The story "In the Village" can be called a poem in prose. Its plot is a story on behalf of a boy who studies at a city gymnasium and therefore is forced to live away from his family, about how his father takes him from the city for the Christmas holidays and brings him to the village (the first chapter of the story). The second chapter tells how the boy spends two weeks of vacation. The third chapter tells how the father takes the boy to the city.
The beginning of the story surprises readers: “When I was little, it always seemed to me that spring begins along with the Christmas holidays.” “And it seemed to me that only in the village you can notice that spring is beginning,” says the narrator. The main content of the story is a poetic description of pictures of nature, village life. Feeling. the boy’s spring was caused by a meeting with nature, freedom, life in the family after a long forced life in the city, in a strange family. Going to go skiing, the boy joyfully repeats: "I'm Vogul, I'm Vogul ...".
When the boy is on his way to the station, his father expresses his cherished thoughts to him. He says that when the boy grows up, he will understand that you need to be closer to nature, you need to love and appreciate your native river, sky, fields and forests. He says that life in the village is poor, but not boring, and in order to reduce this poverty, you need to help the village people, work with them and for them ... And you can live well in the village! It seems to us that the sincere thoughts of the author himself are expressed through the lips of the father.
After the revolution of 1905, Bunin was one of the first to feel the changes in the life of Russia, namely the mood of the post-revolutionary village, and reflected them in his stories and novels, especially in the story "The Village", which was published in 1910.
On the pages of the story "The Village" the author paints a horrifying picture of the poverty of the Russian people. Bunin wrote that this story laid the groundwork for “a whole series of works that sharply depicted the Russian soul, its peculiar interweaving, its light and dark, but almost always tragic foundations.”
The originality and strength of Bunin's story is the display of the dark sides of peasant life, the stupidity of the villagers, the poverty of the everyday life of the peasants. Bunin in his work relied on real facts of reality. He knew the life of the village well, managed to give in his story a vivid and truthful picture of the life of the peasants.
Critics noted that in the story "The Village" there is no through plot action and a clear conflict. The narrative alternates between scenes of everyday village life and episodes of skirmishes between peasants and the village rich. A wonderful artist, Bunin gives a number of portrait sketches of men, describes their housing. Many landscapes in the story are filled with the philosophical thought of the author, on whose behalf the story is being told.
Bunin shows the life of the Russian village through the eyes of the brothers Tikhon and Kuzma Krasov, the main characters of the story. The true appearance of the village arises as a result of long conversations and disputes between Tikhon and Kuzma. A bleak picture of the life of the village, no hope of rebirth among the dead fields and the gloomy sky. The whole vast Russia rests on the peasant. How does he live, what does he think about? The author in his story speaks the bitter truth. The villagers are rude savages, little different from their livestock - stupid, greedy, cruel, arrogant and downtrodden.
Bunin brilliantly, in several paragraphs, tells the story of the Krasov family: “The great-grandfather of the Krasovs, nicknamed a gypsy in the household, was hunted down with greyhounds by captain Durnovo. The gypsy took away from him, from his master, his mistress. Further, just as simply and calmly outwardly, Bunin describes the fact that the Gypsy rushed to run. “And one should not run from greyhounds,” the author remarks laconically.
In the center of the story is a biography of two Krasov brothers. Tikhon is a powerful man. His only goal is to get rich. Tikhon Krasov "finished off" the ruined master Durnovka and bought his estate. The second brother, Kuzma Krasov, is a weak-willed dreamer, a self-taught intellectual. Against the backdrop of the biography of the Krasovs, Bunin unfolds a wide canvas of the life of the Russian peasantry.
The brothers exchange views, talk about the causes of the plight in the countryside. It turns out that here “chernozem is one and a half arshins, but what! And five years does not pass without hunger. "The city throughout Russia is famous for its grain trade - this bread is eaten to the full by a hundred people in the whole city." Bunin's men were robbed not only materially, but also spiritually. There are more than a hundred million illiterate people in the country, people live, as in "cave times", among savagery and ignorance.
Many Durnovians are mentally retarded people who do not understand what is happening around. For example, the worker Koshel was once in the Caucasus, but could not tell anything about him, except that there was a "mountain on a mountain." Purse's mind is poor, he pushes away everything new, incomprehensible, but he believes that he has recently seen a witch.
The teacher in Durnovka is a soldier, by appearance the most ordinary peasant, but he "was talking such nonsense that he had only to make a helpless gesture." Teaching children with him consisted in imposing the strictest army discipline. The author shows us the peasant Gray, "the most impoverished and idle in the whole village." He had a lot of land - three acres, but he became completely impoverished.
What prevents Gray from establishing a household? At the best of times, Sery managed to put up a new brick hut, but in winter it was necessary to heat, and Gray burned the roof, and then sold the hut as well. He does not want to work, he sits in his unheated hut, there are holes in the roof, and his children are afraid of a burning torch, as they are used to living in the dark.
The mental limitations of the peasants give rise to manifestations of senseless cruelty. A man can “kill a neighbor because of a goat”, strangle a child to take away a few kopecks. Akim, a rabid, vicious peasant, would gladly shoot the singing nightingales with a gun.
“Unfortunate people, first of all - unfortunate…” - Kuzma Krasov laments.
Bunin was sure that the peasants were only capable of rebellion, spontaneous and senseless. The story describes how in one day the peasants rebelled almost all over the county. The landowners sought protection from the authorities, but "the whole revolt ended with the muzhiks shouting around the district, burning and destroying several estates, and falling silent."
Bunin was accused of exaggerating, not knowing the village, hating the people. The writer would never have created such a poignant work if he had not rooted for his people and the fate of his homeland. In the story "The Village" he showed everything dark, wild, which prevents the country and people from developing.
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The image of the village runs through all of Bunin's work and appears in two themes: the life and life of the peasants and the ruin of noble estates. These topics are sometimes addressed separately from each other, but more often in parallel.
The terrible world of peasant poverty is revealed in the story "Tanka", characteristic of Bunin's early work. In the family of the peasant Korney, there is nothing to feed the children. A hungry five-year-old girl, Tanka, is driven out into the street by her mother. This small, shivering, tattered creature personifies a pore-formed village. Bunin is sympathetic to the peasants. He emphasizes their spiritual subtlety, delicacy, a penchant for poetic feelings. At the same time, the writer idealizes the image of the master Pavel Antonovich, who took pity and fed Tanka. The master thinks about the sad future of the girl and remembers that his nieces are in Florence. "Tanka and Florence!" - how striking is the contrast between the fates of a peasant girl and noble ladies. Bunin shows a deep gulf between the landowners and the people.
The ruin of noble nests is narrated in the story "Bai-Baki". The once rich estate of Luchezarovka is depleting, turning into a miserable village, which is lost in the snow in winter and seems to be extinct. Wolves howl around the house at night. The manor's house is dilapidated, the master Baskakov himself lives from hand to mouth. He thinks that all the good things in life disappeared with the abolition of serfdom. However, Bunin shows that it is not the reforms that are to blame, but the landlords themselves - bobak, lazy people who were unable to maintain the economy, helpless in everyday life, who corrupted their servants, unable to work.
The same theme of the departing noble nests is revealed in the lyrical story "Antonov apples". This is a story about a whole historical period in the life of Russia that is going into the past. Bunin sees a lot of light, poetic in a past life. The intoxicating smell of Antonov apples is associated with the beauty of the former village idyll. Gentle nostalgic pictures of the past emerge in the memory of the hero - the manor's garden, guests in the sun-drenched large hall, the glorious smell of old bindings in the grandfather's library, the intoxicating aroma of apples. Idyllic memories alternate with a realistic depiction of the current estate, in which one can see the impoverishment, the ruin of the landowners' nests. Nevertheless, in Bunin's story, the main, defining one is the elegiac tone, the sadness of farewell to the outgoing noble-patriarchal Russia.
In "Antonov's Apples" the synthetic nature of Bunin's style was revealed, in which smells, colors, sounds merge together, and everyday life is filled with poetic light and lyricism.
The story "The Village" was "a groan about the native land." Bunin covers Russian life widely. From Durnovka the space moves apart, other villages, stations, county towns come into view. Time is also moving apart: modernity is compared with the past - from the times of Kievan Rus to the middle of the 19th century.
In the center of the story is the life of the Krasov brothers: the kulak Tikhon and the self-taught poet Kuzma. Through the eyes of these people, the main events are given - the Russo-Japanese war, the revolution of 1905, the reaction that followed it.
Kuzma Krasov is a man who seeks the truth and the meaning of life. He is constantly in spiritual movement, growth. Self-taught Kuzma knows Schiller, Gogol, Belinsky, Pushkin. He is concerned about the burning problems of our time. For some time he was fond of Tolstoyism, but a collision with real life shows the inconsistency of the theory of non-resistance. In the consciousness of Kuzma, the principles of humanism are formed, the barbaric attitude towards man is overcome. Kuzma is heartbroken for Russia and the Russian people, but he sees all their negative qualities and concludes that the people themselves are to blame for their situation: “Would you say the government is to blame? Why, for a serf and a master, for Senka and a hat.
Bunin paints the life of peasant Russia in gray, dull colors. Durnovka becomes the center and personification of the whole country. Darkness, cold, dirt, stench - this is what surrounds the semi-poor peasants. The image of the poorest peasant Durnovka - Gray is typical. His nickname matches the whole color of the depicted life. He is lazy, apathetic, indifferent to the fate of his family. In general, the beggars, "gnawed" by life, the Durnovites do not look like those peasants whom Bunin idealized. They are unable to work, they have lost their attachment to the land. They are arrogant, cynical, rude and cruel. From-eternal peasant morality leaves their souls.
In general, painting the peasants in gloomy colors, negatively evaluating their present, Bunin nevertheless shows both bright characters and attractive heroes. In the image of Young, the fate of a peasant woman of the pre-revolutionary time is represented. It reveals wonderful spiritual qualities. She is very beautiful, but this is a desecrated beauty, a tragically broken fate.
The life of the people in the "Village" appears as an inert, gloomy and stupefying way of life. Even the riots that took place throughout the county cannot change this rigidity. “The whole riot ended with the peasants shouting around the district, burning and destroying several mustache-debs, and they fell silent.” Peasant Rus' is not capable of making a revolution in life. There is a degradation of peasant Russia.
Bunin shows the process of general decay. The landlords and their heirs depicted by him are flawed, pitiful and ridiculous people. Their life is just as dull and miserable as the life of the peasants. The story does not contain that elegiac note that colored the life of the nobility in Antonov Apples.
Bunin's pessimism about the Russian village was also reflected in the decision of the image of Tikhon Krasov. It would seem that tenacious, energetic, adapted to life, having become a master, Tikhon should enjoy life. But he feels the aimlessness of the past years: he has no heir to the family, there is no one to continue his work - that means there is no future. In the story "The Village" the life of Russia is shown in a state of deep crisis, from which Bu-nin saw no way out.
In an effort to find the origins of the current state of the village, Bu-nin refers to the times of serfdom. The story "Dry Valley" conveys the history of the family estate of the Khrushchev nobles. material from the site
Bunin epicly calmly unfolds the story of the patriarchal nature of life, peers into the past, noticing the strange and incomprehensible in the life of the Khrushchev family. He shows the mental and physical degeneration of the nobles, who were not capable of "neither reasonable love, nor reasonable hatred, nor healthy nepotism, nor labor, nor coexistence." The writer reflects on the Russian soul, looking for the roots of the impoverishment of the noble family in it.
Sukhodolsk life is full of savagery and horrors, but Bunin lyrically recreates its beauty, poetry, the charm of nature, the wisdom and charm of ancient legends, legends, folk songs. Life is shown in the interweaving of these two sides. Sukhodol acquires the meaning of a symbol of the outgoing Russian village. Another symbol of her is the image of the courtyard Natalya, who absorbed both the poetry and the wildness of Sukhodolsk life. In this image, Bunin embodied the motive of meekness, humility, obedience to fate.
In Sukhodol, the writer tried to put forward as a “positive program” the idea of a close connection between a peasant and a gentleman, based on the fact that “the life and soul of Russian nobles are the same as those of peasants,” and therefore there must be brotherhood between them, not enmity. Such a concept of the “single soul” of the Russian nation was refuted by Bunin himself in other works. Sukhodol was an important step in the search for a historical and philosophical concept of the future of Russia.
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Bunin worked on the story in 1909-1910, and in March - November 1910 the work was published in the journal "Modern World", causing the most contradictory reviews with its sharpness and passionate polemic. Comprehending the life and being of the Russian village during the revolution of 1905-1907, the writer expressed deep insights about the Russian character, the psychology of the peasantry, the metaphysics of the Russian rebellion, and, ultimately, a prophecy about Russia that came true in a historical perspective. Pictured village Durnovka appears in the story as a symbolic image of Russia as a whole: "Yes, it's all a village ...!" one of the characters remarks. The image of Russia and the Russian soul, in its "light and dark, but almost always tragic foundations" is revealed in a branched system of characters, polyfunctional landscape images, as well as in the general architectonics of the work.
The images of the brothers Tikhon and Kuzma Krasov, which are largely antithetical to each other, are put forward at the center of the system of characters. Their destinies, for all their individual differences, are fused in the dark depths of a family tradition about great-grandfather, grandfather and father: depicted already in the first lines, it reveals the sometimes terrifying irrationality of the Russian character and sets the main tone for the further narrative. A significant role in the story is also played by secondary, episodic characters, embodying, as, for example, in the cases of Deniska or Sery, the brightest types, as if snatched by the author from the bowels of the county environment.
An essential feature of the consciousness of the Krasov brothers is their ability, having risen above individual phenomena of reality, to see in them the influence of global historical forces, the philosophical patterns of being. The artistic character of Tikhon, who by the will of fate became the owner of the impoverished "Durnovsky estate", is interesting for an extraordinary combination of a practical business mind and deep intuitions of a psychological and national-historical plan. The family drama leads the hero to the tragic self-awareness of a person who has fallen out of the family "chain": "Without children, a person is not a person. So, some kind of sifting ..."
Such an individual worldview gives rise to a whole complex of complex, "confused" thoughts of the hero about the life of the people. Repeatedly using the form of Tikhon's improperly direct speech, the author, through the woeful and piercing gaze of his character, reveals the tragic paradoxes of national reality, for example, in cases of the oppressive poverty of a county town, "glorious throughout Russia for the grain trade", or with difficult thoughts about the specifics of the Russian mentality : "We are a wonderful people! A motley soul. Either a pure dog is a man, then he is sad, pitiful, tender, he cries over himself ..." The author's lyricism, so characteristic of early Bunin's prose, goes here into the depths of the artistic text, giving way to an outwardly objective epic manner , dissolves in the penetrating inner monologues of the characters.
Shocked by the godless reality of Russian life, Tikhon's soul plunges into the process of painful self-knowledge. Particularly noteworthy is the image of the hero's "stream of consciousness" unfolding on the verge of sleep and reality. Keenly feeling that "reality was disturbing", "that everything is doubtful", he mercilessly fixes the ulcers of national existence: the loss of the spiritual foundations of existence ("We pigs do not care about religion!"), Russia's exclusion from European civilization ("And we have everything each other's enemies..."). For Tikhon, the “thoughts about death” that appear in a discrete psychological pattern become a severe test of the entire life lived for strength and meaningfulness.
In the thirst for the “non-everyday”, which is especially evident in the hero’s parable story about a cook who wore an elegant scarf inside out, Tikhon balances between the desire to join the spiritual knowledge of the immortality of the soul (the episode of visiting the cemetery) and the disastrous ecstasy of the elements of the brewing rebellion (“at first, the revolution delighted, admired the murders"), "Durnovsky" destructiveness, which ultimately becomes one of the points of convergence between the Krasov brothers.
At the same time, Kuzma's life path is depicted in the story, in contrast to the enterprising brother, the former "anarchist", a poet of the "Nadsonian" persuasion, in whose "complaints about fate and need" the painful wanderings of the Russian spirit affected, with tragic consequences for itself, replacing the positive spiritual content with debilitating self-flagellation. No less sharply than Tikhon's, in Kuzma's reflections, his speeches, disputes with Balashkin, there are critical assessments of the disastrous aspects of the national character ("is there anyone more fierce than our people?", "if you read history, your hair will stand on end", etc.). Kuzma subtly captures in the mass of the people the intensification of "fermentation", vague mentality, social confrontation (the scene in the carriage). Perceptively seeing in Denisk the emerging "new type" of a lumpenized, spiritually rootless "proletarian", Kuzma, through force, however, blesses Young for a murderous marriage and thereby demonstrates complete impotence to resist the absurdity of Russian life, which is rolling down to the fatal line.
The picture of national reality on the eve of revolutionary chaos is supplemented by a whole series of mass scenes (either rioting, or "walking" peasants at the tavern), as well as a remarkable gallery of secondary and episodic characters. This is both the utopian consciousness of Gray ("as if everyone was waiting for something"), which manifested itself in the episode of the fire and in the scene with the drowned boar, echoing the plot twists and turns of M. Gorky's story "The Ice Drift", and the future perpetrator of revolutionary violence, the "revolutionary" Deniska, who carries with him the book "The Role of the Proletariat in Russia". On the other hand, this is in many ways a mysterious image of Young, whose fate (from the story with Tikhon to the final wedding) is an example of the most cruel "Durnovsky" mockery of beauty, which is definitely visible in the symbolic scene of violence against the heroine committed by the townspeople. Among the episodic characters, attention is drawn to the individualized images of the "Durnovsky" peasants, in whose rebellion the author sees the manifestation of the same Russian thirst to overcome the hated "everyday life", as well as the thoughtless following of the general inertia of the people's unrest ("an order was issued to coven", "the peasants rebelled a little not throughout the county). Makarka the Wanderer, Ivanushka from Basov, and guard Akim are in this row: each of them in his own way - some in mysterious "prophecies", some through immersion in the elements of folk mythology, some in devout "prayer" fanaticism - embodies the unquenchable longing of the Russian a person according to the highest, transtemporal.
A characteristic feature of the compositional organization of the story was the predominance of a static panoramic image of reality over linear plot dynamics. Related to this is the significant artistic role of retrospectives, interstitial episodes and symbolic scenes, sometimes containing a parable potential, as well as detailed landscape descriptions saturated with expressive details. Among the most important "plug-in" episodes in the story can be attributed with rapture the scabrous anecdote told by the workers Zhmykh and Oska about the Christian burial of a male "in a church fence", an anecdote that showed an example of the unstoppable desacralization of religious values in the common people's consciousness, the fall of the authority of spiritual power in the era inter-revolutionary turmoil. In other inserted episodes, the fates of background characters, the facets of national consciousness, are highlighted from an unexpected angle, for example, as in the case of the daughter-in-law, "breaking pies" "for the funeral" of Ivanushka from Basov, who has not yet died, or in a close situation with the purchase of an expensive coffin for the "ill" Lukyan. The loss of the reverent attitude of a Russian person to death is revealed in Bunin's story in a pointed, almost grotesque form and marks the strengthening of destructive tendencies in the national character.
The artistic functions of landscape descriptions are varied. The main part of the work is dominated by social landscapes, sometimes giving a condensed panorama of the "cave times" of district life. So, through the eyes of Tikhon, with generous detail, a fragment of a rural landscape is displayed, where the appearance of a peasant completes the general morale of the impoverished peasantry:
"Roughly sticking out on a bare pasture was a wild-colored church. Behind the church, a shallow clay pond under a dung dam gleamed in the sun - thick yellow water, in which a herd of cows stood, every minute sending their needs, and a naked peasant lathered his head."
"Knee-deep in mud, a pig lies on the porch<...>the old mother-in-law constantly throws tacks, bowls, throws herself at her daughters-in-law ... "
On the other hand, Bunin's deeply lyrical feeling of district Russia from the unique rhythms of her life breaks through in "convex" detail:
"In the cathedral they rang for the vigil, and under this measured, thick ringing, district, Saturday, the soul ached unbearably."
As the author and his characters deepen their understanding of not only the social, but also the mystical foundations of frontier Russian reality, the texture of landscape images changes. In the landscape descriptions given by Kuzma's eyes, the concrete social background more and more clearly develops into a transtemporal generalization, saturated with apocalyptic overtones:
“And again the black darkness opened wide, raindrops sparkled, and on the wasteland, in a deathly blue light, the figure of a wet, thin-necked horse was cut out.”
"Durnovka, covered with frozen snows, so far away to the whole world on this sad evening in the middle of the steppe winter, suddenly terrified him."
In the final symbolic landscape that accompanies the description of the absurdly colored episode of Young's wedding, these apocalyptic notes are intensified, signifying the author's woeful prophecies about Russian history striving towards disastrous darkness:
"The blizzard at dusk was even more terrible. And the horses were driven home especially fast, and the loud-mouthed wife of Vanka Krasny stood in the front sleigh, danced like a shaman, waved her handkerchief and yelled into the wind, into the violent dark murk, into the snow flying into her lips and drowning out her wolf voice ... "
Thus, in the story "The Village" a deeply tragic canvas of national life unfolded on the eve of upheavals. In the author's words, in the speeches and internal monologues of many characters, the most complex bends of the Russian soul were captured, which received a capacious psychological and historiosophical understanding in the work. The epic breadth and objectivity of the story contain a passionate, painfully poignant author's lyricism.
The great-grandfather of the Krasovs, nicknamed the Gypsy in the household, was baited with greyhounds by master Durnovo. The gypsy took away from him, from his master, his mistress. Durnovo ordered that Gypsy be taken out into the field, beyond Durnovka, and planted on a hillock. He himself rode out with a pack and shouted: “Atu him!” The gypsy, sitting in a daze, rushed to run. And you should not run from greyhounds. The Krasovs' grandfather managed to get his freedom. He went with his family to the city and soon became famous: he became a famous thief. He hired a shack for his wife in Chernaya Sloboda, put her to weaving lace for sale, and he himself, with some tradesman Belokopytov, went around the province to rob churches. When he was caught, he behaved in such a way that he was admired for a long time throughout the whole district: he stands as if in a plush caftan and goatskin boots, impudently plays with his cheekbones, eyes, and respectfully confesses even the smallest of his innumerable deeds: So exactly, sir. So exactly, sir. And the parent of the Krasovs was a petty shibay. He traveled around the county, lived at one time in his native Durnovka, started a shop there, but went bankrupt, took to drink, returned to the city and died. After serving on the benches, his sons, Tikhon and Kuzma, also traded. They used to drag themselves in a cart with a locker in the middle and mournfully yell: Ba-aba, tova-aru! Ba-aba, tova-aru! Goods mirrors, soaps, rings, threads, scarves, needles, pretzels in a locker. And in the cart everything that was obtained in exchange for goods: dead cats, eggs, canvases, rags ... But, having traveled for several years, the brothers one day almost cut themselves with knives and parted from sin. Kuzma hired a driver, Tikhon rented an inn on the highway at the Vorgol station, about five versts from Durnovka, and opened a tavern and a "black" shop: "selling petty goods - tea, sugar, tobacco, cigars and other things." By the age of forty, Tikhon's beard was already silvering in some places. But he was still handsome, tall, well-built; his face is strict, swarthy, a little pockmarked, his shoulders are broad and dry, in conversation he is imperious and sharp, in his movements he is quick and dexterous. Only the eyebrows began to move more and more often and the eyes shine even more sharply than before. He indefatigably chased the guards in those dull autumn pores, when taxes were collected and bidding after bidding went through the village. He indefatigably bought up grain from the landlords, rented land for a pittance... He lived for a long time with a mute cook, "not bad, he won't scatter anything!" had a child from her, whom she slept, crushed in a dream, then married an elderly maid, the old woman Princess Shakhova. And having married, taking a dowry, he “finished off” the descendant of the impoverished Durnovo, a full, affectionate barchuk, bald at the age of twenty-five, but with a magnificent chestnut beard. And the peasants gasped with pride when he took the Durnovka estate: after all, almost all of Durnovka consists of the Krasovs! They also gasped at how he managed not to burst: trade, buy, visit the estate almost every day, follow every inch of the earth like a hawk ... They gasped and said: Lute! But the owner! Tikhon Ilyich himself convinced them of this. Often advised: We live we don’t wind up, if you get caught we turn around. But in fairness. I, brother, am a Russian. I don’t need yours for free, but keep in mind: I won’t give you mine! Pamper, no, mind you, I won’t pamper! And Nastasya Petrovna (who walked like a duck, with her toes inward, waddling, from constant pregnancy, which all ended in dead girls, yellow, swollen, with sparse whitish hair) groaned, listening: Oh, and you are simple, I will look at you! What are you doing with him, stupid? You teach him the mind-reason, but he has little grief. Look, you spread your legs, what an Emir Bukhara! In autumn, near the inn, which stood on one side to the highway, on the other to the station and the elevator, the creaking of the wheels groaned: wagons with bread turned up and down. And every minute the block squealed either on the door to the tavern, where Nastasya Petrovna let go, or on the door to the shop, dark, dirty, strongly smelling of soap, herring, shag, mint gingerbread, kerosene. And every minute it was heard in the tavern: Wow! And your vodka is healthy, Petrovna! She hit her on the forehead, she's gone to hell. Sugar in the mouth, dear! Or do you have it with snuff? So he went out the fool! And the store was even more crowded: Ilyich! Huntik ham will not weigh? I'm a ham, brother, but this year, thanks to God, is so well-off, so well-off! And how much? Cheap! Master! Do you have good tar? Such tar, my dear, your grandfather did not have at the wedding! And how much? The loss of hope for children and the closing of taverns were major events in the life of Tikhon Ilyich. He obviously aged when there was no longer any doubt that he should not be a father. At first he joked. No, sir, I'll get my way, he said to his acquaintances. Without children, a person is not a person. So, some kind of undercut ... Then even fear began to attack him: what is it, one slept, the other still gives birth to the dead! And the time of Nastasya Petrovna's last pregnancy was a particularly difficult time. Tikhon Ilyich was languishing, angry; Nastasya Petrovna secretly prayed, secretly wept and was pitiful when she slowly got down at night, by the light of the lamp, from bed, thinking that her husband was sleeping, and began to kneel with difficulty, crouch on the floor with a whisper, look longingly at the icons and senile, painfully rise from his knees. From childhood, not even daring to admit to himself, Tikhon Ilyich did not like lamps, their unfaithful church light: that November night remained in my memory for the rest of my life, when in a tiny, crooked hut in Chernaya Sloboda a lamp was also burning, so quietly and affectionately sadly, the shadows darkened from her chains, it was deathly quiet, on the bench, under the saints, the father lay motionless, his eyes closed, his sharp nose raised and his wax hands folded on his chest, and beside him, behind a window hung with a red rag, with a riotous - With dreary songs, with screams and out of tune screaming harmonies, the fit ones passed ... Now the icon lamp burned constantly. Vladimir boxers fed the horses at the inn, and in the house appeared "A new complete oracle and sorcerer, predicting the future on the proposed questions, with the addition of the easiest way to guess on cards, beans and coffee." And Nastasya Petrovna put on her glasses in the evenings, rolled a wax ball and began to throw it at the circles of the oracle. And Tikhon Ilyich looked askance. But the answers were all rude, ominous or meaningless. "Does my husband love me?" asked Nastasya Petrovna. And the oracle answered: "Loves like a dog stick." "How many children will I have?" "Fate has appointed you to die, thin grass out of the field." Then Tikhon Ilyich said: Let me throw... And I thought: "Shall I start a lawsuit with a person known to me?" But he also got nonsense: "Count your teeth in your mouth." Once, looking into the empty kitchen, Tikhon Ilyich saw his wife near the cradle of the cook's child. A motley chicken, squeaking, wandered along the windowsill, banged on the glass with its beak, catching flies, while she sat on the bunk, rocked the cradle and sang an old lullaby in a pitiful, trembling voice:Where is my child?
Where is his bed?
He is in a high tower,
In a painted cradle.
Nobody visit us
Do not knock on the tower!
He fell asleep, rested
Covered with a dark canopy
Colored taffeta...
What a terrible mess
Death collects from people!
He faithfully served the king,
He loved his neighbor with all his heart,
Was respected by people...
hush, leaves, don't make noise,
Don't wake up Kostya! ¡
And, remembering his child, crushed in a dream by a dumb cook, he blinked from the welling tears.
On the highway that goes past the cemetery and disappears among the undulating fields, no one ever drives. They drive along a dusty country road, nearby. Tikhon Ilyich also rode along the country road. A tattered carriage cab flashed towards him, county cabbies dashing dashingly! and in the cab a city hunter: at his feet a piebald pointing dog, on his knees a gun in a case, on his feet high waders, although there were no swamps in the county. And Tikhon Ilyich clenched his teeth angrily; The midday sun was beating down, the wind was blowing hot, the cloudless sky was becoming slate. And Tikhon Ilyich turned away more and more angrily from the dust flying along the road, and looked more and more preoccupied at the lean, drying up bread. Crowds of pilgrims tortured by fatigue and heat walked with a measured step, with high staffs. They gave Tikhon Ilyich low, humble bows, but now everything again seemed to him a swindle. Humble! And I suppose they squabble at nights, like dogs! Raising clouds of dust, the horses were driven by drunken peasants returning from the fair, red, gray, black, but all equally ugly, skinny and shaggy. And, overtaking their rattling carts, Tikhon Ilyich shook his head: Oh, rogues, go to hell! One, in a chintz shirt torn to ribbons, was sleeping, pounding like a dead man, lying on his back, his head thrown back, his bloodied beard and nose swollen with dried blood. The other ran, caught up with his hat torn off by the wind, stumbled, and Tikhon Ilyich, with malicious pleasure, pulled him out with a whip. I came across a cart full of sieves, shovels and women; sitting with their backs to the horse, they shook and jumped; one had a new children's cap on her head with the visor backwards, another sang, the third waved her arms and shouted after Tikhon Ilyich with laughter: Uncle! I lost my check! Behind the outpost, where the highway turned aside, where the rattling carts fell behind and the silence, spaciousness and heat of the steppe enveloped him, he again felt that, after all, the most important thing in the world was “business”. Oh, and poverty is all around! The peasants were ruined to the ground, there was no market left in the impoverished estates scattered around the county ... The owner would be here, the owner! Halfway there was the large village of Rivne. Dry wind swept along the empty streets, along the vines, burned by the heat. At the rapids, hens ruffled and buried themselves in the ashes. A wild-colored church jutted out roughly on a bare pasture. Behind the church, a shallow clay pond under a manure dam gleamed in the sun - thick yellow water in which a herd of cows stood, every minute attending to their needs, and a naked peasant lathered his head. He entered the water up to his waist, a copper cross shone on his chest, his neck and face were black from sunburn, and his body was strikingly pale and white. Unbridle the horse, said Tikhon Ilyich, driving into the pond, smelling of a herd. The peasant threw a bluish-marble remnant on the bank, black with cow droppings, and, with a grey, soapy head, bashfully closing himself, hastened to fulfill the order. The horse leaned greedily on the water, but the water was so warm and repulsive that it lifted its muzzle and turned away. Whistling to her, Tikhon Ilyich shook his cap: Well, and you have water! Are you drinking? Do you have sugar ai? affectionately and cheerfully objected the peasant. We have been drinking for a thousand years! Yes, water, what here is some bread... Beyond Rovny the road went through solid rye, again skinny, weak, overflowing with cornflowers ... And near Vyselki, near Durnovka, rooks with open silvery beaks sat in a cloud on a hollow, gnarled willow, for some reason they love the fire: these days there is only one title only black skeletons of huts among the garbage. The rubbish smoked with a milky bluish haze, there was a sour smell of burning ... And the thought of a fire pierced Tikhon Ilyich with lightning. "Trouble!" he thought, turning pale. Nothing is insured with him, everything can fly off in one hour ... From these Petrovka, from this memorable trip to the fair, Tikhon Ilyich began to drink - and still often, not drunk, but to the point of a decent redness of his face. However, this did not interfere with business, but did not interfere, according to him, and health. “Vodka polishes the blood,” he said. Even now he often called his life penal servitude, a noose, a golden cage. But he walked along his road more and more confidently, and several years passed so monotonously that everything merged into one working day. And the new major events turned out to be something that they did not look forward to, the war with Japan and the revolution. Talk about the war began, of course, with boasting. “The Cossack will soon let down his yellow skin, brother!” But other words were soon heard. There is nowhere to put your land! Tikhon Ilyich also spoke in a strict economic tone. Not war, sir, but downright nonsense! And the news of the terrible defeats of the Russian army led him to malevolent admiration: Wow, great! So them, their mother so! At first, the revolution also delighted, and the murders delighted. How he gave this very minister under the vein, Tikhon Ilyich sometimes said in the heat of delight, how he gave there was no dust left of him! But as soon as they started talking about the alienation of lands, anger began to wake up in him. “All Jews work! All the Jews, sir, and here are those shaggy-haired students ! And it was incomprehensible: everyone was saying revolution, revolution, and around everything was the same, everyday: the sun is shining, rye is blooming in the field, the carts are reaching for the station ... The people were incomprehensible in their silence, in their evasive speeches. He became secretive, people! Just horror, how secretive! said Tikhon Ilyich. And, forgetting about the Jews, he added: Let's suppose that all this music is simple, sir. Change the government and equalize the land - after all, even a baby will understand, sir. And, therefore, the matter is clear for whom he oppresses, the people. But, of course, he is silent. And it is necessary, therefore, to follow, and strive so hard to keep quiet. Don't let him go! Otherwise, hold on: if he smells good luck, if he smells a helmet under his tail, he will shatter to smithereens, sir! When he read or heard that land would be taken away only from those who had more than five hundred acres, he himself became a "troublemaker." He even got into an argument with the men. It happened a man stands near his shop and says: No, it's you, Ilyich, don't interpret. By a fair assessment it is possible, take it. And so no, not good ... It's hot, it smells of pine planks piled up near the barns, opposite the yard. You can hear how behind the trees and behind the buildings of the station, the hot steam locomotive of the freight train is hoarse, making chests. Tikhon Ilyich is standing without a hat, screwing up his eyes and smiling slyly. Smiling and replies: Yes. And if he is not the owner, but a lodar? Who? Barin something? Well, this is a special case. It is not a sin to take away from such and such and with all the giblets! Well, that's it! But other news came they would take less than five hundred! and absent-mindedness, captiousness immediately took possession of the soul. Everything that is done around the house began to seem disgusting. Egor's henchman was carrying flour sacks out of the shop and began shaking them out. The top of the head is a wedge, the hair is hard and thick "and why is it so thick on fools?" the forehead is depressed, the face is slanting like an egg, the eyes of a fish are bulging, and the eyelids with white, calf eyelashes are exactly stretched over them: it seems that there is not enough skin, that if the small one closes them, you will need to open your mouth, if you close your mouth you will have to open your eyelids wide. And Tikhon Ilyich shouted angrily: Daldon! Duleb! What are you shaking at me? His chambers, kitchen, shop and barn, where there used to be a wine trade, all this was one log house, under one iron roof. Sheds of livestock hutches, covered with straw, were closely adjacent to it on three sides, and a cozy square was obtained. The barns stood opposite the house, across the road. To the right was the station, to the left was the highway. Behind the highway there is a birch forest. And when Tikhon Ilyich felt uneasy, he went out onto the highway. Like a white ribbon, from pass to pass, it ran south, descending along with the fields and again rising to the horizon only from a distant booth, where it was crossed by a cast-iron coming from the southeast. And if it happened that one of the Durnovsky peasants was driving - of course, who is more efficient, more reasonable, for example, Yakov, whom everyone calls Yakov Mikitich because he is "rich" and greedy, Tikhon Ilyich stopped him. If only I could buy a cap! he shouted with a grin. Yakov, in a hat, in a zamushka shirt, in short heavy trousers and barefoot, was sitting on the bed of the cart. He pulled on the rope reins, stopping the well-fed mare. Great, Tikhon Ilyich, he said with restraint. Great! I say, it's time to donate the hat to the jackdaw nests! Yakov, with a sly grin at the ground, nodded his head. It's... how to say?.. it wouldn't be bad. Yes, capital, for example, does not allow. Will interpret something! We know you, Kazan orphans! He gave the girl away, married the young man, there is money ... What else do you want from the Lord God? This flattered Yakov, but even more restrained him. Oh my God! sighing, he muttered in a trembling voice. Money... For example, I didn't have any in the institution... And the kid... what's the kid? The small one is not happy... It must be said directly not happy! Yakov was, like many men, very nervous, and especially when it came to his family and household. He was very secretive, but here nervousness overcame, although only jerky, trembling speech revealed it. And, in order to completely disturb him, Tikhon Ilyich asked sympathetically: Not happy? Say please! And all because of the woman? Jacob, looking around, scraping his chest with his nails: Because of a woman, her relative hurt her ... Jealous? Jealous... She signed me up as a daughter-in-law... And Jacob's eyes flickered: There she pressed on her husband, there she pressed on! Yes, I wanted to poison! Sometimes, for example, you'll cool down... smoke a little to make your chest feel better... Well, she put a cigarette under my pillow... If I didn't look, I'd be lost! What kind of cigarette is this? I pushed the bones of the dead and instead of tobacco and poured ... That's a little fool! I would teach her in Russian! Where are you going! I, for example, climbed on my chest! And he himself winds like a snake! .. I’ll grab my head, but my head is shorn… Tikhon Ilyich shook his head, was silent for a minute, and finally made up his mind: Well, how are you there? Are you waiting for a riot? But here secrecy immediately returned to Yakov. He smiled and waved his hand. Well! he muttered in a patter. What the hell is there riot! We have a humble people... a humble people... And pulled the reins, as if the horse was not worth it. And why was the gathering on Sunday? Tikhon Ilyich suddenly threw angrily. Gathering something? And the plague knows them! Fooled, for example... I know what they were talking about! Well, I’m not hiding ... They chatted, for example, that they came out, they say, an order ... came out like an order not to work for the masters at the same price ... It was very insulting to think that because of some Durnovka, the hands fell off the job. And there are only three dozen households in this Durnovka. And she lies in a damn yaruga: a wide ravine, on one side - a hut, on the other - a farmstead. And this manor with huts looks at each other and from day to day is waiting for some kind of “instruction” ... Oh, take a few Cossacks with lashes! But the "order" did come out. One Sunday a rumor spread that there was a gathering in Durnovka, and a plan was being worked out to attack the estate. With maliciously joyful eyes, with a feeling of unusual strength and audacity, with a readiness to "break the very devil's horns", Tikhon Ilyich shouted "harness the colt to the joggers" and ten minutes later he was already driving him along the highway to Durnovka. The sun was setting after a rainy day in gray-red clouds, the trunks in the birch forest were scarlet, the dirt road, sharply distinguished by black-violet mud among the fresh greenery, was heavy. Pink foam fell from the colt's haunches, from the harness that fidgeted over them. Snapping the reins firmly, Tikhon Ilyich turned away from the cast-iron, took the field road to the right, and, seeing Durnovka, doubted for a moment the veracity of the rumors of a mutiny. Peaceful silence was all around, the larks peacefully sang their evening songs, the smell of damp earth and the sweetness of wild flowers simply and calmly ... But suddenly the eye fell on the pairs near the estate, densely dotted with yellow sweet clover: a peasant herd was grazing on its pairs! It has begun, then! And, jerking the reins, Tikhon Ilyich flew past the herd, past the barn overgrown with burdocks and nettles, past the undersized garden full of sparrows, past the stables and the people's hut, and jumped into the yard... And then something absurd happened: in the twilight, dying from anger, resentment and fear, Tikhon Ilyich sat in the field on the joggers. His heart was pounding, his hands were trembling, his face was on fire, his hearing was sensitive, like that of an animal. He sat, listening to the cries coming from Durnovka, and recalled how the crowd, which seemed huge, tumbled, seeing him, through the ravine to the estate, filled the yard with clamor and abuse, huddled at the porch and pressed him to the door. In his hands he only had a whip. And he waved them, now retreating, now desperately throwing himself into the crowd. But the advancing saddler, angry, lean, with a sunken belly, sharp-nosed, in boots and a purple chintz shirt, waved his stick even wider and bolder. He, on behalf of the entire crowd, yelled that an order had been issued to "spoil this matter" to swindle on the same day and hour throughout the province: to drive out of all the savings outside laborers, to intercede for their work as locals, for a ruble for a day! And Tikhon Ilyich yelled even more furiously, trying to drown out the saddler: Ah! That's how! Pricked up, tramp, agitators? Got enough? And the saddler tenaciously, on the fly, caught his words. You're a tramp! he yelled, pouring blood. You, gray-haired fool! Oh, I don't know how much land you have? How much, cater? Two hundred? And I have damn! I have her and everything from your porch! And why? Who are you? Who are you, I ask you? From what such kvass? Well, remember, Mitka! Tikhon Ilyich finally shouted helplessly and, feeling that his head was in a turmoil, rushed through the crowd to the runners. Remember you yourself! But no one was afraid of threats, and a friendly cackle, roar and whistle rushed after him ... And then he traveled around the estate, froze, listened. He drove out onto the road, to the crossroads and stood facing the dawn, to the station, ready at any moment to hit the horse. It was quiet, warm, damp and dark. The earth, rising to the horizon, where a faint reddish light still smoldered, was as black as an abyss. S-stop, bitch! Tikhon Ilyich whispered through his teeth to a moving horse. Hundred-oh! And from a distance came voices, screams. And from all the voices stood out the voice of Vanka the Red, who had already visited the Donetsk mines twice. And then a dark pillar of fire suddenly rose over the estate: the peasants lit a hut in the garden, and the pistol, forgotten in the hut by an escaped tradesman-gardener, began firing from the fire by itself ... Subsequently, they learned that, indeed, a miracle had happened: on the same day, peasants rebelled almost all over the county. And the hotels of the city were for a long time crowded with landowners who sought protection from the authorities. But later Tikhon Ilyich recalled with great shame that he, too, was looking for her: with shame, because the whole rebellion ended with the muzhiks yelling around the district, burning and destroying several estates, and they fell silent. The saddler soon, as if nothing had happened, again began to appear in the shop on Vorgla and respectfully took off his hat on the threshold, as if not noticing that Tikhon Ilyich's face darkened at his appearance. However, there were still rumors that the Durnovites were going to kill Tikhon Ilyich. And he was afraid of being late on the way from Durnovka, felt the bulldog in his pocket, annoyingly pulling the pocket of his trousers, took an oath to himself to burn Durnovka to the ground one fine night ... to poison the water in Durnovka's ponds ... Then the rumors ceased. But Tikhon Ilyich began to firmly think of getting rid of Durnovka. “Not the money that my grandmother has, but the one in the bosom!” This year Tikhon Ilyich was already fifty. But the dream of becoming a father did not leave him. And so she pushed him against Rodka. Rodka, a lanky, gloomy fellow from Ulyanovka, went two years ago to the yard to Yakov's widow's brother, Fedot; married, buried Fedot, who died of drinking at a wedding, and went into the soldiers. And the young, slender, with very white, delicate skin, with a thin blush, with forever lowered eyelashes, began to work on the estate, on a day job. And these eyelashes worried Tikhon Ilyich terribly. Durnovsky women wear “horns” on their heads: as soon as from under the crown, the braids are placed on top, covered with a scarf and form something wild, cow-like. They wear ancient dark purple pony with a girdle, a white apron like a sundress and bast shoes. But Young, this nickname remained behind her, was good in this outfit. And one evening, in the dark barn, where the Young One was stalking an ear, Tikhon Ilyich, looking around, quickly went up to her and quickly said: You will walk in half boots, in silk scarves ... I won’t regret a quarter! But Young was silent as if killed. Do you hear? shouted Tikhon Ilyich in a whisper. But Young seemed to be petrified, bowing her head and throwing a rake. And so he did not achieve anything. Suddenly Rodka appeared: ahead of time, crooked. It was shortly after the revolt of the Durnovites, and Tikhon Ilyich immediately hired Rodka, together with his wife, to the Durnovo estate, referring to the fact that "now you can't do without a soldier." On the eve of Ilyin's Day, Rodka left for the city to get new brooms and shovels, and Young was washing the floors in the house. Stepping through the puddles, Tikhon Ilyich entered the room, looked at the Young Lady bending to the floor, at her white calves splashed with dirty water, at her whole body resounding in marriage ... And suddenly, somehow especially deftly controlling his strength and desire, stepped towards Young. She quickly straightened up, raised her excited, flushed face, and holding a wet rag in her hand, strangely shouted: So I will lubricate you, little one! There was a smell of hot slop, hot body, sweat... And, seizing Young's hand, brutally squeezing it, shaking it and knocking out a piece of rag, Tikhon Ilyich caught Young by the waist with his right hand, pressed it to him, so that the bones crunched, and carried it to another room where there was a bed. And, throwing back her head, widening her eyes, the young woman no longer struggled, did not resist... After that, it became painful to see his wife, Rodka, to know that he was sleeping with Young, that he was savagely beating her every day and every night. And soon it got creepy. Inscrutable are the ways along which a jealous person comes to the truth. And Rodka came. Thin, crooked, long-armed and strong, like a monkey, with a small short-cropped black head, which he always bent, looking with a deeply sunken shining eye from under his brows, he became terrible. In the soldiers, he picked up Khokhlack words and accents. And if the Young Lady dared to object to his short, harsh speeches, he calmly took the belt whip, approached her with an evil grin and, through his teeth, calmly asked, hitting the “in”: What are you talking about? And he pulled her out so that her eyes darkened. Once Tikhon Ilyich stumbled upon this massacre and, unable to bear it, shouted: What are you doing, you bastard? But Rodka calmly sat down on the bench and only looked at him. What are you talking about? he asked. And Tikhon Ilyich hastened to slam the door... Wild thoughts began to flicker: to adjust so, for example, that Rodka would be crushed somewhere by the roof or the ground ... But a month passed, another passed, and hope, that hope that had intoxicated with these thoughts, cruelly got pregnant! What was the reason for continuing to play with fire after that? It was necessary to deal with Rodka, to drive him away as soon as possible. But who was to replace him? Rescued the case. Unexpectedly, Tikhon Ilyich reconciled with his brother and persuaded him to take over the management of Durnovka. He learned from an acquaintance in the city that Kuzma had long served as a clerk for the landowner Kasatkin and, most surprising of all, had become an "author". Yes, they allegedly printed a whole book of his poems and marked on the back: "The author's warehouse." Ta-ak-s! drawled Tikhon Ilyich, hearing this. He is Kuzma, but nothing! And what, let me ask you, did they print it like that: an essay by Kuzma Krasov? All honor with honor, answered an acquaintance, who firmly believed, however, like many in the city, that Kuzma “rips off” his poems from books, from magazines. Then Tikhon Ilyich, without leaving his seat, at a table in Daev's tavern, wrote a firm and brief note to his brother; It's time for the old people to reconcile, to repent. And the next day, and reconciliation, and a business conversation with Daev. It was morning, the tavern was still empty. The sun shone through the dusty windows, illuminated the tables covered with damp red tablecloths, the dark, freshly bran-washed floor, smelling of the stables, the clerks in white shirts and white trousers. In the cage, in every way, as inanimate, as wound up, the canary was flooded. Tikhon Ilyich, with a nervous and serious face, sat down at the table, and as soon as he demanded a couple of teas, a long-familiar voice sounded over his ear: Well, hello. Kuzma was shorter than him, bony, drier. He had a large, thin, slightly cheeky face, frowning gray eyebrows, small greenish eyes. He didn't just start. First I will tell you, Tikhon Ilyich, he began, as soon as Tikhon Ilyich poured tea for him, I will tell you who I am so that you know ... He grinned: Who are you messing with ... And he had a way of rapping out syllables, raising his eyebrows, unbuttoning and fastening his jacket with the top button when talking. And buttoning up, he continued: You see, I am an anarchist... Tikhon Ilyich raised his eyebrows. Don't be afraid. I don't do politics. And you won't tell anyone to think. And there is no harm to you here. I will manage properly, but, I say frankly, I will not flay. And the times are not the same, Tikhon Ilyich sighed. Well, the times are still the same . You can still, fight something. No, it doesn't fit. I will manage, I will give my free time to self-development ... that is, reading. Oh, keep in mind: you will read you will not count in your pocket! said, shaking his head and twitching the tip of his lips, Tikhon Ilyich. Yes, perhaps, and this is not our business. Well, I don't think so, objected Kuzma. I, brother, how shall I tell you? strange Russian type. I myself am a Russian person, keep in mind, put in Tikhon Ilyich. Yes, different. I do not want to say that I am better than you, but different. You, I see, are proud that you are Russian, and I, brother, oh, far from being a Slavophile! It is not appropriate to play much, but I will say one thing: do not boast, for God's sake, that you are Russians. We are a wild people! Tikhon Ilyich, frowning, drummed his fingers on the table. That's probably right, he said. Wild people. Crazy. Well, that's it. I can say that I staggered around the world quite a bit, so what? I have never seen more boring and lazier types anywhere. And whoever is not lazy, squinted Kuzma p.) brother, there is no sense in that either. Tears, gangsters his nest, but what's the point? How so what's the point? asked Tikhon Ilyich. Yes, yes. Twisting it, a nest, is also necessary with meaning. Sow, they say, and I will live like a human being. Here it is, yes here it is. And Kuzma tapped his chest and forehead with his finger. We, brother, apparently, are not up to it, said Tikhon Ilyich. “Live near the village, sip gray cabbage soup, scold thin bast shoes!” Bast shoes! Kuzma responded caustically. For the second thousand years, brother, we carry them, be they thrice cursed! And who is to blame? Tatars, you see, crushed! You see, we are young people! But maybe there, in Europe, they also pressed a lot - all sorts of Mongols. Perhaps the Germans are no older ... Well, yes, this is a special conversation! Right! said Tikhon Ilyich. Let's talk about business! Kuzma, however, began to finish: I don't go to church... So you are a Molokan? Tikhon Ilyich asked and thought: “I am lost! Apparently, we must get rid of Durnovka!” Like a Molokan, Kuzma chuckled. Yes, do you go? If it weren't for fear and neediness, I would have completely forgotten. Well, I'm not the first, I'm not the last, objected Tikhon Ilyich, frowning. All sinners. Why, it is said: in one breath, everything is forgiven. Kuzma shook his head. You speak habitually! he said sternly. And you stop and think: how is it so? He lived and lived as a pig all his life, sighed, and everything disappeared as if by hand! Does it make sense or not? The conversation was getting heavy. "That's right, too," thought Tikhon Ilyich, looking at the table with shining eyes. But, as always, he wanted to avoid thoughts and talk about God, about life, and he said the first thing that came to mind: And I would be glad to heaven, but sins are not allowed. Here, here, here! picked up Kuzma, tapping his fingernail on the table. Our most beloved, our most disastrous feature: the word is one thing, but the deed is another! Russian, brother, music: it's bad to live like a pig, but still I live and will live like a pig! Well, let's talk business... The canary is silent. The tavern was crowded with people. Now it was heard from the market how, somewhere in the shop, a quail was beating surprisingly clearly and loudly. And while the business conversation was going on, Kuzma kept listening to him and sometimes in an undertone picked up: "Smart!" Having agreed, he slammed his palm on the table and said energetically: Well, then, so, don't become a pushover! and, reaching into the side pocket of his jacket, he took out a whole pile of papers and papers, found among them a little book in a marble-gray cover and placed it in front of his brother. Here! he said. I yield to your request and my weakness. The book is bad, the verses are ill-considered, long-standing... But there is nothing to be done. Here, take it and hide it. And again Tikhon Ilyich was excited that his brother was the author, that on this marble-gray cover was printed: "Poems by K. I. Krasov." He turned the book over in his hands and said timidly: Otherwise, I would read something ... Eh? Do me a favor, read the rhyme three or four! And, lowering his head, putting on his pince-nez, putting the book far away from him and sternly looking at it through the glasses, Kuzma began to read what self-taught people usually read: imitations of Koltsov, Nikitin, complaints about fate and need, challenges to the setting cloud-bad weather. But there were pink spots on her thin cheekbones, and her voice trembled at times. Tikhon Ilyich's eyes also shone. It didn't matter if the poems were good or bad, what mattered was that they were composed by his own brother, a simple man who smelled of shag and old boots... And with us, Kuzma Ilyich, he said, when Kuzma fell silent and, taking off his pince-nez, looked down, and we have one song ... And unpleasantly, bitterly twitched his lip: We have one song: what for? Having settled his brother in Durnovka, however, he set to work on this song even more willingly than before. Before handing over Durnovka to his brother, he found fault with Rodka because of the new tugs eaten by the dogs, and refused him. Rodka chuckled defiantly in response and calmly went to the hut to collect his belongings. The young woman listened to the refusal, too, as if calmly, , having parted with Tikhon Ilyich, she again adopted the manner of impassively silent, not looking into his eyes. But half an hour later, having already gathered, Rodka came with her to ask for forgiveness. The young woman stood on the threshold, pale, her eyelids swollen from tears, and was silent; Rodka bent his head, crumpled his cap and also tried to cry, grimaced disgustingly, and Tikhon Ilyich sat and squinted his eyebrows, clicked on the abacus. He had mercy on only one thing - he did not deduct for tugs. Now he was firm. Getting rid of Rodka and handing things over to his brother, he felt cheerful, all right. "Unreliable brother, empty, it seems, a man, well, but as long as it will come down!" And, returning to Vorgol, he busied himself tirelessly throughout October. And, as if in harmony with his mood, the weather was wonderful throughout October. But all of a sudden it broke, was replaced by a storm, downpours, and in Durnovka something completely unexpected happened. Rodka worked in October on the cast-iron line, and Young lived idle at home, only occasionally earning five-kopeck pieces, two kopecks in the garden at the estate. She behaved strangely: at home she was silent, crying, but in the garden she was sharply cheerful, laughing, singing songs with Donka Koza, a very stupid and beautiful girl who looked like an Egyptian. The goat lived with a tradesman who rented a garden, and Young, who for some reason became friends with her, looked defiantly at his brother, an impudent boy, and, glancing, hinted in songs that she was drying up for someone. It is not known whether she had anything with him, but it all ended in great misfortune: leaving near Kazanskaya for the city, the townspeople arranged an “evening” in their hut, invited Goat and Young, played all night on two showers, fed girlfriends with zhamki, gave tea and vodka to drink, and at dawn, when they had already harnessed the cart, suddenly, with laughter, they threw the drunken Young to the ground, tied her hands, raised her skirts, gathered them in a bundle over her head and began to twist them with a rope. The goat rushed to run, huddled with fear in the wet weeds, and when she looked out of them, after the cart with the burghers rolled hard out of the garden, she saw that Young, naked to the waist, was hanging on a tree. There was a sad misty dawn, a fine rain was whispering in the garden, the Goat was crying in three streams, she didn’t get a tooth on the tooth, untying the Young, she swore by her father-mother that she, the Goat, would be killed with thunder sooner than they would find out in the village what had happened in the garden. .. But not even a week, as rumors spread around Durnovka about the disgrace of the Young. It was, of course, impossible to verify these rumors: “No one has seen it, but the Goat will take it cheaply.” However, the conversations caused by rumors did not stop, and everyone was looking forward with great impatience to the arrival of Rodka and his reprisals against his wife. Worried, out of the rut again! expected this reprisal and Tikhon Ilyich, who learned the story in the garden from his workers: after all, the story could have ended in murder! But it ended in such a way that it is still not known what would have struck Durnovka more, the murder or such an end: on the night of Mikhailov's day, Rodka, who came home to "change his shirt", died "from the stomach"! This became known on Vorgla late in the evening, but Tikhon Ilyich immediately ordered the horse to be harnessed and in the darkness, in the rain, rushed to his brother. And rashly, after drinking a bottle of liquor with tea, in passionate expressions, with shifty eyes, he repented to him: My sin, brother, my sin! Kuzma was silent for a long time, after listening to him, he paced the room for a long time, fiddling with his fingers, breaking them and cracking his joints. Finally, out of nowhere, he said: So you think: is there anyone more fierce than our people? In the city, a thief who grabs a penny cake from a stall is chased by the entire gluttonous row, and if he catches up, he feeds him with soap. The whole city is running to the fire, to the fight, but how sorry it is that the fire or the fight is soon over! Don't shake your head, don't shake your head: he's sorry! And how do they enjoy it when someone beats his wife with a mortal combat, or beats up a boy like Sidorov's goat, or makes fun of him? This is the most fun topic ever. Keep in mind, Tikhon Ilyich interrupted warmly, there were always and everywhere a lot of swindlers. Yes. But you yourself did not bring this ... well, how is it? Fool something this? Motya Duck Head, or what? asked Tikhon Ilyich. Well, here, here ... Didn't you bring him to your place for fun? And Tikhon Ilyich chuckled: he brought it. Once even Motya was delivered to him in a cast-iron pot in a sugar barrel. The authorities are familiar well, they delivered it. And on the barrel they wrote: “Caution. Damned fool." And they teach these very fools masturbation for fun! Kuzma continued bitterly. Poor brides are smeared with tar! Poison beggars dogs! For fun, pigeons are knocked off the roofs with stones! And there are these doves, you see, a great sin. The holy spirit itself, you see, takes on the image of a dove! The samovar had long since cooled down, the candle had swollen, the smoke was dull blue in the room, the whole slop bowl was full of stinking soaked cigarette butts. The fan, a tin pipe in the upper corner of the window, was open, and sometimes something in it began to squeal, whirl and whine dully, like in a volost government, thought Tikhon Ilyich. But it was so smoky that even ten fans would not have helped. And the rain rustled on the roof, and Kuzma walked like a pendulum from corner to corner and said: Yes, well, nothing to say! Kindness indescribable! You read history your hair will stand on end: brother against brother, matchmaker against matchmaker, son against father, treachery and murder, murder and treachery ... Epics are also a pleasure: “teared his white chests”, “released the guts to the ground” .. Ilya, so that of his own daughter “stepped on his left foot and pulled his right foot” ... And the songs? Everything is the same, everything is the same: the stepmother “dashing and greedy”, the father-in-law “fierce and picky”, “sits on the ward, like a dog on a rope”, the mother-in-law is again “fierce”, “sits on the stove; exactly a bitch on a chain", sister-in-law certainly "dogs and slanderers", brothers-in-law "evil scoffers", husband "either a fool or a drunkard", his "father-in-law makes Zhana beat more painfully, lower the skin to toe", and the daughter-in-law to this very priest “she washed the floors poured into the cabbage soup, the threshold of the scraper baked the pie”, she addresses the hubby with such a re “Get up, hateful, wake up, here’s slop for you wash yourself, onuch in you wipe off, here’s a piece for you hang yourself” ... And our jokes, Tikhon Ilyich! Is it possible to invent dirtier obscene! And proverbs! “For a beaten man they give two unbeaten men” ... “Simplicity is worse than theft” ... So, in your opinion, is it better for beggars to live? Tikhon Ilyich asked mockingly. And Kuzma joyfully picked up his words: Well, here, here! There is no one in the whole world more naked than us, but on the other hand, there is no more impudent for this very nakedness. What's worse to hurt? Poverty! "Crap! You have nothing to eat...” Yes, here’s an example for you: Deniska ... well, this ... the son of Gray ... a shoemaker ... the other day and says to me ... Stop, interrupted Tikhon Ilyich, but how is Gray himself doing? Deniska says "he's starving." Bitch man! said Tikhon Ilyich with conviction. And you don’t sing songs to me about him. I don't sing, Kuzma answered angrily. Listen better about Deniska. So he tells me: “Sometimes, in a year of famine, we, apprentices, would go out to Chernaya Sloboda, and there these prostitutes were visibly invisible. And hungry, skins, hungry! You give her half a pound of bread for all the work, and she and eat it all under you... It was such a laugh! ..” Notice! shouted Kuzma sternly, stopping: “It was such a laugh!” Yes, you wait, for Christ's sake, Tikhon Ilyich interrupted again, let me say a word about the matter! Kuzma stopped. Well, talk, he said. Just say something? How about you? No way! To give money that's all for a short time. After all, think about it: there is nothing to drown with, nothing to eat, nothing to bury! And then hire her again. To me, to the cooks... Tikhon Ilyich went home as soon as light, on a cold foggy morning, when there was still a smell of wet threshing floors and smoke, the roosters sang sleepily in the village, hidden by fog, the dogs slept by the porch, the old turkey slept, perched on the bough of a half-naked apple tree near the house, bloomed with dead autumn leaves. In the field, two paces away, nothing could be seen behind the thick gray haze driven by the wind. Tikhon Ilyich did not want to sleep, but he felt exhausted and, as always, drove his horse hard, a big bay mare with a tied tail, wet and seemed thinner, dapper, blacker. He turned away from the wind, raised the cold and damp collar of his chuyka to the right, silvered from the smallest rain beads that completely covered it, looked through the cold droplets hanging on his eyelashes, how the sticky black soil was wrapping up thicker and thicker on a running wheel, how he stood in front of him and did not pass a whole a fountain of highly jostling clods of mud that had already covered his tops looked askance at the horse's working haunches, at its pressed foggy ears... And when he, with a face mottled with mud, finally flew up to the house, the first thing Yakov's horse was at the hitch. Quickly winding the reins on the front, he jumped off the runners, ran to the open door of the shop, and stopped in fright. Daldo-it! Nastasya Petrovna spoke behind the counter, apparently imitating him, Tikhon Ilyich, but in a sick, gentle voice, and leaned lower and lower towards the money box, rummaging through the rattling coppers and not finding change in the dark. Daldon! Where is it, kerosene, now sold cheaper? And, not finding it, she straightened up, looked at Yakov standing in front of her in a hat and coat, but barefoot, at his slanting beard of an indeterminate color, and added: Didn't she poison him? And Jacob hastily muttered: It's none of our business, Petrovna... The plague knows it... Our business is the side... The side, for example... And all day long Tikhon Ilyich's hands trembled at the memory of this mumbling. Everyone, everyone thinks she poisoned me! Fortunately, the secret remained a secret: they buried Rodka, the Young One wailed, seeing off the coffin, so sincerely that it was even indecent, after all, this voice should not be an expression of feelings, but a performance of the rite, and little by little Tikhon Ilyich's anxiety subsided. Moreover, there was a lot of trouble, but there were no assistants. There was little help from Nastasya Petrovna. Tikhon Ilyich hired only “pilots” as laborers until the autumn prayers. And they've already split up. Only the annuals remained, the cook, the old sentry man, nicknamed Zhmykh, and the little Oska, "the boobie of the king of heaven." And how much care one cattle required! Twenty sheep overwintered. Six black, always gloomy and somewhat dissatisfied wild boars sat in the cove. There were three cows, a bull, a red heifer standing on the boil. There are eleven horses in the yard, and in the stall there is a gray stallion, angry, heavy, maned, busty, a man, but four hundred rubles: my father had a certificate, one and a half thousand cost. And all this required an eye and an eye. Nastasya Petrovna had been planning for a long time to visit friends in the city. Finally got up and left. After seeing her off, Tikhon Ilyich wandered aimlessly into the field. Sakharov, head of the post office in Ulyanovka, walked along the highway with a gun over his shoulders, known for such a ferocious treatment of the peasants that they said: “You hand in a letter, your arms and legs are shaking!” Tikhon Ilyich went out to him under the road. Raising an eyebrow, he looked at him and thought: "Stupid old man. Look, elephants roam in the mud. And shouted amiably: With the field, or what, Anton Markych? The postman stopped. Tikhon Ilyich came up and greeted me. Well, what a field there! answered the postman gloomily, huge, round-shouldered, with thick gray hair sticking out of his ears and nostrils, with large eyebrows and deep sunken eyes. So, walked for the sake of hemorrhoids, he said, pronouncing the last word with particular care. And keep in mind, Tikhon Ilyich responded with unexpected vehemence, holding out his hand with spread fingers, keep in mind: our Palestines are completely deserted! There are no titles left what a bird, what a beast, sir! Forests were cut down everywhere, said the postman. Yes, how-with! How they cut it down! Under the comb! pick up Tikhon Ilyich. And suddenly he added: Shedding-sir! Everything is shedding! Tikhon Ilyich himself did not know why this word had escaped his tongue, but he felt that it had not been said in vain. “Everything is shedding,” he thought, “just like cattle after a long and difficult winter...” And, having said goodbye to the postman, he stood for a long time on the highway, looking around with displeasure. It was raining again, and an unpleasant wet wind was blowing. It was getting dark over the undulating fields—winter fields, arable lands, stubbles, and brown copses. The gloomy sky descended lower and lower towards the earth. Rain-drenched roads gleamed like tin. At the station they were waiting for a mail train to Moscow, from there it smelled like a samovar, and this woke up a dreary desire for comfort, a warm, clean room, a family ... At night it rained again, it was dark, even if you gouged out your eye. Tikhon Ilyich slept badly, grinding his teeth painfully. He was shivering, it’s true, he caught a cold, standing on the highway in the evening, the scent with which he covered himself slipped to the floor, and then he dreamed of what had haunted him since childhood, when his back shivered at night: twilight, some narrow alleys, running a crowd galloping on heavy carts, firefighters on angry black batyugs ... Once he woke up, lit a match, looked at the alarm clock, it showed three, raised his scent and, falling asleep, began to worry: they would rob the shop, drive the horses ... Sometimes it seemed that he was at an inn in Dankovo, that at night the rain rustled on the canopy of the gate and twitched every minute, the bell tolls over them, thieves arrived, brought his stallion into this impenetrable darkness and, if they find out that he is here, they will kill him. .. Sometimes the consciousness of reality returned. But the reality was also disturbing. The old man walked under the windows with a mallet, but it seemed that he was somewhere far, far away, then Buyan, choking, tore someone, ran away into the field with a stormy bark and suddenly reappeared under the windows and woke up, stubbornly rattled, standing on one place. Then Tikhon Ilyich was about to go out and see what was going on, if everything was in order. But as soon as it came to the point of deciding to get up, how thicker and more often began to chirp in the dark windows of a large slanting rain, driven by the wind from the dark boundless fields, and the dream seemed sweeter than the father-mother ... Finally, the door banged, it blew damp cold, the guard, Cake, rustling, dragged a bundle of straw into the hallway. Tikhon Ilyich opened his eyes: it was dim, watery light, the windows were sweaty. Stomp, stomp, brother, said Tikhon Ilyich in a voice hoarse from sleep. Yes, let's go feed the cattle, and go to sleep. The old man, who had grown thin overnight, all blue from cold, dampness and fatigue, looked at him with sunken dead eyes. In a wet hat, in a wet short chekmenian coat and disheveled bast shoes, saturated with water and mud, he muttered something muffled, kneeling with difficulty in front of the stove, stuffing it with cold, fragrant starnovka and blowing sulfur. Did the cow chew the tongue? shouted Tikhon Ilyich hoarsely, climbing out of bed. What are you muttering under your breath? He staggered all night, now let's feed, the old man muttered, without raising his head, as if to himself. Tikhon Ilyich squinted at him: I saw how you staggered! He put on his coat and, overpowering the slight trembling in his stomach, went out onto the trampled porch, into the icy freshness of a pale, rainy morning. Lead puddles poured everywhere, all the walls darkened from the rain. It was a little drizzling, "but, surely, it will pour again by dinnertime," he thought. And he looked with surprise at the shaggy Buyan, who rushed towards him from around the corner: his eyes sparkle, his tongue is fresh and red like fire, his hot breath is full of dog ... And this is after a whole night of running around and barking! He took Buyan by the collar and, splashing through the mud, walked around, looked around all the locks. Then he tied him to a chain under the barn, returned to the passage and looked into the large kitchen, into the hut. The hut smelled disgustingly and warmly; the cook slept on a bare horse, covering her face with an apron, putting out a rump and bending her legs to her stomach in large old felt boots with soles thickly trampled on the earthen floor; Oska was lying on the bunk, in a short fur coat, in bast shoes, with his head buried in a greasy heavy pillow. “The devil has contacted the baby! thought Tikhon Ilyich with disgust. Look, she was whoring all night, and in the morning on the bench! And, glancing over the black walls, the small windows, the slop tub, the huge broad-shouldered stove, he shouted loudly and sternly: Hey! Lord-boyars! It's time and honor to know! While the cook was lighting the stove, boiling potatoes for the boars and fanning the samovar, Oska, without a hat, stumbling from drowsiness, dragged the trunks for the horses and cows. Tikhon Ilyich himself unlocked the creaking gates of the varka and was the first to enter its warm and dirty comfort, surrounded by awnings, stalls and cubbyholes. Above the ankle was manure. Manure, urine, rain all merged and formed a thick brown slurry. The horses, already darkening with velvety winter fur, roamed under the sheds. Sheep in a dirty gray mass huddled in one corner. An old brown gelding dozed alone near an empty manger smeared with dough. It drizzled and drizzled from the inhospitable, stormy sky above the courtyard square. The wild boars whined painfully, insistently, purring in the cloak. "Boredom!" thought Tikhon Ilyich, and immediately barked savagely at the old man, who was dragging a bundle of starnovka: What are you dragging through the mud, old tranda? The old man threw the starnovka on the ground, looked at him, and suddenly said calmly: I hear from the tranda. Tikhon Ilyich quickly looked around to see if the fellow had gone out, and, making sure that he had gone out, quickly and also as if calmly approached the old man, punched him in the teeth, so much so that he shook his head, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and let him go with all his might. to gate. Out! he shouted, gasping for breath and turning white as chalk. So that yours and the spirit don’t smell here anymore, you are such a jerk! The old man flew out the gate and five minutes later, with a bag over his shoulders and with a stick in his hand, he was already walking along the highway, home. Tikhon Ilyich, with shaking hands, gave the stallion a drink, filled him with fresh oats, he only rummaged yesterday, drooled over, and, striding broadly, drowning in slurry and manure, went to the hut. Done, or what? he shouted as he opened the door. Hurry up! The cook snarled. The hut was covered with warm fresh steam, pouring out of the cast iron from potatoes. The cook, together with the little one, furiously pushed them with pushers, sprinkling them with flour, and over the knock Tikhon Ilyich did not hear an answer. Slamming the door, he went to drink tea. In the small hallway, he kicked a heavy, dirty blanket that lay near the threshold, and went to the corner, where, over a stool with a pewter basin, a copper washstand was nailed and on a shelf lay a smeared bar of coconut soap. As he rattled the washstand, he squinted, moved his eyebrows, flared his nostrils, could not stop his angry, shifting gaze, and said with particular distinctness: That's how workers! Tell him the word he gives you ten! Tell him ten he'll give you a hundred! No, you're lying! Maybe not by summer, maybe there are a lot of you, devils! By winter, brother, if you want to eat, you will come, you son of a bitch, come, eat, bow! The washcloth has been hanging by the washstand since Michaelmas. She was so worn out that, looking at her, Tikhon Ilyich clenched his jaw. Oh! he said, closing his eyes and shaking his head. Oh, mother queen of heaven! Two doors led from the hallway. One, to the left, to the room for visitors, long, semi-dark, with windows for cooking; there were two large sofas in it, hard as stone, upholstered in black oilcloth, overflowing with both living and crushed, withered bugs, and on the wall hung a portrait of a general with dashing beaver sideburns; the portrait was bordered by small portraits of the heroes of the Russian-Turkish war, and at the bottom was the inscription: “Our children and Slavic brothers will remember glorious deeds for a long time, like our father, a brave warrior, Suleiman Pasha defeated, defeated the enemies of the infidels and walked with his children along such steepness , where only mists and feathered kings rushed about. Another door led to the master's room. There, to the right, near the door, a glass slide gleamed, to the left a stove-bed was white; the oven once cracked, it was whitewashed over with clay and the outlines of something like a broken, thin man were obtained, which Tikhon Ilyich was very tired of. Behind the stove rose a double bed; over the bed was nailed a rug of muddy green and brick wool with the image of a tiger, with a mustache and protruding cat ears. Opposite the door, against the wall, stood a chest of drawers covered with a knitted tablecloth, on it was Nastasya Petrovna's wedding box... To the shop! shouted, opening the door, the cook. Dali was covered with a watery fog, again it became like twilight, it was drizzling, but the wind turned, it blew from the north and the air freshened up. More merrily and louder than in all the last days, the departing freight train called out at the station. Great, Ilyich, said, nodding his wet Manchurian hat, a sharp-mouthed peasant who was holding a wet piebald horse by the porch. Great, threw Tikhon Ilyich, glancing sideways at the strong white tooth that gleamed because of the peasant's split lip. What do you need? And, hastily letting go of the salt and kerosene, hastily returned to the chambers. Forehead will not be crossed, dogs! he muttered as he walked. The samovar, which stood on the table near the wall, seethed, bubbled, the mirror hanging over the table was covered with a coating of white steam. The windows and the oleography nailed under the mirror were sweating, a giant in a yellow caftan and red morocco boots, with a Russian banner in his hands, behind which the Moscow Kremlin looked with towers and eyes. Framed photographic cards surrounded the picture. In the most honorable place hung a portrait of the famous priest in a moire cassock, with a sparse beard, swollen cheeks and small piercing eyes. And, looking at him, Tikhon Ilyich earnestly crossed himself at the icon in the corner. Then he removed the sooty teapot from the samovar and poured a glass of tea, which smelled strongly of a steamed broom. "They won't let me cross my forehead," he thought, wincing in pain. Stabbed, damn them! It seemed that you need to remember something, figure it out, or just lie down and get a good night's sleep. I wanted warmth, peace, clarity, firmness of thought. He got up, walked over to the mound, which rattled glass and crockery, took from the shelf a bottle of rowanberry, a little cube-shaped glass on which it was written; "The monks accept him too"... Ay not necessary? he said aloud. And poured and drank, poured and drank more. And, eating a thick pretzel, he sat down at the table. He greedily sipped hot tea from a saucer, sucked, holding on his tongue, a piece of sugar. As he sipped his tea, he glanced absentmindedly and suspiciously at the wall, at the peasant in the yellow caftan, at the shell-framed cards, and even at the priest in the moiré cassock. “We pigs don’t care about laziness!” he thought and, as if justifying himself to someone, added rudely: Live near the village, sip some sour cabbage soup! Looking sideways at the priest, he felt that everything was doubtful... even, it seems, his usual reverence for this priest... was doubtful and had not been thought through. If you think carefully ... But then he hastened to look at the Moscow Kremlin. Scary to say! he muttered. Never been to Moscow! Yes, I haven't been. And why? Boars do not order! That huckstering did not let, then an inn, then a tavern. Now stallions and wild boars are not allowed in. Yes that Moscow! In a birch forest, which is behind the highway, and then ten years in vain he was going. I kept hoping somehow to snatch a free evening, to take a carpet, a samovar with me, to sit on the grass, in the coolness, in the greenery, but I didn’t snatch it ... Like water between my fingers, the days slip, I didn’t have time to come to my senses fifty knocked, just about the end of everything, but how long, it seems, did you run without trousers? Right yesterday! The faces from the frame-shells looked motionless. Here, on the floor (but among the thick rye) are two Tikhon Ilyich himself and the young merchant Rostovtsev and hold glasses in their hands, exactly half filled with dark beer ... What a friendship began between Rostovtsev and Tikhon Ilyich! How I remember that gray Shrovetide day when they were filming! But what year was that? Where did Rostovtsev disappear to? Now there is not even a certainty whether he is alive or not ... And here, stretched out to the front and petrified, are three tradesmen, smoothly combed in a straight row, in embroidered blouses, in long frock coats, in polished boots, Buchnev, Vystavkin and Bogomolov. Vystavkin, the one in the middle, holds bread and salt in front of his chest on a wooden plate covered with a towel embroidered with roosters, Buchnev and Bogomolov according to the icon. These were filmed on a dusty, windy day, when the elevator was being consecrated, when the bishop and the governor arrived, when Tikhon Ilyich was so proud that he was among the public that greeted the authorities. What do you remember from that day? Only that they had been waiting for five hours near the elevator, that a cloud of white dust was flying in the wind, that the governor, a long and clean dead man in white trousers with gold stripes, in an embroidered gold uniform and a cocked hat, was walking unusually slowly towards the deputation ... which was very it was terrible when he spoke, taking bread and salt, that everyone was struck by the unusual thinness and whiteness of his hands, their skin, the thinnest and shiny, like the skin taken from a snake, shiny, blurry rings and rings on dry, thin fingers with transparent long nails .. Now this governor is no longer alive, and Vystavkin is no longer alive ... And in five, ten years they will say the same about Tikhon Ilyich: The late Tikhon Ilyich ... In the upper room it became warmer and more comfortable from the heated stove, the mirror cleared up, but nothing could be seen outside the windows, the glass was white with a matte steam, which means that it was fresh in the yard. The tedious groan of hungry boars was heard more and more audibly, and suddenly this groan turned into a friendly and powerful roar: it was true that the boars heard the voices of the cook and Oska, dragging a heavy tub of mash towards them. And without finishing his thoughts about death, Tikhon Ilyich threw the cigarette into the washer, pulled on his coat and hurried off to the stove. Walking broadly and deeply through the squelching manure, he himself opened the cloak, and for a long time did not take his greedy and dreary eyes off the wild boars, who rushed to the trough, into which the mess was poured with steam. The thought of death was interrupted by another: the deceased is deceased, and this deceased, perhaps, will be set as an example. Who was he? An orphan, a beggar, who in childhood did not eat a piece of bread for two days ... And now? Your biography of life should be described, once said mockingly. Kuzma. And it's probably not something to laugh at. It means that there was a head on his shoulders, if not Tishka, but Tikhon Ilyich came out of a beggar boy who could barely read ... But suddenly the cook, who was also gazing intently at the boars, crowding each other and climbing into the trough with their front legs, hiccupped and said: Oh, my God! If only we had no trouble today! I see now in a dream they seem to have caught up with us cattle in the yard, they have caught up with sheep, cows, all sorts of pigs ... Yes, all black, all black! And my heart sank again. Yes, this is the beast! From one cattle you can hang yourself. Three hours have not passed, again take up the keys, again carry food around the yard. In the common stall there are three dairy cows, in separate ones there is a red heifer, a Bismarck bull: now give them hay. Horses, sheep are supposed to have trunks for dinner, and the stallion and the devil himself can’t think of anything! The stallion poked his muzzle into the latticed top of the door, lifted his upper lip, bared pink gums and white teeth, contorted his nostrils... And Tikhon Ilyich, with a rage unexpected for himself, suddenly barked at him: Pamper, anathema, strike you with thunder! Again he got his feet wet, froze there was grits and again drank the mountain ash. He ate potatoes with sunflower oil and pickles, cabbage soup with mushroom sauce, millet porridge ... His face flushed, his head felt heavy. Without undressing, only pulling dirty boots leg by foot, he lay down on the bed. But I was worried that I would have to get up again: horses, cows and sheep should be given oat straw by the evening, the stallion too ... or not, it’s better to kill it with hay, and then water it and salt it well ... Only after all You will surely oversleep if you let yourself go. And Tikhon Ilyich reached for the chest of drawers, took the alarm clock, and began to wind it up. And the alarm clock came to life, pounded and in the upper room it seemed to be calmer under his running rhythmic knock. Thoughts are confused... But they had just become confused, when suddenly there was a rough and loud church singing. Opening his eyes in fright, Tikhon Ilyich at first made out only one thing: two peasants were yelling in the nose, and from the hallway he smelled cold and the smell of wet chekmens. Then he jumped up, sat down and saw what kind of peasants they were: one was a blind man, pockmarked, with a small nose, a long upper lip and a large round skull, and the other was Makar Ivanovich himself! Makar Ivanovich was once simply Makarka and everyone called him: “Makarka the Wanderer”, and one day he went into a tavern to Tikhon Ilyich. Wandering somewhere along the highway, in bast shoes, a skufie and a greasy cassock, and went in. In the hands a high stick, painted with verdigris, with a cross on the upper end and with a spear on the lower, behind the shoulders a knapsack and a soldier's manner; hair is long, yellow; the face is broad, the color of putty, the nostrils are like two gun muzzles, the nose is broken, like a saddle arch, and the eyes, as is often the case with such noses, are light, sharply shiny. Shameless, quick-witted, greedily smoking cigarette after cigarette and blowing smoke into his nostrils, speaking rudely and abruptly, in a tone that completely excludes objections, Tikhon Ilyich liked him very much, and just for this tone, for what was immediately obvious: Son of a bitch". And Tikhon Ilyich kept him as an assistant. He took off his vagrant clothes and left him. But Makarka turned out to be such a thief that they had to beat him severely and drive him away. And a year later, Makarka became famous throughout the county for divinations, so ominous that they began to fear his visits like fire. He will come up to someone under the window, mournfully drag out “rest with the saints” or give a piece of incense, a pinch of dust and that house cannot do without a dead person. Now Makarka, in his old clothes and with a stick in his hand, stood at the threshold and sang. The blind man caught on, rolling his milky eyes under his forehead, and by the disproportion that was in his features, Tikhon Ilyich immediately identified him as an escaped convict, a terrible and merciless beast. But even more terrible was what these vagabonds sang. The blind man, gloomily moving his raised eyebrows, boldly burst into a vile nasal tenor. Makarka, his fixed eyes shining sharply, boomed in a ferocious bass. It came out something excessively loud, rudely slender, ancient church, imperious and menacing.The mother of cheese-earth will burst into tears, burst into tears! ¡
Blind poured out
Ra-spa-che-tsya, raz-ry-yes-is! ¡
Makarka echoed with conviction.
Before the Savior, before the image,
The blind man screamed.
Perhaps the sinners will repent! ¡
Makarka threatened, opening impudent nostrils. And, merging his bass with the tenor of the blind man, he firmly pronounced:
Do not pass the judgment of God!
Do not bypass the eternal fire!
My boring evening has come
I don't know what to start
My dear friend has come
He began to caress me...
Kisses, hugs,
Farewell to me...
