During one of my trips, I received an invitation to dine with the rich landowner and hunter, Alexander Mikhaylych G ***. Alexander Mikhalych was not married and did not like women, his company gathered at a single and he lived in a big way. On that day, he expected an important dignitary and experienced excitement incompatible with his wealth. Almost all the guests were unfamiliar to me. I started to get bored when Voynitsyn, a half-educated student who lived in this house, did not know what quality came up to me. He introduced me to the local wit Pyotr Petrovich Lupikhin, a man of small stature, with a high crest and bile features. I heard his stinging remarks about those present at the dinner.
Suddenly, disturbing excitement spread throughout the house: a dignitary arrived. A few minutes later, the whole society went to the dining room. The dignitary was seated in a place of honor and during the course of the dinner he was reverently listened to. After lunch, the whole community sat down for cards. I somehow waited for the evening and went to rest.
Due to the abundance of guests, no one slept alone. I could not sleep at all. My neighbor noticed this and started a conversation with me. He began to complain about the lack of originality in it, and then offered to tell the story of his life.
He was born from poor parents in the Shchigrovsky district of the Kursk province. He did not remember his father, his mother was engaged in his upbringing. His brother died in infancy. When he turned 16 years old, his mother drove the governor, took her son to Moscow, wrote to the university and died, leaving her son in the care of his uncle, solicitor Koltun-Babur. Even then, he noticed a lack of originality. At the university, he did not go his own way, but, like everyone else, joined a circle in which everything original and original perished. Thus he lived in Moscow for 4 years.
When he turned 21, he took over what was left of his inheritance - his uncle robbed him clean. Leaving Vasily Kudryashov as the manager of the freedman, he went to Berlin, where he spent 6 months without ever recognizing European life. An incident brought him to the house of a professor. He fell in love with one of the daughters of the professor, from which he periodically began to suck under his stomach, and a cold shiver ran through his stomach. Unable to withstand such happiness, he fled and wandered around Europe for another 2 years.
Returning to Moscow, he imagined himself to be the most original person, and there were those who supported this error. Soon gossip was launched into his account, which forced him to leave. He retired to his village and took up farming. In the neighborhood lived a widow colonel with two daughters. Once he visited them, and after 6 months he married one of his daughters. Sophia was the kindest creature, but the habits of the old maiden were so ingrained in her that she could not become a wife and mistress. In the fourth year, Sophia died from childbirth with her child.
After the death of his wife, he entered the service in the provincial city, but for a long time he could not serve and retired. Over time, he humbled his pride, his ambitions subsided. They began to speak of him as an empty, exhausted person, and the police officer told him “you”. A veil fell from his eyes, and he saw the seed as it is - an insignificant, unnecessary, unoriginal man.
He didn’t give his name to me, he only said: “Call me Hamlet of Shchigrovsky Uyezd”. The next morning he was no longer in the room. He left before dawn.
