On the wall is an old school photograph. The most common, black and white. For many years, the writer Anatoly Aleksin peered into every face, every destiny once imprinted on eternal memory: both the pretty teacher sitting in the very center and the students around her, especially those who were surprisingly in the fifth row ... Who are they ? The story “Third in the fifth row” (a brief summary follows) tells us about this beautiful and at the same time tragic story.
Narrative features
Many works of the writer Anatoly Aleksin are devoted to the problems of adolescence, and the narration in them is conducted on behalf of these very adolescents. They act either as anti-heroes, or vice versa - they rush to help, primarily adults, to protect them from problems, to take their responsibility on their childish, still quite fragile and gullible shoulders.
But the story "Third in the fifth row" (a summary of six chapters follows) is different from others. It seems that for the first time the author proposed not a young man as a storyteller, but an elderly teacher of Russian language and literature, who devoted her whole life to teaching and raising children. We can say that Aleksin changed the viewing angle, but not the object of observation. And what? The result was unexpected and at the same time predictable: the maturity of the soul is not an age category, but a moral one. One reaches the truth even in adolescence, and for this he does not need either experience or knowledge. And the other reaches it only when the head is full of gray hair. But about all this in order. We read the summary: "Third in the fifth row."
Old photo
Above the table in Vera Matveevna’s room hung a lot of photographs. These were faded images of classes in which an elderly teacher once taught Russian language and literature, and in some, she also worked as a class teacher. She remembered all her students, without exception, and on the go she could name their names and surnames.
Elizabeth, a four-year-old granddaughter of a teacher, loved to slide her finger along black and white photographs and ask who this boy was, what was the name of this girl. But especially she liked one red-haired guy - Vanya Belov. Why? The author does not give a direct answer. The reader is invited to find it, to feel it. And then the whole essence of the work “Third in the Fifth Row” will be revealed to him, a brief summary of which is given in this article.
Vanya Belov
Every day, Lisa persistently asked her grandmother to tell stories about this red-haired guy who looked like an ordinary blond-haired teenager, but, unlike the others, smiled, and also stood in the fifth row, the third immediately after Pope Elizabeth. Yes, there were many differences. Which ones? We read further the story written by A. Aleksin - "Third in the fifth row." The summary of the second chapter tells in detail about all. It was he who, once deftly passing the entire cornice of the third floor, entered the classroom through a window with the most ordinary look: “Allow me to enter?” None other than Vanya Belov announced a hunger strike in protest against the teacher’s unjust attitude to one of the students - her own son. And, finally, it was he who built the very fifth row, piling one chair over another in order to win the argument and once again break the usual order and order.
Yes, Vera Matveevna had many stories about the tricks of the “evil genius”. She told their granddaughter for the sole purpose of teaching, so that Elizabeth would learn from a negative example. But a paradox happened: the more stories the girl heard, the more she admired him. But was this paradox unique in the life of a teacher with vast pedagogical experience?
Love everyone the same
Vanya Belov is not just one of the main characters of the story, written by A. Aleksin, “Third in the fifth row”. A brief summary of the fourth chapter of the work focuses on the fact that he is a “developer” for an old teacher, a “chemical solution” that helps to get an explicit image from a hidden one. Vera Matveevna is an open, intelligent, loving woman, mother, friend, who every day dressed herself in a “gray dress” of a teacher with great work experience, striving to love everyone “equally” at all costs, not to single anyone out in the “row ”, And all, not excluding husband and son, to lead to“ one denominator ”of their worldview. She lived a long life, but could not understand who Vanya Belov was for her: a riddle, torment, or still a happy finding. And only an unforeseen family misfortune prompted an elderly woman to reconsider her attitude to the world, people and herself.
Yesterday's miserable woes
Before us is the story "Third in the fifth row." A summary of the chapters of the work of A. Aleksin does not end there. We continue ...
The little Lisa, whom her parents gave to raise her grandmother, had a misfortune - an allergic shock. The girl was in mortal danger. An urgent operation was needed. And none other than the famous surgeon Belov took up it. And the old teacher suddenly for some reason decides that this is her very “evil genius” - Vanya, with whom she did not know what to do, and because of which she was forced to go to work in another school. Fear for the granddaughter, immeasurable gratitude for her salvation and an irresistible feeling of guilt, drowned out by her throughout her life - all this somehow weaves together, breaks out and swiftly overwhelms her whole, causing deep remorse both for Vanya and for her own son, and before the ex-husband. It seems that the author leads us to a logical, predictable denouement.
Another turn
But here the main meaning of the work “Third in the Fifth Row” appears, the brief content of which is coming to an end. The surgeon who performed the operation turns out to be just the same name of Belov. And the renewed soul of Vera Matveyevna is eager to find the former student at any cost and talk to him. There is an early happy denouement. Here, finally, is Vanya’s house. The door is opened by aged parents who, at first glance, recognized the former class teacher and, as before, invited her to undress, but she cannot, she is in a hurry to explain herself, share her secret and finally calm down. However, the long-awaited point cannot be put: in the hands of a pretty shabby leaf - a funeral from forty-fifth. Yes, at the very end of the war, in the spring, near the city of Penzlau, Vanya Belov died.
Reviews
What kind of reviews can such a deep work have? No doubt only positive. The work has found, is, and will undoubtedly still find its grateful readers of all age categories for many more years. And there are several reasons for this. Many note the ease of perception. No complicated turns, subtle humor. One gets the feeling that the author once just sat down at his desk, and thoughts, feelings themselves were put into words, easily, without a hesitation. But the most important thing is that each among the many lines can find something that touches his heart, something without which something real, true ceases to be real.
Once again, I want to remind you that the article is dedicated to the story of A. Aleksin "Third in the fifth row." The summary and recall, even the most positive and complete, cannot fully reflect the emotional experiences of all the actors, describe what tremendous power they possessed, sometimes good, and sometimes destructive, in a person’s life. Therefore, for a deeper understanding of the events described, it is necessary to read the entire work.