Arkady Timofeevich Averchenko (1881 - 1925) - Russian writer, playwright, satirist, editor.

Family, childhood, youth

Arkady Timofeevich Averchenko was born on March 27 (old style - 15) March 1881. in Sevastopol, then - provinces, outback. Father, Timofey Petrovich Averchenko, an impoverished merchant of the second guild. Mother, Susanna Pavlovna, daughter of a retired soldier.

The family was not rich, the boy did not attend elementary school due to poor eyesight. However, this was later made up for by the erudition and natural mind of the writer.

Already at the age of 15, Averchenko began working as a junior scribe in the transport company of Sevastopol. He did not work here for long (1896-1897), then putting the impressions he received into the basis of the story "On Steamboat Whistles".

In 1897 Averchenko gets a job as a clerk at the Bryansk mine in the Donbas. Here he stayed for 4 years, and the experience gained also formed the basis of the stories "Lightning", "In the Evening", etc.

The beginning of the literary path

The beginning of the 1900s was marked in the biography of Arkady Averchenko by a working move to Kharkov. here in 1903. in the newspaper "Southern Territory" his first story "How I had to insure my life" is published. The satirist said that he made his debut with the story "The Righteous" in 1904.

After 2-3 years, the writer gets an eye injury. Moreover, as a result of damage, a complication arises - damage to the second eye, which in the future will become one of the causes of the death of the satirist.

1906-1907 became for Averchenko the time of editing in the magazine "Sword", where he leads almost all sections under more than 40 pseudonyms. However, being engaged in creativity, A. Averchenko completely abandons the affairs of service in the board of mines, for which he was soon removed from his post.

In 1908 Arkady Timofeevich goes to St. Petersburg, where he works in the Dragonfly magazine, which is living out its life. In the same year, the youth of the magazine unite to create their own edition. It was called "Satyricon", and Averchenko was elected to the post of editor.

The years of work in the "Satyricon", and then the "New Satyricon" - this is the period of Averchenko's creative formation, fruitful cooperation with such writers as Sasha Cherny, Teffi, Remizov, Osip Dymov. The works of the satirist are actively printed and staged. In addition to creative satisfaction, Averchenko receives a good income. Even the prosecution in connection with the political nature of certain of his creations does not disturb the satirist.

In 1910, the collections “Stories (humorous)” were published. Book One, Bunnies on the Wall. Stories (humorous). Book Two, Merry Oysters. Thanks to them, Averchenko gains fame, standing out among other comedians of the era.

In 1911-1912. Satyriconists travel around Europe, the impressions received are used when writing the "Expedition of the Satyriconists to Western Europe" (1912).

Contemporary critics compare the literary traditions of Arkady Averchenko with the creative method of Mark Twain, A.P. Chekhov, noting his ability to draw narrow-minded inhabitants, stupidity, vulgarity of existence.

Mature years, revolution, emigration

A new round of the writer's biography falls on 1918, when the Bolsheviks, who seized power, closed the magazine. Averchenko, like his satirical colleagues, did not accept Soviet power and decided to return to his native Sevastopol, which still belonged to the whites. This path turned out to be full of dangers and troubles, but Averchenko still managed to get to the Crimea. Here since July 1919. he works in the newspaper "South", and in November 1920, after the capture of the Crimea by the Reds, he leaves Russia, emigrating to Rome.

In June 1922, A. Averchenko moved to Prague, where he remained to live until the end of his days. Torn from his homeland, he feels longing, misses his native language. This mood is imbued with his stories, including The Tragedy of the Russian Writer.

In Prague, the emigrant works for the Prager Presse, a well-known newspaper, and also collects poetry readings. In the Czech Republic, Averchenko is popular, his stories are published in translation. In 1921 the collection "A Dozen Knives in the Back of the Revolution" is published, one of the most odious anti-Soviet works.

From now on, humorous stories are almost absent in the work of the satirist, his works are devoted to the fate of Russia - before and after the revolution. The post-revolutionary period is seen by him as a deception of a working person, deprived of books, art, and the opportunity to develop.

The last years of his life were overshadowed by an operation to remove the left (injured) eye. The right one began to quickly go blind. In addition, the writer complained of shortness of breath and chest pains. Probably, Averchenko, who led an epicurean lifestyle, developed diabetes mellitus. The life of the satirist ended at the age of 44 on March 12, 1925. The death of the writer was due to heart failure. Arkady Averchenko was buried at the Olshansky cemetery (Prague).

Arkady Averchenko was born on March 27, 1881 in Sevastopol in the family of a poor merchant Timofey Petrovich Averchenko and Susanna Pavlovna Sofronova, the daughter of a retired soldier from the Poltava region.

Averchenko did not receive any primary education, because due to poor eyesight he could not study for a long time, but the lack of education was eventually compensated by his natural mind.

Arkady Averchenko started working at the age of 15. From 1896 to 1897, he served as a junior scribe in the transport office of Sevastopol. He did not stay there for long, a little more than a year, and subsequently described this period of his life in the ironic "Autobiography", as well as the story in "On Steamboat Whistles"

In 1896, Averchenko went to work as a clerk in the Donbass at the Bryansk mine. He worked at the mine for four years, subsequently writing several stories about life there - "In the Evening", "Lightning" and other works.

In 1903, Averchenko's first story "How I had to insure my life" was published in the Kharkov newspaper "Southern Territory", in which his literary style was manifested. In 1906, Averchenko became the editor of the satirical magazine "Bayonet", almost completely represented by his materials. After the closure of this magazine, he heads the next one - "The Sword", - also soon closed.

In 1907 he moved to St. Petersburg and collaborated with the satirical magazine Dragonfly, later transformed into the Satyricon. Then he became the permanent editor of this popular publication.

In 1910, three books by Averchenko were published, which made him famous throughout reading Russia: "Funny Oysters", "Stories (humorous)", book 1, "Hares on the Wall", book II. “...their author is destined to become a Russian Twain...”, - V. Polonsky perceptively remarked.

The books “Circles on the Water” and “Stories for the Recovering” published in 1912 approved the title of “king of laughter” for the author.

Averchenko met the February revolution enthusiastically, but he did not accept the October revolution. In the autumn of 1918, Averchenko left for the south, collaborated with the newspapers Priazovsky Krai and Yug, read his stories, and was in charge of the literary part at the Artist's House. At the same time, he wrote the plays “A Cure for Stupidity” and “Playing with Death”, and in April 1920 he organized his own theater “The Nest of Migratory Birds”. Six months later, he emigrates abroad through Constantinople, from June 1922 he lives in Prague, briefly leaving for Germany, Poland, Romania and the Baltic states. His book "A Dozen of Knives in the Back of the Revolution", a collection of short stories: "Children", "Funny in a Terrible" and a humorous novel "A Patron's Joke" are published.

AVERCHENKO'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

Even fifteen minutes before my birth, I did not know that I would appear in the world. This in itself is a trifling indication, I do only because I want to be a quarter of an hour ahead of all other remarkable people, whose lives have been described with tiresome monotony without fail from the moment of birth. Here you go.

When the midwife presented me to my father, he, with the air of a connoisseur, examined what I was like, and exclaimed:

I bet on the gold that it's a boy!

"Old fox! - I thought, smiling inwardly, - you play for sure.

From this conversation began our acquaintance, and then friendship.

Out of modesty, I will be careful not to point out the fact that on the day of my birth the bells were rung, and there was a general rejoicing of the people.

Evil tongues associated this jubilation with some great holiday that coincided with the day of my birth, but I still don’t understand what else is there to do with this holiday?

Taking a closer look at my surroundings, I decided that I needed to grow up first. I did this with such care that at the age of eight I saw my father one day taking my hand. Of course, even before that, my father repeatedly took me by the indicated limb, but previous attempts were nothing more than real symptoms of paternal caress. In the present case, he, moreover, put a hat on his head and me - and we went out into the street.

Where the hell are they taking us? I asked with the directness that has always distinguished me.

You need to study.

Very necessary! I do not want to study.

Why?

To get rid of, I said the first thing that came to mind:

I am sick.

What is hurting you?

I went through all my organs by heart and chose the most important:

Um... Let's go to the doctor.

When we got to the doctor, I bumped into him and his patient and knocked over the little table.

Don't you see anything, boy?

Nothing, - I answered, concealing the tail of the phrase, which I finished in my mind: "... good in learning."

So I didn't study science.

The legend that I am a sick, frail boy who cannot learn grew and strengthened, and I myself cared about it most of all.

My father, being a merchant by profession, did not pay any attention to me, as he was up to his neck in worries and plans: how to go bankrupt as soon as possible? It was the dream of his life, and he must be given full justice - the good old man achieved his aspirations in the most impeccable way. He did this with the complicity of a whole galaxy of thieves who robbed his store, buyers who borrowed exclusively and systematically, and - fires that incinerated those of his father's goods that were not stolen by thieves and buyers.

Thieves, fires and buyers for a long time stood as a wall between me and the school, and I would have remained illiterate if the older sisters had not come up with a funny idea that promised them a lot of new sensations: to take up my education. Obviously, I was a tidbit, because because of the very dubious pleasure of lighting up my lazy brain with the light of knowledge, the sisters not only argued, but once even entered into hand-to-hand combat, and the result of the fight - a dislocated finger - did not in the least cool the teaching ardor of Lyuba's elder sister.

So - against the background of kindred care, love, fires, thieves and buyers - my growth took place, and a conscious attitude to the environment developed.

When I was fifteen years old, my father, who sadly said goodbye to thieves, buyers and fires, once said to me:

You must serve.

Yes, I can’t,” I objected, as usual choosing a position that could guarantee me complete and serene peace.

Nonsense! - objected the father. - Seryozha Zeltser is not older than you, but he is already serving!

This Serezha was the biggest nightmare of my youth. A clean, neat German, our housemate, Seryozha, from a very early age was set as an example to me as a model of restraint, diligence and accuracy.

Look at Seryozha, ”the mother said sadly. - The boy serves, deserves the love of his superiors, knows how to talk, behaves freely in society, plays the guitar, sings ... And you?

Discouraged by these reproaches, I immediately approached the guitar hanging on the wall, pulled the string, began to squeal some unknown song in a piercing voice, tried to “keep looser”, shuffling my feet along the walls, but it was all weak, everything was second-rate. Seryozha remained out of reach!

Seryozha is serving, but you are not serving yet ... - my father reproached me.

Seryozha, perhaps, eats frogs at home, - I objected, thinking. - So will you order me?

I'll tell you if needed! his father barked, banging his fist on the table. - Damn it! I'll make silk out of you!

As a man of taste, my father preferred silk of all materials, and other material seemed to him unsuitable for me.

I remember the first day of my service, which I was supposed to start in some sleepy transport office for the transport of luggage.

I got there almost at eight o'clock in the morning and found only one person in a vest without a jacket, very friendly and modest.

“This is probably the main agent,” I thought.

Hello! I said, shaking his hand firmly. - How's it going?

Wow. Sit down, let's chat!

We lit cigarettes in a friendly manner, and I started a diplomatic conversation about my future career, telling all the ins and outs about myself.

What, you idiot, you still haven't even wiped off the dust?!

The one whom I suspected to be the chief agent jumped up with a cry of fright and grabbed a dusty rag. The commanding voice of the newly arrived young man convinced me that I was dealing with the chief agent himself.

Hello, I said. - How can you live? (Sociability and secularism according to Seryozha Zeltser.)

Nothing, said the young gentleman. Are you our new employee? Wow! I am glad!

We got into a friendly conversation and did not even notice how a middle-aged man entered the office, grabbed the young gentleman by the shoulder and shouted sharply at the top of his voice:

Is that how you, devilish parasite, prepare the registry? I'll kick you out if you're loafing!

The gentleman, whom I took to be the chief agent, turned pale, lowered his head mournfully, and wandered off to his desk. And the chief agent sank into a chair, leaned back and began to question me with respect about my talents and abilities.

"I'm a fool," I thought to myself. - How could I not make out earlier what kind of birds my previous interlocutors were. This boss is the boss! You can see right away!”

At that moment, a fuss was heard in the hall.

Look who's there? the chief agent asked me.

I looked out into the hall and said reassuringly:

Some shabby old man is pulling off his coat.

The shabby old man came in and shouted:

It's ten o'clock and none of you are doing a damn thing!! Will this ever end?!

The previous important boss bounced in his chair like a ball, and the young gentleman, who had previously called him a "loafer", warned me in my ear:

The chief agent pulled himself up.

This is how I started my service.

I served for a year, all the while trailing behind Seryozha Zeltser in the most shameful way. This young man received 25 rubles a month, when I received 15, and when I reached the rank of 25 rubles, they gave him 40. I hated him like some disgusting spider washed with fragrant soap ...

At the age of sixteen, I left my sleepy transport office and left Sevastopol (I forgot to say - this is my homeland) to some coal mines. This place was the least suitable for me, and therefore, probably, I ended up there on the advice of my father, experienced in worldly troubles ...

It was the dirtiest and most remote mine in the world. Between autumn and other seasons, the only difference was that in autumn the mud was above the knees, and at other times - below.

And all the inhabitants of this place drank like shoemakers, and I drank no worse than others. The population was so small that one person had a whole lot of positions and occupations. The cook Kuzma was at the same time both a contractor and a trustee of the mine school, the paramedic was a midwife, and when I first came to the most famous hairdresser in those parts, his wife asked me to wait a bit, as her husband went to insert someone's broken glass miners last night.

These miners (coal miners) also seemed to me a strange people: being mostly fugitives from hard labor, they did not have passports, and the absence of this indispensable belonging of a Russian citizen was flooded with a sorrowful look and despair in their souls - a whole sea of ​​vodka.

Their whole life looked like that they were born for vodka, worked and ruined their health with overwork - for the sake of vodka and went to the next world with the closest participation and help of the same vodka.

One day, before Christmas, I was driving from the mine to the nearest village and saw a row of black bodies lying motionless all along my journey; came across two, three every 20 steps.

What it is? I wondered...

And the miners, - the driver smiled sympathetically. - Gorilka kupovaly near the village. For God's feast.

Tai was not delivered. They got wet on misty. Axis how!

So we drove past whole deposits of dead drunk people, who obviously had such a weak will that they did not even have time to run home, surrendering to the scorching thirst that seized their throats where this thirst overtook them. And they lay in the snow, with black meaningless faces, and if I didn't know the way to the village, I would have found it on these giant black stones scattered by a giant boy with a finger all the way.

The people, however, were for the most part strong, hardened, and the most monstrous experiments on their bodies cost them relatively cheaply. They broke each other's heads, completely destroyed their noses and ears, and one daredevil even once took on a tempting bet (no doubt - a bottle of vodka) to eat a dynamite cartridge. Having done this, for two or three days, despite severe vomiting, he enjoyed the most economical and caring attention from his comrades, who were all afraid that he would explode.

After this strange quarantine was over, he was severely beaten.

Office employees differed from workers in that they fought less and drank more. All these were people, for the most part rejected by the rest of the world for mediocrity and inability to live, and thus, on our small island surrounded by immeasurable steppes, the most monstrous company of stupid, dirty and mediocre alcoholics, scum and bits of fastidious white light gathered.

Brought here by the gigantic broom of God's will, they all waved their hand at the outside world and began to live as God puts on the soul.

They drank, played cards, cursed with cruel, desperate words, and in their drunkenness they sang something insistent, viscous, and danced sullenly with concentration, breaking floors with their heels and spewing from weakened lips whole streams of blasphemy against humanity.

That was the fun side of mine life. Its dark sides consisted in hard labor, walking through the deepest mud from the office to the colony and back, as well as sitting in the guardhouse on a whole series of outlandish protocols drawn up by a drunken constable.

When the management of the mines was transferred to Kharkov, they took me there too, and I revived in soul and strengthened in body ...

For days on end I wandered about the city, with my hat on one side, and independently whistling the most daring tunes that I overheard in summer chantans - a place that at first delighted me to the depths of my soul.

I worked disgustingly in the office and still wonder why they kept me there for six years, lazy, looking at work with disgust and on every occasion getting into long, bitter disputes and polemics not only with the accountant, but also with the director.

Probably because I was a cheerful person, joyfully looking at the wide world of God, readily putting aside work for laughter, jokes and a number of intricate anecdotes, which refreshed those around me, mired in work, boring accounts and squabbles.

My literary activity began in 1904, and it was, as it seemed to me, a continuous triumph. Firstly, I wrote a story ... Secondly, I took it to the "Southern Territory". And, thirdly (I still believe that this is the most important thing in the story), thirdly, it was printed!

For some reason, I didn’t receive a fee for it, and this is all the more unfair, since as soon as it was published, the subscription and retail of the newspaper immediately doubled ...

The same envious, evil tongues that tried to connect my birthday with some other holiday also connected the fact of raising retail with the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War.

Well, yes, we, the reader, know with you where the truth is ...

Having written four stories in two years, I decided that I had worked enough for the benefit of my native literature, and decided to take a good rest, but the year 1905 rolled up and, picking me up, spun me around like a piece of wood.

I began to edit the magazine "Bayonet", which had a great success in Kharkov, and completely abandoned the service ... I wrote feverishly, drew cartoons, edited and corrected, and on the ninth issue I ended up drawing to the point that Governor-General Peshkov fined me 500 rubles, dreaming that I would immediately pay them out of pocket money ...

I refused for many reasons, the main of which were: lack of money and unwillingness to indulge the whims of a frivolous administrator.

Seeing my steadfastness (the fine was not replaced by imprisonment), Peshkov lowered the price to 100 rubles.

I refused.

We bargained like maklaki, and I came to him almost ten times. He never managed to squeeze money out of me!

Then he, offended, said:

One of us must leave Kharkov!

Your Excellency! I objected. - Let's offer Kharkiv residents: who will they choose?

Since I was loved in the city and even vague rumors reached me about the desire of citizens to perpetuate my image by erecting a monument, Mr. Peshkov did not want to risk his popularity.

And I left, having still managed to publish three issues of The Sword magazine before my departure, which was so popular that copies of it can even be found in the Public Library.

I arrived in Petrograd just in time for the New Year.

Again there was illumination, the streets were decorated with flags, banners and lanterns. But I won't say anything. I'll shut up!

And so I am sometimes reproached that I think of my merits more than is required by ordinary modesty. And I, - I can give you my word of honor, - seeing all this illumination and joy, pretended that I did not notice at all the innocent cunning and sentimental, ingenuous attempts of the municipality to brighten up my first visit to a big unfamiliar city ... Modestly, incognito, got into a cab and went incognito to the place of his new life.

And so, I started it.

My first steps were connected with the Satyricon magazine we founded, and I still love this wonderful, cheerful magazine like my own child (8 rubles a year, 4 rubles for six months).

His success was half my success, and I can now proudly say that a rare cultured person does not know our Satyricon (8 rubles for a year, 4 rubles for six months).

At this point, I am already approaching the last, next era of my life, and I will not say, but everyone will understand why I am silent at this point.

Out of sensitive, gentle, painfully tender modesty, I fall silent.

I will not list the names of those people who have recently become interested in me and wished to get to know me. But if the reader thinks about the true reasons for the arrival of the Slavic deputation, the Spanish Infante and President Falier, then perhaps my modest personality, stubbornly kept in the background, will receive a completely different coverage ...

© Arkady Averchenko

NIKITA BOGOSLOVSKII TALKS ABOUT ARKADIY AVERCHENKO.

We know very little about the life and creative path of Averchenko, the most talented, witty, bright and popular writer-humorist of the pre-revolutionary decade. Perhaps the greatest amount of information about him can be gleaned from an article by the critic O. Mikhailov, which precedes Averchenko's collection of humorous stories (published by Khudozhestvennaya Literatura, 1964).

In this article, I am by no means going to subject numerous works of the writer to literary criticism ... I just want, on the basis of the opportunity given to me, to acquaint with a number of little, if not completely unknown information and sources, and briefly tell the reader about the stages of the writer's biography, only slightly affecting his creative activity.

“Biographical information about Arkady Timofeevich Averchenko is scarce. It is only known that he was born in 1881 in Sevastopol, in a poor merchant family ”(O. Mikhailov). Averchenko himself in the humorous "Encyclopedic Dictionary" reports: "Rod. in 1882". Unfortunately, the exact date of birth cannot be established, since in his personal archive, taken from abroad by the late I.S. Zilberstein and stored in the TsGALI, there is not a single identity card indicating the year and month of birth. The writer died on March 12, 1925 in Prague and was buried at the local Olshansky cemetery, where a modest monument was erected to him with an incorrect date of birth carved on marble - “1884”.

Timofei Petrovich Averchenko, the writer's father, and his mother Susanna Pavlovna had nine children - six girls and three boys, two of whom died in infancy. The writer's sisters, with the exception of one, outlived their brother for a long time.

Arkady Timofeevich's father was, according to O. Mikhailov's definition, "an eccentric dreamer and a useless businessman", which the critic apparently came to on the basis of Averchenko's story "Father", as well as information from his own "Autobiography".

There is various information about the primary education of the writer. In "Autobiography" he says that if it were not for his sister, he would have remained illiterate. But, obviously, for some time he still studied at the gymnasium. According to the writer N. N. Breshko-Breshkovsky, who knew Averchenko closely, "the lack of education - two classes of the gymnasium - was made up for by the natural mind." And indeed, he did not receive a complete secondary education, because, due to poor eyesight, he could not study for a long time, and besides, as a result of an accident, he severely injured his eye, which was not amenable to a final cure.

And so, leaving the teachings, Averchenko, a 15-year-old boy, enters the service in a private transport office. He repeatedly recalls this period of his life in his stories. However, Averchenko, having worked in the office for a little over a year, in 1897 left for the Donbass, for the Bryansk mine, where he entered as a clerk on the recommendation of engineer I. Terentyev, the husband of one of his sisters. After serving for three years at the mine and subsequently writing several stories about his life there (“Evening”, “Lightning” and others), he, together with the mine office, moved to Kharkov, where, as O. Mikhailov writes, “in the newspaper “Southern Territory” On October 31, 1903, his first story appears.

L.D. Leonidov, a well-known entrepreneur who once worked at the Moscow Art Theater, and later the owner of theater enterprises in France and the USA, was one of the few artists who knew Averchenko in his youth: “Arkasha Averchenko was a tall, thin, like a pole, young man . He eclipsed my friends at parties with his wit and successful funny impromptu ... "

Averchenko, being dismissed from the service in 1907 with the words of the director: “You are a good person, but you’re not good for anything,” having survived several financially difficult months and not finding enough wide opportunities in Kharkov for his literary activity, to which he began to feel strong attraction, on the advice of friends, moves in January 1908 to St. Petersburg.

I must say that by this time Averchenko already had some literary experience - in the last years of Kharkov life, he edited the satirical magazine "Bayonet" (1906-1907) and published several issues of the magazine "Sword", Five years after his appearance in the capital Averchenko on the pages of the Satyricon (No. 28, 1913) he tells about his arrival in St. Petersburg as follows: “For several days in a row I wandered around St. Petersburg, looking closely at the signboards of the editorial offices - my daring did not go further than this. On what the fate of a person sometimes depends: the editorial offices of "Jester" and "Shards" were placed on distant unfamiliar streets, and "Dragonfly" and "Grey Wolf" in the center ... Be "Jester" and "Shards" right there, in the center, - maybe I would bow my humble head to one of those magazines. I'll go first and "Dragonfly" - I decided. - Alphabetically. This is what the ordinary modest alphabet does to a person: I stayed in the Dragonfly.

In 1965, M.G. Kornfeld, recalling his acquaintance with his future colleague, said: “Averchenko brought me several hilarious and excellent stories, which I gladly accepted. At that time, I was finishing the reorganization of Dragonfly and the formation of a new editorial staff. Averchenko became her permanent employee at the same time as Teffi, Sasha Cherny, Osip Dymov, O. L. d'Or and others ... "

Since the Dragonfly magazine fell into complete decline, changes were needed, and the appearance of a talented and energetic Averchenko was very welcome. And now, on April 1, 1908, Dragonfly, founded by the father of the current editor, the owner of the soap factory Herman Kornfeld, came out under a new name: Satyricon. The title was drawn by M. Dobuzhinsky, the drawing on the first page by L. Bakst. And Arkady Timofeevich, already then the editorial secretary of the Dragonfly, continued his activities in the same post in the Satyricon, of which he became the editor in 1913. And soon after that, a serious conflict occurred between a group of employees of the magazine and the publisher (mainly on material grounds), and Averchenko left the editorial office with the most talented writers and artists and founded his own magazine, New Satyricon. In its first issue, published on June 6, 1913, in connection with this conflict, an offended letter from Kornfeld was published with hints of the possibility of reconciliation and immediately a very venomous and ironic response from the editors. For some time both magazines were published in parallel, but after about a year the old Satyricon, deprived of the best authors and artists, was forced to close, having lost a huge number of subscribers. And the "New Satyricon" successfully existed until August 1918, after which most of its employees went into exile (Averchenko, Teffi, Sasha Cherny, S. Gorny, A. Bukhov, Remy, A. Yakovlev and others).

During his prosperous, successful life in St. Petersburg, Averchenko became extremely popular. The Satyricon and collections of short stories published in large numbers were immediately snapped up. In many theaters of the country, his plays (mostly staged stories) were successfully performed. And even His Imperial Majesty Nicholas II, being an admirer of Averchenko's talent, once deigned to invite him to Tsarskoye Selo to read his works in the circle of his august family. But, as M. Kornfeld says: “It seemed to all of us that the speech of the editor of the Satyricon in Tsarskoe Selo would hardly be appropriate and desirable.” The visit never took place, Averchenko referred to illness.

During the ten years of his life in the capital, Averchenko traveled a lot around the country with performances, and went on trips abroad, as a rule, together with fellow magazine artists A.A. Radakov and N.V. Remizov (Remi). After the very first trip abroad in the summer of 1911, he published an appendix to the "Satyricon" for 1912 - the book "The Satyricon Expedition to Western Europe", which was a resounding success. And in the same year, in addition to hard work in the magazine, he goes on a long tour of Russia, participating in many cities in the evenings of humorous writers.

What did he look like outwardly, this in the recent past, a young and clumsy provincial, who managed in a short time to become a famous writer who constantly made all reading Russia laugh? The artist N.V. Remizov, already in exile, describes the first appearance of Averchenko in the editorial office in this way: “A large man with a slightly puffy face, but with a pleasant, open expression, entered the room: eyes looked through the pince-nez, which had the peculiarity of smiling without participation facial muscles. The impression was at first sight of him - disposing, despite a slight shade of provincial "chic", like a black, too wide pince-nez ribbon and a starched white waistcoat, details that were already "taboo" in St. Petersburg.

The success of the magazine, large circulations of books, performances, theatrical performances brought material well-being. Averchenko moves to a cozy apartment, furnishing it beautifully. N.N. Breshko-Breshkovsky recalls how “in the mornings, Averchenko did gymnastics to the sound of a gramophone, working with pound weights.” Although he did not have a musical education, at one time he was seriously interested in opera, then in operetta, and in numerous theaters of miniatures, where his plays were staged, he was his own person. Often in the "Satyricon" his ironic and funny theatrical reviews appeared under one of the many pseudonyms - A e, Wolf, Foma Opiskin, Medusa the Gorgon, Falstaff and others. As a rule, the writer spent his evenings at the Vena restaurant with his satyricon friends, writers, actors, and musicians. One of Averchenko's many everyday hobbies was chess. L. O. Utyosov told me that he was an outstanding player, he composed and printed problems.

The war of 1914 had almost no effect on Averchenko’s life and work - due to his “one-eyedness”, he was not drafted into the army and continued to edit his journal, often speaking at charity evenings in favor of the wounded and victims of the war. After October, both Averchenko himself and the editors of the Satyricon took a sharply negative position towards the Soviet government, after which the magazine was closed by government order in August 1918.

And then everything collapsed. The magazine is no more. Books are not published. A solid bank account requisitioned. The apartment is going to be "compacted". In the future - a hungry and cold winter. Friends and comrades-in-arms are leaving Petrograd - who goes where. And here is an offer from Moscow from the artist Koshevsky - to organize a cabaret theater somewhere in the south of Russia. But Averchenko and Radakov, who arrived in Moscow, find Koshevsky seriously ill. The whole plan fell apart. And then Averchenko, together with Teffi, who also ended up in Moscow, goes to Kyiv (two different entrepreneurs invited them to literary evenings).

In "Memoirs" Teffi very vividly and funny describes the many troubles that the writers had to get into during their long trip through the Ukraine occupied by the Germans. In Kiev, Averchenko, however, did not stay long and through Kharkov and Rostov, where he lived for several months, speaking with evenings of humor, as a refugee went to his homeland, to Sevastopol, then occupied by the whites. It was at the end of March or at the beginning of April 1919. But what he was doing in Sevastopol from April to June of this year, when the French troops surrendered the city to the Red Army, no information was obtained anywhere. And, starting from June 1919 and until the end of 1920, Arkady Timofeevich, as well as well-known writers I. Surguchev, E. Chirikov and I. Shmelev, actively worked in the newspaper Yug (later South of Russia), intensively campaigning for the help of Dobrovolcheskaya army. Averchenko also, together with the writer Anatoly Kamensky (who later returned to the USSR), opened the cabaret theater "Artist's House", where in early 1920 his multi-act play "Playing with Death", written in the summer of last year, was staged. Judging by the review published in the Yug newspaper (January 4, 1920), the play was a good success. And in the spring of the same year, Averchenko is already participating in the performances of the new theater - "The Nest of Migratory Birds" and continues to arrange his evenings in Sevastopol, Balaklava and Evpatoria.

By the end of October, Wrangel's troops found themselves in a desperate situation in the Crimea. On November 2, the Reds occupied Sevastopol. And a few days before that, Averchenko, in a steamship hold on coal bags, went to Constantinople. He told about this journey with bitter humor in the book “Notes of the Innocent. I am in Europe” (Berlin, publishing house “North”, 1923). Friends in Constantinople (now Istanbul) rented a small room for him in advance in Pera (city district), and he lived there for a year and a half, resurrecting his Nest theater. There were a lot of Russian refugees in the city at that time, Russian theaters of miniatures and restaurants were working.

But life in a country alien to customs, traditions and language became extremely difficult for Averchenko. He leaves Turkey with his troupe, and on April 13, 1922, he arrives in the Slavic land - in Sofia, where he planned to stay for a long time, but since the then government of Stamboliyskiy was very harsh on white emigrants and introduced numerous restrictions for them, the troupe, together with its leader , having given only two performances, hastily departed for Yugoslavia, and on May 27 the first performance, which had a huge success, took place in Belgrade. Then another one, according to a different program - and Averchenko leaves for Prague with the theater, giving a concert in Zagreb on the way. And two days later, on June 17, Averchenko arrives in Prague, where he finally settles down for permanent residence.

Prague, which hospitably and cordially welcomed the writer, also fell in love with him. He quickly gained many friends and admirers. Many of his stories have been translated into Czech. July 3 was the first evening, which was a great success and received enthusiastic responses in many newspapers. Then, from July to September, he went on tour around the country - he visited Brno, Pilsen, Moravian Ostrava, Bratislava, Uzhgorod, Mukachevo and, returning to Prague only in the first half of September, began to work intensively for the Prager Press newspaper, there appeared weekly his feuilletons and new stories. In October, successful tours took place in the Baltic States, Poland and Berlin.

Troubles awaited Averchenko in connection with his upcoming trip to Romania - at first they did not give a visa for a long time. When, on October 6, he finally appeared before the Chisinau public, they gave the writer an ovation, after which an unexpected complication occurred in Bucharest. The fact is that the then Romanian newspapers suddenly remembered that during the years of the World War Averchenko in his "New Satyricon" placed several caustic and offensive feuilletons about the Romanian army, and demanded that the government ban him from speaking and leaving the country. But later the matter was settled after a petition through diplomatic channels of members of the Czech government, admirers of the writer's talent.

And then wandering again: Belgrade, Berlin again. An invitation was received from the USA, a vacation was planned on the Riga coast. But all plans broke down - on the eve of his departure to Riga, his left eye, which had been damaged back in Kharkov times, fell seriously ill. An operation was performed, an artificial eye had to be inserted. It would seem that everything went well, but the writer began to feel a general malaise, at first not attaching any importance to this. But things got worse - staying at the Podobrady resort did not help, asthma attacks began, and on January 28, 1925, he was almost unconsciously admitted to the clinic at the Prague City Hospital. Diagnosis: almost complete weakening of the heart muscle, expansion of the aorta and sclerosis of the kidneys.

Despite a noticeable improvement in early February, after a secondary hemorrhage in the stomach at 9 am on March 12, 1925, at the age of 44, the remarkable Russian humorist writer Arkady Timofeevich Averchenko died in a hospitable but foreign country. His body was placed in a metal coffin and enclosed in a special case so that someone in the future - relatives or cultural organizations - could transport the ashes of the deceased to their homeland. Averchenko had no direct heirs, he was a bachelor.

A lot of reviews appeared in the press about the works of Averchenko from the very beginning of his St. Petersburg activities. In the West, after the death of the writer, many books dedicated to him were published. But for some reason, none of them ever evaluates and even almost never mentions two major works: the story "The Approaches and Two Others" and the humorous novel "The Patron's Joke".

Averchenko repeatedly used his favorite literary technique - in literary characters he displayed the appearance and characters of his friends and associates in the "Satyricon", most often the artists A. Radakov and N. Remizov, depicting them (under pseudonyms) in "Expedition to Western Europe" (in In this book, the artists drew cartoons on each other). In the characters of "Podkhodtsev", in fact, not a story, but a number of funny, and sometimes lyrical short stories with three "through" characters - Podkhodtsev, Klinkov and Gromov - there is also a similarity with the characters and appearance of satyricon friends.

Averchenko's last work, The Maecenas's Joke, was written in 1923 in Zoppot (now Sopot) and published in Prague in 1925 after the writer's death. The novel is both cheerful and sad, imbued with nostalgia for the dear heart of the author of the carefree bohemian life in St. Petersburg. And again in the characters of the novel there are signs of the author himself and his friends.

Arkady Averchenko was buried in Prague at the Olshansky cemetery.

In 2006, the television program "The Man Who Laughed" was filmed about Arkady Averchenko.

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Storybooks:

"Comic Stories"
"Funny Oysters"
"General history processed by the "Satyricon""
"Twelve portraits (in the Boudoir format)"
"Children"
"A dozen knives in the back of the revolution"
"Notes of the Innocent"
"Boiling Cauldron"
"Circles on the Water"
"Little Leniniana"
"Devilry"
“About good, in essence, people!”
"Pantheon of advice to young people"
"Stories for the Recovering"
"Children's Stories"
"Tales of the Old School"
"Funny in Scary"
"Weedy Herbs"
"Black on White"
"Miracles in a sieve"
"Expedition to Western Europe of Satyriconists: Yuzhakin, Sanders, Mifasov and Krysakov"
"Comic Stories"

The book includes the best humorous stories of the largest émigré writers of the early 20th century. They are united by faith in life and love for Russia. For senior school age.

A series: School Library (Children's Literature)

* * *

by the LitRes company.

Arkady Averchenko

Dedicated to A. Ya. Sadovskaya

The royal garden was open at that time of the day, and the young writer Ave entered it unhindered. After wandering a little along the sandy paths, he lazily sat down on a bench, on which an elderly gentleman with a friendly face was already sitting.

The affable elderly gentleman turned to Ave and after some hesitation asked:

- Who are you?

- I? Ave. Writer.

“Good job,” the stranger smiled approvingly. - Interesting and honorable.

- And who are you? asked the ingenuous Ave.

- I something? Yes king.

– This country?

- Certainly. And what is it...

In turn, Ave said no less benevolently:

- Also a good job. Interesting and honorable.

“Oh, don’t talk,” the king sighed. - Honorable, it is honorable, but there is nothing interesting in it. I must tell you, young man, kingship is not as honey as many people think.

Ave threw up his hands and exclaimed in astonishment:

- It's even amazing! I have not met a single person who was satisfied with his fate.

– Are you satisfied? the king squinted ironically.

- Not really. Sometimes some critic scolds so much that you want to cry.

- You see! For you, there are no more than a dozen or two critics, but I have millions of critics.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t be afraid of any criticism,” Ave objected thoughtfully and, shaking his head, added with the posture of a battered experienced king. “The whole point is to write good laws.

The king waved his hand.

- Nothing will come of it! Still no use.

– Have you tried it?

- Tried.

- I would be in your place ...

- Oh, in my place! the old king exclaimed nervously. “I have known many kings who were tolerable writers, but I do not know a single writer who was even a third-rate, last-class king. In my place ... I would have put you in a week, I would have seen what would come of you ...

- Where ... would you plant? – cautiously asked detailed Ave.

- To your place!

- A! To your place… Is it possible?

- From what! At least in order to do this, so that we, the kings, would be less envied ... so that we, the kings, would be criticized less and more clearly!

Ave modestly said:

- Well, well ... I, perhaps, will try. I just have to warn you: it happens to me to do this for the first time, and if out of habit I seem to you a little ... um ... funny - do not blame me.

“Nothing,” the king smiled good-naturedly. – I don’t think that you have done a lot of stupid things in a week ... So, do you want to?

- I'll try. By the way, I have in my head one small but very nice law. Today it could be made public.

- With God blessing! The king nodded his head. - Let's go to the palace. And for me, by the way, it will be a week of rest. What is this law? Not a secret?

– Today, walking along the street, I saw a blind old man… He walked, feeling the houses with his hands and a stick, and every minute risked falling under the wheels of carriages. And no one cared about him... I would like to pass a law according to which the city police should take part in the blind passers-by. A policeman, noticing a walking blind man, is obliged to take him by the hand and carefully guide him to the house, protecting him from carriages, pits and potholes. Do you like my law?

“You are a good fellow,” the king smiled wearily. - May God help you. And I'll go to sleep.

“Poor blind people…

For three days the humble writer Ave. We must give him justice - he did not use his power and the advantage of his position. Any other person in his place would put critics and other writers in prison, and the population would be obliged to buy only their books - and at least one book a day for each soul, instead of morning rolls ...

Ave resisted the temptation to issue such a law. He made his debut, as he had promised the king, with the "Law on seeing off blind men by policemen and on protecting these latter from the destructive action of external forces, such as: carriages, horses, pits, etc."

One day (this was on the fourth day in the morning) Ave was standing in his royal office at the window and absentmindedly looking out into the street.

Suddenly his attention was attracted by a strange spectacle: two policemen were dragging a passerby by the scruff of the neck, and a third urged him on from behind with kicks.

With youthful agility, Ave ran out of the office, flew down the stairs and a minute later found himself on the street.

- Where are you taking him? What are you hitting for? What did this person do? How many people did he kill?

“He didn’t do anything,” said the policeman.

“Why are you driving him and where are you going?”

“Why, your grace, he is blind. We legally drag him to the station and drag him.

- In law? Is there such a law?

- But how! Three days ago it was promulgated and entered into force.

Ave, shocked, clutched his head and yelped:

– My law?!

Behind some respectable passerby muttered a curse and said:

- Well, laws are now being published! What are they thinking about? What do they want?

- Yes, - another voice supported, - a smart finisher: "Any blind man seen on the street should be grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged to the police station, rewarding with kicks and mallets along the way." Very clever! Extremely kind!! Amazing care!!

Like a whirlwind, Ave flew into his royal office and shouted:

- The Minister is here! Find him and invite him to the office right now !! I have to investigate myself!

Upon investigation, the mysterious case with the law “On the Protection of the Blind from External Forces” was clarified.

This was the case.

On the first day of his reign, Ave called the minister and said to him:

- It is necessary to issue a law “On the caring attitude of policemen to blind passers-by, on escorting them home and on protecting these latter from the destructive action of external forces, such as carriages, horses, pits, etc.”

The minister bowed and left. Immediately he summoned the head of the city to himself and said to him:

- Declare a law: not to allow the blind to walk the streets without an escort, and if there are none, then to replace them with policemen, whose duty should be to deliver them to their destination.

Leaving the minister, the head of the city invited the head of the police to his place and ordered:

- There are blind people around the city, they say, they go without an escort. Do not allow this! Let your policemen take lonely blind men by the hand and lead them where they need to go.

- I'm listening.

On the same day, the chief of police summoned the chiefs of the units and said to them:

“That's it, gentlemen. We have been informed of a new law whereby any blind man found wandering down the street unaccompanied is picked up by the police and taken to his proper place. Got it?

“That’s right, sir!

The chiefs of the units dispersed to their places and, having called the police sergeants, said:

- Lord! Explain the new law to the policemen: "Any blind man who wanders aimlessly through the streets, interfering with carriage and foot traffic, is to be seized and dragged where he should be."

What does "where to go" mean? the sergeants then asked each other.

“Probably the precinct. On the landing ... Where else ...

- Probably so.

- Guys! - said the sergeants, bypassing the policemen. - If you see blind men wandering the streets, grab these canals by the scruff of the neck and drag them to the station !!

“What if they don’t want to go to the station?”

- Why don't they want to? A pair of good slaps, a crack, a strong kick from behind - I suppose they will run!

Having figured out the case "about the protection of the blind from external influences," Ave sat down at his luxurious royal table and began to cry.

A hand gently rested on his head.

- Well? Didn't I say, when I first learned about the law of "guarding the blind", "poor blind ones!"? You see, in this whole story, the poor blind lost, and I won.

– What did you win? Ave asked, looking for his hat.

- Yes, how? One less critic of mine. Farewell, honey. If you still decide to carry out any reform - come in.

"Wait!" thought Ave and, jumping over the ten steps of the magnificent royal staircase, he ran away.

fatal gain

What angers me the most is that some curmudgeon reader, after reading the following, will make a repulsive grimace on his face and say in a disgusting peremptory tone:

- There can be no such case in life!

And I tell you that there can be such a case in life!

The reader may of course ask:

- How can you prove it?

What can I prove? How can I prove that such a case is possible? Oh my God! Yes, it is very simple: such a case is possible because it was in reality.

I hope no other proof is required?

Directly and honestly looking into the reader's eyes, I categorically affirm: such an incident actually happened in August in one of the small southern towns! Well, sir?

And what is so unusual here? ... Are they arranged at public festivities in the city gardens of the lottery? Settle down. Is a live cow played as the main bait in these lotteries? Played out. Can anyone who buys a ticket for a quarter win this cow? Maybe!

OK it's all over Now. The cow is the key to the piece of music. It is clear that the whole play must play out in this vein, or - neither I nor the reader - we understand nothing in music.

In the city garden, spread over a wide river, on the occasion of the patronal feast, “a large folk festival with two orchestras of music, agility competitions (running in bags, running with an egg, etc.) was arranged, and a lottery will be offered to the attention of a sympathetic public -allegri with many grandiose prizes, among which are a live cow, a gramophone and a cupronickel samovar.

The festivities were a resounding success, and the lottery traded with might and main.

Enya Plintusov, a starch factory clerk, and Nastya Semerykh, the dream of his half-starved miserable life, came to the garden in the midst of the fun. Several city fools had already run past them, tangling their feet in flour bags tied above the waist, which, in general, should have marked a passion for the branch of the noble sport - "running in bags." A party of other city fools had already swept past them, blindfolded, holding a spoon with a raw egg on outstretched hand (another branch of the sport: "running with an egg"); the brilliant fireworks had already been burned; half of the lottery tickets have already been sold out ...

And suddenly Nastya pressed her companion's elbow to her elbow and said:

- Why, Yenya, why not try the lottery ... What if we win something!

Knight Enya did not argue.

- Nastya! - he said. - Your desire is a uniform law for me!

And rushed to the lottery wheel.

With an air of Rothschild, he threw the penultimate fifty kopecks, returned and, holding out two tickets rolled up into a tube, offered:

- Choose. One of them is mine, the other is yours.

Nastya, after a long deliberation, chose one, unfolded it, muttered in disappointment: “Empty!” - and threw him to the ground, and Yenya Plintusov, on the contrary, let out a joyful cry: “I won!”

And then he whispered, looking at Nastya with loving eyes:

- If a mirror or perfume - I give them to you.

After that, he turned to the kiosk and asked:

- Young lady! Number fourteen - what is it?

- Fourteen? Excuse me... It's a cow! You won the cow.

And everyone began to congratulate the happy Enya, and Enya felt that there really are moments in the life of every person that are not forgotten, which then shine for a long, long time with a bright, beautiful beacon, brightening up the dark, dull human path.

And - such is the terrible effect of wealth and fame - even Nastya faded in Yeni's eyes, and it occurred to him that another girl - not like Nastya - could decorate his magnificent life.

“Tell me,” Yenya asked, when the storm of enthusiasm and general envy subsided. – Can I pick up my cow now?

- Please. Maybe you want to sell it? We would take her back for twenty-five rubles.

Enya laughed madly.

- So-so! You yourself write that “a cow worth more than one hundred and fifty rubles,” but you yourself offer twenty-five? ... No, sir, you know ... Let me have my cow, and no more!

In one hand he took a rope stretching from the horns of a cow, with the other hand he grabbed Nastya by the elbow and, beaming and trembling with delight, said:

“Come on, Nastenka, go home, there’s nothing else for us to do here…”

The society of the pensive cow shocked Nastya a little, and she remarked timidly:

“Are you really going to be so ... hanging around with her?”

- Why not? The animal is like an animal; and there is no one to leave it here!

Enya Plintusov did not even have a slight sense of humor. Therefore, not for a single minute did he feel all the absurdity of the group that emerged from the gates of the city garden: Enya, Nastya, a cow.

On the contrary, broad, tempting prospects of wealth were drawn to him, and the image of Nastya grew dim and dim ...

Nastya, furrowing her brows, looked inquisitively at Enya, and her lower lip trembled...

- Listen, Enya ... So you won’t take me home?

- I'll follow. Why not follow you?

- A ... cow ??

- Why is the cow bothering us?

“And you imagine that I will go through the whole city with such a funeral procession?” Yes, my friends will laugh at me, the boys on our street will not let me pass!

- Well, all right ... - after some thought, Yenya said, - let's get into a cab. I still have thirty cents left.

- A ... cow?

- And we'll tie the cow behind.

Nastya flared up.

“I don’t know at all: who do you take me for?” Would you even offer me to ride your cow!

Do you think this is very clever? Enya asked arrogantly. - In general, it surprises me: your father has four cows, and you are even afraid of one as hell.

“Couldn’t you leave her in the garden until tomorrow, or what?” Would they steal it, right? What a treasure, you think ...

“As you like,” Yenya shrugged, secretly extremely wounded. If you don't like my cow...

"So you're not following me?"

- Where can I put the cow? Don't hide it in your pocket!

- Ah well? And it is not necessary. And I will come alone. Don't you dare come to us tomorrow.

“Please,” Yenya, offended, scoffed. - And the day after tomorrow I won’t come to you, and I don’t have to go at all, if so ...

“Thankfully, you’ve found the right company for you!”

And, having struck Enya with this murderous sarcasm, the poor girl walked down the street, her head bowed low and feeling that her heart was broken forever.

Yenya looked after Nastya for a few moments.

Then I woke up...

- Hey, you cow... Well, let's go, brother.

While Yenya and the cow walked along the dark street adjacent to the garden, everything was tolerable, but as soon as they came to the lighted, crowded Dvoryanskaya Street, Yenya felt a certain awkwardness. Passers-by looked at him with some amazement, and one boy was so delighted that he squealed wildly and proclaimed to the whole street:

- Cow's son takes his mother to sleep!

“Here I’ll give you a punch in the face, so you’ll know,” Yenya said sternly.

- Come on, give it! You will get such change that who will take you away from me?

It was pure bravado, but the boy did not risk anything, for Yenya could not let go of the ropes, and the cow moved with extreme slowness.

On half of Dvoryanskaya Street, Enya could no longer endure the dumbfounded look of passers-by. He came up with the following: he threw the rope and, after giving a kick to the cow, gave it the same forward movement. The cow walked on its own, and Enya, with an absent-minded mien, walked to the side, assuming the form of an ordinary passer-by who had nothing to do with the cow ...

When the forward movement of the cow weakened and she peacefully froze at someone's windows, Enya again surreptitiously kicked her, and the cow dutifully wandered on ...

Here is Enina street. Here is the house in which Enya rented a room from the carpenter ... And suddenly, like lightning in the darkness, the thought lit up Enya’s head: “Where am I going to put the cow now?”

There was no barn for her. Tie in the yard - they can steal, especially since the gate is not locked.

“That's what I'll do,” Yenya decided after a long and intense reflection. “I’ll slowly lead her into my room, and tomorrow we’ll arrange all this.” Can she stand in the room for one night ...

The happy owner of the cow slowly opened the door to the porch and carefully pulled the melancholic animal behind him:

- Hey, you! Come here, or something ... Yes, hush-she! Damn! The owners are sleeping, and she is knocking with her hooves like a horse.

Perhaps the whole world would find this act of Yeni surprising, absurd and unlike anything else. The whole world, except Yeni himself and, perhaps, the cow, because Enya felt that there was no other way out, and the cow was completely indifferent to the change in her fate and to her new place of residence.

Brought into the room, she stopped apathetically by Yena's bed and immediately began chewing on a corner of the pillow.

– Ksh! Look at you, damned, - he gnaws at the pillow! What are you... eating, maybe you want? or drink?

Enya poured water into a basin and slipped it under the very muzzle of the cow. Then, stealthily, he went out into the yard, broke off several branches from the trees, and, returning, carefully thrust them into the basin...

- No misters! How are you… Vaska! Eat! Tubo!

The cow stuck her muzzle into the basin, licked the branch with her tongue, and suddenly, raising her head, mooed rather thickly and loudly.

"Shush, damn you!" Yenya gasped, confused. - Shut up, damn you ... That's anathema! ..

Behind her, the door creaked softly. A naked man, wrapped in a blanket, looked into the room, and, seeing everything that was happening in the room, stepped back with a low cry of horror.

- Is that you, Ivan Nazaritch? Enya asked in a whisper. - Come in, do not be afraid ... I have a cow.

- Enya, are you out of your mind? Where did you get it from?

- I won the lottery. Eat, Vaska, eat! Tubo!

How can you keep a cow in a room? the tenant remarked displeasedly, sitting down on the bed. - If the owners find out, they will kick you out of the apartment.

- So it's only until tomorrow. She'll spend the night, and then we'll do something with her.

"M-m-mu-u!" - the cow roared, as if agreeing with the owner.

“Ah, I won’t calm down on you, damn it !! Hush! Give me a blanket, Ivan Nazaritch, I'll wrap her head up. Wait! Well, you! What will I do with her - the blanket is chewing! Whoa, damn!

Yenya threw back the blanket and grabbed the cow between the eyes with all his might.

"M-mm-u-u! .."

“Honest to God,” said the tenant, “the owner will now appear and drive you away along with the cow.”

- So what should I do? - Enya groaned, coming to some despair. - Well, advise.

- But what is there to advise ... And suddenly she will scream all night. You know what? Cut her up.

“So…how do you cut it?”

- Yes, very simple. And tomorrow the meat can be sold to butchers.

It could be said with certainty that the guest's mental abilities were, at best, on a par with the host's.

Yenya looked blankly at the tenant and said after some hesitation:

- And what is my account?

- Well, how! There are twenty poods of meat in it ... You sell a pood for five rubles - and then a hundred rubles. Yes, a skin, yes, yes, yes ... But for a living you still won’t get more.

- Seriously? What am I going to kill her with? There is a table knife, and that one is blunt. There are still scissors - nothing else.

“Well, if you stick the scissors in her eye so that it comes to the brain ...

“What if she… starts to defend herself… Raises a cry…”

- Let's assume that's true. Maybe poison her if...

- Well, you will also say ... You could roll in sleeping powder for her to fall asleep, but where do you get it now? ...

"Moo-oo-oo-oo! .." - the cow roared, looking at the ceiling with stupid round eyes.

There was a rumble behind the wall. Someone growled, cursed, spat out of sleep. Then the shuffling of bare feet was heard, the door to Enya's room swung open, and a sleepy, disheveled host appeared before the confused Enya.

He glanced at the cow, at Enya, gritted his teeth and, without going into any questions, dropped a strong and short:

- Let me explain to you, Alexei Fomich ...

- Won! So that your spirit is gone right now. I'll show you how to make a mess!

“What I told you,” said the tenant in such a tone, as if everything was arranged as it should; wrapped himself in his blanket and went to bed.

It was a dull, dark summer night when Yenya found himself on the street with a cow, a suitcase and a blanket with a pillow, loaded onto a cow (the first tangible benefit that this unfortunate win brings to Yenya).

- Well, you damned! Enya said in a sleepy voice. – Go, what! Don't stand here...

Walked quietly...

The small outlying houses ended, the desert steppe spread out, bounded on one side by some kind of wicker fence.

“Warm, in fact,” Yenya muttered, feeling that he was falling from fatigue. “I’ll sleep here by the hedge, and I’ll tie the cow to my arm.”

And Enya fell asleep - this is an amazing plaything of an intricate fate.

- Hey, sir! a voice rang out above him.

It was a bright, sunny morning.

Enya opened her eyes and stretched.

- Mister! - said the peasant, moving it with the toe of his boot. - How is it possible to tie a hand to a tree. What is this for?

Startled, as if stung, Yenya jumped to his feet and uttered a painful cry: the other end of the rope tied to his arm was tightly attached to a short, gnarled tree.

A superstitious person would have guessed that overnight the cow turned into a tree by miraculous power, but Enya was just a stupidly practical young man.

He sobbed and yelled:

- They stole it!

“Wait a minute,” said the district police officer. - What are you all telling me - they stole and stole, cow and cow ... And what kind of cow?

- Like what? Ordinary.

- Yes, what suit is it?

– Such, know … brown. But there are, of course, white spots.

- The muzzle appears to be white. Or not! White on the side ... On the back too ... The tail is also ... pale. In general, you know what cows usually are.

- No with! the bailiff said resolutely, pushing the paper aside. “I can’t search for such confused signs. How many cows in the world!

And poor Yenya wandered off to his starch factory ... His whole body ached from an uncomfortable overnight stay, and ahead of him was a reprimand from the accountant, since it was already the first hour of the day ...

And Yenya thought about the vanity of all earthly things: yesterday Yenya had everything: a cow, a dwelling and a beloved girl, and today everything is lost: a cow, a dwelling, and a beloved girl.

Strange jokes are played on us by life, and we are all its blind, obedient slaves.

Robber

From the lane, near the garden gate, through our fence, a rosy, young face looked at me - the black eyes did not blink, and the antennae moved amusingly.

I asked:

– What do you need?

He grinned.

“Actually, nothing.

“This is our garden,” I hinted delicately.

"So you're the boy here?"

- Yes. And what is it?

- Well, how is your health? How are you doing?

There was nothing a stranger could flatter me so much as with these questions. I immediately felt like an adult with whom they are having serious conversations.

“Thank you,” I said solidly, digging with my foot in the sand of the garden path. “Something is breaking my lower back. To the rain, or something! ..

It came out great. Just like my aunt.

- Hello, brother! Now you tell me this: do you think you should have a sister?

- How do you know that?

- Well, of course ... Every decent boy should have a sister.

“But Motka Naronovich doesn’t have one,” I objected.

- So Motka is a decent boy? – deftly parried the stranger. - You're much better.

I did not owe

- You have a nice hat.

– Aha! Pecked!

- What are you saying?

“I say: can you imagine a person who would jump from this high wall into the garden?”

“Well, brother, that’s impossible.

“So know, O young man, that I undertake to do this. Check this out!

If the stranger had not transferred the question to the field of pure sport, for which I have always felt a kind of morbid passion, I might perhaps have protested against such an unceremonious intrusion into our garden.

But sport is sacred.

- Gop! - And the young man, jumping to the top of the wall, like a bird, fluttered towards me from a height of five yards.

It was so out of reach for me that I was not even envious.

- Well, hello, lad. What is your sister doing? I think her name is Lisa?

- How do you know?

- I can see it in your eyes.

This struck me. I closed my eyes tightly and said:

- And now?

The experiment was a success because the stranger, turning fruitlessly, confessed:

“I don't see it now. Once your eyes are closed, you yourself, brother, you understand ... What are you playing here, in the garden?

- In the garden, then? To the house.

- Well? That's clever! Show me your house.

I trustfully led the nimble young man to my structure made of nurse's scarves, a reed stick and several boards, but suddenly some internal impulse stopped me ...

“Oh my God,” I thought. “What if it’s some thief who planned to rob my house, steal everything that was accumulated with such difficulty and hardship: a live turtle in a box, an umbrella handle in the shape of a dog’s head, a jar of jam, a reed stick and a paper folding flashlight?"

- And why do you need it? I asked sullenly. “I’d better go ask my mother if I can show you.”

He quickly, with some fear, grabbed my hand.

“Well, don’t, don’t! Don't leave me... It's better not to show your house, just don't go to your mother.

- Why?

- I'll be bored without you.

“You mean you came to me?”

- Certainly! Here's a freak! And you still doubted... Is sister Liza at home now?

- At home. And what?

- Nothing, nothing. What is this wall? Your home?

- Yes ... That window is my father's office.

- I don't want to. What are we going to do there?

"I'll tell you something...

Are you good at riddles?

- As much as you want! Such riddles that you gasp.

– Difficult?

- Yes, such that even Lisa can not guess. Doesn't she have anyone right now?

- Nobody. But guess the riddle, - I suggested, leading him by the hand to a secluded corner of the garden. “There are two beers in one keg, one yellow and one white.” What it is?

- Hm! the young man said thoughtfully. - That's the thing! Wouldn't it be an egg?

On my face, he clearly saw the displeasure of disappointment: I was not used to my riddles being so easily solved.

“Well, nothing,” the stranger reassured me. - Tell me another riddle, maybe I won’t guess it.

- Well, guess: "Seventy clothes and all without fasteners."

He furrowed his brow and sank into thought.

- No, sir, not a fur coat, sir! ..

- Dog?

- Why a dog? I was surprised at his stupidity. “Where is the dog’s seventy clothes?”

“Well, if she,” the young man said embarrassedly, “is sewn up in seventy skins.

- For what? – ruthlessly smiling, I interrogated.

- Well, you, brother, did not guess!

After that, he spouted the most complete nonsense, which gave me deep pleasure.

- Bike? Sea? Umbrella? Rain?

- Oh you! I said condescendingly. - It's a cabbage.

- And in fact, in fact! shouted the young man excitedly. - This is amazing! And how did I not realize this before. And I think: the sea? No, not the sea... Umbrella? No, it doesn't. That's Lisa's lousy brother! By the way, she's in her room right now, right?

- In my room.

- One. Well, what are you ... a riddle?

– Aha! Riddle? Hm ... What, brother, is a riddle for you? Is it this: "Two rings, two ends, and in the middle of carnations."

I looked at my interlocutor with regret: the riddle was the most vulgar, the most elementary, worn out and beaten.

But inner delicacy prompted me not to guess it right away.

– What is it?… – I said thoughtfully. - Hanger?

“What a hanger if there are carnations in the middle,” he objected languidly, thinking of something else.

“Well, they nailed it to the wall to hold it.

What about two ends? Where are they?

- Crutches? - I asked slyly and suddenly shouted with unbearable pride: - Scissors! ..

- Damn it! I figured it out! Well, you are a trickster! Would sister Lisa have guessed this riddle?

- I think I would. She is very smart.

And beautiful, you might add. By the way, does she have any friends?

- Eat. Elsa Liebknecht, Milochka Odintsova, Nadia...

No, are there men?

- Eat. One is walking towards us.

Why is he walking?

I lowered my head in thought, and my gaze fell on the stranger's smart patent-leather boots.

I was in awe.

- How much are?

- Fifteen rubles. Why is he walking? What does he need?

He seems to want to marry Lisa. It's time for him, he's old. Are these bows tied or already bought?

- Tie up. Well, does Lisa want to marry him?

- Bend your leg... Why don't they creak? So they are not new, I said critically. - The coachman Matvey had new ones, so I suppose they creaked. You could grease them with something.

- Okay, I'll wash it. Tell me, boy, does Liza want to marry him?

I shrugged.

- But how! Of course you want.

He grabbed his head and leaned back on the bench.

- What are you?

- My head hurts.

Illness was the only topic on which I could speak solidly.

- Nothing ... Do not live with your head, but with kind people.

This nanny's saying was evidently to his liking.

“Perhaps you are right, thoughtful young man. So you're saying that Lisa wants to marry him?

I was surprised:

- How else? How can you not want to! Have you never seen a wedding?

- Why, if I were a woman, I would marry every day: there are white flowers on my chest, bows, music plays, everyone shouts “hurray”, there is such a box on the table of caviar, and no one yells at you if you ate a lot. I, brother, have been to these weddings.

“So you think,” said the stranger thoughtfully, “that that’s why she wants to marry him?”

- And why not! .. They go to church in a carriage, but each coachman has a handkerchief tied on his arm. Think! I can't wait for this wedding to start.

“I knew boys,” the stranger said casually, “so dexterous that they could gallop all the way to the house on one leg ...

He touched the weakest of my strings.

- I can do that too!

- Well, what are you talking about! This is unheard of! Do you get it?

- By God! Want?

And up the stairs?

- And up the stairs.

"And to Lisa's room?"

- It's easy there. Twenty steps.

- It would be interesting for me to look at it ... But what if you cheat me? ... How can I check? Unless... I'll give you a piece of paper, and you'll go with it to Liza's room. Give her a piece of paper, and let her draw on it with a pencil, whether you rode well!

- Great! I shouted excitedly. - You'll see - I'll do it. Come on paper!

He wrote a few words on a piece of notebook paper and handed it to me.

- Well, with God. Only if you meet someone else, do not show the papers - anyway, then I won’t believe it.

- Learn more! I said contemptuously. – Look!

On the way to my sister's room, between two gigantic jumps on one leg, a treacherous thought entered my head: what if he deliberately invented this dispute in order to send me away and, taking advantage of the opportunity, rob my house? But I immediately pushed that thought away. I was small, gullible, and did not think that people were so vile. They seem serious, kind, but just where you smell a reed cane, a nanny's handkerchief or a cigar box - these people turn into shameless robbers.

Lisa read the note, looked at me carefully and said:

- Tell this gentleman that I will not write anything, but I will go out to him myself.

“Are you going to say that I jumped on one leg?” And, mind you, all the time on the left.

- I'll tell you, I'll tell you. Well, run, silly, back.

When I returned, the stranger did not particularly argue about the lack of written evidence.

“Well, wait,” he said. - By the way what is your name?

- Ilyusha. And you?

- My surname, you are my brother, Pronin.

– Are you… Pronin? Beggar?

A very strong idea of ​​the outward appearance of a beggar sat in my head: at hand was a crutch, on one leg tied with rags of overshoes, and behind my shoulders a dirty bag with a shapeless piece of dry bread.

- A beggar? Pronin was surprised. - What a beggar?

- Mom recently told Lisa that Pronin was a beggar.

- Did she say that? Pronin chuckled. She is probably talking about someone else.

- Certainly! I calmed down, stroking his patent leather boot with my hand. “Do you have any brother, beggar?”

- Brother? Actually, there is a brother.

- That's what my mother said: a lot, she says, of their brother, beggars, walks here. Do you have a lot of their brother?…

He did not have time to answer this question ... The bushes stirred, and the pale face of his sister appeared between the leaves.

Pronin nodded his head to her and said:

- I knew one boy - what a climb it was, it’s even amazing! He could, for example, in such darkness as now, look for fives in lilacs, but how! Pieces of ten. Now, perhaps, there are no such boys ...

“Yes, I can find you as much as you want right now. Even twenty!

- Twenty?! exclaimed the simpleton, opening his eyes wide. - Well, this, my dear, is something incredible.

- Do you want me to find it?

- No! I can't even believe it. Twenty fives... Well, - he shook his head doubtfully, - go look. We'll see. And my sister and I will wait for you here ...

In less than an hour, I brilliantly carried out my undertaking. Twenty fives were clenched in my sweaty, dirty fist. Finding Pronin in the darkness, who was discussing something with his sister, I said with sparkling eyes:

- Well! Not twenty? Come on, count!

I was a fool that I was looking for exactly twenty. I could easily have fooled him, because he did not even bother to count my fives.

“Well, you’re a trickster,” he said in amazement. - It's a real fire. Such a boy is even able to find and drag a garden ladder to the wall.

- Great importance! I remarked contemptuously. “I just don't want to go.

- Well, don't. That boy, however, was faster than you. An outrageous boy. He dragged the ladder, not holding it with his hands, but simply hooking the crossbar over his shoulders.

“I can too,” I said quickly. - Want?

- No, it's incredible! To the very wall?

“Think of it—difficulty!

Decidedly, in the case with the stairs, I set a record: that Proninsky boy only dragged it with his chest, and at the same time, in the form of a bonus, I jumped on one leg and buzzed like a steamer.

Proninsky boy was put to shame.

"Well, all right," said Pronin. “You are an amazing boy. However, old people told me that it is more difficult to find threes in lilac than fives ...

Oh fool! He did not even suspect that threes come across in lilacs much more often than fives! I prudently concealed this circumstance from him and said with feigned indifference:

– Of course, it is more difficult. And only I can get twenty pieces of triples. Eh, what is there to say! I'll get thirty pieces!

- No, this boy will drive me to the grave with surprise. Will you do it despite the darkness?! Oh miracle!

- Want? You will see!

I dived into the bushes, made my way to the place where the lilac grew, and delved into the noble sport.

I had twenty-six triples in my hand, despite the fact that only a quarter of an hour had passed. It occurred to me that it was easy to fool Pronin: show him twenty-six, and assure him that it was thirty. All the same, this simpleton will not count.

Simpleton... Good simpleton! I have never seen a bigger villain. First, when I returned, he disappeared with his sister. And secondly, when I came to my house, I immediately figured out all his tricks: riddles, fives, threes, kidnapping of my sister and other jokes - all this was set up in order to divert my attention and rob my house ... Indeed, not I had time to jump up to the stairs, when I immediately saw that there was no one near it, and my house, which was three steps away, was completely robbed: the nanny's large scarf, reed stick and cigar box - everything disappeared. Only the turtle, uprooted from the box, was crawling sadly and forlornly near the broken jar of jam...

This man robbed me even more than I thought at the time when I looked at the remains of the house. Three days later, the missing sister appeared with Pronin and, crying, confessed to her father and mother:

Forgive me, but I'm already married.

- For whom?

- For Grigory Petrovich Pronin.

It was doubly vile: they deceived me, mocked me like a boy, and, moreover, snatched music, a carriage, handkerchiefs on the sleeves of the coachmen and caviar, which could be eaten at the wedding, as much as they like, from under their very noses, - still no one pays attention.

When this most burning resentment healed, I once asked Pronin:

“Confess why you came: to steal my things from me?”

“Honest to God, not for this,” he laughed.

- Why did you take a handkerchief, a stick, a box and break a jar of jam?

- I wrapped Lisa with a handkerchief, because she went out in one dress, she put various small things of hers in a box, I took a stick just in case someone notices me in the alley, and accidentally broke a jar of jam ...

“Well, okay,” I said, making a gesture of absolution with my hand. - Well, tell me at least some riddle.

- A riddle? If you please, brother: "Two rings, two ends, and in the middle ..."

- I already spoke! Tell me new...

Obviously, this man went his whole life with only this one riddle in reserve.

He didn’t have anything else… I don’t understand how people live like that.

“Don’t you know anything more?…

And suddenly - no! This man was definitely not stupid - he looked around the living room and burst into a magnificent new, apparently just invented riddle:

- “There is a cow, lowing is healthy. If you grab her in the teeth, you won’t end up howling. ”

It was the most marvelous instance of a riddle, reconciling me completely with my cunning brother-in-law.

Turned out to be a piano.

scary boy

Turning my gaze to the quiet pink valleys of my childhood, I still experience a repressed horror of the Terrible Boy.

A touching childhood spreads across a wide field: serene bathing with a dozen other boys in Crystal Bay, wandering along the Historical Boulevard with a whole heap of stolen lilacs under his arm, stormy joy over some sad event that made it possible to miss a school day, a big change in the garden under acacias that snaked golden-green spots on Ushinsky’s disheveled book “Native Word”, children’s notebooks that delighted the eye with their snowy whiteness at the time of purchase and inspired the next day all well-meaning people with disgust with their dirty spotty appearance, notebooks in which thirty, forty times repeated with persistence worthy of a better fate: “The thread is thin, and the Eye is wide” - or a simple sermon of altruism was promoted: “Do not eat porridge, Masha, leave the porridge to Misha”, re-photographs in the margins of Smirnov’s geography, a special, sweet to the heart smell of an unventilated class - the smell of dust and sour ink, the feeling of dry chalk on the fingers after hard work at the blackboard, the return home under the gentle spring sun, along the semi-dry, elastic paths trodden among the thick mud, past the small peaceful houses of Craft Street and, finally, among this meek the valley of a child's life, like a formidable oak, rises a strong fist that looks like an iron bolt, crowning the lean, sinewy, like a bundle of wire, the hand of the Terrible Boy.

His Christian name was Ivan Aptekarev, his street nickname shortened him to Vanka Aptekarenka, and in my fearful, meek heart I christened him: Terrible Boy.

Indeed, there was something terrible in this boy: he lived in places completely unexplored - in the upland part of the Gypsy Slobidka; there were rumors that he had parents, but he apparently kept them in a black body, disregarding them, intimidating them; spoke in a hoarse voice, continually spitting saliva thin as a thread through a tooth knocked out by Lame Vozzhonok (a legendary person!) he dressed so splendidly that none of us could even imagine copying his outfit: on his feet were red, dusty shoes with extremely blunt socks, his head was crowned with a cap, crumpled, broken in the wrong place and with a visor cracked in the middle in the most vile way. .

The space between the cap and the shoes was filled with a completely faded uniform blouse, which was covered by a wide leather belt, descending two inches lower than it was supposed to be by nature, and on the legs there were trousers so swollen at the knees and tattered at the bottom that the Terrible Boy could induce panic in the population.

The psychology of the Scary Boy was simple, but completely incomprehensible to us, ordinary boys. When one of us was going to fight, he tried on for a long time, calculated the chances, weighed and, even weighing everything, hesitated for a long time, like Kutuzov before Borodino. And the Terrible Boy entered into any fight simply, without sighs and preparations: when he saw a person he didn’t like, or two, or three, he grunted, threw off his belt and, swinging his right arm so far that it almost slapped him on the back, rushed into battle.

The famous swing of the right hand made the first opponent fly to the ground, raising a cloud of dust; a blow to the head in the stomach brought down the second; the third received elusive but terrible blows with both legs. If there were more than three opponents, then the fourth and fifth flew from the right hand thrown back with lightning speed again, from a methodical headbutt in the stomach - and so on.

If fifteen or twenty people attacked him, then the Terrible Boy, knocked to the ground, stoically endured the rain of blows on his muscular, flexible body, trying only to turn his head in such a way as to notice who was hitting in what place and with what force, in order to finish in the future accounts with their torturers.

That's what kind of person he was - Aptekarenok.

Well, wasn't I right in calling him the Terrible Boy in my heart?

When I walked out of the school in anticipation of a refreshing swim in the Crystal, or wandered along the Historical Boulevard with a friend in search of mulberries, or simply ran to no one knows where on unknown business - all the time a touch of secret, unconscious horror throbbed my heart: now somewhere the Apothecary is wandering around in search of his victims ... Suddenly he will catch me and beat me to the end - “let the yushka go”, in his picturesque expression.

The Terrible Boy always had reasons for reprisals ...

Having once met my friend Sasha Gannibotser in my presence, the Pharmacist stopped him with a cold gesture and asked through his teeth:

What were you doing on our street?

Poor Hannibozer turned pale and whispered in a hopeless tone:

“I… didn’t ask.

- And who took away six soldier's buttons from Snurtsyn?

“I didn't take them. He lost them.

- And who gave him in the face?

So he didn't want to give up.

“Boys on our street cannot be beaten,” Aptekarenok remarked, and, as usual, with the speed of lightning, he proceeded to confirm the stated position: with a whistle he threw his hand behind his back, hit Gannibotzer in the ear, poked “under the sigh” with his other hand, which caused Gannibotzer to break in two and lost all breath, knocked the stunned, bruised Hannibozer to the ground with a kick of his foot, and, admiring the work of his hands, said coolly:

“And you…” It referred to me frozen at the sight of Scary Boy, like a bird in front of a snake's mouth. - What about you? Maybe you want to get one too?

“No,” I murmured, shifting my gaze from the weeping Gannibotzer to the Apothecary. – Why… I'm fine.

A tanned, wiry, not the first freshness fist swung like a pendulum at my very eye.

- I've been getting to you for a long time ... You will fall under my cheerful hand. I'll show you how to steal unripe watermelons from the chestnut tree!

“The damned boy knows everything,” I thought. And he asked boldly:

- And what do you need them for ... After all, they are not yours.

- What a fool. You steal all the immature ones, but which ones will be left for me? If I see you again near the tower, it would be better for you not to be born into the world.

He disappeared, and after that I walked down the street for several days with the feeling of an unarmed hunter, wandering along a tiger path and expecting that the reeds were about to stir and the huge striped body flickered softly and heavily in the air.

It's scary to live in the world for a small person.

The worst thing was when Aptekarenok came to bathe on the stones in Crystal Bay.

He always walked alone, despite the fact that all the surrounding boys hated him and wished him harm.

When he appeared on the stones, jumping from rock to rock like a wiry, lean wolf cub, everyone involuntarily became quiet and took on the most innocent look, so as not to call his stern attention by some careless gesture or word.

And in three or four methodical movements he threw off his blouse, hooking his cap on the move, then his pants, pulling off his boots along with them, and already showed off in front of us, clearly looming as a swarthy, graceful body of an athlete against the background of the southern sky. He patted his chest, and if he was in a good mood, then, looking around at an adult man who had somehow wormed his way into our children's company, he would say in a tone of command:

- Brothers! Well, let's show him "cancer".

At that moment, all our hatred for him disappeared - the damn Apothecary was so good at making “rak”.

Crowded, dark rocks overgrown with algae formed a small expanse of water, deep as a well ... And then all the children, huddled at the highest rock, suddenly began to look down with interest, groaning and clapping their hands in a theatrical way:

- Cancer! Cancer!

Look, cancer! God knows how big! Well, that's the thing!

- That's a sapling! .. Look, look - it will be an arshin and a half.

A peasant - some kind of baker at a bakery or a loader in the harbor - of course, became interested in such a miracle of the seabed and inadvertently approached the edge of the cliff, looking into the mysterious depths of the "well".

And Aptekarenok, who was standing on another, opposite rock, suddenly separated from it, flew up two arshins, curled up in the air into a tight ball, hiding his head in his knees, wrapping his arms tightly around his legs, and, as if hanging in the air for half a second, fell into the very center "wells".

A whole fountain - something like a whirlwind - soared upwards, and all the rocks from top to bottom were flooded with boiling streams of water.

The whole thing was that we, the boys, were naked, and the peasant was dressed, and after the “cancer” he began to resemble a drowned man pulled out of the water.

How the Aptekarenok did not crash in this narrow rocky well, how it managed to dive into some kind of underwater gate and swim out onto the wide expanse of the bay - we were completely perplexed. It was only noticed that after the "cancer" Aptekarenok became kinder to us, did not beat us and did not tie "crackers" on wet shirts, which he then had to gnaw with his teeth, trembling with his naked body from the fresh sea breeze.

At the age of fifteen, we all began to "suffer."

This is a completely peculiar expression, almost inexplicable. It took root among all the boys of our city, passing from childhood to youth, and the most frequent phrase at the meeting of two "friers" (also southern slang) was:

- Shut up, Seryozha. Who are you suffering for?

- For Manya Ognevoy. And you?

- And I'm not after anyone.

- Lie more. What are you, afraid to say to another friend, or what?

- Yes, mine Katya Kapitanaki is very attractive.

- Punish me Lord.

“Well, then you’re after her.”

Convicted of heart weakness, the “sufferer for Katya Kapitanaki” becomes embarrassed and, in order to hide his charming half-childish embarrassment, bends a three-story curse.

After that, both friends go to drink buza for the health of their chosen ones.

It was the time when the Terrible Boy turned into the Terrible Youth. His cap was still full of unnatural kinks, the belt went down almost to the hips (inexplicable chic), and the blouse with a camel's hump knocked out from under the belt from behind (the same chic); the Youth smelled of tobacco rather acridly.

The terrible Young Man Apothecary, waddling over, came up to me on a quiet evening street and asked in his quiet voice, full of menacing majesty:

“What are you doing here, on our street?”

“I’m taking a walk ...” I answered, respectfully shaking the hand extended to me in the form of special favor.

- Why are you walking?

- So-so.

He paused, eyeing me suspiciously.

- And who are you following?

- Yes, for no one.

- Punish me Lord ...

- Lie more! Well? You won’t be in vain (also a word) hanging around our street. Who are you following?

And then my heart sank sweetly when I betrayed my sweet secret:

- For Kira Kostyukova. She'll be out after dinner.

- Well, it's possible.

He paused. On this warm, gentle evening, filled with the sad smell of acacias, the secret was bursting even into his courageous heart.

After a pause, he asked:

"Do you know who I'm after?"

“No, Pharmacist,” I said affectionately.

“To whom Aptekarenok, and to you, uncle,” he grumbled half jokingly, half angrily. - I, my brother, am now in charge of Liza Evangopulo. And earlier I used to cook (pronouncing “I” instead of “a” was also a kind of chic) ​​for Maruska Korolkevich. It's great, huh? Well, brother, your happiness. If you had any thoughts about Lisa Evangopoulo, then...

Again, his already grown and even stronger sinewy fist swayed at my nose.

- Did you see it? And so nothing, go for a walk. Well ... everyone is pleased to cook.

A wise phrase applied to the feeling of the heart.

On November 12, 1914, I was invited to the infirmary to read several of my stories to the wounded, who were bored to death in a peaceful infirmary environment.

I had just entered a large ward lined with beds when a voice was heard from behind me from the bed:

- Hello, Fryer. What are you doing about pasta?

A tone native to my childish ear sounded in the words of this pale, wounded man overgrown with a beard. I looked at him in bewilderment and asked:

- You do it for me?

- So, not to recognize old friends? Wait, if you happen to be on our street, you will find out what Vanka Aptekarenok is.

– Aptekarev?!

The Terrible Boy lay in front of me, smiling weakly and kindly at me.

Childish fear of him for a second grew in me and made both me and him (later, when I confessed this to him) laugh.

“Dear Apothecary?” An officer?

- Yes. - And in turn: - Writer?

- Not injured?

- That's it. Do you remember how I blew up Sasha Gannibotser in your presence?

- Still would. And why did you "get to me" then?

- And for the watermelons from the chestnut tree. You stole them, and it was not good.

- Why?

“Because I wanted to steal myself.

- Right. And you had a terrible hand, something like an iron hammer. I wonder what she looks like now...

"Yes brother," he chuckled. And you can't imagine.

- Yes, look ... - And he showed a short stump from under the blanket.

- Where is it you so?

- Take the battery. There were fifty of them. And we, this ... Less.

I remembered how he, with his head down and his arm thrown back, blindly rushed at five, and said nothing. Poor Scary Boy!

When I left, he bent my head to his, kissed me and whispered in my ear:

Who are you following now?

And such pity for the past sweet childhood, for the book "Native Word" by Ushinsky, for the "big break" in the garden under the acacias, for the stolen bunches of lilacs - such pity flooded our souls that we almost cried.

business man day

In all five years of Ninochkina's life today, perhaps, the heaviest blow fell upon her: someone called Kolka composed a poisonous poetic pamphlet on her.

The day began as usual: when Ninochka got up, the nurse, after dressing her and giving her tea, grumbled:

“Now get on the porch and see what the weather is like today!” Yes, sit there longer, for half an hour - watch out so that it doesn’t rain. And then come and tell me. I wonder how it is there...

The nanny lied in the most cold-blooded way. No weather was interesting to her, but she simply wanted to get rid of Ninochka for half an hour, so that she could drink tea with sweet crackers in freedom.

But Ninochka is too trusting, too noble, to suspect a trick in this case. She meekly pulled down her apron on her stomach, said: “Well, I’ll go and have a look,” and went out onto the porch, flooded with warm golden sun.

Not far from the porch, three little boys were sitting on a piano box. They were completely new boys whom Ninochka had never seen before.

Noticing her sitting down nicely on the steps of the porch to fulfill the nanny’s assignment - “watch out, it wouldn’t rain,” one of the three boys, whispering with a friend, got down from the box and approached Ninochka with the most caustic look, under the guise of outward innocence and sociability.

“Hello girl,” he greeted her.

“Hello,” Ninochka answered timidly.

- Do you live here?

- I live here. Dad, aunt, sister Lisa, fraulein, nanny, cook and me.

- Wow! Nothing to say, - the boy grimaced. - What is your name?

- Me? Ninotchka.

And suddenly, having pulled out all this information, the damned boy spun on one leg with frantic speed and yelled to the whole yard:

Ninka-Ninenok,

gray pig,

Rolled down the hill

Choking on mud...

Turning pale with horror and resentment, with wide-open eyes and mouth, Ninochka looked at the scoundrel who had so slandered her, and he again, winking at his comrades and holding hands with them, spun in a frantic round dance, shouting in a piercing voice:

Ninka-Ninenok,

gray pig,

Rolled down the hill

Choking on mud...

A terrible weight fell on Ninotchka's heart. Oh God, God! For what? Whom did she stand in the way of, that she was so humiliated, so disgraced?

The sun dimmed in the eyes, and the whole world was painted in the most gloomy tones. Is she a gray pig? Did she choke on dirt? Where? When? My heart ached like it had been burned by a red-hot iron, and I did not want to live.

Tears flowed profusely through the fingers with which she covered her face. What killed Ninochka the most was the coherence of the pamphlet published by the boy. It is said so painfully that "Ninenok" rhymes beautifully with "piglet", while "rolled down" and "choked" like two identically sounded slaps on the face burned with indelible shame on Ninochkin's face.

She got up, turned to the offenders and, weeping bitterly, quietly wandered into the rooms.

“Let’s go, Kolka,” one of his slanderers said to the writer of the pamphlet, “otherwise this crybaby will take pity on us again and fly in.”

Going into the hall and sitting down on the chest, Ninochka, her face not dry from tears, fell into thought. So, her offender's name is Kolka... Oh, if she could come up with similar verses with which she could discredit this Kolka, with what pleasure she would throw them in his face! , and her heart was seething with resentment and a thirst for revenge.

And suddenly the god of poetry, Apollo, touched her brow with his finger. Really? ... Yes, of course! Without a doubt, she will also have poems on Kolka. And no worse than the old ones.

Oh, the first joy and torment of creativity!

Ninochka rehearsed several times under her breath those flying fiery lines that she would throw in Kolka's face, and her meek little face lit up with unearthly joy. Now Kolka will learn how to touch her.

She slid down from the trunk and, cheered up, went out onto the porch again with a cheerful look.

A warm company of boys, almost at the very porch, started an extremely uncomplicated game, but which delighted all three. Exactly - each in turn, putting his thumb to his index finger, so that it turned out something like a ring, spat into this semblance of a ring, holding a quarter of an arshin from his lips. If the spit flew inside the ring without touching the fingers, the happy player smiled happily.

If someone had saliva on their fingers, then this awkward young man was rewarded with deafening laughter and ridicule. However, he did not particularly grieve from such a failure, but, wiping his wet fingers on the edge of his blouse, he plunged into an exciting game with new excitement.

Ninochka admired what was happening for a while, then beckoned her offender with her finger and, bending down from the porch towards him, asked with the most innocent air:

- And what is your name?

- And what? the cautious Kolka asked suspiciously, sensing some kind of catch in all this.

- Yes, nothing, nothing ... Just tell me: what is your name?

She had such an ingenuous, naive face that Kolka succumbed to this bait.

“Well, Kolya,” he croaked.

- Ahhh ... Kolka ...

And quickly, quickly, the radiant Ninochka blurted out:

Kolka-Knee,

gray pig,

Rolled down the hill

Choking on… dirt…

Immediately she rushed through the door she prudently left open, and after her came:

- Stupid dog!

Slightly reassured, she wandered off to her nursery. The nanny, laying out some cloth rubbish on the table, cut out a sleeve from it.

- Nanny, it's not raining.

- Well, good.

- What are you doing?

- Do not disturb me.

- Can I watch?

- No, no, please. Go and see what Lisa is doing.

- And what's next? – dutifully asks executive Ninochka.

“Then tell me.

- Fine…

At Ninochka's entrance, fourteen-year-old Liza hurriedly hides a book in a pink wrapper under the table, but, seeing who has come, takes out the book again and says displeasedly:

- What do you need?

- Nanny told me to look at what you are doing.

- I'm learning lessons. Can't you see, right?

- Can I sit next to you? ... I'm quiet.

Lisa's eyes are on fire, and her red cheeks are still warm from the pink-wrapped book. She has no time for her sister.

- You can't, you can't. You will interfere with me.

- And the nanny says that I will interfere with her too.

- Well, so that's what ... Go see where Tuzik is. What about him?

- Yes, he probably lies in the dining room near the table.

- Here you go. So you go see if he's there, pet him and give him some bread.

It doesn't occur to Ninochka for a single minute that they want to get rid of her. She is simply given a responsible assignment - that's all.

- And when he is in the dining room, so come to you and say? Ninochka asks seriously.

- No. You then go to dad and say that you fed Tuzik. Actually, sit there with him, you understand?

- Fine…

Ninochka hurries to the dining room with the air of a housewife-busy hostess. He strokes Tuzik, gives him bread and then anxiously rushes to his father (the second half of the assignment is to inform his father about Tuzik).

Dad is not in the office.

Dad is not in the living room.

Finally... Papa sits in the fraulein's room, leaning close to the latter, holding her hand in his.

When Ninochka appears, he leans back in embarrassment and says with slightly exaggerated joy and amazement:

- Ah! Who do I see! Our esteemed daughter! Well, how do you feel, the light of my eyes?

- Dad, I have already fed Tuzik with bread.

- Yeah ... And well, brother, I did it; therefore they, these animals, are without food ... Well, now go to yourself, my gray-winged dove.

- Where, dad?

– Well… go where you are… Go you… hm! You go to Lisa and find out what she is doing there.

- Yes, I've only been to her. She teaches lessons.

- That's how ... Nice, nice.

He looks eloquently at the lady-in-waiting, slowly strokes her hand and mumbles vaguely:

- Well ... in such a time ... you go to this very one ... you go to the nanny and look at you ... what the above-mentioned nanny is doing there ...

She is sewing something there.

- Yeah ... Wait a minute! How many pieces of bread did you give Tuzik?

- Two pieces.

- Eka became generous! Can such a big dog be fed with two bites? You give him, my angel, another roll ... A piece that way four. Yes, look, by the way, if he gnaws at the leg of the table.

- And if he nibbles, come and tell you, right? - Ninochka asks, looking at her father with bright, affectionate eyes.

- No, brother, you don’t tell me, but this one, like her ... Tell Liza. This is in her department. Yes, if this same Lisa has some kind of funny book with pictures, then you, then, that’s it ... look carefully, and then tell what you saw. Understood?

- Understood. I'll take a look and tell you.

- Yes, brother, not today. You can tell tomorrow. Above us is not caplet. Isn't it true?

- Fine. Tomorrow.

- Well, travel.

Ninotchka travels. First, to the dining room, where he conscientiously thrusts three pieces of bread into Tuzika's bared mouth, then to Lisa's room.

- Lisa! Tuzik does not gnaw on the leg of the table.

“And congratulations on that,” Liza drops absently, glaring at the book. - Well, go ahead.

- Where to go?

- Go to your dad. Ask what is he doing?

- Yes, I already was. He said to show me the picture book. He needs to be told tomorrow.

- Oh, my God! What is this girl! Well, on you! Just sit still. And then I'll kick it out.

Submissive Ninochka sits down on a footstool, unfolds the illustrated geometry given by her sister on her knees, and for a long time examines the truncations of pyramids, cones and triangles.

“I looked,” she says half an hour later, sighing with relief. “Now what?”

- Now? God! Here is another restless child. Well, go to the kitchen, ask Arisha: what do we have for lunch today? Have you ever seen how potatoes are peeled?

- Well, go take a look. Then tell me.

- Well ... I'll go.

Arisha has guests: a neighbor's maid and a messenger "little red riding hood".

– Arisha, will you be peeling potatoes soon? I need to watch.

- Where there soon! And I won't be in an hour.

- Well, I'll sit and wait.

- I found a place for myself, there is nothing to say! .. Go better to the nanny, tell her to give you something.

- And what?

Well, she knows what.

- What to give now?

- Yes, yes, now. Go yourself, go!

All day long Ninochka's fast legs carry her from one place to another. A lot of trouble, orders up to the throat. And all the most important, urgent.

Poor "restless" Ninochka!

And only in the evening, accidentally wandering into the rooms of Aunt Vera, Ninochka finds a real friendly welcome.

- Ah, Ninotchka! - Aunt Vera greets her violently. - I need you. Listen, Ninochka... Are you listening to me?

- Yes, aunt. I'm listening.

- That's what, dear ... Alexander Semenovich will come to me now, do you know him?

- The one with the mustache?

- That's it. And you, Ninochka... (aunt breathes strangely and heavily, holding her heart with one hand) you, Ninochka... stay with me while he's here and don't go anywhere. Do you hear? If he says it's time for you to sleep, you say you don't want to. Do you hear?

- Fine. So you won't send me anywhere?

- What you! Where will I send you? On the contrary, sit here - and no more. Understood?

- Lady! Can I take a ninja? It's time for her to sleep.

“No, no, she will still sit with me. Really, Alexander Semyonitch?

- Yes, let him go to sleep, what is there? says this young man, furrowing his brows.

“No, no, I won’t let her go. I love her so...

And Aunt Vera convulsively embraces the tiny little body of the girl with her big warm hands, like a drowning man who, in his last death struggle, is ready to grab even a tiny straw ...

And when Alexander Semyonovich, keeping a gloomy expression on his face, leaves, the aunt somehow sinks all over, fades and says in a completely different, not the same tone:

"Now go to sleep, baby." There is nothing to sit around here. Harmful…

Pulling off her stockings, tired but pleased, Ninochka thinks to herself in connection with the prayer that she had just offered up to Heaven, at the insistence of the nanny, for her dead mother: “What if I die too? Who will do everything then?

Christmas Day at the Kindyakovs

Eleven o'clock. The morning is frosty, but the room is warm. The stove hums and rustles merrily, occasionally crackling and throwing a whole sheaf of sparks onto an iron sheet nailed to the floor for this occasion. A nervous glow of fire runs comfortably over the blue wallpaper.

All four children of the Kindyakovs are in a festive, concentrated and solemn mood. The holiday seems to starch all four of them, and they sit quietly, afraid to move, cramped in new dresses and suits, cleanly washed and combed.

Egorka, eight years old, sat down on a bench by the open stove door and, unblinking, had been staring at the fire for half an hour now.

A quiet tenderness descended on his soul: the room was warm, the new shoes creaked so loudly that it was better than any music, and for dinner a meat pie, piglet and jelly.

It's good to live. If only Volodya didn’t beat him and, in general, didn’t hurt him. This Volodya is just some kind of gloomy spot on Yegorka's carefree existence.

But Volodya, a twelve-year-old student of the city school, is not up to his meek, melancholy brother. Volodya also feels the holiday with all his heart, and his soul is light.

He has long been sitting at the window, the glass of which the frost has decorated with intricate patterns, and reading.

The book is in an old, shabby, battered binding, and it is called: "Children of Captain Grant." Flipping through the pages, deep in reading, Volodya no, no, yes, and he will look with a constricted heart: is there much left to the end? So the bitter drunkard regretfully looks into the light of the remnants of life-giving moisture in the decanter.

After swallowing one chapter, Volodya will definitely take a short break: he touches the new patent leather belt that girdles a fresh student blouse, admires the fresh kink in his trousers, and for the hundredth time decides that there is no more beautiful and graceful person on the globe than him.

And in the corner, behind the stove, where mother's dress hangs, the youngest Kindyakovs perched ... There are two of them: Milochka (Lyudmila) and Karasik (Kostya). They, like cockroaches, peek out of their corner and whisper about something.

Since yesterday, both of them have already decided to emancipate themselves and live in their own house. Exactly - they covered the pasta box with a handkerchief and placed tiny plates on this table, on which they neatly laid out: two pieces of sausage, a piece of cheese, one sardine and several caramels. Even two bottles of cologne decorated this solemn table: in one - "church" wine, in the other - a flower - everything is like in the first houses.

Both are sitting at their table, cross-legged, and do not take their eyes off this work of comfort and luxury.

And only one terrible thought gnaws at their hearts: what if Volodka pays attention to the table arranged by them? There is nothing sacred for this voracious savage: he will immediately fly in, with one movement he will knock sausage, cheese, sardine into his mouth and fly away like a hurricane, leaving darkness and destruction behind him.

“He is reading,” Karasik whispers.

“Go and kiss his hand… Maybe then he won’t touch it.” Will you go?

“Go yourself,” Karasik hoots. - You are a girl. The letters "k" Karasik cannot pronounce. This is a closed door for him. He even pronounces his name like this:

- Tarasit.

With a sigh, Milochka gets up and goes with the air of a troublesome housewife to her formidable brother. One of his hands rests on the edge of the window sill. Darling reaches out to her, to this terrible hand, hardened from fussing with snowballs, covered with scars and scratches from fierce battles ... Kisses with fresh pink lips.

And timidly looks at the terrible man.

This propitiatory sacrifice softens Volodya's heart. He breaks away from the book:

- Are you beautiful? Are you having fun?

- Funny.

- That's it. Have you seen these belts?

The sister is indifferent to the spectacular appearance of her brother, but in order to grease him, she praises:

Oh, what a belt! Just lovely!..

- That's it. And you smell what it smells like.

- Oh, how it smells! Straight to the skin.

- That's it.

Milochka retreats to her corner and again plunges into the mute contemplation of the table. Sighs... Addresses Karasik:

- Kissed.

- Not fighting?

- No. And there the window is so frozen.

“Won’t Egorta touch the table?” Go and kiss his rue.

- Well, here's more! Kiss everyone. What was missing!

“What if he spit on the table?”

-Let's go, and we'll wipe it.

- And if they spit on the tolbas?

- We'll clean it up. Don't be afraid, I'll eat it myself. I don't mind.

Mother's head pops through the door.

- Volodenka! A guest has come to you, comrade.

God, what a magical change of tone! On weekdays, the conversation is like this: “What are you, lousy rubbish, pecking with chickens, or what? Where did you get into the ink? When my father comes, I will tell him - he will prescribe Izhitsa for you. Son, but boots are worse!

Kolya Cheburakhin came.

Both comrades feel a little awkward in this atmosphere of festive decorum and solemnity.

It is strange to see Volodya how Cheburakhin shuffled his foot, greeting his mother, and how he introduced himself to the contemplator - Yegorka:

- Allow me to introduce myself - Cheburakhin. Very nice.

How unusual this is! Volodya was accustomed to seeing Cheburakhin in a different setting, and Cheburakhin's manners were usually different.

Cheburakhin used to catch a gaping schoolboy in the street, rudely pushed him in the back and asked sternly:

– What are you asking?

- And what? - in deathly anguish, the timid "pencil" whispered. - I'm nothing.

- That's nothing for you! Do you want to grab it in the face?

“I didn’t touch you, I don’t even know you.

- Tell me: where do I study? Cheburakhin asked gloomily and majestically, pointing to the faded, half-torn coat of arms on his cap.

- In the city.

– Aha! In the city! So why don't you take off your hat to me, you unfortunate scum? Need to learn?

The gymnasium cap, deftly knocked down by Cheburakhin, flies into the mud. The insulted, humiliated schoolboy weeps bitterly, and Cheburakhin, satisfied, "like a tiger (his own comparison), sneaks on" further.

And now this terrible boy, even more terrible than Volodya, politely greets the little fellow, and when Volodin's mother asks his name and what his parents do, a bright hot color fills Cheburakhin's tender, swarthy, like a peach, Cheburakhin's cheeks.

An adult woman talks to him as an equal, she invites you to sit down! Truly this Christmas does miracles with people!

The boys sit down at the window and, confused by the unusual situation, smiling, look at each other.

“Well, it’s good that you came. How are you doing?

- Wow, thanks. What are you reading?

- "The Children of Captain Grant". Interesting!

- Ladies. And you won't get torn?

- No, what are you! (Pause.) Yesterday I punched a boy in the face.

- By God. God bless me, give me. You see, I’m walking along Slobodka, I don’t think anything, but he will somehow move a brick in my foot! I didn't endure here. Ke-ek ahnu!

“After Christmas we must go to Slobodka to beat the boys. Right?

- We'll definitely go. I bought rubber for a slingshot. (Pause.) Have you ever eaten buffalo meat?

Volodya mortally wants to say: "ate." But it's impossible... Volodya's whole life passed before Cheburakhin's eyes, and such an event as eating buffalo meat could not have gone unnoticed in their small town.

- No, I haven't eaten. And probably delicious. (Pause.) Would you like to be a pirate?

- I wanted to. I'm not ashamed. Still a lost man...

“Yes, and I’m not ashamed. Well, a pirate is just as human as the others. Just robbed.

- It's clear! But adventure. (Pause.) And I also kicked one boy in the teeth. What is it really? Told my aunt that I smoke. (Pause.) I don't like Australian savages, you know! African blacks are better.

- Bushmen. They are attached to the whites.

And in the corner, the bushman Yegorka had, indeed, become attached to the whites:

- Give me a candy, Milka, otherwise I'll spit on the table.

- Go, go! I'll tell my mom.

- Give me candy, otherwise I'll spit.

- Well, spit. I'm not giving it.

Egorka fulfills his threat and indifferently moves away to the stove. Milochka wipes the spit off the sausage with her apron and carefully places it back on the plate. In her eyes, longsuffering and meekness.

God, how many hostile elements are in the house ... And so one has to live - with the help of affection, bribery and humiliation.

“This Yegorka makes me laugh,” she whispers to Karasik, feeling a little embarrassed.

- He's a fool. Tat like it's his tonfets.

And for dinner guests arrive: an employee in the shipping company Chilibeev with his wife and uncle Akim Semenych. Everyone sits, quietly exchanging monosyllabic words, until they are seated at the table.

Noisy at the table.

- Well, godfather, and a pie! shouts Chilibeev. - Pie for all pies.

- Where is it! I thought it wouldn't work at all. Such lousy stoves in this city that even a pipe of stoves.

- A piglet! - Akim shouts enthusiastically, whom everyone despise a little for his poverty and enthusiasm. “It’s not a piglet, but the devil knows what it is.”

- Yes, and think: such a pig that there is nothing to see here - two rubles !! They went crazy there, in the market! Kura is a ruble, but there is no attack on turkeys! And what it will be like next is not known.

At the end of dinner, an incident occurred: Chilibeev's wife knocked over a glass of red wine and poured a new blouse on Volodya, who was sitting next to him.

Kindyakov the father began to reassure the guest, but Kindyakov the mother said nothing. But it was clear from her face that if it had not been in her house and it had not been a holiday, she would have exploded with anger and resentment for the spoiled good, like a powder mine.

As a well-mannered woman, as a hostess who understands what a good tone is, Kindyakova-mother preferred to pounce on Volodya:

- Why are you sitting here at hand! And what kind of lousy children are these, they are ready to hammer their mother into the grave. Ate, it seems - and go. He sat down like a mayor! You will soon grow up to the sky, but you will still be a fool. Only a master poke his nose into books!

And immediately the whole solemn holiday, all the contemplative-enthusiastic mood faded in Volodya's eyes ... The blouse was adorned with an ominous dark spot, the soul was offended, trampled into the dirt in the presence of strangers, and most importantly - Comrade Cheburakhin, who also immediately lost all his brilliance and charm of unusualness.

I wanted to get up, leave, run away somewhere.

Get up, leave, run away. Both. To Sloboda.

And a strange thing: if there hadn't been a dark stain on the blouse, everything would have ended with a peaceful walk along the quiet Christmas streets.

But now, as Volodya decided, there was nothing to lose.

Indeed, we immediately met three second-graders.

– What are you asking? Volodya asked one of them menacingly.

- Give it to him, give it, Volodya! Cheburakhin whispered from the side.

“I’m not wondering,” the schoolboy objected reasonably. - And now you will get pasta.

- I? Who will take you away from me, unfortunate ones?

- The forsila itself is unfortunate!

- Eh! - Volodya shouted (anyway, the blouse is no longer new!), With a dashing movement, he threw off his coat from his shoulders and waved ...

And four high school students were already running from the corner of the alley to help their own ...

- What are they, lousy bastards, seven people for two! - Volodya said hoarsely, barely moving his swollen lip, as if someone else's, and looking at his friend with satisfaction with his swollen eye. - No, you, brother, try two by two ... Right?

- It's clear.

And the remnants of the festive mood immediately disappeared - it was replaced by ordinary, everyday affairs and worries.

Under the table

Easter story

Children, in general, are taller and cleaner than us. A tiny story with an even smaller Dimka will clearly, I hope, confirm this.

What kind of difficult person carried this boy under the Easter table is unknown, but the fact remains: while the adults stupidly and carelessly sat down at the table abundantly laden with Easter dishes and drinks, Dimka, skillfully maneuvering between a whole forest of columnar legs huge for his height, took dived under the table, along with a camel, half a wooden egg and a greasy edge of a rich woman ...

He laid out his supplies, put a sullen, unsociable camel at the side and plunged into observations ...

Under the table is fine. Chilly. From the freshly washed floor, not yet shuffled by feet, it smells of pleasant moisture.

Aunt's legs are immediately noticeable: they are in huge soft carpet shoes - from rheumatism, or something. Dimka scratched the carpet flower on his shoe with the nail of a tiny finger... The leg moved, Dimka frightenedly pulled his finger away.

He lazily nibbled on the edge of a rich woman warmed by the hand, gave the camel some refreshment, and suddenly his attention was riveted by very strange evolutions of patent leather men's shoes with a white suede top.

The leg, shod in this elegant thing, stood calmly at first, then suddenly trembled and crawled forward, occasionally carefully raising its toe, like a snake that raises its head and looks around, looking for the prey in which side ...

Dimka looked to the left and immediately saw that the purpose of these serpentine evolutions were two small legs, very beautifully shod in dark sky-colored shoes with silver.

The crossed legs calmly stretched out and, suspecting nothing, peacefully tapped their heels. The hem of her dark skirt rose to reveal a delightfully plump leg in a dark blue stocking, and at the very round knee the tip of a puffy black and gold garter was immodestly visible.

But all these wonderful - from the point of view of another, understanding person - things did not interest the ingenuous Dimka at all.

On the contrary, his gaze was completely riveted to the mysterious and eerie zigzags of a suede-top shoe.

This animal, creaking and wriggling, crawled at last to the tip of its blue leg, pecked its nose, and frightenedly moved aside with obvious fear: might they get punched in the neck for this?

The blue leg, feeling the touch, nervously, angrily trembled and moved back a little.

The cheeky boot turned insolently with its nose and again resolutely crawled forward.

Dimka by no means considered himself a censor of morals, but he simply, without regard, liked the blue shoe, so beautifully embroidered with silver; admiring the slipper, he could not allow it to be soiled or the sewing to be torn off.

Therefore, Dimka launched the following strategy: instead of a blue foot, he slipped the muzzle of his camel and vigorously pushed his enterprising boot with it.

One should have seen the unbridled joy of this unprincipled dandy! He fidgeted, whined about the uncomplaining camel, like a kite over carrion. He called for help to his colleague, who was quietly dozing under a chair, and they both began to press and squeeze the imperturbable animal so much that if in his place a plump blue leg would not do well to her.

Fearing for the integrity of his faithful friend, Dimka pulled him out of his tenacious embrace and put him away, and since the camel's neck turned out to be all the same wrinkled, he had, in the form of retribution, to spit on the toe of an enterprising boot.

This depraved dandy still squirmed a little and finally crawled back home, slurping unsalted.

On the left side, someone slipped his hand under the tablecloth and secretly spilled a glass on the floor.

Dimka lay down on his stomach, crawled up to the puddle and tasted it: a bit sweet, but strong enough. I gave the camel a try. He explained in his ear:

“We already got drunk up there. Already poured down - understood?

Indeed, at the top, everything was already coming to an end. The chairs moved, and it brightened a little under the table. First, the aunt's clumsy carpeted legs floated away, then her blue legs trembled and stood on their heels. Behind the blue legs twitched, as if connected by an invisible rope, patent leather shoes, and there they rattled, American, yellow - all sorts of crap.

Dimka finished his soggy muffin, drank some more from the puddle, and began rocking the camel, listening to the conversations.

- Yes, somehow ... this ... Embarrassing.

- What's embarrassing - clever.

“God, it’s not right…”

- What is there - not that. It's a festive thing.

- I said - it was not necessary to interfere with Madeira with beer ...

- Empty. Sleep and nothing. I'll send you a pillow with Glasha now.

The tramp of numerous feet subsided. Then there was the clatter of fast heels and a conversation:

- Here's a pillow for you, the lady sent.

- Well, bring it here.

“So here she is. I put.

- No, you come here. To the sofa.

Why on the sofa?

- I want christ ... her ... poke around!

- Already christened. So christened that you can't stand.

Indescribable surprise was heard in the guest's convinced voice:

- I? Can't stand? So that your father in the next world does not stand like ... Well, look ... three! ..

- Let me go, what are you doing? They will come in!

Judging by Glasha's tone, she was unhappy with what was happening. It occurred to Dimka that the best thing to do was to frighten the well-intentioned guest.

He grabbed the camel and thumped it on the floor.

– See?! Glasha squealed and rushed off like a whirlwind.

As he lay down, the guest grumbled:

- Oh, and you fool! All women, in my opinion, are fools. Such rubbish spread everywhere... She powders her nose and thinks that she is the queen of Neapolitan... By God, right!.. Take a good whip and powder it like that... Wagtails!

Dimka felt frightened: it was already getting dark, and then someone was muttering something incomprehensible under his breath ... It's better to leave.

Before he had time to think this, the guest staggered up to the table and said, as if consulting himself:

- Is it something to spool a bottle of cognac into your pocket? And a whole box of sardines. I think it's stupid and won't notice.

Something touched his leg. He dropped the sardines, frightenedly jumped back to the sofa and, falling on it, saw with horror that something was crawling from under the table. Looking at it, I calmed down:

- Ty! Boy. Where are you from, boy?

- From under the table.

What didn't you see there?

Yes, I was sitting. Rested.

And then, remembering the rules of the hostel and holiday traditions, Dima politely remarked:

- Christ is Risen.

- What more! I would go to sleep better.

Noticing that his greeting had no success, Dima, for softening, put into play a neutral phrase, heard in the morning:

“I don’t christen with men.

Oh, how you upset them! Now they will go and drown.

The conversation was clearly not going well.

– Where were you at matins? Dima asked sadly.

“What do you care?”

The best thing for Dima would be to go to the nursery, but ... between the dining room and the nursery there were two unlit rooms where any evil spirits could grab his hand. I had to stay near this heavy man and involuntarily maintain a conversation with him:

- And we have a good Easter today.

“And put them on your nose.”

- I'm not afraid to go through the rooms, only it's dark there.

- And I also took one boy and cut off his head.

- Was he bad? Dimka asked, growing cold with horror.

“The same rubbish as you,” the guest hissed, looking longingly at the bottle he had chosen on the table.

- Yes ... he was the same as you ... Such a pretty, straight darling, such, really, a little goat ...

- Such a booger that I would have her heel - crack! .. Such rubbish in a cake. Go away! Go! Or is the spirit out of you!

Dima swallowed back his tears and again meekly asked, looking around at the dark door:

- Do you have a good Easter?

- Sneeze me at Easter - I eat boys like you. Give me your paw, I'll bite...

“Where did mother’s son go?”

- Mother!! Dimka squealed and buried himself in the rustling skirt.

“And here we are talking with your son. Charming boy! Such a boykin.

Did he disturb your sleep? Allow me, I'll just clear everything from the table, and there you can sleep as long as you want.

- Why clean it up?

- And by the evening we will cover it again.

The guest sat down dejectedly on the sofa and sighed, whispering to himself under his breath:

“Damn you, anathema boy!” He took the bottle from under his nose.

three acorns

There is nothing more disinterested than childhood friendship ... If you trace its beginning, its origins, then in most cases you will stumble upon the most external, ridiculously empty reason for its occurrence: either your parents were “acquainted at home” and dragged you, little ones, to visit each other, or a tender friendship between two tiny little men arose simply because they lived on the same street or both studied at the same school, sat on the same bench - and the very first piece of sausage and bread fraternally divided and eaten sowed in young hearts the seeds of the most tender friendship.

The foundation of our friendship - Motka, Shasha and I - was all three circumstances: we lived on the same street, our parents were "familiar houses" (or, as they say in the south, "familiar houses"); and all three tasted the bitter roots of the teaching in Marya Antonovna's elementary school, sitting side by side on a long bench, like acorns on the same oak branch.

Philosophers and children have one noble trait: they do not attach importance to any differences between people - neither social, nor mental, nor external. My father had a haberdashery shop (aristocracy), Shashin's father worked in the port (plebs, diversity), and Mot'ka's mother simply existed on interest from penny capital (rentier, bourgeoisie). Mentally, Shasha stood much higher than Motka and me, and physically Motka was revered among us - freckled and thin - handsome. We did not attach any importance to any of this... Fraternally they stole unripe watermelons on the chestnuts, fraternally devoured them, and then fraternally rolled on the ground from unbearable stomach pain.

Three of us swam, three of us beat the boys from the neighboring street, and they beat all three of us too - consubstantially and inseparably.

If pies were baked in one of our three families, all three of us ate, because each of us considered it a sacred duty, with danger to our own facade and rear, to steal hot pies for the whole company.

Shashin's father - a red-bearded drunkard - had a nasty manner of beating his offspring, wherever he overtook him; since we were always looming around him, this straightforward democrat beat us on completely equal grounds.

It never crossed our minds to grumble at this, and we took our breath away only when Shasha's father wandered off to have dinner, passing under the railway bridge, and the three of us stood on the bridge and, hanging our heads down, mournfully drew:

Red-red -

Dangerous man...

I lay in the sun...

He kept his beard up...

- Bastards! Shasha's father shook his fist from below.

“Well, come here, come,” Motka said menacingly. How many do you need per hand?

And if the red-haired giant climbed the left side of the embankment, we, like sparrows, fluttered and rushed to the right side - and vice versa. What can I say - it was a win-win.

So happily and serenely we lived, grew and developed until the age of sixteen.

And at the age of sixteen, holding hands together, we approached the edge of the funnel called life, cautiously looked there, as the chips fell into a whirlpool, and the whirlpool swirled us around.

Shasha entered the Electric Zeal printing house as a compositor, mother sent Motya to Kharkov to some kind of bread office, and I remained unattached, although my father dreamed of “putting me into mental studies” - what kind of thing is this, I still Don't know. Frankly, this smelled strongly of a clerk in a petty-bourgeois council, but, to my happiness, there was no vacancy in the aforementioned gloomy and boring institution ...

We met with Shasha every day, and where Motka was and what happened to him - only vague rumors circulated about this, the essence of which was that he “successfully decided on classes” and that he became such a dandy that you don’t approach.

Motka gradually became the object of our comradely pride and dreams devoid of envy to rise in time to him, Motka.

And suddenly there was information that Motka should arrive at the beginning of April from Kharkov "on leave with pay." Motka's mother strongly pressed against the latter, and in this preservation the poor woman saw the most magnificent laurel in the victorious wreath of the conqueror of the world Motka.

On that day, we didn’t have time to close Electric Zeal when Shasha burst into my room and, sparkling with eyes, glowing with delight, like a candle, said that they had already seen Motka riding from the station and that he had a real top hat on his head! ..

“Such a dandy, they say,” Shasha finished proudly, “such a dandy that I’ll break free.”

This indefinite characterization of foppery inflamed me so that I threw the bench at the clerk, grabbed my cap - and we rushed to the house of our brilliant friend.

His mother greeted us somewhat importantly, even with an admixture of arrogance, but in a hurry we did not notice this and, breathing heavily, demanded Motya as our first duty ... The answer was the most aristocratic:

- Motya does not accept.

How does he not accept? we were surprised. What is not accepted?

- You can not accept. He is very tired now. He will let you know when he can receive.

Every chic, every respectability must be limited. This has already crossed even the broadest boundaries that we have drawn for ourselves.

“Maybe he is unwell?…” delicate Shasha tried to soften the blow.

“He’s healthy, he’s healthy ... Only, he says, his nerves are not in order ... They had a lot of work in the office before the holidays ... After all, he is now an assistant to the head clerk. Very good foot.

The leg, perhaps, was really good, but, to be honest, it completely crushed us: “nerves, does not accept” ...

We returned, of course, in silence. I didn’t want to talk about a chic friend, until the clarification. And we felt so downtrodden, so humiliated, miserable, provincial that we wanted to burst into tears and die, or, in extreme cases, to find a hundred thousand on the street, which would give us a splendid opportunity to wear a top hat and “not accept” - just like in novels.

- Where are you going? Shasha asked.

- To the shop. Should be locked up soon. (God, what prose!)

- And I'm going home ... I'll drink tea, play the mandolin and fall asleep.

No less prose! Hehe.

The next morning - it was a sunny Sunday - Motka's mother brought me a note: “Be with Sha-she in the city garden by 12 o'clock. We need to explain ourselves a little and reconsider our relationship. Dear Matvey Smelkov.

I put on a new jacket, a white shirt embroidered with crosses, went to fetch Shasha, and we wandered off, with constricted hearts, to this friendly rendezvous, which we longed for so much and which we so instinctively, dreaded in panic.

They came first, of course. They sat for a long time with their heads bowed, their hands in their pockets. It didn’t even occur to me to be offended that our magnificent friend was making us wait so long.

Oh! He was, indeed, magnificent ... Something sparkling approached us, rattling with numerous key rings and creaking with the varnish of yellow shoes with mother-of-pearl buttons.

A stranger from the unknown world of counts, golden youth, carriages and palaces - he was dressed in a brown jacket, a white waistcoat, some lilac trousers, and his head was crowned with a cylinder sparkling in the sun, which, if small, was balanced by a huge tie with such a huge diamond...

A stick with a horse's head burdened the right aristocratic hand. The left hand was wrapped in a gauntlet the color of a flayed bull. Another glove protruded from the outer pocket of the jacket as if threatening us with its sluggish index finger: "Here I am! .. Treat only without due respect to my wearer."

When Motya approached us with the unraveled gait of a jaded dandy, the good-natured Shasha jumped up and, unable to restrain his impulse, stretched out his hands to his illustrious friend:

- Motka! That's great, brother!

“Hello, hello, gentlemen,” Motka nodded his head solidly and, shaking our hands, sank down on the bench ...

We both stood.

- I am very glad to see you ... Are your parents healthy? Well, thank God, it's nice, I'm very happy.

“Listen, Motka…” I began with timid delight in my eyes.

“First of all, dear friends,” Motka said impressively and weightily, “we are already adults, and therefore I consider “Motka” a certain “kel expression” ... Hehe ... Isn't it? I am now Matvey Semenych - that's what they call me in the service, and the accountant himself greets me by the hand. Life is solid, the turnover of the enterprise is two million. There is even a branch in Kokand… In general, I would like to radically reconsider our relations.

"Please, please," Shasha muttered. He stood bent over, as if an invisible log that had fallen down had broken his back...

Before laying my head on the chopping block, I cowardly tried to push this moment aside.

“Now they’re wearing top hats again?” I asked with the air of a man who is occasionally distracted by scientific pursuits from the vagaries of fickle fashion.

“Yes, they do,” Matvey Semyonitch answered condescendingly. - Twelve roubles.

- Pretty charms. Present?

- That's not all. Part of the house. All on the ring does not fit. Clock on stones, anchor, keyless winding. In general, life in a big city is a troublesome thing. Collars "Monopol" only last three days, manicures, picnics are different.

I felt that Matvey Semyonitch was also uneasy...

But finally he made up his mind. He shook his head so that the cylinder jumped up on top of his head, and began:

- That's what, gentlemen ... You and I are no longer small, and in general, childhood is one thing, but when young people are, it's completely different. Another, for example, reached some high society there, reached the intelligentsia, while others are from the lower classes, and if you, say, saw Count Kochubey in one carriage next to our Mironikha, which, remember, was selling poppy seeds on the corner, so you'd be the first to laugh your ass off. Of course, I’m not Kochubey, but I have a certain position, well, of course, you also have a certain position, but not like that, but that we were little together, so you never know ... You yourself understand that we are already friends a friend is not a match ... and ... there is, of course, nothing to be offended with - one has achieved, the other has not reached ... Hm! no, and we will be like our own. But, of course, without special familiarity - I don't like it. Of course, I enter into your position - you love me, you may even be offended, and believe me ... I, for my part ... if I can be of any help ... Hm! Heartily happy.

At this point Matvey Semyonitch glanced at his new gold watch and hurried on:

- Oh-la-la! How I chattered ... The family of the landowner Guzikov is waiting for me for a picnic, and if I am late, it will be nonsense. I wish you well! I wish you well! Hello parents!

And he left, sparkling and even a little bent under the burden of respectability, tired of the daily whirlwind of social life.

On this day, Shasha and I, abandoned, everyday, lying on the young grass of the railway embankment, drank vodka for the first time and cried for the last time.

We drink vodka even now, but we no longer cry. These were the last tears of childhood. Now it's dry.

And why did we cry? What was buried? Motka was a pompous fool, a miserable third-rate clerk in the office, dressed like a parrot in a jacket from someone else's shoulder; in a tiny top hat on top of his head, in lilac trousers, hung with copper key rings - now he seems to me ridiculous and insignificant, like a worm without a heart and a brain - why did we then kill ourselves like that, having lost Motka?

But - remember - how we were the same - like three acorns on an oak branch - when we sat on the same bench with Marya Antonovna ...

Alas! Acorns are the same, but when young oak trees grow out of them, they make a pulpit for a scientist from one oak tree, another goes to a frame for a portrait of a beloved girl, and from a third oak tree they make such a gallows that it’s any-expensive ...

fragrant carnation

I walk along a dirty, slushy street covered with various rubbish and rubbish, I walk angry, mad, like a chained dog. The crazy St. Petersburg wind rips off your hat, you have to hold it with your hand. The hand is numb and cold from the wind; I'm getting even angrier! Clouds of small rotten raindrops fall behind the collar, damn them!

Feet sink in puddles formed in the potholes of the decrepit sidewalk, and the shoes are thin, the dirt seeps into the boot ... so-so! Here you already have a runny nose.

Passers-by flicker past - animals! They strive to hit me with their shoulder, I - them.

I catch glances from under my brows, which clearly say:

- Eh, to put the back of your head in the mud!

Whatever the man oncoming, then Malyuta Skuratov, whatever the woman who flashed by, is Marianna Skublinskaya.

And they probably consider me the son of the murderer of President Carnot. I see clearly.

All the meager colors mingled on the beggarly poor Petrograd palette into one dirty spot, even the bright tones of the signs went out, merged with the wet, rusty walls of damp, gloomy houses.

And the sidewalk! My God! A foot slips among wet, dirty papers, cigarette butts, apple cores, and crushed cigarette boxes.

And suddenly... my heart stops!

As if on purpose: in the middle of the dirty, stinking sidewalk, three carnations dropped by someone, three virgin flowers: dark red, snow-white and yellow, sparkled with a bright three-colored spot. Curly lush heads are not at all stained with dirt, all three flowers happily fell with the top of the stems on a wide cigarette box thrown by a passing smoker.

Oh, bless the one who dropped these flowers - he made me happy.

The wind is not so cruel anymore, the rain has warmed up, the mud ... well, the mud will someday dry; and a timid hope is born in my heart: after all, I will still see the blue hot sky, hear the chirping of birds, and the gentle May breeze will bring to me the sweet aroma of steppe herbs.

Three curly carnations!

I must confess that of all the flowers I love carnations the most; and of all people, children are dearest to my heart.

Maybe that's why my thoughts moved from carnations to children, and for one minute I identified these three curly heads: dark red, snow white and yellow - with three other heads. Maybe everything can be.

I am sitting at my desk now, and what am I doing? Big adult sentimental fool! I put three carnations found on the street in a crystal glass, I look at them and smile thoughtfully, absently.

Now I just caught myself doing it.

Three girls I know come to mind... Reader, lean closer to me, I'll tell you in your ear about these little girls... You can't be loud, it's embarrassing. After all, you and I are already big, and it’s not a good thing to talk loudly to us about trifles.

And in a whisper, in your ear - you can.

I knew one tiny girl Lenka.

Once, when we, big stiff-necked people, were sitting at the dinner table, my mother hurt the girl in some way.

The girl said nothing, but lowered her head, lowered her eyelashes, and, staggering with grief, left the table.

“Let's see,” I whispered to my mother, “what will she do?”

The miserable Lenka decided, it turns out, to take a huge step: she decided to leave her parents' house.

She went to her little room and, sniffling, began to pack: she spread her dark flannelette shawl on the bed, put in it two shirts, pantaloons, a piece of chocolate, a painted cover torn from some book, and a copper ring with a bottle emerald.

She neatly tied all this into a bundle, sighed heavily, and with a mournfully lowered head she left the house.

She had already safely reached the gate and even went out of the gate, but then the most terrible, most insurmountable obstacle awaited her: ten paces from the gate lay a large dark dog.

The girl had enough presence of mind and pride not to scream. She just leaned her shoulder against the bench that stood at the gate, and began to look indifferently in a completely different direction, as if she didn’t care about a single dog in the world, and she went out of the gate just to get some fresh air.

For a long time she stood like that, tiny, with great resentment in her heart, not knowing what to do ...

I stuck my head out from behind the fence and asked sympathetically:

- Why are you standing here, Lenochka?

- So-so, I'm standing.

“Maybe you are afraid of dogs; Don't worry, she doesn't bite. Go where you wanted.

“I won’t go now,” the girl whispered, lowering her head. - I'm still standing.

“Well, do you think you’ll be standing here for a long time?”

- I'll still wait.

- What are you waiting for?

- If I grow up a little, then I won’t be afraid of the dog, then I’ll go ...

Mother peeked out from behind the fence.

“Where are you going, Elena Nikolaevna?”

Lenka shrugged her shoulders and turned away.

“You didn’t go far,” the mother quipped.

Lenka raised her huge eyes, filled with a whole lake of unshed tears, and said seriously:

Don't think that I have forgiven you. I'll wait, and then I'll go.

- What are you waiting for?

When I am fourteen years old.

As far as I remember, at that moment she was only 6 years old. She could not stand eight years of waiting at the gate. It was enough for less - only 8 minutes.

But my God! Do we know what she went through in those 8 minutes?!

Another girl was distinguished by the fact that above all she put the authority of her elders.

Whatever was done by the elders, in her eyes everything was sacred.

One day her brother, a very distracted young man, sitting in an armchair, immersed himself in reading some interesting book so that he forgot everything in the world. He smoked one cigarette after another, threw the cigarette butts anywhere and, feverishly cutting the book with the palm of his hand, was completely in the power of the author's magical charms.

My five-year-old friend wandered around and around her brother for a long time, looking at him searchingly, and was about to ask something, and still did not dare.

Finally gathered her courage. She began timidly, sticking her head out of the folds of the plush tablecloth, where, due to her natural delicacy, she hid:

- Danila, and Danila? ...

“Leave me alone, don’t interfere,” Danila muttered distractedly, devouring the book with his eyes.

And again a languid silence... And again the delicate child timidly circled around his brother's armchair.

- What are you doing here? Leave.

The girl sighed meekly, walked sideways to her brother, and began again:

Danila, what about Danila?

- Well, what do you want! Well, speak!!

- Danila, but Danila ... Is this how it is necessary for the chair to burn?

Endearing child! How much respect for the authority of adults must be in the head of this baby, so that, seeing a burning tow in an armchair set on fire by an absent-minded brother, she still doubts: what if her brother needs this from some higher considerations? ...

A touching nanny told me about the third girl:

- What a tricky child this is, and it’s impossible to imagine ... I put her and her brother to bed, and before that I put him on a prayer: “Pray, they say, children!” And what do you think? The little brother is praying, and she, Lyubochka, is standing and waiting for something. “And you,” I say, “why don’t you pray, what are you waiting for?” “But how,” he says, “will I pray when Borya is already praying? After all, God is listening to him now ... I can’t climb too when God is now busy with Boreas! ”

Sweet fragrant carnation!

It would be my will, I would only recognize children as people.

As a person has stepped over the age of childhood, so he has a stone around his neck and into the water.

Therefore, an adult is almost entirely a bastard ...

“Well, son,” my father asked me, putting his hands in his pockets and swaying on his long legs. - Would you like to earn a ruble?

It was such a wonderful proposal that it took my breath away.

- Ruble? Right? For what?

- Go to church tonight, dedicate Easter cake.

I immediately sank down, went limp and frowned.

- You will also say: holy cake! Can I? I am small.

“Why, it’s not you yourself, the bad one, who will sanctify him!” The priest will bless. And you just take it down and stand next to it!

“I can’t,” I said, thinking.

- News! Why can not you?

The boys will beat me.

“Just think, what kind of Kazan orphan turned up,” my father grimaced contemptuously. “The boys will beat him.” I suppose you beat them yourself, wherever they come across.

Although my father was a big smart man, he did not understand anything in this matter ...

The whole point is that there were two categories of boys: some smaller and weaker than me, and I beat these. Others are bigger and healthier than me - these trimmed my physiognomy on both crusts at each meeting.

As in any struggle for existence, the strong devoured the weak. Sometimes I put up with some strong boys, but other strong boys took out this friendship on me because they were at enmity with each other.

Often my friends gave me a formidable warning.

- Yesterday I met Styopka Pangalov, he asked me to tell you that he would punch you in the face.

- For what? I was horrified. "I didn't touch him, did I?"

- Did you walk yesterday on Primorsky Boulevard with Oblique Zakharka?

- Well, walking! So what?

- And Oblique Zakharka beat Pangalov twice that week.

- For what?

- Because Pangalov said that he takes him on one hand.

In the end, I alone suffered from all this string of intricacies and the struggle of vanities.

I walked with Oblique Zakharka - Pangalov beat me, concluded a truce with Pangalov and went for a walk with him - I was beaten by Oblique Zakharka.

From this we can conclude that my friendship was quoted very highly in the boyish market - if there were fights because of me. It was only strange that it was mostly me who was beaten.

However, if I could not cope with Pangalov and Zakharka, then the smaller boys must have experienced the full burden of my bad mood.

And when some Sema Fishman made his way along our street, carelessly whistling a song popular in our city: “There is a fortune teller in the suburb, the Drummer’s wife ...”, I, like from the ground, grew up and, standing half-turned to Sema, cockily offered:

- Do you want in the face?

A negative answer has never embarrassed me. Sema received his portion and ran away in tears, and I cheerfully walked along my Remeslennaya Street, looking for a new victim, until some Apothecary from the Gypsy Sloboda caught me and beat me - for any reason: or for the fact that I was walking with Kosy Zakharka, or for the fact that I didn’t go out with him (depending on the personal relationship between Aptekarenok and Oblique Zakharka).

I reacted so sourly to my father's proposal precisely because the evening of Holy Saturday draws a lot of boys from all the streets and alleys to the fences of the churches of our city. And although I will find many boys there who will get enough of me in the face, but other boys wander in the darkness of the night, who, in turn, are not averse to soldering blamba (local slang!) to me.

And by this time, my relations with almost everyone had deteriorated: with Kira Aleksomati, with Grigulevich, with Pavka Makopulo and with Rafka Kefeli.

- Are you going or not? the father asked. - I know, of course, that you would like to wander around the city instead of standing near the Easter cake, but for that - a ruble! Think it over.

That's exactly what I did: I thought.

Where should I go? To the Vladimirsky Cathedral? Pavka will be there with his company... For the sake of the holiday, they will beat them as they have never beaten before... In Petropavlovskaya? There will be Vanya Sazonchik, whom I only punched in the face on the Craft Ditch only the day before yesterday. To the Sea Church - it's too fashionable there. There remains the Greek Church... I thought to go there, but without any Easter cake and eggs. Firstly, there are your own people there - Styopka Pangalov with a company: you can rush around the entire fence, go to the market on an expedition for barrels, boxes and ladders, which were solemnly burned by Greek patriots right there, in the fence ... Secondly, in the Greek Church there will be Andrienko, who should receive his portion for telling my mother that I stole tomatoes from a cart ... The prospects in the Greek Church are wonderful, and a bundle of Easter cake, half a dozen eggs and a ring of Little Russian sausage was supposed to tie me hand and foot ...

One could entrust one of the acquaintances to stand near the Easter cake, but what kind of fool would agree on such a wonderful night?

- Well, have you decided? the father asked.

“And I’ll fool the old man,” I thought.

- Give me a ruble and your unfortunate Easter.

For the last epithet I received on the lips, but in the cheerful bustle of laying Easter cake and eggs in a napkin, this went completely unnoticed.

Yes, it didn't hurt.

Yes, it's a little embarrassing.

I went down the creaking wooden porch with a bundle in my hand into the yard, for a second dived under this porch into a hole formed from two boards dragged by someone, climbed back empty-handed and, like an arrow, rushed along the dark warm streets, completely flooded with joyful ringing.

In the fence of the Greek Church, I was greeted with a roar of delight. I greeted the whole company and immediately learned that my enemy Andrienko had already arrived.

We argued a little about what to do first: first “pour” Andrienka, and then go steal the boxes - or vice versa?

We decided: to steal the boxes, then beat Andrienka, and then go again to steal the boxes.

So they did.

Andriyenko, beaten by me, swore an oath of eternal hatred towards me, and the fire, devouring our prey, raised red smoky tongues almost to the very sky ... The fun flared up, and a wild roar of approval met Christ Popandopulo, who appeared from somewhere with a whole wooden ladder on his head.

“I think so,” he shouted cheerfully, “now he’s standing alone at home, and he doesn’t have a ladder to get to the top floor.

“Did you really take the house ladder away?”

- I’m a hundred like this: a brownie is not a brownie - the fox would burn!

Everyone laughed merrily, and the most cheerful laugh was that adult simpleton who, as it turned out later, returning to his home on Fourth Longitudinal, could not get into the second floor, where his wife and children were impatiently waiting for him.

All this was very fun, but when, after the end of the ceremony, I returned home empty-handed, my heart ached: the whole city would break the fast with holy cakes and eggs, and only our family, like infidels, would eat simple, unholy bread.

True, I reasoned, maybe I don’t believe in God, but suddenly there is a God and He will remember all my vile things: Andrienka was beaten on such a holy night, he didn’t consecrate the cake, and he didn’t quite scream at the market at the top of his lungs decent Tatar songs, for which there was literally no forgiveness.

My heart ached, my soul ached, and with every step towards the house, this pain increased.

And when I approached the hole under the porch and a gray dog ​​jumped out of this hole, chewing something on the go, I completely lost heart and almost cried.

He took out his bundle, torn apart by the dog, examined it: the eggs were intact, but a piece of sausage was eaten and the cake was gnawed from one side almost to the very middle.

“Christ is risen,” I said, crawling ingratiatingly with a kiss to my father’s bristly mustache.

- Truly! .. What's with your Easter cake?

- Yes, I'm on the way ... I wanted to eat - I pinched it. And sausages... too.

“It’s after the consecration, I hope?” the father asked sternly.

“Y-yes…much…after.”

The whole family sat down around the table and began to eat Easter cake, and I sat aside and thought with horror: “They are eating! Unholy! The whole family is gone."

And then he raised a hastily composed prayer to Heaven: “Our Father! Forgive them all, they don’t know what they are doing, but better punish me, but not especially hard ... Amen!

I slept badly - I was choking with nightmares - and in the morning, having come to my senses, I washed myself, took the criminally earned ruble and went under the swing.

The thought of the swing cheered me up a little - I would see the festive Pangalov, Motka Kolesnikov there ... We will ride on swings, drink buza and eat Tatar pasties for two kopecks each.

The ruble seemed like wealth, and as I crossed the Bolshaya Morskaya, I even looked with some contempt at the two sailors: they staggered along and sang a song popular in the Sevastopol maritime spheres at the top of their voices:

Oh, don't cry, Marusya,

You will be mine

Finish sailor -

I marry you.

And ended melancholy:

Shame on you, shame on you,

That mine changed to such rubbish!

The howl of barrel-organs, the piercing squeak of a clarinet, the beats of a huge drum shaking all the insides - all this immediately pleasantly deafened me. On one side, someone was dancing, on the other, a dirty clown in a red wig was shouting: "Monsieur, madam - go, I'll punch you in the face!" And in the middle, an old Tatar made a game out of a sloping board, like Chinese billiards, and his thick voice from time to time cut through the whole cacophony of sounds:

- And the second yes birot, - which made all sportsmen's hearts ignite more strongly.

A gypsy with a large jug of red lemonade, in which thinly sliced ​​lemons splashed appetizingly, came up to me:

- Panich, the lemonade is cold! Two pennies one glass...

It was already hot.

“Come on, let me,” I said, licking my dry lips. - Take a ruble, give change.

He took the ruble, looked at me kindly, and suddenly, looking around and yelling at the whole square: “Abdrakhman! Finally I found you, scoundrel! - rushed somewhere to the side and got mixed up in the crowd.

I waited five minutes, ten. There was no gypsy with my ruble ... Obviously, the joy of meeting with the mysterious Abdrakhman completely expelled material obligations to the buyer in his gypsy heart.

I sighed and bowed my head as I walked home.

And someone woke up in my heart and said loudly: “It’s because you thought to fool God, you fed your family with an unholy Easter cake!”

And someone else woke up in my head and consoled me: “If God punished you, then he spared the family. There are no two punishments for one crime.

- Well, it's over! I sighed in relief, smiling. - He got even with his sides.

I was small and stupid.

Blowing boy

Christmas Story

The following story has all the elements that make up a typical sentimental Christmas story: there is a little boy, there is his mother and there is a Christmas tree, but the story turns out to be of a completely different kind ... Sentimentality, as they say, did not spend the night in it.

This is a serious story, a little gloomy and somewhat cruel, like Christmas frost in the North, how cruel life itself is.

The first conversation about the Christmas tree between Volodya and mother arose three days before Christmas, and did not arise intentionally, but rather by chance, by a stupid sound coincidence.

While buttering a piece of bread for evening tea, my mother took a bite and grimaced.

- Butter, - she grumbled, - very fir-tree ...

- Will I have a tree? Volodya inquired, noisily sipping tea from a spoon.

- What else did you think of! You won't have a tree. Not to fat - to be alive. I go without gloves.

“Smart,” said Volodka. - Other children have as many Christmas trees as they want, but I have - as if I were not a person.

“Try it yourself, and then you’ll see.”

- Well, I'll arrange it. Great importance. It will be even cleaner than yours. Where is my card?

– Again on the street?! And what kind of child is this! Soon you will become a completely street boy! .. If your father were alive, he would be for you ...

But Volodya never found out what his father would have done with him: his mother had only just reached the second half of the phrase, and he was already descending the stairs with gigantic leaps, changing his method of movement at some turns: riding down on the railing on horseback.

On the street, Volodya immediately took on an important, serious look, as was the custom of the owner of a treasure of many thousands.

The fact is that in Volodya's pocket lay a huge diamond that he had found on the street yesterday - a large sparkling stone, the size of a hazelnut.

Volodya had very high hopes for this diamond: not only a Christmas tree, but perhaps even a mother can be provided for.

“I wonder how many carats it has?” thought Volodka, pulling a huge cap on the very nose and slinking between the legs of passers-by.

In general, it must be said, Volodya's head is the most whimsical warehouse of scraps of various information, knowledge, observations, phrases and sayings.

In some respects, he is dirtyly ignorant: for example, he picked up the information from somewhere that diamonds are weighed by carats, and at the same time he does not know at all which province their city is, how much it will be if 32 times 18 is multiplied, and why it is impossible to use an electric light bulb. smoke cigarettes.

His practical wisdom was entirely contained in three sayings that he inserted everywhere, according to the circumstances: “To marry the poor - the night is short”, “I haven’t been - I need to see” and “Not to fat - I would live.”

The last saying was, of course, borrowed from the mother, and the first two - from the devil knows who.

Entering the jewelry store, Volodka put his hand in his pocket and asked:

Do you buy diamonds?

- Well, we buy, but what?

“Look how many carats are in this thing?”

- Yes, this is a simple glass, - the jeweler said with a grin.

“You all say so,” Volodya objected solidly.

- Well, talk here again. Get out! A multi-carat diamond flew to the floor in a rather disrespectful manner.

- Eh, - groaning, Volodya bent over the torn stone. Marrying a poor man is a short night. Bastards! As if they could not lose a real diamond. Hee! Cool, nothing to say. Well ... Not to fat - to be alive. I'm going to go to the theatre.

This idea, it must be confessed, had long been cherished by Volodka. He had heard from someone that sometimes in the theaters boys were required to play, but he did not know at all how to take up this thing.

However, it was not in Volodya's nature to think: having reached the theater, he stumbled for a second on the threshold, then boldly stepped forward and, for his own animation and vigor, whispered under his breath:

- Well, I haven't been - I need to see you.

He approached the man who was tearing off the tickets, and, raising his head, asked in a businesslike manner:

Do you need boys here to play?

- Go, go. Don't hang out here.

After waiting for the usher to turn away, Volodka squeezed between the incoming audience and immediately found himself in front of the cherished door, behind which music thundered.

“Your ticket, young man,” the ticket attendant stopped him.

“Listen,” said Volodka, “there is a gentleman with a black beard sitting in your theater. A misfortune happened at his house - his wife died. I was sent for him. Call him!

- Well, I will look for your black beard there - go and look for yourself!

Volodya, with his hands in his pockets, victoriously entered the theater and immediately, looking for an empty box, sat down in it, fixing his critical gaze on the stage.

Behind someone patted on the shoulder.

Volodya looked around: an officer with a lady.

“This box is occupied,” Volodya remarked coldly.

- Me. Razi do not see?

The lady laughed, the officer was about to go to the usher, but the lady stopped him:

Let him sit with us, okay? It's so small and so important. Do you want to sit with us?

“Sit down already,” Volodya allowed. - What do you have? Program? Well, give...

So sat three until the end of the first series.

- Is it over already? - Volodka was sadly surprised when the curtain fell. Marrying a poor man is a short night. Do you no longer need this software?

- Need not. You can take it as a memento of such a pleasant meeting.

Volodka inquired in a matter-of-fact way:

- How much did they pay?

- Five rubles.

“I’ll sell it for the second series,” thought Volodka, and, picking up another abandoned program on the way from the next box, he cheerfully went with this product to the main exit.

When he returned home, hungry but satisfied, he had two real five-ruble notes in his pocket instead of a fake diamond.

The next morning, Volodya, clutching his working capital in his fist, wandered the streets for a long time, looking closely at the business life of the city and wondering with an eye - what would be the best way to invest his money.

And when he stood at the huge mirrored window of the cafe, it dawned on him.

“I haven’t been - I need to see you,” he urged himself on, impudently entering the cafe.

- What do you want, boy? the saleswoman asked.

- Tell me, please, didn’t a lady with gray fur and a golden bag come here?

- No, it was not.

- Yeah. Well, it hasn't arrived yet. I'll wait for her.

And sat down at the table.

The main thing, he thought, is to get in here. Try to kick me out later: I'll raise such a roar! .. "

He hid in a dark corner and began to wait, darting his black little eyes in all directions.

Two tables away, the old man finished reading the paper, folded it up, and began drinking coffee.

“Sir,” whispered Volodka, going up to him. How much did you pay for the newspaper?

- Five rubles.

- Sell for two. Still, you read it.

- Why do you need her?

- Selling. I will earn.

- Oh ... Yes, you, brother, are a hard worker. Well, on. Here's a badass for you. Would you like a slice of sweet bread?

"I'm not a beggar," Volodya objected with dignity. - Only now I will earn money for the Christmas tree - and the Sabbath. Not to fat - to be alive.

Half an hour later Volodya had five sheets of newspaper, slightly wrinkled, but quite decent in appearance.

The lady with the gray fur and the golden purse never came. There are some grounds for thinking that it existed only in Volodkin's overheated imagination.

Having read with great difficulty the completely incomprehensible headline: "Lloyd George's New Position," Volodya, like a madman, rushed down the street, waving his newspapers and yelling at the top of his lungs:

- Interesting news! "The new position of Lloyd George" - the price is five rubles. "New position" for five rubles!!

And before dinner, after a series of newspaper operations, he could be seen walking with a small box of sweets and a concentrated expression on his face, barely visible from under a huge cap.

An idle gentleman was sitting on a bench, lazily smoking a cigarette.

"Sir," Volodya came up to him. - Can I ask you something? ...

- Ask, boy. Go ahead!

- If half a pound of sweets - twenty-seven pieces - costs fifty-five rubles, then how much does a piece cost?

- Exactly, brother, it's hard to say, but about two rubles a piece. And what?

“So it’s profitable to sell for five rubles?”

Deftly! Maybe buy?

I'll buy a couple so that you can eat them yourself.

- No, no, I'm not a beggar. I only trade...

Buy it! Maybe give it to a boy you know.

- Ehma, persuaded! Well, let's go to the Kerenka, or something.

Volodya's mother came home from her seamstress work late in the evening...

On the table, behind which, resting his head in his hands, Volodya was sleeping sweetly, stood a tiny Christmas tree, decorated with a couple of apples, one candle, and three or four cardboard boxes - and all this had a miserable appearance.

End of introductory segment.

* * *

The following excerpt from the book Humorous stories (A. T. Averchenko, 2010) provided by our book partner -

Biography

Russian writer-humorist, playwright, theater critic

Born on March 15 (27 n.s.) in Sevastopol in the family of a merchant. He was brought up at home, because due to poor eyesight and poor health he could not study at the gymnasium. I read a lot and indiscriminately.

At the age of fifteen, he went to work as a junior scribe in a transport office. A year later, he left Sevastopol and began working as a clerk at the Bryansk coal mine, where he served for three years. In 1900 he moved to Kharkov.

In 1903 in the Kharkov newspaper "South End" first story published Averchenko "How I had to insure my life" in which his literary style is already felt. In 1906 he became editor of a satirical magazine. "Bayonet", almost entirely represented by his materials. After the closure of this magazine, the following one is headed - "Sword", - also soon closed.

In 1907 he moved to St. Petersburg and collaborated in a satirical magazine "Dragonfly", later converted to "Satyricon". Then he becomes the permanent editor of this popular publication.

In 1910, three books by Averchenko were published, which made him famous throughout reading Russia: "Funny Oysters", "Stories (humorous)", book 1, "Bunnies on the Wall", book II. "...their author is destined to become a Russian Twain...", - astutely remarked V. Polonsky.

Books published in 1912 "Circles on the Water" and "Recovery Stories" approved the title of the author "king of laughter".

Averchenko met the February revolution enthusiastically, but he did not accept the October revolution. In the autumn of 1918 he leaves for the south, collaborates in newspapers "Priazovsky Krai" and "South", speaks with the reading of his stories, manages the literary part in "House of the Artist". At the same time writing plays "The Cure for Stupidity" and "Playing with Death", and in April 1920 organizes his own theater "Nest of Migratory Birds". Six months later, he emigrates through Constantinople abroad; since June 1922 he lives in Prague, briefly leaving for Germany, Poland, Romania, the Baltic states. His book is published "A dozen knives in the back of the revolution", storybook: "Children", "Funny in the terrible", humorous novel "Joke of a Patron" and etc.

In 1924, he undergoes an operation to remove an eye, after which he cannot recover for a long time; heart disease soon progresses sharply.

He died in the Prague City Hospital on January 22 (March 3, n.s.), 1925. He was buried in Prague at the Olshansky cemetery.

Works

1910 - Merry Oysters
1912 - Circles on the water
1912 - Stories for convalescents
1913 - Selected Stories
1913 - Black on white
1914 - Humorous Stories
1914 - Weeds
1914 - About good, in essence, people!
1916 - Wolf pits,
1916 - Gilded Pills
1916 - Stories about children
1917 - Carp and pike
1917 - Blue and gold
1918 - Miracles in a sieve
1920 - Evil spirits
1922 - Boiling Cauldron
1922 - Children
1923 - Funny in a terrible
1924 - Pantheon of advice to young people
1925 - Tales of a Cynic

Russian writer, journalist, publisher.
Born on March 15 (27), 1881 in Sevastopol.
The father is an unsuccessful small trader; in view of his complete ruin, Averchenko had to finish his studies "at home, with the help of older sisters" (from his autobiography). In 1896, at the age of fifteen, he entered a Donetsk mine as a clerk; three years later he moved to Kharkov to serve in the same joint-stock company.

The first story, The Ability to Live, was published in the Kharkov magazine "Dandelion" in 1902. A serious application of the writer was the story The Righteous, published in St. Petersburg in the "Journal for All" in 1904. During the revolutionary events of 1905-1907, Averchenko showed journalistic talent and enterprise, widely publishing essays, feuilletons and humoresques in short-lived periodicals and releasing several issues of his own satirical magazines "Bayonet" and "Sword" quickly banned by censorship.

Publishing experience came in handy for him in 1908 in St. Petersburg, when he suggested that the editorial staff of the withered comic magazine Dragonfly (where Chekhov's first story was published back in 1880) reorganize the publication. Having become the secretary of the editorial board, Averchenko realized his plan: on April 1, 1908, the Dragonfly was replaced by the new weekly Satyricon. As noted in the article Averchenko and "Satyricon" (1925) A.I. Kuprin, the magazine "immediately found itself: its own channel, its own tone, its own brand. Readers - a sensitive middle - unusually quickly discovered it." It was the orientation towards the middle-class reader, awakened by the revolution and keenly interested in politics and literature, that ensured the "Satyricon" its enormous success. In addition to inveterate humorists, such as Petr Potemkin, Sasha Cherny, Osip Dymov, Arkady Bukhov, Averchenko managed to attract L. Andreev, S.Ya. Marshak, A.I. Kuprin, A.N. Tolstoy, S. Gorodetsky and many other poets and prose writers. Averchenko himself was a permanent contributor to the "Satyricon" and the inspirer of all journal initiatives; the formation of a writer of the first magnitude was the satyricon career of N.A. Lokhvitskaya (Teffi). In addition to the magazine, the Satyricon Library was published: in 1908-1913, about a hundred book titles were published with a total circulation of over two million, including Averchenko's first collection of stories, Merry Oysters (1910), which withstood twenty-four editions in seven years.

In 1913, the editors of the "Satyricon" split, and "New Satyricon" (1913-1918) became the "Averchenko" journal. A rare issue of the previous and new editions did without Averchenko's story or humor; he was also published in other "thin" magazines of mass circulation, such as the "Journal for All" and "Blue Journal". The stories were selected, additionally edited and published in collections: Stories (humorous). Book. 1 (1910) - at the same time, previously published things were "thrown" here, even before the "Satyricon"; Stories (humorous). Book. 2. Bunnies on the wall (1911), Circles on the water (1912), Stories for convalescents (1913), About good people in essence (1914), Weeds (1914 - under the pseudonym Foma Opiskin), Miracles in a sieve (1915), Gilded Pills (1916), Blue and Gold (1917). A complex type of Averchenko's story has been developed, the necessary and characteristic feature of which is exaggeration, painting an anecdotal situation, bringing it to sheer absurdity, which serves as a kind of catharsis, partly rhetorical. His hypertrophied anecdotes have no shadow of plausibility; the more successfully they are used to mystify and remove reality, which is necessary for the "intelligent" public (the word "intelligent" was introduced into wide use with the considerable assistance of the "Satyricon"), which during the "Silver Age" tried to at least slightly loosen the stranglehold of populist ideology: sometimes even home-grown social democracy was used to counter it, and traces of it are clear in the Satyricons.

The “Satyriconites”, headed by Averchenko, extremely valued their well-earned reputation as an “independent magazine that makes a living with laughter”, and tried not to indulge base tastes, avoiding obscenity, stupid buffoonery and direct political engagement (in all these senses, Teffi was an exemplary author). The political position of the magazine was emphatic and somewhat mocking disloyalty: a position very advantageous in the then conditions of almost complete absence of censorship, which forbade only direct calls for the overthrow of power, but allowed to ridicule any of its manifestations, including censorship itself.

Of course, Averchenko welcomed the February Revolution of 1917 with his "New Satyricon"; however, the unbridled "democratic" pandemonium that followed it caused him to become increasingly wary, and the October Bolshevik coup was perceived by Averchenko, along with the overwhelming majority of the Russian intelligentsia, as a monstrous misunderstanding. At the same time, his cheerful absurdity acquired a new pathos; he began to correspond to the madness of the newly established reality and look like "black humor". Subsequently, such "grotesqueness" is found in M.A. Bulgakov, M. Zoshchenko, V. Kataev, I. Ilf, which testifies not to their apprenticeship with Averchenko, but to the unidirectional transformation of humor in a new era.

The era treated humor severely: in August 1918, the "New Satyricon" was banned, and Averchenko fled to the White Guard South, where he published in the newspapers "Priazovsky Krai", "South of Russia" and other anti-Bolshevik pamphlets and feuilletons, and in October 1920 he left to Istanbul with one of the last Wrangel transports. At the same time, new types of Avrchenko's stories were developed, which later compiled the books A Dozen Knives in the Back of the Revolution (1921) and Funny in a Terrible (1923): an anti-Soviet political anecdote and stylized essays, but at the same time exaggerated in Avrchenko's usual manner, sketches and impressions of the life of the revolutionary capital and civil war. The experience of emigre life, absurdly and pathetically copying the life and customs of perished Russia, was reflected in the book Notes of the Innocent. I'm in Europe (1923), where with the help of reverse hyperbole (litotes) grotesque images of a Lilliputian little world appear, not devoid of surrealistic lifelikeness. In the writings of the last years of Averchenko's life, the children's theme is manifested with renewed vigor - from the collection About the Little ones - for the big ones (1916) to the books of stories Children (1922) and Rest on the nettle (1924). Having tried to write a story (Podkhodtsev and two others, 1917) and a "humorous novel" (Joke of the Patron, 1925), Averchenko creates quasi-memoir cycles of semi-anecdotal episodes connected by more or less caricatured figures of the main characters, that is, again, collections of short stories and humoresques tinged with personal memories.

In Istanbul, Averchenko, as always, combined creative and organizational activities: having created the variety theater "The Nest of Migratory Birds", he made several tours around Europe. In 1922 he settled in Prague, where he managed to write and publish several books of short stories and the play Playing with Death, which has the character of a comedy show.