It was...
That was a long time ago.
This was when I still loved to get sick. But just don't hurt too much. Not so sick that you were taken to the hospital and injected with ten injections, but quietly sick, at home, when you are lying in bed, and they bring you tea with lemon.
In the evening, my mother comes running from work:
- My God! What's happened?!
- Yes, nothing ... Everything is in order.
- I need tea! Strong tea! Mom worries.
“You don’t need anything... leave me alone.
“My dear, dear ...” mum whispers, hugs me, kisses me, and I moan. There were wonderful times.
Then my mother sat next to me on the bed and began to tell me something or drew a house and a cow on a piece of paper. That's all she could draw, a house and a cow, but I've never seen anyone draw a house and a cow so well in my life.
I lay and moaned and asked:
“One more house, one more cow!”
And a lot turned out on a leaflet of houses and cows.
And then my mother told me stories.
These were strange stories. I have never read anything like this anywhere.
Many years passed before I realized that my mother was telling me about her life. And in my head everything fit like a fairy tale.
Year after year passed, the days flew by.
And this summer I got really sick.
It's a shame to get sick in the summer. I lay on the bed, looked at the tops of the birches and remembered my mother's fairy tales.
Tale of Holiday Poems
Something muffled knocked on the window - and Lyolya woke up.
She opened her eyes and did not immediately understand what had happened.
The room was light and bright. Weird, huge and festive.
She ran to the window and immediately saw - snow!
The snow has fallen! Snow!
Under the window stood a bear-soldier and made a snowball. He aimed, threw, and deftly hit, not at the glass, but at the window frame. Here, it turns out, what a dull knock woke Lelya.
- Well, wait, Mishka! Lyolya shouted through the glass and, without even washing herself, ran out into the street.
She jumped out onto the porch, made a snowball and threw Mishka right in the forehead, but hit grandfather Ignat. It was the second blind, but before she had time to finish, grandfather Ignat rang the bell - it's time, it's time, it's time! Time for a lesson!
And the school bell had a special and festive bell today.
Snow fell, fell, snow fell - and the village of Polynovka was transformed, dried, withered grass disappeared under the snow, dark thatched roofs became light, and new smoke poured from the chimneys - snowy, winter.
- Well, guys, - said Tatyana Dmitrievna, - today we have a real holiday! The first snow fell! Let's celebrate!
— How to celebrate? How, Tatyana Dmitrievna? Pancakes, or what, bake?
Or snow pies?
“Pancakes later,” the teacher smiled. And then pies. First of all, we will read holiday poems. At the festival, it is necessary to read poetry.
The guys fell silent. They, of course, did not know that poetry should be read at the celebration.
Tatyana Dmitrievna took out a book and began to read:
Winter!.. The peasant, triumphant,
On firewood updates the path;
His horse, smelling snow,
Trotting somehow...
And while Tatyana Dmitrievna was reading, it was quiet and quiet in the classroom, and it was white and white outside the window.
The guys, of course, understood that these poems are special, really festive.
They also understood the words "winter", "peasant", "horse". They figured out that the “woods” are sleighs on which they carry firewood. But they did not understand three words: “triumphant”, “sense”, “renews”.
And Tatyana Dmitrievna began to explain:
Triumphant means rejoicing. The snow has fallen. Now there is no need to knead mud on a cart, on a sled it is much more pleasant to roll in the snow. So today we are rejoicing, celebrating, because a great event has happened in nature - snow has fallen! Clear?
- Clear! Clear!
— Tatyana Dmitrievna! Let's celebrate! shouted the soldier.
- Let's! Let's! - got it all.
And then there was a shout and a ruckus in the classroom: some waved their arms, some sang, and some shouted - in general, everyone triumphed as best they could. And Tatyana Dmitrievna looked at this celebration and laughed.
"All right, stop celebrating," she finally said. - Now let's analyze other words: “His horse, smelling snow ...” So, the horse felt snow, smelled it, breathed in the smell of snow. Do you understand?
We understand, we understand! the guys shouted.
- And you, Vanechka, did you understand or not?
“Understood,” Vanechka said quietly.
— What did you understand?
— A horse.
- What else do you understand?
I understand the horse.
— And how did you understand it?
“Yes,” said Vanechka. The horse came out of the barn and saw the snow and did like this. And then Vanechka wrinkled his nose and began sniffing the desk.
At this, of course, everyone laughed, as Vanya understood the horse, and it was especially funny how he sniffed the desk.
And Vanechka wrinkled his nose and only wanted to cry, but Tatyana Dmitrievna said:
Guys, hurry, hurry, look out the window.
And everyone rushed to the window, and Vanechka thought: “I’ll cry later,” and he also ran to the window.
And there, outside the window, grandfather Ignat rode in a sleigh to school. He waved his whip, and on the sleigh, on the wood, there was firewood, and the horse trotted somehow, and the path along which grandfather Ignat drove up to the school was really renewed - the first sleigh tracks lay on the first snow.
And everything was exactly as the teacher read the poems, only there was no special triumph to be seen on the face of grandfather Ignat.
The horse stopped, grandfather Ignat got down from the sleigh and, untying the rope that wrapped around the firewood, muttered something. Through the glass it was not audible that he muttered, but all the guys knew:
- Well, here we are.
The Tale of the Coming of Spring
The winter sun is short.
As soon as he enters the sky, you look - he is not there, it is already evening, it is already night and frost. And the village of Polynovka sleeps, only a pine lamp burns in the windows of the school, and the eternal stars tremble over the snowy steppe.
The winter dragged on for a long time, but then heavy night winds blew out. They were not as piercing and dry as in winter. They piled on the steppe, pressed the village to the ground, and they - these strange winds - were warmer than snow.
One night, Lyolya woke up because the wind howled especially hard and hummed outside the window.
Lelya lay without opening her eyes, but she saw everything that was happening in the street behind the wall of the house.
The snow was moving. Like a huge hat, he shuddered and tried to crawl. He was not cold and dead, he was warm, melting and alive. He felt bad tonight, stuffy and painful. He rushed about and could not do anything, hide anywhere, because he was huge. And Lele felt sorry for the snow.
And she heard a soft moan, as if the snow was moaning under the window, but she immediately realized that it was her mother moaning, and she was frightened. Snow should moan, should rush about, but mother - never.
Lyolya jumped up, ran to her mother's bed, climbed under the covers.
“Lyolenka,” mother whispered, waking up. - Well, what are you? What you?
Mom was hot, humid, she kissed Lelya, and so, embracing, they fell asleep, and the snow groaned outside the window all night.
And in the morning a great spring fell upon the village of Polynovka.
Everything at once and everything around was revealed - both heaven and earth.
The snow, exhausted by the night winds, melted, and the river began to seethe in the ravine, picked up the broken droshky, and carried it; larks struck in the sky, and a fast-moving ice-cream turned into a sieve.
And Lyolya in this sieve dragged snow from behind the house. She wanted to save the snow clock that she had given to Vanechka. She scattered snow around the edges of the dial, around a stick driven into the ground.
But the sun flooded the clearing, on which there was a snow clock. The snow melted, melted, and Lyolya realized that it was necessary to build a new clock, spring.
A great spring fell upon the village of Polynovka, and winter, which was also great, faded and was forgotten.
And what's the use of remembering winter, when snowdrops covered the ground, and geese and larks painted the sky? Who will remember the great winter when walking barefoot through dandelions?
Perhaps only Lyolya remembered how the snow tormented one night. She rejoiced at the geese and dandelions, and even more rejoiced when she found the remains of snow in the ravines.
"Shut up, honey," she thought.
And she wanted everything in the world to always be protected.
It was...
That was a long time ago.
This was when I still loved to get sick. But just don't hurt too much. Not to get sick so that they take you to the hospital and give you ten injections, but to get sick quietly, at home, when you are lying in bed, and they bring you tea with lemon.
In the evening, my mother comes running from work:
- My God! What's happened?!
- Yes, nothing ... Everything is in order.
- I need tea! Strong tea! Mom worries.
“You don’t need anything... leave me alone.
“My dear, dear ...” mum whispers, hugs me, kisses me, and I moan. There were wonderful times.
Then my mother sat next to me on the bed and began to tell me something or drew a house and a cow on a piece of paper. That's all she could draw, a house and a cow, but I've never seen anyone draw a house and a cow so well in my life.
I lay and moaned and asked:
“One more house, one more cow!”
And a lot turned out on a leaflet of houses and cows.
And then my mother told me stories.
These were strange stories. I have never read anything like this anywhere.
Many years passed before I realized that my mother was telling me about her life. And in my head everything fit like a fairy tale.
Year after year passed, the days flew by.
And this summer I got really sick.
It's a shame to get sick in the summer. I lay on the bed, looked at the tops of the birches and remembered my mother's fairy tales.
Very BEAUTIFUL tales. This is what a child's life is like. This is the first knowledge of the world.
And most importantly - "to get to what you want yourself."
Yuri Koval gave these fairy tales to everyone a journey to childhood, to the beginning.
Yes, everyone has their own porch. I also have a match with lilac in the third window.
The window just opened, and the rooms were filled with delicious and happy air - it means that the birthday is coming soon.
Can't get enough of a book. What a spacious Polynovka.
And why is a person alone with this universal nature not alone?! and no melancholy in this circular beauty!
And there is enough for everyone here. Especially kindness.
Yes, and have not looked at the sky for a long time.
This village prose, children's, is addictive, almost without "struggle struggle with struggle" (of course, the author mentioned the wolf Evstifeyka - but what, there was such a time).
Strong sower - Yuri Koval.
It is a pity that the originality of fairy tales was violated back in 1987.
And in 1990, all the same, one came out - alone wormwood (crossed out from the book, it is not in this edition either)
THE TALE ABOUT THE BELL BROTHERS.
“And there was a huge house nearby.
He was visible through Lyolino's third window, but she did not see him for a very long time. It was too big to see it right away, and Lelya looked at the lilac that grew near the fence of the house.
When you can look at lilacs in bloom, then you really don’t want to look at anything else anymore. Even on the house near which the lilac grows.
And the house itself seemed to grow. So it seemed to Lela when she nevertheless saw him one early morning.
For a long, long time she raised her head, but still did not see where this house ends. And it seemed to her that it never ends anywhere, and disappears in high clouds.
But it wasn't. The house ended, as any house built on the ground always has an end. And at the very top of it, almost in the clouds, bells hung and doves lived.
And as soon as the elder bell struck, a flock of pigeons rose into the sky, and Lyolya knew that a magic dove also lives among the pigeons. Nobody told her about him, she knew about the dove herself.
Someday he will fly to heaven and bring her happiness from there. She did not yet understand that the magic dove had already brought her happiness long ago.
The bells were resonant, drawn out, and the oldest of them spoke in a bass voice. He could be heard for many miles around, and his name, of course, was Ivan.
He hit hard, softly, as if pronouncing his simple name:
- I-van! I-van!
And he had middle brothers - Stepan and Martemyan, and, of course, small bells - Mishki and Grishki, Trishki and Arishki.
And when all the bells rang, the bell ringing unfolded unheard-of wings over the surrounding steppes:
-I-van! I-van!
-Stepan!
-Martemyan!
-Mishki yes Grishki,
- Trishki yes Arishki.
- I have a bell-brother there, - the Mishka-soldier once said to Lela. - He calls like this: - Bear! Bear!
- How is it - the bell brother?
- Well, it's very simple. He is like me. Only I live as a person, and he - like a bell.
- Do I have anyone there?
“I don’t know,” the soldier doubted. - You're too small.
And just then they called “everything”. Huge wings of bell ringing spread over the steppe.
Lyolya stood and listened, and it seemed to her that she heard the bell brother pronounce her name:
- Lelya-Leles! Lelya-Leles!
“No, it’s unlikely,” the soldier doubted. - You're still small.
The soldier was, of course, wrong. Because every person who lives on earth has his own bell brother.
You just need to listen - you will definitely hear how he calls you.
***
Like many others, I can’t imagine my book pantry without Yu.I. Koval.
I'm waiting for Suer-Vyer to be re-released.
The second edition of Kovalina's book has appeared. Memoirs about the writer are no less interesting to read than his books.
And the books are certainly from the publishing house Meshcheryakov V.Yu.
Wormwood Tales is a gift for mom. Yuri Iosifovich Koval did not hide this and spoke frankly: “The fact is that my mother was very sick then, these were her dying years. And I loved her very much, and I wanted to do something for her. What can a writer do - write?.
There is also a gift for dad. All connoisseurs of "kovalina" life immediately understand that the merry and beautiful "Adventures of Vasya Kurolesov" would never have been born if the boy Yura was not so proud of his dad. The fact is that Iosif Koval was a very brave and unusual person. During the war, he worked in the city of Moscow, on Petrovka, in the department for combating banditry, then became the head of the criminal investigation department of the entire Moscow region, was wounded and awarded many times, but at the same time he remained cheerful, witty and even "laughing". He joked about his son's books like this: “This, in essence, I suggested everything to Yurka!”
Mom didn't tell me. She only often recalled her distant village childhood and even wrote down her memories - quite simply, everything was as it was. So there are no fictions about the old village life in Wormwood Tales. There is only hereditary love and tenderness, which falls with a quiet light on the little girl Lyolya, and on the mound around the house, and on grandfather Ignat, who stoked the stoves, and on the nameless gypsy Mishka, and in general on everyone who is not evil. But where, then, in this book all sorts of miracles? For example, a magical story about the steppe brother Styopa or a downright amazing tale about the wolf Evstifeyka? And - the main thing! - why are all the stories of Wormwood Fairy Tales called just fairy tales? After all, some of them talk about what was, and others - about what was not and could not be. How so?
Olga Dmitrievna Kolybina was a doctor. And her son Yuri Koval is a writer. And an artist. And a poet. And he also played the guitar. Olga Dmitrievna was probably a very good doctor: when Yuri's father was wounded almost mortally, she saved him. And Yuriy Koval was a very good writer. When he retold his mother's favorite stories in his own way, he, of course, knew: any memory is a little bit of a fairy tale, and a good fairy tale is the most faithful story about life.
Here we have to stop for a moment and say one important thing.
Many people think that life should be loud. But it's not. The most important thing happens in silence. That is, this does not mean at all that all birds, and the wind, and human music, and even the roar of cars should be silent. But somewhere very deep, behind the sounds, behind the colors, behind the words, everyone has their own silence, and real joys, real sorrows occur there. One famous writer said about Yuri Koval this: he “I chose kindness, light, children, forest, hunting, mushrooms, friends, dogs and warmth. To all these creatures, objects and concepts, he swore allegiance.. And Koval himself wrote even better about himself: “Everything that I could say to adults, I say to children, and it seems that they understand me”.
So it was, so it is. In life, a variety of people, who sometimes did not even greet each other out of anger, each individually loved "Yuri Osich" together, because around him it became warm and light for everyone. And in Russian literature there are children's-non-children's books, either written or simply quietly told for everyone who wants to understand them: about a good dog named Scarlet, about a good village called Chisty Dor and, of course, about a young animal puppy, underdog with the proud name of Napoleon III, who never wanted to live in a cage. And Wormwood Tales, by the way, is actually not at all simple. If you read them with open eyes, there will be - and more than once! - a direct hint about how to continue to live and what to do. “Now Marfushi is no longer in the world,- writes Yuri Koval, - and I still have. Therefore, listen to Marfush's tale as I tell it to you.; “... there is no grandfather Ignat in the world. And I still have. So listen to the tale of grandfather Ignat, as I will tell it to you.
Everything is correct. If you do not pick up good fairy tales on the fly, the world will collapse.
Wormwood Tales was the latest that two friends had time to talk about - Yuri Iosifovich Koval and Nikolai Aleksandrovich Ustinov. Once upon a time, in 1987, they made this book together. Then another publishing house decided to release it again, and the artist Ustinov began to consult on the phone, which picture would be best to put on the cover. We decided: let there be a wolf Evstifeyka. “The usual “how do you live” and “it would be nice to see you” began, - Nikolai Alexandrovich recalls, - and, of course, it didn’t occur to me that I wouldn’t have to see each other”. Soon a book with Evstifeyka appeared, but Yury Koval did not see it. And that was also a long time ago, almost twenty years ago. That's why books are needed. If you open Wormwood Tales today or even the day after tomorrow, if you don’t know anything at all about the writer Koval and the artist Ustinov, you can still immediately see that they are friends. A hundred artists can come up with pictures for the same words. One artist can invent illustrations for hundreds of dissimilar books. But only sometimes words and colors seem to breathe the same air. And this is not fiction. The air in the picture is generally very important. In fact, he is the boss. Professional people have always known this. When, in the late 1970s, a serious foreign publisher persuaded the artist Ustinov to work in his German publishing house, the main argument was this: in the book works of Nikolai Alexandrovich "he likes light and air".
But then there were no Wormwood Tales yet! There was no, for example, the thirteenth page, on which the door is wide open, and a little girl is standing on the threshold. We don't even see faces. But we look together with her somewhere forward, where it is light, where we want to go, having crossed the threshold. Lyolya, of course, is very small, she doesn’t know, but we know that the boards on the porch are almost white, because they are warm from the sun, and the trees and haystacks in the distance are blue, because it’s not yet hot and it’s easy to breathe. The writer did not say these words. And for what? Why, if it is also easy for the artist to breathe in the middle of the rural expanse, which he loves all his life.
It so happened that Nikolai Ustinov spent all his early childhood years in the countryside. Somewhere very close there was a war, it was remembered by its black signs even to a little boy. But what was around - in winter, spring, summer, autumn - it was not remembered, it grew into a living person once and for all, and then passed on to others, because the person became an artist.
In his youth, Kolya Ustinov was not going to draw trees. He decided to become a cartoonist. But things didn't work out. Then animals appeared on paper, very alive. Until now, the artist Ustinov is sometimes called an animal painter, and all sorts of wolves, bears, dogs and even goats walk through the pages of his books, as if at home. But ... just as two people cannot be happy until they meet each other, so there will be no happiness for an artist until he enters his own world. It turned out that Nikolai Alexandrovich Ustinov should live in the open. So that the trees turn either green or yellow, so that the sun rises and goes below the horizon right before your eyes, so that in a notebook with which you wander through the forest, you can write: Wind from left to right. The gold of a birch is lighter than a cloud ... "
If you try to list the books of different writers with illustrations by the artist Ustinov, the list will include Shakespeare, French fairy tales, and Scottish legends. But they are away. And all the main things in the work of this master take place in his native literature: Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin, Ushinsky, Skrebitsky, Sokolov-Mikitov, Yuri Kazakov, Viktor Astafiev ... It’s as if you are walking around Russia for a long, long time, but beauty still does not end.
It turns out that a person can convey to a book page not just an image of an object, but that second when everything is visible. In Fyodor Abramov's old, thin little children's book, following a few lines of tiny stories, the artist had to draw not only "Willow", "Aspen", "Bird Cherry" or "Dandelions". There is a page called Nightingales. And the nightingale is almost invisible, but you can hear how he sings. There is a page called "Silence". And in some incomprehensible way this silence is drawn: a few forest branches, a little quiet light and - everywhere - the promise of a cool, almost transparent fog.
It would be necessary to write poems about how the artist Ustinov can draw poetry. Blok, Bunin, Yesenin - a whole small library for very young children was made by him many years ago. They say that Nikolai Alexandrovich can read for hours to friends the poems of his favorite poets. Even on the Internet there is a tiny record with Gumilev's lines. Probably - yes, for sure! - sound in the Ustinov house and these long classic Gumilev lines:
I know that the trees, not us,
Given the greatness of a perfect life ...
A small village near Pereslavl-Zalessky, where Nikolai Ustinov lives for a long time, friends call it Ustinovka. Yuri Koval was there. "Late at night, he wrote, we turned off the highway onto a forest koldobisty road. Woodcocks pulled over us, geese went to the North, a crazy spring hare jumped out onto the road and scratched somewhere in the bushes, namely, “scratched”.
Behind the pines we saw the dark silhouette of a church, a humpbacked village at night. Lights were still on in one house.
As soon as I saw the light, my heart was relieved. Cautiously, I crept up to the lighted window and peered into the house. A man with a beard - some kind of good-natured beard, there are such people in the world - held a brush in his hands. I knocked on the glass. The bearded man looked at the night outside the window and, recognizing me, raised his hands to the sky and shouted something very simple, I really couldn’t make out through the glass, like: “Oh-hoo!”
Wormwood Tales by Yuri Koval and Nikolai Ustinov speak of what is very simple and what is most important.
About the life and work of Yuri Koval and Nikolai Ustinov, about their work together and apart, read in the following publications:
- Akim Ya. Writer and his book; Instead of an afterword / Y. Akim // Koval Y. Cap with crucians / Y. Koval. - Moscow: Children's Literature, 2000. - S. 5–8, 235–236.
- Beck T. The most special experience of special power / T. Beck // Literature at school. - 2001. - No. 15. - S. 10–12.
- Bogatyryova N. Knights of the children's book: [about illustrators Viktor Duvidov and Nikolai Ustinov] / N. Bogatyryova // Reading together. - 2008. - No. 8/9. - S. 42.
- Bykov R. The Red Book of Yuri Koval: (a completely personal letter to the reader) / R. Bykov // Koval Yu. Shamayka / Yu. Koval. - Moscow: Children's Literature, 1990. - S. 3-4.
- Voskoboynikov V. Man-holiday / V. Voskoboinikov // Library at school. - 2008. - February 1–15. - S. 27–28.
- Govorova Yu. Light boat of Yury Koval / Yu. Govorova // Our school. - 2001. - No. 5. - S. 31–32.
- Il. N. Ustinova to "Warmwood Tales" by Y. Koval Kazyulkin I. Koval Yuri Iosifovich / I. Kazyulkin // Writers of our childhood. 100 names: biographical dictionary: part 1. - Moscow: Liberia, 1998. - S. 208–212.
- Kovalina book: remembering Yuri Koval / [comp. I. Skuridina; issued and layout by V. Kalnynsh]. - Moscow: Time, 2008. - 494 p. : ill. - (Dialogue).
- Koval Y. Illuminated windows / Y. Koval // Young naturalist. - 1987. - No. 7. - S. 24–25.
- Koval Yu. I always fell out of the general stream: an impromptu prepared by life / Yu. Koval // Questions of Literature. - 1998. - November-December. - S. 115–124.
- Korf O. Yuri Iosifovich Koval (1938-1995) / O. Korf // Korf O. Children about writers. XX century from A to H / O. Korf. - Moscow: Sagittarius, 2006. - S. 40–41.
- Kudryavtseva L. Clear eye of mankind / L. Kudryavtseva // Children's literature. - 1997. - No. 1. - S. 79–92.
- Moskvina M. Holiday of Yuri Koval / M. Moskvin // Murzilka. - 2008. - No. 2. - S. 4–5.
- Nazarevskaya N. An image born of nature. Artist Nikolai Ustinov / N. Nazarevskaya // In the world of books. - 1979. - No. 11. - S. 31–32, 38–39 (color incl.).
- Nikolai Aleksandrovich Ustinov is 70 years old! // Murzilka. - 2007. - No. 7. - S. 8–11.
- Pavlova N. "Against the sky - on earth" / N. Pavlova // Koval Y. Late evening in early spring / Y. Koval. - Moscow: Children's Literature, 1988. - S. 3–8.
- Plakhova E. The nature of Ustinov / E. Plakhova // Children's literature. - 1981. - No. 4. - S. 79.
- Poryadina M. About the author and artist of this book / M. Poryadina // Koval Yu. Chisty Dor / Yu. Koval. - Moscow: Meshcheryakov Publishing House, 2012. - S. 97–100.
- Sivokon S. Precisely spoken word: Yuri Iosifovich Koval / S. Sivokon // Sivokon S. Your funny friends / S. Sivokon. - Moscow: Children's Literature, 1986. - S. 250–267.
- Tarkovsky A. About the book of a friend / A. Tarkovsky // Koval Yu. Beware of the bald and mustachioed / Yu. Koval. - Moscow: Book Chamber, 1993. - S. 6.
- Ustinov N. How I draw / N. Ustinov // Bonfire. - 1974. - No. 6. - S. 34–35.
- Ustinov N. “I am attracted to books about nature, travel, the countryside…” / conversation with the artist was conducted by M. Baranova // Children's Literature. - 1990. - No. 4. - 2 p. region, s. 54–60.
- Freger E. Yamb in pictures / E. Freger // Children's literature. - 1980. - No. 1. - S. 77–78.
- Shumskaya M. Artist Nikolai Ustinov / M. Shumskaya // Bonfire. - 1980. - No. 4. - S. 44–45.
- Yuri Iosifovich Koval: life and work: bio-bibliographic index. - Moscow: Russian State Children's Library, 2008. - 109 p.
Irina Linkova
It was…
That was a long time ago.
This was when I still loved to get sick. But just don't hurt too much. Not to get sick so that they take you to the hospital and give you ten injections, but to get sick quietly, at home, when you are lying in bed, and they bring you tea with lemon.
In the evening, my mother comes running from work:
My God! What's happened?!
Yes, nothing ... Everything is in order.
I need tea! Strong tea! - Mom worries.
You don't need anything... leave me.
My dear, dear ... - my mother whispers, hugs me, kisses me, and I moan. There were wonderful times.
Then my mother sat next to me on the bed and began to tell me something or drew a house and a cow on a piece of paper. That's all she could draw, a house and a cow, but I've never seen anyone draw a house and a cow so well in my life.
I lay and moaned and asked:
Another house, another cow!
And a lot turned out on a leaflet of houses and cows.
And then my mother told me stories.
These were strange stories. I have never read anything like this anywhere.
Many years passed before I realized that my mother was telling me about her life. And in my head everything fit like a fairy tale.
Year after year passed, the days flew by.
And this summer I got really sick.
It's a shame to get sick in the summer.
I lay on the bed, looked at the tops of the birches and remembered my mother's fairy tales.
The Tale of the Gray Stones
It was a long time ago... a very long time ago.
It was getting dark.
A rider raced across the steppe.
The horse's hooves beat dully into the ground, bogged down in deep dust. A cloud of dust rose behind the rider.
A fire burned along the road.
Four people were sitting by the fire, and some gray stones lay in the field aside from them.
The rider realized that these were not stones, but a herd of sheep.
He drove up to the fire, said hello.
The shepherds looked sullenly into the fire. No one answered the greeting, no one asked where he was going.
Finally one shepherd raised his head.
Stones, he said.
The rider did not understand the shepherd. He saw sheep, but he did not see stones. Whipping his horse, he galloped on.
He rushed to the place where the steppe merged with the earth, and an evening black cloud rose towards him. Clouds of dust crawled along the ground under a cloud.
The road led to a ravine with deep slopes. On the slope - red and clay - lay gray stones.
“These are certainly stones,” the rider thought, and flew into the ravine.
An evening cloud immediately covered him and white lightning stuck into the ground in front of the horse's hooves.
The horse darted to the side, lightning struck again - and the rider saw how the gray stones turned into animals with sharp ears.
The animals rolled down the slope, rushed under the horse's feet.
The horse snored, jumped up, hit with a hoof - and the rider flew out of the saddle.
He fell to the ground and hit his head on a rock. It was a real stone.
The horse sped off. Behind him, long gray stones crawled along the ground in pursuit. Only one stone remained on the ground. Pressing his head against him, lay a man who rushed to no one knows where.
Silent shepherds found him in the morning. They stood over him without saying a word.
They did not know that at the very moment when the rider hit the stone with his head, a new man appeared in the world.
And the rider raced to see this man.
A minute before his death, he thought:
“Who will be born? Son or daughter? It would be nice to have a daughter."
A girl was born. They named her Olga. And simply everyone called her - Lelya.
Tale of giant creatures
It was a hot July day.
There was a girl in the meadow. She saw green grass in front of her, on which large dandelions were scattered.
Run, Lelya, run! she heard. - Run faster.
I'm afraid, - Lyolya wanted to say, but she could not say.
Run Run. Do not be afraid of anything. Never be afraid of anything. Run!
“There are dandelions,” Lyolya wanted to say, but she could not say.
Run straight through the dandelions.
“So they are ringing,” thought Lyolya, but quickly realized that she would not be able to say such a phrase, and she ran straight through the dandelions. She was sure they would ring under her feet.
But they were soft and did not ring underfoot. But the earth itself rang, dragonflies rang, a silver lark rang in the sky.
Lyolya ran for a long, long time and suddenly saw that a huge white creature was standing in front of her.
Lelya wanted to stop, but she could not stop.
And a huge creature beckoned with an unfamiliar finger, deliberately attracted to itself.
Lela ran. And then a huge creature grabbed her and threw her into the air. Quietly my heart skipped a beat.
Don't be afraid, Lyolya, don't be afraid, - a voice was heard. Don't be afraid to be thrown into the air. You do know how to fly.
And Lyolya really tried to fly, flapped her wings, but did not fly far away, she again fell on her hands. Then she saw a broad face and small, small eyes. Black ones.
It's me, - said a huge creature - Marfusha. You will not know? Run back now.
And Lelya ran back. She ran through the dandelions again. They were warm and ticklish.
She ran for a long, long time and saw a new huge creature. Blue.
Mother! Lyolya shouted, and her mother picked her up in her arms and threw her into the sky:
Don't be afraid. Do not be afraid of anything. You can fly.
And Lyolya had already flown longer and, probably, she could have flown as long as she wanted, but she herself wanted to fall into her mother's arms as soon as possible. And she descended from the sky, and mother with Lelya in her arms walked along the dandelions to the house.
Tale of some thing with a golden nose
It was… it was a long time ago. This was when Lelya learned to fly.
She flew every day now and always tried to land in her mother's arms. It was safer and more enjoyable that way.
She flew when she went outside, but at home she sometimes wanted to fly.
What can you do with you, - laughed my mother. - Fly.
And Lelya took off, but it was not interesting to fly in the room - the ceiling interfered, it was not possible to fly high.
But still she flew and flew. Of course, if it is not possible to fly outdoors, you need to fly indoors.
Well, stop flying, - said my mother. - Night in the yard, it's time to sleep. Fly now in a dream.
Nothing can be done - Lyolya went to bed and flew in a dream. And where are you going? If it is not possible to fly on the street or in the house, you need to fly in a dream.
Stop flying, my mother once said. - Learn how to walk. Go.
And Lelya went. Where she went, she didn't know.
Go bold. Don't be afraid of anything.
And she went. And as soon as she moved away, something muffled rang over her head:
Don! Don!
Lelya was frightened, but not immediately frightened.
She raised her head and saw: hanging high on the wall some thing with a golden nose. She shook her nose, and her face was round, white, like Marfushi's, only there were too many eyes.
"What's that thing with the golden nose?" Lelya wanted to ask, but she couldn't ask. Somehow the tongue hasn't turned yet. And I wanted to talk.
Lyolya plucked up courage and asked this thing:
Are you flying?
So, - the thing answered and waved its nose. She waved fearfully.
Lyolya was frightened again, but then again she was not frightened.
“But you don’t fly - well, okay,” Lyolya wanted to say, but again she failed to say it. She simply waved her hand at the thing, and she waved her nose in response. Lelya again with her hand, and that with her nose.
So they waved for a while - some with their noses, and some with their hands.
Okay, that's enough, - said Lelya. - I went.
She walked on, and it became dark around her. She took a step into the darkness, walked two steps, and changed her mind about going further. Still, it was embarrassing in front of this thing that does not fly, but only shakes its golden nose. Maybe she can still fly?
Lyolya came back, stood, looked: no, she doesn’t fly at all. Shakes his nose - and that's it.
And then Lelya herself wanted to fly up to this thing and grab her by the nose so that she would not hang out in vain.
And she flew up and grabbed her by the nose.
And the golden nose stopped swaying, and Lyolya sank down into her mother's arms.
This is a watch, Leles, you must not touch it.
“Why are they talking with their noses all the time?” - Lyolya wanted to ask, but her tongue did not turn again. And I wanted to talk about hours.
Fly? she asked.
No, they don't fly, - Mom laughed. - They walk or stand.
The tale of the porch and the mound
And that was when Lyolya stopped pulling the wall clock by the nose.
She decided now to walk and stand. Like a clock.
And she kept walking and standing, walking and standing. It will reach hours, it will stand.
I walk and stand, she said. - I walk and stand.
The clock ticked back, waving its golden nose, which was called a pendulum. But Lyolya forgot about the pendulum, she now thought that it was not only a nose, but also such a golden leg. A sort of nose-leg. Here the clock goes with this nose-foot. And you can’t pull your nose-leg - the clock will become. And I want to pull. Okay, let's move on.
