Izmailova Ekaterina Lvovna - the main character of the essay by N.S. Leskov "Lady Macbeth" Mtsensk district».

A 24-year-old woman of pleasant appearance and character, which "you will never remember without spiritual awe." While still a peasant girl, she was married not out of love to the merchant Zinovy ​​Borisovich, who was twice her age. In the house of Boris Timofeevich's father-in-law, Ekaterina Lvovna, suffering from boredom and loneliness, wanders around empty rooms all day long, because her husband and father-in-law are constantly busy with work, and there was no child in the family.

The former cheerfulness and energy of Catherine gave way to melancholy and monotony of life, creating an atmosphere "from which it is fun even to hang yourself."

The complete lack of love and affection on the part of her husband pushes the merchant to accept the courtship of the young clerk Sergei. Interest in handsome man gradually develops into an insane passion, which, combined with an ardent and daring character, is able to overcome any obstacles on the way to long-awaited happiness.

This love is immoral and merciless, it is devoid of not only high spiritual experiences, but also common sense(refuses his own child).

The fear of being separated from her beloved takes over Katerina, and therefore she easily commits murders of loved ones who in one way or another interfered with her happy life. After Sergei's betrayal and ridicule, unhealthy love gives way to jealousy and resentment, which becomes a decisive blow for the hostess. So, she commits her last murder, which finally destroys her personality.

Thus, Katerina Lvovna, a woman who dreams of love and family happiness, becomes a victim of her own feelings. Love, which turned into passion and insanity, swallowed the heart of the young merchant's wife, forced her to transgress through human dignity and commit suicide for the sake of their own happiness.

Bailiff Sergei

The hero of the essay by N.S. Leskov “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district”. A young clerk in the Izmailovs' house. Outwardly handsome and charming, he easily seduces women with sweet speeches, based on his own selfish interests. He amuses himself by playing with the feelings of poor girls tormented by boredom, pushing them to the lowest and most terrible deeds. So, the merchant's wife, Katerina Lvovna, is forced to kill her own husband and father-in-law, and he himself becomes an accomplice in this process. Deception and intrigues entirely make up his life, because. he got to the Izmailovs for an affair with the former mistress.

Despite the vows of love and fidelity, Sergei is alien to the highest feeling. Betrayal, ridicule, cruelty towards the "beloved person" confirm the essence of his true nature.

He could safely lie about his own feelings only when he saw the goal of a carefree and rich life in front of him. At that moment, when all prospects were lost, it was no longer necessary to play the game.

Thus, Sergei is a vile, low, cruel and selfish person, driven solely by his own selfish desires.

Year of publication of the book: 1864

Book N.S. Leskov "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" was first published in 1864 in one of the St. Petersburg periodicals. The work is signed by the author as an essay and consists of fifteen chapters. The plot of the book became the basis for many theatrical productions. Based on Leskov’s work “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”, several feature films were shot, the last of which was released in 2016.

Books "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" summary

A young girl from a poor family named Katerina lived with her husband Zinovy ​​Borisych in a small county. The man was much older than his wife and wealthier. Despite the fact that the Izmailovs had been married for several years, they still had no children. Leskov's book "Lady Macbeth" tells that twenty-four-year-old Katerina Lvovna was very worried about this. Her husband was at work so often that she was bored at home alone.

Once, in the spring, the mill dam, which belonged to Zinovy ​​Borisych, broke down. The man urgently had to leave for repairs, leaving his wife alone in the county. One morning, while walking, the girl saw a young man named Sergey, who had recently started working for them. Sergei jokingly suggested that Katerina Lvovna wrestle. As soon as she raised her hands, he immediately grabbed her and hugged her tightly. married girl got a little excited and, blushing, ran out of the barn. A little later, the cook Aksinya told Katerina that there were rumors that Sergei, while serving with their neighbors, had seduced the owner's wife.

From the work of N. Leskov "Lady Macbeth" we learn that in the meantime, Katerina Lvovna's husband is also absent. One day Sergey comes to her. During the conversation, he admits that he fell in love with Katerina. From such words, the girl's head began to spin, and Sergey carried the young lady to her room. Since then, every night Katerina spent time with Sergei. Unexpectedly, Katerina's father-in-law Boris Timofeich arrives at the house. In the evening, a man notices that a certain young man comes out of the bedroom of his daughter-in-law through the window. He immediately grabbed Sergei by the legs and dragged him to the pantry, where he dealt several blows with a whip. Angry, Boris Timofeevich immediately sent servants for his son.

In the morning, when Katerina woke up, she immediately realized what had happened. The girl began to demand from her father-in-law that he let Sergei go free. The man shouted strongly at his daughter-in-law, trying to disgrace her to the whole house. However, that same evening, the father-in-law main character severely poisoned by mushrooms. He vomited terribly all night, and the next morning the old man died. All the symptoms coincided with how rats die in Katerina Lvovna's barn. The girl has long been making the same poison to get rid of rodents.

In Leskov's book "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" summary tells that in the meantime Katerina Lvovna released Sergei from imprisonment and took him to her husband's room. On the same day, the servants quickly organized the funeral of Boris Timofeyich, without even waiting for the arrival of his son. Katerina realized that now, in the absence of her husband, she was the main mistress of the house. The girl walked very proudly and took Sergey with her everywhere. When the young people were drinking tea, Katerina Lvovna asked her lover if he had any feelings for her. Sergei confessed his sincere love to the girl and expressed his fears that Zinovy ​​Borisych would soon return. Katerina said that she had a plan according to which Sergey would become a merchant, and they would live happily ever after. That same night, when Katerina and Sergey went to bed, the girl dreamed of a huge gray cat. His head resembled the face of a dead father-in-law. When she woke up, she saw that someone was entering the gate. In horror, Katerina Lvovna realized that her husband had returned. She immediately woke up Sergei and ordered him to get out the window. Zinoviy Borisovich began to ask his wife about how his father's funeral went, and what she was doing all this time while he was repairing the mill. Suddenly the man saw a belt that belonged to Sergei. He immediately told his wife that he had already heard about her betrayal, but Katerina did not deny everything. She took Sergei into the room and kissed him in front of her husband. Zinovy ​​Borisych was terribly angry at such a daring act of his wife and hit her on the cheek.

If you read Leskov’s essay “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”, then we will find out that a fight immediately began in the room. Katerina Lvovna threw herself on her husband and threw him to the floor. At that time, Sergei ran up and tried to hold his master's hands with his knees. Katerina Lvovna came up behind and hit her husband on the head with a huge precious candlestick. The man began to gradually lose consciousness and asked his wife to bring the priest, and he could confess. Sergei, wanting to hasten the death of his enemy, strangled Zinovy ​​Borisych with all his strength, after which he took his body to the cellar and safely hid it there. Later he dug a deep hole in the cellar and buried Zinovy ​​Borisych there. Now no one could find Katerina's late husband, and only she and Sergey knew about his arrival.

A little time passed and everyone in the yard wondered why the owner had not yet returned home. The entire capital of the deceased man now belonged to Katerina Lvovna, who no longer even concealed her connection with Sergei. After a while, she found out that she was pregnant. It suddenly turned out that most of Zinovy's inheritance belongs to his little nephew Fyodor. The cousin of the late Boris Timofeich showed up at the Izmailovs' house and brought her grandson with her. Sergei was confused when he saw little Fedya in the yard. Then Katerina Lvovna thought that she should be the only heir to the entire Izmailov property. The woman realized that she had killed several people for the sake of wealth, which she could lose at any moment.

One day, little Fedya became ill, and he came down with a high fever. His grandmother went to church to light a candle for his health, asking Katerina to temporarily look after her grandson. Katerina spent the whole evening with Sergei in the next room from the boy. Suddenly she decided to see how Fedya felt there. She told her lover that the boy was alone there, and from his look she realized that it was time to move on to more decisive action.

In Leskov's book "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District", a summary describes how the main character entered the room to the sick boy. Katerina's lover, at the first opportunity, grabbed the sick baby by the legs, and the girl, in turn, strangled him with a pillow. The main character was about to leave the room, when she heard loud knocks on the door. Sergei got scared and ran away. He thought that it was the late Zinovy ​​Borisych who came to take revenge. Katerina gathered all her will into a fist and opened the door. There she saw an angry mob. As it turned out, people were returning from the church and discussing Katerina Lvovna and her affair. Several people noticed the light in the window and decided to see what was happening there. So they saw how Katerina Lvovna was strangling little Fedya. The crowd, pushing back Katerina, burst into the house and noticed the dead boy. As punishment followed for all villainy, the main character, along with Sergei, was immediately arrested.

Despite the situation, the girl behaved quite calmly and completely denied her guilt. However, in Sergei self-control was much less. The man immediately confessed to all the murders that they committed with Katerina and began to cry. He spoke about the place where the body of the owner of the house was buried. By court order, both criminals had to go to hard labor. A few days later Katerina Lvovna gave birth. But, looking at her child, she decided to completely abandon him. While the party in which Sergey and Ekaterina were sent was moving to Nizhny, the girl tried to bribe all the non-commissioned officers and asked them to allow her to see her lover as often as possible. If you read the essay “Lady Macbeth” by Leskov, then we will find out that Sergei did not like such an action of the main character. He behaved rather coldly and unkindly, accusing the girl of spending money left and right.

A little later, two more girls joined the party of Sergei and Ekaterina: a young blonde Sonetka, who very selectively assessed the surrounding men, and Fiona, who flirted with everyone present. After some time, Katerina saw Sergey lying in the corridor with Fiona. She hit her lover in the face with all her might and burst into tears and ran away. The next day, Sergei said that he did not want to see Katerina anymore, because she no longer had such wealth as before. In front of Katerina Lvovna, the young man began to flirt with Sonetka. Once Sergey came to the main character and said that he was sorry that he had betrayed her. The man complained that his legs had been hurting for several days, because of which he would have to go to Kazan to go to the hospital. The woman immediately brought him her woolen stockings so that he could warm himself. However, the next day she saw a young blond Sonetka, who was standing in her own stockings. Angry, Katerina Lvovna came up and spat in Sergei's face. The very next night, two men entered the barracks of the main character. She recognized by the voice that one of them was Sergei. They beat her fifty times with a whip and hurried out. At that very moment, the woman heard Sonetka laughing not far from her. Since then, Sergei has not even hidden his relationship with a blonde girl.

In the work “Lady Macbeth” by Leskov, the summary tells that when the criminals approached the Volga, they began to be lifted onto a huge ferry. During Sergei's next joke, Katerina Lvovna could not stand it and grabbed Sonetka by the dress. Together, the women rolled head over heels and fell overboard. The non-commissioned officers tried to help them get out, but Katerina and Sonetka disappeared forever under the water.

The book "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" on the Top Books website

The book "Lady Macbeth" by Leskov is so popular to read that the work got into ours. And given the presence of the work in the school curriculum, we can confidently predict that Leskov's essay "Lady Macbeth" will enter our subsequent ratings.

You can read Leskov's book "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" in full on the Top Books website.

The main theme that N.S. Leskov touches on in the story of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district is the theme of love; love that has no boundaries, love for which everyone commits, even murder.
The main character is the merchant's wife Katerina Lvovna Izmailova; main character- 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, rather sweet, although not beautiful. Before marriage, she was a cheerful laugher, and after the wedding, her life changed. The merchant Izmailov was a strict widower of about fifty, lived with his father Boris Timofeevich, and his whole life was in trade. From time to time he leaves, and his young wife does not find a place for herself. Boredom, the most unrestrained, pushes her one day to take a walk around the yard. Here she meets the clerk Sergei, an unusually handsome guy, about whom they say that what kind of woman you want, he will flatter and lead 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 after a few moments is at her door. A 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 at the stable, and Sergei will be sent to jail. But the next morning, the father-in-law, after eating mushrooms with gruel, gets heartburn, and after a few hours he dies, just like rats died in the barn, for which only Katerina Lvovna had poison. Now the love of the master's wife and the clerk flares up more than ever, they already know about it in the yard, but they think so, they say, this is the case, she will have an answer.
As if a huge cat walks on her bed, purrs, and then suddenly lies between her and Sergey. Sometimes the cat talks to her I'm not a cat, Katerina Lvovna, I'm the famous merchant Boris Timofeevich. I’m only so bad now, I’ve become that all my bones inside are cracked from the bride’s treat. A young woman will look at the cat, and he has the head of Boris Timofeevich, and fiery mugs instead of eyes. On the same night, her husband, Zinovy ​​Borisovich, returns home. Katerina Lvovna hides Sergei on a pole behind the gallery, throwing his shoes and clothes into the same place. The husband who entered asks to put a samovar for him, and then asks why, in his absence, the bed is laid out in two, and points to Sergei's woolen belt, which he finds on the sheet. Katerina Lvovna calls Sergey in response, her husband is dumbfounded by such impudence. Without thinking twice, the woman begins to choke her husband, then beats him with a cast candlestick. When Zinoviy Borisovich falls, Sergei sits on him. Soon the merchant dies. The young mistress and Sergey bury him in the cellar.
Now Sergei begins to walk like a real master, and Katerina Lvovna conceives a child from him. Their happiness still 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; there will be no happiness and power for lovers. ... The murder of a nephew is contemplated.
In the eleventh chapter, Katerina Lvovna carries out her plans, and, of course, not without the help of Sergei. The nephew is strangled with a large pillow. But all this is seen by a curious person who at that moment looked into the gap between the shutters. Instantly a crowd gathers and breaks into the house...
Both Sergei, who confessed to all the murders, and Katerina, are sent to hard labor. A child who is born shortly before is given to a relative of the husband, since only this child remains the sole heir.

Here Sergey completely refuses her, begins to openly cheat on her, but she continues to love him. From time to time he comes to see her on a date, and in one of these meetings he asks Katerina Lvovna for stockings, since he supposedly has severe pain in his feet. Katerina Lvovna gives away beautiful woolen stockings. The next morning, she sees them on the feet of Sonetka, a young girl and Sergey's current girlfriend. The young woman understands that all her feelings for Sergei are meaningless and do not need him, and then decides on the last ...
On one of the rainy days, convicts are transported by ferry across the Volga. Sergei, as has become customary in Lately starts laughing at Katerina Lvovna again. She stares blankly, and then abruptly grabs Sonetka, who is standing next to her, and throws herself overboard. They cannot be saved.
This concludes the story of N.S. Leskov Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district.

The heroine of Leskov's story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"

No information about the possible real prototypes of Katerina Izmailova has been preserved. Most likely, Leskov, who worked for some time in the judicial criminal chamber, created this image using the materials of criminal cases. Giving his "essay" to the press, Leskov presented it as "the 1st number of a series of essays exclusively on typical female characters of our (Oka and part of the Volga) area."

Katerina Izmailova, as Leskov wrote about her at the beginning of the story, "a merchant's wife who played a once terrible drama, after which our nobles, with someone's easy word, began to call her Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district." The writer directly points to the literary prototype Katerina Izmailova - this is Lady Macbeth W. Shakespeare. Both that, and another kill in aspiration to the purpose of those who hinder them; both perish under the weight of their crimes. However, unlike the prototype, K. I. is a peasant woman who has become a “merchant's wife”; in a blind passion for her lover, the clerk Sergei, she kills her husband and father-in-law, and then her nephew, goes to prison and hard labor, experiences all the bitterness of betrayal by her accomplice-lover, and in the finale drowns her rival Sonetka with her in the waters of an icy river.

Perhaps Leskov, when creating the image of K.I., used English folk ballads, very popular in Russia in the 19th century. In particular, the ballad "The Lord of Waristoun", which tells about a wife who killed her husband. The plot of the "essay" is largely built on the basis of the plots of the popular popular print in Russia "About a merchant's wife and a clerk".

Katerina Izmailova became a symbol of Shakespearean passions on Russian soil: in her image, Leskov made an attempt to explore "rough and uncomplicated forms" in which "slavish submission to one's passions and the pursuit of bad, unworthy goals in simple, soiled, unrestrained people" are manifested. In the character of the heroine, the pagan, bodily beginning is sharply opposed to the spiritual beginning. K. I. is very strong physically, Leskov in every possible way emphasizes her “outlandish heaviness”, bodily “excess”. The spiritual needs of K.I. are practically reduced to zero, which is further aggravated by “Russian boredom, boredom merchant's house, from which it is fun, they say, even hang on. The house has a Bible and the Kiev Patericon (the lives of the saints and great martyrs of Kievan Rus), but K. I. does not even open them. Leskov attaches a symbolic meaning to the “Kyiv Patericon” - before his death, the nephew of K.I. Fedya reads in this patericon the life of “his angel” St. great torment. Theodore Stratilates.

The passion that flared up in K.I. for the clerk Sergei makes her "excessiveness" unfold in all the might of her pagan strength. She begins to live, as it were, in accordance with the words of Macbeth: "I dare everything that a man dares, / And only a beast is capable of more." The actions performed by K.I. under the influence of this “pagan force”, which at first seem to not even cause much disgust (the first two victims of K.I. are characters with little sympathy), inevitably lead the heroine to a failure into “the worst evil”, to an absolute contradiction Christianity. Leskov emphasizes all the horror and baseness of what is happening by the fact that the murder of the boy Fedya is committed by the pregnant K.I. on the night before the feast of the “Entrance of the Virgin into the Temple”. "God's punishment" catches up with the criminals right there: they are caught and put on trial.

The question of justifying K.I. by the fact that she committed crimes “in the name of love”, which was then raised more than once in criticism, Leskov completely rejects. This is not love, but “dark passion”: “Remember how you and I walked at night and saw off your relatives to the next world,” Sergey K.I. not afraid of human eyes. Leskov himself later recalled that he felt terrified at times when he wrote "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District."

Russian criticism of the 19th and 20th centuries, considering Leskov's essay in the tradition of "organic literature" (Ap. Grigoriev's term), refers the image of K. I. to the so-called. "predatory type". Many researchers in this regard (for example, B. M. Eikhenbaum) contrast K. I. with the image of Katerina Kabanova from A. N. Ostrovsky’s Thunderstorm, which in the classification of Ap. Grigorieva personifies both the "humble" and "passionate" types.Katerina Ostrovsky’s love drama “grows into a tragedy of a high spirit”, and Leskov’s into a tragedy of “roughly set passions”, in many ways reminiscent of Leo Tolstoy’s “Power of Darkness”. The Garden of Eden of Ostrovsky's heroine is opposed by the "animal" paradise of K.I., where "it was breathed with something languishing, conducive to laziness, to bliss, to dark desires." Having created the image of K. I., Leskov, as it were, completed the literary chain of research on the “dark passions” of characters belonging to various social and class groups, characteristic of the 19th century: Tsar Boris Godunov, the landowner Iudushka Golovlev and the merchant K. I. All of them die, persecuted shadows of their victims. The epithet “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district”, which is used, as a rule, with a touch of irony, has firmly entered the phraseological use of the Russian language.

Until the 1930s, Leskov's essay was in a kind of literary shadow. In 1931, the constructivist poet Nikolai Ushakov in his book "30 Poems" published the poems "Lady Macbeth", in which "under the epigraph of Lesk" he described a bloody story - this time the forest rangers. The poem ends in an ironic tone:

... That is not a forest at the gate,

Lady,

I don't want to hide,

That is behind us

Lady,

rides

Mounted police.

Leskov's story had a number of incarnations on the dramatic stage and on the movie screen - artistically little significant. The image of K. I. acquired a completely different scale in the opera by D. D. Shostakovich (1932, the author’s title is the same as in the story; the name “Katerina Izmailova” was introduced by V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko in his production of the 30s; later it was used in the second, censored, edition of the opera, imposed on the composer in the 60s).

In the opera, the genre of the original source is transformed into a "tragedy-satire". The character of K.I. is rethought: it is not the predatory passion of the merchant’s wife, stupefied with satiety and five years of “imprisonment”, but the all-consuming love that owns the heroine. K. I. is a victim of a spiritually impoverished society, but at the same time also its executioner. Shostakovich's music conveys various feelings of the heroine: love confusion, pangs of conscience, consciousness of hopelessness. Shostakovich fundamentally excludes the gravest sin of K.I. - the murder of a child for the sake of an inheritance. In the opera, K. I. is more humane, more spiritual than the literary prototype, the motive of her actions is a dream of love as the highest goal of existence, family, motherhood. However, the more terrible her crime, the deeper the tragedy. A truly tragic image of K. I. was created by G. L. Vishnevskaya (1966), who reflected the richest range of feelings of the heroine. In her interpretation, K. I. appears as the personification of the strength and pain of the female soul.

The theme of love in N. Leskov's story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"

The main topic that N.S. Leskov in the story Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district, this is the theme of love; love that has no boundaries, love for which everyone commits, even murder.

The main character is the merchant's wife Katerina Lvovna Izmailova; the main character is the 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, rather sweet, although not beautiful. Before marriage, she was a cheerful laugher, and after the wedding, her life changed. The merchant Izmailov was a strict widower of about fifty, lived with his father Boris Timofeevich, and his whole life was in trade. From time to time he leaves, and his young wife does not find a place for herself. Boredom, the most unrestrained, pushes her one day to take a walk around the yard. Here she meets the clerk Sergei, an unusually handsome guy, about whom they say that what kind of woman you want, he will flatter and lead 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 after a few moments is at her door. A 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 at the stable, and Sergei will be sent to jail. But the next morning, the father-in-law, after eating mushrooms with gruel, gets heartburn, and after a few hours he dies, just like rats died in the barn, for which only Katerina Lvovna had poison. Now the love of the master's wife and the clerk flares up more than ever, they already know about it in the yard, but they consider it this way: they say, this is her business, she will have an answer.

In the chapter of N.S. Leskov's story, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district, it is told that very often Katerina Lvovna has the same nightmare. As if a huge cat walks on her bed, purrs, and then suddenly lies between her and Sergey. Sometimes the cat talks to her: I am not a cat, Katerina Lvovna, I am the famous merchant Boris Timofeevich. I’m only so bad now, I’ve become that all my bones inside are cracked from the bride’s treat. A young woman will look at the cat, and he has the head of Boris Timofeevich, and fiery mugs instead of eyes. On the same night, her husband, Zinovy ​​Borisovich, returns home. Katerina Lvovna hides Sergei on a pole behind the gallery, throwing his shoes and clothes into the same place. The husband who entered asks to put a samovar for him, and then asks why, in his absence, the bed is laid out in two, and points to Sergei's woolen belt, which he finds on the sheet. Katerina Lvovna calls Sergey in response, her husband is dumbfounded by such impudence. Without thinking twice, the woman begins to choke her husband, then beats him with a cast candlestick. When Zinoviy Borisovich falls, Sergei sits on him. Soon the merchant dies. The young mistress and Sergey bury him in the cellar.

Now Sergei begins to walk like a real master, and Katerina Lvovna conceives a child from him. Their happiness still 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; there will be no happiness and power for lovers. ... The murder of a nephew is contemplated.

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

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

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

On one of the rainy days, convicts are transported by ferry across the Volga. Sergei, as has become customary lately, again begins to laugh at Katerina Lvovna. She stares blankly, and then abruptly grabs Sonetka, who is standing next to her, and throws herself overboard. They cannot be saved.

This ends the story of N.S. Leskova Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district.

>Characteristics of the heroes of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district

Characteristics of the hero Katerina

The author describes Katerina as a young twenty-four-year-old woman, outwardly endearing, but not a beauty. She is a short, slender brunette with dark eyes. Also at the beginning of the essay Leskov N.S. refers to the special character of Katerina Lvovna, which is impossible to remember without spiritual awe.

Katerina marries the merchant Izmailov, who is older than her and higher in position. But a girl enters into marriage not out of great love, but rather by calculation, and the author hints that she does not have much choice, since she is a dowry.

They live with her husband Zinovy ​​Borisovich in the house of his father-in-law, Boris Timofeevich, where Katerina is very bored, and she feels like a bird in a golden cage. The husband and father-in-law do not show much attention and affection to the girl. She does not get excited about any trips to the merchant class, since all eyes are riveted to her, as to a standard, which she is not, due to the fact that she comes from a simple family. Ekaterina does not show any desire to diversify her leisure time by reading, and the library in merchant's house absent. The only outlet could be a child, but God did not send an heir to the Izmailov merchant family. So Ekaterina Lvovna lived in anguish and indifference for five years, and in the sixth year they had a clerk Sergei, who, with his charm and arrogance, attracted the attention of the merchant. And a woman gives in, even to such ridiculous persuasion, because all her life she has not been spoiled by male attention.

Ekaterina Lvovna, in her feelings for the clerk Sergei, cannot be called love, this is sheer insanity, she sees no boundaries. Morality, morality, laws - everything ceases to exist for her, she sees only her goal - Sergey, and for the sake of happiness with him she is ready for anything, even go through the stage, but only next to her beloved. So, in her clouding of her mind from feelings and fear of losing her beloved, she becomes an accomplice in the murder of three innocent people, including a child, and she refuses her baby, seeing in him a burden that arises on the way between her and Sergey.

She is very painfully experiencing the betrayal of her lover, and, overcome by resentment and jealousy, ends her life by suicide, pulling her young rival to the bottom with her. On her deathbed, Katerina tries to remember the words of the prayer, but in her head only: “how we walked with you, we sat through the autumn long nights, escorted people out of the wide world with a fierce death”

In the image of Izmailova Ekaterina - there is not a single positive trait, in all her actions she is guided only by her desires, a sense of gain and selfishness. Even at the moment of incrimination, when she is flogged with a whip, is exiled to hard labor, she does not repent, but frank confession, only surprises her, she motivates her own dark deeds with a feeling of love for a man.