The fake coupon

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Lev Tolstoy in 1903

The counterfeit coupon , also called the counterfeit coupon ( Russian Фальшивый купон , Falschiwy kupon ), is a story by Lev Tolstoy , the writing of which began in the late 1880s and was canceled in February 1904. The fragment appeared posthumously in volume 1 of LN Tolstoy's posthumous artistic works in Moscow in 1911 . The story was published uncensored, also in 1911, in the estate of the same name in Berlin . 1983 followed - also in Moscow - an edition in vol. 14 of the 22-volume Tolstoy edition.

Moscow towards the end of the 19th century: The at first glance minor crime committed by the high school student Machin - forgery of documents as a minor offense, so to speak - leads to a chain reaction of murder and manslaughter. A farmer, the refined mass murderer Stepan Pelageyushkin, a link in that gruesome chain, - strictly following the commandment of Christian charity - reaches Machin's late retreat .

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The 15-year-old high school student Mitja also receives a coupon worth two and a half rubles from his father, the choleric president of the Finance Court Fyodor Smokovnikov, as part of his already tight pocket money . Mitja, a high school student named Machin, comes to help with paying off a debt. Machin forges the security with a single stroke of the pen. The coupon is now worth twelve rubles and fifty copek . Both students duped Marja Wassiljewna, the wife of the owner Yevgeny Mikhailovich, in a photo shop. After buying a little something, the two cash can be given out. When the businessman Yevgeny Mikhailovich came home, he recognized the counterfeit and turned the coupon over to a timber dealer. This unsuspecting farmer Ivan Mironov also issues cash on the "security". Before Mironov drives to his village Vasilievskoye, he returns. When paying, the landlord recognizes the forgery and calls the police. After Mironov has spent the night in the station, he leads the police into the photo shop. In front of the judge, Yevgeny Michailowitsch's house servant Vasily denied the timber trade and received cash from his master as a reward for the perjury .

Three years later: Vasily is fired from Yevgeny Mikhailovich after stealing money.

Ivan Mironov, who had been ruined three years earlier by the legal costs imposed on him, stole three horses from the wealthy former customs officer Pyotr Swentizki.

Marja Wassiljewna recognizes Mitja Smokownikow on the street and complains about the fraudster at the grammar school to his religion teacher Michail Wedensky. Mitja's father, the atheist Fyodor Smokovnikov, hears about the incident. The father argues with the religion teacher. At the instigation of his mother, Mitja returns the cash to Marja Wassiljewna. Mikhail Wedensky leaves high school, joins a monastery as a monk Missail and becomes rector of a seminary on the Volga . Missail is sent by his bishop to a village where the sectarian Chuyev preaches that icons are nothing more than boards. When Chuyev knocks out one of the orthodox believers in the course of the religious dispute , he is banished. Missail is promoted by the bishop.

Pyotr Swentitski can no longer get along with the neighbors. He leases his estate, moves to the Volga with his wife, and takes a job there as an administrator on the Liwenzows estate. When he is putting things in order, he is murdered by the local farmers. Swentitski's wife Natalja Ivanovna Swentitskaya witnessed the bloody act. The widow is comforted by her maid Malanja: Freed from her despotic husband by the murderers, she can finally breathe a sigh of relief. The peasants throw Pyotr Swentitsky's corpse into the nearby ravine. Two perpetrators are said to be hanged after a trial court ruled. Natalja says the two would only be executed because of her. When she tries to forgive the two farmers, the chief of the rural police laughs at her. Natalja's petition for clemency, formulated in a telegram from the chief of the rural police, is not heard at the Tsar's court. The ruler orders the monk Isidore to go to the court church. In his sermon in front of the fully assembled generals, Isidore castigates the death penalty. In Isidor's view, this barbaric practice is caused by bad governance. After the sermon, the monk Isidore is removed by the metropolitan and the attorney general and taken to the Suzdal monastery , headed by Father Missail. Fourteen clergymen sit in it - all of them trapped because they violated the dogmas of the orthodox church.

Ivan Mironov, meanwhile a horse thief feared by landowners and merchants in his area, is caught by the angry villagers when he attacks farm horses. When the village elder calls for vigilante justice, the farmer Stepan Pelageyushkin smashes the horse thief's skull with a stone. For this Stepan only gets one year in prison. His wife has to go begging with the children. Stepan bitterly seeks an argument, almost kills the prison cook and has to sit for another year. When Stepan is released, his wife died and his house burned down. He doesn't know where to go. Stepan stops by a hostess whom he knows very well. The obese landlord he hated and had snatched Frau Matjona from a neighboring farmer. The next vigilante justice is taking its course. Stepan kills the couple with an ax. Thereupon he looks for a carter he knows. Since he is out of the house, Stepan cuts his wife's throat. Because their children scream, they too are killed by Stepan. The killer goes to town. There he observes the pensioner Maria Semenovna, how she gets a nice little pension in the state treasury. In her apartment he cuts Marja Semyonovna's married daughter's throat, kills her husband after a fierce duel and sticks the knife in Marya's throat after the woman admonished him: “Have mercy on yourself! ... worst of all you bring your own soul to ruin ...! ”In prison, Stepan doesn’t forget Marya Semyonovna’s warning. He behaved exemplary for months and did not riot as he did during previous prison stays. His suicide attempt fails. The notorious thief Vasily and the incorrigible sectarian Chuyev are also held in Stepan's prison. When asked by Stepan, Chuyev reveals his reason for detention and adds that lying priests sent out cannot break his faith in the true teaching of Christ . The illiterate Stepan is taught by Chuyev in prison about Matthew and Luke . Stepan becomes a different person and learns to read. In Stepan's prison, the two peasants who lynched Pyotr Swentitski are awaiting execution. The convicted of murder executioner Machorkin is from Penza ordered to jail as an executioner of the two. Machorkin is converted by Stepan and refuses to kill a person despite the threat of a whipping. The prison director finds someone to act as an executioner - a bestial sodomite from Kazan .

The above-mentioned high school student Machin is now an examining magistrate at the district court and shares all the details of the Stepan case with his beloved, the rich Lisa Jeropkina. Lisa, who suspects Machin wants to marry her because of her money, is now checking her groom: Lisa wants to part with her property; want to be like Marya Semyonovna. Lisa's father is strictly against it, but Machin becomes a different person; supports Lisa's mentioned endeavors. Lisa seeks out a hermit and confesses. A miracle happens after Lisa's visit. The hermit leaves his hermitage. The influx of the population to his sermons in the monastery church is constantly increasing.

With Stepan's help, Vasili manages to escape from prison and finds accommodation with Marya Semjonovna's maid Malanja. Vasily breaks into the rich, bribes the police with the money he looted and enables poor young girls to marry with his generous donations. Vasily also gives his former master, the merchant Yevgeny Mikhailovich, some of the stolen money and forgives him in an accompanying letter bristling with spelling errors for how he led him to perjury. Vasily is caught and banished. He does not lose courage and announces his return soon.

Stepan falls ill with head rose and is taken to a prison hospital. Father Missail is converted in the Suzdal monastery by the preacher monk Isidore. Missail retires and from then on lives in a cell in the Suzdal monastery.

Mitja Smokownikow, meanwhile a graduate of a technical university, works as an engineer in a Siberian gold mine. The mass murderer Stepan Pelageyushkin becomes his coachman. The convict converts the engineer. Mitja Smokownikow no longer strives for money and property, but marries and runs an estate with his wife. Mitja tries to re-educate his hot-headed father Fyodor Smokownikow. At first the father laughs at the son. But then the President of the Finanzhof becomes quiet over time.

Adaptations

German-language editions

  • The fake coupon. German by Arthur Luther . P. 5–89 in: Gisela Drohla (Ed.): Leo N. Tolstoj. All the stories. Eighth volume. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1961 (2nd edition of the edition in eight volumes 1982)
  • The fake coupon. Translated from the Russian by Hermann Asemissen . Pp. 175-259 in: Eberhard Dieckmann (Ed.): Lew Tolstoi. Haji Murat. Late narratives . Vol. 13 by Eberhard Dieckmann (ed.), Gerhard Dudek (ed.): Lew Tolstoi. Collected works in twenty volumes . Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1986 (used edition)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marietta Boiko : Commentary on the text (Russian)
  2. ↑ Russian edition from 1983
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 225, 19. Zvu