Holmes in context

At first there was a vidok. The adventurer of the extra-class, the former convict and police informant Francois Eugene Vidok (1775–1857) founded the Main Directorate of National Security in Paris in Paris and, guided by the principle of “only the criminal can overcome the crime,” called for him to work his colleagues in the criminal world. In 1828, his “Notes of Vidok, the head of the Paris Secret Police,” came out, then several more books of memoirs that became extremely popular-they were read everywhere, including in America, including Edgar PO (1809–1849), which later wrote “Murder on Morg Street” (1841), “The Secret of Marie Roger” (1842), “Golden Bely”) (1843) and “The stolen letter” (1845) - the first detective stories in the world. So in the literature a new genre appeared, they will give the name to him later, but he himself called his plots “logical”.

The memoirs, whatever one may say, is still a near-liner, although sometimes they give, like Winston Churchill, the Nobel Prize. We will not take the laurels of the founding of the genre by software, but let's not forget about Vidok. (By the way, it is curious, a vidok is a Frenchman, but in Russian the “Vidok” is a witness, the one who saw everything has observed; observation, the ability to pay attention to the seemingly insignificant little things-the essential feature of the detective detective, distinguishing him from all other people, profane.)

In three of the four “logical” short stories there is an amateur-amateur Charles-Oghuster Dupin, in the “golden beet” the detective is the name of William Legrand. Dupen-an intellectual-expertrician, shares the shelter with the companion, which is the storyteller in the short story. Dupen - devilish (or divinely) is smart; An nameless storyteller is naive, the logical constructions of Dupin for him like magic, revelation. Duppen crimes are investigating not for money or glory, but solely in order to entertain himself. A familiar image, isn't it?

And now - a familiar picture. The plots of the “logical” short stories begin with the fact that Dupin gets acquainted with the circumstances of some mysterious and confusing crime, then he reflects on them and puts forward several equally plausible versions of what happened, and the assistant storyteller participates in their discussion and thus, of course, together with the reader’s hook, is included as if in his opponent with the master Truth. Then-to check his logical constructions with field research and discard the wrong versions-the detective leaves the house, goes somewhere, something (the companion with the reader is perplexed) does, then he returns to himself, sits comfortably in his favorite chair, on the contrary-our storyteller with his eyes burning with impatience, and now, the final chord is long-term A report on the genius of the trip made by the thought of the genius where treachery, lies and betrayal rule, and a person’s life is worth nothing. All this is served in the form of a lecture, in a tone not without superiority and ridicule, as if from the department an arrogant professor - tightly thinking students.

And finally, the crime itself, intrigue. The secret that the detective solves. In the “Murder on Morg Street”, Dupin reveals a crime that occurred in the room, from where no one came out. In the "Golden Beetle", Legrand is busy with the decoding of code, with whom the murders are somehow associated. In the “stolen letter”, Dupin, investigating theft, thinks out before the discovery that what lies in the most prominent place is best hidden. Conan Doyle uses the first type of intrigue in the "Pyustro tape"; the second - in the "Dancing Man"; The third - in the "scandal in Bohemia" - and then, varying and interspersing, he will repeat many times more.

Further: the software was not only an analyst with a partner-tediment, but even professionally helpless, albeit a good-haired one (which makes this image as alive as the images of an arrogant detective and his simple-minded comrade) is a Prefect (yes, proto-sobs, protogregson). How can you refuse to correctly Kuprin, who said: “Conan Doyle, who filled the entire globe with detective stories, nevertheless fits with his Sherlock Holmes, as in a case, in an small ingenious work of E. Poe-“ Murder on the Street Morg ””?

Therefore, the merit of Conan Doyle and the whole secret of the super -popularity of the image of Sherlock Holmes only in quantity, and not in the literary quality of his adventures? That is, write Edgar for not three short stories about Dupen, but fifty-six and four more novels, or kill Conan Doyle in 1893 by Sherlock Holmes forever-and all the glory, an avalanche of imitations, sequels and film adaptations would be a lover-amateur from the Saint-Germany suburb, and not a detective detective with a baker-Strith? Maybe so, but, as it should be said in such cases, history has no subjunctive mood, and who knows how it would be; And among literary critics and researchers of Conan Doyle’s work, it is customary to answer this extremely difficult question carefully and evasively - so that no one is offended: “Yes, Edgar prompted a lot of his novels for a detective genre. However, Conan Doyle was not just an imitator of an American writer. He continued his search with talent and scope, in turn opening a new one, and most importantly, gave this genre the form developed and finished. Among the famous detectives, starting with Dupin and Lecca, Sherlock Holmes is undoubtedly the most expressive face, the most lively character ‹...› ” [1] .

Be that as it may, Conan Doyle studied skill not of one software. Poe is the father of the detective. Mother - American writer Anna Katherine Green (1846–1935), whose detective novels - “The Livenuores Case” (1878) and others - at that time read everything, and Conan Doyle. “The daughter of a lawyer, she knew to the subtleties the procedure for the investigation and coronary inquiry, and the stormy imagination allowed her to invent terrible secrets and sophisticated crimes. In 1894, Conan Doyle tried to meet with the famous writer in America. Whether they managed to meet - it is unknown, only a correspondence was preserved in which they are applied to the meeting. The influence of Anna Katherine Green is especially noticeable in the early stories about Holmes: the division of the story into the detective part and the retrospective of the life of the main characters (as in the “study in crimson tones”) is a typical Greenovsky technique ” [2] . By the way, the term “detective” was also invented by Green, and the first-ray woman in the literature, too, is Violet Stange (which, according to the moral standards of that era, met with clients only in the presence of a male relative-her brother).

And, of course, the famous detective Lecok is more precisely, his creator, French writer Emil Gaborio (1832–1873), author of “criminal” (as they were then called) Romanov “Leruzh case” (1866), “Crime in Orthol” (1867), “Slaves of Paris” (1868). “Lecok was not only a master of changing clothes, but applied scientific methods - for example, he used gypsum blinds to get imprints of the criminal’s legs. Lecca's contempt to the head of the Safety Service Zhevrol anticipates the style of relations between Sherlock Holmes and the inspector Lestrand from Scotland Yard, and the good-natured, but the near-minded father of Absent, Comrade Lecca, admiring his skills, perhaps became the prototype of Dr. Watson ” [3] .

According to Green - Americans, Vidok and Gaberio - the French, was Conan Doyle the first author of detectives in English literature? And yes, and no, but rather - yes. Before him, from the British, Charles Dickens and Wilki Collins made approaches to the detective plot. Then it was called a "sensational" novel. (And before them, and, in fact, to everyone, even before Vidok, the artistic understanding of the phenomenon of crime and crime was engaged in the book “Murder as one of the elegant arts” [1827] “Anfan Terrieb” Thomas de Quincy, but there, of course, which can be judged even by name, there was no plot of investigation-only a decadent aesthetization In all its varieties.)

It is curious that having opened a new genre in a small literary form, Edgar very jealously watched the attempts of his overseas colleague Dickens to do the same in the form of a large one. And when the Dickens "Barnebi Raj"-a historical and adventure romance with a detective intrigue-was published in parts in the magazine for 1840-1841, a few months before the end of the publication wrote a review of it, predicting how and how the case would end. They say that Dickens, having read it, exclaimed: “This software must be Satan himself!” In one of the subsequent novels, the “Cold House” (1853), Dickens shows how the inspector of the Bucket is unraveling the crime on the thread; But the most detective of all Dickens’s novels was the Secret of Edwin Drud (1870). As for Wilka Collins, who does not remember his “women in white” (1860) and “Moonstone” (1868) are novels that can easily be considered detective. “However, neither Dickens nor Collins wrote detectives in the proper sense of the word, a“ sensational ”romance with a mysterious intrigue was built in fundamentally different: the investigation of the crime did not stand at the forefront, and the detective was not the main character” [4] .

It remains to add that Dickens and Collins even had the experience of working together in the field of the socio-sensational genre: in 1867, they together wrote the story “At the Deadlock”, however, now completely forgotten by readers.

Gaborio and Dickens died in the very beginning of the 1870s, that is, long before Conan Doyle realized that he wanted to be a writer, Collins lived until 1889 and still found the first detective story of the novice writer-“Assistering in crimson tones”, but nothing is known about his reaction.

In his memoirs, Conan Doyle writes that Edgar in he was carried away by the adolescence, and in 1909 he even arranged a festive lunch dedicated to the centenary of the American writer, having convened his friends and inviting the last surviving witness to the funeral of the software (he could not accept the invitation - due to advanced age and poor health).

At first, Europe opened - the French and the British; And then his triumphal posthumous return to his homeland took place as a classic of national literature. Conan Doyla was also the first to discover a stranger country, America, and already his native England. Moreover, it is thanks to America, its reader audience, publishers and critics, we have not only “sketches in crimson colors”, but also the continuation of Sherlock Holmes's adventures. After the Etude, so long expected by the author of the publication, who had previously thought about the publishers, he did not think to return to his heroes, he was fascinated by new ideas: the historical novel “Michei Clark”, then the next historical novel - “White detachment” - also English criticism to the appearance of the “Assum” did not react, almost did not notice it. The overseas public and reviewers, on the contrary, the story of Sherlock Holmes's adventures came to the taste of, and in 1889 the editor -in -chief of the Philadelphia Monthry "Lippinkotts Megezin", who came to London to open the British version of his magazine, wished to meet with two young English writers who had recently become America - Conan. Doyle and Oscar Wilde - to order them new works for their publication. Conan Doyla American publisher asked to write a continuation of Sherlock Holmes's adventures, so a “sign of four” appeared, which was released in 1890. And Oscar Wilde wrote “Portrait of Dorian Gray” for Lippinkotts Megez - his own, as we now know.

The meeting itself, which made a meeting of Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde, is also curious - so strikingly opposite - both in character, and in the literary, and in any other respect - to people. One is a two-meter, stock-grade healthy man, a provincial doctor (at that time Conan Doyle still lived and worked in Sautsi), the other, too,, in general, tall and non-chlorous physique, but the London dandy. Nevertheless, as Conan Doyle recalls, he and Wilde have perfectly got along and spoke all evening on different, equally interesting topics.

But this is not important, but the fact that the meeting of Conan Doyle and Wilde enriched the image of Holmes made him the way we know and love him. In the "Etude" Holmes, although a big original, but not at all bohemia, Conan, Doyla needed a detective-artist, not a detective policeman. Now, in the “sign of four”, written off from Oscar Wilde - or rather, with Wilde, the eyes of Conan Doyla - Sherlock Holmes is quite an artistic nature, a decome and an esthetes, and even pricks a seven percent solution of cocaine.

As for the main intrigue of the story, it forces us to recall the “Treasure Island” by R. L. Stevenson, published in 1883. A casket full of noble jewelry, with which a series of bloody crimes is associated, and the map indicated the place where it was hidden, and the “sign of four” itself is a certificate of the verdict made by the traitor, that is, “black mark”, and the mysterious one -legged stranger, whose visit the traitor is panicky, and the same dies from fear, when the one is dying of the same. The ghost from the past appears, and even the sound rapprochement of the names Jonathan Small-John Silver,-all this and much more decisively indicates the "Treasure Island" as the original source of Conan-Dyulovsky inspiration when working on the "sign of four".

But who is without sin? After all, Stevenson himself in the essay “My First Book“ Treasure Island ”” admitted: “The dank September morning - the cheerful light burned in the fireplace, the rain drummed into the window glass - I started the“ ship's cook ” - this is how the novel was called. I started (and finished) a lot of books in my lifetime, but I don’t remember that at least one of them sat in such a serene mood. It is not surprising: it is not without reason that it is said that the stolen apple is always sweeter. I am now forced to touch the sensitive object. Yes, undoubtedly, the parrot once belonged to Robinson Crusoe. Yes, the skeleton is undoubtedly borrowed from the software. But they do not worry me: these are all the little things, insignificant trifles; No one is allowed to appropriate the exclusive right to skeletons or declare himself by the sovereign owner of all speaking birds. The picket fence, they say, is taken from the “Michman Ridi”. Let me do not care. These worthy writers only justified the poet’s words: retiring, they left behind

Traces of eternity on the sands,

Traces, according to which, maybe others ... -

So I turned out to be the other! No, my conscience is only a duty to Washington with Irving, and not in vain, because, in my opinion, you will not often meet such an obvious plagiarism ” [5] .

Conan Doyle repeatedly spoke of Stevenson as his literary teacher, and about the “Treasure Island” - as his most beloved novel by Stevenson (for example, in the book of thoughts about the literature “Behind the Magic Door” (1907). Writers never met, but Stevenson spoke quite warmly about the first literary experiments of Conan Doyla, when in 1884, Kornhill Majes published the story of the novice writer “Hybekuk Jefson’s message” - and according to the rule established in this journal, all the works were anonymous in him, then one critic attributed the authorship of “Hybekuk” Stevensna.

Stevenson forever remained for him a model of literary skill and an unsurpassed stylist, a classic. This is probably why Conan Doyle, very modestly evaluating his place in the literature, refused the proposal to add the novel “Saint-Ev” that remained unfinished after the death of Stevenson.

But we have not yet said anything about the first story of Sherlockiana - "Study in crimson colors." The “sketch”, as the reader remembers, does not begin with a crime, but quite ordinary: after the end of the colonial war, a retired military doctor comes to the capital to find a job; For some time he lives in a hotel, eating well-groomed savings; When the money is coming to an end, he suddenly meets a former friend during a walk in the city center; They go to celebrate this event in a restaurant; This meeting will turn the fate of the hero. So, quite commonplace and-one-in-one as a year earlier, in 1885, and immediately attracted the great attention of all the reader circles “Mila Friend” Gi de Maupasan. It is not known whether Conan Doyle of the “dear friend” read; Perhaps this is just a coincidence or even the “spirit of time” (then, at the end of the 19th century, European empires constantly waged colonial wars, and the soldiers who returned from the war could well enter the arsenal of literary types). And if so, I read it, it is possible that Konan Doyla needed just such a household instruction in order to further expand the tense detective intrigue against his background, and he specifically chose the sensational and new -fashioned Maupassan novel as a kind of trap for the reader.

If this is just a coincidence, then as it turns out from the book of thoughts about literature “Behind the Magic Door” (1907), it is by no means the only one in the writer's fate Conan Doyle and Guy de Maupasan: “I can’t write about Maupassan, not remembering that in my own life it was either spiritual mediation or amazing coincidence. I traveled to Switzerland and among other places visited the Permmy pass, where a huge rock is divided by French and German cantons. At the top of this cliff is a small hotel, where we stopped during our journey. Нам объяснили, что, хотя гостиница обитаема круглый год, всё же в течение трёх зимних месяцев она полностью отрезана от мира. Обычно добраться до гостиницы можно лишь по извилистым горным тропинкам, а когда их заносит снегом, то подняться наверх и спуститься вниз уже невозможно. Оставшиеся в гостинице могут видеть внизу в долине огни, но они так одиноки, будто живут на Луне. Безусловно, столь необычная ситуация повлияла на моё воображение, и я поспешно стал сочинять в голове рассказ о группе решительных, но противоположных по характеру людей, застрявших в гостинице. Они ненавидят друг друга, но всё же абсолютно неспособны избавиться от общества друг друга, хотя каждый день приближает их к трагедии. Почти неделю, пока продолжалось моё путешествие, я обдумывал такую идею. К концу этого путешествия я возвращался домой через Францию и, поскольку читать мне было нечего, случайно купил томик рассказов Мопассана, которых прежде в глаза не видел. Первый же рассказ в нём назывался “L'Auberge” (“Гостиница”), и, пробежав глазами страницу, я поразился, увидев слова “Kandersteg” и “проход Жемми”. Я сел и со всё возрастающим изумлением прочитал рассказ. Действие его происходило в гостинице, где я останавливался. Сюжетом послужило одиночество людей, зимующих в гостинице, погребённой под снегом. В рассказе оказалось всё, что я создал в своём воображении. Кроме того, там была ещё злая собака. Безусловно, генезис рассказа достаточно ясен. Мопассану довелось побывать в той же гостинице, и у него, как и у меня, возникла в голове та же самая цепочка мыслей. All this is quite understandable. Но самое удивительное, что во время столь короткого путешествия мне случилось купить ту единственную в мире книгу, которая помешала мне выставить себя перед всеми в глупом виде. Ведь кто бы мне поверил, что мой рассказ не является подражанием?» [6]

Notes:

[1] М. Урнов, «Артур Конан Дойль».

[2] А. Борисенко. «Не только Холмс».

[3] Д. Сташауэр. «Рассказчик: Жизнь Артура Конан Дойла». Перевод И. Бернштейн и Э. Дратовой.

[4] А. Борисенко. «Не только Холмс».

[5] Перевод М. Кан.

[6] Перевод Т. Шишкиной.