L. Panteleev, the author of the well-known story in the Soviet years, The Republic of Shkid, bequeathed to publish after his death a work that deeply shocked readers. The story "I Believe ..." is a confession of a strong man who retained his faith under the Soviet regime, during the years of war and severe trials. Fortitude, honesty and love for neighbors are the main themes of Panteleev's other works presented in this collection.

A series: Classics of Russian spiritual prose

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The following excerpt from the book Novels and stories (Leonid Panteleev) provided by our book partner - the company LitRes.

Foreword

“I have been a Christian all my life and have been a bad Christian. Of course, it would not have been difficult to guess about this earlier, but perhaps for the first time I understood this with all sad obviousness only on the day when I heard from someone or read somewhere the words of N. Ogarev that unspoken convictions - there is no conviction. But I had to hide my views for almost my entire life (excluding the years of early childhood). With these words, L. Panteleev's story "I Believe" begins. The penitential book-confession, which was published (as the author bequeathed) three years after his death, excited the literary world of that time. The same Leonid Panteleev, the author of the well-known book "Republic of Shkid"! An author who was proud of Soviet literature: yesterday's homeless child who became a famous writer. They were proud of him, they looked up to him, he was cited as an example! "Such" person - and suddenly a Christian. This came as a surprise to everyone, except maybe people from the closest circle of the writer. All his life Panteleev hid his faith, and this, as can be seen from the book "I Believe", greatly depressed him. What, in this case, forced the writer to remain silent? This question is not difficult to answer, if you remember what time he happened to live.

Aleksey Eremeev (real name and surname of the writer) was born in 1908. His father, contrary to popular belief, did not die in the First World War. This version of the death of his father is known to us from the works of Panteleev, who in Soviet times could not write the truth about his death. The writer's father was an officer in the tsarist army, a participant in the Russo-Japanese War. For good service, the tsar awarded him the Order of St. Vladimir, which gave the officer the status of a hereditary nobleman. In his memoirs about his father, Panteleev noted that although he believed in God's Providence, he was baptized before going to bed, before eating and after eating, wore a pectoral cross, went to confession and communion, but was not a deeply religious person. But Alyosha's mother, according to the writer, was his "first friend and mentor in the faith." She treated the church service with reverence, and this love for worship was passed on to her son. "It was she, my mother, who taught me Christianity - living, active, active and, I would say, cheerful, who considers any despondency a sin." Mom always took little Alyosha with her to church, and at home she told him different Bible stories. “But even, perhaps, it was not with these lesson conversations that our mother taught and brought us up first of all. She taught every day and every hour, by a good example, by her own actions, by everything she did and talked about, ”recalled Panteleev.

In 1916, Alexei entered the Second Petrograd Real School, which he was not destined to graduate from. In 1919, the Cheka arrested Yeremeyev's father. He was kept in the Kholmogory detention center and, apparently, was shot there. Alexei's mother took her three children from Petrograd to the Yaroslavl province. The family lived very poorly, starving. From this gray, hopeless, dull and hungry life, the teenager simply ran away. Wandering, in search of a quick income, he learned to steal. Subsequently, with burning shame, he will remember his first theft - from the nuns.

It is not surprising that in the end he attracted the attention of the investigating authorities and ended up - with his mother alive - in a colony for homeless orphans. It was the Dostoevsky School of Social and Individual Education for the Difficult to Educate, abbreviated "Shkid". It was during these years that the nickname appeared, which later became the basis of the writer's pseudonym - Lenka Panteleev. So, comparing with the famous St. Petersburg raider, Alexei was nicknamed by his peers. I must say that in the 20s it was much safer to bear the name of a bandit than to reveal that your father was a Cossack officer, and your mother was from a merchant family. Memories of those times will later be reflected in many of the writer's works, such as "Lenka Panteleev", "Hours", etc.

It was in Shkid that Eremeev-Panteleev met Grisha Belykh, the future co-author of the famous "Republic of Shkid". Later, together they wrote several more works. Friends kept warm relations for life.

In 1936, Grigory Belykh was arrested on the denunciation of his sister's husband. Belykh owed him for the apartment, and the relative decided to punish the debtor: he handed over the notebook with his poems to the NKVD. At that time, the solution of domestic issues in this way was not such a rarity. Whites were imprisoned for three years. He is survived by his wife and two-year-old daughter. Panteleev for a long time, but, unfortunately, unsuccessfully fussed for a comrade, even wrote telegrams to Stalin himself. He sent money and parcels to the prison. The friends corresponded throughout the three years of Belykh's imprisonment. But they could no longer meet: Grigory died in prison. He was never acquitted, and in subsequent years, Alexei Ivanovich could not republish the "Republic of Shkid", written together with the "enemy of the people." He was offered many times to republish the book without the name of the co-author, but he invariably refused. Because of this, his name was also not mentioned anywhere else for a long time.

After a period of "violent, militant atheism", through which, succumbing to the mood of the time, Panteleev went through in his youth, faith returned to his soul again. But being a Christian in those years was not only considered shameful, it was simply dangerous. The pectoral cross, noticed by the watchful eye of "conscious comrades", could become the basis for a severe reprimand, dismissal, and even a summons to the authorities. And going to church! “You go out of the porch into the church,” Panteleev recalled, “and your eyes begin to squint by themselves: to the right, to the left. Who is here from there? And suddenly it becomes embarrassing. Cross yourself, kneel down. And then grace descends on you, and you think (or hardly think) about those who are near or behind your back. You pray, you are with God, and it doesn’t matter to you what will happen: they will call you, inform you, put you in jail ... Many times I noticed that some uncle was looking askance at me with fear. But here he becomes unbearable. Not wanting to know about my presence, he kneels down, prays ... "

They followed him, sent provocateurs, he waited, like many in those years, for a night phone call or a knock on the door, he was afraid one day to see a headline in the newspaper like “Children's writer in a cassock”. But for some reason they didn’t touch it, perhaps because, as Panteleev wrote in his book of confession, he “did not put a candle on a candlestick; prayed, but did not preach the word of God.” A particularly difficult test for Christians was the 1937 census, when the "Religion" column was included in the questionnaires. “To be honest, I was not only worried, but also cowardly. How worried and scared were millions of other Soviet people. But loudly, and even, perhaps, with excessive swagger, he answered: Orthodox. As it later turned out, they were not worried in vain: after this survey, tens of thousands of believers were sent to the camps.

Aleksey Ivanovich returned to literature only in 1941. The editor of the magazine "Koster" asked him to write a story "on a moral theme": about honesty. “I was thinking,” Eremeev later wrote, “that nothing worthwhile would be thought up and written. But on the same day or even an hour, on the way home, something began to seem: the wide squat dome of the Church of the Intercession in St. Petersburg Kolomna, the garden behind this church ... I remembered how, as a boy, I walked with a nanny in this garden and how older boys ran up to me me and offered to play with them "in the war." They said that I was a sentry, put me on a post near some gatehouse, took the word that I would not leave, but they themselves left and forgot about me. And the sentry continued to stand, because he gave his word of honor. He stood and cried and suffered until the frightened nanny found him and took him home. Many are familiar with the plot of the story “Honestly” born from these memories. The work was met with caution: it seemed to the guardians of communist morality that the hero, in his ideas about what is good and what is bad, relies on his own understanding of honor and honesty, and not on how they are interpreted in communist ideology. The story was eventually published, but these suspicions were not accidental. Panteleev, afraid to declare his convictions aloud, found an opportunity to express what was in his soul using Aesopian language. It was his way, albeit not explicitly, behind a screen, to "put a candle on a candlestick." In many of his short stories and stories published in the Soviet era, Christian motives were visible. True, only those who professed the same faith could notice this.

Left in besieged Leningrad, Panteleev almost died. Repeatedly he found himself on the verge of death, and each time when the situation seemed completely hopeless, prayer saved him. Once he was detained on the street by a man "from the authorities" and led him to the police station, and then, turning around the corner, he suddenly let him go. Another time, when he could not move from hunger and with great difficulty got out of the apartment to the stairwell, suddenly an unfamiliar woman came to the rescue. There are many such cases in Panteleev's memoirs.

In one of his “siege” records of 1941 there are the following lines: “It seems that for the first time in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church this winter in Leningrad they did not serve the liturgy - for lack of flour for prosphora. They served lunch. What it is, I don't know." Judging by this entry, the writer, barely standing on his feet from hunger, found the strength to go to the temple. That at this time and in this place in itself was a real Christian feat.

The writer Panteleev himself considered himself a bad Christian, reproached himself for not bringing the light of faith into the world. But isn't his life itself evidence of the opposite? Having passed, like the first Christians, persecuted and persecuted, forced to hide and identify each other by secret signs, a difficult path full of trials, he survived. He didn’t retreat, didn’t evade, didn’t turn, choosing an easier and safer road. Refusing to betray a friend's memory to absolve himself of suspicion; continuing to wear a pectoral cross, which was in itself a sentence at that time; realizing the danger of the impudent word "Orthodox" in the column "religion", he, like the little sentry from his story, remained at his post. Because he gave his word.

Tatiana Klapchuk

1908–1987

Comes from childhood
(Foreword from the Editor)

2008 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the remarkable Russian writer Alexei Ivanovich Yeremeev, who wrote his works under the pseudonym L. Panteleev. All his books have long become classics and are rightfully included in the golden fund of children's literature.

L. Panteleev wrote his first book as a very young man - he was only seventeen years old. Then he wrote stories for children - they became the main ones in his work. These stories were written a long time ago - in the thirties and forties of the last century, but they are still relevant today, because they speak of enduring moral values ​​- honesty, dignity, courage. L. Panteleev educates readers not by moralizing, but by the personal example of his heroes. In each of them, regardless of age, he sees a personality and treats her with unconditional respect. And trust and respect always evoke a sincere response.

When L. Panteleev was asked if there was the most important theme for him in his work, he replied that “most likely, this is the theme of conscience.” In all his books, the writer affirms a very important idea for him: in any life situation, a person must show the best spiritual qualities.

Alexei Ivanovich Eremeev was born in 1908 in St. Petersburg, in a house on the Fontanka, not far from the Egyptian bridge.

His father, Ivan Afanasyevich, was a military man, served in the Vladimir Dragoon Regiment. For military merit and military prowess shown during the Russo-Japanese War, he received the Order of Vladimir with swords and a bow and hereditary nobility. In 1912, he retired, and in 1914 - when the First World War began - he was drafted into the army and then disappeared without a trace. For Alyosha, his father has always been an example of courage, honor, and military duty.

From early childhood, Alyosha Eremeev was very fond of reading. I read a lot, drunk. Brother Vasya and sister Lyalya even called him "bookcase". He read Andersen's fairy tales, books by Lydia Charskaya, Mark Twain, Dickens, Conan Doyle. Alyosha's mother, Alexandra Vasilievna, subscribed for the children's magazine "Golden Childhood", which they all read with pleasure. Slowly, the boy became addicted to adult literature - the works of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pisemsky, Merezhkovsky, Leonid Andreev, Maupassant.

As a child, he began to compose: he wrote poetry, plays, adventure stories, even an adventure novel.

At the age of eight, Alyosha entered a real school, but studied there for only one year - a revolution began and turned the usual way of life upside down.

During the Civil War, the family left the hungry Petrograd for the Yaroslavl province. Then she moved from city to city. When there was nothing to live on, Alyosha and his younger brother Vasya were sent to a farm, where they had to get their own food.

About this period of his life, when he lost his family, wandered around Russia, getting into orphanages and colonies, homeless, the writer told in his autobiographical story "Lenka Panteleev".

In 1920, Alyosha ended up in the Petrograd Dostoevsky School of Social and Individual Education, where homeless children from various orphanages and colonies were gathered. The guys shortened the long and difficult name of the school to a short “Shkid”. Here Alyosha met Grisha Belykh, who became his best friend and with whom they went to Baku in 1924 to become film actors and star in the film The Red Devils. But they only got as far as Kharkov and were forced to return back to Petrograd.

To live, I had to do a variety of jobs - Alyosha was a projectionist apprentice, a cook, sold newspapers, studied at film actor courses, was a freelance film reporter, published in magazines.

In 1926, friends came up with the idea to write a book about Shkid. They were advised to show the manuscript of the book, which they composed in three months, to S. Marshak and E. Schwartz, who worked in the editorial office of the children's magazines "Hedgehog" and "Chizh", where K. Chukovsky, B. Zhitkov, M. Zoshchenko, D Kharms, A. Gaidar. With the blessing of Yevgeny Lvovich Schwartz, who was the official editor of the book, the famous "Republic of Shkid" was published in 1927. She immediately became very popular, in libraries she was taken like hot cakes, she was a huge reader success. So yesterday's orphans Alexei Yeremeev and Grigory Belykh became writers. Alyosha came up with a pseudonym for himself - L. Panteleev, in memory of his Shkid nickname Lenka Panteleev. True, he never deciphered the letter "L" in his literary name.

After the “Republic of Shkid”, L. Panteleev wrote stories for children, which he combined into several cycles: “Shkid stories”, “Stories about a feat”, “Stories for little ones”, “Little stories”, “Stories about children”. For several years (1938-1952) he wrote the autobiographical story "Lenka Panteleev".

When the Great Patriotic War began, Alexey Ivanovich lived in Leningrad. Twice he tried to join the army in order to defend the Motherland with weapons in his hands, and twice the medical commission did not let him through - just before the war, he underwent a serious operation. Then Panteleev joined the air defense detachment.

In 1942, seriously ill, he was evacuated from besieged Leningrad to Moscow.

In the hospital, he wrote stories about the heroism and courage of Leningrad children, who, along with adults, defended their city: they were on duty on the roofs, putting out lighters. “The presence of children,” wrote L. Panteleev, “emphasized the great human meaning of our struggle.”

Leaving the hospital, he again writes a statement asking him to be drafted into the army. In 1943 he was sent to the Military Engineering School, then to the engineering troops, where he was the editor of the battalion newspaper.

After the war, in 1947, L. Panteleev, with the rank of reserve captain, returned to his native Leningrad, where he lived and worked until the last day.

In the seventies, he wrote a cycle of autobiographical stories "The House at the Egyptian Bridge", in which he described his early childhood years, when the character of the child, the foundation of his personality, is laid.

L. Panteleev called his last book "The Ajar Door ...". In it, he summed up a kind of summary of his entire writing life.

Alexey Ivanovich Eremeev-Panteleev died in 1987, leaving us his wonderful books worthy of his intelligent, demanding talent.

Stories, poems, fairy tales

jolly tram

Bring the chairs here
Bring a stool
Find a bell
Let's go for the ribbon!..
There are three of us today
Let's arrange
Quite real
ringing,
thundering,
Quite real
Moscow
Tram.

I will be the conductor
He will be the leader
And you are stowaway
Passenger.
Put your foot
On this footboard
Get on the platform
And so tell me:

- Comrade conductor,
I'm on business
On an urgent matter
to the Supreme Soviet.
Take a coin
And give for it
me the best
Tram
Ticket.

I will give you a piece of paper
And you give me a piece of paper
I will pull the string
I will say:
- Go! ..

Pedal leader
Press at the piano
And slowly
will move
Our real
Like the shining sun
Like a thundering storm
Quite real
Moscow
Tram.

two frogs
Fairy tale

There were two frogs. They were friends and lived in the same ditch. But only one of them was a real forest frog - brave, strong, cheerful, and the other was neither this nor that: she was a coward, a lazybones, a sleepyhead. They even talked about her, as if she was born not in the forest, but somewhere in the city park.

But still they lived together, these frogs.

And then one night they went for a walk.

They go along the forest road and suddenly they see - there is a house. There is a cellar near the house. And from this cellar it smells very delicious: it smells of mold, dampness, moss, mushrooms. And this is exactly what frogs love.

So they quickly climbed into the cellar, began to run and jump there. They jumped and jumped and accidentally fell into a pot of sour cream.

And they began to sink.

And, of course, they do not want to drown.

Then they began to flounder, began to swim. But this clay pot had very high slippery walls. And the frogs can't get out of there. That frog, which was lazy, swam a little, floundered and thinks: “I still can’t get out of here. What am I going to wallow in vain? Only nerves for nothing to wag. I'd rather drown right now."

She thought so, stopped floundering - and drowned.

And the second frog - that was not like that. She thinks: “No, brothers, I will always have time to drown. It won't leave me. And I'd rather flounder, swim some more. Who knows, maybe something will come of me.

But just - no, nothing comes out. No matter how you swim, you won't get far. The pot is narrow, the walls are slippery - the frog cannot get out of the sour cream.

But still, she does not give up, does not lose heart.

“Nothing,” he thinks, “as long as I have the strength, I will flounder. I'm still alive, so I have to live. And there - what will happen.

And now - with the last of his strength, our brave frog is struggling with his frog death. And now she began to lose consciousness. It's choked up. It's pulling her to the bottom. And she doesn't give up either. Know yourself paws works. He jerks his paws and thinks: “No! I won't give up! Naughty, frog death ... "

And suddenly - what is it? Suddenly our frog feels that under its feet it is no longer sour cream, but something solid, something so strong, reliable, like earth. The frog was surprised, looked and sees: there is no longer any sour cream in the pot, but it stands on a lump of butter.

"What's happened? the frog thinks. “Where did the oil come from?”

She was surprised, and then she guessed: after all, it was she herself who had knocked down solid butter from liquid sour cream with her paws.

“Well, then,” the frog thinks, “it means that I did well that I didn’t drown right away.”

She thought so, jumped out of the pot, rested and galloped to her home - into the forest.

And the second frog remained in the pot.

And never again, my dear, did she see the white light again, and never jumped, and never croaked.

Well. If you tell the truth, then you yourself, the frog, are to blame. Do not lose hope! Don't die before death...

scatter

Once upon a time, scatter Wherever you want-there-throw: if you want - to the right, if you want - to the left, if you want - down, if you want - up, and if you want - so wherever you want.

You put it on the table - it will lie on the table. You sit on a chair - he will sit on a chair. And if you throw it on the floor, it will settle down on the floor. Here he is, scatter, - flexible ...

The only thing he didn’t like was scatter - he didn’t like it when they threw him into the water. He was afraid of water.

And yet, poor fellow, he got caught.

Bought it for one girl. The girl's name was Mila. She went for a walk with her mother. And at this time the seller was selling raskidai.

“But,” he says, “to whom?” Scatter for sale Wherever you want-there-throw: if you want - to the right, if you want - to the left, if you want - up, if you want - down, and if you want - so wherever you want!

The girl heard and said:

- Oh, oh, what a scatter! Jumping like a bunny!

And the seller says:

- No, citizen, take it higher. He jumps over my rooftops. But the bunny can't do that.

So the girl asked, her mother bought a spreader for her.

The girl brought it home, went into the yard to play.

He throws it to the right - scatter it, jumps to the right, throws it to the left - scatter it, jumps to the left, throws it down - it flies down, and throws it up - so it jumps almost to the very blue sky.

Here he is, scatter, - a young pilot.

The girl ran and ran, played and played, she finally got tired of scattering, she took it, stupid, and left it. Scatter rolled and fell right into a dirty puddle.

But the girl does not see. She went home.

Comes in the evening:

- Ay, ah, where is the thrower Wherever you want-there-thrower?

He sees - there is no scatterer Wherever you want-there-slinger. Colored papers float in a puddle, and curled ropes, and wet sawdust, with which his belly was stuffed.

That's all that's left of the scatter.

The girl cried and said:

- Oh, scatter-scatter wherever you want-there-scatter! What have I done?! You jumped from me to the right and to the left, and up and down ... And now - where are you going to throw this? In the trash just...

Fenka

It was in the evening. I lay on the couch, smoked and read the newspaper. There was no one in the room but me. And suddenly I hear someone scratching. Someone is barely audible, softly knocking on the window glass: tick-tick, knock-tock.

“What, I think, is this? Fly? No, not a fly. Cockroach? No, not a cockroach. Maybe it's raining? No, what kind of rain is there - it doesn’t smell like rain ... "

I turned my head and looked, but I couldn't see anything. He stood up on his elbow - also not visible. He listened - as if quietly.

I lay down. And suddenly again: tick-tick, tick-tock.

“Ugh,” I think, “what is it?”

I got tired, I got up, threw down the newspaper, went to the window - and goggled my eyes. I think: fathers, what is it for me - in a dream, or what? I see - outside the window, on a narrow iron cornice, stands - who do you think? The girl is standing. Yes, such a girl, about which you have not read in fairy tales.

She will be smaller than the smallest Thumb Boy. Her feet are bare, her dress is all torn; she herself is plump, pot-bellied, has a button-like nose, some protruding lips, and the hair on her head is red and sticks out in different directions, like on a shoe brush.

I didn't even believe it was a girl. At first I thought it was some kind of animal. Because I've never seen such little girls before.

And the girl stands, looks at me and with all her might drums on the glass with her fist: tick-tick, knock-tock.

I ask her through the glass:

- Girl! What do you need?

But she does not hear me, does not answer, and only points with her finger: they say, open it, please, but open it as soon as possible!

Then I pushed back the bolt, opened the window and let her into the room.

I speak:

- What are you, silly, climbing out the window? Because my door is open.

I can't walk through the door.

- How can you not?! You know how to go through the window, but you don't know how to go through the door?

“Yes,” he says, “I can’t.

“That’s it,” I think, “the miracle Yudo has come to me!”

I was surprised, I took her in my arms, I see that she is trembling all over. I see that he is afraid of something. He looks back at the window. Her face is all tear-stained, her teeth are chattering, and tears still glistening in her eyes.

I ask her:

- Who are you?

- I, - says, - Fenka.

- What is Fenka?

- Such is ... Fenka.

- And where do you live?

- Don't know.

- Where are your mom and dad?

- Don't know.

“Well,” I say, “where did you come from?” Why are you trembling? Cold?

“No,” he says, “it’s not cold. Hot. And I'm trembling because the dogs were chasing me down the street now.

- What kind of dogs?

And she told me again:

- Don't know.

Here I could not bear it, got angry and said:

- I don’t know, I don’t know! .. And then what do you know?

She says:

- I want to eat.

- Oh, that's how! Do you know this?

Well, what can you do about it. I put her on the sofa, sit down, I say, and he went to the kitchen to look for something edible. I think: only the question is, what to feed her, a sort of monster? He poured boiled milk on a saucer, cut the bread into small pieces, crumbled the cold cutlet.

I come into the room, I look - where is Fenka? I see no one is on the couch. I was surprised and began to shout:

- Fenya! Fenya!

Nobody is answering.

- Fenya! What about Fenya?

And suddenly I hear from somewhere:

He bent down - she was sitting under the sofa.

I got angry.

- This, - I say, - what kind of tricks are these ?! Why aren't you sitting on the couch?

“But I,” he says, “can’t.”

– What-oh? Under the sofa you know how, but on the sofa you don’t know how? Oh you are so-and-so! Maybe you don't even know how to sit at the dinner table?

“No,” he says, “I can do it.

“So sit down,” I say.

He seated her at the table. He set up a chair for her. He piled a whole mountain on a chair of books - so that it would be higher. Instead of an apron, he tied a handkerchief.

“Eat,” I say.

All I see is he doesn't eat. I see - sitting, picking, sniffing with his nose.

- What? I say. - What's the matter?

Silent, does not answer.

I speak:

- You asked for food. Here, please eat.

And she blushed all over and suddenly said:

- Do you have anything better?

- What's more delicious? Oh you, - I say - ungrateful! You, well, do you need candy, or what?

- Oh no, - he says, - what are you, what are you ... This is also tasteless.

- So what do you want? Ice cream?

No, and the ice cream tastes bad.

“And the ice cream tastes bad?” Here's to you! So what do you want, please tell me?

She paused, twitched her nose, and said:

- Do you have some cloves?

- What carnations?

- Well, - he says, - ordinary carnations. Zheleznenkih.

My hands were shaking with fear.

I speak:

- So what do you mean, you eat nails?

“Yes,” he says, “I love carnations very much.

- Well, what else do you like?

- And also, - he says, - I love kerosene, soap, paper, sand ... but not sugar. I love cotton wool, tooth powder, shoe polish, matches…

“Fathers! Is she really telling the truth? Does she really eat nails? Okay, I think. - Let's check".

He pulled a large rusty nail out of the wall and cleaned it up a bit.

“Here,” I say, “eat, please!”

I thought she wouldn't eat. I thought she was just playing tricks, pretending. But before I could look back, she - one-time, crunch-crunch - chewed the whole nail. She licked her lips and said:

I speak:

- No, my dear, I'm sorry, I have no more nails for you. Here, if you want, I can give you the papers, please.

“Come on,” he says.

He gave her paper and she ate the paper. Matches gave a whole box - she ate matches in no time. He poured kerosene on a saucer - she drank the kerosene.

I just look and shake my head. “That’s the girl,” I think. - Such a girl, perhaps, will eat you in no time. No, - I think, - it is necessary to drive her in the neck, be sure to drive. Where do I need such a monster, such a cannibal !!”

And she drank kerosene, licked the saucer, sits, yawns, pecks her nose: it means you want to sleep.

And then I felt sorry for her, you know. She sits like a sparrow - she huddled, ruffled, where, I think, she is so small, looking to drive her at night. After all, such a birdie, and in fact, dogs can gnaw it. I think: “Okay, so be it, I’ll kick you out tomorrow. Let him sleep with me, rest, and tomorrow morning - goodbye, go where you came from! .. "

I thought so and began to prepare the bed for her. He put a pillow on the chair, on the pillow - another pillow, a small one, from under the pins I had one. Then he laid Fenka down, covered her with a napkin instead of a blanket.

“Sleep,” I say. - Good night!

She immediately snored.

And I sat a little, read and also went to bed.

In the morning, as soon as I woke up, I went to see how my Fenka was doing. I come, I look - there is nothing on the chair. There is no Fenka, no pillow, no napkins ... I see - my Fenechka is lying under the chair, the pillow is under her feet, her head is on the floor, and the napkins are not visible at all.

I woke her up and said:

- Where is the napkin?

She says:

- What napkin?

I speak:

- Such a napkin. Which I gave you just now instead of a blanket.

She says:

- Don't know.

- How do you not know?

“Honestly, I don't know.

They began to search. I'm looking, and Fenka helps me. Looking, looking - no napkin.

Suddenly Fenka says to me:

- Listen, don't look, okay. I have remembered.

“What,” I say, “did you remember?”

I remembered where the napkin was.

- So where?

“I accidentally ate it.

Oh, I got angry, screamed, stamped my feet.

- You are such a glutton, - I say, - you are an insatiable womb! After all, that way you will eat my whole house.

She says:

- I did not mean to.

How is this not on purpose? Did you accidentally eat a napkin? Yes?

She says:

“I woke up at night, I was hungry, and you didn’t leave me anything. It's your own fault.

Well, of course, I didn’t argue with her, I spat and went to the kitchen to cook breakfast. I made scrambled eggs for myself, cooked coffee, spread sandwiches. And Fenke - he cut newsprint, crumbled toilet soap and poured kerosene on top of it all. I bring this vinaigrette into the room, I look - my Fenka wipes her face with a towel. I was scared, it seemed to me that she was eating a towel. Then I see - no, he wipes his face.

I ask her:

- Where did you get the water?

She says:

- What kind of water?

I speak:

- Such water. In a word, where did you bathe?

She says:

- I haven't showered yet.

- How did you not wash? So why are you wiping yourself then?

“And I,” he says, “always like that. I dry myself first, and then I wash myself.

I just waved my hand.

- Well, - I say, - okay, sit down, eat quickly - and goodbye!

She says:

How is it "goodbye"?

“Yes, yes,” I say. - Very simple. Goodbye. I'm tired of you, my dear. Get out of where you came from.

And suddenly I see how my Fenya will tremble, how she will shake. She rushed to me, grabbed my leg, hugged me, kissed me, and tears were flowing from her very little eyes.

“Don’t chase me,” he says, “please! I will be good. Please! I ask you to! If you feed me, I will never eat anything - not a single carnation, not a single button - without asking.

Well, in a word, I felt sorry for her again.

I didn't have children then. I lived alone. So I thought: “Well, this pigalka will not eat me. Let me, I think, stay with me for a while. And you'll see it there."

“All right,” I say, “so be it. For the last time, I forgive you. But just look at me...

She immediately cheered up, jumped, purred.

Then I left for work. And before I left for work, I went to the market and bought a pound of small shoe nails. I left ten pieces to Fenka, and put the rest in a box and locked the box.

At work, I thought about Fenka all the time. Worried. How is she there? What is he doing? Didn't she do something?

I come home - Fenka is sitting on the window, catching flies. She saw me, was delighted, clapped her hands.

“Oh,” he says, “finally! I am so glad!

- And what? I say. - It was boring?

- Oh, how boring! I just can't, it's so boring!

The first publication in "Murzilka" - 1945

The story “The letter“ you ”was published in the 8th issue of 1945 and in the 9th issue of 2008, the story “Coward” - in the 6th issue of 1948.

Letter "you"

I once taught a little girl to read and write. The girl's name was Irinushka, she was four years old and five months old, and she was very clever. In just ten days, we overcame the entire Russian alphabet with her, we could already freely read both “father”, and “mother”, and “Sasha”, and “Masha”, and only the very last letter remained unlearned with us - "I".

And here, on this last letter, Irinushka and I suddenly stumbled.

I, as always, showed her the letter, gave her a good look at it, and said:

- And this is, Irinushka, the letter "I".

Irinushka looked at me with surprise and said:

- You?

- Why do you"? What is "you"? I told you: this is the letter "I"!

- The letter "you"?

- Yes, not "you", but "I"!

She was even more surprised and said:

- I say: "you"!

- Yes, not me, but the letter "I"!

- Not you, but the letter "you"?

- Oh, Irinushka, Irinushka! Probably, we, my dear, have relearned a little. Don't you really understand that this is not me, but that this letter is called so: "I"?

“No,” he says, “why don’t I understand? I understand.

– What do you understand?

- This is not you, but this letter is called so: "you."

Ugh! Really, what are you going to do with her? How, pray tell, can she explain that I am not me, you are not you, she is not her, and that in general “I” is just a letter?

“Well, here’s what,” I said at last: “well, come on, say as if to yourself: I am. Understand? About myself? How do you talk about yourself?

She seemed to understand. She nodded. Then he asks:

- Speak?

- Well, well ... Of course.

I see it is silent. She lowered her head. Moves lips.

I speak:

- Well, what are you?

- I said.

“I didn't hear what you said.

“You told me to talk about myself. Here I am talking slowly.

– What are you talking about?

She looked back and whispered in my ear:

- You!..

I could not stand it, jumped up, grabbed my head and ran around the room.

Everything inside me was already boiling, like water in a kettle. And poor Irinushka was sitting, bending over her primer, looking askance at me and sniffing plaintively. She must have been ashamed of herself for being so stupid. But I, too, was ashamed that I, a big man, could not teach a small man to correctly read such a simple letter as the letter "I".

Finally, I figured it out. I quickly approached the girl, poked her in the nose with my finger and asked:

- Who is this?

She says:

- It's me.

– Well… Do you understand? And this is the letter "I"!

She says:

- Understand…

And at the very same, I see, and her lips are trembling, and her nose is wrinkled - she is about to cry.

“What do you,” I ask, “understand?

“I understand,” he says, “that it’s me.

- Right! Well done! And this is the letter "I". Clear?

“Clearly,” he says. It's the letter "you".

- Not you, but me!

- Not me, but you.

- Not me, but the letter "I"!

- Not you, but the letter "you".

- Not the letter "you", my God, but the letter "I"!

- Not the letter "I", my God, but the letter "you"!

I jumped up again and again ran around the room.

- There is no such letter! I shouted. - Understand you, stupid girl! There is not and cannot be such a letter! There is a "I". Understand? I! Letter "I"! Feel free to repeat after me: me! I! I!..

“You, you, you,” she murmured, barely parting her lips. Then she dropped her head on the table and cried. Yes, so loudly and so plaintively that all my anger immediately cooled down. I felt sorry for her.

“Okay,” I said. “As you can see, you and I actually made some money. Take your books and notebooks and you can go for a walk. Enough for today.

She somehow stuffed her junk into her purse and, without saying a word to me, stumbled and sobbed out of the room.

And I, left alone, thought: what to do? How do we eventually get over this damned "I"?

“Okay,” I decided. - Let's forget about her. Well her. Let's start the next lesson right by reading. Maybe it'll be better that way."

And the next day, when Irinushka, cheerful and flushed after the game, came to the lesson, I did not remind her of yesterday, but simply put her at the primer, opened the first page that came across and said:

“Come on, madame, let’s read something to me.”

She fidgeted in her chair, as always before reading, sighed, buried both her finger and her nose on the page, and moving her lips, fluently and without taking a breath, she read:

- They gave Tykov a apple.

In surprise, I even jumped in my chair:

- What's happened? Which Tykov? What apple? What else is a pumpkin?

I looked in the primer, and there it is written in black and white:

"Jacob was given an apple."

It's funny to you? I laughed too, of course. And then I say:

- An apple, Irinushka! An apple, not an apple!

She is surprised and says:

- Apple? So it's the letter "I"?

I already wanted to say: “Well, of course, “I”. And then I caught myself and I think: “No, my dear! We know you. If I say “I”, then it’s off and on again? No, we will not fall for this bait now.

And I said

- Yes, right. This is the letter "you".

Of course, it's not very good to tell a lie. It's not even good to tell a lie. But what can you do! If I had said "I" and not "you", who knows how it would all have ended. And maybe poor Irinushka would have said that all her life instead of “apple” - you apple, instead of “fair” - tyrmarka, instead of “anchor” - tykor and instead of “language” - tyzyk. And Irinushka, thank God, has already grown up, pronounces all the letters correctly, as expected, and writes letters to me without a single mistake.

Coward

It was in the Crimea. One visiting boy went to the sea to fish with a fishing rod. And there was a very high, steep, slippery coast. The boy began to descend, then looked down, saw huge sharp stones under him and got scared. Stopped - and can not move from the place: neither back nor down. He clutched at some thorny bush, squats and is afraid to breathe.

And below, in the sea, at that time the collective farmer-fisherman was catching fish. And with him in the boat was a girl, his daughter. She saw everything and realized that the boy was a coward. The girl began to laugh and point her finger at him.

The boy was ashamed, but he could not do anything with himself. He only began to pretend that he was sitting just like that and that he was very hot. He even took off his cap and began to wave it near his nose.

Suddenly the wind blew, snatched the fishing rod from the boy's hands and threw it down.

The boy was sorry for the fishing rod, he tried to crawl down, but again nothing came of it. And the girl saw it all. She told her father, who looked up and said something to her.

Suddenly the girl jumped into the water and walked to the shore. I took a fishing rod and went back to the boat.

The boy became so angry that he forgot everything in the world and rolled down head over heels.

- Hey! Give back! This is my rod! he shouted and grabbed the girl by the hand.

“Here, take it, please,” said the girl. I don't need your fishing rod. I took it on purpose to get you down.

The boy was surprised and said:

“How did you know that I was going to cry?”

“And that’s what my dad told me. He says: if a coward, then, probably, a greedy one.

This book, written by the author of the famous "Republic of Shkid", includes stories about children: "Honest Word", "New Girl", "Chief Engineer", "The First Feat", "The Letter "You" and others, as well as poems and fairy tales. All of them have long become classics and are rightfully included in the golden fund of children's literature.

L. Panteleev's article "How I Became a Children's Writer" is printed in abbreviated form.

For middle school age.

Leonid Panteleev
Honestly
Stories, poems, fairy tales

1908–1987

Comes from childhood
(Foreword from the Editor)

2008 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the remarkable Russian writer Alexei Ivanovich Yeremeev, who wrote his works under the pseudonym L. Panteleev. All his books have long become classics and are rightfully included in the golden fund of children's literature.

L. Panteleev wrote his first book as a very young man - he was only seventeen years old. Then he wrote stories for children - they became the main ones in his work. These stories were written a long time ago - in the thirties and forties of the last century, but they are still relevant, because they speak of enduring moral values ​​- honesty, dignity, courage. L. Panteleev educates readers not by moralizing, but by the personal example of his heroes. In each of them, regardless of age, he sees a personality and treats her with unconditional respect. And trust and respect always evoke a sincere response.

When L. Panteleev was asked if there is a theme that is most important for him in his work, he replied that "most likely, this is the theme of conscience." In all his books, the writer affirms a very important idea for him: in any life situation, a person must show the best spiritual qualities.

Alexei Ivanovich Eremeev was born in 1908 in St. Petersburg, in a house on the Fontanka, not far from the Egyptian bridge.

His father, Ivan Afanasyevich, was a military man, served in the Vladimir Dragoon Regiment. For military merit and military prowess shown during the Russo-Japanese War, he received the Order of Vladimir with swords and a bow and hereditary nobility. In 1912, he retired, and in 1914 - when the First World War began - he was drafted into the army and then disappeared without a trace. For Alyosha, his father has always been an example of courage, honor, and military duty.

From early childhood, Alyosha Eremeev was very fond of reading. I read a lot, drunk. Brother Vasya and sister Lyalya even called him "bookcase". He read Andersen's fairy tales, books by Lydia Charskaya, Mark Twain, Dickens, Conan Doyle. Alyosha's mother, Alexandra Vasilievna, subscribed for the children's magazine "Golden Childhood", which they all read with pleasure. Slowly, the boy became addicted to adult literature - the works of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pisemsky, Merezhkovsky, Leonid Andreev, Maupassant.

As a child, he began to compose: he wrote poetry, plays, adventure stories, even an adventure novel.

At the age of eight, Alyosha entered a real school, but studied there for only one year - a revolution began and turned the usual way of life upside down.

During the Civil War, the family left the hungry Petrograd for the Yaroslavl province. Then she moved from city to city. When there was nothing to live on, Alyosha and his younger brother Vasya were sent to a farm, where they had to get their own food. About this period of his life, when he lost his family, wandered around Russia, getting into orphanages and colonies, homeless, the writer told in his autobiographical story "Lenka Panteleev".

In 1920, Alyosha ended up in the Petrograd "Dostoevsky School of Social and Individual Education", where homeless children from various orphanages and colonies were gathered. The guys shortened the long and difficult name of the school to a short "Shkid". Here Alyosha met Grisha Belykh, who became his best friend and with whom they went to Baku in 1924 to become film actors and star in the film "Red Devils". But they only got as far as Kharkov and were forced to return back to Petrograd.

In 1926, friends came up with the idea to write a book about Shkid. They were advised to show the manuscript of the book, which they composed in three months, to S. Marshak and E. Schwartz, who worked in the editorial office of the children's magazines "Hedgehog" and "Chizh", where K. Chukovsky, B. Zhitkov, M. Zoshchenko, D Kharms, A. Gaidar. With the blessing of Yevgeny Lvovich Schwartz, who was the official editor of the book, the famous "Republic of Shkid" was published in 1927. She immediately became very popular, in libraries she was taken like hot cakes, she was a huge reader success. So yesterday's orphans Alexei Yeremeev and Grigory Belykh became writers. Alyosha came up with a pseudonym for himself - L. Panteleev, in memory of his Shkid nickname Lenka Panteleev. True, he never deciphered the letter "L" in his literary name.

After the "Republic of Shkid" L. Panteleev wrote stories for children, which he combined into several cycles: "Shkid stories", "Stories about a feat", "Stories for little ones", "Little stories", "Stories about children". For several years (1938-1952) he wrote the autobiographical story "Lyonka Panteleev".

When the Great Patriotic War began, Alexey Ivanovich lived in Leningrad. Twice he tried to join the army in order to defend the Motherland with weapons in his hands, and twice the medical commission did not let him through - just before the war, he underwent a serious operation. Then Panteleev joined the air defense detachment.

In 1942, seriously ill, he was evacuated from besieged Leningrad to Moscow.

In the hospital, he wrote stories about the heroism and courage of Leningrad children, who, along with adults, defended their city: they were on duty on the roofs, putting out lighters. "The presence of children," wrote L. Panteleev, "emphasized the great human meaning of our struggle."

Leaving the hospital, he again writes a statement asking him to be drafted into the army. In 1943 he was sent to the Military Engineering School, then to the engineering troops, where he was the editor of the battalion newspaper.

After the war, in 1947, L. Panteleev, with the rank of reserve captain, returned to his native Leningrad, where he lived and worked until the last day.

In the seventies, he wrote a cycle of autobiographical stories "The House at the Egyptian Bridge", in which he described his early childhood years, when the character of the child, the foundation of his personality, is laid.

L. Panteleev called his latest book "The Ajar Door ...". In it, he summed up a kind of summary of his entire writing life.

Alexey Ivanovich Eremeev-Panteleev died in 1987, leaving us his wonderful books worthy of his intelligent, demanding talent.

Stories, poems, fairy tales

spanish hats

Big Wash

One mother had two girls.

One girl was small and the other was bigger. The little one was white, and the bigger one was black. The little white one was named Squirrel, and the little black one was Tamarochka.

These girls were very naughty.

In the summer they lived in the country.

Here they come and say:

Mom, and mom, can we go to the sea - swim?

And my mother answers them:

With whom will you go, daughters? I can't go. I'm busy. I need to cook dinner.

And we, they say, will go alone.

How is it alone?

Yes so. Let's join hands and let's go.

Don't you get lost?

No, no, don't get lost, don't be afraid. We know all the streets.

Okay, go ahead, Mom says. - But just look, I forbid you to swim. You can walk barefoot on the water. Please play it in the sand. And swimming - no, no.

The girls promised her that they would not swim.

They took with them a spatula, molds and a small lace umbrella and went to the sea.

And they had very elegant dresses. Squirrel had a pink dress with a blue bow, and Tamarochka, on the contrary, had a blue dress and a pink bow. But on the other hand, they both had exactly the same little blue Spanish hats with red tassels (376).

As they walked down the street, everyone stopped and said:

You look what beautiful young ladies are walking!

And the girls love it. They also opened an umbrella over their heads: to make it even more beautiful.

Here they come to the sea. First they started playing in the sand. They began to dig wells, cook sand cakes, build sand houses, sculpt sand men ...

They played and played - and it became very hot for them.

Tamara says:

You know what, White? Let's go shopping!

And Belochka says:

Well, what are you! After all, my mother wouldn't let us.

Nothing, says Tamarochka. - We are slowly. Mom doesn't even know.

The girls were very naughty.

So they quickly undressed, folded their clothes under a tree and ran into the water.

And while they were swimming there, a thief came and stole all their clothes. And he stole dresses, and stole panties, and shirts, and sandals, and even stole Spanish hats with red tassels. He left only a small lace umbrella and molds. He does not need an umbrella - he is a thief, not a young lady, and he simply did not notice the molds. They lay aside - under a tree.

The girls didn't see anything.

They swam there - ran, splashed, swam, dived ...

And the thief at this time was dragging their linen.

Here the girls jumped out of the water and run to get dressed. They come running and see nothing: no dresses, no pants, no shirts. Even the Spanish hats with red tassels are gone.

Girls think:

"Maybe we came to the wrong place? Maybe we undressed under another tree?"

But no. They see - and the umbrella is here, and the molds are here.

So they undressed here, under this tree.

And then they realized that their clothes had been stolen.

They sat down on the sand under a tree and began to sob loudly.

Belochka says:

Tamarochka! Darling! Why didn't we listen to our mother? Why did we go swimming? How are we going to get home now?

But Tamarochka herself does not know. They didn't even have panties left. Do they have to go home naked?

And it was already evening. It's gotten cold. The wind began to blow.

The girls see - there is nothing to do, we must go. The girls were chilled, turned blue, trembling.

They thought, sat, cried and went home.

And their home was far away. We had to go through three streets.

People see: two girls are walking down the street. One girl is small and the other is bigger. The little girl is white, and the bigger one is black. The white one carries an umbrella, and the black one has a net with molds in her hands.

And both girls go completely naked.

And everyone looks at them, everyone is surprised, they point with their fingers.

Look, they say, what funny girls are coming!

And girls are uncomfortable. Isn't it nice when everyone points fingers at you?!

Suddenly they see a policeman standing on the corner. His cap is white, his shirt is white, and even the gloves on his hands are also white.

He sees - there is a crowd.

He takes out his whistle and whistles. Then everyone stops. And the girls stop. And the policeman asks:

What happened, comrades?

And they answer him:

Do you know what happened? Naked girls walk the streets.

He says:

Et what is it? A?! Who allowed you, citizens, to run naked through the streets?

And the girls were so frightened that they could not say anything. They stand and sniff as if they have a runny nose.

Policeman says:

Don't you know that you can't run naked through the streets? A?! Do you want me to take you to the police for this now? A?

And the girls were even more frightened and said:

No, we don't. Do not do it, Please. We are not to blame. We've been robbed.

Who robbed you?

Girls say:

We do not know. We were swimming in the sea, and he came and stole all our clothes.

Ah, that's how it is! - said the policeman.

Then he thought, hid the whistle back and said:

Where do you live girls?

They say:

We are around that corner - in a green cottage we live.

Well, that's it, - said the policeman. - Then run quickly to your green little cottage. Put on something warm. And never run naked through the streets again...

The girls were so happy that they said nothing and ran home.

Meanwhile, their mother was setting the table in the garden.

And suddenly she sees - her girls are running: Belochka and Tamarochka. And both of them are completely naked.

Mom was so frightened that she even dropped a deep plate.

Mom says:

Girls! What is it with you? Why are you naked?

And Belochka shouts to her:

Mommy! You know - we were robbed!!!

How did you get robbed? Who sectioned you?

We separated ourselves.

Why were you undressing? Mom asks.

And the girls can't say anything. They stand and sniff.

What are you? - says mom. - Did you swim?

Yes, the girls say. - Swim a little.

Mom got angry and said:

Oh, you rascals! Oh you naughty girls! What am I going to dress you in now? After all, I have all the dresses in the wash ...

Then he says:

OK then! As a punishment, you will now walk like this for the rest of your life.

The girls got scared and said:

What if it rains?

Nothing, - says mom, - you have an umbrella.

And in winter?

And go like this in the winter.

The squirrel cried and said:

Mommy! Where am I going to put my handkerchief? I don't have a single pocket left.

Suddenly the gate opens and a policeman enters. And he carries some white bundle.

He says:

This is where the girls live, who run naked through the streets?

Mom says:

Yes, yes, comrade policeman. Here they are, these naughty girls.

Policeman says:

Then here's what. Then get your things soon. I caught the thief.

The policeman untied the knot, and there - what do you think? All their things are there: a blue dress with a pink bow, and a pink dress with a blue bow, and sandals, and stockings, and panties. And even handkerchiefs are in pockets.

Where are the spanish hats? - asks Belochka.

And I won’t give you Spanish hats, - the policeman says.

And why?

And because, - says the policeman, - only very good children can wear such hats ... And you, as I see, are not very good ...