I read the first half of the book with intense interest, I could not put it down. And suddenly, at some point, I noticed that the impression almost immediately faded away, it suddenly became tedious, as if forced.

How, why did this happen? Perhaps the main impetus was the frantic opposition of our and foreign medicine. When the demonization of English doctors began, so that against their background ours would turn into almost bright angels, the desire to believe the author disappeared. Yes, perhaps the author is partly right. But to her, to her, well, not so much.

Lord Neville's story is, of course, particularly impressive. Terrible British officials ruined the poor boy! I had completely different thoughts. When I was still young, the tradition of not telling the patient about a bad prognosis (as well as a fatal diagnosis) was still widespread and was considered correct. Well, that is, I don’t know how it was in life at that time - only as in cinema and literature (which, of course, are behind the times). My young soul froze at the thought: how can you survive this - if you are told this? What a horror!

Now everything is different - and now I see well how right it is. Yes, there may be cases where such a message would not be useful. But they are few. A person should know the truth about himself - this is his sacred right. Because in reality, everyone guesses anyway. And when doctors lie, their teeth speak on purpose, it only gets worse.

Why was the decision on how to treat Lord Neville made by anyone but Lord Neville himself?! Why did a bunch of smart people usurp this right for themselves and not ask the patient anything? English reinsurers forbade it, Russian reinsurers did not want to argue - and no one talked to the patient. Until the last, he was lied to that he was about to get better - and the excellent Russian doctor himself, a model of humanity and service to duty, as his author tries to present to us, watched with morbid curiosity, imbibed the importance of communicating with the dying, but never once told him the truth .

And the love line looks very, very sad. A narcissistic young proud man broke up with his beloved woman, saying a lot of rudeness to her. Okay, let's say some of these rudeness was justified - and it shook her, forced her to reconsider her life. She did well, she found herself, she began to do important and useful work. But hopelessly stuck in this crazy dependence on him.

He himself is like a dog in the manger. Neither to himself nor to people, he can neither forget his first love, nor say a kind word to her. The author already tried to find ways to bring these comrades together in a huge war - but he himself once again forced them to disperse without explaining himself. But love, such love! Yes? It is a pity that this is presented as such a role model.

Yuri German

Dear my man

I will not praise the timidly lurking virtue that shows itself in nothing and does not show signs of life, the virtue that never makes sorties to face the enemy, and which shamefully flees from the competition when the laurel wreath is won in the heat and dust .

John Milton

Whoever is rooting for a cause must be able to fight for it, otherwise he does not need to take on any business at all.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Chapter first

TRAIN GOING WEST

The international express started off slowly, as befits trains of this highest category, and both foreign diplomats immediately, each in their own direction, ripped the silk breezebushes on the mirrored window of the dining car. Ustimenko squinted and peered even more attentively at these athletic little, wiry, arrogant people - in black evening suits, glasses, with cigars, with rings on their fingers. They did not notice him, greedily looked at the silent, boundless expanse and peace there, in the steppes, over which the full moon floated in the black autumn sky. What did they hope to see when they crossed the border? Fires? War? German tanks?

In the kitchen, behind Volodya, the cooks were beating meat with choppers, there was a delicious smell of fried onions, the barmaid on a tray carried misted bottles of Russian Zhiguli beer. It was dinner time, at the next table a belly-bellied American journalist was peeling an orange with thick fingers, his military "forecasts" were respectfully listened to by bespectacled, slicked-haired diplomats who looked like twins.

Bastard! Volodya said.

What he says? asked Tod-Jin.

Bastard! Ustimenko repeated. - Fascist!

The diplomats nodded their heads and smiled. The famous American columnist-journalist joked. “This joke is already flying over the radiotelephone to my newspaper,” he explained to his interlocutors and threw an orange slice into his mouth - with a click. His mouth was as big as a frog's, from ear to ear. And all three of them had a lot of fun, but they became even more fun over cognac.

We must have peace of mind! said Tod-Jin, looking compassionately at Ustimenka. - You have to get yourself together, yes, yes.

Finally, a waiter came up and recommended to Volodya and Tod-Zhin "monastic sturgeon" or "mutton chops." Ustimenko leafed through the menu, the waiter, beaming parted, waited - the strict Tod-Jin with his motionless face seemed to the waiter an important and rich eastern foreigner.

A bottle of beer and beef stroganoff,” said Volodya.

Go to hell, Tod-Jin, - Ustimenko got angry. - I have a lot of money.

Tod-Jin repeated dryly:

Porridge and tea.

The waiter raised his eyebrows, made a mournful face and left. The American observer poured cognac into the narzan, rinsed his mouth with this mixture and filled his pipe with black tobacco. Another gentleman approached the three of them - as if he got out not from the next car, but from the collected works of Charles Dickens, lop-eared, short-sighted, with a duck nose and a mouth like a chicken tail. It was to him - this plaid-striped one - that the journalist said that phrase, from which Volodya even went cold.

No need! asked Tod-Jin, and squeezed Volodino's wrist with his cold hand. - It doesn't help, so, yeah...

But Volodya did not hear Tod-Jin, or rather, he did, but he was not in the mood for prudence. And, rising at his table - tall, lithe, in an old black sweater - he barked at the whole car, piercing the journalist with furious eyes, barked in his terrifying, soul-chilling, self-learned English:

Hey reviewer! Yes, you, it is you, I tell you...

A look of bewilderment flashed across the journalist's flat, fat face, the diplomats instantly became politely arrogant, the Dickensian gentleman stepped back a little.

You enjoy the hospitality of my country! shouted Volodya. A country of which I have the high honor of being a citizen. And I do not allow you to make such disgusting, and so cynical, and so vile jokes about the great battle that our people are waging! Otherwise, I will throw you out of this wagon to hell ...

Approximately so Volodya imagined what he said. In fact, he said a phrase much more meaningless, but nevertheless, the observer understood Volodya perfectly, this was evident from the way his jaw dropped for a moment and small, fish teeth in the frog's mouth were exposed. But immediately he was found - he was not so small as not to find a way out of any situation.

Contrary to popular belief, Cannes, blinded by the brilliance of our only gold, was not discovered by Batalov by Kalatozov. The ability to play a tense, but hidden from prying eyes inner life, mental, intellectual, professional that is, which was the uniqueness of Batalov's acting talent, was really used by Kheifits for the first time, and the screenwriter of Kheifits Yuri German (because without the writer's intervention the actor , it seems, would forever be stuck in the role of a working boy). The script for the film “My Dear Man” was written by German specifically for Batalov and “on” Batalov, with inspiration and with great confidence in the actor, who was entrusted with the mission of humanizing the seemingly worked “on the knee”, strung on a living thread of the text. The result, obviously, exceeded the most daring writer's expectations: the image of the doctor Ustimenko was molded by Batalov so cleverly, voluminously, convincingly and at the same time with such genuine, such vital reticence that the author himself felt ashamed and seriously intrigued. Herman's illustrious trilogy, which has become a reference book for all medical students, essentially grew out of this dissatisfaction of the screenwriter, who bypassed the actor in the subtleties of understanding the character. Herman in it only explored those depths of Vladimir Ustimenko's character that Batalov had already embodied on the screen rationalizing, analyzing, tracing his origin, formation, development, and not caring in the least about his original screenplay material, focusing more on the plot (oddly enough, this sounds) on subsequent characters of the same Batalov (physicist Gusev from Nine Days of One Year, Dr. Berezkin from Day of Happiness)

And then to say: the charm and mystery of the "generation of whales" ("they are too tough all teeth are soft, they are not good for soups the pots are too small"), carried by Batalov through his entire filmography (up to the complete fraying of the type, almost self-parody in the form of an intellectual locksmith Gosha), already in “My Dear Man” by Kheifits, they clearly crush the strained (if not stilted) scenario under themselves in places. until the days of the last bottom "thanks to Batalov, it undergoes a radical revision in the novel. The ingenious scene of the operation in military conditions, under the roar of shrapnel, in the wrong light of the oil lamp white cap, white respiratory bandage, Olympian calm of all features, all muscles, sweating forehead and furry Batalov eyes , extremely intensively living in these minutes for a whole life the scene, similar to a chaste rite, unconscious of the participants themselves anticipated one of the Germanic formulas included in the anthology: one must serve one's cause, not incense

There, under the oil lamp, in military infirmary routine and routine, half-hidden by a bandage from indiscreet eyes, Batalov-Ustimenko immediately pours out on the viewer all the radiance that the character carried in himself throughout the film - carefully and gently, afraid to spill it in everyday bustle. In this scene, there is an explanation and justification for his restraint (ill-wishers said: freezing) in all other human manifestations: love, grief, indignation. Devoted to one completely, undividedly, uncompromisingly, he cannot be otherwise. No "Odysseys in the darkness of steamship offices, Agamemnons between tavern markers" with their in vain and in vain burning eyes. Ustimenko Batalova is a person at work, to whom all his strength is given, he has no time to waste himself outside.

The coldness and detachment of the title character is more than compensated by the supporting cast, which seems to compete in the brightness and expressive capacity of the instantaneous (but not fleeting) flashes of feelings unwittingly exposed by them. The mighty hunched shoulders of the hero Usovnichenko, disappointed in the object of love, timid, belated (“Ah, Lyuba, Lyuba. Love! ... Nikolaevna.”); the burning look of the black eyes of Dr. Veresova (Bella Vinogradova), the cruel female offense in her short attack ( "For whom do I paint? For you!"); the ferocious roar of Captain Kozyrev (performed by Pereverzev) in response to the orderly Zhilin's attempts to switch his attention from sergeant Stepanova to a pretty nurse all these momentary, painfully recognizable situations unfold themselves in the audience's perception in a life-long story. Against this background rich in talents, even the magnificent Inna Makarova becomes a little bored very picturesque and femininely attractive in the role of Varya, but she did not say anything new in this film, in fact, once again playing the “home” part of the role of Lyubka Shevtsova (after all, a dramatic turn from "Girls" to "Women" the actress has yet to come). It seems that Herman was not impressed with her game either, for the novel he borrowed from Varka only a figurine “like a turnip” However, isn’t tactful self-elimination the main virtue (and special happiness) of a woman who loves the one who has gone headlong into her own, big, a man? The one that “barely walks, breathes a little if only he was well”? Didn't Inna Makarova deliberately dim the colors of her individuality so as not to push her dear person into the shadows, exactly as her heroine learned to do?