in the marble baths, did gymnastics, stimulating the appetite and feeling good, made daily toilets and went to the first breakfast; up to eleven o'clock it was supposed to walk briskly on the decks, breathing the cold freshness of the ocean, or play sheffle-board and other games to re-stimulate the appetite, and at eleven to refresh themselves with broth sandwiches; having refreshed themselves, they read the newspaper with pleasure and calmly waited for the second breakfast, even more nutritious and varied than the first; the next two hours were devoted to rest; all the decks were then filled with long chairs, on which travelers lay, covered with rugs, looking at the cloudy sky and at the foamy hillocks flashing overboard, or dozing sweetly; at five o'clock they, refreshed and cheerful, were given strong fragrant tea with biscuits; at seven they announced with trumpet signals what constituted the main goal of this entire existence, its crown ... And then the gentleman from San Francisco, rubbing his hands from a surge of vitality, hurried to his rich luxury cabin - to get dressed.

In the evenings, the floors of the Atlantis gaped in the darkness as if with countless fiery eyes, and a great many servants worked in the cooks, scullery and wine cellars. The ocean that went beyond the walls was terrible, but they did not think about it, firmly believing in the power over it of the commander, a red-haired man of monstrous size and weight, always as if sleepy, similar in his uniform, with wide gold stripes to a huge idol and very rarely appearing to people from his mysterious chambers; a siren on the forecastle kept screaming with hellish gloominess and squealing with furious malice, but few of the diners heard the siren - it was drowned out by the sounds of a beautiful string orchestra, exquisitely and tirelessly playing in a double-height marble hall, lined with velvet carpets, festively flooded with lights, overflowing with low-cut ladies and men in tailcoats and tuxedos, slender footmen and respectful maitre d's, among which one, the one who took orders only for wine, even walked around with a chain around his neck, like some kind of lord mayor. The tuxedo and starched underwear made the gentleman from San Francisco very young. Dry, short, oddly tailored, but strongly tailored, polished to a gloss and moderately lively, he sat in the golden-pearl radiance of this hall behind a bottle of amber Johannisberg, behind goblets and goblets of the finest glass, behind a curly bouquet of hyacinths. There was something Mongol in his yellowish face with trimmed silver mustaches, his large teeth glittered with gold fillings, his strong bald head was old ivory. Richly, but according to the years, his wife was dressed, a woman large, wide and calm; complex, but light and transparent, with innocent frankness - a daughter, tall, thin, with magnificent hair, charmingly done up, with aromatic breath from violet cakes and with the most delicate pink pimples near the lips and between the shoulder blades, slightly powdered ... The dinner lasted more than an hour, and after dinner, dances opened in the ballroom, during which men - including, of course, the gentleman from San Francisco - with their legs up, decided the fate of peoples on the basis of the latest stock exchange news, smoked Havana cigars to crimson redness and drank liqueurs in a bar where Negroes in red coats served, with squirrels like peeled hard-boiled eggs. The ocean roared behind the wall in black mountains, the blizzard whistled strongly in the heavy gears, the steamer trembled all over, overcoming both it and these mountains, as if with a plow breaking apart their unsteady, now and then boiling and foamy tails, huge masses, the siren choked with mist moaned in mortal anguish, the watchmen on their watch tower froze from the cold and went crazy from the unbearable strain of attention, to the gloomy and sultry bowels of the underworld, its last, ninth circle was like the underwater womb of a steamboat, - the one where gigantic furnaces devouring with their red-hot mouths of heaps of coal, with a roar thrown into them, drenched in acrid, dirty sweat and waist-deep naked people, crimson from the flames; and here, in the bar, they carelessly threw their legs on the arms of their chairs, sipped cognac and liqueurs, floated in waves of spicy smoke, everything in the dance hall shone and poured out light, warmth and joy, couples either spun in waltzes, or bent into tango - and the music insistently, in a kind of sweet, shameless sadness, she prayed all about one thing, all about the same ... Among this brilliant crowd there was a certain great rich man, shaven, long, like a prelate, in an old-fashioned tailcoat, there was a famous Spanish writer, there was a universal beauty, there was an elegant couple in love, whom everyone watched with curiosity and who did not hide their happiness: he danced only with her, and everything came out with them so subtly, charmingly, that only one commander knew that this couple was hired by Lloyd to play love for good money and has long been floating on one ship or another.

The Bunins leave for Odessa. Second Pushkin Prize. Paris office of I.A. Bunin. Literary merits of the writer. Anna Tsakni in the year of marriage with I. A. Bunin. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. Voronezh. Ludmila Alexandrovna Bunina. Paris. I.A. Bunin. Vera Muromtseva. Pushkin Prize. And the wind, and the rain, and the haze over the cold desert of water. Ivan Bunin and Varvara Pashchenko. The history of the creation of the poem. The poetic world of Bunin.

"Biography of Ivan Bunin" - Prose and poetry of I.A. Bunin is a single text. Father, Alexey Nikolaevich Bunin. Bunin. The Nobel Prize is 10 million SEK. Preservation of the best traditions classical literature. The Bunins moved to a small resort town. He and his sister Masha ate black bread. Ivan Alekseevich returned to literary creativity slowly. I.A. Bunin is the last Russian classic. Ivan Alekseevich made his last diary entry on May 2, 1953.

"Themes of Bunin's creativity" - The meaning of Bunin. Bunin and Tolstoy. The Story of the Village. Bunin and Zhukovsky. Magazine "Knowledge". Wednesday. Bunin and Shalamov. On the work of I.A. Bunin. I.A. Bunin. The word of the exile. Collection "Leaf fall". Traveled in Russia. Art diary "Cursed days". Honorary Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Childhood. Nobel Prize.

"Biography of Bunin Ivan Alekseevich" - Journey to Germany. Rose of Jericho. Odessa. Last days. South of Russia. Emigrant period. Alexei Nikolaevich Bunin. The gymnasium where Bunin did not finish his studies. Dark alleys. Hard work time. Ludmila Alexandrovna Bunina. Bunin's prose. Vanya from birth was different from other children. Bunin became the first Russian Nobel Prize winner. English language. Nobel Prize. Bunin and Pashchenko.

“April bright evening burned out” - In the morning, spring will come into its own. Signs of spring: Greenery - shoots. Bunin conveyed natural changes on the verge of light and shadow. During the lesson, determine: Human feelings, animation appear in personifications. The image of nature in the poem. I.A. Bunin. “April bright evening burned out…” (1892). I.A. Bunin is considered an unsurpassed master of the word. Bunin conveys the sounds of spring with the help of a special poetic method of sound painting.

"Easy breathing" - Olya Meshcherskaya. Portrait. Critics of the novel. Conflict. Carelessness, courage, unbridled happiness. Reckless behaviour. Conclusions. "EASY BREATH" Author Gavrilova Valentina Nikolaevna Teacher of the highest category. Lives without fear of being misunderstood. The talent to live beautifully, wrong, but interesting, small, but bright and easy!!! The problem of love has not yet been developed in my works. Now I have only one way out...

In 1915, in the collective publication Slovo, for the first time, short story I.A. Bunin "The Gentleman from San Francisco". The title of the work can be confusing, especially if the reader is not familiar with the work of Ivan Alekseevich. It seems that we are talking about an exciting story in which a certain gentleman, a mysterious person from alien lands, finds himself in the very center of amazing and somewhere dangerous adventures. However, the content of the story suggests otherwise. Who is this San Francisco man really?

Our site offers short story The Gentleman from San Francisco read online. Describing the protagonist, the author deliberately does not mention his name and warns from the very first lines that no one on board the Atlantis, Capri, or Naples remembered his name. How could this happen? Before us is a respectable middle-aged gentleman who, over many years of hard work, has accumulated money, acquired strong family- wife and daughter, and created his own reliable system of values. He deserves respect, a big name and a long-awaited rest. However, there is a downside to ostentatious well-being, proving the opposite. The life of this character was so gray, dull and vulgar that, on the contrary, if there was a person who remembered his name, it could become a real sensation. All his life he worked hard, but not for unprecedented discoveries and achievements, and not for inner growth and self-awareness. He pursued a different goal - to become equal to respected, "respectable" people from high society, and together with them to spend the remaining years in a variety of pleasures and pleasures. And then this long-awaited hour came, when his financial condition approached the desired figure, and he could go on a long journey around the world. He crosses the ocean and ends up in a luxury hotel. In the evening, a sumptuous dinner awaits him, and he pompously prepares for it: he slowly washes, shaves, puts on an elegant tailcoat, magnificent ball shoes and goes downstairs ... A minute later, something terrible happens in a cozy reading room, and at the same time natural - he dies. Around the pandemonium and noise. The guests are sad. But it was not a tragedy that struck them, but a hopelessly ruined evening and an early departure from a decent hotel.

You can download the story "The Gentleman from San Francisco" in full and for free on our website.

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