Retelling plan
1. The dispute of the peasants about "who lives happily, freely in Rus'."
2. Meeting with the priest.
3. A drunken night after the fair.
4. The story of Yakim Nagogo.
5. The search for a happy man among men. The story of Yermila Girin.
6. The peasants meet the landowner Obolt-Obolduev.
7. The search for a happy man among women. History of Matrena Timofeevna.
8 Meeting with an eccentric landowner.
9. Parable about the exemplary serf - Jacob the faithful.
10. The story of two great sinners - Ataman Kudeyar and Pan Glukhovsky. The story of the "peasant sin".
11. Thoughts of Grisha Dobrosklonov.
12. Grisha Dobrosklonov - "the people's protector."
retelling
Part I
Prologue
The poem begins with the fact that seven men met on a pole path and argued about "who lives happily, freely in Rus'." “Roman said: to the landowner, Demyan said: to the official, Luka said: to the priest. Fat-bellied merchant! - said the Gubin brothers, Ivan and Mitrodor. The old man Pakhom puckered up and said, looking at the ground: to the noble boyar, the minister of the sovereign. And Prov said: to the king. They argued all day and did not even notice how night fell. The peasants looked around them, realized that they had gone far from home, and decided to rest before the way back. As soon as they had time to settle down under a tree and drink vodka, their dispute began with renewed vigor, it even came to a fight. But then the peasants saw that a small chick crawled up to the fire, having fallen out of the nest. Pahom caught him, but then a warbler appeared and began to ask the peasants to let her chick go, and for this she told them where the self-collected tablecloth was hidden. The men found a tablecloth, had dinner and decided that they would not return home until they found out "who lives happily, freely in Rus'."
Chapter I. Pop
The next day the men set off. At first they met only peasants, beggars and soldiers, but the peasants did not ask them, “How is it for them - is it easy, is it difficult to live in Rus'.” Finally in the evening they met the priest. The peasants explained to him that they had a concern that “had risen from the houses, unfriended us with work, discouraged us from eating”: “Is the priestly life sweet? How do you live freely, happily, honest father? And the pop begins his story.
It turns out that there is no peace, no wealth, no honor in his life. There is no rest, because in a large county "a sick, dying, born into the world does not choose time: in reaping and haymaking, in the dead of autumn night, in winter, in severe frosts and in spring floods." And always the priest must go to fulfill his duty. But the most difficult thing, the priest admits, is to watch how a person dies and how his relatives cry over him. There is no priest and honor, because among the people he is called "a foal breed"; meeting a priest on the road is considered a bad omen; about the priest they compose “joke tales, and obscene songs, and all kinds of blasphemy,” and they make a lot of jokes about the priest’s family. Yes, and it is difficult for a priest to acquire wealth. If in former times, before the abolition of serfdom, there were many landlord estates in the county, in which weddings and christenings were constantly celebrated, now only poor peasants remain who cannot generously pay the priest for his work. Pop himself says that his “soul will turn over” to take money from the poor, but then he will have nothing to feed his family with. With these words, the priest leaves the men.
Chapter 2
The men continued their journey and ended up in the village of Kuzminskoye, at the fair, they decided to look for a lucky one here. “Wanderers went to the shops: they admire handkerchiefs, Ivanovo calicoes, harnesses, new shoes, products of the Kimryaks.” At the shoe shop they meet old man Vavila, who admires the goat's shoes, but does not buy them: he promised his little granddaughter to buy shoes, and other family members - various gifts, but drank all the money. Now he is ashamed to appear in front of his granddaughter. The assembled people listen to him, but cannot help, because no one has extra money. But there was one person, Pavel Veretennikov, who bought Vavila shoes. The old man was so deeply moved that he ran away, forgetting even to thank Veretennikov, "but the other peasants were so comforted, so happy, as if he gave everyone a ruble." The wanderers go to a booth where they watch a comedy with Petrushka.
Chapter 3
Evening comes, and the travelers leave the “vibrant village”. They walk along the road, and everywhere they meet drunk people who return home after the fair. From all sides, drunken conversations, songs, complaints about the hard life, the cries of the fighting can be heard from the wanderers.
Travelers meet Pavel Veretennikov at the road post, around whom the peasants have gathered. Veretennikov writes down in his little book the songs and proverbs that the peasants sing to him. “The Russian peasants are smart,” says Veretennikov, “one thing is not good, that they drink to the point of stupefaction, fall into ditches, fall into ditches - it’s a shame to look!” After these words, a peasant approaches him, who explains that the peasants drink because of the hard life: “There is no measure for Russian hops. Have you measured our grief? Is there a measure for work? Wine brings down a peasant, but grief does not bring down? Work is not falling? And the peasants drink to forget, to drown their grief in a glass of vodka. But then the man adds: “We have a drinking non-drinking family for our family! They don’t drink, but they also toil, it would be better if they drank, stupid, but such is their conscience. To Veretennikov’s question, what is his name, the peasant replies: “Yakim Nagoi lives in the village of Bosovo, he works to death, drinks half to death! ..”, and the rest of the peasants began to tell Veretennikov the story of Yakim Nagoi. He once lived in St. Petersburg, but he was put in prison after he decided to compete with the merchant. He was stripped to the bone, and so he returned to his homeland, where he took up the plow. Since then, for thirty years he has been "fried on a strip under the sun." He bought pictures for his son, which he hung around the hut, and he liked to look at them himself. But one day there was a fire. Yakim, instead of saving the money he had accumulated throughout his life, saved the pictures, which he then hung in a new hut.
Chapter 4
People who called themselves happy began to converge under the linden. A sexton came, whose happiness consisted "not in sables, not in gold", but "in complacency." The pock-marked old woman came. She was happy because she had a large turnip born. Then a soldier came, happy because "he was in twenty battles, and not killed." The bricklayer began to tell that his happiness lies in the hammer with which he earns money. But then another bricklayer came up. He advised not to brag about his strength, otherwise grief could come out of it, which happened to him in his youth: the contractor began to praise him for his strength, but once he put so many bricks on a stretcher that the peasant could not bear such a burden and after that he completely fell ill. The yard man, the footman, also came to the travelers. He declared that his happiness lay in the fact that he had a disease that only noble people suffer from. All sorts of people came to brag about their happiness, and as a result, the wanderers passed their sentence on peasant happiness: “Hey, peasant happiness! Leaky, with patches, humpbacked, with corns, get the hell out of here!”
But then a man approached them, who advised them to ask about happiness from Yermila Girin. When the travelers asked who this Yermila was, the man told them. Yermila worked at a mill that belonged to no one, but the court decided to sell it. Bidding was arranged, in which Yermila began to compete with the merchant Altynnikov. As a result, Yermila won, only they immediately demanded money from him for the mill, and Yermila did not have that kind of money with him. He asked for half an hour, ran to the square and asked the people to help him. Ermila was a respected person among the people, so each peasant gave him as much money as he could. Yermila bought the mill, and a week later he came back to the square and gave back all the money he had lent. And each took as much money as he lent him, no one appropriated too much, even one more ruble remained. The audience began to ask why Ermila Girin was in such high esteem. The narrator said that in his youth Yermila was a clerk in the gendarmerie corps and helped every peasant who turned to him with advice and deed and did not take a penny for it. Then, when a new prince arrived in the patrimony and dispersed the gendarme office, the peasants asked him to elect Yermila as the mayor of the volost, as they trusted him in everything.
But then the priest interrupted the narrator and said that he did not tell the whole truth about Yermila, that he also had a sin: instead of his younger brother, Yermila recruited the only son of the old woman, who was her breadwinner and support. Since then, his conscience haunted him, and one day he almost hanged himself, but instead demanded that he be tried as a criminal in front of all the people. The peasants began to ask the prince to take the old woman's son from the recruits, otherwise Yermila would hang herself out of conscience. In the end, the son was returned to the old woman, and Yermila's brother was sent to recruit. But Yermila's conscience still tormented him, so he resigned his position and began working at the mill. During a riot in the patrimony, Yermila ended up in prison ... Then there was a cry from a lackey, who was flogged for theft, and the priest did not have time to tell the story to the end.
Chapter 5
The next morning we met the landowner Obolt-Obolduev and decided to ask if he lives happily. The landowner began to tell that he was "of an eminent family", his ancestors were known three hundred years ago. This landowner lived in the old days “like Christ in his bosom”, he had honor, respect, a lot of land, several times a month he organized holidays that “any Frenchman” could envy, went hunting. The landowner kept the peasants in strictness: “Whomever I want, I will have mercy, whoever I want, I will execute. The law is my desire! The fist is my police! But then he added that he “punished - loving”, that the peasants loved him, they celebrated Easter together. But the travelers only laughed at his words: “Kolom knocked them down, or what, you pray in the manor’s house? ..” Then the landowner began to sigh that such a carefree life had passed after the abolition of serfdom. Now the peasants no longer work on the landed estates, and the fields have fallen into disrepair. Instead of a hunting horn, the sound of an ax is heard in the forests. Where lordly houses used to stand, drinking establishments are now being built. After these words, the landowner began to cry. And the travelers thought: "The great chain broke, it broke - it jumped: at one end on the gentleman, on the other at the peasant! .."
peasant woman
Prologue
The travelers decided to look for a happy man among women. In one village they were advised to find Matryona Timofeevna and ask around. The men set out on their journey and soon reached the village of Klin, where “Matryona Timofeevna” lived, a portly woman, broad and thick, about thirty-eight years old. She is beautiful: her hair is gray, her eyes are large, strict, her eyelashes are the richest, she is stern and swarthy. She is wearing a white shirt, and a short sundress, and a sickle over her shoulder. The peasants turned to her: “Tell me in a divine way: what is your happiness?” And Matrena Timofeevna began to tell.
Chapter 1
As a girl, Matrena Timofeevna lived happily in a large family, where everyone loved her. Nobody woke her up early, they allowed her to sleep and gain strength. From the age of five, she was taken out into the field, she went after the cows, brought breakfast to her father, then she learned how to harvest hay, and got used to work. After work, she sat at the spinning wheel with her friends, sang songs, and went dancing on holidays. Matryona was hiding from the guys, she did not want to fall into captivity from a girl's will. But all the same, she found a groom, Philip, from distant lands. He began to marry her. Matrena did not agree at first, but the guy fell in love with her. Matrena Timofeevna admitted: “While we were bargaining, it must be, so I think, then there was happiness. And hardly ever again!” She married Philip.
Chapter 2. Songs
Matrena Timofeevna sings a song about how the groom's relatives pounce on the daughter-in-law when she arrives at a new house. Nobody likes her, everyone makes her work, and if she doesn't like her work, then they can beat her. This is how it happened with the new family of Matrena Timofeevna: “The family was huge, grumpy. I got from the girl's will to hell! Only in her husband could she find support, and it happened that he beat her. Matrena Timofeevna sang about a husband who beats his wife, and his relatives do not want to intercede for her, but only order to beat her even more.
Soon Matryona's son Demushka was born, and now it was easier for her to endure the reproaches of her father-in-law and mother-in-law. But here she was again in trouble. The master's steward began to pester her, but she did not know where to escape from him. Only grandfather Savely helped Matryona cope with all the troubles, only he loved her in a new family.
Chapter 3
“With a huge gray mane, tea, not cut for twenty years, with a huge beard, grandfather looked like a bear”, “grandfather’s back is arched”, “he has already turned, according to fairy tales, a hundred years.” “Grandfather lived in a special room, he did not like families, he did not let him into his corner; and she was angry, barked, his own son honored him with “branded, convict”. When the father-in-law began to become very angry with Matryona, she and her son went to Savely and worked there, and Demushka played with his grandfather.
Once Savely told her the story of his life. He lived with other peasants in impenetrable swampy forests, where neither the landowner nor the police could reach. But one day the landowner ordered them to come to him and sent the police after them. The peasants had to obey. The landowner demanded dues from them, and when the peasants began to say that they had nothing, he ordered them to be whipped. Again the peasants had to obey, and they gave the landowner their money. Now every year the landowner came to collect dues from them. But then the landowner died, and his heir sent a German manager to the estate. At first, the German lived quietly, became friends with the peasants. Then he began to order them to work. The peasants did not even have time to come to their senses, as they cut a road from their village to the city. Now you can safely drive to them. The German brought his wife and children to the village and began to rob the peasants even worse than the former landowner had robbed. The peasants put up with him for eighteen years. During this time, the German managed to build a factory. Then he ordered to dig a well. He did not like the work, and he began to scold the peasants. And Savely and his comrades dug it in a hole dug for a well. For this he was sent to hard labor, where he spent twenty years. Then he returned home and built a house. The men asked Matrena Timofeevna to continue talking about their woman's life.
Chapter 4
Matrena Timofeevna took her son to work. But the mother-in-law said that she should leave him to grandfather Savely, since you can’t earn much with a child. And so she gave Demushka to her grandfather, and she herself went to work. When she returned home in the evening, it turned out that Savely had dozed off in the sun, did not notice the baby, and the pigs trampled him. Matryona "rolled around in a ball", "twisted like a worm, called, woke up Demushka - but it was too late to call." The gendarmes arrived and began to interrogate, “didn’t you kill the child by agreement with the peasant Savely?” Then the doctor came to open the corpse of the child. Matryona began to ask him not to do this, sent curses at everyone, and everyone decided that she had lost her mind.
At night, Matryona came to her son's coffin and saw Savely there. At first she shouted at him, blamed Dema for the death, but then the two of them began to pray.
Chapter 5
After Demushka's death, Matrena Timofeevna did not talk to anyone, Savelia could not see, she did not work. And Savely went to repentance in the Sand Monastery. Then Matrena, together with her husband, went to her parents and set to work. Soon she had more children. So four years passed. Matryona's parents died, and she went to cry at her son's grave. He sees that the grave has been tidied up, there is an icon on it, and Savely lies on the ground. They talked, Matrena forgave the old man, told him about her grief. Soon Savely died, and he was buried next to Dema.
Another four years have passed. Matryona resigned herself to her life, worked for the whole family, only she did not give her children an offense. A pilgrimage came to them in the village and began to teach how to live properly, in a divine way. She forbade breastfeeding on fasting days. But Matrena did not listen to her, she decided that it would be better for God to punish her than she would leave her children hungry. So grief came to her. When her son Fedot was eight years old, his father-in-law gave him to the shepherdess. Once the boy did not look after the sheep, and one of them was stolen by a she-wolf. For this, the village headman wanted to flog him. But Matryona threw herself at the feet of the landowner, and he decided instead of his son to punish his mother. Matryona was carved. In the evening she came to see how her son was sleeping. And the next morning, she didn’t show herself to her husband’s relatives, but went to the river, where she began to cry and call for the protection of her parents.
Chapter 6
Two new troubles came to the village: first, a lean year came, then recruitment. The mother-in-law began to scold Matryona for calling trouble, because on Christmas she put on a clean shirt. And then they also wanted to send her husband to recruits. Matryona did not know where to go. She herself did not eat, she gave everything to her husband's family, and they also scolded her, looked angrily at her children, since they were extra mouths. So Matryona had to "send children around the world" so that they asked for money from strangers. Finally, her husband was taken away, and the pregnant Matryona was left all alone.
Chapter 7
Her husband was recruited at the wrong time, but no one wanted to help him return home. Matryona, who had been carrying her child for the last few days, went to seek help from the governor. She left home at night without telling anyone. Arrived in the city in the early morning. The porter in the governor's palace told her to try to come in two hours, then the governor might receive her. On the square, Matrena saw a monument to Susanin, and he reminded her of Savely. When the carriage drove up to the palace and the governor's wife got out of it, Matryona threw herself at her feet with pleas for intercession. Here she felt unwell. The long road and fatigue affected her health, and she gave birth to a son. The governor helped her, baptized the baby herself and gave him a name. Then she helped save Matrena's husband from recruitment. Matryona brought her husband home, and his family bowed at her feet and obeyed her.
Chapter 8
Since then, they called Matryona Timofeevna the governor. She began to live as before, worked, raised children. One of her sons has already been recruited. Matryona Timofeevna told travelers: “It’s not a matter of looking for a happy woman among women”: “The keys to female happiness, from our free will, are abandoned, lost from God himself!”
Last
The travelers went to the banks of the Volga and saw how the peasants were working in the hayfield. “We haven’t worked for a long time, let’s mow!” - the wanderers asked the local women. After work, they sat down to rest on a haystack. Suddenly they see: three boats are floating along the river, in which music is playing, beautiful ladies, two mustachioed gentlemen, children and an old man are sitting. As soon as the peasants saw them, they immediately began to work even harder.
The old landowner went ashore, walked around the entire hayfield. "The peasants bowed low, the steward in front of the landowner, like a demon before matins, wriggled." And the landowner scolded them for their work, ordered them to dry the already harvested hay, which was already dry. The travelers were surprised why the old landowner behaved this way with the peasants, because they are now free people and are not under his rule. Old Vlas began to tell them.
“Our landowner is special, exorbitant wealth, an important rank, a noble family, all the time he was weird, fooled.” But serfdom was abolished, but he did not believe it, he decided that he was being deceived, he even scolded the governor about this, and by the evening he had a stroke. His sons were afraid that he might deprive them of their inheritance, and they agreed with the peasants to live as before, as if the landowner was still their master. Some peasants happily agreed to continue serving the landowner, but many could not agree. For example, Vlas, who was then a steward, did not know how he would have to carry out the "stupid orders" of the old man. Then another peasant asked to be made a steward, and "the old order went." And the peasants gathered together and laughed at the stupid orders of the master. For example, he ordered a seventy-year-old widow to be married to a six-year-old boy so that he would support her and build her a new house. He ordered the cows not to moo when they pass by the manor house, because they wake up the landowner.
But then there was the peasant Agap, who did not want to obey the master and even reproached other peasants for obedience. Once he was walking with a log, and the master met him. The landowner realized that the log was from his forest, and began to scold Agap for stealing. But the peasant could not stand it and began to laugh at the landowner. The old man had a stroke again, they thought that now he would die, but instead he issued a decree to punish Agap for disobedience. All day long, young landowners, their wives, the new steward and Vlas, went to Agap, persuaded Agap to pretend, and gave him wine to drink all night. The next morning they locked him in the stable and ordered him to scream as if he was being beaten, but in fact he was sitting and drinking vodka. The landowner believed, and he even felt sorry for the peasant. Only Agap, after so much vodka, died in the evening.
Wanderers went to look at the old landowner. And he sits surrounded by sons, daughters-in-law, courtyard peasants and has lunch. He began to ask whether the peasants would soon collect the master's hay. The new steward began to assure him that the hay would be harvested in two days, then he declared that the peasants would not get away from the master, that he was their father and god. The landowner liked this speech, but suddenly he heard that one of the peasants laughed in the crowd, and ordered that the culprit be found and punished. The steward went, and he himself thinks how he should be. He began to ask the wanderers that one of them would confess: they are strangers, the master could not do anything to them. But the travelers did not agree. Then the godfather of the steward, a cunning woman, fell at the feet of the master, began to lament, saying that it was her only silly son who laughed, and begged the master not to scold him. Barin took pity. Then he fell asleep and died in his sleep.
Feast - for the whole world
Introduction
The peasants arranged a holiday, to which the whole estate came, they wanted to celebrate their newfound freedom. The peasants sang songs.
I. Bitter time - bitter songs
Cheerful. The song sings that the master took the cow from the peasant, the zemstvo court took away the chickens, the tsar took the sons into recruits, and the master took the daughters to himself. “It is glorious for the people to live in holy Rus'!”
Corvee. The poor peasant Kalinushka has wounds all over his back from beatings, he has nothing to wear, nothing to eat. Everything he earns has to be given to the master. The only joy in life is to come to a tavern and get drunk.
After this song, the peasants began to tell each other how hard it was to be in corvée. One recalled how their mistress Gertrud Alexandrovna ordered them to be beaten mercilessly. And the peasant Vikenty told the following parable.
About the exemplary lackey - Jacob the faithful. There lived a landowner in the world, very stingy, even drove his daughter away when she got married. This master had a faithful servant Yakov, who loved him more than his own life, did everything to please the master. Yakov never asked his master for anything, but his nephew grew up and wanted to marry. Only the master also liked the bride, so he did not allow Yakov's nephew to marry, but gave him as a recruit. Yakov decided to take revenge on his master, only his revenge was as servile as life. The master's legs hurt, and he could not walk. Yakov took him to a dense forest and hanged himself in front of his eyes. The master spent the whole night in the ravine, and in the morning the hunters found him. He did not recover from what he saw: “You, sir, will be an exemplary slave, faithful Jacob, to remember until the day of judgment!”
II. Wanderers and pilgrims
There are different pilgrims in the world. Some of them only hide behind the name of God in order to profit at someone else's expense, since it is customary to receive pilgrims in any home and feed them. Therefore, they most often choose rich houses where you can eat well and steal something. But there are also real pilgrims who bring the word of God to a peasant's house. Such people go to the poorest house so that God's mercy descends on it. Ionushka, who led the story "About two great sinners", also belongs to such pilgrims.
About two great sinners. Ataman Kudeyar was a robber and killed and robbed many people in his life. But his conscience tormented him, so much so that he could neither eat nor sleep, but only remembered his victims. He disbanded the whole gang and went to pray at the tomb of the Lord. He wanders, prays, repents, but it does not get easier for him. The sinner returned to his homeland and began to live under a centuries-old oak tree. Once he hears a voice that tells him to cut down an oak tree with the very knife with which he used to kill people, then all his sins will be forgiven. For several years the old man worked, but could not cut down the oak tree. Once he met Pan Glukhovskoy, about whom they said that he was a cruel and evil person. When the pan asked what the elder was doing, the sinner said that he so wanted to atone for his sins. Pan began to laugh and said that his conscience did not torment him at all, although he had ruined many lives. “A miracle happened to the hermit: he felt furious anger, rushed to Pan Glukhovsky, plunged a knife into his heart! Just now, the bloodied pan fell headlong on the saddle, a huge tree collapsed, the echo shook the whole forest. So Kudeyar prayed for his sins.
III. Both old and new
“Great is the sin of the nobility,” the peasants began to say after Jon’s story. But the peasant Ignatius Prokhorov objected: "Great, but he shouldn't be against the sin of the peasant." And he told the following story.
Peasant sin. For courage and courage, the widower admiral received eight thousand souls from the empress. When the time came for the admiral to die, he called the headman to him and handed him a chest in which lay free for all the peasants. After his death, a distant relative came and, promising the headman golden mountains and freedom, begged him for that casket. So eight thousand peasants remained in the lord's bondage, and the headman committed the most serious sin: he betrayed his comrades. “So here it is, the sin of the peasant! Indeed, a terrible sin! the men decided. Then they sang the song "Hungry" and again started talking about the sin of the landowners and peasants. And now Grisha Dobrosklonov, the son of a deacon, said: “The snake will give birth to snakes, and the support is the sins of the landowner, the sin of Jacob the unfortunate, the sin of Gleb gave birth! There is no support - there is no landowner, bringing a zealous slave to a noose, there is no support - there is no courtyard, who takes revenge on his villain by suicide, there is no support - there will be no new Gleb in Rus'! Everyone liked the boy’s speech, they began to wish him wealth and a smart wife, but Grisha replied that he didn’t need wealth, but that “every peasant lived freely, cheerfully in all of holy Rus'.”
IV. good times good songs
In the morning the travelers fell asleep. Grisha and his brother took their father home, they sang songs along the way. When the brothers put their father to bed, Grisha went for a walk around the village. Grisha studies at the seminary, where he is poorly fed, so he is thin. But he doesn't think about himself at all. All his thoughts are occupied only by his native village and peasant happiness. "Fate prepared a glorious path for him, a loud name of the people's intercessor, consumption and Siberia." Grisha is happy because he can be an intercessor and take care of ordinary people, of his homeland. Seven men finally found a happy man, but they did not even guess about this happiness.
Summary
In what year - count
In what land - guess
On the pillar path
Seven men got naked:
Seven temporarily liable,
tightened province,
County Terpigorev,
empty parish,
From adjacent villages:
Zaplatova, Dyryavina,
Razutova, Znobishina,
Gorelova, Neelova -
Crop failure, too,
They agreed and argued:
Who has fun
Feel free in Rus'?
According to Roman, the landowner, Demyan is sure that Luka said to the official that the priest. The Gubin brothers, Ivan and Mitrodor, insist that the "fat-bellied merchant" lives best. "Old man Pahom puckered up and said, looking at the ground: to the noble boyar, the minister of the sovereign." And Prov is convinced that the king has such a life.
Each of them left the house on his own business, and it would be time to go back, but they started a dispute. Evening comes, and the men do not stop arguing. Durandiha asks where they go at night looking. Pakhom notices that they are "thirty miles away" from the house. “Under the forest by the path” they made a fire, drank, ate, and, continuing the argument “who should live happily, freely in Rus'?”, they fought. The forest woke up from the noise: a hare jumped out, the jackdaws “raised a nasty, sharp squeak”, “a tiny chick fell out of fright from the nest”, the warbler is looking for him, the old cuckoo “woke up and decided to cuckle for someone”, seven owls fly in, “ the raven came to the fire, a cow with a bell came to the fire and mooed, an owl flies over the peasants, a fox “crept up to the peasants”. No one can understand what the men are making such a fuss about. Pahom finds a chick by the fire. He complains that they would have wings, they would fly around "the whole kingdom"; Prov notices that if there was bread, they would have bypassed "Mother Rus'" with their feet; the rest added that vodka, cucumbers, “cold kvass” would be good with bread. The chiffchaff bird asks the men to release the chick. For this, she promises to tell them how they can find a “self-assembled tablecloth”, which they will “repair, wash, dry”. The men release the chick. Chiffchaff warns them:
“Look, chur, one!
How much food will take
Womb - then ask
And you can ask for vodka
In day exactly on a bucket.
If you ask more
And one and two - it will be fulfilled
At your request,
And in the third, be in trouble!
PART ONE
Wanderers see old and new villages.
Not fond of the old ones,
It hurts more than that for new
Trees for them to look at.
Oh, huts, new huts!
You are smart, let it build you
Not an extra penny
And blood trouble!
On the way, the peasants meet peasants, "artisans, beggars, soldiers, coachmen." Their life is miserable. In the evening the wanderers meet the priest. Luka reassures him: "We are not robbers."
(Luke is a squat man
With a wide beard
Stubborn, verbose and stupid.
Luka looks like a mill:
One is not a bird mill,
What, no matter how it flaps its wings,
Probably won't fly.)
The men are interested in: “Is the priestly life sweet?” Pop responds:
“What is happiness, in your opinion?
Peace, wealth, honor ... "
He has no peace, since it is difficult for a priest's son to get a letter, and the priesthood of a priest is even more expensive. He must go to the dying at any time of the day, in any weather, in any wilderness, see the tears of relatives and listen to the dying groans and wheezing. Further, the priest tells, "what honor is the priest." People call the priests "a foal breed", they are afraid of meeting them, they compose about them "joke tales and obscene songs and all kinds of blasphemy." From human languages suffer "mother-popadya sedate" and "priest's daughter innocent".
Meanwhile, the sky is covered with clouds, "to be heavy rain."
The priest invites the peasants to listen, "where the priestly wealth comes from." In the old days, landowners lived, who "became fruitful and multiplied" and "let the priests live." All family holidays could not do without clergy. Now the "landlords have died out," and there is nothing to take from the poor.
Our poor villages
And in them the peasants are sick
Yes, sad women
Nurses, drinkers,
Slaves, pilgrims
And eternal workers
Lord give them strength!
Guiding the deceased...
..And here to you C
taruha, mother of the deceased,
Look, stretching with a bony,
Callused hand.
The soul will turn
How they tinkle in this hand
Two copper coins! ..
The priest leaves, and the men attacked Luka with reproaches:
Well, here's your praise
Pop's life!
rural fair
Wanderers complain about the "wet, cold spring." Stocks are running out, the cattle in the field have nothing to eat. “Only for Nikola Veshny” the cattle ate plenty of grass. Passing through the village, the wanderers notice that there is no one in it. Wanderers are interested in a peasant who bathes a horse in the river, where the people are from the village, and they hear that everyone is “at the fair” in the village of Kuzminskoye. At the fair, people trade, drink, walk. In Kuzminsky there are two churches, “one Old Believer, the other Orthodox”, a school - a house “packed up tightly”, a hut “with the image of a paramedic bleeding”, a hotel, shops. Wanderers come to the square where there is trade. Who is not here! "Intoxicating, loud, festive, motley, red all around!" The wanderers admire the goods. They see a man who has drunk his money and is crying, as he promised his granddaughter to bring gifts. The assembled people feel sorry for him, but no one helps him: if you give money, "you yourself will be left with nothing." Pavlusha Veretennikov, who was called "master", bought shoes for the peasant's granddaughter. He didn't even thank him. The peasants are “so happy, as if he gave each one a ruble!”
Among other things, the fair has a shop selling second-rate reading material, as well as portraits of generals. The author wonders if the time will come when the peasants will understand "that a portrait is a portrait, that a book is a book", when the people "will carry Belinsky and Gogol from the market."
Here you would have their portraits
Hang in your boots,
In the booth there is a performance: “the comedy is not wise, but not stupid either, to the hozhal, quarter not in the eyebrow, but right in the eye!” The speech of Petrushka, the hero of the comedy, is interrupted by the "accurate word" from the people. After the performance, some of the spectators fraternize with the actors, bring them drunk, drink with them, give money. By evening, the wanderers leave the “vibrant village”.
drunken night
After the fair, everyone goes home, "the people go and fall." Sober wanderers see how a drunken man buries his undercoat, saying at the same time that he is burying his mother. Two peasants sort things out, aiming at each other's beards. With swearing, the women in the ditch are trying to determine who's house is worse. Veretennikov notes that the peasants are "smart", but "drink to the point of stupefaction". To which the peasant, whose name is Yakim, objects that the peasants are busy with work, only occasionally allowing the “poor peasant soul” to have fun, that “the family of the drinking non-drinking family”, that when the work ends, “look, there are three equity holders: God, the king and sir!
Wine brings down the peasant
And grief does not bring him down?
Work not falling?
A man copes with any trouble; when he works, he does not think that he will overstrain.
Every peasant has
The soul is like a black cloud -
Angry, formidable - and it would be necessary
Thunders rumble from there,
pouring bloody rains,
And everything ends with wine.
Veretennikov learns from the peasants the story of the plowman Yakim Nagogoi, who "works to death, drinks half to death." While in St. Petersburg, he decided to compete with the merchant and "ended up in prison", and then returned home. He bought pictures for his son and, hanging them on the walls, “he himself loved to look at them no less than a boy.” During his life, Yakim collected "thirty-five rubles". But there was a fire in the village. Yakim began to save the pictures, but the money melted into a lump, and the buyers offered eleven rubles for him. Saved and new pictures Yakim hung on the walls in a new hut.
The master looked at the plowman:
The chest is sunken; like a depressed
Stomach; at the eyes, at the mouth
Bends like cracks
On dry ground;
And myself to mother earth
He looks like: a brown neck,
Like a layer cut off with a plow.
brick face,
Hand - tree bark,
And hair is sand.
According to Yakim, since people drink, it means that they feel strength.
On the way, the peasants sing a song, to which the “young woman alone” burst into tears, admitting that her husband is jealous: he gets drunk and snores on the cart, guards her. She wants to jump off the wagon, but she does not succeed: the husband "stood up - and the woman by the scythe." The men are sad about their wives, and then unfold the "self-assembled tablecloth." Having refreshed himself, Roman stays by the bucket of vodka, and the rest go "to the crowd - to look for the lucky one."
Happy
Having obtained a bucket of vodka with the help of a self-collection tablecloth, the wanderers throw a cry into the festive crowd, whether there are those among those present who consider themselves happy. Anyone who confesses is promised vodka.
A skinny, dismissed deacon hurries to tell about his happiness, which lies in "complacency" and faith in the Kingdom of Heaven. They don't give him vodka.
An old woman appears and boasts that she has a rich harvest in her garden: "rep up to a thousand." But they just laughed at her.
A "soldier with medals" arrives. He is happy that he was in twenty battles, but remained alive, was beaten with sticks, but survived, starved, but did not die. The wanderers give him vodka.
“Olonchanin Stonemason” tells about his happiness: every day he hammers gravel “for five silver”, which testifies to the great strength that he possesses.
"A man with shortness of breath, relaxed, thin" tells that he was also a bricklayer and also boasted of his strength, "God punished." The contractor praised him, but he was foolishly happy, he worked for four. After the mason lifted the load "of fourteen pounds" to the second floor, he withered away and could no longer work. Went home to die. On the way, an epidemic broke out in the carriage, people were dying, and their corpses were unloaded at the stations. The mason in delirium saw that he was cutting roosters, he thought he would die, but he got home. According to him, this is happiness.
The courtyard man says: “I was a favorite slave of Prince Peremetyev,” his wife was “a beloved slave,” his daughter studied French and other languages \u200b\u200bwith a young lady and sat in the presence of her mistress. He got "a noble disease, which is only found in the first persons in the empire", - gout, which can be obtained if you drink various alcoholic beverages for thirty years. He himself licked plates, finished drinking drinks from glasses. The men chase him away.
A “Belarusian peasant” comes up and says that his happiness is in bread, that he “chewed barley bread with chaff, with a bonfire”, from which he “grabs the bellies”. Now he eats bread "to the full at Gubonin's."
A man with a folded cheekbone says that he and his comrades hunted for bears. The bears broke three comrades, and he managed to stay alive. They gave him vodka.
For the poor, happiness lies in large alms.
Hey, happiness man!
Leaky with patches
Humpbacked with calluses
Get off home!
The peasant Fedosey advises the peasants to ask Yermila Girin. "The Orphan was held by Yermilo mill on Unzha." The court decides to sell the mill. Yermilo is bargaining with the merchant Altynnikov (“the merchant is his penny, and the other is his ruble!”) And wins the bargain. The clerks demanded to pay at once a third of the cost of the mill - about a thousand rubles. Girin did not have so much money, and they had to be paid within an hour. At the market place, he told people about everything and asked them to lend him money, promising that he would return everything next Friday. Got more than needed. Thus the mill became his. He, as promised, returned the money to everyone who approached him. Nobody asked too much. He had one ruble left, which he, not finding the owner, gave to the blind. Wanderers are interested in why people believed Yermila, and they hear in response that he gained trust with the truth. Yermilo served as a clerk in the estate of Prince Yurlov. He was fair, he was attentive to everyone. For five years, many have learned about him. He was kicked out. The new clerk was a grabber and a scoundrel. When the old prince died, the young prince came and ordered the peasants to elect a steward. They chose Yermila, who decided everything fairly.
At seven years of a worldly penny
Didn't squeeze under the nail
At the age of seven, he did not touch the right one,
Didn't let the guilty
I didn’t bend my heart…
The “gray-haired priest” interrupted the narrator, and he had to recall the case when Yermilo “buffed out” his younger brother Mitriy from recruitment, sending the son of a peasant woman, Nenila Vlasyevna, instead of him, and then repented before the people and asked to be judged. And he fell on his knees in front of the peasant woman. The son of Nenila Vlasyevna was returned, Mitriy was recruited, and Yermila himself was fined. After that, Yermilo "resigned from his post", rented a mill, where "strict order was maintained."
The “gray-haired priest” says that Yermilo is now in prison. A riot arose on the estate of "the landowner Obrubkov, the Frightened province, Nedykhanyev county, the village of Stolbnyaki", which required government troops to suppress. In order to do without bloodshed, they decided to turn to Yermila, believing that the people would listen to him. At this moment, the narrator is interrupted by the cries of a drunken lackey, the owner of a "noble disease", who was caught stealing, and therefore flogged. The wanderers are trying to find out about Yermil, but the man who started talking about the rebellion, leaving me, promises that he will tell another time.
Wanderers meet the landowner.
Some kind of round gentleman,
mustachioed, pot-bellied,
With a cigar in my mouth.
The landowner, Obolt-Obolduev, is riding in a carriage.
The landlord was ruddy,
portly, squat,
sixty years;
Mustache gray, long,
Good fellows,
Hungarian woman with brandenburgers,
Wide pants.
He takes the wanderers for robbers, draws a pistol. Having learned for what purpose they travel, he laughs heartily.
Tell us godly
Is the landowner's life sweet?
You are like - at ease, happily,
Landlord, do you live?
Leaving the carriage, Obolt-Obolduev orders the footman to bring a pillow, a carpet and a glass of sherry. He sits down and tells the story of his family. His most ancient ancestor on his father's side "with wolves and foxes ... amuse the empress", and on the name day of the empress the bear "ripped off" him. Wanderers say that "there are a lot of scoundrels roaming with bears even now." Landowner: "Shut up!" His most ancient ancestor on his mother’s side was Prince Shchepin, who, together with Vaska Gusev, “tried to set fire to Moscow, they thought to rob the treasury, but they were executed by death.” The landowner recalls the old days when they lived "like in Christ's bosom", "knew ... honor", nature "subdued". He talks about luxurious feasts, rich feasts, his own actors. He talks about hunting with special feeling. Complains that his power is over:
Whom I want - I have mercy
Whoever I want, I will execute.
The law is my desire!
The fist is my police!
The landowner interrupts his speech, calls the servant, while noting that "it is impossible without severity," but that he "punished - loving." He assures the wanderers that he was kind and that on holidays peasants were allowed into his house to pray. Gavrilo Afanasyevich, having heard the “death knell”, remarks that “they are not calling for a peasant! They call for landlord life! Now the landowners' houses are being demolished for bricks, the gardens are being cut down for firewood, the peasants are stealing timber, and instead of estates, "drinking houses are being built."
The dissolute people sing,
They call for earthly services,
Planted, taught to read and write, -
He needs her!
The landowner says that he is "not a peasant-bast worker", but "by the grace of God, a Russian nobleman."
Noble estates
We do not learn how to work.
We have a bad official
And he won't sweep the floors
Will not heat the oven...
He complains to strangers that he is called to work, and having lived in the village for forty years, he cannot distinguish a barley ear from a rye ear.
After listening to the landowner, the peasants sympathize with him.
PEASANT WOMAN
(From the third part)
Wanderers decide what they should ask
about the happiness of not only men, but also women. They go to the village of Klin, where Korchagina Matryona Timofeevna lives, whom everyone called the "governor".
“Oh, a field of many grains!
Now you don't think
How many people of God
Beat over you
While you are dressed
Heavy, even spike
And stood in front of the plowman,
Like an army before a king!
Not so much dew is warm,
Like sweat from a peasant's face
Moisturize you!..”
Wanderers do not rejoice looking at the fields of wheat that feeds "by choice", they like to look at the rye that "feeds everyone." In the village of Klin, life is miserable. The wanderers reach the master's house, and the lackey explains that "the landowner is abroad, and the steward is dying." “Hungry courtyards” are loitering around the estate, whom the master left “to the mercy of fate”. Local men fish in the river, complaining that there used to be much more fish. A pregnant woman is waiting for them to catch at least "heels" in her ear.
Yards and peasants are dragging whatever they can. One of the courtyards is angry at the wanderers who refuse to buy foreign books from him.
Wanderers hear how the song "Tsevets Novo-Arkhangelskaya" sings in a beautiful bass. There were “non-Russian words” in the song, “and the grief in them is the same as in the Russian song, it was heard, without a shore, without a bottom.” There is a herd of cows, as well as "a crowd of reapers and reapers." They meet Matrena Timofeevna, a woman of "thirty-eight years old", and tell why they found her. But the woman says she needs to harvest rye. The strangers promise to help her. They take out a "self-assembled tablecloth." “The month became high” when Matryona began to “open her whole soul to wanderers.”
before marriage
She was born in a good and non-drinking family.
For father, for mother
Like Christ in the bosom,
I lived...
She lived happily, although there was a lot of work. After some time, “the betrothed appeared”:
On the mountain - a stranger!
Philip Korchagin - Petersburger,
A baker by skill.
The father promised to marry his daughter. Korchagin persuades Matryona to marry him, promising that he will not offend her. She agrees.
Matrena sings a song about a girl who ended up in her husband's house, where evil relatives live. The strangers sing in chorus.
Matryona lives in the house of her mother-in-law and father-in-law. Their family is “big, grumpy”, in which “there is no one to love, dove, but there is someone to scold!” Philip went to work, and he advised her not to interfere in anything and endure.
As ordered, so done:
Walked with anger in my heart
And didn't say too much
Word to nobody.
Filippushka came in winter,
Bring a silk handkerchief
Yes, I took a ride on a sled
On Catherine's day
And as if there was no grief! ..
There were always “frets” between the young. The wanderers ask Matrena Timofeyevna if her husband beat her. She answers them that only once, when her husband asked for shoes for his visiting sister, and she hesitated.
On the Annunciation, Matrena Timofeevna's husband went to work, and on Kazanskaya she gave birth to a son, Demushka.
The manager Abram Gordeich Sitnikov “began to bother her hard,” and she had to turn to her grandfather for advice.
From the whole family of her husband
One Savely, grandfather,
The father-in-law's parent - fathers,
Pity me...
Matrena Timofeevna asks the wanderers if they want to hear the story of Savely's life. They answer in agreement.
Saveliy, Holy Russian hero
Grandfather Savely "looked like a bear", had not cut his hair for about twenty years, had a beard, they said that he was a hundred years old. He lived "in a special room", where he did not let anyone from the family of his son, who called him "branded, hard labor". To this he replied: "Branded, but not a slave."
Matrena asked Saveliy why his own son calls him that. During his youth, the peasants were also serfs. Their village was in remote places. “We didn’t rule the corvee, we didn’t pay dues, and so, when we judge, we’ll send it three times over.” The landowner Shalashnikov tried to get to them by animal paths, "yes, he turned his skis." After that, he orders the peasants to come to him, but they do not go. Twice the police come and leave with tribute, and when they came the third time, they left with nothing. Then the peasant women went to Shalashnikov in the provincial town, where he stood with the regiment. When the landowner found out that there was no quitrent, he ordered the peasants to be flogged. They flogged them so badly that the peasants had to “rip open” where the money was hidden, and bring half a cap of “lobanchiki”. After that, the landowner even drank with the peasants. They went home, and on the way the two old men rejoiced that they were carrying hundred-ruble notes sewn up in the lining.
Excellently fought Shalashnikov,
And not so hot great
Received income.
Soon Shalashnikov was killed near Varna. His heir sent to them a German, Christian Christian Vogel, who managed to gain confidence in the peasants. He told them that if they can't pay, then let them work. The peasants, as the German asks them, dig in the swamp with grooves, cut down the trees in the designated places. It turned out a clearing, a road.
And then came the hardship
Korean peasant -
/ Ruined to the bone!
And he fought ... like Shalashnikov himself!
Yes, he was simple: pounce
With all military strength,
Think it will kill you!
And sun the money, it will fall off,
Neither give nor take bloated
Tick in a dog's ear.
The German grip is dead:
Until they let the world go
Without leaving, sucks!
For eighteen years the peasants endured. We built a factory. The German ordered the peasants to dig a well. Among them was Savely. When the peasants, having worked until noon, decided to take a break, Vogel came and began to saw them "in his own way, without haste." Then they threw him into the hole. Savely shouted: “Give it!” After that, the Germans were buried alive. So Savely ended up in hard labor, fled, he was caught.
Twenty years of strict hard labor.
Twenty years of settlement.
I saved money
According to the royal manifesto
Went home again
Built this stove...
The mother-in-law is unhappy that, because of her son, Matryona does not work much, and demands that she leave him with her grandfather. Matryona reaps rye together with everyone. The grandfather appears and asks for forgiveness for the fact that “the old man fell asleep in the sun, the silly grandfather fed Demidushka to the pigs!” Matryona is crying.
The Lord got angry
He sent uninvited guests,
Wrong judges!
The camp officer, the doctor, the police arrive to accuse Matryona and Saveliy of premeditated murder of the child. The doctor makes an autopsy, and Matryona begs not to do this.
From a thin diaper
Rolled out Demushka
And the body became white
To torment and plastovat.
Matryona sends curses. She is declared insane. When family members are asked if they noticed “crazy” behind her, they answer that they “did not notice.” Savely notes that when she was called to the authorities, she did not take with her "neither a security deposit, nor a novina (homespun canvas)."
Seeing grandfather at the coffin of his son, Matryona chases him, calling him "branded, hard labor." The old man says that after the prison he turned to stone, and Demushka melted his heart. Grandfather Savely comforts her, says that her son is in paradise. Matryona exclaims: “Is it really true that neither God nor the tsar will stand up? ..” Savely replies: “God is high, the tsar is far away,” and therefore they have to endure, since she is a “serf woman.”
Twenty years have passed since Matryona buried her son. It didn't take long for her to "recover". She could not work, for which her father-in-law decided to “teach” her with the reins. Bowing at his feet, she asked him to kill her. Then he calmed down.
For days and nights, Matryona cries at the grave of her Demushka. By winter, Philip returns from work. Grandfather Savely went to the forests, where he mourned the death of the boy. “And in the autumn he went to repentance in the Sand Monastery.” Every year Matryona has a baby. She has no time to "neither think nor grieve, God forbid to cope with the work and cross her forehead." Three years later, her parents die. At the grave of her son, she meets grandfather Saveliy, who came to pray for "the Poor Dema, for all the suffering Russian peasantry." Grandfather soon dies, and before his death he says:
There are three paths for men:
Tavern, jail and hard labor,
And the women in Rus'
Three loops: white silk,
The second is for red silk,
And the third - black silk,
Choose any!
They buried him next to Demushka. He was at that time one hundred and seven years old.
Four years later, a praying pilgrim appears in the village. She makes speeches about the salvation of the soul, on holidays she wakes up the peasants for matins, she makes sure that mothers do not feed babies on fast days. They shed tears when they hear their children crying. Matryona did not listen to the pilgrimage. Her son, Fedot, was eight years old when he was sent to guard the sheep. The boy is accused of not seeing the sheep. From the words of Fedot, it becomes known that when he was sitting on a hillock, a huge emaciated she-wolf appeared, “puppy: her nipples dragged, in a bloody trail.” She managed to grab the sheep and run. But Fedot pursued her and pulled out the dead sheep. The boy felt sorry for the she-wolf, and he gave her the sheep. For this, Fedot is going to be flogged.
Matryona asks for mercy from the landowner, and he decides "to shepherd a minor in his youth, to forgive out of stupidity ... and punish the impudent woman approximately." Matryona comes to the sleeping Fedotushka, who, although he was “born weak,” since during pregnancy she greatly missed Demushka, he was a smart boy.
I sat on it all night
I am a kind shepherd
Raised up to the sun
Itself, shod in bast shoes,
rebaptized; cap,
She gave me a horn and a whip.
In a quiet place on the river Matrena cries about her fate, remembering her parents.
Night - I shed tears,
Day - like grass I lay down ...
I bow my head
I carry an angry heart!
Difficult year
According to Matryona, the she-wolf appeared for a reason, since soon a breadless woman came to the village. The mother-in-law of Matrena Timofeevna admits to her neighbors that her daughter-in-law is to blame for everything, who “put on a clean shirt at Christmas.” If Matryona had been a lonely woman, then the hungry peasants would have killed her with stakes. But “for her husband, for her intercessor,” she “got off cheaply.”
After one misfortune came another: recruitment. The family was calm, as the husband's older brother was among the recruits. Matryona was pregnant with Liodorushka. The father-in-law goes to a meeting and returns with the news: “Now give me less!”
Now I'm not a sharecropper
rural area,
Mansion builder,
Clothing and livestock.
Now one wealth:
Three lakes cry
Flammable tears, sown
Three stripes of trouble!
Matryona does not know how she can live with her children without her husband, who is not recruited in turn. When everyone is asleep, she gets dressed and leaves the hut.
Governor
On the way, Matrena prays to the Mother of God and asks her: “How did I anger God?”
Pray on a frosty night
Under the starry sky of God
I have loved since then.
With difficulty, the pregnant Matrena Timofeevna gets to the city to the governor. She gives the porter a “tight money”, but he does not let her through, but sends her away to come in two hours. Matryona sees how a drake escaped from the hands of the cook and he rushed after him.
And how he screams!
Such was the cry, what a soul
Enough - I almost fell,
So they scream under the knife!
When the drake was caught, Matrena, running away, thinks: "The gray drake will subside under the chef's knife!" She reappears in front of the governor's house, where the porter takes from her another "virgin" one, and then in his "closet" gives her tea to drink. Matrona throws herself at the governor's feet. She becomes ill. When she comes to, she learns that she has given birth to a son. The governor, Elena Alexandrovna, who had no children, listened to the woman in labor, took care of the child, baptized him herself and chose his name, and then sent a messenger to the village to sort everything out. The husband was saved. Song of praise for the governor.
woman's parable
Wanderers drink to the governor's health. Since then, Matryona was "nicknamed the governor's wife." She has five sons. "Peasant orders are endless - they already took one!" "... We burned twice ... God visited us three times with anthrax."
The mountains didn't move
Fell on the head
God is not a thunderbolt
In anger he pierced his chest,
For me - quiet, invisible -
The storm has passed,
Will you show her?
For a mother that has been scolded,
Like a trampled snake,
The blood of the firstborn has passed
For me insults are mortal
Gone unpaid
And the whip passed over me!
Matrena Timofeevna says that it is useless for wanderers to "look for a happy woman among women."
Matryona Timofeevna recalls the words of the holy praying woman:
Keys to female happiness
From our free will Abandoned, lost in God himself!
Those keys are constantly looking for "the desert fathers, and the blameless wives, and the scribes-readers."
Yes, they are unlikely to be found ...
LATER
(From the second part)
On the way, the wanderers see a hayfield. Wanderers came to the Volga, where haystacks stand in the meadows and peasant families live. They missed work.
They take braids from seven women and mow them down. Music comes from the river. The man, whose name is Vlas, reports that the landowner is in the boat. Three boats are approaching, in which sit an old landowner, hangers-on, servants, three barchonok, two ladies, two mustachioed gentlemen.
The old landowner finds fault with one stack and demands that the hay be dried. They cater to him in every way. The landowner with his retinue goes to breakfast. The wanderers ask Vlas, who turned out to be a steward, about the landowner, perplexed that he is the one who disposes of it at a time when serfdom has already been abolished. The wanderers take out a "self-assembled tablecloth", and Vlas begins to tell.
Vlas says that their landowner, Prince Utyatin, is "special." After a quarrel with the governor, he had a stroke - the left half of his body was taken away.
Lost for a dime!
It is known, not self-interest,
And arrogance cut him off,
He lost his sorinko.
Pakhom recalls that, being in prison on suspicion, he saw a peasant.
For horse stealing, it seems
He was sued, his name was Sidor,
So from the prison to the master
He sent a tribute!
Vlas continues the story. Sons and wives appeared. When the master recovered, his sons informed him that serfdom had been abolished. He calls them traitors. They, fearing to be left without an inheritance, decide that they will indulge him. The sons persuade the peasants to pretend that serfdom has not been abolished. One of the peasants, Ipat, declares: “You have fun! And I'm a serf of the Duck princes - and that's the whole story! With emotion, Ipat reminisces about how the prince harnessed him to the cart, how he bought him in the hole and gave him vodka, how he put him on the goats to play the violin, how he fell and the sleigh ran over him, and the prince left, how the prince returned for him and he was grateful to him. Sons are ready to give good "promises" for silence. Everyone agrees to play comedy.
Let's go to an intermediary:
Laughing! "It's a good thing
And the meadows are good,
Fool around, God forgives!
Not in Rus', you know
Shut up and bow down
Forbid anyone!”
Vlas did not want to be a steward: “Yes, I didn’t want to be a gorokhov jester.” They volunteered to be Klim Lavin, “both a drunkard and unclean at hand. It doesn’t work to work, ”says that“ no matter how you suffer from work, you will not be rich, but you will be a hunchback! Vlas is left as a burgher, and the old gentleman is told that Klim, who has a "clay conscience", has become him. The old orders are back. Looking at how the old prince disposes of his estate, the peasants laugh at him.
Klim reads orders to the peasants; from one it follows that the house of the widow Terentyeva has collapsed and she is forced to beg, and therefore she must marry Gavrila Zhokhov and the house should be repaired. The widow is already close to seventy, and Gavrila is a six-year-old child. Another order says that the shepherds should "calm down the cows" so that they do not wake the master. From the next order it was clear that the watchman's "dog is disrespectful", barked at the master, and therefore the watchman must be driven away and Eremka appointed. He is deaf and mute from birth.
Agap Petrov refuses to obey the old order. The old master finds him stealing wood, and he calls the landowner a jester. Peasant souls possession It's over. You are the last!
You are the last! By grace
Peasant our stupidity
Today you are in charge
And tomorrow we'll follow
Pink - and the ball is over!
Here Utyatin had a second blow. From the new order it followed that Agapa should be punished "for unparalleled audacity." Agapa begin to persuade the whole world. Klim drinks with him for a day and then brings him to the manor's yard. The old prince is sitting on the porch. In front of Agap at the stable they put a damask of wine and ask to shout louder. The peasant screams so that the landowner takes pity on him. Drunk Agap was carried home. He was not destined to live long, because soon "Klim the shameless ruined him, anathema, with a blame!"
Gentlemen are sitting at the table: the old prince, on the sides are two young ladies, three boys, their nanny, “Last sons”, obsequious servants: teachers, poor noblewomen; the lackeys make sure that the flies do not bother him, they assent to him from everywhere. The master's steward, when asked by the master whether the haymaking will soon be completed, speaks of the "master's term." Utyatin laughs: “The master’s term is the whole life of a slave!” The steward says: "Everything is yours, everything is master's!"
It's written for you
Watch over the stupid peasantry,
And we work, obey,
Pray for the Lord!
One man laughs. Utyatin demands punishment. The steward turns to the wanderers, asks one of them to confess, but they only nod at each other. The sons of the Last say that "a rich man ... a Petersburger" was laughing. "Our orders are wonderful to him so far as a curiosity." Utyatin calms down only after the burmistrov's godfather asks him to forgive her son, who laughed, since he is an unintelligent boy.
Utyatin does not deny himself anything: he drinks champagne without measure, “pinches beautiful daughters-in-law”; music and singing are heard, girls are dancing; he ridicules his sons and their wives, who dance before his eyes. To the song of the “blond lady”, the Last falls asleep, and he is transferred to the boat. Klim says:
Do not know about the new will,
Die as you lived, landowner,
To the songs of our slaves,
To the music of servile -
Yes, just hurry up!
Let the peasant rest!
Everyone will know that after eating the master had a new stroke, as a result of which he died. The peasants rejoice, but in vain, because "with the death of the Last, the caress of the lord disappeared."
The sons of the landlord "compete with the peasants to this day." Vlas was in St. Petersburg, now he lives in Moscow, he is trying to stand up for the peasants, but he does not succeed.
PIR - FOR THE WHOLE WORLD
(From the second part)
Dedicated to Sergei Petrovich Botkin
Introduction
Klim Yakovlich organized a feast in the village. “Vlas the headman” sent his son for the parish deacon Tryphon, with whom his sons, seminarians, Savvushka and Grisha, also came.
Simple guys, kind,
Mowed, reaped, sowed
And drank vodka on holidays
equal to the peasantry.
When the prince died, the peasants did not suspect that they would have to decide what to do with the flooded meadows.
And after drinking a glass,
First of all, they argued:
How should they be with the meadows?
They decide "to hand over the meadows to the headman - on taxes: everything is weighed, calculated, just quitrent and taxes, with a surplus."
After that, "continuous clamor and songs began." They ask Vlas if he agrees with this decision. Vlas "was sick of the whole vakhlachin", he honestly carried out his service, but now he was thinking how to live "without corvée ... without taxation ... without a stick ... is it true, Lord?"
1. Bitter times - bitter songs
- Eat prison, Yasha!
There is no milk!
"Where is our cow?"
— Take away, my light!
Master for offspring Took her home.
It is glorious for the people to live In Rus', a saint!
"Where are our chickens?" —
The girls are yelling.
- Don't yell, fools!
The Zemsky court ate them;
I took another supply
Yes, he promised to stay ...
It's nice to live people
Saint in Rus'!
Broke my back
And the sourdough doesn't wait!
Baba Katerina
Remembered - roars:
In the yard for over a year
Daughter ... no dear!
It's nice to live people
Saint in Rus'!
A little from the kids
Look - and there are no children:
The king will take the boys
Barin - daughters!
One freak
Live with family.
It's nice to live people
Saint in Rus'!
Corvee
Poor, unkempt Kalinushka,
Nothing for him to flaunt
Only the back is painted
Yes, you don’t know behind the shirt.
From the bast to the gate
The skin is all torn
Puzznet belly from the chaff.
twisted, twisted,
Slashed, tormented,
Hardly Kalina wanders.
It will knock on the feet of the tavern keeper,
Sorrow drowns in wine
Only on Saturday will come around
From the master's stables to his wife~.
Peasants remember the old order.
Day is hard labor, but night?
-L silently got drunk,
Kissed in silence
The fight went on in silence.
One of the peasants says that their young lady Gertruda Aleksandrovna ordered that the one who says a strong word be punished ... and the peasant does not bark - it’s the only thing to be silent. When the peasants “celebrated their freedom,” they swore so hard that the priest was offended.
Vikenty Alexandrovich, nicknamed "Exit", tells about the "opportunity" that happened to them.
About the exemplary serf - Jacob the faithful
The landowner Polivanov, who “bought a village with bribes” and was distinguished by cruelty, giving his daughter in marriage, quarreled with his son-in-law, and therefore ordered him to be whipped, and kicked him out with his daughter without any gifts.
In the teeth of an exemplary slave,
Jacob the faithful
Like he was blowing with his heel.
Yakov was more faithful than a dog, he pleased his master, and the harder the owner punished him, the sweeter he was for him. The bartender's legs hurt. He constantly calls his servant to serve him.
Yakov's nephew decided to marry the girl Arisha and turned to the master for permission. Despite the fact that Yakov asks for his nephew, he gives Grisha to the soldiers, since he has his own intentions regarding the girl. Jacob got drunk and disappeared. The landowner is uneasy, he is used to his faithful servant. Two weeks later, Jacob appears. The servant takes Polivanov to his sister through the forest and turns into a remote place, where he throws the reins over the bough and hangs himself, telling the master that he will not dirty his hands with murder. The master calls people for help, spends the whole night in the Devil's ravine. The hunter finds him. At home, Polivanov laments: “I am a sinner, a sinner! Execute me!"
The peasants decide who is more sinful - "tavern owners", "landlords" or, as Ignaty Prokhorov said, "muzhiks". “We should listen to him,” but the peasants did not let him say a word. “Eremin, the brother of the merchant, who bought anything from the peasants,” says that “robbers” are the most sinful of all. Klim Lavin fights him and wins. Suddenly, Ionushka enters the conversation.
2. Wanderers and pilgrims
Ionushka says that wanderers and pilgrims are different.
people's conscience:
Got tired of the decision
What is more misfortune here,
Than lies - they are served.
It happens that "the wanderer will turn out to be a thief", "there are great masters to please the ladies."
Others don't do good
And evil is not seen behind him,
You won't understand otherwise. ^
Ionushka tells a story about the holy fool Fomushka, who "lives like a god." He called people to flee to the forests, was arrested and taken to prison, but from the cart he shouted to the peasants: “... they beat you with sticks, rods, whips, you will be beaten with iron rods!” The next morning came to understand the military team. She carried out interrogations, pacification, so that Fomushka's words were almost justified.
After that, Ionushka tells another story about God's messenger Euphrosyne. She appears in the cholera years and "buries, heals, fusses with the sick."
If there is a wanderer in the family, then the owners follow him, “wouldn’t shave anything,” and women listen to stories on long winter evenings, which the “wretched and timid” have a lot of: how the Turks drowned the monks of Athos in the sea.
Who has seen how he listens
Of their passing wanderers
peasant family,
Understand that no work
Not eternal care
Nor the yoke of long slavery,
No taverns themselves
More Russian people
No limits set:
Before him is a wide path!
Soil is good
The soul of the Russian people...
O sower! come!..
Iona Lyapushkin was a pilgrim and a wanderer. The peasants were arguing about who would give him shelter first, and icons were brought out to meet him. Jonah went with those whose icon he liked best, often behind the poorest. Jonah tells a parable about two great sinners.
About two great sinners
This story is very ancient. Jonah learned about it from Father Pitirim in Solovki. The ataman of the twelve robbers was Kudeyar. They hunted in the forest, robbed, shed human blood. Kudeyar took a beautiful girl out of Kyiv.
Suddenly, the leader of the robbers began to imagine the people he had killed. He “blew off his mistress’s head and spotted the Yesaul”, and then “an old man in monastic clothes” returned to his native land, where he tirelessly prays to the Lord to forgive him his sins. An angel appears, pointing to a huge oak tree, telling Kudeyar that the Lord will forgive his sins if he cuts the tree with the same knife that killed people.
Kudeyar began to fulfill God's command. Pan Glukhovsky is passing by, he is interested in what he is doing. He heard a lot of terrible things about Pan Kudeyar himself, and therefore told him about himself.
Pan chuckled: "Salvation
I haven't had tea for a long time
In the world I honor only a woman,
Gold, honor and wine.
You have to live, old man, in my opinion:
How many slaves I destroy
I torture, I torture and hang,
And I would like to see how I sleep!
Kudeyar pounces on Glukhovsky and plunges a knife into his heart. Immediately after this, the oak falls. Thus, the hermit "rolled down ... the burden of sins."
3. Old and new
Jonah leaves on the ferry. Again the peasants start talking about sins. Vlas says that "the sin of the nobility is great." Ignat Prokhorov talks about peasant sin.
Peasant sin
The empress granted one admiral eight thousand souls of peasants for the service, for the battle with the Turks near Ochakovo. Being near death, the admiral gives the headman, whose name was Gleb, a casket. This casket contains a will, according to which all its peasants receive freedom.
A distant relative of the admiral came to the estate, learned from the headman about the will, promised him "mountains of gold." And then the will was burned.
The peasants agree with Ignat that this is a great sin. The wanderers sing a song.
hungry
The man is standing
swaying
A man is walking
Don't breathe!
From its bark
swelled up,
Longing trouble
Exhausted.
Darker face
Glass
Not seen
At the drunk.
Goes - puffs,
Walks and sleeps
Went there
Where the rye is noisy.
How the idol became
On the strip
"Rise, rise,
Rye is mother!
I am your plowman
Pankratushka!
I'll eat the rug
mountain mountain,
Eat a cheesecake
With a big table!
Eat all alone
I manage myself.
Whether mother or son
Ask - I will not give!
The deacon's son Grigory approaches the countrymen, who look sadly. Grisha Dobrosklonov talks about the freedom of the peasants and that "there will be no new Gleb in Rus'." The deacon, father, “wept over Grisha: “God will create a little head! It’s not for nothing that he rushes to Moscow, to the new city!” Vlas wishes him gold, silver, a smart and healthy wife. He replies that he does not need all this, since he wants something else:
So that my countrymen
And every peasant
Lived freely and cheerfully
All over holy Rus'!
When it began to get light, among the poor, the peasants saw a “beaten man”, who was attacked with cries of “beat him!”, “Yegor Shutov - beat him!”. Fourteen villages “driven him away, as if through a system!”
A cart with hay rides, on which soldier Ovsyannikov sits with his niece Ustinyushka. He was fed by the district committee, but the instrument broke. Ovsyannikov bought "three yellow spoons", "in due time he came up with new words, and the spoons went into action." The headman asks him to sing. The soldier sings a song.
Soldier's
Toshen light,
There is no truth
Life is boring
The pain is strong.
German bullets,
Turkish bullets,
French bullets,
Russian sticks!..
Klim compares Ovsyannikov with a deck on which he has been chopping wood since his youth, saying that "it is not so wounded." The soldier did not receive a full pension, since the doctor's assistant recognized his wounds as second-class. Ovsyannikov had to apply again with a petition. “They measured the wounds with versts and estimated each one a little more than a copper penny.”
4. Good time - good songs
The feast ended in the morning. The people go home. Swinging, Savva and Grisha lead their father home. They sing a song.
The share of the people
his happiness,
Light and freedom
First of all!
We are a little
We ask God:
honest deal
do skillfully
Give us strength!
Working life -
Direct to friend
Road to the heart
Away from the threshold
Coward and lazy!
Isn't it heaven?
The share of the people
his happiness,
Light and freedom
First of all!
Tryphon lived very poorly. The children put their father to bed. Savva starts reading a book. Grisha goes to the fields, to the meadows. He has a thin face, because in the seminary the seminarians were malnourished because of the "grabber-economist." He was the favorite son of his now deceased mother, Domna, who "thought about salt all her life." Peasant women sing a song called "Salty". It says that the mother gives her son a piece of bread, and he asks to sprinkle it with salt. The mother sprinkles flour, but the son "twisted his mouth." Tears drip on a piece of bread.
Missed mother -
Saved my son.-
Know, salt
There was a tear!
Grisha often remembered this song, grieved for his mother, the love for which merged in his soul with the love for all the peasants, for whom he is ready to die.
In the middle of the world
For a free heart
There are two ways.
Weigh the proud strength
Weigh your firm will,
How to go?
One spacious
The road is tortuous,
The passions of a slave
On it is huge,
Hungry for temptation
The crowd is coming.
About sincere life
About the lofty goal
There thought is ridiculous.
Boils there eternal
Inhuman
feud-war
For mortal blessings...
There are captive souls
Full of sin.
Looks shiny
There life is deadly
Good deaf.
The other one is tight
The road is honest
They walk on it
Only strong souls
loving,
To fight, to work.
For the bypassed
For the oppressed
Join their ranks.
Go to the downtrodden
Go to the offended -
You are needed there.
No matter how dark vakhlachina,
No matter how crowded with corvee
And slavery - and she,
Blessed, put
In Grigory Dobrosklonov.
Such a messenger.
Fate prepared for him
The path is glorious, the name is loud
people's protector,
Consumption and Siberia.
In another of his songs, Gregory believes that, despite the fact that his country has suffered a lot, it will not perish, as "the Russian people are gathering strength and learning to be a citizen."
Seeing a barge hauler who, after work, clinking copper in his pocket, goes to a tavern, Grigory sings the following song:
You are poor
You are abundant
You are powerful
You are powerless
Mother Rus'!
Saved in bondage
Free heart -
Gold, gold
The heart of the people!
The strength of the people
mighty force -
Conscience is calm
The truth is alive!
Strength with unrighteousness
They don't get along
Victim of untruth
Not invoked -
Rus' does not stir
Rus' is dead!
And lit up in it
The hidden spark
We got up - unwary,
Came out - uninvited,
Live by the grain
Mountains of Nanogeens!
Rat rises -
Innumerable!
The strength will affect her
Invincible!
You are poor
You are abundant
You are beaten
You are almighty
Mother Rus'!
Grisha is proud of his songs, because "he sang the embodiment of the happiness of the people!"
PART ONE
PROLOGUE
Seven men meet on the high road in the Pustoporozhnaya Volost: Roman, Demyan, Luka, Prov, the old man Pakhom, the brothers Ivan and Mitrodor Gubin. They come from neighboring villages: Neurozhayki, Zaplatova, Dyryavina, Razutova, Znobishina, Gorelova and Neelova. The men are arguing about who is good in Rus', who lives freely. Roman believes that the landowner, Demyan - the official, and Luka - the priest. The old man Pakhom claims that the minister lives best, the Gubin brothers - a merchant, and Prov thinks that the king.
It starts to get dark. The peasants understand that, carried away by the dispute, they have traveled thirty miles and now it is too late to return home. They decide to spend the night in the forest, make a fire in the clearing and start arguing again, and then even fighting. From their noise, all the forest animals scatter, and a chick falls out of the nest of a warbler, which Pahom picks up. The mother warbler flies up to the fire and asks in a human voice to let her chick go. For this, she will fulfill any desire of the peasants.
The men decide to go ahead and find out which of them is right. Chiffchaff tells where you can find a self-assembled tablecloth that will feed and water them on the road. The men find a self-assembled tablecloth and sit down to feast. They agree not to return home until they find out who has the best life in Rus'.
Chapter I. Pop
Soon the travelers meet the priest and tell the priest that they are looking for "who lives happily, freely in Rus'." They ask the minister of the church to honestly answer: is he satisfied with his fate?
Pop replies that he bears his cross with humility. If men believe that a happy life is peace, honor and wealth, then he has nothing of the kind. People don't choose the time of their death. So the priest is called to the dying man, even in pouring rain, even in severe frost. Yes, and the heart sometimes can not stand the widow's and orphan's tears.
There is no honor to speak of. They make up all sorts of tales about priests, laugh at them and consider meeting with a priest a bad omen. And the wealth of the priests is not the same now. Before, when noble people lived in their family estates, the incomes of the priests were not bad. The landowners made rich gifts, were baptized and married in the parish church. Here they were buried and buried. Those were the traditions. And now the nobles live in the capitals and "foreign countries", where they celebrate all church rites. And you can't take a lot of money from poor peasants.
The men respectfully bow to the priest and go on.
CHAPTER II. country fair
Travelers pass through several empty villages and ask: where have all the people gone? It turns out that there is a fair in the neighboring village. The men decide to go there. A lot of well-dressed people walk at the fair, they sell everything: from plows and horses to scarves and books. There is a lot of goods, but even more drinking establishments.
Old man Vavila is crying near the shop. He drank all the money, and promised his granddaughter goat shoes. Pavlusha Veretennikov comes up to his grandfather and buys shoes for the girl. The overjoyed old man grabs his shoes and hurries home. Veretennikov is known in the district. He loves to sing and listen to Russian songs.
CHAPTER III. drunken night
After the fair, there are drunks on the way. Who wanders, who crawls, and who even rolls in a ditch. Groans and endless drunken conversations are heard everywhere. Veretennikov is talking to the peasants at the road post. He listens and writes down songs, proverbs, and then begins to reproach the peasants for drinking a lot.
A well drunk man named Yakim enters into an argument with Veretennikov. He says that the common people have accumulated many grievances against the landlords and officials. If they didn’t drink, then it would be a big disaster, otherwise all anger dissolves in vodka. There is no measure for peasants in drunkenness, but is there any measure in grief, in hard work?
Veretennikov agrees with such reasoning and even drinks with the peasants. Here the travelers hear a beautiful valiant song and decide to look for the lucky ones in the crowd.
CHAPTER IV. Happy
Men walk around and shout: “Come out happy! We'll pour some vodka!" The people crowded. Travelers began to ask about who and how happy. One is poured, others are only laughed at. But the conclusion from the stories is this: a peasant's happiness lies in the fact that he sometimes ate his fill, and God protected him in difficult times.
The peasants are advised to find Yermila Girin, whom the whole district knows. Once the cunning merchant Altynnikov decided to take away his mill. He conspired with the judges, and said that Yermila should immediately pay a thousand rubles. Girin did not have that kind of money, but he went to the marketplace and asked the honest people to chip in. The peasants responded to the request, and bought Yermila the mill, and then returned all the money to the people. For seven years he was a steward. During that time, he did not appropriate a single penny for himself. Only once he shielded his younger brother from the recruits, then he repented before all the people and left his post.
The wanderers agree to look for Girin, but the local priest says that Yermil is in prison. Then a troika appears on the road, and a master is in it.
CHAPTER V. Landowner
The men stop the troika, in which the landowner Gavrila Afanasyevich Obolt-Obolduev is traveling, and ask how he lives. The landowner with tears begins to recall the past. Previously, he owned the whole district, he kept a whole regiment of servants and gave holidays with dances, theatrical performances and hunting. Now the great chain is broken. The landowners have land, but there are no peasants who would cultivate it.
Gavrila Afanasyevich was not accustomed to work. This is not a noble business - to deal with the economy. He only knows how to walk, hunt, and steal from the treasury. Now his ancestral home has been sold for debts, everything is stolen, and the peasants drink day and night. Obolt-Obolduev bursts into tears, and the travelers sympathize with him. After this meeting, they understand that it is necessary to seek happiness not among the rich, but in the "Unwhacked province, Ungutted volost ...".
PEASANT WOMAN
PROLOGUE
Wanderers decide to look for happy people among women. In one village, they are advised to find Matryona Timofeevna Korchagina, nicknamed the "governor". Soon the men find this beautiful, portly woman of about thirty-seven. But Korchagina does not want to talk: suffering, we urgently need to clean up the bread. Then the travelers offer their help in the field in exchange for a story about happiness. Matryona agrees.
Chapter I. Before Marriage
Korchagina's childhood passes in a non-drinking friendly family, in an atmosphere of love from her parents and brother. Cheerful and agile Matryona works a lot, but she also likes to take a walk. A stranger wooed her - a stove-maker Philip. Playing a wedding. Now Korchagina understands: only she was happy in childhood and girlhood.
Chapter II. Songs
Philip brings his young wife to his large family. It's not easy for Matryona. Her mother-in-law, father-in-law and sister-in-law do not give her life, they constantly reproach her. Everything happens exactly as it is sung in the songs. Korchagin is patient. Then her firstborn Demushka is born - like the sun in the window.
The master's steward molests a young woman. Matryona avoids him as best she can. The manager threatens that he will give Philip to the soldiers. Then the woman goes for advice to her grandfather Savely, the father of her father-in-law, who is one hundred years old.
Chapter III. Saveliy, Holy Russian hero
Savely looks like a huge bear. He spent a long time serving hard labor for murder. The cunning German manager sucked all the juice out of the serfs. When he ordered four hungry peasants to dig a well, they pushed the manager into the pit and covered it with earth. Among these killers was Savely.
CHAPTER IV. Demushka
The old man's advice was useless. The manager, who did not give Matryona a pass, suddenly died. But then another problem happened. The young mother was forced to leave Demushka under the supervision of her grandfather. Once he fell asleep, and the pigs ate the child.
The doctor and judges arrive, do an autopsy, interrogate Matryona. She is accused of intentionally killing a child, in collusion with an old man. The poor woman's mind almost goes haywire with grief. And Savely goes to the monastery to atone for his sin.
CHAPTER V. She-wolf
Four years later, the grandfather returns, and Matryona forgives him. When the eldest son of Korchagina Fedotushka turns eight years old, the boy is given into the shepherd. One day, the she-wolf manages to steal the sheep. Fedot chases after her and pulls out the already dead prey. The she-wolf is terribly thin, she leaves behind a trail of blood: she cut her nipples on the grass. The predator looks doomed at Fedot and howls. The boy feels sorry for the she-wolf and her cubs. He leaves the carcass of a sheep to the hungry beast. For this, the villagers want to flog the child, but Matryona takes the punishment for her son.
CHAPTER VI. Difficult year
There comes a hungry year in which Matryona is pregnant. Suddenly the news comes that her husband is being taken to the soldiers. The eldest son from their family is already serving, so the second one should not be taken away, but the landowner does not care about the laws. Matryona is horrified, before her there are pictures of poverty and lawlessness, because her only breadwinner and protector will not be around.
CHAPTER VII. Governor
The woman goes on foot to the city and in the morning arrives at the governor's house. She asks the porter to arrange a meeting with the governor. For two roubles, the porter agrees and lets Matryona into the house. At this time, the governor's wife comes out of the chambers. Matryona falls at her feet and falls into unconsciousness.
When Korchagina comes to, she sees that she has given birth to a boy. The kind, childless governor's wife takes care of her and the child until Matryona recovers. Together with her husband, who was released from service, the peasant woman returns home. Since then, she has not tired of praying for the health of the governor.
Chapter VIII. woman's parable
Matryona ends her story with an appeal to wanderers: do not look for happy people among women. The Lord dropped the keys to female happiness into the sea, they were swallowed by a fish. Since then, they have been looking for those keys, but they can’t find them in any way.
LATER
Chapter I
I
Travelers come to the banks of the Volga to the village of Vakhlaki. There are beautiful meadows and haymaking in full swing. Suddenly music sounds, boats moor to the shore. It was the old prince Utyatin who arrived. He examines the mowing and swears, and the peasants bow and ask for forgiveness. The peasants wonder: everything is like under serfdom. For clarification, they turn to the local steward Vlas.
II
Vlas gives an explanation. The prince was terribly angry when he found out that the peasants had been given freedom, and he had a blow. After that, Utyatin began to act weird. He does not want to believe that he no longer has power over the peasants. He even promised to curse and disinherit his sons if they say such nonsense. So the heirs of the peasants asked that they, under the master, pretend that everything was the same as before. And for this they will be granted the best meadows.
III
The prince sits down to have breakfast, which the peasants are going to stare at. One of them, the biggest loafer and drunkard, has long volunteered to play the steward in front of the prince instead of the recalcitrant Vlas. So it spreads before Utyatin, and the people can hardly restrain their laughter. One, however, can not cope with himself and laughs. The prince turns blue with anger, orders to flog the rebel. One brisk peasant woman helps out, who tells the master that her foolish son laughed.
The prince forgives everyone and sails away in a boat. Soon the peasants learn that Utyatin died on the way home.
PIR - FOR THE WHOLE WORLD
Dedicated to Sergei Petrovich Botkin
Introduction
The peasants rejoice at the death of the prince. They walk and sing songs, and the former servant of Baron Sineguzin, Vikenty, tells an amazing story.
About the exemplary serf - Yakov Verny
There lived one very cruel and greedy landowner Polivanov, he had a faithful serf Yakov. The man endured a lot from the master. But Polivanov's legs were taken away, and the faithful Yakov became an indispensable person for the disabled person. The master is not overjoyed with the serf, he calls him his own brother.
Somehow, Yakov's beloved nephew decided to marry, he asks the master to marry the girl that Polivanov looked after for himself. The master, for such impudence, gives his opponent to the soldiers, and Yakov, out of grief, goes into a binge. Polivanov feels bad without an assistant, but the serf returns to work in two weeks. Again the master is pleased with the servant.
But a new problem is already on the way. On the way to the master's sister, Yakov unexpectedly turns into a ravine, harnesses his horses, and hangs himself on the reins. All night the master drives away the crows from the poor body of the servant with a stick.
After this story, the peasants argued about who is more sinful in Rus': landowners, peasants or robbers? And the pilgrim Ionushka tells such a story.
About two great sinners
Somehow a band of robbers led by ataman Kudeyar hunted. The robber ruined many innocent souls, and the time has come - he began to repent. And he went to the Holy Sepulcher, and accepted the schema in the monastery - everyone does not forgive sins, his conscience torments. Kudeyar settled in a forest under a hundred-year-old oak, where he dreamed of a saint who showed the way to salvation. The murderer will be forgiven when he cuts this oak with the knife that killed people.
Kudeyar began to cut oak in three girths with a knife. Things go slowly, because the sinner is already at a respectable age and weak. One day, the landowner Glukhovsky drives up to the oak tree and begins to mock the old man. He beats slaves as much as he wants, tortures and hangs him, and sleeps peacefully. Here Kudeyar falls into a terrible rage and kills the landowner. The oak immediately falls, and all the sins of the robber are immediately forgiven.
After this story, the peasant Ignatius Prokhorov begins to argue and prove that the gravest sin is the peasant. Here is his story.
Peasant sin
For military merit, the admiral receives from the empress eight thousand souls of serfs. Before his death, he calls the headman Gleb and hands him a casket, and in it - free for all the peasants. After the death of the admiral, the heir began to pester Gleb: he gives him money, free, just to get the coveted casket. And Gleb trembled, agreed to give important documents. So the heir burned all the papers, and eight thousand souls remained in the fortress. The peasants, after listening to Ignatius, agree that this sin is the most serious.
At this time, a cart appears on the road. It rides to the city for a pension retired soldier. He is sad that he needs to get all the way to St. Petersburg, and the "piece of iron" is very expensive. The peasants offer the serviceman to sing and play on spoons. The soldier sings about his hard share, about how unfairly he was given a pension. He is almost unable to walk, and his injuries were considered "minor". The peasants drop a penny each and collect a ruble for the soldier.
EPILOGUE
Grisha Dobrosklonov
The local deacon Dobrosklonov has a son, Grisha, who studies at the seminary. The guy is endowed with excellent qualities: smart, kind, hardworking and honest. He composes songs and is going to enter the university, he dreams of improving the life of the people.
Returning from the peasant festivities, Gregory composes a new song: “The army is rising - innumerable! The strength in it will be invincible!” He will definitely teach his fellow villagers to sing it.
Wanderers go, they see haymaking. Haven't mowed for a long time, I wanted to work. They took braids from the women, began to mow. Suddenly, music is heard from the river. A gray-haired man named Vlas explains that this is a landowner riding in a boat. He pushes the women, says that the main thing is not to upset the landowner. Three boats are moored to the shore, in them there is an old gray-haired landowner, hangers-on, servants, three young ladies, two beautiful ladies, two mustachioed gentlemen. The old landowner goes around the hayfield, finds fault with one stack that the hay is damp, demands that it be dried. Everyone fawns over him and tries to please. When the landowner and his retinue leave for breakfast, the wanderers pester Vlas with questions, who turned out to be a steward, wondering why the landowner is in charge, although serfdom has been abolished, which means that the hay and the meadow that is being mowed are not his. Vlas says that their landowner is “special” - “he has been acting weird all his life, fooling around, and then suddenly a thunderstorm broke out.” The landowner did not believe. The governor himself came to him, they argued for a long time, and in the evening the master had a stroke - the left half of the body was taken away, lying motionless. The heirs arrived - sons, "black-moustached guards", with their wives. But the old man recovered, and when he heard from his sons about the abolition of serfdom, he called them traitors, cowards, etc. The sons, fearing that he would deprive them of their inheritance, decide in. indulge him all. One of the "ladies" told the old man that the peasants had been ordered to return the landlords again. The old man was delighted, ordered to serve a prayer service, to ring the bells. The heirs persuade the peasants to break the comedy. But there were also those who did not have to be persuaded. One, Ipat, said: “You have fun! And I'm a serf of the Duck princes - and that's the whole story! Ipat fondly recalls how the prince harnessed him to the cart, how he bathed him in an ice hole - kunal into one hole, pulled him out into another and immediately gave him vodka, how he put him on the goats to play the violin. The horse stumbled, Ipat fell, the sleigh ran over him, the prince drove away. But after a while he returned - Ipat was grateful to the prince to tears that he did not leave him to freeze. Gradually, everyone agrees to deception - to pretend that serfdom has not been abolished, only Vlas refuses to be a steward. Then Klim Lavin is called to be a steward:
Been to Moscow and St. Petersburg, Traveled to Siberia with the merchants, It's a pity I didn't stay there! Clever, but a penny does not hold, Heather, but gets caught in a mess! Fuck man! Heard a lot of special words: Patronage, Moscow, the capital, Great Russian Soul. "I am a Russian peasant!" - He bawled in a wild voice And, having knocked on the forehead with dishes, He drank half a bottle in one gulp!
Klim has a clay conscience, And Minin's beard, You'll see, so you'll think, That you can't find a peasant more powerful and sober.
The old order is gone. The old prince walks around the patrimony, orders, the peasants laugh behind his back. The prince gives stupid orders: having learned that one widow's house has collapsed and she is making her way through alms, he orders to fix the house and marry her to the neighbor Gavrila; later it turns out that the widow is under seventy, and the "groom" is six years old. Only the muzhik Agap Petrov did not want to obey the old rules, and when his landowner caught him stealing the forest, he told Utyatin everything directly, called him a jester, etc. Utyatin had a second blow. But the hopes of the heirs were not justified this time either: the old man woke up and began to demand the punishment of the rebel - a public flogging. The heirs begin to persuade Agap, they persuade the whole world, Klim drank with him for a day, then, having persuaded him, he took him to the manor's yard. The old prince cannot walk - he sits on the porch. Agap was taken to the stable, they put a bottle of wine in front of him, and asked him to shout louder. He shouted so that even Utyatin took pity. Drunk Agap was carried home. But he soon died: “Klim, the shameless one, ruined him, anathema, with a blame!”
Utyatin at this time is sitting at the table - there are obsequious servants around, footmen drive away flies, everyone agrees in everything. The peasants are standing at the porch. Everyone breaks a comedy, suddenly one man can not stand it - he laughs. Utyatin jumps up, demands the punishment of the rebel. But the laughing man - "a rich Petersburger", arrived on time, local orders do not apply to him. The peasants persuade one of the wanderers to obey. They open up. The burmistrov's godfather saves everyone - she throws herself at the feet of the master, says that her son laughed - an unintelligent boy. Utyatin calms down. He drinks champagne, jokes, “pinches the beautiful daughters-in-law”, orders the musicians to play, makes the daughters-in-law and sons dance, ridicules them. One of the "ladies" is forced to sing, falls asleep. They take him away. Klim says that he would never have taken up such a case if he had not known that the “last child” was swaggering at his will. Vlas objects that until quite recently all this was serious, but "not in jest and for money." Here comes the news that Utyatin died - a new stroke was enough just after eating. The peasants breathed a sigh of relief. But their joy was premature:
With the death of the Last, the caress of the lord disappeared:
The Guardsmen did not let the Vahlaks get drunk! And for the pasture meadows Heirs with the peasants Compete to this day. Vlas is an intercessor for the peasants, Lives in Moscow ... was in St. Petersburg ... But there is no sense!
Need to download an essay? Click and save - "Summary: "Who lives well in Rus'" - Part 2 Last. And the finished essay appeared in the bookmarks.Who lives well in Rus'
Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov
“Who lives well in Rus'” is the final work of Nekrasov, a folk epic, which included all the centuries-old experience of peasant life, all the information about the people collected by the poet “by word” for twenty years.
Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov
Who lives well in Rus'
PART ONE
In what year - count
In what land - guess
On the pillar path
Seven men came together:
Seven temporarily liable,
tightened province,
County Terpigorev,
empty parish,
From adjacent villages:
Zaplatova, Dyryavina,
Razutova, Znobishina,
Gorelova, Neelova -
Crop failure, too,
Agreed - and argued:
Who has fun
Feel free in Rus'?
Roman said: to the landowner,
Demyan said: to the official,
Luke said: ass.
Fat-bellied merchant! -
Gubin brothers said
Ivan and Mitrodor.
Old man Pahom pushed
And he said, looking at the ground:
noble boyar,
Minister of the State.
And Prov said: to the king ...
Man what a bull: vtemyashitsya
In the head what a whim -
Stake her from there
You won’t knock out: they rest,
Everyone is on their own!
Is there such a dispute?
What do passers-by think?
To know that the children found the treasure
And they share...
To each his own
Left the house before noon:
That path led to the forge,
He went to the village of Ivankovo
Call Father Prokofy
Baptize the child.
Pahom honeycombs
Carried to the market in the Great,
And two brothers Gubina
So simple with a halter
Catching a stubborn horse
They went to their own herd.
It's high time for everyone
Return your way -
They are walking side by side!
They walk like they're running
Behind them are gray wolves,
What is further - then sooner.
They go - they perekorya!
They shout - they will not come to their senses!
And time does not wait.
They didn't notice the controversy
As the red sun set
How the evening came.
Probably a whole night
So they went - not knowing where,
When they meet a woman,
Crooked Durandiha,
She did not shout: “Venerable!
Where are you looking at night
Have you thought about going?..”
Asked, laughed
Whipped, witch, gelding
And jumped off...
"Where? .." - exchanged glances
Here are our men
They stand, they are silent, they look down...
The night has long gone
Frequent stars lit up
In high skies
The moon surfaced, the shadows are black
The road was cut
Zealous walkers.
Oh shadows! black shadows!
Who won't you chase?
Who won't you overtake?
Only you, black shadows,
You can not catch - hug!
To the forest, to the path
He looked, was silent Pahom,
I looked - I scattered my mind
And he said at last:
"Well! goblin glorious joke
He played a trick on us!
After all, we are without a little
Thirty miles away!
Home now toss and turn -
We are tired - we will not reach,
Come on, there's nothing to be done.
Let's rest until the sun! .. "
Having dumped the trouble on the devil,
Under the forest along the path
The men sat down.
They lit a fire, formed,
Two ran away for vodka,
And the rest for a while
The glass is made
I pulled the birch bark.
The vodka came soon.
Ripe and snack -
The men are feasting!
Kosushki drank three,
Ate - and argued
Again: who has fun to live,
Feel free in Rus'?
Roman shouts: to the landowner,
Demyan shouts: to the official,
Luke yells: ass;
Fat-bellied merchant, -
The Gubin brothers are screaming,
Ivan and Mitrodor;
Pahom shouts: to the brightest
noble boyar,
Minister of the State,
And Prov shouts: to the king!
Taken more than ever
perky men,
Cursing swearing,
No wonder they get stuck
Into each other's hair...
Look - they've got it!
Roman hits Pakhomushka,
Demyan hits Luka.
And two brothers Gubina
They iron Prov hefty, -
And everyone screams!
A booming echo woke up
Went for a walk, a walk,
It went screaming, shouting,
As if to tease
Stubborn men.
King! - heard to the right
Left responds:
Butt! ass! ass!
The whole forest was in turmoil
With flying birds
By swift-footed beasts
And creeping reptiles, -
And a groan, and a roar, and a rumble!
First of all, a gray bunny
From a neighboring bush
Suddenly jumped out, as if tousled,
And off he went!
Behind him are small jackdaws
At the top of the birches raised
Nasty, sharp squeak.
And here at the foam
With fright, a tiny chick
Fell from the nest;
Chirping, crying chiffchaff,
Where is the chick? - will not find!
Then the old cuckoo
I woke up and thought
Someone to cuckoo;
Taken ten times
Yes, it crashed every time
And started again...
Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!
Bread will sting
You choke on an ear -
You won't poop!
Seven owls flocked,
Admire the carnage
From seven big trees
Laugh, midnighters!
And their eyes are yellow
They burn like burning wax
Fourteen candles!
And the raven, the smart bird,
Ripe, sitting on a tree
At the very fire.
Sitting and praying to hell
To be slammed to death
Someone!
Cow with a bell
What has strayed since the evening
Came to the fire, tired
Eyes on men
I listened to crazy speeches
And began, my heart,
Moo, moo, moo!
Silly cow mooing
Small jackdaws squeak.
The boys are screaming,
And the echo echoes everything.
He has one concern -
To tease honest people
Scare guys and women!
Nobody saw him
And everyone has heard
Without a body - but it lives,
Without a tongue - screaming!
Owl - Zamoskvoretskaya
Princess - immediately mooing,
Flying over peasants
Rushing about the ground,
That about the bushes with a wing ...
The fox herself is cunning,
Out of curiosity,
Sneaked up on the men
I listened, I listened
And she walked away, thinking:
"And the devil does not understand them!"
And indeed: the disputants themselves
Hardly knew, remembered -
What are they talking about...
Naming the sides decently
To each other, come to their senses
Finally, the peasants
Drunk from a puddle
Washed, refreshed
Sleep began to roll them ...
In the meantime, a tiny chick,
Little by little, half a sapling,
flying low,
Got to the fire.
Pakhomushka caught him,
He brought it to the fire, looked at it
And he said: "Little bird,
And the nail is up!
I breathe - you roll off the palm of your hand,
Sneeze - roll into the fire,
I click - you will roll dead,
And yet you, little bird,
Stronger than a man!
Wings will get stronger soon
Bye-bye! wherever you want
You will fly there!
Oh you little pichuga!
Give us your wings
We will circle the whole kingdom,
Let's see, let's see
Let's ask and find out:
Who lives happily
Feel free in Rus'?
"You don't even need wings,
If only we had bread
Half a pood a day, -
And so we would Mother Rus'
They measured it with their feet!” -
Said the sullen Prov.
"Yes, a bucket of vodka," -
Added willing
Before vodka, the Gubin brothers,
Ivan and Mitrodor.
“Yes, in the morning there would be cucumbers
Salty ten, "-
The men joked.
“And at noon would be a jug
Cold kvass."
"And in the evening for a teapot
Hot tea…”
While they were talking
Curled, whirled foam
Above them: listened to everything
And sat by the fire.
Chiviknula, jumped up
Pahomu says:
"Let go of the chick!
For a little chick
I'll give you a big ransom."
– What will you give? -
"Lady's bread
Half a pood a day
I'll give you a bucket of vodka
In the morning I will give cucumbers,
And at noon sour kvass,
And in the evening a seagull!
- And where,
Page 2 of 11
little pichuga, -
Gubin brothers asked, -
Find wine and bread
Are you on seven men? -
“Find - you will find yourself.
And I, little pichuga,
I'll tell you how to find it."
- Tell! -
"Go through the woods
Against the thirtieth pillar
A straight verst:
Come to the meadow
Standing in that meadow
Two old pines
Beneath these under the pines
Buried box.
Get her -
That box is magical.
It has a self-assembled tablecloth,
Whenever you wish
Eat, drink!
Quietly just say:
"Hey! self-made tablecloth!
Treat the men!”
At your request
At my command
Everything will appear at once.
Now let the chick go!”
- Wait! we are poor people
I'm going on a long road,
Pahom answered her. -
You, I see, are a wise bird,
Respect - old clothes
Bewitch us!
- So that the peasants' Armenians
Worn, not worn! -
Roman demanded.
- To fake bast shoes
Served, did not crash, -
Demyan demanded.
- So that a louse, a foul flea
I didn’t breed in shirts, -
Luke demanded.
- Wouldn’t the onuchenki ... -
Gubins demanded...
And the bird answered them:
"All the tablecloth is self-assembled
Repair, wash, dry
You will be ... Well, let it go! .. "
Opening a wide palm,
He let the chick go.
Let it go - and a tiny chick,
Little by little, half a sapling,
flying low,
Went to the hollow.
Behind him, a foam rose
And on the fly added:
“Look, chur, one!
How much food will take
Womb - then ask
And you can ask for vodka
In day exactly on a bucket.
If you ask more
And one and two - it will be fulfilled
At your request,
And in the third, be in trouble!
And the foam flew away
With my darling chick,
And the men in single file
Reached for the road
Look for the thirtieth pillar.
Found! - silently go
Straight, straight
Through the dense forest,
Every step counts.
And how they measured a mile,
We saw a meadow -
Standing in that meadow
Two old pines...
The peasants dug
Got that box
Opened and found
That tablecloth self-assembled!
They found it and shouted at once:
“Hey, self-assembled tablecloth!
Treat the men!”
Look - the tablecloth unfolded,
Where did they come from
Two strong hands
A bucket of wine was placed
Bread was laid on a mountain
And they hid again.
“But why aren’t there cucumbers?”
"What is not a hot tea?"
“What is there no cold kvass?”
Everything suddenly appeared...
The peasants unbelted
They sat down by the tablecloth.
Went here feast mountain!
Kissing for joy
promise to each other
Forward do not fight in vain,
And it's quite controversial
By reason, by God,
On the honor of the story -
Do not toss and turn in the houses,
Don't see your wives
Not with the little guys
Not with old old people,
As long as the matter is controversial
Solutions will not be found
Until they tell
No matter how it is for sure:
Who lives happily
Feel free in Rus'?
Having made such a vow,
In the morning like dead
Men fell asleep...
Chapter I. POP
wide path,
lined with birches,
stretched far,
Sandy and deaf.
Along the side of the path
The hills are coming
With fields, with hayfields,
And more often with inconvenience,
abandoned land;
There are old villages
There are new villages
By the rivers, by the ponds...
Forests, floodplain meadows,
Russian streams and rivers
Good in spring.
But you, spring fields!
On your seedlings are poor
It's not fun to watch!
"No wonder in the long winter
(Our wanderers interpret)
It snowed every day.
Spring has come - the snow has affected!
He is humble for the time being:
Flies - silent, lies - silent,
When he dies, then he roars.
Water - everywhere you look!
The fields are completely flooded
To carry manure - there is no road,
And the time is not early -
The month of May is coming!
Dislike and old,
It hurts more than that for new
Trees for them to look at.
Oh, huts, new huts!
You are smart, let it build you
Not an extra penny
And blood trouble!
Wanderers met in the morning
More and more people are small:
His brother is a peasant-bast worker,
Artisans, beggars,
Soldiers, coachmen.
Beggars, soldiers
Strangers didn't ask
How is it easy for them, is it difficult
Lives in Rus'?
Soldiers shave with an awl
Soldiers warm themselves with smoke -
What happiness is here?
The day was already drawing to a close,
They go the way,
The pop is coming towards.
The peasants took off their hats.
bow low,
Lined up in a row
And gelding savrasoma
Blocked the way.
The priest raised his head
He looked and asked with his eyes:
What do they want?
“No way! we are not robbers!” -
Luka said to the priest.
(Luke is a squat man,
With a wide beard.
Stubborn, verbose and stupid.
Luka looks like a mill:
One is not a bird mill,
What, no matter how it flaps its wings,
Probably won't fly.)
"We are men of power,
Of the temporary
tightened province,
County Terpigorev,
empty parish,
Roundabout villages:
Zaplatova, Dyryavina,
Razutova, Znobishina,
Gorelova, Neelova -
Crop failure too.
Let's go on something important:
We have a concern
Is it such a concern
Which of the houses survived
With work unfriended us,
Got off food.
You give us the right word
To our peasant speech
Without laughter and without cunning,
According to conscience, according to reason,
Answer truthfully
Not so with your care
We will go to another…”
- I give you the right word:
When you ask a thing
Without laughter and without cunning,
In truth and reason
How should you answer.
"Thank you. Listen!
Walking the path,
We got together casually
They agreed and argued:
Who has fun
Feel free in Rus'?
Roman said: to the landowner,
Demyan said: to the official,
And I said: ass.
Fat-bellied merchant, -
Gubin brothers said
Ivan and Mitrodor.
Pahom said: to the brightest
noble boyar,
Minister of the State.
And Prov said: to the king ...
Man what a bull: vtemyashitsya
In the head what a whim -
Stake her from there
You won’t knock out: no matter how they argued,
We did not agree!
Argued - quarreled,
Quarreled - fought,
Podravshis - dressed up:
Don't go apart
Do not toss and turn in the houses,
Don't see your wives
Not with the little guys
Not with old old people,
As long as our dispute
We won't find a solution
Until we get it
Whatever it is - for sure:
Who wants to live happily
Feel free in Rus'?
Tell us Godly
Is the priest's life sweet?
You are like - at ease, happily
Do you live, honest father? .. "
Downcast, thinking
Sitting in a cart, pop
And he said: - Orthodox!
It's a sin to grumble at God
Bear my cross with patience
I live ... but how? Listen!
I'll tell you the truth, the truth
And you are a peasant mind
Dare! -
"Begin!"
What is happiness, in your opinion?
Peace, wealth, honor -
Isn't that right, dear ones?
They said yes...
- Now let's see, brethren,
What is the ass peace of mind?
Start, confess, it would be necessary
Almost from birth
How to get a diploma
the priest's son
At what cost popovich
The priesthood is bought
Let's better shut up!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .Page 3 of 11
. . . . . . . . . .
Our roads are difficult.
We have a large income.
Sick, dying
Born into the world
Do not choose time:
In stubble and haymaking,
In the dead of autumn night
In winter, in severe frosts,
And in the spring flood -
Go where you are called!
You go unconditionally.
And let only the bones
One broke,
No! every time it gets wet,
The soul will hurt.
Do not believe, Orthodox,
There is a limit to habit.
No heart to endure
Without some trepidation
death rattle,
grave sob,
Orphan sorrow!
Amen!.. Now think.
What is the peace of the ass?..
The peasants thought little
Letting the priest rest
They said with a bow:
"What else can you tell us?"
- Now let's see, brethren,
What is the honor of the priest?
A tricky task
Wouldn't make you angry...
Say, Orthodox
Who do you call
Foal breed?
Chur! respond to demand!
The peasants hesitated.
They are silent - and the pope is silent ...
Who are you afraid to meet?
Walking the way?
Chur! respond to demand!
They groan, shift,
- Who are you talking about?
You are fairy tales,
And obscene songs
And all the bullshit? ..
Mother-popadyu sedate,
Popov's innocent daughter
Seminarian of any -
How do you honor?
Who is after, like a gelding,
Shout: ho-ho-ho? ..
The kids got down
They are silent - and the pope is silent ...
The peasants thought
And pop with a big hat
Waving in my face
Yes, I looked at the sky.
In the spring, that the grandchildren are small,
With the ruddy sun-grandfather
Clouds are playing
Here is the right side
One continuous cloud
Covered - clouded
She fainted and cried:
Rows of gray threads
They hung to the ground.
And closer, above the peasants,
From small, torn,
Merry clouds
Laughing red sun
Like a girl from sheaves.
But the cloud has moved
Pop hat is covered -
Be heavy rain.
And the right side
Already bright and joyful
There the rain stops.
Not rain, there is a miracle of God:
There with golden threads
Skeins are scattered…
“Not by themselves ... by parents
We are somehow ... ”- the Gubin brothers
They finally said.
And the others agreed:
“Not by themselves, by their parents!”
And the priest said, “Amen!
Sorry Orthodox!
Not in condemnation of the neighbor,
And at your request
I told you the truth.
Such is the honor of the priest
in the peasantry. And the landowners...
“You are past them, the landowners!
We know them!"
- Now let's see, brethren,
Otkudova wealth
Popovskoe is coming?..
During the near
Russian Empire
Noble estates
It was full.
And the landowners lived there,
eminent owners,
Which are no longer there!
Be fruitful and multiply
And they let us live.
What weddings were played there,
What babies were born
On free bread!
Though often cool,
However, well-meaning
Those were the gentlemen
The parish was not alienated:
They got married with us
Our children were baptized
They came to us to repent,
We buried them
And if it happened
That the landowner lived in the city,
So probably die
He came to the village.
When he dies by accident
And then punish firmly
Bury in the parish.
You look to the rural temple
On the funeral chariot
In six horses heirs
The deceased is being transported -
The ass is a good amendment,
For the laity, a holiday is a holiday ...
And now it's not like that!
Like a Jewish tribe
The landowners scattered
Through a distant foreign land
And in native Rus'.
No more pride now
Lie in native possession
Next to fathers, with grandfathers,
And many possessions
They went to the barryshniks.
oh damn bones
Russian, nobility!
Where are you not buried?
What land are you not in?
Then, an article… schismatics…
I'm not sinful, I didn't live
Nothing from the schismatics.
Luckily, there was no need
In my parish is
Living in Orthodoxy
two-thirds of the parishioners.
And there are such volosts
Where almost entirely schismatics,
So how to be an ass?
Everything in the world is changeable
The world itself will pass...
Laws, formerly strict
To the dissenters, softened,
And with them and priestly
Income mat came.
The landlords moved
They don't live in estates.
And die of old age
They don't come to us anymore.
Wealthy landowners
devout old ladies,
who died out
who settled down
Close to monasteries
Nobody is now a cassock
Don't give a pop!
No one will embroider the air ...
Live from the same peasants
Collect worldly hryvnias,
Yes pies on holidays
Yes, eggs oh saint.
The peasant himself needs
And I would be glad to give, but there is nothing ...
And that's not for everyone
And sweet peasant penny.
Our favors are meager,
Sands, swamps, mosses,
The cattle walks from hand to mouth,
Bread itself is born, friend,
And if it gets good
Cheese land-breadwinner,
So a new problem:
Nowhere to go with bread!
Lock in need, sell it
For a real trifle
And there - a crop failure!
Then pay exorbitant prices
Sell the cattle.
Pray Orthodox!
Great disaster threatens
And this year:
Winter was fierce
Spring is rainy
It would be necessary to sow for a long time,
And on the fields - water!
Have mercy, Lord!
Send a cool rainbow
To our skies!
(Taking off his hat, the shepherd is baptized,
And listeners too.)
Our poor villages
And in them the peasants are sick
Yes, sad women
Nurses, drinkers,
Slaves, pilgrims
And eternal workers
Lord give them strength!
With such works pennies
Life is hard!
It happens to the sick
You will come: not dying,
Terrible peasant family
At the moment when she has to
Lose the breadwinner!
You admonish the deceased
And support in the rest
You try your best
The spirit is awake! And here to you
The old woman, the mother of the deceased,
Look, stretching with a bony,
Callused hand.
The soul will turn
How they tinkle in this hand
Two copper coins!
Of course, it's clean
For demanding retribution,
Do not take - so there is nothing to live with.
Yes, a word of comfort
Freeze on the tongue
And as if offended
Go home... Amen...
Finished the speech - and the gelding
Pop lightly slapped.
The peasants parted
They bowed low.
The horse moved slowly.
And six comrades
As if they were talking
Attacked with reproaches
With selected big swearing
On poor Luke:
- What did you take? stubborn head!
Rustic club!
That's where the argument gets in! -
"Nobles bell -
Priests live like princes.
They go under the sky
Popov's tower,
The priest's patrimony is buzzing -
loud bells -
For the whole world of God.
Three years I, robots,
Lived with the priest in the workers,
Raspberry - not life!
Popova porridge - with butter.
Popov pie - with filling,
Popovy cabbage soup - with smelt!
Popov's wife is fat,
Popov's daughter is white,
Popov's horse is fat,
Popov's bee is full,
How the bell tolls!
Page 4 of 11
here's your praise
Pop's life!
Why was he yelling, swaggering?
Climbed into a fight, anathema?
Didn't you think to take
What is a beard with a shovel?
So with a goat beard
Walked the world before
than the forefather Adam,
And it's considered a fool
And now the goat! ..
Luke stood silent,
I was afraid they wouldn't slap
Comrades on the side.
It became so
Yes, fortunately the peasant
The road bent
The priest's face is strict
Appeared on a hillock ...
CHAPTER II. VILLAGE FAIR
No wonder our wanderers
They scolded the wet
Cold spring.
The peasant needs spring
And early and friendly,
And here - even a wolf howl!
The sun does not warm the earth
And rainy clouds
Like milk cows
They go to heaven.
Driven snow, and greenery
No weed, no leaf!
Water is not removed
The earth does not dress
Green bright velvet
And like a dead man without a shroud,
Lies under a cloudy sky
Sad and naked.
Pity the poor peasant
And more sorry for the cattle;
Feeding scarce supplies,
The owner of the twig
Chased her into the meadows
What is there to take? Chernekhonko!
Only on Nicholas of the spring
The weather turned up
Green fresh grass
The cattle enjoyed.
The day is hot. Under the birches
The peasants are making their way
They chat among themselves:
"We're going through one village,
Let's go another - empty!
And today is a holiday
Where did the people disappear to? .. "
They go through the village - on the street
Some guys are small
In the houses - old women,
And even locked up
Castle gates.
The castle is a faithful dog:
Doesn't bark, doesn't bite
He won't let you in the house!
Passed the village, saw
Mirror in green frame
With the edges of a full pond.
Swallows soar over the pond;
Some mosquitoes
Agile and skinny
Hopping, as if on dry land,
They walk on the water.
Along the banks, in the broom,
The corncrakes creak.
On a long, rickety raft
With a roll, the priest is thick
It stands like a plucked haystack,
Tucking the hem.
On the same raft
Sleeping duck with ducklings...
Chu! horse snore!
The peasants looked at once
And they saw over the water
Two heads: a man's.
Curly and swarthy
With an earring (the sun blinked
On that white earring)
Another - horse
With a rope, fathoms at five.
The man takes the rope in his mouth,
The man swims - and the horse swims,
The man neighed, and the horse neighed.
Float, scream! Under the grandmother
Under the little ducks
The raft is moving.
I caught up with the horse - grab it by the withers!
I jumped up and went to the meadow
Child: the body is white,
And the neck is like pitch;
Water flows in streams
From horse and rider.
“And what do you have in the village
Neither old nor small
How did the whole nation die?
- They went to the village of Kuzminskoye,
Today there is a fair
And a temple feast. -
“How far is Kuzminskoe?”
- Yes, it will be three miles.
"Let's go to the village of Kuzminskoye,
Let's watch the holiday-fair! -
The men decided
And they thought to themselves:
Isn't that where he's hiding?
Who lives happily? .. "
Kuzminsky rich,
And what's more, it's dirty.
Trading village.
It stretches along the slope,
Then it descends into the ravine.
And there again on the hill -
How can there not be dirt here?
Two churches in it are old,
One old believer
Another Orthodox
House with the inscription: school,
Empty, packed tightly
Hut in one window
With the image of a paramedic,
Bleeding.
There is a dirty hotel
Decorated with a sign
(With a big nosed teapot
Tray in the hands of the carrier,
And small cups
Like a goose by goslings,
That kettle is surrounded)
There are permanent shops
Like a county
Gostiny Dvor…
Wanderers came to the square:
A lot of goods
And apparently invisible
To the people! Isn't it fun?
It seems that there is no way of the godfather,
And, as if before the icons,
Men without hats.
Such a sidekick!
Look where they go
Peasant hats:
In addition to the wine warehouse,
Taverns, restaurants,
A dozen damask shops,
Three inns,
Yes, "Rensky cellar",
Yes, a couple of zucchini.
Eleven zucchini
Set for the holiday
Village tents.
With each five trays;
Carriers - youngsters
Trained, poignant,
And they can't keep up with everything
Can't handle surrender!
Look what? stretched out
Peasant hands with hats
With scarves, with mittens.
Oh, Orthodox thirst,
How big are you!
Just to douse the darling,
And there they will get hats,
How will the market go?
By drunken heads
The sun is playing...
Intoxicating, loud, festive,
Variegated, red all around!
The pants on the guys are plush,
striped vests,
Shirts of all colors;
The women are wearing red dresses,
The girls have braids with ribbons,
They float with winches!
And there are still tricks
Dressed in the capital -
And expands and pouts
Hem on hoops!
If you step in - they will undress!
At ease, new fashionistas,
You fishing tackle
Wear under skirts!
Looking at elegant women,
Furious Old Believer
Tovarke says:
"Be hungry! be hungry!
See how the seedlings got wet,
What spring flood
Worth to Petrov!
Ever since the women started
Dress up in red chintzes, -
Forests do not rise
But at least not this bread!
- Why are the chintzes red?
Did you do something wrong here, mother?
I won't put my mind to it! -
“And those French chintzes -
Painted with dog blood!
Well… understand now?…”
They hustled on horseback,
On the hill, where they are piled
Roe deer, rakes, harrows,
Bagry, cart looms,
Rims, axes.
There was a brisk trade
With godfather, with jokes,
With a healthy, loud laugh.
And how not to laugh?
The guy is kinda tiny
I went, I tried rims:
Bent one - do not like it
Bent the other, pushed.
And how will the rim straighten -
A flick on the man's forehead!
A man roars over the rim,
"Elm club"
Scolds the fighter.
Another came with different
Wooden handicraft -
And dumped the whole cart!
Drunk! The axle is broken
And he began to do it -
The ax is broken! changed my mind
A man with an ax
Scolds him, reproaches him,
As if doing the job:
“You scoundrel, not an ax!
Empty service, don't give a damn
And he did not help.
All your life you bowed
And there was no affection!
Wanderers went to the shops:
Love handkerchiefs,
Ivanovo chintz,
Harnesses, new shoes,
The product of the Kimryaks.
At that shoe store
The strangers laugh again:
Here are the goat's shoes
Grandfather traded for granddaughter
Five times about the price
Page 5 of 11
asked
He turned in his hands, looked around:
First class product!
"Well, uncle! two kopecks
Pay, or get lost!" -
The merchant told him.
- And you wait! – Admire
An old man with a tiny boot
This is how he speaks:
- My son-in-law does not care, and the daughter will be silent,
Sorry granddaughter! hung herself
On the neck, fidget:
“Buy a hotel, grandfather.
Buy it! - silk head
The face tickles, caresses,
Kissing the old man.
Wait, barefoot crawler!
Wait, yule! gantry
Buy boots...
Vavilushka boasted,
Both old and small
Promised gifts,
And he drank himself to a penny!
How I shameless eyes
Will I show my family?
My son-in-law does not care, and my daughter will be silent,
Wife - do not care, let him grumble!
And I’m sorry for the granddaughter! .. - Went again
About granddaughter! Killed!..
The people gathered, listening,
Do not laugh, pity;
Happen, work, bread
He would have been helped
And take out two two-kopeck coins -
So you will be left with nothing.
Yes, there was a man
Pavlusha Veretennikov
(What kind, rank,
The men did not know
However, they were called "master".
He was much more of a baluster,
He wore a red shirt
Cloth undershirt,
Lubricated boots;
He sang Russian songs smoothly
And I loved listening to them.
It was taken down by many
In the inns,
In taverns, in taverns.)
So he rescued Vavila -
I bought him shoes.
Vavilo grabbed them
And he was! - for joy
Thanks even to the bar
Forgot to say old man
But other peasants
So they were disappointed
So happy, like everyone
He gave the ruble!
There was also a shop
With pictures and books
Ofeny stocked up
With your goods in it.
"Do you need generals?" -
The merchant-burner asked them.
“And give the generals!
Yes, only you in conscience,
To be real -
Thicker, more menacing."
“Wonderful! how you look! -
The merchant said with a smile,
It's not about the build…”
- And in what? kidding, friend!
Rubbish, or what, it is desirable to sell?
Where are we going with her?
You're naughty! Before the peasant
All generals are equal
Like cones on a fir tree:
To sell the shabby one,
You need to get to the dock
And fat and formidable
I'll give it to everyone...
Come on big, portly,
Chest uphill, bulging eyes,
Yes, more stars!
“But you don’t want civilians?”
- Well, here's another with the civilians! -
(However, they took it - cheap! -
some dignitary
For the belly with a barrel of wine
And for seventeen stars.)
Merchant - with all due respect,
Whatever, that will regale
(From Lubyanka - the first thief!) -
Dropped a hundred Blucher,
Archimandrite Photius,
Robber Sipko,
Sold the book: "Jester Balakirev"
And the "English milord" ...
Put in a box of books
Let's go for a walk portraits
By the kingdom of all Russia,
Until they settle down
In a peasant's summer goreka,
On a low wall...
God knows what for!
Eh! eh! will the time come
When (come, welcome! ..)
Let the peasant understand
What is a portrait of a portrait,
What is a book a book?
When a man is not Blucher
And not my lord stupid -
Belinsky and Gogol
Will you carry it from the market?
Oh people, Russian people!
Orthodox peasants!
Have you ever heard
Are you these names?
Those are great names
Worn them, glorified
Protectors of the people!
Here you would have their portraits
Hang in your boots,
“And I would be glad to heaven, but the door
Such speech breaks
In the shop unexpectedly.
What door do you want? -
“Yes, to the booth. Chu! music!.."
"Come on, I'll show you!" -
Hearing about the farce
Come and our wanderers
Listen, stare.
Comedy with Petrushka,
With a goat with a drummer
And not with a simple hurdy-gurdy,
And with real music
They looked here.
Comedy is not smart
However, not stupid
Wishful, quarterly
Not in the eyebrow, but right in the eye!
The hut is full-full.
People crack nuts
And then two or three peasants
Spread a word -
Look, vodka has appeared:
Look and drink!
Laugh, comfort
And often in a speech to Petrushkin
Insert a well-aimed word
What you can't imagine
At least swallow a pen!
There are such lovers -
How does the comedy end?
They will go for screens,
Kissing, fraternizing
Chatting with musicians:
"From where, well done?"
- And we were masters,
Played for the landowner.
Now we are free people
Who will bring, treat,
He is our master!
“And the thing, dear friends,
Pretty bar you amused,
Cheer up the men!
Hey! small! sweet vodka!
Pouring! tea! half a beer!
Tsimlyansky - live! .. "
And the flooded sea
It will go, more generous than the master's
The kids will be fed.
Not violent winds blow,
Not mother earth sways -
Noise, sing, swear,
sways, rolls,
Fighting and kissing
Holiday people!
The peasants seemed
How did you get to the hillock,
That the whole village is shaking
That even the old church
With a tall bell tower
It shook once or twice! -
Here sober, that naked,
Awkward... Our wanderers
Walked across the square
And left in the evening
Busy village...
CHAPTER III. DRUNK NIGHT
Not a barn, not barns,
Not a tavern, not a mill,
How often in Rus'
The village ended low
log building
With iron bars
In small windows.
Behind that milestone building
wide path,
lined with birches,
Opened right here.
Not crowded on weekdays
Sad and quiet
She's not the same now!
All along that lane
And along the roundabout paths,
How far did the eye go
They crawled, they lay, they rode.
Drunk floundering
And there was a groan!
Heavy carts hide,
And like calf's heads
Swinging, swinging
Victory heads
Sleepy men!
People go and fall
As if because of the rollers
Buckshot enemies
Shooting at the men!
The quiet night descends
Already out into the dark sky
Moon, really
Page 6 of 11
writes a letter
Lord of pure gold
Blue on velvet
That wise letter,
Which neither reasonable,
Buzzing! That the sea is blue
Falls silent, rises
Popular rumor.
“And we are fifty kopecks to the clerk:
The request was made
To the head of the province ... "
"Hey! the sack has fallen from the cart!”
“Where are you, Olenushka?
Wait! I'll give you a gingerbread
You are like a nimble flea,
She ate - and jumped.
I didn’t give a stroke! ”
"You are good, royal letter,
Yes, you are not written about us ... "
"Step aside, people!"
(Excise officials
With bells, with plaques
They swept from the market.)
“And I’m to that now:
And the broom is rubbish, Ivan Ilyich,
And walk on the floor
Wherever it sprays!
"God forbid, Parashenka,
You don't go to St. Petersburg!
There are such officials
You are their cook for a day,
And their night is sudarkoy -
So don't care!"
"Where are you jumping, Savvushka?"
(The priest shouts to the sotsky
On horseback, with a government badge.)
- In Kuzminskoye I jump
Behind the station. Opportunity:
There ahead of the peasant
Killed ... - "Eh! .. sins! .."
“You have become thin, Daryushka!”
- Not a spindle, friend!
That's what spins more
It's getting fatter
And I'm like a day-to-day ...
"Hey boy, stupid boy,
tattered, lousy,
Hey love me!
Me, simple-haired,
A drunken woman, an old one,
Zaaa-paaaa-chkanny! .. "
Our peasants are sober,
Looking, listening
They go their own way.
In the very middle of the path
Some guy is quiet
Dug a big hole.
"What are you doing here?"
- And I'm burying my mother! -
"Fool! what a mother!
Look: a new undershirt
You dug into the ground!
Hurry up and grunt
Lie down in the ditch, drink water!
Perhaps, the foolishness will jump off!
"Well, let's stretch!"
Two peasants sit down
Legs rest,
And live, and grieve,
Grunt - stretch on a rolling pin,
Joints are cracking!
Didn't like it on the rock
"Now let's try
Stretch your beard!"
When the order of the beard
Reduced each other
Grabbed cheekbones!
They puff, blush, writhe,
They moo, they squeal, but they stretch!
"Yes, you damned ones!
Don't spill water!"
In the ditch the women quarrel,
One shouts: "Go home
More sickening than hard labor!”
Another: - You're lying, in my house
Better than yours!
My elder brother-in-law broke a rib,
The middle son-in-law stole the ball,
A ball of spit, but the fact is -
Fifty dollars was wrapped in it,
And the younger son-in-law takes everything,
Look, he will kill him, he will kill him! ..
“Well, full, full, dear!
Well, don't be angry! - behind the roller
Heard in the distance. -
I'm okay...let's go!"
Such a bad night!
Is it right, is it left
Look from the road:
Couples go together
Isn't it right to that grove?
Nightingales sing…
The road is crowded
What later is uglier:
More and more often come across
Beaten, crawling
Lying in a layer.
Without swearing, as usual,
Word won't be spoken
Crazy, indecent,
She is the most heard!
The taverns are confused
The leads got mixed up
Frightened horses
They run without riders;
Little children are crying.
Wives and mothers yearn:
Is it easy to drink
Call the men?
Our wanderers are coming
And they see: Veretennikov
(That the goat's shoes
Vavila gave)
Talks with peasants.
Peasants open up
Milyaga likes:
Pavel will praise the song -
They will sing five times, write it down!
Like the proverb -
Write a proverb!
Having recorded enough
Veretennikov told them:
"Smart Russian peasants,
One is not good
What they drink to stupefaction
Falling into ditches, into ditches -
It's a shame to look!"
The peasants listened to that speech,
They agreed with the barin.
Pavlusha something in a book
I already wanted to write.
Yes, the drunk turned up
Man - he is against the master
Lying on his stomach
looked into his eyes,
Was silent - but suddenly
How to jump! Directly to the barin -
Grab the pencil!
- Wait, empty head!
Crazy news, shameless
Don't talk about us!
What did you envy!
What is the fun of the poor
Peasant soul?
We drink a lot in time
And we work more.
We see a lot of drunks
And more sober us.
Did you visit the villages?
Take a bucket of vodka
Let's go to the huts:
In one, in the other they will pile up,
And in the third they will not touch -
We have a drinking family
Non-drinking family!
They don’t drink, and also toil,
It would be better to drink, stupid,
Yes, the conscience is...
It's wonderful to watch how it falls
In such a hut sober
Man's trouble -
And I would not have looked! .. I saw
Russians in the village suffering?
In the pub, what, people?
We have vast fields
And not much generous
Tell me, whose hand
In the spring they will dress
Will they undress in the fall?
Did you meet a man
After work in the evening?
Good mountain on the reaper
Put, ate from a pea:
"Hey! hero! straw
I'll knock you off!"
Sweet peasant food
All century saw iron
Chews, but does not eat!
Yes, the belly is not a mirror,
We don't cry for food...
You work alone
And a little work is over,
Look, there are three equity holders:
God, king and lord!
And there is another destroyer
Fourth, angrier than the Tatar,
So he won't share.
All gobble up one!
We have stuck the third day
The same poor gentleman,
Like you, from near Moscow.
writes songs,
Tell him a proverb
Solve the riddle.
And there was another - inquired,
How much per day do you work
Little by little, a lot
Pieces shove in your mouth?
Another land measures,
Another in the village of inhabitants
Count on fingers
But they didn't count
Because every summer
The fire blows into the wind
Peasant labor?
There is no measure for Russian hops.
Did they measure our grief?
Is there a measure for work?
Wine brings down the peasant
And grief does not bring him down?
Work not falling?
A man does not measure trouble,
Copes with everything
Whatever come.
A man, working, does not think,
What forces will break.
So really over the glass
To think that with too much
Will you fall into a ditch?
And what is shameful to look at you,
How drunks roll
So look, go
Like dragging from a swamp
Peasants have wet hay,
Mowed, dragged:
Where horses can't get through
Where and without a burden on foot
It's dangerous to cross
There is a peasant horde
On the rocks, on the gorges
Crawling crawling with whips -
The peasant's navel is cracking!
Under the sun without hats
In sweat, in dirt up to the top,
Sedge cut,
Swamp reptile midge
Eaten into the blood -
Are we prettier here?
Regret - sorry skillfully,
To the master's measure
Don't kill the peasant!
Not white women are tender,
And we are great people.
In work and in the spree! ..
Every peasant has
The soul is a black cloud -
Angry, formidable - and it would be necessary
Thunders rumble from there,
pouring bloody rains,
And everything ends with wine.
A charm went through the veins -
And kindly laughed
Peasant soul!
No need to mourn here
Look around - rejoice!
Hey guys, hey
Page 7 of 11
young women
They know how to walk!
The bones waved
They roused the darling
And the prowess of the young
They saved the case! ..
The man stood on the roller,
Stamped with bast shoes
And after a moment's silence,
Admiring the fun
Roaring Crowd:
- Hey! you are a peasant kingdom,
Headless, drunk,
Noise - free noise! .. -
"What's your name, old lady?"
- And what? write in a book?
Perhaps there is no need!
Write: "In the village of Basov
Yakim Nagoi lives
He works to death
Drinks half to death!”
The peasants laughed
And they told the barin
What a guy Yakim.
Yakim, poor old man,
Lived once in St. Petersburg,
Yes, he ended up in jail.
I wanted to compete with the merchant!
Like a peeled Velcro,
He returned to his home
And took up the plow.
Since then, it's been roasting for thirty years
On the strip under the sun
Saved under the harrow
From frequent rain
Lives - messes with the plow,
And death will come to Yakimushka -
Like a clod of earth will fall off,
What is dried up on the plow ...
There was a case with him: pictures
He bought his son
Hung them up on the walls
And himself no less than a boy
Loved to look at them.
God's disgrace has come
The village is on fire
And Yakimushka had
accumulated over a century
Ruble thirty-five.
Hurry to take a ruble,
And he first pictures
Began to tear off the wall;
Meanwhile his wife
fiddling with icons
And then the hut collapsed -
So blundered Yakim!
Merged into a lump of tselkoviki,
For that lump they give him
Eleven rubles...
“Oh brother Yakim! not cheap
The pictures are gone!
But in a new hut
Did you hang them up?”
- Hung up - there are new ones, -
Yakim said - and fell silent.
The master looked at the plowman:
The chest is sunken; like a depressed
Stomach; at the eyes, at the mouth
Bends like cracks
On dry ground;
And myself to mother earth
He looks like: a brown neck,
Like a layer cut off with a plow,
brick face,
Hand - tree bark,
And hair is sand.
The peasants noticed
What is not offensive to the master
Yakimov's words
And they agreed
With Yakim: - The word is true:
We need to drink!
We drink - it means we feel the power!
Great sadness will come
How to stop drinking!
Work would not fail
Trouble would not prevail
Hops will not overcome us!
Is not it?
"Yes, God is merciful!"
- Well, have a drink with us!
We got vodka and drank.
Yakim Veretennikov
He raised two scales.
- Hey sir! didn't get angry
Smart head!
(Yakim told him.)
Reasonable little head
How not to understand the peasant?
Do pigs walk on? zemi -
They do not see the sky for centuries! ..
Suddenly the song burst out in chorus
Deleted, consonant:
A dozen or three youngsters
Khmelnenki, not falling down,
They walk side by side, they sing,
They sing about Mother Volga,
About the prowess of the youth,
About girlish beauty.
The whole road was quiet
That one song is foldable
Wide, freely rolling,
As rye spreads under the wind,
According to the heart of the peasant
Goes with fire-longing! ..
To the song of that remote
Thinking, crying
Youth alone:
“My age is like a day without the sun,
My age is like a night without a month,
And I, baby,
What a greyhound horse on a leash,
What is a swallow without wings!
My old husband, jealous husband,
Drunk drunk, snoring snoring,
Me, baby,
And sleepy guards!
So the young woman cried
Yes, she suddenly jumped off the cart!
"Where?" shouts the jealous husband,
I got up - and a woman for a braid,
Like a radish for a tuft!
Oh! night, night drunk!
Not bright, but stellar
Not hot, but with affectionate
Spring breeze!
And our good fellows
You didn't pass for nothing!
They were sad for their wives,
It's true: with his wife
Now it would be more fun!
Ivan shouts: "I want to sleep,"
And Maryushka: - And I'm with you! -
Ivan shouts: "The bed is narrow,"
And Maryushka: - Let's settle down! -
Ivan shouts: "Oh, it's cold,"
And Maryushka: - Let's get warm! -
How do you remember that song?
Without a word - agreed
Try your chest.
One, why God knows
Between field and road
The dense linden has grown.
Wanderers sat under it
And they said carefully:
"Hey! self-assembled tablecloth,
Treat the men!”
And the tablecloth unrolled
Where did they come from
Two hefty hands:
A bucket of wine was placed
Bread was laid on a mountain
And they hid again.
The peasants fortified themselves.
A novel for a sentry
Left by the bucket
Others intervened
In the crowd - look for a happy one:
They strongly wanted
Get home soon...
CHAPTER IV. HAPPY
In the loud, festive crowd
Strangers wandered around
Called the call:
"Hey! is there no happy place?
Appear! When it turns out
that you live happily
We have a bucket ready:
Drink as much as you like -
We will treat you to glory! .. "
Such speeches unheard
Sober people laughed
And drunk and smart
Almost spat in the beard
Zealous screamers.
However, hunters
Take a sip of free wine
Found enough.
When the wanderers returned
Under the linden, calling the call,
People surrounded them.
The deacon, fired, came
Skinny, like a sulfur match,
And loosened the fringes,
That happiness is not in pastures,
Not in sables, not in gold,
Not in expensive stones.
"And in what?"
- In kindness!
There are limits to possessions
Lords, nobles, kings of the earth,
And wise possession -
The whole garden of Christ!
When the sun warms
Let me skip the pigtail
So I'm happy! -
"Where can you get a pigtail?"
- Yes, you promised to give ...
"Get out! you're joking!.."
An old woman came
speckled, one-eyed,
And announced, bowing,
What makes her happy:
What does she have in autumn
Born rap to a thousand
On a small ridge.
- Such a large turnip,
This turnip is delicious.
And the whole ridge is three sazhens,
And across - arshin! -
They laughed at the grandmother
And they didn’t give a drop of vodka:
“Drink at home, old one,
Eat that turnip!”
A soldier came with medals
A little alive, but I want to drink:
- I'm happy! - speaks.
"Well, open up, old lady,
What is the happiness of a soldier?
Don't hide, look!"
- And in the first place, happiness,
What in twenty battles
I was, not killed!
And secondly, more importantly,
Me and during peacetime
Walked neither full nor hungry,
And death did not give!
And thirdly - for faults,
Great and small
Mercilessly I beat with sticks,
And at least feel it - it's alive!
"On the! drink, servant!
There is nothing to argue with you:
You are happy - there is no word!
Came with a heavy hammer
Olonchanin stonemason,
Shouldered, young:
- And I live - I do not complain, -
He said, - with his wife, with his mother
We do not know the need!
"Yes, what is your happiness?"
- But look (and with a hammer,
Like a feather, waved):
When I wake up to the sun
Let me unwind at midnight
So I will crush the mountain!
It happened, I do not brag
chipping stones
A day for five silver!
Pahom raised "happiness"
And, grunting decently,
Give the worker:
“Well, weighty! but will not
Carry with this happiness
Under old age is it hard? .. "
- Look, do not brag about your strength, -
Said the man with shortness of breath,
Relaxed, thin
(The nose is sharp, like a dead one,
Skinny hands like a rake
Like the spokes of the legs are long,
Not a man - a mosquito). -
I was no worse than a bricklayer
Yes, he also boasted of strength,
So God punished!
I realized
Page 8 of 11
contractor, beast,
What a simple kid,
Taught me to praise
And I'm foolishly happy
I work for four!
One day I wear a good
I laid bricks.
And here it is, damned,
And apply a hard one:
"What is this? - speaks. -
I don't recognize Tryphon!
To go with such a burden
Aren't you ashamed young man?
- And if it seems a little,
Add by the master's hand! -
I said, angry.
Well, with half an hour, I think
I waited, and he laid,
And planted, scoundrel!
I hear myself - a terrible craving,
I didn't want to back away.
And brought that damn burden
I'm on the second floor!
The contractor looks, marvels,
Screaming, scoundrel, from there:
“Ah well done, Trofim!
You don't know what you did
You took down one at the extreme
Fourteen pounds!
Oh, I know! hammer heart
Knocking in the chest, bloody
There are circles in the eyes
The back looks like it's cracked...
Trembling, weak legs.
I've been dying since then! ..
Pour, brother, half a cup!
“Pour? But where is the happiness?
We will treat the happy
And what did you say!”
- Listen! there will be happiness!
“Yes, in what, speak!”
- And here's what. me at home,
Like every peasant
I wanted to die.
From St. Petersburg, relaxed,
Crazy, almost without memory,
I got into the car.
Well, here we go.
In the car - feverish,
hot workers
We got a lot
Everyone wanted one
How do I: get to my homeland,
To die at home.
However, you need happiness
And then: we drove in the summer,
In the heat, in the heat
Many are confused
Completely sick heads
In the car hell went:
He groans, he rides,
Like a catechumen, by gender,
He raves about his wife, mother.
Well, at the nearest station
Down with this!
I looked at my comrades
I myself was on fire, I thought -
Bad for me too.
Crimson circles in the eyes,
And everything seems to me, brother,
That I cut peuns!
(We are also peuniatniks,
Happened to fatten a year
Up to a thousand goiters.)
Where do you remember, damned!
I have tried to pray
No! everyone is going crazy!
Will you believe? the whole party
Trembling before me!
Larynx cut,
The blood is gushing, but they sing!
And I with a knife: “Yes, you are full!”
How the Lord has mercy
Why didn't I scream?
I sit, I strengthen myself ... fortunately,
The day is over, and by the evening
It's cold, sorry
God over orphans!
Well, that's how we got there.
And I made it home
Here, by the grace of God,
And it became easier for me ...
- What are you bragging about?
With your manly happiness? -
Screaming broken to his feet
Yard man. -
And you treat me:
I'm happy, God knows!
At the first boyar,
At Prince Peremetiev,
I was a favorite slave.
Wife is a beloved servant
And the daughter, along with the young lady
Studied French too
And every language
She was allowed to sit
In the presence of the princess...
Oh! how prickly! .. fathers! .. -
(And started the right foot
rub palms.)
The peasants laughed.
- Why are you laughing, stupid -
Angered unexpectedly,
The doorman screamed. -
I'm sick, but can I tell you
What do I pray to the Lord?
Getting up and lying down?
I pray: "Let me, Lord,
my honorable illness,
According to her, I am a nobleman!
Not your vile sickness,
Not hoarseness, not a hernia -
noble disease,
What only happens
From the first persons in the empire,
I'm sick man!
Yes, the game is called!
To get it -
Champagne, Burgundy,
Tokay, Hungarian
You have to drink for thirty years ...
Behind the chair at the brightest
At Prince Peremetyev's
I stood for forty years
With French best truffle
I licked the plates
Foreign drinks
Drinking from glasses...
Well, pour it! -
"Get out!
We have peasant wine,
Simple, not overseas -
Not on your lips!
Yellow-haired, hunched,
Crept up timidly to the wanderers
Belarusian peasant,
It also reaches for vodka:
- Pour me a manenichko too,
I'm happy! - speaks.
“And you don’t go with your hands!
Report, prove
First, how happy are you?
- And our happiness is in bread:
I am at home in Belarus
With chaff, with a bonfire
Chewed barley bread;
Like a woman in labor you writhe
How to grab the bellies.
And now, by the grace of God! -
Filled with Gubonin
Give rye bread
I chew - I do not wait! -
Came some cloudy
A man with a twisted cheekbone,
Everything looks to the right:
- I go after bears.
And my happiness is great:
Three of my comrades
Bears broke,
And I live, God is merciful!
“Well, look to the left?”
I did not look, no matter how I tried,
What scary faces
The man writhed:
- The bear turned me
Manenichko cheekbone! -
“And you measure yourself with another,
Give her your right cheek
Correct ... "- Laughed,
However, they brought it up.
ragged beggars,
Hearing the smell of foam,
And they came to prove
How happy they are
- We have a shopkeeper on the doorstep
Meets with alms
And we will enter the house, so from the house
Escorted to the gate...
Let's sing a little song
The hostess runs to the window
With edge, with a knife,
And we are pouring:
“Come on give - the whole loaf,
Doesn't wrinkle or crumble
Hurry for you, but we argue ... "
Our wanderers have realized
That they spent vodka for nothing,
By the way, and a bucket
End. “Well, it will be with you!
Hey, happiness man!
Leaky with patches
Humpbacked with calluses
Get off home!"
- And you, dear friends,
Ask Ermila Girin, -
He said, sitting down with strangers,
Villages of Dymoglotov
Peasant Fedosey. -
If Yermil does not help out,
Lucky will not be declared
So there is nothing to stumble...
“And who is Yermil?
Is it a prince, a noble count?
- Not a prince, not an illustrious count,
But he's just a man!
"You speak smarter,
Sit down and we'll listen
What is Ermil?
- And here's one: an orphan
Yermilo kept the mill
On Unzha. By court
Decided to sell the mill:
Yermilo came with others
To the auction house.
Empty buyers
They fell off quickly.
One merchant Altynnikov
He entered into battle with Yermil,
Do not lag behind, traded,
He puts on a penny.
Yermilo how angry -
Grab five rubles at once!
The merchant again a pretty penny,
They went to battle;
The merchant with his penny,
And that one with his ruble!
Altynnikov could not resist!
Yes, an opportunity came out here:
Immediately began to demand
The makings of the third part,
And the third part - up to a thousand.
There was no money with Yermil,
Did he himself screw up
Did the clerks cheat
And it turned out to be rubbish!
Altynnikov cheered up:
“My, it turns out, a mill!”
"No! Ermil says
Approaches the chairman. -
Can't your grace
Intervene for half an hour?
What will you do in half an hour?
"I'll bring the money!"
- Where can you find it? Are you in your mind?
Thirty-five versts to the mill,
And an hour later the presence
The end, my dear!
“So, will you allow half an hour?”
“Maybe we’ll skip the hour!” -
Yermil went; clerks
exchanged glances with the merchant,
Laugh, scoundrels!
To the market square
Yermilo came (in the city
That market day was
He stood on a cart, we see: he is baptized,
On all four sides
Shouts: “Hey, good people!
Shut up, listen
I'll tell you a word!"
The crowded square has become silent,
And then Ermil about the mill
He told the people:
"For a long time the merchant Altynnikov
Wooed to the mill
I didn't make a mistake either
Five times consulted in the city,
They said with
Page 9 of 11
rebidding
Bidding has been scheduled.
Nothing to do, you know
Carry the treasury to the peasant
Country road is not a hand:
I came without a penny
But look - they pissed off
Without rebidding bargaining!
Vile souls cheated
Yes, and non-Christs laugh:
“What are you going to do about the hour?
Where will you find money?
Maybe I'll find it, God bless!
Cunning, strong clerks,
And their world is stronger
The merchant Altynnikov is rich,
And he can't resist
Against the worldly treasury -
Her like a fish from the sea
To catch a century is not to catch.
Well, brothers! God sees
Sharing that Friday!
The mill is not dear to me,
The insult is great!
If you know Yermila
If you believe Yermil,
So help me out, eh! .. "
And a miracle happened:
All over the marketplace
Every peasant has
Like the wind, half left
It turned over suddenly!
The peasantry forked out
They bring money to Yermil,
They give who is rich.
Yermilo is a literate guy,
Put on a full hat
Tselkovikov, Lobanchikov,
Burnt, beaten, ragged
Peasant banknotes.
Yermilo took - did not disdain
And a copper nugget.
Still, he would begin to disdain,
When I got here
Other hryvnia copper
More than a hundred rubles!
The sum has already been fulfilled
And the generosity of the people
Grew up: - Take it, Ermil Ilyich,
Give it up, it won't disappear! -
Yermil bowed to the people
On all four sides
He went into the ward with a hat,
Keeping the treasury in it.
The clerks were surprised,
Altynnikov turned green,
How he is full of the whole thousand
They put it on the table!
Not a wolf's tooth, so a fox's tail, -
Went to bustle clerks,
Congratulations on your purchase!
Yes, Ermil Ilyich is not like that,
Didn't say too much.
I didn't give them a penny!
Look the whole city came together
Like on market day, Friday,
After a week of time
Yermil on the same square
The people counted.
Remember where everyone is?
At that time it was done
In a fever, in a hurry!
However, there were no disputes
And give a penny extra
Ermil did not have to.
Also, he himself said
An extra ruble, whose God knows!
Stayed with him.
All day with a purse open
Yermil walked and inquired:
Whose ruble? didn't find it.
The sun has already set
When from the marketplace
Yermil was the last to move,
Giving that ruble to the blind...
So this is what Ermil Ilyich is like. -
“Wonderful! the strangers said. -
However, it is desirable to know
What sorcery
A man over the whole neighborhood
Have you taken that kind of power?
- Not witchcraft, but truth.
Heard about Hell
Yurlov prince patrimony?
"Heard, so what?"
- It has a general manager
There was a gendarme corps
Colonel with a star
With him five or six assistants,
And our Yermilo is a clerk
Was in the office.
Twenty years old was small,
What is the will of the clerk?
However, for the peasant
And the clerk is a man.
You approach him first,
And he will advise
And he will provide information;
Where there is enough strength - will help out,
Don't ask for gratitude
And if you give it, you won't take it!
A bad conscience is necessary -
Peasant from peasant
Extort a penny.
In this way, the whole estate
At the age of five, Ermila Girina
Got to know well
And then they kicked him out...
They felt sorry for Girin,
It was difficult to new
Grabber, get used to,
However, there is nothing to do
Fitted in time
And to the new scribe.
He is not a line without a triplet,
Not a word without a seventh worker,
Burnt, from kuteynikov -
And God told him!
However, by the will of God,
He reigned for a short time,
The old prince died
The young prince came
Chased that colonel out.
Chased away his assistant
He drove the whole office
And he ordered us from the patrimony
Choose a Burmese.
Well, we didn't think long
Six thousand souls, all fiefdom
We shout: - Yermila Girin! -
How one man!
They call Yermila to the master.
Talking to a peasant
From the balcony the prince shouts:
“Well, brothers! be your way.
My princely seal
Your choice is approved:
The man is agile, literate,
I’ll say one thing: aren’t you young? .. "
And we: - There is no need, father,
And young, but smart! -
Yermilo went to reign
Over the whole prince's patrimony,
And he reigned!
At seven years of a worldly penny
Didn't squeeze under the nail
At the age of seven, he did not touch the right one,
Did not allow the guilty.
I didn’t bend my heart…
Stop! - shouted reproachfully
Some gray-haired priest
Narrator. - You're wrong!
The harrow went straight
Yes, suddenly waved to the side -
Hit a rock with a tooth!
When I started to tell
So don't throw away the words
From the song: or wanderers
Are you telling a fairy tale?
I knew Ermila Girin ... "
“But I didn’t know?”
We were one estate,
of the same parish,
Yes, we have been transferred...
“And if you knew Girin,
So I knew brother Mitrius,
Think, my friend."
The narrator became thoughtful
And, after a pause, he said:
- I lied: the word is superfluous
It went off the rails!
There was a case, and Yermil-man
Gone Crazy: From Recruitment
Little brother Mitrius
He improved.
We are silent: there is nothing to argue,
The master of the elder's brother himself
Would not order to shave
One Nenila Vlasyev
Weeping bitterly for her son
Shouts: it's not our turn!
Known to have screamed
Yes, I would leave with that.
So what? Ermil himself,
Done with recruiting
Began to grieve, grieve,
Doesn't drink, doesn't eat: that's the end
What's in the stall with a rope
Stopped by his father.
Here the son repented to his father:
“Since the son of Vlasyevna
I put it out of line
The white light is disgusting to me!”
And he reaches for the rope.
They tried to persuade
His father and brother
He is all the same: “I am a criminal!
The villain! tie my hands
Take me to court!"
So that it doesn't get worse
Father tied the heart,
Posted a guard.
The world has come together, making noise, clamoring,
Such a wonderful thing
never had to
Neither see nor decide.
Ermilov family
That's not what they were trying to do
So that we can reconcile them
And judge more strictly -
Return the boy to Vlasyevna,
Otherwise Yermil will hang himself,
You can't look after him!
Yermil Ilyich himself came,
Barefoot, thin, with stocks,
With rope in hand
He came and said: "It was time,
I judged you according to your conscience,
Now I myself am more sinful than you:
Judge me!"
And bowed at our feet.
Neither give nor take holy fool,
Stands, sighs, crosses himself,
We were sorry to see
As he is in front of the old woman,
Before Nenila Vlasyeva,
Suddenly fell on his knees!
Well, things worked out
With a strong lord
Everywhere hand; Vlasyevna's son
He returned, handed over Mitriy,
Yes, they say, and Mitriya
It's not hard to serve
The prince himself takes care of him.
And for the fault with Girin
We have fined:
Penalty money recruit,
A small part of Vlasyevna,
Part of the world for wine...
However, after that
Yermil did not soon cope,
I've been walking like crazy for a year.
No matter how the patrimony asked,
Resigned from office
Rented that mill
And he became thicker than before
All the people love:
I took it for a prayer in good conscience.
Didn't stop the people
clerk, manager,
Wealthy landowners
And the poorest men
All queues obeyed
The order was strict!
I myself am in that province
Haven't been in a while
And I heard about Yermila,
People don't brag about them.
You go to him.
- In vain you pass, -
Said once arguing
Grey-haired pop. -
I knew Ermila, Girin,
I ended up in that province
Five years ago
(I traveled a lot in my life,
Our Grace
translate priests
Loved)… With Ermila Girin
We were neighbors.
Yes! there was only one man!
He had everything he needed
For happiness: and peace,
And money and honor
Honor enviable, true,
Not purchased either
Page 10 of 11
money,
Not fear: strict truth,
Mind and kindness!
Yes, I repeat to you
In vain you pass
He sits in jail...
"How so?"
- And the will of God!
Have any of you heard
How the patrimony rebelled
Landowner Obrubkov,
frightened province,
County Nedykhaniev,
The village of Stolbnyaki?..
How to write about fires
In the newspapers (I read them):
"remained unknown
Reason" - and here:
So far unknown
Neither the zemstvo police officer,
Nor the higher government
Not tetanus themselves,
What happened to the occasion.
And it turned out to be rubbish.
It took a military.
The Sovereign himself sent
He spoke to the people
That curse will try
And shoulders with epaulettes
Raise high
That kindness will try
And chest with royal crosses
In all four directions
Will start turning.
Yes, the scolding was superfluous here,
And the caress is incomprehensible:
Orthodox peasantry!
Mother Rus'! king-father!
And nothing more!
Having beaten enough
They wanted the soldiers
Command: fall!
Yes to the parish clerk
A happy thought came here
It's about Yermila Girin
The chief said:
- The people will believe Girin,
The people will listen to him ... -
"Call him alive!"
…………………………….
Suddenly a cry: “Ai, ai! have mercy!"
Breaking out unexpectedly
Disrupted the priest's speech
Everyone rushed to look:
At the road roller
They flog a drunken lackey -
Caught stealing!
Where he is caught, here is his judgment:
Three dozen judges met
We decided to give a vine,
And everyone gave a vine!
The footman jumped up and, spanking
skinny shoemakers,
Without a word, he gave cravings.
“Look, he ran like a disheveled one! -
Our strangers joked
Recognizing in him a baluster,
that boasted of some
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Notes
Kosushka is an old measure of liquid, approximately 0.31 liters.
The cuckoo ceases to crow when the bread is scorched ("choking on an ear," the people say).
Poemnye meadows - located in the floodplain of the river. When the river that flooded them during the flood subsided, a layer of natural fertilizers remained on the soil, which is why tall grasses rose here. Such meadows were especially valued.
This refers to the fact that until 1869 a graduate of the seminary could receive a parish only if he married the daughter of a priest who left his parish. It was believed that in this way the "purity of the estate" was maintained.
The parish is an association of believers.
The schismatics are opponents of the reforms of Patriarch Nikon (XVII century).
Parishioners are regular visitors to the parish.
Mat - zd.: the end. Checkmate is the end of a game of chess.
Air - embroidered bedspreads made of velvet, brocade or silk, used in the performance of church rites.
Sam is the first part of invariable complex adjectives with ordinal or quantitative numbers, with the meaning "so many times more." Bread itself is a friend - a crop twice as large as the amount of grain sown.
Cool rainbow - to the bucket; sloping - to the rain.
Pyatak is a copper coin worth 5 kopecks.
Treba - "the administration of a sacrament or a sacred rite" (V.I. Dal).
Smelt - cheap small fish, lake smelt.
Anathema is a church curse.
Yarmonka - i.e. fair.
Spring Nikola is a religious holiday celebrated on May 9 according to the old style (May 22 according to the new style).
Procession - a solemn procession of believers with crosses, icons, banners.
Shlyk - “hat, hat, cap, cap” (V.I. Dal).
A tavern is “a drinking house, a place for selling vodka, sometimes also beer and honey” (V.I. Dal).
A tent is a temporary space for trade, usually a light frame covered with canvas, later with tarpaulin.
French chintz - crimson calico, usually dyed using madder, a dye from the roots of a herbaceous perennial plant.
Equestrian - part of the fair, where horses were traded.
A roe deer is a type of heavy plow or a light plow with one share, which rolled the earth in only one direction. In Russia, roe deer were usually used in the northeastern regions.
Cart machine - the main part of a four-wheeled cart, cart. It holds the body, wheels and axles.
Harness - part of the harness, fitting the sides and croup of the horse, usually leather.
Kimryaks are residents of the city of Kimry. At the time of Nekrasov, it was a large village, 55% of the inhabitants of which were shoemakers.
Ofenya is a peddler, “a petty trader peddling and carting around small towns, villages, villages, with books, paper, silk, needles, cheese and sausage, with earrings and rings” (V.I. Dal).
Doka is “a master of his craft” (V.I. Dal).
Those. more orders.
Those. not military, but civilian (then - civilian).
A dignitary is a high-level official.
Lubyanka - street and square in Moscow, in the XIX century. wholesale center for popular prints and books.
Blucher Gebhard Leberecht - Prussian general, commander-in-chief of the Prussian-Saxon army, which decided the outcome of the battle of Waterloo and defeated Napoleon. Military successes made the name of Blucher very popular in Russia.
Archimandrite Photius - in the world Pyotr Nikitich Spassky, leader of the Russian church in the 20s. XIX century, repeatedly joked in the epigrams of A.S. Pushkin, for example, “Fotiy's conversation with gr. Orlova", "On Photius".
The robber Sipko is an adventurer who pretended to be different people, incl. for retired captain I.A. Sipko. In 1860, his trial attracted a lot of public attention.
"Jester Balakirev" - a popular collection of jokes: "Balakirev's complete collection of jokes of a jester who was at the court of Peter the Great."
“The English Milord” is the most popular work of the 18th century writer Matvey Komarov “The Tale of the Adventures of the English Milord George and his Brandenburg Mark-Countess Frederick Louise”.
Goat - this is how an actor was called in the folk theater-booth, on whose head a goat's head made of burlap was fixed.
Drummer - drumming at performances attracted the public.
Riga - a sheaf drying and threshing shed (with a roof, but almost no walls).
A fifty-kopeck coin is a coin worth 50 kopecks.
Royal letter - royal letter.
Excise is a type of tax on consumer goods.
Sudarka is a mistress.
Sotsky - elected from the peasants, who performed police functions.
The spindle is a hand tool for yarn.
Tat - "thief, predator, kidnapper" (V.I. Dal).
Kocha is a form of the word "bump" in the Yaroslavl-Kostroma dialect.
Zazhorina - snowy water in a pit along the road.
Scourge - in the northern dialects - a large tall basket.
Pastures - in the Tambov-Ryazan dialects - meadows, pastures; in Arkhangelsk - belongings,
Page 11 of 11
property.
Compassion is a state of mind that disposes to mercy, goodness, goodness.
The Vertograd of Christ is synonymous with paradise.
Arshin is an old Russian measure of length, equal to 0.71 m.
Olonchanin - a resident of the Olonets province.
Peun is a rooster.
Peunyatnik - a person who feeds roosters for sale.
Truffle is a mushroom that grows underground. The French black truffle was especially highly valued.
Bonfire - lignified parts of the stems of flax, hemp, etc.
End of introductory segment.
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