Pavel Vladimirovich Zasodimsky in front of an extinct fireside a Christmas story. Zasodimsky Pavel Vladimirovich

Pavel Vladimirovich Zasodimsky

In front of a dead fire

“... It is not usually pearls and adamants that are hidden in hiding places human soul. These hiding places are for the most part something like garbage pits, and to discover their contents before the light - to me at least - seems incomparably more shameful and shameful than to show people their bodily nakedness ... "

Pavel Vladimirovich Zasodimsky

In front of a dead fire

Christmas story

(From the memories of one of my friends)

That evening I was decidedly out of sorts. But how! .. Christmas time in the yard, and I'm sitting at home all alone. Runny nose, cough, stuffy chest...

I opened the door from the study to the hall and, out of grief, began to pace up and down the rooms. In due time, that is, at ten o'clock, my housekeeper Anna Efimovna served me tea. And I, with my hands behind my back, continued to stagger from corner to corner. Loneliness that evening weighed heavily on me. An old bachelor on weekdays does not feel his loneliness as much as in his free holiday time. I would like to take my soul away, to talk frankly with someone. And then, as luck would have it, ill health forced me to stay at home. And even then, with whom could I talk the way I wanted? I don’t have any relatives, no friends… it’s true, there are a lot of acquaintances, perhaps more than enough… But these acquaintances, these winter partners, are not at all what I need… And even those are not at hand now… Anna Efimovna? The woman is very respectable, there are no words, accurate, accurate, and for fifteen rubles a month she superbly manages my household, and serves me faithfully, that is, she steals on trifles, in moderation. But what to talk about with her? To listen again to her story about how she lived in Tsarskoye Selo with the old general's wife Khrenova and combed her fourteen lapdogs with a comb? .. You can joke with her, talk about dinner - and only ... Without any appetite I drank a glass of tea, poured another and left with him to the office.

- Would you like to clean up? Anna Yefimovna asked a little later, showing herself at the door.

Yes, I won't drink anymore! I answered her. - Take away! And you can go to sleep...

I lit the fireplace myself, moved a round table close to it, and placed on it my glass of tea and a small faceted decanter of Jamaican rum of the original Eliseev's preparation. Then I put out the candles on the desk, rolled a chair up to the fireplace and sat comfortably in it. Methodically, without haste, I put a spoon on the glass, lowered a piece of sugar into it and poured rum over it. A bluish-pale light flickered over the glass, and I began to look at it. Soon the light began to fall, darted about, flared up once or twice and went out. Gradually sipping, I drank a hot drink ... The apartment was quiet; Anna Yefimovna had evidently already gone to bed. Having finished my glass, I put it on the table, lit a cigar, and, leaning back in my chair, began to look into the fireplace. The firewood flared up, and sometimes, when the wind blew into the chimney, there was a slight smell of burning birch bark from the fireplace. This familiar smell reminded me of my distant childhood... I used to have fun Christmas evenings.

At that time, I lived in my native Mikhaltsevo with my father, mother, sister Olya and my nanny Maksimovna. A mountain was arranged for me in the garden, a Christmas tree was lit in the evenings ... Mother, apparently, loved me very much. I remember how she smoothed my blond curls, how she gently stroked my head and kissed me hard. Her kisses, I confess, I did not particularly like; I was much more willing to sneak kisses with the maid girls. My father was going to whip me more than once for pranks, but my mother always stood up for me. I once heard her say to her father in a moralizing tone:

“Please… leave, please!” After all, such a punishment can knock out any shame from a child!

Of course, I was very grateful for her intercession - but she was completely in vain lamenting for my sense of shame. This feeling has been lost. I was afraid only of physical pain, but the rods, as a shame, did not bother me in the least ...

All of them - father, mother, and sister, and nanny - have long gone to where no one comes from ... Mikhaltsevo was bought by some kind of fist, and familiar, dear lindens have long been cut down. My childhood story is overgrown with moss ...

Then I remembered how, as a high school student, in our provincial outback, I went to Christmas time with comrades disguised in familiar houses; danced, naughty, messed around. But while my comrades furtively smoked cigarettes and courted young ladies in the most innocent way, I extended my views beyond mere courtship. My friends called me "remote". Noisy and stormy student years passed. What crowded, lively gatherings we had at that time! Sometimes there is only a ruble in my pocket, and there is so much laughter, fun, bright hopes and dreams that a rich man cannot be bought for a million ... However, I never participated in comradely revelry with money. I have such a rule: do not spend money in vain ... And this early green youth has long flown away and now seems to me a dream. My curls have developed, thinned, and on the crown of my head a fair bald head shines.

Now, I can say that I am a well-to-do person. From the Tsarevokokshai railway administration I receive (with awards) about two thousand a year, and something is hidden in the bank. It seems that one could live and enjoy the blessings of this world. But there is no former appetite, no taste. Nothing particularly attracts me, does not pull me anywhere ... But is it really a “screw”. Only one uncle remained with me, and he died about ten years ago; his daughter married some engineer and left with him for Samarkand or for Samarkand - God knows her. However, I hardly remember this cousin. I only remember that her whole face seemed to be freckled. Friends, comrades of student years, all disappeared somewhere, disappeared ... That's really true - "we managed to hide so well that we couldn't find each other after." Some have reached “known levels,” others have sunk in the provinces, some have died, and two or three hotheads have ended up even in rather cold places.

However, one of my university comrades, Cheremukhin, staggered to my place for a long time and sometimes even stopped by quite often. He was a wonderful example of human nature, a phenomenon in his own way, in a word - one of the Mohicans of the sixties. He was terribly fond of philosophizing and passionately talked about the world of the whole world, about the poor and the rich, about good and evil - and his dog knows what else. He was an extremely dull and narrow-minded person. One of my acquaintances very aptly called him a "straight donkey." Cheremukhin could not understand the simplest things; he could not, for example, realize that yesterday's concepts and conversations might already be boring today, and tomorrow completely out of fashion. This wise man, who sported a summer coat in winter and wore ragged trousers in all seasons, and dreamed of covering other people's roofs when his own leaked, finally bored me to death with his banal arguments about good and evil and his eternal pestering for money. Now give him a ruble, then two, and each time almost always put vodka in front of him. It will stick like an insole and climbs with wet lips to kiss. I myself am a sober person and I can’t stand drunkards ... Sometimes I will burst into tears again. “Ah, he says, my share, share! Where did you disappear to? And then suddenly scary voice will begin to sing: “Freedom is a proud inspiration, the people do not know you ...” Well, he just made me a disgrace.

I ended up ordering Anna Efimovna not to accept this riff-raff. After that, he came to see me several times, and I heard him one day, going down the stairs, apparently extremely tired, exhausted, muttering through his teeth: “Get fat! The poor comrade does not want to know ... An official! .. ”And with some bitterness he always uttered this word! What the officials did to him, the devil knows! He was obviously angry, and every time he tugged the bell so furiously that it made me shudder, and my unfortunate nerves after that were positively upset. For the last time, leaving the door without salty slurping (the door in my apartment is always on a chain), he stopped on the landing, and I heard him shout to Anna Efimovna: “Tell your master that he is a pig! He thinks that I only go to him for money or for vodka! I don't care, he says, for his vodka! And I will return the rubles to him ... I wanted to talk to him. After all, he says, I used to love him, the beast! He was obviously very upset and agitated about something at that time - but still it was rather tactless of him to talk about me with the servants in such a tone ...

I haven't seen Cheremukhin for six or seven years now. Is he alive? Does he grovel somewhere "in the corner" and still talk about good and evil? Or maybe he has already calmed down and is now lying in one of the St. Petersburg cemeteries? At times it was terrible unpleasant person. Well, God be with him! I don’t remember evil ... But the debt - ten or twelve rubles - he still didn’t return me ... That evening, loneliness weighed me down so much that, really, it seems to me that if Cheremukhin had appeared, I would have accepted him and even would have been glad to him. I would, perhaps, not be averse to listening to his "cheesy" (liberal) arguments about truth and falsehood, good and evil, and all sorts of nonsense. Maybe he would ask me for a ruble again, and he would probably drink all the rum from me. Well, it's not a problem...

Strange! Around me - the whole world, all of humanity, and meanwhile I feel cut off from the world, completely alone, as if I live on some desert island. Yes! that's right... I live on Personal Wellbeing Island.

The birch logs in the fireplace were already burning through. I stared at the pile of red, hot coals and looked at them for so long that my eyes began to close involuntarily, and drowsiness attacked me. But I didn't sleep honestly I didn’t sleep ... I even opened my eyes sometimes and saw in front of me, as if in a fog, the same pile of red coals ...

Suddenly it seemed to me that someone approached my chair from behind ... did not approach, but, cautiously, on tiptoe, quietly crept up. There was a moment when it even seemed to me that someone leaned over me, someone's breath touched my cheek, and this someone, inaudibly crept up to me, gently, slightly touching, ran his hand through my hair, as if wanting to stroke , caress me ... I could not stand it, opened my eyes and, turning abruptly in my chair, looked back. This movement cost me a lot of effort: I was terribly reluctant to look back; It was very difficult for me to turn my head. So in a dream it is sometimes difficult to move an arm or a leg, although - in the course of sleep - you clearly realize that the question of life and death depends on these movements ...

I am not a coward by nature.

But here, in front of the fireplace, on this unfortunate Christmas evening, where all my courage suddenly disappeared!.. Looking back with an effort, I saw behind the armchairs a rather tall, white, ghostly figure. And this ghost, half reproachfully, half ruefully shook its head. So at least it seemed to me for a moment. In reality, of course, there was no ghost. To sane people - like me, ghosts are not. But the matter was very simple... From the hall where the lamp was burning, the light penetrated into the office through the open door and fell on the white tulle curtain by the window. My room was immersed in semi-darkness, and that is why the white curtain, brightly illuminated, stood out too clearly in the darkness surrounding it and could perfectly play the role of a ghost for an instant ... My heart still beat strongly, as if I had really experienced some kind of real danger; my hands went cold, and an unpleasant chill ran down my back. In order to prevent such a story from repeating itself, so as not to again become a toy of my own imagination, I got up, lit the candles on the desk and, covering them with a green lampshade, returned to the fireplace.

Stirring the hot coals with tongs, I sat more comfortably in my armchair and tried to think about business subjects - about promotion, about the fortune-telling opportunity to win two hundred thousand, about the cheapness of the woolen cloth that I gave Anna Efimovna for Christmas, and the like. But again I looked at the coals, and again these unbearable memories crept into my head. And where they come from, the dust knows them! for whole years they lie somewhere there, under a bushel, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, they begin to swim up ...

And vividly, vividly, just like in the picture, I imagined that Christmas evening when I first met her ... I was in a familiar family; danced, just finished a quadrille. It was already twelve o'clock ... Suddenly a call was heard. The bell trembled a little, but in the silence that followed the dancing, its faint, rattling sound was clearly heard in the room. belated guest...

A very young lady, about seventeen years old, tall, slender and with wonderful blond hair, Elena Alexandrovna Nevedova entered the hall! .. When I was introduced to this charming stranger, I shook her hand warmly, with pleasure looking at her all from head to toe. Large Blue eyes, laughing merrily, looked directly and trustingly at me. No doubt, I will always say: good, beautiful eyes. But for some reason I never could openly, intently look into those eyes. They were too childishly innocent, somehow too clear and pure... When my eyes met those blue, childishly simple-hearted eyes, it seemed to me foolishly that by some miracle they could see everything that was hidden at the bottom of my soul...

Usually not pearls and adamants are hidden in the recesses of the human soul. These hiding places are for the most part something like garbage pits, and to discover their contents before the light - to me at least - seems incomparably more shameful and shameful than to show people their bodily nakedness ...

I remember: at that moment, as I shook her hand, fresh, icy air and the smell of violets wafted over me from her dress, from her hands, from her cheeks flushed in the cold, from her luxurious blond hair ... I danced with her and then, talking , walked around the hall with her for quite a long time. She was neither overweight nor thin, just what I thought a “healthy” girl should be at her age… Tall, slender, soft women were always my type. I can still put up with a woman of full and small stature, but I can’t stand women who are slender, like skeletons, which are walking “bones and rags”. I called women like my new acquaintance “appetizing”, but I have never met girls more appetizing than Elena Alexandrovna. It is clear that I was very pleased to contemplate her beautifully developed, virginal forms, and with undisguised delight, as a gentleman, I looked at her cheeks, filled with a hot blush, a blush of youth and health. I was about thirty years old at the time, and it seemed to me that I had also pleasant impression... Nyanka Maksimovna called me “handsome” for a reason; the mirror confirmed the justice of her sentence.

Twenty years have passed since then, and even now I remember Nevedova the way I saw her that Christmas evening. She wore a simple gray dress; on her chest, on a thin gold chain, a gold cross with black enamel, studded with small diamonds, shone, her only valuable adornment (probably bought for the occasion), a blue ribbon on her head (thirty arshin kopecks, not more expensive). Of course, I soon realized that the girl was seductively beautiful, that it was very flattering to get to know her better, but, of course, this beauty was not suitable for me as a wife. The qualification did not come out ... That same evening I already found out everything about her.

Elena Alexandrovna was an orphan, the daughter of some unfortunate forty-ruble official, she lived with her mother and little brother and gave lessons, running from Torgovaya Street to Vasilyevsky Island and somewhere to Tauride garden. It's a familiar thing... Noble poverty... An idyll in a broken pot!.. Some women in dresses with holes in them, I know, are extremely fond of being proud of their virtues. All these are old stories, worn out long ago, common phrases!

I began to meet with her often with friends and fell more and more in love. Finally, as usual, I began to talk to Nevedova about “feelings,” but, as luck would have it, that “feeling” that interested me most of all, which I most wanted to stir up in her, showed no sign of life; it was either still asleep, or remained half asleep. But according to all my assumptions, in such a fully developed, healthy girl, "feeling" should have slept in a very light, sensitive half-sleep, and it seemed to me not particularly difficult to awaken it.

Elena Alexandrovna listened, listened to my reasoning about "feelings" and suddenly one day she stunned me with a completely unexpected remark.

- What is it, Alexey Petrovich, you are all about love ... How boring it is! Can't we talk about something else! - with a touch of slight annoyance and impatience, she told me.

"A! So this is it… I thought. “It means that we should start with serious conversations with you! .. Okay.”

At that time, very many people found it necessary to talk and write about women's equality, about the common good, about civic sorrow, and the like. To be honest, I never really delved into these things: I didn’t care about them at all. What is Hecuba to me?.. Well, now I had to read this or that magazine and various "leading books". Until that time, I read only my newspaper, the government reports and the Dragonfly ... After such reading, naturally, it seemed too painful for me to take up books and magazines.

You yawn, it used to be ... devilish boredom! Another article is written in such a way that one had to read it twice in order to figure out what the matter was about, and then be able to discuss it with Elena Alexandrovna. And if you take another “good” translated book, it’s even more nauseating: you wander like a swamp, then you run into a stump, then you stumble over a bump, then you get bogged down almost up to your ears in some kind of philosophical quagmire ... But on the other hand, I achieved of her own: Elena Alexandrovna began to listen to me attentively and treat me much better ...

Sometimes in the evening I walked her home. From Nadezhdinskaya to Kolomna is not a short journey. Sometimes we went on foot, and in bad weather I sometimes took a cab halfway. Two-hryvnia and five-kopeck pieces just flew. And at that time I still didn’t have very many two-kopeck pieces and five-kopeck pieces ... But what do you want to do! Fell in love! .. Fell in love ... and I ran after my beauty, truly to say, like a March cat. The melancholy was terrible ... You talk about politics, about various social issues, about workers' unions, about strikes, about all sorts of rubbish, but the passion itself boils ... Sometimes it just reached fury. Finally, according to some signs, I began to notice that the blood began to play in the young beauty ... Sometimes, sitting alone with me, she suddenly flared up all over, her voice became softer; she often glanced furtively at me, and her glance became somehow softer, more friendly.

(From the memories of one of my friends)

That evening I was decidedly out of sorts. But how! .. Christmas time in the yard, and I'm sitting at home all alone. Runny nose, cough, stuffy chest...

I opened the door from the study to the hall and, out of grief, began to pace up and down the rooms. In due time, that is, at ten o'clock, my housekeeper Anna Efimovna served me tea. And I, with my hands behind my back, continued to stagger from corner to corner. Loneliness that evening weighed heavily on me. An old bachelor on weekdays does not feel his loneliness as much as in his free holiday time. I would like to take my soul away, to talk frankly with someone. And then, as luck would have it, ill health forced me to stay at home. And even then, with whom could I talk the way I wanted? I don’t have any relatives, no friends… it’s true, there are a lot of acquaintances, perhaps more than enough… But these acquaintances, these winter partners, are not at all what I need… And even those are not at hand now… Anna Efimovna? The woman is very respectable, there are no words, accurate, accurate, and for fifteen rubles a month she superbly manages my household, and serves me faithfully, that is, she steals on trifles, in moderation. But what to talk about with her? Listen again to her story about how she lived in Tsarskoye Selo with the old general's wife Khrenova and combed her fourteen lapdogs with a comb? .. You can joke with her, talk about dinner - and only ... Without any appetite I drank a glass of tea, poured another and left with him to the office.

Would you like to clean up? Anna Yefimovna asked a little later, showing herself at the door.

Yes, I won't drink anymore! - I answered her. - Remove! And you can go to sleep...

I lit the fireplace myself, moved a round table close to it, and placed on it my glass of tea and a small faceted decanter of Jamaican rum of the original Eliseev's preparation. Then I put out the candles on the desk, rolled a chair up to the fireplace and sat comfortably in it. Methodically, without haste, I put a spoon on the glass, lowered a piece of sugar into it and poured rum over it. A bluish-pale light flickered over the glass, and I began to look at it. Soon the light began to fall, darted about, flared up once or twice and went out. Gradually sipping, I drank a hot drink ... The apartment was quiet; Anna Yefimovna had evidently already gone to bed. Having finished my glass, I put it on the table, lit a cigar, and, leaning back in my chair, began to look into the fireplace. The firewood flared up, and sometimes, when the wind blew into the chimney, there was a slight smell of burning birch bark from the fireplace. This familiar smell reminded me of my distant childhood... I used to have fun Christmas evenings.

At that time, I lived in my native Mikhaltsevo with my father, mother, sister Olya and my nanny Maksimovna. A mountain was arranged for me in the garden, a Christmas tree was lit in the evenings ... Mother, apparently, loved me very much. I remember how she smoothed my blond curls, how she gently stroked my head and kissed me hard. Her kisses, I confess, I did not particularly like; I was much more willing to sneak kisses with the maid girls. My father was going to whip me more than once for pranks, but my mother always stood up for me. I once heard her say to her father in a moralizing tone:

I beg you... leave, please! After all, such a punishment can knock out any shame from a child!

Of course, I was very grateful for her intercession - but she was completely in vain lamenting for my sense of shame. This feeling has been lost. I was afraid only of physical pain, but the rods, as a shame, did not bother me in the least ...

All of them - father, mother, and sister, and nanny - have long gone to where no one comes from ... Mikhaltsevo was bought by some kind of fist, and familiar, dear lindens have long been cut down. My childhood story is overgrown with moss ...

Then I remembered how, as a high school student, in our provincial outback, I went to Christmas time with comrades disguised in familiar houses; danced, naughty, messed around. But while my comrades furtively smoked cigarettes and courted young ladies in the most innocent way, I extended my views beyond mere courtship. My friends called me "remote". Noisy and stormy student years passed. What crowded, lively gatherings we had at that time! Sometimes there is only a ruble in my pocket, and there is so much laughter, fun, bright hopes and dreams that a rich man cannot be bought for a million ... However, I never participated in comradely revelry with money. I have such a rule: do not spend money in vain ... And this early green youth has long flown away and now seems to me a dream. My curls have developed, thinned, and on the crown of my head a fair bald head shines.

Now, I can say that I am a well-to-do person. From the Tsarevokokshai railway administration I receive (with awards) about two thousand a year, and something is hidden in the bank. It seems that one could live and enjoy the blessings of this world. But there is no former appetite, no taste. Nothing particularly attracts me, does not pull me anywhere ... But is it really a “screw”. Only one uncle remained with me, and he died about ten years ago; his daughter married some engineer and left with him for Samarkand or for Samarkand - God knows her. However, I hardly remember this cousin. I only remember that her whole face seemed to be freckled. Friends, comrades of student years, all disappeared somewhere, disappeared ... That's really true - "we managed to hide so well that we couldn't find each other after." Some have reached “known levels,” others have sunk in the provinces, some have died, and two or three hotheads have ended up even in rather cold places.

However, one of my university comrades, Cheremukhin, staggered to my place for a long time and sometimes even stopped by quite often. He was a wonderful example of human nature, a phenomenon in his own way, in a word - one of the Mohicans of the sixties. He was terribly fond of philosophizing and passionately talked about the world of the whole world, about the poor and the rich, about good and evil - and his dog knows what else. He was an extremely dull and narrow-minded person. One of my acquaintances very aptly called him a "straight donkey." Cheremukhin could not understand the simplest things; he could not, for example, realize that yesterday's concepts and conversations might already be boring today, and tomorrow completely out of fashion. This wise man, who sported a summer coat in winter and wore ragged trousers in all seasons, and dreamed of covering other people's roofs when his own leaked, finally bored me to death with his banal arguments about good and evil and his eternal pestering for money. Now give him a ruble, then two, and each time almost always put vodka in front of him. It will stick like an insole and climbs with wet lips to kiss. I myself am a sober person and cannot stand drunkards ... Sometimes I will burst into tears again. “Ah, he says, my share, share! Where did you disappear to? And then suddenly, in a terrible voice, he will begin to sing: “Freedom is a proud inspiration, the people do not know you ...” Well, he just made a mess for me.

I ended up ordering Anna Efimovna not to accept this riff-raff. After that, he came to see me several times, and I heard him one day, going down the stairs, apparently extremely tired, exhausted, muttering through his teeth: “Get fat! The poor comrade does not want to know ... An official! .. ”And with some bitterness he always uttered this word! What the officials did to him, the devil knows! He was obviously angry, and every time he tugged the bell so furiously that it made me shudder, and my unfortunate nerves after that were positively upset. For the last time, leaving the door without salty slurping (the door in my apartment is constantly on a chain), he stopped on the landing, and I heard him shout to Anna Efimovna: “Tell your master that he is a pig! He thinks that I only go to him for money or for vodka! I don't care, he says, for his vodka! And I will return the rubles to him ... I wanted to talk to him. After all, he says, I used to love him, the beast! He, obviously, at that time was very upset and agitated by something, - but still it was rather tactless of him to talk about me with the servants in such a tone ...

Pavel Vladimirovich Zasodimsky Before the extinguished fireside Christmas Story

(From the memories of one of my friends)

That evening I was decidedly out of sorts. But how! .. Christmas time in the yard, and I'm sitting at home all alone. Runny nose, cough, stuffy chest...

I opened the door from the study to the hall and, out of grief, began to pace up and down the rooms. In due time, that is, at ten o'clock, my housekeeper Anna Efimovna served me tea. And I, with my hands behind my back, continued to stagger from corner to corner. Loneliness that evening weighed heavily on me. An old bachelor on weekdays does not feel his loneliness as much as in his free holiday time. I would like to take my soul away, to talk frankly with someone. And then, as luck would have it, ill health forced me to stay at home. And even then, with whom could I talk the way I wanted? I don’t have any relatives, no friends… it’s true, there are a lot of acquaintances, perhaps more than enough… But these acquaintances, these winter partners, are not at all what I need… And even those are not at hand now… Anna Efimovna? The woman is very respectable, there are no words, accurate, accurate, and for fifteen rubles a month she superbly manages my household, and serves me faithfully, that is, she steals on trifles, in moderation. But what to talk about with her? To listen again to her story about how she lived in Tsarskoye Selo with the old general's wife Khrenova and combed her fourteen lapdogs with a comb? .. You can joke with her, talk about dinner - and only ... Without any appetite I drank a glass of tea, poured another and left with him to the office.

- Would you like to clean up? Anna Yefimovna asked a little later, showing herself at the door.

Yes, I won't drink anymore! I answered her. - Take away! And you can go to sleep...

I lit the fireplace myself, moved a round table close to it, and placed on it my glass of tea and a small faceted decanter of Jamaican rum of the original Eliseev's preparation. Then I put out the candles on the desk, rolled a chair up to the fireplace and sat comfortably in it. Methodically, without haste, I put a spoon on the glass, lowered a piece of sugar into it and poured rum over it. A bluish-pale light flickered over the glass, and I began to look at it. Soon the light began to fall, darted about, flared up once or twice and went out. Gradually sipping, I drank a hot drink ... The apartment was quiet; Anna Yefimovna had evidently already gone to bed. Having finished my glass, I put it on the table, lit a cigar, and, leaning back in my chair, began to look into the fireplace. The firewood flared up, and sometimes, when the wind blew into the chimney, there was a slight smell of burning birch bark from the fireplace. This familiar smell reminded me of my distant childhood... I used to have fun Christmas evenings.

At that time, I lived in my native Mikhaltsevo with my father, mother, sister Olya and my nanny Maksimovna. A mountain was arranged for me in the garden, a Christmas tree was lit in the evenings ... Mother, apparently, loved me very much. I remember how she smoothed my blond curls, how she gently stroked my head and kissed me hard. Her kisses, I confess, I did not particularly like; I was much more willing to sneak kisses with the maid girls. My father was going to whip me more than once for pranks, but my mother always stood up for me. I once heard her say to her father in a moralizing tone:

“Please… leave, please!” After all, such a punishment can knock out any shame from a child!

Of course, I was very grateful for her intercession - but she was completely in vain lamenting for my sense of shame. This feeling has been lost. I was afraid only of physical pain, but the rods, as a shame, did not bother me in the least ...

All of them - father, mother, and sister, and nanny - have long gone to where no one comes from ... Mikhaltsevo was bought by some kind of fist, and familiar, dear lindens have long been cut down. My childhood story is overgrown with moss ...

Then I remembered how, as a high school student, in our provincial outback, I went to Christmas time with comrades disguised in familiar houses; danced, naughty, messed around. But while my comrades furtively smoked cigarettes and courted young ladies in the most innocent way, I extended my views beyond mere courtship. My friends called me "remote". Noisy and stormy student years passed. What crowded, lively gatherings we had at that time! Sometimes there is only a ruble in my pocket, and there is so much laughter, fun, bright hopes and dreams that a rich man cannot be bought for a million ... However, I never participated in comradely revelry with money. I have such a rule: do not spend money in vain ... And this early green youth has long flown away and now seems to me a dream. My curls have developed, thinned, and on the crown of my head a fair bald head shines.

Now, I can say that I am a well-to-do person. From the Tsarevokokshai railway administration I receive (with awards) about two thousand a year, and something is hidden in the bank. It seems that one could live and enjoy the blessings of this world. But there is no former appetite, no taste. Nothing particularly attracts me, does not pull me anywhere ... But is it really a “screw”. Only one uncle remained with me, and he died about ten years ago; his daughter married some engineer and left with him for Samarkand or for Samarkand - God knows her. However, I hardly remember this cousin. I only remember that her whole face seemed to be freckled. Friends, comrades of student years, all disappeared somewhere, disappeared ... That's really true - "we managed to hide so well that we couldn't find each other after." Some have reached “known levels,” others have sunk in the provinces, some have died, and two or three hotheads have ended up even in rather cold places.

(1 (13), according to other sources 4 (16). 11. 1843, - 4 (17). 05. 1912)

Servant of Truth and Goodness

Probably, there is no such Vologda resident who would not hear the name Zasodimsky. It appears from time to time on the pages of the local periodical press, in the city there is Zasodimsky Street - small in length, but located almost in the very center, between the VRZ park and the Elias Church, a monument architecture XVII century. And this surname itself is consonant with the names familiar to the inhabitants of the Vologda region: Za-sodimsky - living across the river Sodima (or, in a more familiar modern spelling, Sodema). One river with this name flows within the city of Vologda, on the other, at its confluence with the Sukhona, stands the city of Kadnikov. True, "to be heard" does not mean "consciously perceived." Not every Vologda resident has a good idea of ​​who Pavel Vladimirovich Zasodimsky is, why he is remarkable and why he deserves the respect of his descendants. Meanwhile, this man undoubtedly deserves the right to a quiet, but good reputation. Especially among the Vologda residents, because his life is closely connected with the Vologda Territory.

The mother of Pavel Zasodimsky belonged to the old family of the Vologda noblemen Zasetsky, who owned the suburban estates of Fominsky (now Dairy), Novoe and Chichulino. The writer's paternal grandfather was the son of a poor rural sexton from near Kadnikov. Consumed by a thirst for knowledge, he went to Moscow on his own initiative, graduated from the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy, listened to lectures at Moscow University; returning to his homeland, he taught at the Vologda Seminary, served in the bureaucratic field, was awarded the title of eminent citizen and received the right to hereditary nobility. According to P. V. Zasodimsky, he inherited the propensity for writing from his grandfather, who enthusiastically indulged in literary pursuits.

The writer was born in 1843 in Veliky Ustyug. He spent his childhood in Nikolsk, where his father served, and in the estate of his mother Mirolubovo, located 400 miles from Nikolsk. Having received good home education, he graduated from the Vologda gymnasium, began to study at St. Petersburg University, but was forced to leave him, because he was impoverished noble family did not have the means to support her student son. Years of deprivation and wanderings around Russia began. In search of earnings, the main occupation of Zasodimsky was gradually determined - literary work. The writer collaborated mainly with magazines of democratic orientation: “Delo”, “ Domestic notes", "Word", " Russian wealth”, which determined the circle of his acquaintances, and sometimes led to persecution by the authorities. Zasodimsky did not break ties with his native land and, when the opportunity arose, he visited Vologda, usually in spring or summer. In 1878, he traveled around the Zyryansk region, which was then part of the Vologda province, and based on the materials collected during this trip, he wrote a series of essays "Forest Kingdom". The summer of 1879 Zasodimsky spends in the Gorka estate near Kadnikov, owned by his relative E. P. Danilova. Subsequently, he comes here more than once, using the unfussy manor life for intense literary work. In the early 1890s, the Vologda province became the place of exile for Zasodimsky. After returning from it to St. Petersburg, the writer no longer visits his homeland. Last years his life was spent in the Novgorod province. There he died in 1912. His grave is located in the village of Opechensky Posad, near the walls of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

As for personal qualities writer, they are expressively described by one of his younger contemporaries.

On May 5, 1913, the poem “In Memory of P.V. Zasodimsky” appeared in the Vologda Leaflet newspaper, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the death of the writer-countryman. Its author was Mikhail Shvetsov, a well-known journalist and poet in Vologda. The poem is not completely free from civil rhetoric, but it is not difficult to catch the beating of living feeling in it. Despite the fact that in this kind of poetry idealization is a natural artistic device, there are no undeserved praises here. Literary portrait Zasodimsky, written by Shvetsov, corresponds to the truth.

I just entered life

When with a venerable writer,

A fighter for a bright ideal,

Not walking along the beaten paths,

For a brief moment, my path coincided.

There was a gentle look of azure eyes,

A little faded from suffering,

And without contrived embellishments

The story burned and warmed

From volunteer wanderings.

He was young in a great year,

When the uninhibited people

From the cage, dark and miserable,

And the power that found a stronghold,

We went east one way.

And if peers were attracted

To the hillocks of life's luck,

That, gifted them richer,

He set other tasks

And the young man went to the village.

And the crystal of his soul is pure,

Serving devotedly to the fatherland,

And long ripened in silence

His creations are good

Naive sincerity of life.

Servant of Truth and Goodness

I did not know justifications for violence,

Was deaf to the sound of silver

And a stranger to false quests

Figlyarov thought and pen.

They probably met in the second half of 1891 or in 1892, when Zasodimsky was serving a link in the Vologda province for a speech delivered at the funeral of N.V. Shelgunov, a publicist and literary critic revolutionary democratic. Gymnasium student Shvetsov was then 16-17 years old, Zasodimsky came close to the fifty-year milestone and really had a reputation as a venerable writer as the author of topical novels, short stories, short stories and essays, an employee of thick metropolitan magazines.

"The struggle for a bright ideal" was the program setting of both life and work of Zasodimsky. In the preface to his two-volume collected works, published in 1895, he explained the many years of commitment to literary work: “I wrote because I was always convinced and now convinced that I, to the best of my ability, perform a certain part of the general work, throwing into the soul of the reader good feelings and thoughts: love for one’s neighbor, aversion to evil, to violence and compassion for misfortune ... ”It is easy to verify the veracity of these words when reading the works written by Zasodimsky. They can give rise to criticism from a literary point of view, but the purity of the author's thoughts is beyond doubt, they were written by a morally healthy person.

It is noteworthy that the "common work" that Zasodimsky speaks of was not limited to the writer's word for him. At the end of 1872, he taught in the village of Bolshiye Megletsy, Novgorod province. In the summer of 1891, having just arrived in Vologda as an exile, he immediately began raising funds to help the starving. And living in St. Petersburg, from year to year he arranged Christmas trees in his apartment for children "from the basements" - with refreshments, gifts, games. His reverent concern for children's souls was reflected in literary creativity. Zasodimsky is one of the most famous children's writers of his time, the author of the collections Heartfelt Stories and Into Winter Twilight, which were repeatedly published.

Did Zasodimsky, as Mikhail Shvetsov asserts, really not follow “beaten paths”? It is difficult to give an unambiguous answer to this question. It is difficult to call him a pioneer in literature or in practical activities for the benefit of society. In the life and work of the writer, the tendencies characteristic of Russia in the second half of the 19th century were clearly manifested. He had an undoubted, but modest talent as a writer, not marked by the stamp of originality, originality. He was not so much a creative artist as a hard-working writer. Most naturally, his talent was embodied in social prose with clearly expressed journalistic, accusatory attitudes. An example of this is his novels “The Chronicle of the Village of Smurin”, “Through the Castles and Vessels”, “Sin”, the novels “The Wolf”, “Dark Forces”, “A Man Has Disappeared”. They depict the destructive intrusion of bourgeois relations into the life of the patriarchal village, the life of the urban lower classes, tragic fates singles who want to live "to their liking."

And the problems of the works of Zasodimsky, and literary forms, in which it was embodied, bore the stamp of not only free creative choice, but also the dictates of the times. As a writer, Zasodimsky was formed in the post-reform era, when the "great chain", having broken up, hit "one end on the gentleman, the other on the peasant." The government that initiated the reforms and the “uninhibited people” did not “walk the same road” for long. Moreover, their joint march along this road very soon revealed its illusory nature. Then the "going to the people" of the noble and raznochinsk intelligentsia began, experiencing a sense of "guilt" before the destitute working masses. She was fascinated by the idea of ​​"peasant socialism". She, this intelligentsia, tried to give the people what those in power could not and did not want to give. Zasodimsky took part in this social movement, shared populist views in many respects, collaborated in populist publications, spent more than one month in “volunteer wanderings through towns and villages”, but never became a populist in the full sense. He belonged to the type of figures who firmly follow their convictions, not sacrificing them in the name of abstract goals, group interests, tactical considerations and personal benefits. “Hills of life's luck”, “silver ringing” and “false searches for buffoons of thought and pen” - all this had no price in the eyes of Zasodimsky. His convictions were not based on political or economic theories. In them, the main place was occupied by active philanthropy, the desire for goodness and moral well-being in spite of momentary benefits and distant prospects, no matter how promising they may be. It was this perseverance of the individual in the face of ideological, social, literary temptations that Mikhail Shvetsov probably had in mind when he wrote about Zasodimsky's unwillingness to follow "the beaten paths."

There is such a concept - bright man. It suits Pavel Vladimirovich Zasodimsky as well as possible.

Sergey Baranov, Ph.D., professor

Electronic resource dedicated to P. V. Zasodimsky, on the VOUNB website.

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"TEREKHIN SON"

Christmas story

Terenty had just had supper. He sat in silence, and thoughtfully watched as his wife cleared the table and swept bread crumbs from it.

And you have to be, tomorrow you’ll have to go to Kuzmich for bread, ”he said, scratching the back of his head.

Yes, how ... we know, we have to! - Marina answered. - There is not a bit of flour ... I wish you had a handful left ... All went into the sourdough yesterday.

Well, Kuzmich too!.. A-ah! continued Terenty, shaking his head.

In such a hungry year, grief is for people, but for them, convicts, expanse, you see! Come on, he’ll fill the purse ... Lots of time ... Fat-bellied goblin!

Will beat! How not to fill ... - Terekha resolutely assented and fell silent.

The wife went behind the partition and banged her crinkles there very loudly.

Is it possible that the allowance will come from the authorities from the administration1, - a little later, as if to console himself, Terekha spoke. - They say: it seems, it will come out ... There Vaska Khorek says: she herself was in the city, at the bazaar, I heard ...

Wait! - Marina grumbled from behind the partition. - Until then, you will die ten more times ...

Again silence.

A torch burned in the light, crackling slightly and dropping sparks on the slatted floor. A reddish, shimmering light dispersed throughout the hut; one could see smoky log walls, a large smoky stove, shelves, and the edge of a shabby sheepskin coat hanging from them. Frost intricately painted white, icy patterns on a small window ... A thin and pitiful red cat sat on a bench and quietly purred. It was clearly audible how the skids creaked in the street: to know if someone had passed. Terenty leaned over to the window and peered into it through the gaps that remained on the glass in some places between the icy patterns.

Starred ... - he said. - It can be seen that the frost will spin again ...

And it became cold with us nonche in the hut! - the wife answered, still continuing to rummage behind the partition. - I was spinning the evening, so the legs just froze - God forbid! Mayota! .. How to start whining - there is no urine ... From the floor it hurts too much.

How not to carry! - Terekha agreed. - There it is in the corners - it freezes through ... The old building! Known...

And they fell silent again. Quiet in the hut. Only the red cat draws its monotonous, endless "mry", "mry". Indeed, it is cold in the hut. It smells of smoke from the splinter.

It's full of messing around, it will be ... it's time to sleep! The roosters, look, soon they will suddenly begin to sing, ”Terekha said, yawning, and white steam poured out of his mouth.

So what! Sleep, so sleep! - Marina said. - And now I ...

Terekha climbed onto the bed and, yawning and stretching, collapsed on them, putting his hands under his head. Soon the wife, having extinguished the torch, climbed onto the stove. For a few more minutes she could be heard yawning and sighing heavily, saying:

Oh my God... Holy Mother of God... save and have mercy! O-oh, they sinned, sinners... A-a-ah!..

They yawned, sighed, and both soon fell asleep...

Maybe not every reader knows that in Russia there is an Obnishchalovskaya volost, and in that volost there is a village of Sidorov, Sidorov Kozy - also. The village truly exists ... Once upon a time, our Terenty Gulyak also lived in it. It is not known exactly where his nickname came from, although everyone is well aware that neither Terekha, nor his father, nor his grandfather walked more than other Sidorov peasants. However, Terekha is not such a great person that it is worth looking into his pedigree...

Terekha lived all his life, living somehow, from a bag to a matting. Either he would kill all his bread with hail, then his cattle would die, or in harvest years, it happened that kulaks would devastate his farm no worse than a bug or locust. That is why he had a bad life. Four years ago he sold his last cow, his horse barely drags its legs, thin and thin, like a skeleton; mice, under fear of starvation, had long fled from his barn. Terekha cannot muster the strength to fix the hut. In a word, his whole life can be expressed in the well-known couplet:

Cold, stranger, cold!

Hungry, darling, hungry...3

Life was bad, but sometimes Terekha had wonderful dreams. One of these dreams occurred to him on the very night of which the story is being told...

He dreamed that he had died ... He died and suddenly felt as light as fluff. He himself does not know how he got out of the hut, rose into the air and flew - not by himself, but as if some invisible force carried him. It was evening. It was getting dark. When Terekha flew over Sidorov, fires were lit in some places in the huts. He knew that for the last time he was looking at these red, flashing lights, at these dark and low, as if knocked down huts, with gray straw eaves, at these miserable, as if plucked willows, at the old, broken wattle fences, at empty fields, on the borders, on the meadows, familiar to him from childhood. He knew that he was looking at all this for the last time, and vigilantly, intently began to peer through the gray, evening twilight at his native places. His heart was beating strongly, like a bird caught unawares ... Here he sees Grandmother Vasilisa dragging herself from somewhere with a spinning wheel to her hut. Uncle Yegor finds a horse in the yard. There Alyoshka the kisser stands on the threshold of his drinking place, under the green, spruce branches, tied to a high pole ... Somewhere the children are screaming ... But now Sidorovo has already remained on the sidelines.

Terekha flew over the church, over the churchyard. The high bell tower in the gray twilight seemed to him like some kind of white ghost. This wretched village church, with a dark, low door, a church covered with greenish moss and as if grown into the ground, with cracked walls, with a dilapidated brick fence and with a large gray stone lying at its entrance from time immemorial, has long been familiar to Terekha, with the same time as he began to remember himself. That was a long time ago, about forty years ago... He often sat on this very gray stone as a small child, when, on a holiday, on a red summer day, he came with his father and mother to Nikola, to mass. And behind the church, half a mile away, is a high lawn. Here in spring the snow melts early and the ground dries out soon. This lawn is covered with green grass early, early spring is decorated with yellow flowers. The lark sings over this lawn... And on the days of the bright week, young boys and girls gather there for a walk, play, dance, sing songs. Terekha also used to go here as a bridegroom, to this high lawn, and here, on the green ant, under the shining spring skies, he played with his Mariska. A healthy, ruddy girl was his Mariska, and at that time he was a guy "not a smartass" ...

And now, in the graveyard, an old acquaintance, Matveich, is digging a grave for him. The old one is trying ... Look how! And he even threw off his hat, so as not to interfere, hung it on grave cross. The old one is knocked out. The spade moves unevenly in his tired hand. With difficulty Matveich throws clods of yellowish clay out of the pit. Terekha peers intently into his wrinkled face with gray furrowed brows. "Good! Dig, old man, well, dig deeper, dig! Soon, look, you will need this spade too... Dig deeper, dig, but don't step, don't make notches on the spade"... Terekha thought so. And Matveich wipes the sweat from his face with his hand and goes back to work, again scattering clods of yellowish clay around the edges of the grave, and sometimes throwing out white human bones with a spade ... Night falls.

Terekha flies higher and higher. The earth is disappearing... Forgive the earth, mother!... Some kind of gray mists, like endless, boundless seas, are advancing, agitating around Terekha and obscuring the white light from it with an impenetrable gray haze. Terekha flew and flew and he himself does not know: how long, how short he flew, and finally flew to the next world ...

And so he goes up the mountain. The mountain is rocky, quite steep and high-high. There, high, far away, from the top, its golden radiance spreads, which sometimes happens in the sky at a quiet morning hour, at dawn, before sunrise. A narrow path winds, runs up the mountain, higher and higher. "What a huge mountain! Fathers of light! .." Terekha thought with great surprise, having hitherto been accustomed to the smooth surface and to the wide, open expanse of his Sidorov fields and meadows and who had seen the mountains only in the painted pictures that hang in the Levont's inn. Bending his head, Terekha looked up and suddenly saw that in front of him, about three steps away, along the same narrow, stony path, a divine angel was quietly, inaudibly walking and, as it were, showing him the way. The angel so easily walks on sharp, cutting stones, as if he were swimming, sliding through the air. With reverence, but quite calmly, Terekha looks at him. "Well, what is it! After all, I'm in the next world now," Terekha thinks and, without taking his eyes off, looks at his heavenly companion. An angel is like an angel... He is wearing white and light, flowing clothes; over his shoulders he has two brilliant wings of extraordinary, dazzling whiteness. He has light, shining hair. On sharp turns Terekha manages to see his white face with a slight blush, thin and tender, like the glow of dawn. And the eyes are large, blue, glowing with unearthly fire. "I've seen him somewhere!" Terekha thought. "Yes! I remembered..."

There, at Nikola's, gates were built on both sides of the church gates. One of them is boarded up tightly, and the other serves for the passage of pilgrims. On the first gate oil paints death is depicted, a disgusting, yellow skeleton, with a bare skull, with dark gaping cavities instead of eyes, with bared teeth and with a long scythe in a bony hand. On the other gate was written an angel, exactly the same as the one now walking in front of Terekha. As a boy, Terekha was very familiar with these images; often and for a long time, it happened, he looked at them. Then it seemed to him that death was smiling, and the angel was smiling too, but from one smile to another it was as far as from earth to heaven. Death smiled wickedly, as if it wanted to eat everyone who came... And on the other, in a white robe, a meek, calm smile played on his lips. The little boy was very fond of this angel... Dampness, rain and winter weather spoiled the painting on the gates; the paint completely faded in places, cracked and peeled off in places ... But before, in childhood, Terekha had seen this angel more than once in a dream ...

"It's him, the guardian angel..." Terekha thought, following his leader. He heard that every person has his own guardian angel, that this guardian angel accompanies a person after death - to the next world, does not give him offense to the Unclean, intercedes for him before God ...

For a long time Terekha followed the angel up the hill. Finally, they climbed very high... The radiance spilling from the top of the mountain seemed to be approaching them. Terekha began to look around more anxiously... And only then, for the first time, did the thought occur to him: where is he going?.. What was he thinking until now? Where was his head?.. A burning anxiety suddenly seized him all over. Terekha could not overcome his anxiety and impatience and immediately turned to his heavenly guide for information.

Angel of God! Where does this path go? - he asked.

She goes to heaven and hell! - the angel replied in a quiet, clear voice, half turning to Terekha.

Terekha felt how strongly his heart was beating and his legs suddenly began to give way on their own. He suddenly seemed to become quite heavy, as if ten-pound weights were hoisted onto his shoulders.

And to heaven and hell ... Have mercy, Lord! he whispered to himself in a tangled tongue.

And we ... that is, it means ... I'm a sinner ... how about that ... Where will I get to? Terekha asked his leader confusedly and stupidly.

And there they will determine ... it will be seen! - the angel said, still imperturbably calm, in a quiet voice, meekly, thoughtfully looking at Terekha with his deep, shining eyes. - If your sins are not great, God is merciful ... otherwise! ..

And the angel, sadly lowering his head, turned away from Terekha and silently continued on his way. Every quiet word that escaped his lips filled Terekha with indescribable horror. He wanted to hurriedly sort out in his memory all his greatest sins, but the sins were not given: his memory betrayed him in those fatal moments. Only every trifle and nonsense now climbed into my head ... "He stole peas from Uncle Levontya ... turnips, too ... he carried firewood from someone else's forest ... once he convicted the headman Semyon of outrages ..." All this is not that ! What great sins! Turnips and peas are sown for thieves, they say in Sidorov. And then - firewood from the Sysoev forest ... Is it Sysoev's forest? The forest is God's... Who doesn't know this! Ask at least any baptized ... The baby will answer, he will say the same ... No! Are there such great sins? “I didn’t commit murder, I didn’t rob, I didn’t do any bad deeds, so, let’s say on the butt: about the withdrawal of horses - no-and-and my God!” In vain did Terekha rack his brains. He thought and thought, remembered, remembered, but he could not find a single "great" sin behind him. And how, it seemed, conscientiously, diligently he rummaged and fumbled in all the nooks and crannies of his peasant conscience! Thread by thread, it seemed, he was sorting through his entire past earthly life, looked both here and there: did not he collapse, they say, where there is no serious long-standing sin. No and no! .. "And what kind of sins ..." - thought Terekha, having seen, as in the palm of his hand, all his earthly past and removed from his conscience the most strict and impartial interrogation. "Unless I forgot, unless it got out of my head ..."

Terekha lowered his heavy head on his chest in impotence and sighed deeply. And the disturbing thought, full of melancholy and despair, did not leave him, did not give him peace, blew cold on him. "Well, I forgot, I looked through something ... Lord, save and have mercy!" To approve himself, he again entered into conversation with the angel.

Are you my guardian angel? Terekha asked him touchingly.

Yes, exactly ... I'm your guardian angel! he said.

Intercede! Do not leave ... - begged the poor man.

Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, Terenty, as long as I'm with you...

He said and was silent.

Terekha seemed to feel a little better. With hope, with hope, he looked at his counselor.

And now I'll show you what ... Look! .. What do you see there? the angel spoke, stretching out his snow-white hand and pointing to Terenty to the right.

And there, on the slope of the mountain, a most wonderful sight unfolded. There are delightful groves, without swamps, without tussocks, without stumps, without burnt trees, without fellings - cheerful, clean groves, between them are green meadows with thick, juicy, unrumpled grass; those meadows are covered with beautiful flowers; shimmering now with gold, now with silver, streams and quiet rivers flow along them ... The sky is clear, blue. The sun - brighter and warmer than that which stands over Sidorov - pours streams of light over this wonderful, peaceful side. The wind doesn't blow. Quiet. It seems that you can hear how the flower bends its head towards the flower ... Quietly, only you can hear the birds singing in the distance, in the depths of the green, mysterious thickets ... Everything in it for Terekha is full of indescribable charms and charms. Everything here, starting from a small blade of grass and ending with a golden, sunbeam breaking through the green foliage, everything breathed calm, peace and at the same time - the most complete, healthy, mighty life. Neither in the pictures that Levontya hangs in the inn, nor in his sleepy dreams did Terekha see anything resembling this blissful, beautiful side.

"That's where you shouldn't die!" - thought Terekha and was going to ask the angel: what is the name of this quiet, bright side.

From these places, paradise begins ... And there - the farther, the better go! - said the angel, as if reading Terekhin's thought and pointing with his hand to the groves and meadows.

Now come back here! Look! Here, to the left, - said the angel.

Terekha looked to the left, and froze in horror - neither alive nor dead. To the left of the path, along the slopes of the mountain, spread some kind of gloomy, dark side, all pitted with ravines and bottomless abysses. Neither the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars shine here. The sky is completely dark, as if it were all covered with black cloth. Only on the very horizon, the strip glows with some kind of bluish, ghostly light ... So the sulfur matches glow in the dark. The earth is almost completely bare, as if covered with ashes or cinders. Here and there dry, dark grass sticks out; in some places bushes are drawn as black ugly spots. Pitiful trees - bare, blackened, as if after a fire - an ominous shadow, like giants, stand here and there. The water in streams and rivers - also black as ink - does not seem to flow, but seems to be motionless. The water in these rocky shores seems to have frozen, froze ... Gray and black stone blocks and whole cliffs and rocks are scattered everywhere, as if someone deliberately scattered them in order to give this picture a wilder, dull look. But Terekha could see all this only with great difficulty through the thick twilight that clouded the entire neighborhood from this side. It is clear that it was not easy for him to peer into this gloomy mist with all its ghosts. After all, he had just, this very minute, still admired the joyful light and brilliance of the Gardens of Eden. The longer Terekha looked, the more his eyes got used to the darkness, the clearer the picture unfolding before him seemed to him ... It seemed to him that a reddish glow was flickering over one of the largest, most terrible abysses. From the depths of the abyss, like lightning, sometimes some ominous, reddish-yellow light gleams, cutting eyes, extremely unpleasant. Where Terekha looked earlier, birds sang softly in the distance, and here, from somewhere far away, as if from the bottom of an abyss, muffled groans, sobs, cries are heard; some kind of underground rumble is buzzing non-stop, like endless peals of thunder ... Terekha is drawn to at least one eye to look into the abyss.

Get up here! the angel suddenly said, pointing to Terenty at a large gray stone lying on the edge of the path. "Look in, don't be afraid!" Look what it's like in hell...

Terekha was dumbfounded. "Here he is, it's hell..." No matter how frightened Terekha was, he nevertheless climbed a large gray stone. For a long time he gathered his courage, finally gathered himself, looked ... "Fathers, my lights!" - Terekha almost roared with a good obscenity and, staggering, almost fell off the stone.

A terrible sight met his eyes. In the ominous, reddish light of the infernal glow, he saw how the sinners were tormented, they were grievously tormented. Then he met Terekha and familiar faces ... Look at the devils Kuzmich in a frying pan. Kuzmich is their famous world-eater, who throughout his life did not give mercy to any poor man, ripped off the last shirt from the beggar, robbed the living and the dead. The Sidorovites suffered a lot of grief because of him, shed a lot of tears ... It's for the same, apparently, that now he ended up in pitch hell. Kuzmich lies completely naked on a large frying pan, and shudders and wriggles like an eel. Black, shaggy devils rush around him in a swarm, now and then adding to the fire. Hellfire squirms higher and higher and licks the edges of the pan. Kuzmich writhes in pain; his skin bursts, and the fat from it drips, flows into the pan, and so Kuzmich is fried in his own lard. His eyes are like those of a madman; painful convulsions distort his face, his mouth is wide open, dry lips move soundlessly. The fire flares up more and more... Kuzmich gasps, grimaces, trembles all over.

Drink some water! Voditsy ... - groaning and gritting his teeth, whispers Kuzmich.

Evil, devilish laughter is heard in response to him. The devils are poking him in the mouth with burning, tarred tow... Terrible! Terekha averts her eyes from him and looks further...

And there - again an old acquaintance - Maksimka, Korchagin's kisser. He sits on a bench, tightly tied, and the devils give him fiery vodka to drink from a large ladle. He cannot breathe. His face is red as fire. From his nose, from his mouth, a bluish flame erupts. Maximka helplessly shakes her head...

Yes! Not a few baptized people this Maxim got drunk in his lifetime; not a few sins he took on his soul ... And it became hot for him now, when he himself had to swallow the fire with a ladle. No wonder he is so desperately, so furiously shaking his head in all directions. But there is nothing to do! If you want - if you don't want, drink!

Here is the manager of the Andreevsky estate, also an old acquaintance. This one still "to the will" wised over them, over the Sidorovites. He loved to show his strength and power over the defenseless. He fought painfully cruelly ... How many people, because of his grace, went to Siberia - you can’t count it soon ... a lot of men and women left. For that, now he had a hard time. He hangs upside down, suspended by his thin, thin legs from some kind of crossbar, hangs, dangles from side to side and howls plaintively. With a huge saw, the devils are sawing his arms and legs... His eyes almost roll out, the veins on his forehead and temples are very tense, as if they want to burst, his face is bluish-purple, and it all twitches terribly, as if on springs... He creaks and gnashes his teeth so loudly that his gnashing almost drowns out the squeal of the saw. Only he cannot drown out the diabolical laughter that incessantly resounds around him - above, below and from all four sides... - ugly, shaggy - just climb into his eyes ...

A little further on Terekha saw Fedoska. This is an unlucky woman, a soldier, from a neighboring village. Because of her tricks, one guy cut another's head to death. Because of her, Terekha's older brother, Fyodor, left his wife - a humble, quiet creature, not muddied with water; family went around the world. Much grief good people seen from her ... Now she is chained to some kind of stump, and the devils are whipping her with white-hot iron rods. As they whip her, so from her back and rain red sparks. Terekha recalled how once, in his presence, a blacksmith was unforging an iron strip. Then, from under his hammer, sparks flew exactly the same way, rained down ... Now the only difference is that Fedoska's back serves as an anvil for the devils.

Ohh me... sickly! - she screams, helplessly rushing and rushing about under the blows raining down on her ...

There, someone in boiling resin stands waist-deep, and here, you see, the sinner has already fallen right into the fire - it burns, but does not burn out ... Terekha has seen enough fears. But all that is written here, he saw not suddenly. With each new spectacle of torment, with each appearance of a familiar face, Terekha was completely covered with brew from head to toe. Finally, he became unbearable, became so terrified that he closed his eyes and turned away ... His head was spinning, his legs gave way. Cold sweat broke through ... Although his eyes were closed, he still vividly imagined ominous fiery tongues, frying pans, saws, red-hot iron rods, naked human bodies writhing in terrible convulsions, distorted faces, widely open mouths or hard, painfully compressed lips, glances full of endless, cold despair.

Really ... really? .. - Terekha murmured with a stagnant tongue, descending from the stone and again continuing the path behind his bright leader.

Are you embarrassed, Terenty? Wait... God is merciful! - the angel said in his quiet, calm voice, as if guessing about the painfully painful thought of Terenty, who was still in the unknown about where he was going, what awaited him ahead.

Finally, Terekha and his guardian angel climbed to the very top of the mountain. The path along which they walked ran into a grate. That grating seemed to Terekha cast iron. The shiny, gilded balls that adorned it burned with heat in the bright rays of the sun. Terekha had to see a lattice similar to this one in the city, near one rich church. Only this lattice, in front of which he now found himself, was not an example higher and more beautiful than that one. Behind it one could see the greenery of the trees, and there was a smell of some flowers or incense, but in any case it smelled sweeter than in those mansions in which he happened to drop in on business. You could hear the birds singing - finches, robins, larks...

Here we come! Do you see the gate? This is the gate to heaven! - Said the angel, pointing to Terekha at the gilded gate, from the inside of which hung a huge castle.

Terekha was dumbfounded. "Arrived!" What will happen to his head now? He was so confused that he even forgot to cross himself... Suddenly, on the other side of the gate, a venerable old man appeared, tall, with gray silver hair, with a gray beard. His thick eyebrows are slightly drawn back, and his whole wrinkled but handsome old face looks extremely serious. A wide blue robe descends in hundreds of folds from his broad, powerful shoulders. Under his bosom he has some kind of red book. big keys he holds in his hand. The keys tinkle, rattle... Then Terekha remembered that exactly the same old man was painted on the same image in their village church. The same old face, the same serious eyes, the same blue clothes, and the keys in his hand ... in a word, everything is the same, exactly the same. Terekha often looked at this image during mass. Then someone told him - almost their former headman, literate, Andrei Mikhailovich, that the apostle Peter was written on that image. "And he has these keys ... see? He has the keys to the gates of heaven!" they told him then. Terekha remembered everything now in a single moment. So, now before him is the apostle Peter himself. "Lord! What will happen to me now!.. Oh, my sins, my grave sins!" Terekha thought to himself in dismay.

At that time, the old man, rattling his keys, went up to the very gates and looked intently at Terekha. What kind of person are you?..

How can I cope, holy apostle, about him ... Will they let him in, a sinner? - asked the angel, leaning against the bars with his snow-white wing.

Yes! Peasant... poor man! he said.

Hm! .. What is your name and what parish will you be? - the old man asked Terekha graciously already in a completely soft tone.

From his intent gaze and from the sound of his mighty voice, Terekha was confused and completely mad. He even forgot his name. For the life of me, I won't remember! His brother's name was Fedor, yes... for sure... but his... well, that's not right, and the Sabbath!

His name is Terenty Gulyak! - the angel prompted for him. - He is from the village, Sidorov, Obnishchalovskaya volost ...

So! Let's see... - said the old man, as if to himself, and, opening the red book, began to leaf through it.

"Will he let me through, father? Holy Apostle of God..." Terekha flashed anxiously and vaguely in his head. Holding his breath, he watched intently as the old man leafed through his red book. At that time, it seemed, his whole soul passed into his eyes ... And the elder for a long, long time, for centuries, as it seemed to Terekha, carefully leafed through the book, tilting his gray head over it and repeating to himself: “Terenty ... Terenty. .. Hm!" Terekha was trembling like an aspen leaf in the wind... The birds were no longer heard. All that was heard was the slight rustling of pages being turned over in the book. The angel stood silently, motionless, slightly bowing his head with blond, shining hair to the bars. His beautiful, thoughtful eyes, quiet and meek, like clear morning light, looked first at the old man, then at Terekha. Finally, the elder stopped, evidently he found what he needed. Putting forefinger on the open page, he spoke in a sonorous, distinct voice:

Terenty Gulyak - a peasant of the village of Sidorov? So?

Yes sir! Terekha murmured, involuntarily perking up at the familiar sounds.

You are inscribed in the Book of the Life, Terenty, in good standing, - the old man said solemnly. - And your sins, voluntary and involuntary, are forgiven, even in a word, even in deed, even in knowledge and ignorance you have created ... You have many sins, and you suffered a lot for that in his lifetime. Many of your sins happened simply, from the darkness of a peasant, and not because you yourself loved to sin ... Now I will let you into paradise!

The keys rattled. The old man began to open the gate. "Fathers! What am I ... in some sort of sackcloth, but climbed into paradise!" - Terekha exclaimed in embarrassment to himself, looking at his person. He was barefoot, in an old, tattered coat, without a belt, without a hat. "Knowing, I would like to pull on at least a new Armenian coat! Eh!" Terekha was ashamed of himself, of his muzhik squalor, but there was no time to think for a long time ...

Go! - the old man said, opening the gates wide in front of him.

The angel entered first, followed by Terekha... Lord! This is truly paradise! Terekha walked along a wide, clean street strewn with sand. So only in the city the streets are strewn with sand, and perhaps even large, high-roads, when they are corrected before the governor's passage ... On either side of the street, bushes and trees - all in greenery, in flowers, and between these trees stand all the huts - big, good... And what kind of huts! Lord God! .. The huts are all new, from a thick, pine forest - they glisten in the sun. Watching is expensive! All the huts are perfectly caulked... "You see! You know, they didn't spare the mohu!" Terekha reasoned with the air of an expert, looking lovingly at the buildings. The windows in the huts are large, bright, not a single piece of glass is broken in them, not sealed with paper, not plugged with a rag. Roofs - plank, excellent - "you want to ride on them!". The pipes are not basket-shaped, not made of shingles, but all brick, tall, real, as they are - urban. Porches with canopies, the windows also have various carved painted figures ... "To live in such huts, and you don’t need to die!" - Terekha thought to himself, admiring the new log walls, shimmering with gold among the greenery surrounding them. “It’s warm, go, in such huts, it doesn’t smell like the wind - it won’t blow ... Dry, go, it won’t drip from the ceiling, neither rain nor snow will get through ... That’s it! Now to know that paradise Here they are, heavenly abode! Lord, merciful God! It was joyful and light in Terekha's soul, as on Christ's day. With great, deep emotion, he looked around, following the angel, he looked around sharply ... And everything he looked at was very good. "No! Kuzmichevsky village is far from these farms, as I can see! Where are they! .." - Terekha finally decided with confidence.

Near the huts, under the trees, on the porches and under the windows, people could be seen, more and more like a simple, black people: peasants and women. But no one shouted, no one scolded ... Everyone is so cheerful, happy, calm; everyone is so clean, in clean, good clothes - exactly on a holiday they went out for a walk. There are old people, and guys, and little guys. The guys play, run and don’t fight ... Whoever sits eats the city kalach, who drinks tea, who plays the accordion and sings a good song ...

N-n-well, and life! E-ah! - Terekha could not resist, he said aloud.

That's why it's heaven! the angel remarked.

Yes, this is what to say ... And it is clear that paradise! - Terekha picked up with warmth.

So good free life he had not yet dreamed in a dream.

Suddenly, near one hut, he saw his Sidorovites, old acquaintances, recently and long dead.

Well, go at least to this hut! Here are your countrymen, - said the angel.

He said and disappeared. Terekha no longer saw him... And he went to the hut indicated to him by the angel. As soon as he stepped under the shade of the trees, he immediately met his father and mother. He bowed low to the ground to them, then they hugged tightly and kissed.

So you, dear, moved to us! - said his mother. - Well, how is your Marinushka doing? How are all of us?

Nothing! They live a little, God have mercy, - Terekha answered, as usual. - But Marinka ... but what ... he ordered her to live long ...

A slight sadness touched Terekha's heart. It was not sadness about the abandoned land, but regret that he could not immediately transfer here his mistress, who was truly yearning for him, and in general all his fellow countrymen ...

At that moment, a little boy, completely white-headed, with fair, flaxen hair, with a ruddy, flushed face, ran up to Terekha, merrily jumping up and singing something - you know, he was fiddling around a lot, rascal!

Dad! Dad has come! he shouted cheerfully, grabbing Terekha by the floor and rising on tiptoe.

Ah! Mishukha! Go, go! - Terekha spoke and, taking the boy in his arms, with a happy smile, silently looked into his kind, childish eyes and began to kiss him.

(Mishukha died of diphtheria five years ago, and Terekha and his wife missed him painfully. He was their only son.)

What is it like, brother, you live here, huh? Come on, tell me! - Terekha said, holding his son in his arms, as he often held him during his lifetime, on the ground, when his wife used to go to the cattle or dress up around the house. - Tell me! he repeated, affectionately stroking Mishukha through his soft, flaxen hair.

I live, aunt, well! There are many, many of us here, - the boy answered him, wrapping one hand around his neck, and running the other into his beard.

And I yearned for him - passion! I just didn’t tell anyone,” Terekha remarked, turning to the old people.

Well, let's go now! There are a lot of our people there, - the old man said, waving his hand in the direction of the hut, and quietly walked forward.

Ah! Terenty? - the Sidorovites met him. - Great, brother, you live! Has it been a long time since he arrived in our cloisters? Recently! Te-e-k!

Terentya was taken to the hut.

First, from the senets, along the way, he was taken to a closet, where there were whole heaps of all kinds of clothes. Here they put everything clean on Terekha, a new shirt made of "French" chintz, an army coat - also new ... They gave him a tanned, sheepskin coat with blue cloth lining, two pairs of felt boots, boots, a hat and a lot of butts. Everything superfluous that Terekha did not need at that moment was dumped into a special chest, which stood right there, against the wall ... After that, Terekha was brought to the hut ...

It was bright, clean, comfortable in this hut. Wide white benches ran along the walls; in the front corner stood a large table, beautifully painted with all sorts of patterns. Behind the partition is a large, also painted cabinet with glass doors, exactly the same as Father Vasily, the Nikolsky priest, recently made for himself. There are apparently more cups, glasses, saucers and any other utensils in that set than the priest's. They are glued on the walls within the framework of the picture, there are divine ones between them, there are also "with generals", all sorts. Yellow, golden birds fly in the wild, sit either on the windowsill or on the crow and sing wonderfully. Birds like these, Terekha manor estate seen - in cells. Those sang worse ... Where! Here you can listen to them, the music plays so smoothly... The ceiling in the hut is white, smoothly planed. The stove is large, good, folded "in white", does not smoke, does not smoke - and there is no soot, it does not eat your eyes. And what kind of logs are in the wall ... passion! Don't grab! Thick, white and dry - not a single slit can be seen! "What is this? Lord! This is paradise..." Terekha thought for the hundredth time, quickly looking around at all the delights of his new home. "Yes! Here, brother, you can live! .."

They warmed up the samovar, brought it and put it on the table. Well, it's a samovar!.. One word - one and a half buckets! The samovar is made of yellow copper and shines like gold, not like Levont's, in the inn; Levontya’s samovar is always some kind of dirty, dull, all green spots, without a burner, with a broken handle ... But here everything is in order ... They served a whole pile of white wheat bread on the table of rolls, served sugar and honey, a slice rye bread, all kinds of pies were applied - with fish and sweet ones, a dish of hot fatty lamb, a dish of boiled fish, a dish - fried, jelly, baked eggs ... And from all this delicious steam comes down. Eat, Tereha! Eat - I don’t want to, as much as it takes ... “Look like in the other world! Not that ... ” Terekha thought enthusiastically and immediately sighed, remembering his mistress and the Sidorovites ... They, go, all they are still waiting for "allowances", but on frosty mornings they go to the forest for firewood.

The old-aged grandfather Pamfil disposed of the treat. Terekha had not even seen him before that time: grandfather Pamfil died more than a hundred years old, he died when Terekha was only four years old. Grandfather Pamfil on Sidorov was the oldest old man ever known in the world. He lived under the empress and under three emperors... And now, according to his old habit, he treated everyone as if they were small children.

Eat, eat, Teresh, to your health! Drink some tea! he said in a quiet, gentle voice, moving towards Terenty a cup and a saucer filled with large pieces of sugar. “Drink as you like, you like it as a bite, you like it over the top ... Sugar, lad, do not feel sorry for it: we have mountains of it ...

And Terekha ate, Terekha drank, drank until the ninth sweat, finally threw off his little Armenian, unbelted.

Well, fellow countrymen... and what an important life you have here! - he said, addressing his interlocutors.

Nothing! We live well - amicably, artelno, - they answered him.

A lot of Sidorovites gathered in the hut, everyone sat down near Terekha, at random. Many of them, long dead, like Grandfather Pamphilus, he did not know at all. But then, of course, fellow countrymen soon got to know each other. Terekha looked at this gathering, and he remembered how it used to be - when some serviceman from the Sidorovites returned home on a leave of absence - people gathered in the hut to his relatives in the evenings - to look at a soldier, listen to soldiers' tales about foreign countries and about all sorts of curiosities. "Just like now!" Terekha thought, looking at the faces around him. “It’s like I’ve just returned from the war, and my countrymen came to look at me and listen to my tales about our military life...”

Word for word, and the conversation went its own way.

Well, how, brother, are our people doing there? - They asked, among other things, Terekha.

Nothing! God bless you,” Terekha began with his usual saying. Buyers here, too, press painfully in the fall ... Need, God forbid!

How about obscenity? What is our foreman doing? - the Sidorovites asked. - Is the board still in the same place where it was? ..

The foreman ... What can he do! He’s completely out of his mind, I mean…” continued Terekha, not in the least surprised that the Sidorians in the next world were so curious about earthly affairs. In that direction, you know, to Kuzmich, beyond the ditch, where there will be a lower place ... Well, and obschestvo - nothing, everything is the same as before ... Only now, my brothers, but now we have more of this, that means , went to the expense of "allowance" ...

T-e-e-ek! - Grandpa Pamfil drawled. We sat down, were silent.

Tell me, brothers, about the local order,” Terekha began a little later.

What head? We do not pay capitation! - answered him.

So you're screwing everything up? - remarked the quick-witted Terekha. - Well, that's not the point! Arrears, I suppose, you have accumulated - a cloud, you can’t pay forever ...

Why not "pay"? What are you talking about! - interrupted him. - You understand: there are no fees! Well, and arrears, it means that there is nothing to save on ...

Terekha did not dare to argue, looking at the serious face of the venerable grandfather Pamfil, who was sitting directly opposite him, across the table. Although he did not dare to argue, he nevertheless shook his head doubtfully, thinking to himself: "Well, there is something wrong here ... Is it possible to live without a poll tax? What is it?"...

And how will the authorities here be ... strict? Terenty asked.

The old men chuckled, looking at him somehow pitifully: “Oh, they say, child, you don’t understand anything yet! ..”

You think: everything is the same as we have on Sidorov! - condescendingly remarked to him. - No, brother! Here, what a gentleman, what a priest, what a prince, what a peasant - everything is one and only, everyone lives evenly, divinely, harmlessly ...

Terekha just opened his mouth and silently spread his hands. "If you want to kill me, I won't understand it! What an opportunity! Without the authorities, you see ... Well, wow!"

What about firewood and all that? Terekha asked.

Yes, how ... very simple! Take as much as you want, as much as you want... no ban!

And they don't get bored with work?

No, no, no, my God! Work within your power... they won't ask for more than you have urine!

And they all live the same way, in the same huts? - Terekha asked. - And I will live in the same manner, huh?

Why are you asking all that, Teresha, - said grandfather Pamfil. - Don't you know what the Gospel says about how people will live in the next world? .. Everyone here lives as you see ... baby, don't!

Terekha tried to remember what was said in the Gospel, but he could not remember anything - for the simple reason that he heard the Gospel only in church, and even then he heard vaguely, implicitly and could not comprehend what he read ...

Here, too, there is no swearing, and you don’t have any fights, no such confusion? .. - Terenty spoke again, after a little while.

We don’t have this ... there’s nothing for us to scold! one of the old men responded. “No one eats someone else’s century ... without offense, in a divine way ...

And he, Terekha, will live like this, in such a paradise! Lord!.. He sighed freely, shrunk his shoulders out of habit, but suddenly straightened up and raised his head. Yes! Now he is in the kingdom of heaven... Screwing up his eyes, he thoughtfully looked out the window at the light and brilliance of heavenly, shining tabernacles, and with deep pleasure he mentally imagined an endless, boundless series of carefree, beautiful days. His father and mother are sitting next to him, Mishukha climbs onto his knees. Everyone is calm, contented, happy... Everyone is kind, everyone is merciful to each other, and to the golden birds flying around the hut in the gold of the sun's rays, merciful to every living creature. They want - they work, they get tired - they rest. They have plenty of everything, no black worries in their souls ... Only he feels sorry for the mistress, sorry for the Sidorovites, grief-stricken down there. But the hour will come - and they will all come to them in their turn. Terekha even shed a tear, imagining the moment when all the stragglers from Sidorov would finally see him here, in the other world... Quiet joy blazed in Terekha's soul and filled it all with itself, like a wondrous, unquenchable, unquenchable light.

Lord, how good I am! he whispered. “Here it is, life!”

Terenty! What about Terenty? What the hell, you won’t get it! .. - Terehe is heard through a dream.

Forcibly, reluctantly, he opens his eyes, squinting, he looks and sees ... A wife is standing by the blankets - already in a sheepskin coat, with a bucket in one hand and a burning torch in the other. The reddish light of the torch hurts, unpleasantly cuts Terekha's eyes, and he closes them again. He has not yet fully woken up and does not understand anything that is happening around him. The dreams were so good, so alive and bright!.. The picture that appeared to him now in reality seemed incongruous, wild to Terekha - with the reddish, flashing fire of the torch. What is it? And heaven? Paradise, where is it?

Well, get up, get up! Look: it's already dawn, - the wife kept saying, leaving the hut.

And indeed: the bluish dawn of a winter morning was already glimmering in the window, painted with frost. In the gray morning twilight, the smoky walls stood out indistinctly, with black rows of moss. The hut got quite cold during the night. Terekha's reluctance to start this life again, reluctance to rise from the bed. And you need to get up, you need to go to Kuzmich - ask for bread in debt. Will it give more? And if he does, he'll exhaust his soul... "Eh! It's gone again..." Terekha thought. Shuddering from the cold, groaning and yawning, he descended from the bed.

Farewell, farewell, Terekhin paradise!

Pavel Zasodimsky - TEREKHIN SON, read text