Vanina Vanini is a wealthy Italian princess. This girl has a fiery gaze and a passionate soul. Being an aristocrat by birth, she treats young people of her circle with contempt because of their inability to do great things. But Vanina Vanini falls passionately in love with the young Carbonari Pietro Missirilli, a fighter against tyranny. The characters of the characters are deliberately "romanticized". Both Missirilli and Vanina Vanini are inseparable from their time, and the originality of their personal situation is ultimately generated by the socio-political situation in Italy. There is a clash of two passions, Pietro and his beloved, even in love, find themselves on opposite sides of the "social barricade". Missirilli, who devoted himself to the revolutionary struggle, and the expressive, energetic Vanina Vanini are typical Stendhal heroes. In their passions they are romantically reckless, but their recklessness - despite the similarity of external manifestations - is of a different nature. Missirilli gives herself into the hands of the executioners out of a sense of duty, based on boundless love for the motherland, and Vanina Vanini, almost without hesitation, betrays Pietro's comrades in order to completely own the heart of her beloved, to keep him near her. But in return, she receives the burning hatred of her lover, who cannot forgive her for what she has done. Vanina Vanini is doomed to misunderstand her lover. Stendhal poetically and tragically showed how far egoism, which became a characteristic of that time, had gone: the image of Vanin Vanini demonstrates this. It is not surprising that the work is named after the heroine, whose "opposition" to society was ultimately a pose when tested by the tragic events of the time. After breaking up with Pietro Vanina, Vanini quickly consoled herself by marrying someone else. Missirilli and Vanina Vanini are people from alien and hostile worlds.

The worldview of the Stand was formed under the influence of the French Enlighteners. Rousseau was his first teacher. It was from him that, in his youth, the writer took admiration for naturalness, sensitivity and virtue. Helvetius had a great influence on the treatise “On the Mind”, he was close to the ideas of utilitarianism and sensualism, the reduction of all human actions to the satisfaction of selfish desires, to the search for happiness, the assertion of passions as the main driver of personality and the mind as its main charm. Helvetius taught him to test his judgments with sensations and experience. The epic system Stand., based on utilitarianism, at the same time turned out to be eminently humanistic. The idea of ​​personal happiness is combined with the happiness of others. The writer perceived society in constant and revolutionary development. He put tyranny on a par with religion. The state of social inequality, in his opinion, corrupted the privileged strata of society, depriving people from the 3rd estate of the opportunity to realize their talents. Interested in politics. In the center of Stendhal's aesthetics is a person, a human character. I am convinced that there are neither absolutely good nor completely bad people. It is important for him to notice and explore not only the existing character itself, but also the ways and causes of its formation. Describes his principle of reflecting reality, referring to the image of a mirror.

Stendhal, calling the new art romantic, essentially gives a program of realistic art. I am convinced that the ideal of beauty is historically determined, it develops along with the development of society. Beauty for him does not exist without spirituality. Therefore, the specific “portraits” of the characters in his novels are not accidental, where at best the eyes are outlined, and all the rest of the attention is paid to facial expressions, to the description of character traits and spiritual needs of the individual. The concept of spiritual beauty by Stendhal also includes energy, ambition, duty, will and the ability to experience passions. Satisfaction of passion - in various areas - can make a person happy. Considering that passion controls a person, Stendhal explored the topic of love with particular care. Offers a classification: "passion-love" and "passion-ambition". The first is true, the second is born of the hypocritical and ambitious 19th century. Madame de Renal experiences the first, Mathilde de La Mole knows the sufferings of the second. Julien's feelings for Madame de Renal are passion-love, with Matilda he is connected by passion-ambition. On the principle of correlating passions and reason, their struggle, Stendhal's psychologism is built.

Depicting a person and the world around him, Stendhal considers it necessary to pay attention to the details, but the details in him relate either to the process of thinking itself, or they are objects of the outside world that have suddenly surfaced in the mind and are fixed in a state of extreme excitement. Details and action are important, but these details and action are always correlated with reality, with one's own life experience.

Novella "Vanina Vanini, or Some Details Concerning the Last Venta of the Carbonari Revealed in the Papal States" (1829). In the title itself, the writer combined what became the main sign of his novels: a political event (Venta Carbonari) and a human character (Vanina Vanini). The novel outlines conflicts of passion-love, passion-ambition (in Vanini's soul). The love of freedom here struggles with the love of a woman (in Pietro's soul); Stendhal portrayed true dignity, which cannot be marked by any order bought for money - this is a death sentence for a fighter for the freedom of the motherland. Creating an almost romantic halo around the protagonist Pietro, Stendhal, as a realist, strictly determines the features of his personality: the strangeness is due to the fact that he is Italian, the author explains the nationality of the hero and the fact that after the defeat he becomes religious and considers his love for Vanina a sin, for which he is punished by this defeat. The social determinism of the character and beliefs of the hero makes him - beloved and loving - prefer his homeland to his beloved woman. Vanina Vanini values ​​her love above all else. She is smart in Stendhal, above her environment in terms of spiritual needs. However, all her originality is only enough to send 19 carbonari to death in the name of her love.

The trends of realism and romanticism are intertwined in the short story, but the realistic principle of social and temporal determinism turns out to be dominant. In this work, Stendhal showed himself to be a master of the short story: he is brief in creating portraits, he confidently creates a novelistic intrigue full of sudden turns, and an unexpected ending, when the carbonary wants to kill Vanina for the betrayal of which she is proud, and her marriage fit in a few lines and become that surprise, obligatory for the genre, prepared in the psychological novel by the internal logic of the characters.

Italy, which Stendhal had loved since his youth, was perceived by him as a country of strong passions and beautiful art. The characters of the Italians have always been of particular interest to Stendhal.
Stay in Italy left a deep mark on the work of Stendhal. He enthusiastically studied Italian art, painting, music. The love for Italy grew in him more and more. This country inspired him to a number of works. These are, first of all, the work on the history of art "The History of Painting in Italy", "Rome, Florence, Naples", "Walks in Rome", the short stories "Italian Chronicles"; finally, Italy gave him the plot of one of his largest novels - The Parma Monastery.
"Italian Chronicles" reproduce different forms passions. Four stories are published - "Vittoria Accoramboni", "Duchess di Palliano", "Cenci", "Abbess of Castro". All of them are artistic processing of old manuscripts found by the writer in the archives, telling about the bloody tragic events of the Renaissance. Together with "Vanina Vanini" they make up the famous cycle of "Italian Chronicles" by Stendhal.
The writer owes the birth of the idea of ​​a new novel to Italy: in 1839, in 52 days, Stendhal wrote The Parma Cloister. All Stendhal's novels, except the last one, are not rich in intrigue: can the plot of Red and Black, for example, be called complex? The event here is the birth of a thought, the emergence of a feeling. In the last novel, Stendhal shows himself to be an unsurpassed master of plot construction: here is the betrayal of a father, and the secret of the birth of a son, and a mysterious prediction, and murders, and imprisonment, and an escape from it, and secret dates, and much more.

The most important task modern literature Stendhal considered psychological analysis. In one of the aspects - in terms of the specifics of national psychology - he develops characters and event conflict in the short story "Vanina Vanini" (1829) with a remarkable subtitle: "Some details about the last venta of the Carbonari, revealed in the Papal States."
Created almost simultaneously with "Red and Black" short story "Vanina Vanini" in its poetics differs from the novel. Profound psychologism, manifested in the protagonist's lengthy inner monologues, which slow down the pace of external action in the novel, was in fact contraindicated for the Italian short story, its very genre nature and characters. The extreme laconism of the author's descriptions, the rapid flow of events, the violent reaction of the characters with their southern temperament - all this creates a special dynamism and drama of the narrative.
The heroes of the novel - the Italian carbonarius Pietro Missirilli and the Roman aristocrat Vanina Vanini, who met by force of circumstances and fell in love with each other, discover completely different and even opposite sides of the Italian national character in a difficult dramatic situation.
Pietro Missirilli is an Italian youth, a poor man who inherited the best features of his people, awakened by the French Revolution, proud, courageous and independent. Hatred of tyranny and obscurantism, pain for the fatherland, suffering under the heavy yoke of foreigners and local feudal lords, lead him to one of the carbonari vents. Having become its inspirer and leader, Pietro sees his destiny and happiness in the struggle for the freedom of his homeland. (His prototype is a friend of Stendhal, the hero of the liberation movement in Italy, Giuseppe Wismar.). Devotion to a dangerous but good cause for Italy, patriotism, honesty and selflessness inherent in Missirilli make it possible to define his character as heroic.
The young Carbonari in the short story is opposed by Vanina Vanini - a strong, bright, whole nature. The Roman aristocrat, who knows no equal in beauty and nobility, is brought together by chance with Pietro, who was wounded during an escape from prison, where, after a failed uprising, he was thrown by the authorities. In it, Vanina discovers those qualities that the youth of her environment are deprived of, incapable of either exploits or strong movements of the soul.
The short story "Vanina Vanini" combines romantic and realistic features:
1. The romantic plot of the novel is opposed to the realistic beginning of the novel: "It happened on a spring evening in 182 ... years."
2. The image of the main character Pietro Missirilli is romantic in its essence. He is ready to sacrifice his life for the sake of the Motherland.
The activities of the Carbonari belong to the realistic features of the novel. Information about them is given from a realistic position. The typical character of the Carbonari is devoid of typical circumstances. It is not shown in activity.
The image of Pietro combines romantic and realistic. traits. This is the image of a whole person. He is a fighter for the people's welfare, for the liberation of the motherland.
3. Despite the social inequality of the characters, a love collision is shown (romantic and realistic.)
4. To the romantic trait, we can attribute Vanina's dressing up in men's suits for the sake of saving Pietro and for the sake of his own selfish interests.
5. Realistic character traits of heroes are determined by upbringing and environment.
6. Vanina's attempts to save Pietro are realistic in content, but romantic in form.
7. It can also be noted that the ending of the short story is realistic in content.

Creating an almost romantic halo around the protagonist Pietro, Stendhal, as a realist, strictly determines the features of his personality: passion is due to the fact that he is Italian, the author explains the nationality of the hero and the fact that after the defeat he becomes religious and considers his love for Vanina a sin, for which he this defeat is punished. The social determinism of character convinces the hero - beloved and loving - to prefer his homeland to his beloved woman. Patrician Vanina's daughter values ​​love above all else. She is smart, above her environment for spiritual needs. The "non-secularity" of the heroine explains the originality of her character. However, her originality is only enough to send 19 carbonari to death in the name of her love. Each of the heroes of Stendhal's novel understands happiness in his own way and sets out to hunt for it in his own way.
Determining realistically bright, like those of romantics, characters, Stendhal builds the same complex plot, using surprises, exceptional events: escape from the fortress, the appearance of a mysterious stranger. However, the "grain" of the plot - the struggle of the Venta Carbonari and her death - was suggested to the writer by the very history of Italy in the 19th century. Thus, the tendencies of realism and romanticism are intertwined in the short story, but the realistic principle of social and temporal determinism remains dominant. In this work, Stendhal shows himself to be a master of the short story: he is brief in creating portraits (we guess about Vanina's beauty by the fact that she attracted everyone's attention at the ball, where the most beautiful women were, and her southern brightness was conveyed by pointing to sparkling eyes and hair, black like a raven's wing). Stendhal confidently creates a novelistic intrigue full of sudden twists, and an unexpected novelistic finale, when the Carbonari wants to kill Vanina for the betrayal of which she is proud, and her marriage fit in a few lines and
become that obligatory surprise prepared in the psychological short story by the internal logic of the characters.

Before us is an example of Stendhal's psychological realism. He is fascinated by the process of depicting feelings. Heroes are happy as long as their love is devoid of the slightest selfishness.
"Vanina Vanini" is dialectically connected with "Red and Black". The motif of love between an aristocrat and a plebeian is played up in the short story in the aspect of variations of the Italian national character.

"Vanina Vanini"

Stendhal's short story "Vanina Vanini", published in 1829, was dedicated to modern Italy, about which the author has already written several books. In this work, the writer recreated the tense everyday life of the country, one way or another touching the heart of everyone. "Vanina Vanini" spoke directly about the Italian Carbonari, whose activities at that time continued to develop, despite the persecution not so much of the Italian as of the Austrian police.

The story of the Roman princess Vanini and the Carbonari by Pietro Missirilli is presented as an event of quite recent times: "Vanina Vanini, or Some Details Concerning the Last Venta of the Carbonari Revealed in the Papal States". The year was not very accurate: the action began on a spring evening in the 1820s. You might think that the event happened quite recently, perhaps in the same year 1829, when the story was published about this.

In the exposition, which occupies only two pages, the author managed to characterize the political situation, the environment to which Vanina belongs, as well as the event that became the prerequisite for the plot of the drama (Missirilli's romantic escape from the prison castle). There was also a psychological motivation further development actions.

Vanina is the character of a romantic noble girl, typical of Stendhal, who despises graceful but empty young aristocrats and is able to recognize an intelligent, energetic, funny person from the people as worthy of her respect and love.

Carbonari Missirilli, a poor man, the son of a provincial surgeon, and Vanina, distinguished by her intelligence, independence of judgment, amazing beauty and high position in society, fell in love with each other.

However, their love had no future. The young Carbonari represented that new, young Italy, the features of which Stendhal sought to capture in Italian society. Personal happiness for such a hero turns out to be impossible, because the struggle for the freedom of the fatherland requires the whole person.

Vanina admired the strength, way of thinking, Missirilli's courage, his ability to take decisive action. But for the self-willed beauty, the meaning and highest value of life is love. She is indifferent to the fate of the motherland. Vanini is completely alien to the high ideals of the young man whom she fell in love with. At the same time, both are natures, obeying the impulse of feelings, fearlessly achieving their goal, not prone to long doubts. Therefore, the reckless passion that flared up in the midst of danger of these two young people, who understand the meaning of life in such a different way, was initially doomed to a fatal denouement.

The heroes of the novel are inseparable from their time. Their personal tragedy was not born of the historical situation in which their characters were formed. Individual conflict is driven by heat political struggle. The undeniable reality of what is happening is emphasized by the general tone of Stendhal's prose - businesslike - dryish, outwardly impassive. The materials that inspired the writer and helped him create the work were provided by the very life of Italian society in the first third of the 19th century.

The action of the novel begins in Rome, during a ball with a famous banker in his new palazzo in Venetian Square. This one of the richest bankers in Italy, by the name of Torlonia, bought from the papal government the title of Duke of Bracciano and a luxurious palace built in the 15th century and once owned by Prince Orsini, one of the rulers of Rome.

Stendhal indicates the scene, and the reader accurately imagines the Roman landscape with palaces, with abbots, bishops, prelates and absolute papal authority. The Carbonari venta (organization) was revealed later in the city of Form, in the Papal States. We can assume that we are talking about the events that took place in real life and became somehow known to Stendhal.

However, the activities of the Carbonari Vents were strictly conspiratorial; any communication about what was said in the secret society and where it met was considered a betrayal, since the result could be the death of tens or hundreds of conspirators. The Italian and Austrian police also kept everything that happened secret. Rumors about what had happened were unreliable and during transmission were distorted beyond recognition. Some sources can only be found with Stendhal himself - in his diaries, notes and books, reflecting random details of what was happening or fiction passed from mouth to mouth in various interpretations.

In 1817, in the book "Rome, Naples and Florence", Stendhal spoke about the "sweetness of life" in Venice in 1740-1790. He continued the legend of "Happy Venice", created by numerous travelers and a few rich Venetians of that time. Anecdotes about the freedom of morals and the scandalous behavior of the Venetian beauties the writer took as evidence of this sweet life.

Stendhal cites one of these anecdotes in his work. It tells about the attempt of a certain noble lady during a love meeting with the patriarch to save her other lover, who was unjustly sentenced to death.

Nine years later, in a new edition of the book, the author told the same anecdote in a different version. On the margins of one copy of his work, Stendhal wrote down the full name of the lady in question. It was Countess Marina Querini Benzoni (1757 - 1839), a blue-eyed Venetian, not very beautiful, but very attractive, which Stendhal notes, and very free morals. She even became the heroine of a poem, widely known in her time. Benzoni was intimately acquainted with Byron. Thomas Moore, Byron's friend and future biographer, and many other foreigners also knew her.

In the second version of this anecdote, dated 1826, Stendhal no longer focused on the meeting of the lady with the patriarch, but on her subsequent explanation with her lover. But its basis remains the same: a frivolous lady saves her lover.

Was this anecdote just one of the gossip that was freely told in the salons and boxes of Italian theaters, or historical fact, recorded in the documents of the era, but Stendhal accepted it as a real historical event, true for the time when he himself was in Venice. Three years after Stendhal told new version in the second edition of his book, he began to write a story on a plot close to the story of Benzoni. Her lover, who was sentenced to death, Stendhal considered a carbonaria - the carbonaria attracted everyone's attention.

So in his new work, the action takes place in Rome, where morals at that time were stricter. The Venetian criminal becomes a carbonarius and the lover is no longer an immoral countess, but a Roman princess. The patriarch who handled such affairs in Venice became governor of Rome, minister of police, and, as was customary in the papal state, prelate. Vanin secretly came to him in his office to ask for the arrested Pietro.

The proximity of the plot scheme of Stendhal's novella to the story of Benzoni is obvious. The story of the Roman princess, obviously, arose in connection with the story of the Venetian countess Benzoni - after all, work on the short story began a little more than a year after the publication of the second version.

It is difficult to understand whether Stendhal himself was aware of this connection while working on the short story. But in his imagination, the tone of the funny Venetian story, the character and fate of the characters took on a completely different meaning. Stendhal rebuilt the history of these events and resolved many very different issues.

The echo with the era is felt not only in the plot outline, but also in many other details. For example, in order to save his friend Vanina, he frightens the Minister of Police with the revenge of the Carbonari: “If he (Missirilli) is executed, you will not outlive him even for one week.”

Indeed, there were such cases, and one of them Stendhal told in his work “Walks in Rome”, where carbonaria was often spoken of. Judge Besini, who faithfully served his ruler, boasted that, despite the lack of evidence, he achieved the death penalty of the Carbonari the very next day after their arrest. On the same night he was killed. And his son Giulio Besini, the Minister of Police, who also brutally persecuted the Carbonari, was soon killed right on the street. The minister was not saved by the guards constantly accompanying him. Obviously, Stendhal remembered this incident. He remembered their murder, or "execution", as the Carbonari called it, and in the "Parma Monastery".

The history of the Parthenopean Republic of 1799 was also reflected in Stendhal's short story. The writer spoke about the bloody events of 1799 - 1800 in the book "Rome, Naples and Florence". There, in custody, he reported on the execution of one of the victims of the White Terror. It was a woman named Maria Luigia Fortunata Sanfelice. Information about her was contradictory and unreliable. Contemporaries, and after them the historian of the Neapolitan revolution, interpreted the role of Sanfelice in different ways, but in most cases with complete sympathy.

In his imagination, Stendhal created from this woman a heroine in love with a man of low social status, a republican and a revolutionary. He came up with some details that made a strong impression on readers: when the officer left Sanfelice to take his post, she threw herself at his feet, begging to stay with her. A loved one said words that are missing in all documents: "If there is any danger, I should be with my friends all the more." In the commentary that followed, Stendhal notes the high moral spirit and clarity of this Neapolitan philosophy.

Stendhal, who knew Italy very well at the end of the 17th - beginning of the 19th century, was deeply interested in the tragic events of the Neapolitan revolution, the psychology of Sanfelice and her lover, the political and moral problem that they had to solve in especially difficult conditions. Having conceived his novel, he transferred the action to Rome, which was better known to him with its trasteverines, beggars and princes and seemed more attractive and energetic. He turned the weak-willed Sanfelice into an extremely energetic Vanina, but also indifferent to politics and to the life of society, like Sanfelice. The accidental union of Vanina with the Carbonari, just like the union of Sanfelice with an officer of the Republican troops, did not change their attitude to politics - both wanted only to save the person they loved.

Keeping also some basic storylines stories of Sanfelice, Stendhal filled his short story with other moral and psychological content of the events associated with Sanfelice, which will also be heard in the novel "Parma Monastery".

In the history of Sanfelice, Stendhal saw a number of problems of great historical and social significance. Vanina Vanini, a Roman princess, and Pietro Missirilli, the son of a poor doctor, he understood as people typical not only of modern Italy, but of Europe in general. Each of them reflected the thought that was active in the post-revolutionary era in a completely different way.

The history of Europe since 1789 has been filled with turbulent events, the struggle for the reorganization of society. And this struggle was felt in one way or another in all countries, in all strata of society. Princess Vanina was indifferent to what was happening. However, modern reality, with its unrest and anxieties, the struggle of opinions, with the secret activities of the Carbonari, conspiring, sitting in prisons, awaiting execution, nevertheless invaded her consciousness. The circle in which she revolved, the balls where she was a recognized beauty queen, the counts, princes and dukes who sought her hand - everything seemed to her too insignificant. She was unbearably bored in the midst of the splendor that surrounded her. Vanina was also irritated by her fiancé, the limited and narrow-minded Roman prince Don Livno Savelli.

At the next ball, where the princess, as always, shone, she heard the news about the escape of the Carbonari, who was seriously injured during a strike with the guards. This news struck not only Vanina, but also many others.

“While everyone was talking about this escape, Don Lavio Savelli, delighted with the charm and success of Vanina, almost mad with love, exclaimed, escorting her to an armchair after the dance:

But tell me, for God's sake, who could you like?

A young carbonarius who fled from the fortress today. At least he did something, and not just gave himself the trouble to be born.

In the words of the girl addressed to her fiancé, one can hear a clear contempt for the people around her, brilliant, titled, nonentities, with their petty intrigues, gossip, incapable of decisive action.

After the ball, Vanina accidentally noticed a mysterious stranger on the top floor of her mansion. The wounded woman was hidden there by her father. "She felt deep pity and sympathy for such a young, so unfortunate woman and tried to unravel her story."

The stranger, obviously, had powerful enemies, from whom she could hide in the princely mansion. Vanina did not allow the thought that the cause of the misfortune of their guests could be ordinary. The princess finally found what she was looking for, what her soul aspired to - something extraordinary, dangerous and heroic, never happened in her palazizzo and with her acquaintances. This is how the peculiarity of the era manifested itself - longing for a new one, which everyone expected, some with fear, some with hope.

When the unintentional deceit was revealed, and the stranger turned out to be a man and, in addition, a carbonari, friendly sympathy grew into obvious passion. Before Vanina was a hero who risked his life, wounded in an unequal battle with armed guards. Vanina, who was not interested in anything, was always limited only by herself - hence her individualism, her contempt for everything in the world, her pride and, finally, her tragedy. She was afraid that, having learned about her love, the young Carbonari would laugh at her or be proud of his victory. Her upbringing, the conventions accepted in society, social inequality erected artificial barriers between young people. But their strong feeling destroyed all barriers. And Vanina completely surrenders to her love. However, Missirilli, who also passionately loves her, refuses to marry her. Carbonari does not have the right to an illusory life, he must remain faithful to his homeland.

“Pietro threw himself at her feet. Vanina beamed with joy.

I love you passionately, he said, but I am a poor man and I am a servant of my country. The more unhappy Italy is, the more I must be faithful to her.

In this case, love turned out to be stronger than Vanina's wounded pride. Comparing her hero with the great ancient Romans, she again throws herself into his arms.

“If he has to choose between me and his homeland,” she thought, “he will give preference to me.”

However, after painful reflections, after meeting with the comrades who elected him the new head of their Venta, Pietro moves away from Vanina. Missirilli was again captured by the struggle, together with other rebels, he prepared conspiracies. But Pietro, torn between love for a woman and love for his long-suffering homeland, makes a fatal mistake. Fully trusting his beloved, he recklessly shares with her his thoughts and even secret information and plans for the struggle.

And Vanina, whom this incomprehensible "homeland" prevented from being happy, taking away her lover, goes to betrayal. The woman reports to the authorities information about the venta, headed by Missirilli, without mentioning, of course, his name in the denunciation. Such an act does not seem to her a crime, because thanks to this, Vanina hoped to forever unite with her loved one. But by betraying his friends, she condemned Pietro Missarilli to death as well. The young man, left alone at large, surrendered himself to the authorities, not wanting to look like a coward and a traitor in the eyes of his comrades. Vanina's plans, unable to reckon with the feelings and thoughts of other people, collapsed overnight.

Of course, she was painfully aware of her mistake, but these were not pangs of conscience - she suffered because she had lost her "little village doctor" - "hero".

In the prison fortress during Vanina's last meeting with Missirilli, a now insurmountable barrier again arose between them: Missirilli asked Vanina to consider them strangers to each other. The princess was shocked: she noticed that her friend's eyes flashed only once during the entire time of their conversation - when he uttered the word "homeland". Without answering, she gave him diamonds and files so that he could run.

Forced to accept them in order to continue the struggle for the liberation of the fatherland, Missirilli still asked to be forgotten forever.

“Give me your word never to write to me, never to seek a date with me. From now on, I completely belong to the motherland. I died for you."

Hearing this, Vanina was furious, but not from love, but from offended joy. She, the best beauty of Rome from a princely family, is abandoned for the sake of some kind of homeland! And no longer out of love for him, but to prove that she is better than her homeland, that her homeland is nothing in comparison with her, Vanina tells how she gave her. Thus, after a flash of rage and pride, her love ended. Soon the newspapers reported that she had married Prince Livio Savelli. By this marriage, obviously, she wanted to justify herself in her own opinion.Despite his reckless passion, Vanina remains a person from another world, alien and hostile to Missirilli. Love for him is only an extraordinary, romantic and tragic episode in the monotonous, like an eternal festivity, hothouse existence of a noble girl.

The character of Missirilli is marked by the stamp of tragedy. With heroic honesty and directness, he passes a harsh sentence on himself: he betrayed his duty, giving a woman his heart, which belongs to his homeland; that's why the uprising failed. “The demands of duty are cruel, my friend, he says simply, sincerely, without the slightest pretense, - but if they could be fulfilled easily, what would heroism consist in?” .

Stendhal always sympathized with the Carbonari, as with everyone who fought the old regime, although, as you know, he considered their tactics futile. Moreover, he sympathized with the young noble people imprisoned in the fortress for revolutionary speeches, which seemed to him madness.

The figure of Missirilli is quite truthful, although his touching heroism today seems a little naive and therefore sometimes causes a smile. He was one of those people of the future who wanted to create a new Italy and at the same time a new Europe. Carbonarism could not achieve what it aspired to, but it aroused fear in reactionary circles and admiration among liberal-minded people. The Carbonari created a modern revolutionary ideology and prepared the future, probably not so much with conspiracies, but with their personal courage and deep faith in the revival of their country.

The secret organization did not allow its members to communicate with the uninitiated, even with members of another venta, and only high leaders were aware of the existence and composition of each. This led to loneliness and accustomed to secrecy, and to the personal solution of great moral problems.

Missirilli faced such a problem, and it was difficult to solve it only philosophically.

His reflections on the homeland correspond to the views characteristic of the rationalism of the 17th century.

“What is homeland? he asked himself. - After all, this is not some kind of living being, to which we are obliged to have gratitude for good deeds and which will become unhappy and will curse us if we betray him. No, homeland and freedom are like my cloak: useful clothes that I must buy, unless I inherited them from my father. In essence, I love my homeland and freedom because they are useful to me. And if I don’t need them, if they are like a warm coat for me in the summer heat, why should I buy them, and even at such a high price? Vanina is so good and so extraordinary! she will be looked after, she will forget me, and I will lose her forever.

It would seem, following this reasoning, Missirilli should have stayed with the woman he loved, since he did not receive any benefit by choosing his homeland. But despite the struggle taking place in his soul, he preferred his homeland to everything in the world, contrary to Vanina's expectations.

Obviously, a very simple and very painful process took place in Missirilli's mind: the motherland, an abstract concept with which he had recently operated in his reasoning, turned into living people who died at the hands of his beloved, that is, from his own hand. He could not bear this and, sacrificing himself, Pietro rushes to kill the one who had recently been "the soul of his life." In his position, it was tantamount to suicide. But he could not do otherwise. Vanina, having attached his comrades-in-arms, betrayed him himself. Instant insight - without abstract concepts, without psychological searches and philosophical reflections - revealed the firmness and depth of his convictions.

Thus, Stendhal filled the real historical events underlying the plot of this work with other moral and psychological content. Modern Italian reality, with its excitement and anxieties, the activities of the conspirators, invaded the pages of the novel. The tragedy of her heroes was the result of a tense political situation in the country, which destroyed their love. The writer created a generalized poetic character of a participant in a secret revolutionary society, courageous, unbending, confident that he had chosen the right path. The heroic lifestyle of Pietro Missirilli is depicted as the fearless succession of an honest man, a true patriot, for whom the liberation of the fatherland has become his only goal.

The selfish Princess Vanina, thinking only of herself, could not overcome the fetters of her estate and stand on a par with Missirilli. Love for him, in fact, turned out to be only an extraordinary, romantic and tragic episode in the monotonous, like an eternal festivity, hothouse existence of a noble girl. And, despite their deep and passionate love, young people remained alien to each other.

Italy of the 19th century. An aristocrat falls in love with a fiery young revolutionary who has escaped from prison. Their feelings are mutual, but the young man has to make a choice between love and duty to the Motherland.

On a spring evening in 182 ... the banker, Duke de B. gave a ball to which the most beautiful women of Rome were invited. Vanina Vanini, a black-haired girl with a fiery gaze, was proclaimed queen of the ball. The young prince Livio Savelli courted her all evening. At about midnight the news spread at the ball that a young Carbonari had escaped from the fortress of the Holy Angel.

Prince Azdrubale Vanini was rich. Both of his sons entered the Jesuit order, went mad and died. The prince forgot them, and was angry with his only daughter Vanina because she rejected the most brilliant parties.

On the morning after the ball, Vanina noticed that her father had locked the door to the ladder that led to the rooms on the fourth floor of the palace, whose windows overlooked the terrace. Vanina found a window in the attic opposite the terrace, and saw a wounded stranger in one of the rooms. Prince Azdrubale visited her every day, and then left for Countess Vitelleschi.

Vanina managed to get the key to the door that led to the terrace. In the absence of her father, she began to visit a stranger who called herself Clementine. She was seriously wounded in the shoulder and chest, every day she got worse, and Vanina decided to send for a surgeon devoted to the Vanini family. Clementine didn't want that. Finally, she had to admit that she was not a woman, but Pietro Missirilli, a Carbonari escaped from prison. He fled, dressed in a woman's dress, he was wounded, and he hid in the garden of Countess Vitelleschi, from where he was secretly transported to Vanini's house.

Upon learning of the deception, Vanina called the doctor. She herself entered Pietro's room only a week later. Missirilli hid his feelings behind a mask of devoted friendship, and Vanina was afraid that he did not share her love. One evening she told him that she loved him, and they gave in to their feelings.

Four months have passed. Pietro's wounds healed and he decided to go to Romagna to avenge himself. In desperation, Vanina offered Pietro to marry her, but he refused, believing that his life belongs to his homeland. Then Vanina decided to go to Romagna after her lover and there unite with him forever. She hoped that between her and her homeland, he would choose her.

In Romagna, at a meeting of the Venta, Pietro was elected its head. Two days later, Vanina arrived at her castle of San Nicolò. She brought with her 2,000 sequins, with which Pietro bought weapons. At this time, a conspiracy was being prepared, thanks to which Pietro would be crowned with glory. Vanina felt that Pietro was moving away from her. To keep her beloved, she betrayed the conspiracy to the cardinal legate and persuaded Pietro to leave for a few days in San Nocolo. A few days later Missirilli learned of the arrest of ten Carbonari and himself surrendered to the legate.

Meanwhile, Prince Vanini promised the hand of his daughter to Prince Livio Savelli. Vanina agreed - Prince Livio was the nephew of Monsignor Catanzar, the Roman governor and minister of police, using him, Vanina hoped to save Pietro. With the help of Livio, she learned that Pietro was being held in the fortress of the Holy Angel. She secured the promotion of her confessor, the abbot Kari, who was the steward of the fortress.

The court took place. The Carbonari were sentenced to death, which was later commuted to imprisonment. Only for Missirilli, the sentence remained unchanged. Upon learning of this, Vanina entered Catanzar's house at night and, with the help of threats, flattery and coquetry, persuaded him to let Pietro live. The Pope himself did not want to stain his hands with blood and signed the decree.

Soon Vanina learned that the Carbonari were being transported to the fortress of San Leone, and decided to see Missirilli at the stage in Chita-Castellana. Abbot Kari, who was devoted to her, arranged a rendezvous in the prison chapel. On a date, Pietro returned Vanina her word. He could only belong to the motherland. In a frenzy, Vanina confessed to Pietro that it was she who betrayed the conspiracy to the legate. Petro rushed to her to kill her with the chains in which he was shackled, but he was restrained by the jailer. Completely destroyed, Vanina returned to Rome.