The story of tragic love in N. Leskov’s essay “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District”

In subsequent literary years, Leskov continues to develop the problem of the fate of a strong, extraordinary personality in the conditions of “crowded Russian life”, the oppressive influence of life circumstances. At the same time, the writer leaves aside integral natures, despite the pressure of the environment, preserving their own “I”, their high impulses. He is increasingly attracted to complex, contradictory characters, unable to withstand the harmful influence and power of the surrounding reality over them, and hence subject to moral self-destruction. Leskov observed such characters more than once in everyday Russian reality and, without exaggeration, was inclined to equate them with Shakespeare’s, so much did they strike him with their inner power and passion. Among them is the merchant’s wife Katerina Lvovna Izmailova, who was nicknamed “from someone’s easy word” Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk for her crimes. But Leskov himself sees in his heroine not a criminal, but a woman “performing the drama of love,” and therefore presents her as a tragic person.

As if following Nastya the Songbird’s remark that in love everything depends on people (“all people do this”), Leskov made the drama of love and the very feeling of Katerina Izmailova directly dependent on her nature. Katerina’s love attraction for Sergei is born from the boredom that overcomes her, reigning in the “merchant’s mansion with high fences and chained dogs,” where “it is quiet and empty... not a living sound, not a human voice.” Boredom and “melancholy reaching the point of stupor” force the young merchant’s wife to pay attention to “a young man with a daring, handsome face framed by jet-black curls.” Hence, the heroine’s love story is extremely conventional from the very beginning.

If Nastya brought the voice of her lover to a sad night song, then Katerina first heard her betrothed in the “choir” of vulgarly joking workers in the gallery near the barns. The reason for Nastya’s first meeting with Stepan is the desire to understand what kind of person this night singer is, singing songs “cheerful, daring” and “sad, heartbreaking.” Katerina goes down into the yard solely out of a desire to unwind, to drive away the annoying yawning. The description of the heroine’s behavior on the eve of her first date with Sergei is especially expressive: “having nothing to do,” she stood “leaning against the doorframe” and “husking sunflower seeds.”

In general, in the feeling of a bored merchant's wife towards the clerk there is more the call of the flesh than the yearning of the heart. However, the passion that captured Katerina is immeasurable. “She went crazy with her happiness,” and “it became unbearable for her to survive even an extra hour without Sergei.” Love, which exploded the emptiness of the heroine’s existence, takes on the character of a destructive force that sweeps away everything in its path. She “was now ready for Sergei into fire and water, into prison and to the cross.”

Having never known love before, Katerina is naive and trusting in her feelings. Listening to love speeches for the first time, “fogged up” by them, she does not feel the falsehood hidden in them, is not able to discern a given role in the actions of her lover.

For Katerina, love becomes the only possible life, which seems to her like “paradise.” And in this earthly paradise, the heroine discovers a beauty hitherto invisible to her: apple blossom, and a clear blue sky, and “moonlight, crushing on flowers and leaves of trees,” and “golden night” with its “silence, light, aroma and beneficial , revitalizing warmth." On the other hand, the new, heavenly life is full of a pronounced egoistic principle and the unbridled willfulness of Katerina, who directly declared to her beloved: “...if you, Seryozha, change me, if you exchange me for anyone or anything else.” “I’m with you, my dear friend, forgive me, I won’t part with you alive.” Moreover, if we take into account that the cunningly thought-out intrigue of the “girlfriend” clerk weaves along the outline of the heroine’s love, then the foregoing catastrophe of the love story in “Lady Macbeth...” seems to be a foregone conclusion.

But how bright and frantic Katerina appears against the backdrop of the colorless lackey Sergei. Unlike her lover, she will not give up her frenzied love either in the pillory or at the prison stage. Readers saw the character of a heroine of incredible strength and meaning, who contained within herself the cause and consequences of love-catastrophe and who drank the cup of such love in full, or, as Leskov said about his Katerina Izmailova, “performing the drama of love.”

However, this incredible female character also has an incredibly terrible outcome: a spiritual impasse leading to death without repentance, when Katerina drags her hated rival Sonetka into the water shafts, from which her murdered father-in-law, husband and Fedya look at her.

The story “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” was published in January 1865. It was published under the title “Lady Macbeth of our County” by the magazine “Epoch”. According to the original plan, the work was to be the first in a cycle dedicated to the characters of Russian women. It was assumed that several more stories would follow, but Leskov never implemented these plans. Probably not least due to the closure of the Epoch magazine, which intended to publish the entire cycle. The final title of the story appeared in 1867, when it was published as part of the collection “Tales, Sketches and Stories by M. Stebnitsky” (M. Stebnitsky is Leskov’s pseudonym).

The character of the main character

At the center of the story is Katerina Lvovna Izmailova, a young merchant’s wife. She married not out of love, but out of need. Over five years of marriage, she failed to have children with her husband, Zinoviy Borisovich, who was almost twice her age. Katerina Lvovna was very bored, languishing in the merchant's house, like a bird in a cage. Most of the time she just wandered from room to room and yawned. However, no one noticed her suffering.

While her husband was away for a long time, Katerina Lvovna fell in love with the clerk Sergei, who worked for Zinovy ​​Borisovich. Love flared up instantly and completely captured the woman. In order to preserve both Sergei and her social position, Izmailova decided to commit several murders. Consistently, she got rid of her father-in-law, husband and young nephew. The further the action develops, the more the reader is convinced that Katerina Lvovna has no moral barriers that can hold her back.

Passion for love first completely absorbed the heroine, and in the end it ruined her. Izmailova, together with Sergei, was sent to hard labor. On the way there, the man showed his true colors. He found himself a new love and began to openly mock Katerina Lvovna. Having lost her lover, Izmailova lost the meaning of life. In the end, all she had to do was drown herself, taking Sergei’s mistress with her.

As literary scholars Gromov and Eikhenbaum note in the article “N. S. Leskov (Essay on creativity),” the tragedy of Katerina Lvovna “is completely predetermined by the firmly established and steadily regulating the life of the individual by the everyday way of life of the merchant environment.” Izmailova is often contrasted with Katerina Kabanova, the heroine of the play “The Thunderstorm” by Ostrovsky. Both women live with unloved spouses. Both are burdened by the life of a merchant. Both Kabanova and Izmailova’s lives change dramatically due to illicit love. But in similar circumstances, women behave differently. Kabanova perceives the passion that has gripped her as a great sin and eventually confesses everything to her husband. Izmailova rushes into the love pool without looking back, becoming decisive and ready to destroy any obstacles that stand in her and Sergei’s path.

Characters

The only character (besides Katerina Lvovna) who receives a lot of attention in the story and whose character is outlined in more or less detail is Sergei. Readers are presented with a handsome young man who knows how to seduce women and is distinguished by his frivolity. He was kicked out of his previous job because of an affair with the owner's wife. He apparently never loved Katerina Lvovna. Sergei started a relationship with her because he hoped to get a better life in life with their help. When Izmailova lost everything, the man behaved meanly and basely with her.

The theme of love in the story

The main theme of the story “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” is the theme of love and passion. This type of love is no longer spiritual, but physical. Pay attention to how Leskov shows the pastime of Katerina Lvovna and Seryozha. The lovers hardly speak. When they are together, they are mainly occupied with carnal pleasures. Physical pleasure is more important to them than spiritual pleasure. At the beginning of the story, Leskov notices that Katerina Lvovna does not like to read books. It’s also difficult to call Sergei the owner of a rich inner world. When he first comes to seduce Izmailova, he asks her for a book. This request is due solely to the desire to please the hostess. Seryozha wants to show that he is interested in reading and is intellectually developed, despite his low social status.

The love-passion that gripped Katerina Lvovna is destructive because it is base. She is not capable of elevating, spiritually enriching. On the contrary, it awakens in a woman something of an animal, primitive nature.

Composition

The story consists of fifteen small chapters. In this case, the work can be divided into two parts. In the first, the action takes place in a limited space - the Izmailovs’ house. Here Katerina Lvovna’s love is born and develops. After the start of an affair with Sergei, the woman is happy. It's like she's in heaven. In the second part, the action takes place on the way to hard labor. Katerina Lvovna seems to be going to hell, serving a sentence for her sins. By the way, the woman does not repent at all. Her mind is still clouded by love. At first, next to Seryozha, for Izmailova, “and the hard labor path blooms with happiness.”

Genre of the work

Leskov called “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” an essay. The main feature of the genre is “writing from life,” but there is no information about Katerina Lvovna’s prototypes. Perhaps, when creating this image, Leskov partially relied on materials from criminal cases to which he had access while serving in the Oryol Criminal Chamber.

The genre of the essay was not chosen by the writer by chance. It was important for him to emphasize the documentary nature of “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk”. It is known that works of fiction based on real events often have a stronger impact on the public. Apparently, Leskov wanted to take advantage of this. The crimes committed by Katerina Lvovna are more shocking if you think about them as real.

• “The Man on the Clock”, analysis of Leskov’s story

The daughter of the common people, who also inherited the people's scope of passions, a girl from a poor family becomes a captive of a merchant's house, where there is neither the sound of the living, nor the voice of a person, but there is only a short stitch from the samovar to the bedchamber. The transformation of the bourgeois woman, languishing from boredom and excess energy, takes place when the district heartthrob pays attention to her.

Love scatters a starry sky over Katerina Lvovna, which she had never seen before from her mezzanine: Look, Seryozha, what a paradise, what a paradise! The heroine exclaims childishly and innocently into the golden night, looking through the thick branches of a blossoming apple tree covering her at the clear blue sky, on which stood a full fine month.

But it is no coincidence that in pictures of love, harmony is disrupted by suddenly invading discord. Katerina Lvovna’s feelings cannot be free from the instincts of the possessive world and not fall under the influence of its laws. Love yearning for freedom turns into a predatory and destructive beginning.

Katerina Lvovna was now ready for Sergei through fire, water, prison and the cross. He made her fall in love with him to the point that there was no measure of devotion to him. She was distraught with her happiness; her blood was boiling, and she could no longer listen to anything...

And at the same time, Katerina Lvovna’s blind passion is immeasurably greater, more significant than self-interest, which gives shape to her fatal actions and class interests. No, her inner world was not shocked by the court’s decision, not excited by the birth of a child: for her there was neither light nor darkness, neither bad nor good, nor boredom, nor joy. My whole life was completely consumed by passion. When a party of prisoners sets out on the road and the heroine sees Sergei again, happiness blossoms with him in her convict life. What is the social height from which she fell into the convict world for her, if she loves and her beloved is nearby!

Sections: Literature

Target:

• Reveal the ideological and artistic originality of N.S. Leskov’s story.
• Engage students in the writer's work.

Tasks:

• Develop reading skills in determining moral assessments of characters.
• To develop the ability to determine the author’s position, to trace how Leskov reveals in the story social and universal problems, the tragedy of a strong personality.
• Teach the skill of comparative characteristics.
• Develop skills in monologue speech, generalizations and comparisons.
• Develop aesthetic taste.
• To cultivate a civic position, a position of critical attitude towards a spiritualless existence.

During the classes

1. Teacher's introduction

Teacher. N.S. Leskov came to literature as an already established person, who had traveled a lot around the country, who knew life very well, and its most diverse aspects. This is probably why most of the writer’s works are polemical in nature.

At the beginning of his creative career, in 1865, Leskov wrote a story with such a strange title, pitting two concepts in it: “Lady Macbeth,” associated with Shakespeare’s famous tragedy, and “Mtsensk District,” with a remote Russian province.

2. Conversation on issues

Teacher. How does an author determine the genre of his work? (He called it an essay, a genre of journalism, trying to emphasize with this fact that the story is about real events and the reasons that gave rise to these events.)

– How does the author begin his work? (From the very first lines of the work, Leskov tells us, the readers, what the main character is like: “They gave her in marriage to our merchant Izmailov from Tuskari, from the Kursk province, not out of love or any attraction, but because Izmailov approached her, but She was a poor girl, and she didn’t have to go through suitors...”)

– What other fate do these lines bring to mind? (The fate of the merchant Katerina Kabanova from Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm”.)

– Is it possible to detect plot parallels in Ostrovsky’s drama and Leskov’s story? (Yes. 1) A young merchant’s wife breaks up with her husband, who is leaving home for a while; 2) during this marital separation, love comes to the heroines of Leskov and Ostrovsky; 3) both plots end with a tragic ending - the death of the heroines; 4) similar circumstances in the lives of two merchants: the boredom of a merchant’s house and a childless life with an unkind husband.)

- Conclusion? (The discovered similarity is not an accident. Leskov highly valued the drama “The Thunderstorm” and argued with critics who believed that folk life could only be the subject of a criminal chronicle, and not art.)

3. Analytical reading of the story

Teacher. What did Leskov's heroine look like? ( “Katerina Lvovna was not born a beauty, but she was a very pleasant woman in appearance. She was 24 years old; She was not tall, but slender, her neck looked like it was carved from marble, her shoulders were round, her chest was strong, her nose was straight and thin, her eyes were black and lively, her high white forehead and black, almost blue-black hair.”)

– What kind of character did Katerina Lvovna have? (“...Katerina Lvovna had an ardent character, and, living as a girl in poverty, she got used to simplicity and freedom: she would run with buckets to the river and swim in her shirt over the pier or sprinkle sunflower husks through the gate of a passing young man...”. )

– Does the character of Ostrovsky’s heroine differ from the character of Leskov’s heroine? (Unlike the young merchant Izmailova, Katerina Kabanova has a heightened poetic imagination. She suffers not so much from external restrictions as from an internal feeling of lack of freedom. Katerina Kabanova’s dreams and visions are second nature for her, almost more visible than the world around her. Conquers her deep religiosity.)

– Confirm with the text of the works the different visions of the world by the heroines. (Kabanova: “...I lived without worrying about anything, like a bird in the wild...I used to get up early...I’d go to the spring, wash myself, bring some water with me and that’s it, water all the flowers in the house...Then I’ll go with my mother to church ...to death I loved going to church! Exactly... I will enter heaven... And what dreams I had... what dreams! Or golden temples or some extraordinary gardens, and invisible voices all singing, and the smell of cypress, and mountains and trees... not the same as usual, but as they are written in the images...” Izmailova: “Katerina Lvovna walks and walks through the empty rooms, begins to yawn with boredom and climbs out of boredom into the marital bedchamber, built on a high small mezzanine. Here she will also sit and stare, like hanging hemp or pouring grains in the barns, she yawns again, and she’s glad: she’ll take a nap for an hour or two. She yawned and yawned, not thinking about anything in particular, and she finally felt ashamed to yawn...”)

– How does love come to Katerina Kabanova? (Like “some kind of dream.” “I keep imagining some kind of whisper: someone speaks to me so affectionately, as if he’s doveing ​​me, like a dove is cooing...”)

- And to Katerina Lvovna? (Love for Katerina Izmailova comes out of boredom: “Why am I really gaping?...At least I’ll get up and walk around the yard or go to the garden...”)

– What is the psychological state of Katerina Kabanova? (She suffers and is afraid of her love: she has such a strong sense of duty, and the idea of ​​adultery is not a boring word. Her love is initially a psychological drama that makes the heroine both rejoice and suffer. “... and such a thought would come to me... would roll now along the Volga, on a boat, with songs, or on a good troika, hugging... sin is on my mind! How much I, poor thing, cried, which I didn’t do to myself! I can’t get away from this sin. I can’t go anywhere. After all this is not good, because this is a terrible sin... why do I love someone else?”)

– What can you say about Katerina Lvovna’s love? Why did the clerk Sergei captivate her? (In words: “You, I reason, need to be carried in your arms all day long - and you won’t tire yourself out, but you will only feel pleasure for yourself.” No one has ever spoken like that to Katerina Lvovna, and her soul, thirsting for love and affection , did not suspect deception and calculation.)

– Let us turn to the dating scenes in both works, they are indicative. They are accompanied by a song image. But if in the drama “The Thunderstorm” song imagery is a natural way of internal self-expression of the heroine, then for Sergei it is a “bargaining chip” that he uses for selfish purposes. What is the result? (Katerina Lvovna, hearing Sergei’s confession, “is ready for him into fire, water, prison and the cross.”)

– What motives became the basis of the plot in the drama “The Thunderstorm”? (Motives of sin and repentance, guilt and punishment. For the heroine herself, a violation of the moral law becomes a sinful crime.)

– And in Leskov’s story? (There are no internal barriers to Katerina Izmailova’s passion, and therefore, with all the strength nature has given her, she eliminates external obstacles that arise in her path.)

– And the love story in the plot of the story becomes a story of criminal crimes. Let's follow her. (At first, Katerina Lvovna behaves spontaneously. She did not intend to kill her father-in-law, but he became the first obstacle to her love and thereby sealed his fate: “... Boris Timofeevich died, and he died after eating mushrooms, as many die after eating them...” )

– What is special about this story? (The death of Boris Timofeevich is spoken of quickly, as if it were an everyday and familiar matter.)

– Has anything changed in the house or in the city after the death of the merchant? (No.)

– How did the first crime change Katerina Lvovna? (“She was not a timid woman, but here it’s impossible to guess what she had in mind: she walks around as a trump card, manages everything around the house, but doesn’t let Sergei go.”)

– Let’s turn to the second epigraph of the lesson, which is also the epigraph of the story: “Sing the first song, blushing.” What is its meaning? (Only the beginning is scary. A person who commits a crime steps over his own conscience, then nothing can stop him. The cold-blooded murder of his father-in-law is the first step towards Katerina Izmailova’s moral suicide.)

– Who was the director of the Mtsensk tragedy? (Sergei. Although the first murder is committed against his will, the thought of killing the merchant Zinovy ​​Izmailov is persistently provoked by him: “... your husband will attack you, and you, Sergei Filipich, go away... and watch how they will take you by the white hands and lead you to the bedchamber , I must endure all this in my heart and, perhaps, even for myself, through this I will become a despicable person for a whole century... I’m not like others... I feel what love is like and how it sucks my heart like a black snake...".)

– What is the result? (The heroine becomes an obedient instrument in the hands of a greedy and calculating cynic: the second murder is distinguished by sophisticated cruelty and cold-bloodedness. Katerina Lvovna demonstrates this cruelty not only in front of her husband, but also in front of her lover. She “indifferently” asks Sergei to hold the humiliated Zinoviy Borisych, which is precisely why she asked Zinovy ​​Borisych answers about confession: “You will be good and so,” the merchant’s wife calmly and pedantically washes off “two tiny spots, the size of a cherry.”)

– We will observe the psychological state of the criminals. (“Sergei’s lips trembled, and he himself had a fever,” “Katerina Lvovna’s lips were only cold.”)

– Does the appearance of an unexpected heir in the house give any idea about the further development of the plot? (Of course, there are no longer any barriers for lovers in achieving their selfish goals: wealth for the clerk and love for the merchant’s wife. Therefore, the appearance of the passion-bearing boy only emphasizes the depth of the moral fall of the heroes. “...I saw it myself, I saw it with my own eyes, the baby was lying prostrate on the bed , and the two of them strangled him...".)

- Draw a conclusion. (Katerina Lvovna’s unbridled passion did not bring her happiness.)

– Concluding the conversation about the plot of the story, let’s find out the uniqueness of its denouement. (There are two of them in the work: the first - exposure, trial and punishment - ends the events of criminal crimes; the second is the tragic denouement of the love story of Katerina Izmailova, who after her arrest fell into a state of indifferent numbness: “She didn’t understand anyone, didn’t love anyone and didn’t love herself ".)

– Leskov scrupulously analyzes the “anatomy” of unbridled passion. This passion with destructive force internally disfigures Katerina Lvovna, kills her maternal feeling. Prove it. (Having once dreamed of a child, Katerina Lvovna indifferently turns away from the newborn baby in the prison hospital and just as indifferently renounces him: “Her love for her father, like the love of many too passionate women, did not transfer any part of it to the child...”)

– Let’s summarize everything we talked about today. (Katerina Lvovna is a strong and free nature. But freedom, which knows no moral restrictions, turns into the opposite. A strong nature, finding itself in the grip of the “freedom” of crimes, is inevitably doomed to death.)

- Why? (Freedom cannot be unlimited; a person must have a strong moral law that will not allow crime.)

– How is Katerina Lvovna portrayed in the last chapters? (She is presented completely differently than in the Mtsensk plot. She evokes not amazement and horror, but pity. After all, the criminal herself becomes a victim.)

- Why? (The stronger and more reckless her love for Sergei, the more frank and cynical his outrage against her and her feelings. The abyss of the clerk’s moral decline is so terrible that seasoned convicts are trying to reassure him.)

– Does Katerina Lvovna feel a sense of guilt or remorse? (Perhaps, because in the dark waves of the Volga she sees the heads of her husband, father-in-law, and nephew killed by her. This chilling vision turns out to be the last impression in the life of “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.” But, dying, she carries away with her the last victim - her rival Sonetka: “ Katerina Lvovna rushed at Sonetka like a strong pike at soft-feathered flesh...".)

4. Conclusion

Teacher. Draw your own conclusion.

5. Lesson summary

Teacher. Let us summarize the results of our “investigation”.

So, two women, two merchants' wives, two Katerinas, two tragic destinies. But Katerina Kabanova is a “ray of light” that illuminated for a moment the abyss of the “dark kingdom,” and Katerina Izmailova is flesh of the “dark kingdom,” its direct offspring.

6. Conclusion

Teacher. Answer in writing the question that became the topic of the lesson.

The main theme touched upon by N.S. Leskov in the story Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is the theme of love; love that has no boundaries, love for which they do everything, even murder.

The main character is the merchant's wife Katerina Lvovna Izmailova; The main character is clerk Sergei. The story consists of fifteen chapters.

In the first chapter, the reader learns that Katerina Lvovna is a young, twenty-four-year-old girl, quite sweet, although not beautiful. Before her marriage she was a cheerful laugher, but after the wedding her life changed. The merchant Izmailov was a strict widower of about fifty, he lived with his father Boris Timofeevich and his whole life consisted of trade. From time to time he leaves, and his young wife finds no place for herself. Boredom, the most uncontrollable one, pushes her to take a walk around the yard one day. Here she meets the clerk Sergei, an unusually handsome guy, about whom they say that the woman you want will flatter you and bring you to sin.

One warm evening, Katerina Lvovna is sitting in her high room by the window, when she suddenly sees Sergei. Sergei bows to her and within a few moments finds himself at her door. The meaningless conversation ends at the bedside in a dark corner. Since then, Sergei begins to visit Katerina Lvovna at night, coming and going along the pillars that support the young woman’s gallery. However, one night his father-in-law Boris Timofeevich sees him - he punishes Sergei with whips, promising that with the arrival of his son, Katerina Lvovna will be pulled out in the stables, and Sergei will be sent to prison. But the next morning, the father-in-law, after eating mushrooms and gruel, gets heartburn, and a few hours later he dies, just like the rats died in the barn, for which only Katerina Lvovna had poison. Now the love of the owner’s wife and the clerk is flaring up more than ever, they already know about it in the yard, but they think like this: they say, this is her business, and she will have an answer.

In the chapter of N.S. Leskov’s story Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, it is said that very often Katerina Lvovna has the same nightmare dream. It’s as if a huge cat is walking on her bed, purring, and then suddenly lies down between her and Sergei. Sometimes the cat talks to her: I’m no cat, Katerina Lvovna, I’m the famous merchant Boris Timofeevich. The only thing that makes me so bad now is that all my bones inside are cracked from my sister-in-law’s treat. A young woman looks at a cat, and it has the head of Boris Timofeevich, and instead of eyes there are circles of fire. That same night, her husband, Zinovy ​​Borisovich, returns home. Katerina Lvovna hides Sergei on a pole behind the gallery, throwing his shoes and clothes there. The husband who comes in asks to put the samovar on him, and then asks why in his absence the bed is folded in two, and points to Sergei’s woolen belt, which he finds on the sheet. Katerina Lvovna calls Sergei in response, her husband is stunned by such impudence. Without thinking twice, the woman begins to strangle her husband, then hits him with a cast candlestick. When Zinovy ​​Borisovich falls, Sergei sits on him. Soon the merchant dies. The young housewife and Sergei bury him in the cellar.

Now Sergei begins to walk like a real master, and Katerina Lvovna conceives a child from him. However, their happiness turns out to be short-lived: it turns out that the merchant had a nephew, Fedya, who has more rights to the inheritance. Sergei convinces Katerina that because of Fedya, who has now moved in with them; lovers will not have happiness and power... They are planning to kill their nephew.

In the eleventh chapter, Katerina Lvovna carries out her plans, and, of course, not without the help of Sergei. The nephew is smothered with a large pillow. But all this is seen by a curious person who at that moment looked through the gap between the shutters. A crowd instantly gathers and breaks into the house...

Both Sergei, who confessed to all the murders, and Katerina are sent to hard labor. The child who is born shortly before is given to the husband's relative, since only this child remains the only heir.

In the final chapters, the author tells about the misadventures of Katerina Lvovna in exile. Here Sergei completely abandons her, begins to openly cheat on her, but she continues to love him. From time to time he comes to her on a date, and during one of these meetings he asks Katerina Lvovna for stockings, since his feet allegedly hurt a lot. Katerina Lvovna gives away beautiful woolen stockings. The next morning, she sees them on the feet of Sonetka, a young girl and Sergei’s current girlfriend. The young woman understands that all her feelings for Sergei are meaningless and are not needed by him, and then she decides to do the last thing...

On one of the stormy days, convicts are transported by ferry across the Volga. Sergei, as has become customary lately, again begins to laugh at Katerina Lvovna. She looks blankly, and then suddenly grabs Sonetka standing next to her and throws herself overboard. It is impossible to save them.

This concludes N.S. Leskov’s story Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.