Review of the story by V. M

Nichiporov I. B.

From the early stories of the early 60s. the image of the mother is revealed in the interior of the everyday lyrical sketch, permeated with autobiographical associations. In "Distant Winter Evenings" (1961), this is an image of the village life of the children of Vanka and Natashka with their mother in conditions of military deprivation, and, according to the memoirs of N.M. » homemade dumplings have a real basis. In artistic terms, the figurative and symbolic antithesis of heat and cold, comfort and chaos becomes central in the story, which is associated with the comprehension of the mother’s harmonizing influence on children’s souls and on the picture of life as a whole: “Her native, cheerful voice immediately filled the whole hut; emptiness and cold in the hut as it had never happened ... a bright life began. The image of the mother is revealed in generous detailing of both object-domestic (“the chirping of a sewing machine”) and speech character. Her sympathetic, “thoughtful” words about the children’s father fighting at the front recreate the tragic historical background of the action, bring together the individual and the epochal, universal in a holistic spiritual and moral space: “It’s hard for our father there too ... I suppose they are sitting in the snow, cordial ones ... If only in winter they didn't fight."

The deepening of psychological analysis when creating images of mothers is correlated by Shukshin with the artistic knowledge of the inescapable drama of their relationship with their sons, which becomes the main plot of the stories “The chief accountant’s nephew”, “Suraz”, “The strong man”, etc. In “The chief accountant’s nephew” (1961) mother appears in the memoirs of a young hero who left home and yearns for the city. Despite the fact that Vitka and his mother often “did not understand each other”, since the mother embodied a protective, homely principle, and Vitka “liked free life”, his perception of his mother turns out to be much broader than everyday, everyday relationships. In the details of her behavior, speech, he intuitively recognizes a high culture of kindred treatment of the domestic, natural universe: “He remembered how his mother talks to objects ... with rain ... mother dear ... with a stove ... ". As will be shown in the story “In profile and full face” (1967), such maternal spiritualization of near and far space had considerable pedagogical potential, taught the hero a lesson in sonship. She forced her son to say goodbye to the stove before leaving, “every time ... she reminded me how to speak”: “Mother oven, how you fed and fed me, so bless me on a long journey.”

In The Chief Accountant's Nephew, poignant memories of his mother help the hero feel the presence of the mother's hypostasis in nature, in the endless steppe: "Mother steppe, help me, please ... It became easier because he asked mother steppe." Through refined psychological detailing, the work conveys the fragility and trepidation of the mother-son relationship - in particular, the confusion, awkwardness of the mother when talking with her growing son about a possible second marriage. The dramatic position “alone on the stage” used in the finale allows you to highlight the antinomic spiritual world of the heroine from the inside, to convey her wise insight into the sharply dramatic rhythms of life: life, it seems, will go on like this ... ".

The drama of the mother’s relationship with the unlucky son who is not rooted in life is even more vividly drawn in the story “In profile and full face”: both in the moving plasticity of the dialogues and in the bitter reproach of the mother’s generalization (“Why, son, are you only thinking about yourself? .. Why don’t you think about mothers?”), and in the son’s improperly direct speech, reminiscent of a psychological remark to a tense “dramatic” action: “They are persistent, mothers. And helpless." This antinomy of the strength, greatness of the mother - and her vulnerability, helplessness is captured in the "gestural" detailing of the final episode of parting with her son: "Thoughtlessly, not so thoughtfully she looked in the direction where her son would go ... her head shook on his chest ... she crossed him" . The leitmotif of this episode ("And the mother was still standing ... Watching after him") slows down the rhythm of the narration, presenting momentary collisions against the background of unfading value orientations.

A creative attempt to portray the personality of the mother in evolution, in the prism of her experiences to highlight the complex, full of painful contradictions, mental warehouse of the central character was carried out in the story "Suraz" (1969). The external actions of a still young mother, who “mercilessly flogged” her son for school pranks, and then “tearing her hair at night and vomited over her son,” receive a deep psychological motivation: youngster." Echoes of this female, maternal drama will be revealed in the plot dynamics of the story in the destructive attitude of Spirka Rastorguev himself. In adulthood, the hero’s mother becomes the embodiment of a stable, domestic beginning (“she regretted, was ashamed that he would not start a family in any way”). Her judgment on him - loving and merciful - awakens secret strings in the hero's soul, appearing both in external behavior and in innermost heart work: “I found my mother's head in the dark, stroked her thin warm hair. He used to caress his mother when drunk. Spiridon’s involuntary return to inner prayer, thoughts about his mother, about her suffering for him becomes the leitmotif of the whole story and shows the invisible power of counteracting the general tragic logic of fate: “that’s who it hurts to leave in this life - mother”, “everyone wanted to get rid of the thought of mother "," I remembered my mother, and he ran to get away from this thought - about his mother. These internal throwings gradually determine the story of the complex relationship of the hero with the element of femininity that allures him - from painful lust for a married teacher to genuine heroism of the selfless rescue of a mother of two young children who was dying of starvation.

In the system of moral and philosophical coordinates of Shukshin's story, the mother's personality becomes the embodiment of a protective principle, while the fate of the central character is sometimes revealed in the prism of her perception and assessments, which is the most important aspect of the picture of the world.

In one of the key episodes of the story “The Strong Man” (1969), the mother of the foreman Shurygin, who destroyed the village church, takes the position of a stern, not at all condescending, in contrast to the plot situation of the story “Suraz”, a moral judgment over her son who fell into spiritual unconsciousness. In her vivid speech self-expression, the depths of the people's religious consciousness, which are not trampled down by any circumstances coming from outside, appear. The enlightening, rooted in centuries-old tradition, vision of the church as a home (“she added strength”) is combined in the speeches of the mother with the apocalyptic notes of the formidable prophecy to the son about the Supreme retribution for the sin committed: “Either at home he ended up overnight, or where the woodsman will press by chance” .

The prophetic potential of the mother's word is also found in the story "Fingerless" (1972), where the contours of the hero's brewing family drama are indicated through the mother's sympathetic look. In the passage, it seemed, an episode of her outwardly purely everyday collision with her daughter-in-law, a wise motherly word about the arrangement of marital relations, containing an involuntary foresight, sounds (“You are not going to live with your husband for a century”). And in the story "Vanka Teplyashin" (1972), in the sharply conflicted dramaturgy of the "hospital" episode, the "absurd" incident, the antinomy of the mother's worldly insecurity and her hidden wisdom is artistically comprehended. At the level of the compositional organization of the narrative, this antinomy is revealed in the contrasting superposition of two points of view on the world - the son and the mother. In the lively, loving-filial perception of Vanka Teplyashin, capaciously reflected by the author's "remark" ("so she cried out freely, human joy"), psychological strokes are added to the original portrait of the mother: "She makes her way across the street, looks around - she is afraid ...". In the key conflict episode with the hospital guard, the individualized features of this portrait take on an expansive, archetypal meaning, they show the painful inertia of the age-old social humiliation of a simple Russian woman: in the image of a begging, “begged” mother, in the transfer of her “learned-pathetic, habitually-pathetic” voices, in the “gestural” detailing of her behavior: “Mother was sitting on a bench ... and wiping her tears with a half-shawl” . In the final dialogue, the mother’s word, imbued with a “bitter thought” about her son, opens up the height of a sharp generalization about the hero’s life drama, the dead ends of his maximalist worldview and disorder (“You can’t gain a foothold anywhere, sonny”). The laconic remark commenting on this conversation (“Mother will never be spoken to”) marks the intersection of the views of the hero and the narrator, in the situational it betrays the presence of the eternal and grows to the level of aphoristically expressed worldly wisdom.

For Shukshin's later stories, it turns out to be very characteristic that sometimes sketchy episodes related to mothers are saturated with the potential of existential, social generalizations. So, in the story "Borya" (1973), the tense expectation of the arrival of the mother by the hero staying in the hospital ward highlights the innermost layers of his mental life, and the narrator's observations of him crystallize into a philosophical reflection on the hierarchy of moral values, on the greatness of ordinary pity for a person, the quintessence of which is motherly love, compassionate in nature: “Mother is the most respected thing in life, the most dear - everything consists of pity. She loves her child, respects, is jealous, wants the best for him - a lot of things, but invariably, all her life - she regrets. The ethically oriented author's thought is addressed to the natural secret of the mother's personality itself, which in an incomprehensible way contributes to the harmonization of the world: "Leave everything to her, and take away pity, and life in three weeks will turn into an all-world mess" . A symptomatic manifestation of such harmonization is snatched from the flow of everyday life in the story "Friends of Play and Fun" (1974). Here arises a unique image in Shukshin's characterology of the still very young mother Alevtina, who, under the influence of an accomplished event, is experiencing a deep, yet not conscious for her own change, the transformation of her inner being. The maternal hypostasis as a sign of spiritual superiority, a gift sent down from above enters in the rapid event dynamics of the story in sharp contrast with the behavior of fussing, sorting out the relationship of relatives: “As soon as she became a mother, she immediately somehow wised up, grew bolder, often dabbled with her Anton and laughed” .

Over the years, special stories appear in the writer's prose - portraits of mothers, where the ways of artistic embodiment of the central image turn out to be very diverse and can be based on the use of folklore archetypes, on the heroine's tale self-disclosure, on the objective author's narration.

From the centuries-old folklore tradition, the image of a mother suffering for her son sprouts in the story “On Sunday, the old mother ...” (1967). Its leitmotif is the heartfelt performance by the blind folk singer Ganya of a song about an “old mother” who brought “a parcel to her own son” to prison. This song, popular during the war years, becomes a significant communicative event, because in the imagination of the “narrator” himself, the listeners, the details of the picture were completed when “it was seen how the old mother approached the gates of the prison” . The direct verbal self-expression of the mother, which contains a generalization of folk experience (“And then people say ...”), conceals her deep experience, comprehended already at the supra-verbal level, which forms the semantic culmination of Ganina’s song:

The old mother turned

From the gates of the prison went ...

And no one knows about it

On the soul that suffered.

Noteworthy is the conjugation of the imagery of this story with Shukshin's direct communication with his mother, who sent her son the words of this song, which he remembered only based on the motive of the song. The story “Mother’s Dreams” (1973; original title “My Mother’s Dreams”) is also permeated with similar autobiographicism, where in the fantastic form of the mother’s narrative (“she told them more than once”), in a living dialogic fabric, with the characteristic features of the folk dialect, facets are drawn her personality, hidden spiritual quests are revealed.

These five dreams are indeed united by the theme of the “other world”, however, it would be inaccurate to interpret them solely in the light of the experience of “superstitious fear” of the mysteries of being. Behind attempts to look into the mysterious, sometimes frightening writings of fate, dissolved in everyday realities - as, for example, in an expositional dream or in a prophecy about the death of a husband - unclouded sources of popular faith emerge, insight into the transmaterial dimension of God's world. It is the Christian consciousness that dictates here the perception of “two boys in cassocks” who appeared in a dream, conveying to the heroine’s sister a call not to cry without measure for dead daughters; and the desire to fulfill the order of the deceased "Avdotya girls" to help the poor. A humble awareness of her own imperfection comes to the heroine in a dream meeting with a friend who passed away early, where, in spiritual insight, various levels of the afterlife are revealed before the earthly gaze.

The actualization of the transrational dream dimension when comprehending the depths of the mother's soul also occurs in the expositional part of the story "Letter" (1970), where the old woman Kandaurova acutely feels the spiritual insufficiency of human existence outside of Communion with God ("But where is my God?"). As in Mother's Dreams, here one can observe the mother's direct skazal self-disclosure in her letter to her daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren. The power of a mother's insight, which allows one to intuitively recreate specific episodes of her daughter's not entirely prosperous family life, reveals the "dramatic" potential of live action in the monologue, it seemed, form of writing. The famous "all-encompassing dialogism of Shukshin's story" was expressed here in a multidirectional, emotionally flexible, wise motherly word. These are confessional projections on our own childhood experience (“We, too, sometimes grew up with our father and mothers, we also used to disobey their advice, and then regretted it, but it was too late”), and memories of our unhappy marriage, and enlightening humor in an appeal to the son-in-law: “If you come again so thoughtful, I’ll hit you on the head with a slotted spoon, you have thoughts of a perestroika.” In the worldview of the heroine, an antinomic interweaving of a joyfully solemn vision of life takes place (“Lord, the old woman thought, it’s good, it’s good on earth, it’s good”) - and the self-ironic mode contained in the final psychological stroke, the opposite of naive enthusiasm: “Old! she said to herself. “Look, I’m going to live once! .. We saw her!” .

The story "At the Cemetery" (1972) is also based on the portrait principle. The psychologically detailed recreated conversation between the narrator and the old woman at her son's grave shows the contact between the transient and the transtemporal, which initially stems from the mother's mystical perception of the son's burial place as a secret, reserved space that does not tolerate the presence of a stranger. The heroine's thoughts about the Highest Destiny, which came true in an untimely loss ("It's not up to us to decide this, that's the trouble"), the exacting moral assessments of the current life serve as a compositional frame for the "story within a story" sounding from her lips, which forms the semantic core of the work. Through verbal and gestural plasticity, it is conveyed here how, at the moment of telling, an entirely different, spiritualized, clarified perception of the world is put forward in place of the old woman’s habitual oppression of “constant” grief (“looking at me with clear washed eyes”). In her legendary story about the miraculous meeting of a soldier with a woman crying in a cemetery, a sacred, free from worldly stratification embodiment of sacrificial motherhood, first revealed by the Mother of God herself, is drawn: “I am the earthly mother of God and I cry for your unlucky life.” This interpenetration of the miraculous and the ordinary (the soldier “has an image of the Mother of God on his tunic”) is also sensitively felt by the narrator himself, in connection with which his impulse “to take off his jacket and see if there is anything there” becomes remarkable. This "inserted" story highlights in the work the features of the hagiographical genre, which are focused on "the righteous image of the mother, actualizing the features of the Mother of God, associated with the function of protection and intercession, filled with pity and mercy for her children" .

Artistic comprehension of the depths of maternal consciousness in the prism of an objective author's narrative is carried out in the story "A Mother's Heart" (1969). The action-packed story with Vitka Borzenkov is reproduced here with a jerky dotted line, only as a compositionally necessary overture to the central theme - the mother's heart. Since the introduction of this topic in the story, the narrative rhythm, the flow of artistic time have noticeably slowed down, and the author’s word is thoroughly “saturated” with maternal worldview: “Vitkin’s mother found out about the misfortune the next day ...” [i] .

The speech means of revealing the mother's inner world appear multidimensional in the story. A brief prehistory, to a large extent typical for her time (“she gave birth to five children, her husband died at the front”) is replaced by bright verbal self-expressions of the mother, who was never named by name, but appears in her original, highest natural quality. In her direct appeals, saturated with the color of the folk word (“fathers are holy”, “andel you are my Lord”, “you are my dear sons”, “you have pity on him”, “andels you are mine, good people”), a desperate attempt is made to approve the priority of general humanistic, Christian principles over other forms of regulation of human life: “Yes, you can do something with your offense - you forgive him, damned.” The artistic “nerve” of Shukshin’s narrative becomes how, in the sphere of the heroine’s improperly direct speech, where faith and heartfelt understanding are preferred to rational knowledge (“I realized that this long one was hostile to her son”, “I realized that this one also disliked her son”) , the mother's word is sympathetically picked up and at the same time objectified, gradually corrected by the narrator's word. The initial moral message for the narrator ("Mother's heart, it is wise") does not prevent him from again and again subjecting the heroine's spiritual aspirations to analytical comprehension, skillfully - with the help of repetitions, inversions - while maintaining the tensely excited sound of her voice: "She will rescue her son She believed in it, she believed it. All her life she did nothing but cope with grief ... Strange, the mother never thought about her son - that he had committed a crime, she knew one thing: a big misfortune happened to her son. A similar meaningful intersection of the mother's faith with the narrator's thoughts occurs in the final remark, informing the speech fabric of the story of artistic unity: "It's okay, good people will help." She believed they would help.

Compositionally, the story is “mounted” from “dramatically” intense scenes, where powerful psychological overtones are hidden behind the external speech behavior of the characters. Among them, the episode in the police stand out, the mother’s conversation with the prosecutor, and especially her meeting with the imprisoned son, described in its original meaning, repeated over the centuries, which consisted in the fact that “her child was sitting nearby, guilty, helpless” . The creative energy of the mother's attitude to speech, perceived as an instrument of protest against despair, is striking - especially in connection with her optimistic "reinterpretation" of the obviously disappointing words of the prosecutor. The mother’s experience of folk faith, which is expressed in the son’s sincere call to prayer, is somewhat undermined, however, by manifestations of momentary pragmatism (“We will enter from all sides”), the image of which contributes to the objectivity of the author’s artistic knowledge of characters and circumstances.

So, the images of mothers, and more broadly - the theme of motherhood constitute one of the essential problem-thematic levels of Shukshin's artistic world. Creating a gallery of these images for more than a decade, the writer started from autobiographical memories and, referring to them, moved towards large-scale generalizations of social experience, towards the embodiment of moral, ontological intuitions. The images of mothers are depicted in Shukshin's stories both in the portrait-monographic plan and in the "drama" of tense, conflicting relationships with other characters, social circumstances, and everyday patterns. Reliance on the archetypal ideas of motherhood dating back to ancient culture was organically combined in Shukshin with the development of original narrative strategies, figurative and expressive means of creating images of mothers - in the unity of the historically defined and eternal. other forms of regulation of the storytelling ment put forward a completely different, spiritualized, clarified perception of the world ("the place of the habitual "al" name" "" which, at the request of her son, sent him the words of this song, which was remembered only on the basis of the motive of the song. Like avni, they are called very diverse and can be based on the use of folklore a unique image in Shukshin's characterology of the still very young mother Alevtina, who is experiencing under the influence

Bibliography

1. Shukshin V.M. Collected Works: In 3 volumes. V.2. Stories of 1960 - 1971 / Comp. L. Fedoseeva-Shukshina; Comment. L. Anninsky, L. Fedoseyeva-Shukshina. M., Mol. guard, 1985.

2. Shukshin V.M. Collected Works: In 3 volumes. V.3. Stories 1972 - 1974. Tales. Publicism / Comp. L. Fedoseeva-Shukshina; Comment. L. Anninsky, L. Fedoseyeva-Shukshina. M., Mol. guard, 1985.

3. Shukshin V.M. Hope and Believe: Stories. Film story "Kalina Krasnaya". Letters. Memories. M., Sunday, 1999.

4. Bobrovskaya I.V. Hagiographic tradition in the work of V.M. Shukshin. Abstract dis... cand. philol. Sciences. Barnaul, 2004.

5. Glushakov P.S. On some "superstitious motives" in the work of Vasily Shukshin // Shukshin Readings. The phenomenon of Shukshin in literature and art of the second half of the twentieth century. Sat. mater. museum scientific-practical. conf. October 1 - 4, 2003 Barnaul, 2004. P. 61 - 66.

6. Leiderman N.L., Lipovetsky M.N. Vasily Shukshin // Leiderman N.L., Lipovetsky M.N. Modern Russian literature: In 3 books. Book 2: Seventies (1968 - 1986): Uch. allowance. M., Editorial URSS, 2001. P.57 - 66.

Getmanova Julia, 8th grade (2014)
Competition "Golden Feather"

The writing

Many people know and love the stories of V. M. Shukshin. Little life situations that no one would have paid attention to were included in everyone's favorite collections of short stories. Simple and clear, they make you think. The story “Mother's Heart”, which I want to tell, was no exception. This story reveals the fullness and depth of the mother's heart, which refuses logic and common sense in the name of saving her own child.
The theme of "fathers and children" has always been present in the literature, but quite rarely this theme described the relationship between mother and son.
There was a conflict, but not a family one, but between the mother and the “law”, which she is ready to break in order to save her child.
Her son Viktor Borzenkov is about to get married and, in order to earn money, he goes to the market to sell lard. Having received one hundred and fifty rubles, he goes to the stall to drink a glass of red wine, where he meets a young girl who offers to continue their conversation at her place. And of course, the next morning he woke up in an unfamiliar place, without money and with a sore head. Even in the market, he hid a gold coin, just in case, and this case turned out to be. Returning to the stall, he drinks a bottle of wine from his throat and throws it into the park. The people who were nearby tried to reason with him with words, but it came to a fight. Having wound his naval belt around his hand and leaving a badge like a flail, Vitka “sent” two attackers to the hospital. A policeman who tried to stop him also got under the hot hand. A policeman with a head injury was sent to the hospital, and Vitka Borzenkov was sent to the bullpen. Upon learning of what had happened, Vitya's mother dropped everything and went to all authorities, hoping to free her son. She never thought that he had committed a crime.
not that there is a law by which he must be judged. “A mother's heart, it is wise, but where trouble loomed for her own child, the mother is not able to perceive an extraneous mind, and logic has nothing to do with it.”
The author tried to convey the experiences that Vitya's mother experienced. And I think that this is one of the most successful attempts. A life tragedy turns into a story with a deep ideological meaning. And the most striking moment, revealing the main idea of ​​the work, was the scene of the meeting of the mother with her son in prison, when she comes to visit him. “The mother at that moment had something else in her soul: she suddenly completely ceased to understand what is in the world - the police, the prosecutor, the court, the prison ... Her child was sitting next to him, guilty, helpless ... And who can now take him away she has when
she, no one else - does he need? Indeed, he needs her. He sacredly honors his mother and will never let her offend. But even before the meeting, he becomes ashamed. “It's embarrassingly embarrassing. Sorry mother. He knew that she would come to him, break through all the laws - he was waiting for this and was afraid. He himself was afraid of offending her.
These feelings are deep and bottomless, and it is clear that it is simply impossible to express them in words. But the author uses the style that is understandable to the common man, the language that makes this work accessible to the public. In addition, the author takes the side of the main characters, and although it is difficult and even impossible to challenge the law, maternal love, which defies any laws, comes first here.
“And that indestructible faith that good people would help her led her and led her, her mother did not hesitate anywhere, did not stop to cry to her heart's content. She acted." "Nothing, kind people will help." She believed they would help.

Vitka Borzenkov was about to get married. We needed money. He went from his village to the bazaar in the district town and sold salo there for one hundred and fifty rubles. Before leaving home, Vitka went to a wine stall and had a couple of glasses of red wine. At the stall, a young girl, Rita, started talking to him. Vitka did not know that she had noticed him at the bazaar and was watching on purpose. Rita had a light drink with the guy and led him through unfamiliar lanes to her home. There the drinking continued. Victor was kissing Rita, and then, as he fell into a deep sleep, he was drugged with something ...

He woke up late, under some kind of fence. There was no money raised for the salo. Filled with anger at the city swindlers, Vitka, on the way to the bus station, started a fight with several tipsy men and began to beat them with his naval belt, in whose badge was filled with lead. Three or four people fell from his blows, and then one of the policemen who came running to the noise. Then Vitka was seized and taken to the bullpen.

In the morning Vitka's mother was informed of the misfortune in the village. They said that now they will definitely plant their son. Mother rushed around the village. Her husband and eldest of her five sons died in the war. The daughter died of starvation in the difficult year of 1946. Two more sons, fleeing the same famine, left for recruitment in the FZU and left far from home. Vitka was the youngest. His mother went out of her last strength: she sold everything, remained a beggar, but left ...

With a groaning heart, the mother now rushed to the city. Entering the police station, she fell to her knees and asked to “forgive” her son. But the chief, who was sitting at the table, explained to her that the people wounded by Vitka were in a serious condition. It is impossible to close such a case with all the desire. The mother wept and begged, so that even the militiamen finally aroused something like pity. The stern boss warmed up and advised her to go to the prosecutor.

The prosecutor listened attentively to the mother and explained to her what had happened from a scientific and legal point of view. “From a human point of view, everything is clear, but there are also higher considerations.” Those who naughty must be punished, otherwise it will be impossible to maintain order. But the mother's heart did not want to accept the inevitable. She asked the prosecutor if there was anyone "higher than him". He answered: there are regional organizations. But I did not advise you to go there: it is still useless; they say the same as he does. At the mother's request, the prosecutor allowed her to see her son. Despite the prosecutor's explanations, the mother believed that there were kind people who would definitely help her. And she will break, but she will find these good people.

Mother returned to the police. There they read a note from the prosecutor and took the old woman to the bullpen. Seeing his mother, Vitka, who was alone in the cell, jumped up from the bunk. He was shaking a little.

The mother, with bated breath, looked at her child, guilty and helpless. Having learned that the policeman wounded by him was in the hospital, Vitka said: they would give him seven years, no less. “All is dust! Everything, the whole life somersault! he shouted, walking around the cell. Looking at the despair of her son, the mother realized by some intuition that she herself should never succumb to the same feeling.

Ludmila Zykina. Dedication to Shukshin

She told Vitka about her conversation with the prosecutor. But she hid that he convinced her of the hopelessness of the case. On the contrary, the mother began to assure her son: the prosecutor hinted that the regional organizations could be of great help. Therefore, she will take the best “characteristics” for Vitka from the village authorities, sell all the canvases she has woven for his wedding, go to the region and ensure that her son is given no more than a year. “Christ save you,” she crossed Vitka, when the policeman who entered ordered to end the meeting.

Coming out of the cell, the mother could not see anything because of her tears. But she knew that if despair took hold of her, then everything was lost - therefore, she must not think, but act. And the mother worked. On the same day she returned to the village for "characteristics", and in the afternoon she went to the "regional organizations". She was guided by her mother's heart. She believed, inspired herself that good people would help ...

Shukshin V.M., Mother's heart.
Vitka Borzenkov went to the bazaar in the district town, sold salo for one hundred and fifty rubles (he was going to get married, he desperately needed money) and went to the wine stall to “lubricate” a glass or two of red. A young girl came up and asked: "Let me have a light." "Hungover?" - Vitka asked directly. "Well," the girl replied simply. "And there's nothing to hangover, huh?" - "Do you have?" Vitka bought more. We drank. Both became good. "Maybe some more?" - asked Vitka. "Not here. You can come to me." In Vitka's chest, something sweet and slippery wagged its tail. The girl's house turned out to be clean - curtains, tablecloths on the tables. The girlfriend showed up. They spilled the wine. Vitka kissed the girl right at the table, and she seemed to push away, but she clung to her, hugged her neck. What happened then, Vitka does not remember - how it was cut off. I woke up late at night under some kind of fence. His head was buzzing, his mouth was dry. He searched his pockets - there was no money. And by the time he got to the bus station, he had accumulated so much anger against the city swindlers, he hated them so much that even the pain in his head subsided. At the bus station, Vitka bought another bottle, drank it all right from the bottle and threw it into the park. "People can sit there," they told him. Vitka took out his naval belt, wound it around his hand, leaving the heavy badge free. "Are there people in this lousy little town?" And the fight began. The police came running, Vitka foolishly hit one of them on the head with a badge. The policeman fell... And he was taken to the bullpen.
Vitkin's mother learned about the misfortune the next day from the district police officer. Vitka was her fifth son; One trouble: as he drinks, a fool becomes a fool. "What's in it for him now?" - "Prison. They can give you five years." Mother rushed to the area. Having crossed the threshold of the police, the mother fell on her knees, wailing: "You are my dear angels, but your reasonable little heads! .. Forgive him, the accursed one!" "You get up, get up, this is not a church," they told her. "Look at your son's belt - you can kill like that. Your son sent three people to the hospital. We have no right to let them go." - "And to whom should I go now?" - "Go to the prosecutor." The prosecutor began the conversation with her affectionately: "How many of you, children, did your father grow up in your father's family?" "Sixteen, father." “Here! And they obeyed their father. And why? The mother only understood that this one also disliked her son. "Father, is there anyone higher than you?" - "There are. And a lot. Only it is useless to contact them. No one will cancel the court." - "Allow me to have a date with my son." - "It's possible".
With the paper issued by the prosecutor, the mother again went to the police. Everything in her eyes dimmed and swam, she silently wept, wiping her tears with the ends of her handkerchief, but she walked habitually quickly. "Well, the prosecutor?" the police asked her. "He ordered me to go to the regional organizations," my mother lied. "And here - on a date." She handed over the paper. The police chief was a little surprised, and the mother, noticing this, thought: "Ah." She felt better. During the night, Vitka became haggard, overgrown - it hurts to look. And the mother suddenly ceased to understand that there is a police force, a court, a prosecutor, a prison ... Her child was sitting next to her, guilty, helpless. With her wise heart, she realized what despair oppresses the soul of her son. "All ashes! All life has gone topsy-turvy!" “You seem to have already been convicted!” said the mother reproachfully. - "Where have you been?" - "At the prosecutor's ... Let him, he says, until he worries, let him put all thoughts out of his head ... We, they say, cannot do anything here ourselves, because we have no right. And you, they say, do not waste time, but sit down and go to the regional organizations... Right now I'll get home, I'll take a testimonial on you. that everything is now topsy-turvy."
The mother got up from the bunk, smallly crossed her son and whispered with only her lips: “Christ save you.” She walked along the corridor and again saw nothing from tears. It was getting miserable. But the mother worked. She was already in the village in her thoughts, wondering what she needed to do before leaving, what papers to take. She knew that to stop, to fall into despair - this is death. Late in the evening she got on the train and went. "Nothing, good people will help." She believed they would help.