Workbook.

I

Fyodor Yurasov, a thief who was sued three times for theft, was going to visit his former mistress, a prostitute who lived seventy miles from Moscow. At the station, he sat in the first class buffet, ate pies and drank beer, and was served by a man in a tailcoat; and then, when everyone moved towards the cars, he intervened in the crowd and somehow accidentally, obeying the general excitement, pulled out a purse from a neighbor, an elderly gentleman. Yurasov had enough money, even a lot, and this accidental, thoughtless theft could only harm him. And so it happened. The gentleman, it seems, noticed the theft, because he looked very intently and strangely at Yurasov, and although he did not stop, he looked back at him several times. The second time he saw the gentleman already from the window of the carriage: very agitated and confused, with a hat in his hands, the gentleman quickly walked along the platform and looked into faces, looked back and looked for someone in the windows of the carriages. Fortunately, the third bell rang and the train started moving. Yurasov peered out cautiously: the gentleman, still with his hat in his hands, was standing at the end of the platform and attentively examining the passing cars, accurately counting them; and in his thick legs, awkwardly apart, at random, one felt the same perplexity and surprise. He stood, and it probably seemed to him that he was walking: his legs were so ridiculously and unusually apart.

Yurasov straightened up, bending his knees back, which made him feel even taller, straighter and more youthful, and with gentle trustfulness straightened his mustache with both hands. His mustache was beautiful, huge, light, like two golden sickles, protruding from the edges of his face; and while the fingers were basking in the pleasant sensation of soft and fluffy hair, gray eyes with pointless naive severity looked down at the intertwining rails of neighboring tracks. With their metallic reflections and silent coils, they looked like hastily fleeing snakes.

Having counted the stolen money in the restroom - there were twenty-four rubles with change - Yurasov turned his purse in his hands in disgust: it was old, greasy, and did not close well, and at the same time it smelled of perfume, as if it had been in the hands of a woman for a very long time. . This smell, a little unclean, but exciting, pleasantly reminded Yurasov of the one to whom he was traveling, and, smiling, cheerful, careless, disposed to a friendly conversation, he went to the car. Now he tried to be like everyone else, polite, decent, modest; he was wearing a coat of real English cloth and yellow shoes, and he believed in them, in the coat and in the shoes, and was sure that everyone took him for a young German, an accountant from some respectable trading house. According to the newspapers, he always followed the stock exchange, knew the rate of all securities, knew how to talk about a commercial business, and sometimes it seemed to him that he really was not the peasant Fyodor Yurasov, a thief who was sued three times for theft and was in prison, but a young decent German , by the name of Walter, by the name of Heinrich. Heinrich - the one to whom he was driving called him; his comrades called him "the German".

This place is free? he inquired politely, although it was immediately clear that the place was free, since only two people were sitting on two sofas, a retired officer, an old man, and a lady with purchases, apparently a summer resident. No one answered him, and with exquisite accuracy he sank down on the soft springs of the sofa, carefully stretched out long legs in yellow boots and took off his hat. Then he glanced amiably at the old officer and the lady, and laid his wide white hand so that they immediately noticed a ring with a huge diamond on the little finger. The diamond was fake and sparkled diligently and nakedly, and everyone really noticed, but they didn’t say anything, didn’t smile, and didn’t become friendlier. The old man turned over the newspaper new page, a lady, young and beautiful, stared out the window. And already with a vague premonition that he was open, that for some reason he was again not mistaken for a young German, Yurasov quietly hid his hand, which seemed to him too large and too white, and asked in a quite decent voice:

Would you like to go to the cottage? The lady pretended not to hear and that she was very thoughtful. Yurasov knew well that nasty expression on his face when a person unsuccessfully and angrily hides his alert attention and becomes a stranger, painfully a stranger. And, turning away, he asked the officer:

Be kind enough to inquire in the newspaper how the Rybinskiys stand? I don't remember anything.

The old man slowly put down the newspaper and, sternly pulling his lips down, stared at him with half-blind, as if offended eyes.

What? I can not hear!

Yurasov repeated, and while he was speaking, diligently separating the words, the old officer looked at him disapprovingly, as if he were a grandson who had been naughty, or a soldier who had not everything in uniform, and gradually began to get angry. The skin on his skull, between the sparse gray hairs, turned red, and his chin moved.

I don't know," he muttered angrily. "I don't know. There is nothing like that here. I don't understand what people are asking about.

And, having already taken up the newspaper sheet again, he lowered it several times in order to look angrily at the annoying gentleman. And then all the people in the car seemed to Yurasov evil and alien, and it became strange that he was sitting in the second class on a soft spring sofa, and with dull anguish and anger he recalled how constantly and everywhere among decent people he met this sometimes hidden, but often open, direct hostility. He is wearing a coat of real English cloth, and yellow shoes, and a precious ring, but they seem not to see this, but they see something else, their own, which he cannot find either in the mirror or in his mind. In the mirror, he is the same as everyone else, and even better. It does not say that he is a peasant Fyodor Yurasov, a thief who was sued three times for theft, and not a young German Heinrich Walter. And this elusive, incomprehensible, treacherous thing that everyone sees in him, but only he alone does not see and does not know, awakens in him the usual deaf anxiety and fear. He wants to run, and, looking around suspiciously and sharply, not at all like an honest German accountant now, he goes out with large and strong steps.

II

It was the beginning of the month of June, and everything before my eyes, to the farthest, motionless strip of forests, was green and young. The grass was green, the plantings were green in the vegetable gardens that were still bare, and everything was so self-absorbed, so preoccupied with itself, so deeply immersed in silent creative thought, that if grass and trees had a face, all faces would be turned to the earth, all faces would have been pensive and alien, all lips would have been chained in an immense bottomless silence. And Yurasov, pale, sad, standing alone on the unsteady platform of the car, anxiously felt this spontaneous, boundless thought, and from the beautiful, silently mysterious fields he breathed the same cold of alienation, as from the people in the car. The sky stood high above the fields and also looked into itself; somewhere behind Yurasov's back the sun was setting and spreading long, straight rays over the whole expanse of the earth - and no one looked at him in this desert, no one thought about him and did not know. In the city where Yurasov was born and raised, houses and streets have eyes, and they look at people with them, some hostile and evil, others affectionately, but here no one looks at him and does not know about him. And the carriages are pensive: the one in which Yurasov is running is stooping and swaying angrily; the other, behind, runs neither faster nor slower, as if by itself, and also seems to be looking at the ground and listening. And below, under the carriages, a discordant roar and noise spreads: now like a song, now like music, now like someone else's and incomprehensible conversation - and all about someone else, all about the distant.

There are people here too. Little ones, they are doing something in this green desert, and they are not afraid. And they even have fun: a fragment of a song came from somewhere and drowned in the roar and music of the wheels. There are also houses here. Small, they scattered freely, and their windows look out into the field. If you go up to the window at night, you will see a field - an open, free, dark field. And today, and yesterday, and every day, and every night, trains pass here, and every day this quiet field with small people and houses spreads here. Yesterday Yurasov at this time was sitting in the Progress restaurant and was not thinking about any field, but it was the same as today, just as quiet, beautiful, thinking about something. Here passed a small grove of old large birches with rook nests in green tops. And yesterday, while Yurasov was sitting in the Progress restaurant, drinking vodka, chatting with his comrades and looking at the aquarium in which sleepless fish swim, these birches still stood deep still, and darkness was under them and around them.

With a strange thought that only the city is real, and this is all a ghost, and that if you close your eyes and then open them, then there will be no field, - Yurasov closed his eyes tightly and fell silent. And at once it became so good and unusual that I no longer wanted to open my eyes again, and it was not necessary: ​​thoughts and doubts and deaf constant anxiety disappeared; the body swayed limply and sweetly in time with the breaths of the carriage, and the warm and cautious air of the fields gently flowed over the face. He lifted his fluffy mustache trustingly and rustled in his ears, and below, under his feet, spread the even and melodious noise of the wheels, like music, a song, someone's conversation about the distant, sad and sweet. And Yurasov vaguely dreamed that from his very feet, from his bowed head and face, quiveringly feeling the soft emptiness of space, a green-blue abyss begins, full of quiet words and timid, lurking caresses. And so strange - as if somewhere far away there was a quiet and warm rain.

The train slowed down and stopped for a moment, for one minute. And immediately from all sides Yurasov was seized by such an immense and fabulous silence, as if it were not a minute while the train was standing, but years, decades, eternity. And everything was quiet: dark, doused with oil small stone, clinging to an iron rail, a corner of a red covered platform, low and deserted, grass on a slope. There was a smell of birch leaves, meadows, fresh manure - and this smell was all the same all-time immense silence. On an adjacent canvas, clumsily clinging to the railing, some passenger jumped off and went. And he was so strange, unusual in this silence, like a bird that always flies, and now it has decided to go. Here you need to fly, but he walked, and the path was long, unknown, and his steps were small and short. And so funny he moved his feet - in this immense silence.

Silently, as if ashamed of its loudness, the train moved, and only a mile away from the quiet platform, when it disappeared without a trace in the greenery of the forest and fields, it rumbled freely with all the links of its iron torso. Yurasov paced the platform in agitation, so tall, thin, flexible, unconsciously straightened his mustache, looking somewhere up with his shining eyes, and greedily clung to the iron bolt, on the side of the car, where the huge red sun was sinking below the horizon. He found something; he understood something that had eluded him all his life and made this life so clumsy and heavy, like that passenger who had to fly like a bird, but he walked.

Yes, yes," he repeated seriously and preoccupiedly, and shook his head resolutely. "Of course it is. Yes. Yes.

And the wheels loudly and discordantly confirmed: "Of course, so, yes, yes." "Of course, yes, yes, yes." And as if it was necessary: ​​not to speak, but to sing, - Yurasov sang softly at first, then louder and louder, until his voice merged with the ringing and roar of iron. And the tact for this song was the sound of wheels, and the melody was the whole flexible and transparent wave of sounds. But there were no words. They did not have time to develop; distant and vague, and terribly wide, like a field, they ran somewhere with insane speed, and human voice freely and easily followed them. He rose and fell; and crawled along the ground, gliding through the meadows, penetrating the forest thicket; and easily ascended to the sky, lost in its vastness. When a bird is set free in the spring, it must fly like this voice: without a goal, without a road, trying to trace, embrace, feel the entire sonorous expanse of heavenly space. So, probably, the green fields themselves would sing, if they were given a voice; so sing on quiet summer evenings those little people who fumble over something in the green desert.

Yurasov sang, and the crimson glow of the setting sun burned on his face, on his coat of English cloth and yellow boots. He sang, seeing off the sun, and his song became more and more sad: as if the bird felt the sonorous expanse of heavenly space, shuddered with unknown longing and calls someone: come.

The sun went down, and a gray cobweb lay down on the still earth and the still sky. A gray cobweb has fallen on the face, the last reflections of the sunset are fading on it, and it is dying. Come to me! why don't you come? The sun has set and the fields are darkening. So lonely, and so painful for a lonely heart. So lonely, so painful. Come. Sunset. Fields darken. Come, come!

So his soul cried. And the fields grew darker, and only the sky above the departed sun became even brighter and deeper, like a beautiful face turned to the one whom they love and who quietly, quietly leaves.

I Fyodor Yurasov, a thief who was sued three times for theft, gathered to visit his former mistress, a prostitute who lived seventy miles from Moscow. At the station, he sat in the first class buffet, ate pies and drank beer, and was served by a man in a tailcoat; and then, when everyone moved towards the cars, he intervened in the crowd and somehow accidentally, obeying the general excitement, pulled out a purse from a neighbor, an elderly gentleman. Yurasov had enough money, even a lot, and this accidental, thoughtless theft could only harm him. And so it happened. The gentleman, it seems, noticed the theft, because he looked very intently and strangely at Yurasov, and although he did not stop, he looked back at him several times. The second time he saw the gentleman already from the window of the carriage: very agitated and confused, with a hat in his hands, the gentleman quickly walked along the platform and looked into faces, looked back and looked for someone in the windows of the carriages. Fortunately, the third bell rang and the train started moving. Yurasov peered out cautiously: the gentleman, still with his hat in his hands, was standing at the end of the platform and attentively examining the passing cars, accurately counting them; and in his thick legs, awkwardly apart, at random, one felt the same perplexity and surprise. He stood, and it probably seemed to him that he was walking: his legs were so ridiculously and unusually apart. Yurasov straightened up, bending his knees back, which made him feel even taller, straighter and more youthful, and with gentle trustfulness straightened his mustache with both hands. His mustache was beautiful, huge, light, like two golden sickles, protruding from the edges of his face; and while the fingers were basking in the pleasant sensation of soft and fluffy hair, gray eyes with pointless naive severity looked down at the intertwining rails of neighboring tracks. With their metallic reflections and silent coils, they looked like hastily fleeing snakes. Having counted the stolen money in the restroom - there were twenty-four rubles with change - Yurasov turned his purse in his hands in disgust: it was old, greasy, and did not close well, and at the same time it smelled of perfume, as if it had been in the hands of a woman for a very long time. . This smell, a little unclean, but exciting, pleasantly reminded Yura-owl of the one he was going to, and, smiling, cheerful, careless, disposed to a friendly conversation, he went into the car. Now he tried to be like everyone else, polite, decent, modest; he was wearing a coat of real English cloth and yellow shoes, and he believed in them, in coat and shoes, and was sure that everyone took him for a young German, an accountant from some respectable trading house. According to the newspapers, he always followed the stock exchange, knew the rate of all securities, knew how to talk about a commercial business, and sometimes it seemed to him that he really was not the peasant Fyodor Yurasov, a thief who was sued three times for theft and was in prison, but a young decent German , by the name of Walter, by the name of Heinrich. Heinrich - the one to whom he was driving called him; his comrades called him "the German". - This place is free? he inquired politely, although it was immediately clear that the place was free, since only two people were sitting on two sofas, a retired officer, an old man, and a lady with purchases, apparently a summer resident. No one answered him, and with exquisite precision he sank down on the soft springs of the sofa, carefully stretched out his long legs in yellow boots and took off his hat. Then he looked at the old officer and the lady in a friendly way and put his broad white hand on his knee so that they could immediately notice a ring with a huge diamond on his little finger. The diamond was fake and sparkled diligently and nakedly, and everyone really noticed, but they didn’t say anything, didn’t smile, and didn’t become friendlier. The old man turned the newspaper over to a new page, the lady, young and beautiful, stared out the window. And already with a vague premonition that he was open, that for some reason he was again not mistaken for a young German, Yurasov quietly hid his hand, which seemed to him too big and too white, and asked in a quite decent voice: - Would you like to go to the dacha? The lady pretended not to hear and that she was very thoughtful. Yurasov knew well that nasty expression on his face when a person unsuccessfully and angrily hides his alert attention and becomes a stranger, painfully a stranger. And, turning away, he asked the officer: - Would you be kind enough to inquire in the newspaper how the Rybinskiys stand? I don't remember anything. The old man slowly put down the newspaper and, sternly pulling his lips down, stared at him with half-blind, as if offended eyes. - What? I can not hear! Yurasov repeated, and while he was speaking, diligently separating the words, the old officer looked at him disapprovingly, as if he were a grandson who had been naughty, or a soldier who had not everything in uniform, and gradually began to get angry. The skin on his skull, between the sparse gray hairs, turned red, and his chin moved. "I don't know," he muttered angrily. "I don't know." There is nothing like that here. I don't understand what people are asking about. And, having already taken up the newspaper sheet again, he lowered it several times in order to look angrily at the annoying gentleman. And then all the people in the car seemed to Yurasov evil and alien, and it became strange that he was sitting in the second class on a soft spring sofa, and with dull anguish and anger he recalled how constantly and everywhere among decent people he met this sometimes hidden, but often open, direct hostility. He is wearing a coat of real English cloth, and yellow shoes, and a precious ring, but they seem not to see this, but they see something else, their own, which he cannot find either in the mirror or in his mind. In the mirror, he is the same as everyone else, and even better. It does not say that he is a peasant Fyodor Yurasov, a thief who was sued three times for theft, and not a young German Heinrich Walter. And this elusive, incomprehensible, treacherous thing that everyone sees in him, but only he alone does not see and does not know, awakens in him the usual deaf anxiety and fear. He wants to run, and, looking around suspiciously and sharply, not at all like an honest German accountant now, he goes out with large and strong steps. II It was the beginning of the month of June, and everything before my eyes, to the farthest, motionless strip of forests, was green and young. The grass was green, the plantings were green in the vegetable gardens that were still bare, and everything was so self-absorbed, so preoccupied with itself, so deeply immersed in silent creative thought, that if grass and trees had a face, all faces would be turned to the earth, all faces would have been pensive and alien, all lips would have been chained in an immense bottomless silence. And Yurasov, pale, sad, standing alone on the unsteady platform of the car, anxiously felt this spontaneous, boundless thought, and from the beautiful, silently mysterious fields he breathed the same cold of alienation, as from the people in the car. The sky stood high above the fields and also looked into itself; somewhere behind Yurasov's back the sun was setting and spreading long, straight rays over the whole expanse of the earth - and no one looked at him in this desert, no one thought about him and did not know. In the city where Yurasov was born and raised, houses and streets have eyes, and they look at people with them, some hostile and evil, others affectionately, but here no one looks at him and does not know about him. And the carriages are pensive: the one in which Yurasov is running is stooping and swaying angrily; the other, behind, runs neither faster nor slower, as if by itself, and also seems to be looking at the ground and listening. And below, under the carriages, a discordant roar and noise spreads: now like a song, now like music, now like someone else's and incomprehensible conversation - and all about someone else, all about the distant. There are people here too. Little ones, they are doing something in this green desert, and they are not afraid. And they even have fun: a fragment of a song came from somewhere and drowned in the roar and music of the wheels. There are also houses here. Small, they scattered freely, and their windows look out into the field. If you go up to the window at night, you will see a field - an open, free, dark field. And today, and yesterday, and every day, and every night, trains pass here, and every day this quiet field with small people and houses spreads here. Yesterday Yurasov at this time was sitting in the Progress restaurant and was not thinking about any field, but it was the same as today, just as quiet, beautiful, thinking about something. Here passed a small grove of old large birches with rook nests in green tops. And yesterday, while Yurasov was sitting in the Progress restaurant, drinking vodka, chattering with his comrades and looking at the aquarium in which sleepless fish swim, these birches still stood deep still, and darkness was under them and around them. With a strange thought that only the city is real, and this is all a ghost, and that if you close your eyes and then open them, then there will be no field, - Yurasov closed his eyes tightly and fell silent. And at once it became so good and unusual that I no longer wanted to open my eyes again, and it was not necessary: ​​thoughts and doubts and deaf constant anxiety disappeared; the body swayed limply and sweetly in time with the breaths of the carriage, and the warm and cautious air of the fields gently flowed over the face. He lifted his fluffy mustache trustingly and rustled in his ears, and below, under his feet, spread the even and melodious noise of the wheels, like music, a song, someone's conversation about the distant, sad and sweet. And Yurasov vaguely dreamed that from his very feet, from his bowed head and face, quiveringly feeling the soft emptiness of space, a green-blue abyss begins, full of quiet words and timid, lurking caresses. And so strange - as if somewhere far away there was a quiet and warm rain. The train slowed down and stopped for a moment, for one minute. And immediately from all sides Yurasov was seized by such an immense and fabulous silence, as if it were not a minute while the train was standing, but years, decades, eternity. And everything was quiet: a dark, oil-drenched small stone clinging to an iron rail, a corner of a red covered platform, low and deserted, grass on a slope. There was a smell of birch leaves, meadows, fresh manure - and this smell was all the same all-time immense silence. On an adjacent canvas, clumsily clinging to the railing, some passenger jumped off and went. And he was so strange, unusual in this silence, like a bird that always flies, and now it has decided to go. Here you need to fly, but he walked, and the path was long, unknown, and his steps were small and short. And so funny he moved his feet - in this immense silence. Silently, as if ashamed of its loudness, the train moved, and only a mile away from the quiet platform, when it disappeared without a trace in the greenery of the forest and fields, it rumbled freely with all the links of its iron torso. Yurasov paced the platform in agitation, so tall, thin, flexible, unconsciously straightened his mustache, looking somewhere up with his shining eyes, and greedily clung to the iron bolt, on the side of the car, where the huge red sun was sinking below the horizon. He found something; he understood something that had eluded him all his life and made this life so clumsy and heavy, like that passenger who had to fly like a bird, but he walked. "Yes, yes," he repeated seriously and preoccupiedly, and shook his head resolutely. "Of course it is." Yes. Yes. And the wheels loudly and discordantly confirmed: "Of course, yes, yes, yes." "Of course, yes, yes, yes." And as if it was necessary: ​​not to speak, but to sing, - Yurasov sang softly at first, then louder and louder, until his voice merged with the ringing and roar of iron. And the tact for this song was the sound of wheels, and the melody was the whole flexible and transparent wave of sounds. But there were no words. They did not have time to develop; distant and vague, and terribly wide, like a field, they ran somewhere with insane speed, and a human voice freely and easily followed them. He rose and fell; and crawled along the ground, gliding through the meadows, penetrating the forest thicket; and easily ascended to the sky, lost in its vastness. When a bird is set free in the spring, it must fly like this voice: without a goal, without a road, trying to trace, embrace, feel the entire sonorous expanse of heavenly space. So, probably, the green fields themselves would sing, if they were given a voice; so sing on quiet summer evenings those little people who fumble over something in the green desert. Yurasov sang, and the crimson reflection of the setting sun burned on his face, on his coat of English cloth and yellow boots. He sang, seeing the sun off, and his song became more and more sad: someone: come. The sun went down, and a gray cobweb lay down on the still earth and the still sky. A gray cobweb has fallen on the face, the last reflections of the sunset are fading on it, and it is dying. Come to me! why don't you come? The sun has set and the fields are darkening. So lonely, and so painful for a lonely heart. So lonely, so painful. Come. Sunset. Fields darken. Come, come! So his soul cried. And the fields grew darker, and only the sky above the departed sun became even brighter and deeper, like a beautiful face turned to the one whom they love and who quietly, quietly leaves. III The control proceeded, and the conductor casually rudely remarked to Yurasova: - You can't stand on the platform. Go to the wagon. He left, angrily slamming the door. And just as angrily Yurasov sent after him: - Blockhead! He thought that all this, and rude words and an angry slamming of the door, it all comes from there, from decent people in the car. And again, feeling like a German Heinrich Walter, he touchily and irritably, raising his shoulders high, said to an imaginary respectable gentleman: - No, what rude people! Always and everyone stands on the site, but he: you can’t. God knows what! Then there was a stop with its sudden and imperious silence. Now, towards night, the grass and the forest smelled even stronger, and the people who descended no longer seemed so ridiculous and heavy: the transparent twilight seemed to inspire them, and the two women in light dresses, it seemed, did not go, but flew away like swans. And again it became good and sad, and I wanted to sing, but the voice did not obey, some unnecessary and boring words were tucked into the tongue, and the song did not come out. I wanted to think, to cry sweetly and inconsolably, but instead, it seems like some respectable gentleman, to whom he says intelligibly and weightily: - Have you noticed how the Sormovo ones are rising? And the dark shifting fields again thought of something of their own, were incomprehensible, cold and alien. The wheels pushed in different voices and senselessly, and it seemed that they all clung to each other and interfered with each other. Something thumped between them and creaked with a rusty creak, something shuffled abruptly: it looked like a crowd of drunken, stupid, mindlessly wandering people. Then these people began to gather in a bunch, reorganize, and everyone was full of bright cafe-chantane costumes. Then they moved forward and all at once, in a drunken, riotous chorus, barked: - My Malanya, magnifying-eye-for-me ... Yurasov so disgustingly vividly remembered this song, which he heard in all the city gardens, which his comrades and he himself sang, that I wanted to brush it off with my hands, as if it were something alive, like stones thrown around a corner. And such a cruel power was in these terribly meaningless words, sticky and impudent, that the whole long train picked them up with a hundred spinning wheels: thick lips sucked on Yurasov, kissed him with wet, impure kisses, and cackled. And it screamed in thousands of throats, whistled, howled, swirled on the ground like mad. Wheels appeared with wide round mugs, and through shameless laughter, carried away in a drunken whirlwind, each one knocked and howled: - My Malanya, magnifying-eye-for-I ... And only the fields were silent. Cold and calm, deeply immersed in pure creative thought, they knew nothing about the man of the distant stone city and were alien to his soul, alarmed and stunned by painful memories. The train carried Yurasov forward, and this impudent and senseless song called him back to the city, dragged him rudely and cruelly, like a failed fugitive caught on the threshold of prison. He still resists, he still reaches out with his hands to the unknown happy expanse, and in his head, like a fatal inevitability, cruel pictures of bondage among stone walls and iron bars are already rising. And the fact that the fields are so cold and indifferent and do not want to help him, as if they were a stranger, fills Yurasov with a feeling of hopeless loneliness. And Yurasov is frightened - so unexpected, so huge and terrible is this feeling, throwing him out of life as if dead. If he fell asleep for a thousand years and woke up in the midst of a new world and new people, he would not be more alone, more alien to everything than now. He wants to recall something close, sweet, but he is not there, and an impudent song roars in the enslaved brain and gives birth to sad and terrible memories that cast a shadow over his whole life. Here is the same garden where they sang this "Malanya". And in this garden he stole something, and he was caught, and everyone was drunk: both he and those who were chasing him screaming and whistling. He hid somewhere, in some dark corner, in a black hole, and he was lost. He sat there for a long time, near some old boards, from which nails were sticking out, next to a crumbling barrel of dried lime; one could feel the freshness and peace of the loosened earth, and there was a strong smell of young poplar, and along the paths, not far from it, dressed-up people were walking, and music was playing. A gray cat passed by, pensive, indifferent to speech and music, so unexpected in this place. And she was a kind cat: Yurasov called her: “kis-kis”, and she came up, purred, rubbed herself at his knees and let him kiss her soft muzzle, smelling of fur and herring. From his kisses, she sneezed and left, as important and indifferent as a high-ranking lady, and after that he got out of his ambush, and they grabbed him. But there was at least a cat, but here there are only indifferent and well-fed fields, and Yurasov begins to hate them with all the strength of his loneliness. If he had been given strength, he would have stoned them; he would gather a thousand people and order them to trample down the tender false greenery, which pleases everyone, and drinks the last blood from his heart. Why did he go? Now he would sit in the Progress restaurant and drink wine and talk and laugh. And he begins to hate the one to whom he is going, a miserable and dirty girlfriend of his dirty life. Now she is rich and keeps the girls herself for sale; she loves him and gives him money as much as he wants, and he will come and beat her to the blood, to the squeal of a pig. And then he gets drunk drunk and will cry, choke himself by the throat and sing, sobbing: - My Malanya ... But the wheels no longer sing. Wearily, like sick children, they mournfully rumble and seem to huddle together, looking for affection and peace. From a height, the strict starry sky calmly looks at him, and the strict, virgin darkness of the fields embraces him from all sides, and the lonely lights in it are like tears of pure pity on a beautiful thoughtful face. And far ahead looms the glow of station lights, and from there, from this bright spot, along with warm and fresh air nights arrive soft and gentle sounds music. The nightmare has disappeared, and with the usual lightness of a man who has no place on earth, Yurasov immediately forgets it and listens excitedly, catching the familiar melody. - They dance! - he says and smiles with inspiration and looks around with happy eyes, stroking himself with his hands, as if washing himself. - They are dancing! Oh, damn you. Dancing! He straightens his shoulders, imperceptibly arches to the beat of a familiar dance, the whole is filled with a lively sense of rhythmic beautiful movement. He loves dancing very much and when he dances, he becomes very kind, affectionate and gentle, and is no longer either the German Heinrich Walter or Fyodor Yurasov, who is constantly on trial for theft, but someone else, about whom he knows nothing . And when, with a new gust of wind, a swarm of sounds is carried away into a dark field, Yurasov is frightened that this is forever, and almost cries. But even louder and more joyful, as if gaining strength in a dark field, the rushing sounds return, and Yurasov smiles happily: - They are dancing. Oh, you, damn it! IV There was dancing near the station itself. The summer residents arranged a ball: they invited music, hung red and blue lanterns around the site, driving night darkness to the very top of the trees. Gymnasium students, young ladies in bright dresses, students, some young officer with spurs, so young, as if he had purposely dressed up as a military man, were smoothly circling around the wide area, kicking up the sand with their feet and fluttering dresses. In the deceptive twilight light of the lanterns, all the people seemed beautiful, and the dancers themselves seemed to be some kind of extraordinary creatures, touching in their airiness and purity. Around the night, and they are dancing; if only ten steps away from the circle, the immense omnipotent darkness will swallow a person - and they dance, and the music plays for them so charmingly, so thoughtfully and tenderly. The train stops for five minutes, and Yurasov intervenes in the crowd of curious people: they surround the platform with a dark colorless ring and tenaciously hold on to the wire, so unnecessary, colorless. And some of them smile with a strange cautious smile, others are gloomy and sad - that special pale sadness that is born in people at the sight of someone else's fun. But Yurasov is cheerful: with the inspired look of a connoisseur, he looks at the dancers, approves, lightly stamps his foot and suddenly decides: - I won’t go. I'll stay dancing! Two people step out of the circle, carelessly parting the crowd: a girl in white and a tall young man, almost as tall as Yurasov. Along the half-asleep carriages, to the end of the plank platform, where the gloom frowned cautiously, they walk beautifully and as if they carry a particle of light with them: it positively seems to Yurasov that the girl is glowing - her dress is so white, her eyebrows are so black on her white face. With the confidence of a person who dances well, Yurasov catches up with those walking and asks: - Tell me, please, where can I get tickets for dancing here? The young man has no mustache. With a stern, half-turned look, he surveys Yurasov and replies: “There are only our own people here. - I'm a traveller. My name is Heinrich Walter. - You've been told: only our own people are here. - My name is Heinrich Walter, Heinrich Walter. - Listen! - The young man stops threateningly, but the girl in white carries him away. If only she could look at Heinrich Walther! But she does not look, and, all white, luminous, like a cloud against the moon, for a long time still shines in the darkness and silently melts into it. - And it is not necessary! - Yurasov whispers proudly after them, and in his soul it becomes so white and cold, as if snow had fallen there - white, clean, dead snow. For some reason, the train is still standing, and Yurasov is walking along the carriages, so handsome, stern and important in his cold despair that now no one would take him for a thief who was sued three times for theft and spent many months in prison. And he is calm, he sees everything, hears and understands everything, and only his legs are like rubber - they do not feel the earth, but something dies in his soul, quietly, calmly, without pain and shudder. That's where it died. The music plays again, and fragments of a strange, frightening conversation intervene in its smooth dancing sounds: - Listen, conductor, why is the train not coming? Yurasov slows down his steps and listens. The conductor behind indifferently answers: - It is worth it, therefore, there is a reason. The machinist went to dance. The passenger laughs, and Yurasov goes on. On the way back, he hears the two conductors say, "It's like he's on that train." - And who saw him? - Nobody saw it. The gendarme said. - Your gendarme is lying, that's what. His people are no more stupid either... The bell rings, and Yurasov is indecisive for a minute. But on the side where the dancing there goes a girl in white with someone's arm, and he jumps up onto the platform and crosses to the other side of it. So he does not see either the girl in white or the dancers; only music in an instant surrounds the back of his head with a wave of hot sounds, and everything disappears in the darkness and silence of the night. He is alone on the shaky platform of the carriage, among the vague silhouettes of the night; everything is moving, everything is going somewhere without touching him, so extraneous and ghostly, like the images of a dream for a sleeping person. V Pushing Yurasov with the door and not noticing him, the conductor quickly passed through the platform with a lantern and disappeared behind the next door. Neither his steps nor even the slamming of the door could be heard over the rumble of the train, but his whole vague, blurry figure with hurried advancing movements gave the impression of an instantaneous, abruptly broken cry. Yurasov went cold, thinking something quickly - and, like fire, flashed in his brain, in his heart, in his whole body one huge and terrible thought: he was being caught. They telegraphed about him, they saw him, they recognized him, and now they are chasing him in the wagons. That “he”, about which the conductors spoke so mysteriously, is precisely Yurasov: it’s so scary to recognize and find yourself in some kind of impersonal “he”, about which strangers speak. And now they keep talking about "him", looking for "him". Yes, there, from the last car they go, he feels it with the instinct of an experienced beast. Three or four, with lanterns, they examine the passengers, look into dark corners, wake the sleeping ones, whisper among themselves - and step by step, with fatal gradualness, with merciless inevitability, they approach "him", Yurasov, the one who is standing on platform and listens, stretching his neck. And the train rushes with ferocious speed, and the wheels no longer sing or speak. They scream with iron voices, they whisper secretly and deafly, they squeal in a wild ecstasy of malice - a frenzied pack of awakened dogs. Yurasov clenched his teeth and, forcing himself to immobility, realized: it was impossible to jump off at such speed, the nearest stop was still far away; you need to go to the front of the train and wait there. While they searched all the cars, something might happen - the same stop and slow down, and he would jump off. And he enters the first door calmly, smiling so as not to appear suspicious, holding ready an exquisitely polite and convincing "pardon!" - but in a dark car III class everything is so crowded, everything is so mixed up in the chaos of bags, chests, legs stretched out from everywhere, that he loses hope of getting to the exit and is lost in a feeling of new unexpected fear. How to break through this wall? People are asleep, but their tenacious legs from everywhere stretch to the aisle and block it: they come out from somewhere below, they hang from the shelves, touching the head and shoulders, they are thrown from one bench to another - sluggish, as if supple and terribly hostile in their the desire to return to the same place, to take the same posture. Like springs, they bend and straighten again, roughly and deadly pushing Yurasov, terrifying him with their senseless and formidable resistance. Finally, he is at the door, but, like iron bolts, it is blocked by two legs in huge assembled boots; viciously thrown back, they stubbornly and stupidly return to the door, rest against it, arching as if they had no bones at all - and Yurasov barely crawls through the narrow gap. He thought that this was already a platform, and this was only a new section of the car - with the same frequent network of piled up things and as if torn off human limbs. And when, bending down like a bull, he reaches the platform, his eyes are meaningless, like those of a bull, and the dark horror of the animal that is pursued, and it does not understand anything, covers him in a black enchanted circle. He breathes heavily, listens, catches the sounds of the approaching chase in the roar of the wheels, and, bending down like a bull, overcoming horror, goes to the dark, silent door. And behind it is again a senseless struggle, again the senseless and formidable resistance of evil human legs. In a first-class carriage, in a narrow corridor, a bunch of passengers who knew each other, who could not sleep, crowded at the open window. They stand, sit on extended benches, and one young lady with curly hair looks out the window. The wind shakes the curtain, throws back the ringlets of hair, and it seems to Yurasov that the wind smells of some kind of heavy, artificial, city spirits. - Pardon! - he says with anguish. - Pardon. The men part slowly and reluctantly, looking around Yurasov unfriendly; the lady in the window does not hear, and another laughing lady touches her round, covered shoulder for a long time. Finally, she turns around and, before giving way, slowly and terribly long examines Yurasov, his yellow boots and coat made of real English cloth. She has the darkness of night in her eyes, and she squints as if considering whether to let this gentleman pass or not. - Pardon! - says Yurasov pleadingly, and the lady with her rustling silk skirt reluctantly moves closer to the wall. And then again those terrible class III carriages - as if he had already passed dozens, hundreds of them, and ahead of him were new landings, new unyielding doors and tenacious, angry, ferocious legs. Finally, the last landing and in front of it the dark, blank wall of the baggage car, and Yurasov freezes for a minute, as if he ceases to exist altogether. Something runs past, something rumbles, and the floor sways under bending, trembling legs. And suddenly he feels: the wall, the cold and hard wall, on which he exhaustedly leaned, quietly and persistently pushes him away. It will push and push again - as if alive, as a cunning and cautious enemy, not daring to attack openly. And everything that Yurasov experienced and saw is intertwined in his brain into one wild picture of a huge merciless chase. It seems to him that the whole world, which he considered indifferent and alien, has now risen and is chasing him, panting and groaning with anger: these well-fed, hostile fields, and the pensive lady in the window, and these intertwining stupidly stubborn and evil legs. They are now sleepy and lethargic, but they will be lifted up, and with all their trampling bulk they will rush after him, jumping, galloping, crushing everything that comes in their way. He is alone - and there are thousands of them, millions of them, they are the whole world: they are behind him and in front, and on all sides, and nowhere is there salvation from them. The cars rush, sway wildly, push, and they look like frenzied iron monsters on short legs, which are bent, cunningly lay down to the ground and are chasing. It is dark on the site, and there is no hint of light anywhere, and what passes before the eyes is shapeless, cloudy and incomprehensible. Some shadows on long, backwards walking legs, some ghostly heaps, either approaching the carriage itself, or instantly disappearing into the even, boundless darkness. The green fields and the forest have died, some of their ominous shadows hover silently over the roaring train, and there, a few cars behind, maybe four, maybe only one, just as silently sneaking. Three or four, with a lantern, they cautiously examine the passengers, exchange glances, whisper, and with wild, funny and terrible slowness move towards him. So they opened one more door... one more door... With a last effort of will, Yurasov forces himself to be calm and, slowly looking around, climbs onto the roof of the car. He stood on a narrow iron strip that closed the entrance, and, bending over, threw his hands up; he almost hangs over a muddy, living, ominous emptiness, embracing his feet with a cold wind. Hands slide over the iron of the roof, grasp the gutter, and it bends softly, like paper; his feet look in vain for support, and the yellow boots, hard as wood, rub hopelessly around a smooth, just as hard pillar - and for a second Yurasov experiences the feeling of falling. But already in the air, bending his body like a falling cat, he changes direction and hits the platform, at the same time feeling severe pain in the knee, which hit something, and hearing the crack of torn matter. It snagged and tore the coat. And not thinking about the pain, and not thinking about anything, Yurasov feels the torn tuft, as if it were the most important thing, sadly shakes his head and smacks his lips: shh!.. After failed attempt Yurasov is getting weaker, and he wants to lie on the floor, cry and say: take me. And he is already choosing a place where to lie down, when the carriages and intertwining legs rise in his memory, and he clearly hears: those, three or four with lanterns, are coming. And again the senseless animal horror seizes him and throws him around the court like a ball, from one end to the other. And already again he wants, unconsciously repeating himself, to climb onto the roof of the car - when a fiery hoarse wide-mouthed roar, either a whistle or a scream, unlike anything else, breaks into his ears and extinguishes consciousness. Then a locomotive whistled overhead, greeting an oncoming train, and Yurasov fancied something infinitely terrible, the last in its horror, irrevocable. It was as if the world overtook him and with all its voices shouted out one loud: - A-ha-ah! he dropped iron bar and jumped down to where the illuminated rails snaked very close. He hit his teeth painfully against something, turned over several times, and when he raised his face with a crumpled mustache and a toothless mouth, three lanterns hung directly above him, three dim lamps behind convex glasses. He did not understand their meaning. September 1904

Yurasov sang, and the crimson glow of the setting sun burned on his face, on his coat of English cloth and yellow boots. He sang, seeing off the sun, and his song became more and more sad: as if the bird felt the sonorous expanse of heavenly space, shuddered with unknown longing and calls someone: come.

The sun went down, and a gray cobweb lay down on the still earth and the still sky. A gray cobweb has fallen on the face, the last reflections of the sunset are fading on it, and it is dying. Come to me! why don't you come? The sun has set and the fields are darkening. So lonely, and so painful for a lonely heart. So lonely, so painful. Come. Sunset. Fields darken. Come, come!

So his soul cried. And the fields grew darker, and only the sky above the departed sun became even brighter and deeper, like a beautiful face turned to the one whom they love and who quietly, quietly leaves.

The control proceeded, and the conductor casually rudely remarked to Yurasova:

- You can't stand on the platform. Go to the wagon. He left, angrily slamming the door. And just as angrily, Yurasov sent after him:

- Bolvan!

It occurred to him that all this, both the rude words and the angry slamming of the door, all this comes from there, from decent people in the carriage. And again, feeling like a German Heinrich Walter, he touchily and irritably, raising his shoulders high, said to an imaginary respectable gentleman:

- No, what rude people! Always and everyone stands on the site, but he: you can’t. God knows what!

Then there was a stop with its sudden and imperious silence. Now, towards night, the grass and the forest smelled even stronger, and the people who descended no longer seemed so ridiculous and heavy: the transparent twilight seemed to inspire them, and the two women in light dresses, it seemed, did not go, but flew away like swans. And again it became good and sad, and I wanted to sing, but the voice did not obey, some unnecessary and boring words turned up on the tongue, and the song did not come out. I wanted to think, to cry sweetly and inconsolably, but instead of that, some respectable gentleman seems to be, to whom he says intelligibly and weightily:

- Have you noticed how the Sormovo ones are rising?

And the dark shifting fields again thought of something of their own, were incomprehensible, cold and alien. The wheels pushed in different voices and senselessly, and it seemed that they all clung to each other and interfered with each other. Something thumped between them and creaked with a rusty creak, something shuffled abruptly: it looked like a crowd of drunken, stupid, mindlessly wandering people. Then these people began to gather in a bunch, reorganize, and everyone was full of bright cafe-chantane costumes. Then they moved forward and all at once, in a drunken, reckless chorus, barked:

So disgustingly vividly did Yurasov recall this song, which he heard in all the city gardens, which his comrades and he himself sang, that he wanted to brush it off with his hands, as if from something alive, like from stones thrown from behind a corner. And such a cruel power was in these terribly meaningless words, sticky and insolent, that the whole long train picked them up with a hundred spinning wheels:

- My Malanya, lupo-eye-for-I ...

Something shapeless and monstrous, muddy and sticky, sucked Yurasov with thousands of thick lips, kissed him with wet, impure kisses, and cackled. And it screamed in thousands of throats, whistled, howled, swirled on the ground like mad. Wheels were represented by wide round mugs, and through shameless laughter, carried away in a drunken whirlwind, each knocked and howled:

- My Malanya, lupo-eye-for-I ...

And only the fields were silent. Cold and calm, deeply immersed in pure creative thought, they knew nothing about the man of the distant stone city and were alien to his soul, alarmed and stunned by painful memories. The train carried Yurasov forward, and this impudent and senseless song called him back to the city, dragged him rudely and cruelly, like a failed fugitive caught on the threshold of prison. He still resists, he still reaches out with his hands to the unknown happy expanse, and in his head, like a fatal inevitability, cruel pictures of bondage among stone walls and iron bars are already rising. And the fact that the fields are so cold and indifferent and do not want to help him, as if they were a stranger, fills Yurasov with a feeling of hopeless loneliness. And Yurasov is frightened - so unexpected, so huge and terrible is this feeling, throwing him out of life as if dead. If he fell asleep for a thousand years and woke up in the midst of a new world and new people, he would not be more alone, more alien to everything than now. He wants to recall something close, sweet, but he is not there, and an impudent song roars in the enslaved brain and gives birth to sad and terrible memories that cast a shadow over his whole life. Here is the same garden where they sang this "Malanya". And in this garden he stole something, and he was caught, and everyone was drunk: both he and those who were chasing him screaming and whistling. He hid somewhere, in some dark corner, in a black hole, and he was lost. He sat there for a long time, near some old boards, from which nails were sticking out, next to a crumbling barrel of dried lime; one could feel the freshness and peace of the loosened earth, and there was a strong smell of young poplar, and along the paths, not far from it, dressed-up people were walking, and music was playing. A gray cat passed by, thoughtful, indifferent to speech and music, so unexpected in this place. And she was a kind cat: Yurasov called her: “kis-kis”, and she came up, purred, rubbed herself at his knees and let him kiss her soft muzzle, smelling of fur and herring. From his kisses, she sneezed and left, as important and indifferent as a high-ranking lady, and after that he got out of his ambush, and they grabbed him.

But there was at least a cat, but here there are only indifferent and well-fed fields, and Yurasov begins to hate them with all the strength of his loneliness. If he had been given strength, he would have stoned them; he would gather a thousand people and order them to trample down the tender false greenery, which pleases everyone, and drinks the last blood from his heart. Why did he go? Now he would sit in the Progress restaurant and drink wine and talk and laugh. And he begins to hate the one to whom he is going, a miserable and dirty girlfriend of his dirty life. Now she is rich and keeps the girls herself for sale; she loves him and gives him money as much as he wants, and he will come and beat her to the blood, to the squeal of a pig. And then he will get drunk drunk and will cry, choke himself by the throat and sing, sobbing:

My Malanya...

But the wheels no longer sing. Wearily, like sick children, they mournfully rumble and seem to huddle together, looking for affection and peace. From a height, the strict starry sky calmly looks at him, and the strict, virgin darkness of the fields embraces him from all sides, and the lonely lights in it are like tears of pure pity on a beautiful thoughtful face. And far ahead looms the glow of station lights, and from there, from this bright spot, along with the warm and fresh air of the night, soft and gentle sounds of music arrive. The nightmare has disappeared, and with the familiar lightness of a man who has no place on earth, Yurasov immediately forgets it and listens excitedly, catching the familiar melody.

- They're dancing! - he says, and smiles with inspiration and looks around with happy eyes, stroking himself with his hands, as if washing himself. - They're dancing! Oh, damn you. Dancing!

He straightens his shoulders, imperceptibly arches to the beat of a familiar dance, the whole is filled with a lively sense of rhythmic beautiful movement. He loves dancing very much and when he dances, he becomes very kind, affectionate and gentle, and is no longer either the German Heinrich Walter or Fyodor Yurasov, who is constantly being tried for theft, but someone else about whom he knows nothing. And when, with a new gust of wind, a swarm of sounds is carried away into a dark field, Yurasov is frightened that this is forever, and almost cries. But even louder and more joyful, as if gaining strength in a dark field, the rushing sounds return, and Yurasov smiles happily:

- They dance. Oh, you, damn it!

Near the station itself they danced. The summer residents arranged a ball: they invited music, hung red and blue lanterns around the site, driving the darkness of the night to the very top of the trees. Gymnasium students, young ladies in bright dresses, students, some young officer with spurs, so young as if he had purposely dressed up as military men, were smoothly circling around the wide area, kicking up the sand with their feet and fluttering dresses. In the deceptive twilight light of the lanterns, all the people seemed beautiful, and the dancers themselves seemed to be some kind of extraordinary creatures, touching in their airiness and purity. Around the night, and they are dancing; if only ten steps away from the circle, the immense omnipotent darkness will swallow a person - and they dance, and the music plays for them so charmingly, so thoughtfully and tenderly.

The train stops for five minutes, and Yurasov intervenes in the crowd of curious people: they surround the platform with a dark colorless ring and tenaciously hold on to the wire, so unnecessary, colorless. And some of them smile with a strange cautious smile, others are gloomy and sad - that special pale sadness that is born in people at the sight of someone else's fun. But Yurasov is cheerful: with the inspired look of a connoisseur, he looks at the dancers, approves, lightly stamps his foot and suddenly decides:

- I will not go. I'll stay dancing!

Two people step out of the circle, carelessly parting the crowd: a girl in white and a tall young man, almost as tall as Yurasov. Along the half-asleep carriages, to the end of the plank platform, where darkness frowned cautiously, they walk beautifully and as if they carry a particle of light with them: it positively seems to Yurasov that the girl is glowing - her dress is so white, her eyebrows are so black on her white face. With the confidence of a man who dances well, Yurasov catches up with those walking and asks:

- Tell me, please, where can I get tickets for the dance here?

The young man has no mustache. With a stern, half-turned look, he surveys Yurasov and answers:

- Here only their own.

- I'm a traveller. My name is Heinrich Walter.

- You were told: only our own people are here.

My name is Heinrich Walter, Heinrich Walter.

- Listen! The young man stops threateningly, but the girl in white pulls him away.

If only she could look at Heinrich Walther! But she does not look, and, all white, luminous, like a cloud against the moon, for a long time still shines in the darkness and silently melts into it.

- And it is not necessary! - Yurasov whispers proudly after them, and in his soul it becomes so white and cold, as if snow had fallen there - white, clean, dead snow.

For some reason, the train is still standing, and Yurasov is walking along the carriages, so handsome, stern and important in his cold despair that now no one would take him for a thief who was sued three times for theft and spent many months in prison. And he is calm, he sees everything, hears and understands everything, and only his legs are like rubber - they do not feel the ground, but something dies in his soul, quietly, calmly, without pain and shudder. That's where it died.

The music plays again, and snippets of strange, frightening conversation intervene in its smooth dancing sounds:

“Listen, conductor, why isn’t the train coming?”

Yurasov slows down his steps and listens. The conductor at the back replies indifferently:

“It’s worth it, so there’s a reason. The machinist went to dance.

It's like he's on that train.

- And who saw him?

- Nobody saw it. The gendarme said.

- Your gendarme is lying, that's what. Also not stupider than his people ...

The bell rings, and Yurasov is indecisive for a minute. But from the side where the dances are, a girl in white walks with someone by the arm, and he jumps up onto the platform and crosses to the other side of it. So he does not see either the girl in white or the dancers; only music in an instant surrounds the back of his head with a wave of hot sounds, and everything disappears in the darkness and silence of the night. He is alone on the shaky platform of the carriage, among the vague silhouettes of the night; everything is moving, everything is going somewhere without touching him, so extraneous and ghostly, like the images of a dream for a sleeping person.

Pushing Yurasov with the door and not noticing him, the conductor with a lantern quickly passed through the platform and disappeared behind the next door. Neither his steps nor even the slamming of the door could be heard over the rumble of the train, but his whole vague, blurry figure with hurried advancing movements gave the impression of an instantaneous, abruptly broken cry. Yurasov went cold, thinking something quickly - and, like fire, flashed in his brain, in his heart, in his whole body, one huge and terrible thought: he was being caught. They telegraphed about him, they saw him, they recognized him, and now they are chasing him in the wagons. That “he”, about which the conductors spoke so mysteriously, is precisely Yurasov: it’s so scary to recognize and find yourself in some kind of impersonal “he”, about which strangers speak.

And now they keep talking about "him", looking for "him". Yes, there, from the last car they go, he feels it with the instinct of an experienced beast. Three or four, with lanterns, they examine the passengers, look into dark corners, wake the sleeping ones, whisper among themselves - and step by step, with fatal gradualness, with merciless inevitability, they approach "him", Yurasov, the one who is standing on platform and listens, stretching his neck. And the train rushes with ferocious speed, and the wheels no longer sing or speak. They scream with iron voices, they whisper secretly and deafly, they squeal in a wild ecstasy of malice - a frenzied pack of awakened dogs.

Yurasov clenched his teeth and, forcing himself to immobility, realized: it was impossible to jump off at such speed, the nearest stop was still far away; you need to go to the front of the train and wait there. While they searched all the cars, something might happen - the same stop and slow down, and he would jump off. And he enters the first door calmly, smiling so as not to appear suspicious, holding at the ready an exquisitely polite and

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At the end of the 20th century, at the height of the great human conquest of space around the Sun, an unusually rich deposit of radioactive ores was discovered on Venus - the Uranian Golconda. To storm Venus, Soviet designers are creating a new type of interplanetary ship - the Khius photonic rocket. Exploration of the mysterious "Uranium Golconda" and the device on its shores of the first rocket launcher entrusted to the select six of the brave interplanetary. About the adventures of the expedition in the monstrous swamps and black deserts of Venus, about the "crimson ring" and "mystery ...

Sherit Baldry

The restoration of the temple at Glastonbury Abbey is almost complete. But the fine life of the quiet town is disturbed by an extraordinary circumstance: Gwyneth and Gervard Mason discover the guest of the Crown Inn dead in the forest by the stream. From now on, their goal is to unravel the mystery of his death before Father Godfrey. Even close friends get on the list of alleged criminals! Will the guys be able to figure it out on their own, not trusting those who until recently were considered friends? The third book in the Abbey Mysteries series of thrilling stories.

Golden Reflection of Happiness by Judith French

This novel is a truly heavenly delight for those who want to forget about their worries at least for a while. It will take you to an amazing and colorful world, where there is everything from fights with pirates, and the exotic jungle hiding a tribe of ruthless cannibals, and the mysterious spirit of the mountain leader of the Incas (a spirit, and blood is coming from the very finger), and the revenge of an insidious villain, and countless treasures, in search of which the brave Miss Elizabeth goes and flogged with her own hands (for the cause) noble robber Kincaid. Noble and unspeakably beautiful! And that means…