A short essay by Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko came into Russian literature from the memories of his native Ukraine.
He gives portraits of characters in certain lighting. This is what achieves sharpness and contrast. The essay gives a clash of two worlds - the prosperous and the well-fed and the miserable, the wretched - this is its summary. The paradox of the work is that the outcast hero carries through his bitter life faith in happiness.
Halcyon days
Somewhere in a provincial town in Western Ukraine on a summer day, two young baby brothers play. They are eight to ten years old. The backyard, where they spend hours, is littered with unnecessary trash. But most of all they are attracted by the ruins of an old carriage with the remains of a coat of arms on a broken door and a barrel filled with water, in which something like tadpoles floats. The carriage is full of charm - in it you can, dreaming, meet the robbers, fight them, frantically shoot wooden pistols at them from the windows, save foggy female figures who never reveal their beautiful faces, stop and go into the tavern. Or spend hours sitting with homemade fishing rods near the barrel and hoping to catch a silver real live fish. Both classes were very attractive, but they had to be left when they called for dinner or evening tea. “Panychi! Go more peace! ” - Suddenly interrupt their game call of the servant of Paul. After the servant’s call, the serenity of their cozy little world, their children’s games, will suddenly explode. The Paradox, a small essay, will show how children first encounter real life and how it makes them think.
What happened in the yard?
A crowd of people gathered in the courtyard, a father sat on the porch, and there was a beautiful mother, and at the porch there was a small cart, which contained a strange, sickly man - his head was big, his body was small, narrow, his legs were long and thin, like the legs of a spider. This creature was accompanied by a tall subject with a mustache. He introduced the public sitting in a cart as the nobleman Jan Krishtof Zaluski - a man who has no hands from birth. But this man’s eyes were extremely sharp and intelligent. Zalusky, at the direction of his companion, greeted the gentlemen, removing one boot from the other with one foot and lifting the cap with mocking gallantry over his head, combing his hair with a comb, blowing a kiss to the young ladies sitting by the windows, threading a needle. Finally, Zalouski commanded his Matthew to give paper and a pen. He easily and beautifully wrote his name on it. “And now,” he asked mockingly, “who is ready for the aphorism?” Everyone was bewildered, and Zalusky, piercing the boys with clever, cynical black eyes, called them to him. Then he quickly wrote something, and the boys aloud read an unexpected phrase: aphoristic and paradoxical together. "Man is made for happiness, like a bird for flight." And his eyes were twisted with inner pain. It was precisely Zalusky’s mutilation, combined with a deep mind, that helped to express his cherished thought (its brief content) - a paradox-aphorism about happiness.
What happened then?
Having collected money, Zalousky and Matvey left the yard. The boys from behind the fence looked after them and heard a snippet of conversation. “You, Matvey, have only an empty head that does not represent anything, so an empty pumpkin. But they forgot to attach my hands, but man was created for happiness, only happiness is not always created for him, ”this warped creature concludes calmly and bitterly. The phrase, written by children by a man who does not have any illusions and does not close his eyes to reality, opens the eyes of well-fed people who never knew what happiness consists of. Zalusky himself, by an evil irony of fate, is deprived of the opportunity to exist independently and is forced to lead a dependent state. This is evidenced by the summary. The "Paradox" shows readers that the aphorism about happiness written by children sounds in the presentation of Zalousky as a thought that he personally suffered.
It is difficult to be happy when there is a struggle around, persecution, loss of loved ones, so many hungry and poor without shelter. But the laws of paradoxality also apply where there are the most vile, the most inappropriate conditions for its manifestation. V. G. Korolenko, who wrote the story "Paradox", claims that every person has the right to happiness. “And happiness is everywhere,” the great I. Bunin saw after Korolenko.