"Black Monk" Chekhov: a short summary of the work

It is believed that writing a novel is more difficult and honorable than a story or story. For many reasons, for example, the volume and a large number of storylines. But there is one creator of stories, before which everyone admires: both novelists and colleagues in the shop. Speech, of course, about A.P. Chekhov. The Russian classic wrote a lot of masterpieces, but one wants to highlight especially and dedicate this article to him: "Chekhov's Black Monk" (a short summary of the story) will be presented to the reader in all its glory.

Chapter first. The arrival of Andrei Vasilyevich Kovrin in Borisovka

Since the story has a sufficiently large volume by the standards of Chekhov, he does not hurry with the action. In the first chapter, the classic is unobtrusive and gentle, as he can, acquainting the reader with the main characters of the work: Andrei Vasilievich Kovrin (master, specialist in philosophy), Yegor Semyonovich Pesotsky (a prominent gardener, former guardian and master of the master) Tanya Pesotskaya (daughter Egor Semenych and childhood friend AV Kovrin).

Andrei Vasilievich became ill with a nervous illness, and he was advised to improve his health in nature. And where to find a better home than your favorite mentor and mentor? Nowhere to find this! Therefore, the master went first to his historical homeland - Kovrinka, and then to Borisovka to the guardian. There was this at a time when nature changed anger to mercy, that is, winter to spring. At home, Kovrin spent 3 weeks in early April, and then, after waiting for warm days, went to visit the educator and childhood friend. In the shelter of close people everything was gorgeous: both the house and the trees, and the fascination of the awakening spring life

The first chapter leaves a slight fragrance of the garden dumping from its winter drowsiness, and the "Black Monk" of Chekhov (the brief content unfolded by us) moves on.

Chapter two. The appearance of a black monk

A.V. Kovrin very strangely rested in the house of his patron: he read, wrote, listened to music. In other words, the hero did not relax his nerves, but to the extreme, they excited and strained. On the psyche Kovrin, probably, acted and a stream of endless unceasing tricks that happened in the Pesotsky's house almost every evening. They played the violin, sang. In a word, they did everything that relies on such events.

One day in one of these home holidays, the hero dragged Tanya to the balcony and told her the legend of a black monk. Its essence is that 1,000 years ago a black monk walked through the desert, then people saw the same monk away from that desert. But the most interesting is not this, but the fact that the first monk was real, and the second - a mirage or a ghost. And the latter began to produce twins, and black monks began to see around the world. According to legend, according to Kovrin, the next appearance of a black monk is about to happen.

Legend of Tanya did not like, and she began to worry about Andrew. Kovrin let his childhood friend go to the guests, and he decided to check himself. An amazing thing, but on a walk he met a black monk, quite like a legend. He slipped past the hero in a black whirlwind, but Kovrin still had a good look at him: a gray head, black eyebrows and clothes, like eyebrows. The monk did not touch the ground. Andrei Vasilyevich understood: the legend does not lie!

Returning home, Kovrin, of course, wanted to tell the tutor and his daughter about everything, but stopped in time, they could count that he was crazy, so Andrei Vasilyevich decided to disguise himself as a joker to hide his secret. He sang and danced that evening louder and better than anyone else.

Chapter Three. The gardener's tricks and Kovrin's insight

After the end of the reception, Kovrin rises to his room and wants to recall the image of a black monk in his memory, but he gets in the way. First, Tanya comes and asks to read his father's wonderful articles on gardening and persuade him to write more often. Then Yegor Semyonitch himself knocked on the master. He talks about the garden, about the fact that it's very important to love the business that is occupied. He shares with the hero of the story "Chekhov's Black Monk" (the brief content of which we are considering) and his fears: what will happen to the case when Yegor Semyonich does not become, what hands does the adorable garden get into? And the elderly man offers quite expected "to fix a novel" Kovrin and Tanya. True, when leaving, Yegor Semyonitch still says: "All this is nonsense, a whim and an empty dream."

Kovrin, after he was left alone, takes over the articles of his mentor and sees in them only vulgarity. Then he thinks about his vision for a walk, and then a thought rushes through his head: "What if I'm insane, and all this is only my hallucinations?". The master drives this thought away from himself and calms down: "Even so, I do no harm to anyone, nor worry about my fantasies."

That's how the third chapter of the work "The Black Monk" (story) ends intriguingly. A.P. Chekhov (brief, hopefully, it shows) famously twists the story, leaving both the reader and the hero at some crossroads: Is Kovrin healthy or mentally ill? Be sure to find out.

Chapter Four. Kovrin wakes up feelings for Tanya

It all began with a scandal. The father was arguing with his daughter. Tanya dared to make observations to her father about how he was doing things, then went-went: tears on one side, screams on the other. The quarrel happened in the morning. As a result, Tanya locked herself in her room and cried ceaselessly, and her father at first made a cheerful look, and then himself was blown away: he became gloomy and gloomy. Appetite brawlers were not, and they did not have dinner.

At first Kovrin tried not to pay attention, and then all the same he left his room and went to Tanya's apartment. The girl complained to him for a long time about her father, and the main character of the story "Chekhov's Black Monk" (whose brief content is increasingly intriguing) felt that he was penetrating the most delicate love to a thin, painful girl and realized that another, more balanced and less touchy, he Could love.

And my father and daughter, of course, reconciled. At them all was adjusted. It took quite a bit of afternoon.

This is the fourth chapter of Chekhov's Black Monk, in a concise statement.

Chapter Five. The second phenomenon of a black monk. Confessions of Love Kovrin

The second coming of the black monk turned out to be ambiguous. On the one hand, Kovrin found himself a best friend who expressed his innermost thoughts, and on the other hand, the monk confirmed his fears about the mental illness of Andrei Vasilyevich.

And all this he (the monk) turned out as if in passing, as if by accident. For example, he said that it was such people as the master - the "salt of the earth" (F. Nietzsche). It is they who bring the offensive of the "kingdom of eternal truth". Kovrin also asked about eternal life, to which the monk expressed himself in the innermost thoughts of the hero of the work "The Black Monk" Chekhov (in a concise content has already passed the equator), said that eternal life is, and it is in eternal knowledge.

In other words, a cunning monk paints the paradise of any philosopher. The world wanderer admits that he is the fruit of Kovrin's imagination, but in this monk he does not see any embarrassment, for the disease is a friend of genius, and "only mentally healthy people are absolutely mentally healthy". Then, naturally, the monk disappeared, he is still a mirage.

In general, if the reader allows us to retort to the side, then this entire chapter is sustained in a strictly Nietzschean spirit.

At the exit from the park, Andrei meets Tanya and confesses to her in love. Her turn of events is staggering and almost physically disfigures (remember her extreme nervousness), but Kovrin does not care, he's basking in the electric light of euphoria, for him everything is extremely fine.

Chapter Six. Nervousness. Black monk - already a constant interlocutor Kovrin

This chapter could well be called that, because all the characters, placed in a brief retelling of the work "Black Monk", endure extreme stress of feelings and nerves. The master continued to write his compositions and talk with the black monk several times a week. Now the creativity for him has acquired a special meaning, because he received the title of "Chosen One". In love, he wrote even better, and the work went even more beautiful, so it seemed to him.

Mentor and future father-in-law worked it a lot, the garden required increased attention. Tanya constantly cried almost for every reason. And like any too impressionable girl, during the preparations for the wedding she was visited by different thoughts, and she fell into polar states. Tanya was tormented by horror, then she fell into euphoria.

Chapter Seven. Evidence of madness Kovrina

S. King, in The Ballad of the Flexible Pool, wrote that when one person does not walk under the stairs and is terribly superstitious - it's nothing, it's okay, but if everyone starts to avoid the stairs and it becomes noticeable, then the era of insanity will come. So it happened with Kovrin - his madness became obvious.

One night he had insomnia (to admit, a man in general had not slept much lately), he was reading a French novel, then mentally conjured up the image of a black monk in his imagination, and it arose in the space of the hero's bedroom. Two old friends began to talk about something terribly tricky. During this occupation, Andrei unexpectedly woke up Tanya. She was frightened of what her husband said with an empty chair. Her concern was transmitted to him. Out of his room came Kovrin's father-in-law, who had stayed with them, and in the morning the relatives had already gone to the doctor. Andrei Vasilievich began to undergo medical procedures.

Chapter eight. On the benefits and harm of the disease for life

And finally, A.P. Chekhov approaches the main problem of the work. What is better - a creative illness or infertile health, a sick genius or a healthy mediocrity?

A whole year has passed since the events when the hero for the first time after a long break was in Borisovka. It's summer again. Again the house of Yegor Semyonitch.

Kovrin in this chapter is reborn. After the treatment, he became angry, withdrawn and hating the whole human race, and most of all - his wife and her father. All his speeches are aimed at protecting his morbid condition. Among other things, he says: "Yes, I had a megalomania, I saw mirages and ghosts, but to whom did I interfere? But I was happy, calm and peaceful. " Then there are references to the Buddha, Christ and Mohammed, and the hero asks, and what would have happened to them if their relatives had taken care of them? From his speech, which is not devoid of brilliance, it turns out that relatives are a real evil, they fabricate mediocrity and help the fall of civilization. Above these lines of the Russian classic is Nietzsche, and praises Chekhov for them.

Otherwise, nothing interesting happens in the chapter, except for the obvious: the relations between Kovrin, Tanya and her father are collapsing. Tanya in this silent, silent war joins his father, and Andrei Vasilievich remains in psychological isolation.

Chapter last. Return of the black monk and the end of Kovrin

He always wrote a wonderful prose Chekhov AP. "Black monk" (a brief summary of the chapters we describe) is nearing its finale.

Two years passed. Tanya and her father remained for Kovrin in the past. He already lived with another woman and in all things she obeyed. He was even given a pulpit, but the illness that ruined his mother was also selected for him-his blood ran from his throat. Doctors said that this is not dangerous, only peace is needed.

His new wife, Varvara Nikolayevna, probably, at the insistence of the doctors, decided to take Kovrin to the Crimea to heal and calm her nerves. He almost came to his senses. Resigned himself to the fact that he is not a genius. The travelers arrived in Sevastopol. They wanted to rest first in the hotel a day or two before going to Yalta.

Kovrin received a letter from Tanya just before his departure. He disclosed it only in the late evening, when Varvara Nikolayevna had already laid down. In it, the ex-wife wrote that her father had died, the garden was gone, and she blamed her master for this and wished her husband as soon as possible a punishment for his sins in front of her.

The hero tore the letter so that it was not glued. Andrei Vasilyevich began to work to suppress the anxiety that had flown over him. I read my sketches (but not those that I wrote during the illness, the "imperishable legacy" Kovrin destroyed irretrievably). Then the former mentally ill tried to throw pieces of the letter out of the window, but could not. Parts of the angry composition of Tanya only scattered on the windowsill. The master went to the balcony. He was seized by anxiety. In the distance he saw a whirlwind - the foreknow of a black monk, and a second later he was already in the room. The monk scolded brotherly, in a fatherly way Andrei Vasilievich for his lack of faith in his destiny, but Kovrin could not speak anymore - his blood was flowing thickly from his throat. The monk continued the master to whisper something in his ear, when his weakened physical shell let Andrei Vasilevich wander around in other worlds, and perhaps enjoy eternal knowledge.

In the morning Varvara Nikolaevna found her husband dead and with a blissful smile on her face.

This concludes with a brief retelling of the contents of the Black Monk. Chekhov, of course, would not approve of such a long "brief retelling" of his work, but what to do, such geniuses as he, in the world a little. We hope that our article will prompt the reader to get acquainted with the full version of this fantastic writer's creation.