Hello, friends!

I promised to write this post for a long time, and now it is finally brought to your attention.

Today you can find a huge number of recommendations for admission to the theater school. The reason is simple - everyone wants to make money preparing you for admission. Unfortunately, not really worrying that your further acting fate largely depends on their "advice".

However, due to not a deep understanding of the topic and the authors' own interpretation, I associate these recommendations with Solieri, who tried to compose music with the help of mathematics. I hope you remember what came of it... He killed Mozart.

Some even bring tears to my eyes. Unfortunately not happy...

I will not hide, earlier I also followed this path from my inexperience and commercialism, but now I try not to succumb to the greedy temptation and grief of popularity. And my latest recommendations already look more ... professional and sensible, or something ...

But let's not talk about that. The purpose of today's post is quite different. Now I will share with you really proven ways to get into drama schools, which in many cases really work.

So, you have decided to become a dramatic actor or theater and film actress. And moms, dads and other close and distant relatives failed to dissuade you from this crazy idea. The next step in achieving your dream will be admission to a theater university or, in common people, a theater school. And most importantly, the passage of a creative competition.

And immediately a lot of questions: What is a creative competition? What does it consist of? How to prepare for it? What is better to take prose, poems and fables? What is the selection criterion? How long should they be? How should you look and what to wear? What are these examiners conducting competitive selection? Evil or good? What else can be asked to do and why?

Ai...Oi... PANIC!!!

Where to rush? Who to contact for help? What to do? Ha... ha... The eternal Russian question.

SET UP!

First of all, calm down and relax. Now let's figure everything out. "Relax", as my Teacher - Felix Mikhailovich Ivanov used to say.

First, what is a creative competition, why is it needed and what is it eaten with.

The creative competition is a mandatory exam in all theater schools in our country.
To understand what it is, imagine a set of sifters for sifting flour. Each subsequent sieve has holes of smaller diameter.
The creative competition is exactly the same set, consisting of previews - an interview, several rounds, they are also called auditions, a plastic exam and a colloquium - a conversation with the artistic director and teachers of the future course.

The number of stages in the set and their purpose may change, for example, vocal listening will be added, or plastic will be replaced with dance. It depends on the nature of the training at the school and the preferences of the course leader. Each sieve in the set is needed to identify the abilities and natural data needed in the acting profession. And as a result, screening of applicants not suitable for training.

By the way. Having passed one of the stages, do not think that you have been taken and you are the happy owner of the winning ticket. No. This is only the beginning of the marathon distance and the end is still very far away. But you will get there. I am sure about that.

Let's continue. Now about each stage in more detail.

Previews.

It all starts with a preview. At this stage, there is the largest screening of those wishing to become actors, but the requirements here are the softest. Your task is simply to attract attention to yourself, to stand out from the general mass of applicants. And as a result, get admission to the first round of the competition.
In many schools, this primary selection is carried out by graduate students, teaching assistants, trainees or second teachers. Masters and leading teachers are very rarely present at auditions. But there are exceptions.

How to make it so that they would pay attention to you?

You must be something different from everyone in your twenty, ten or five. For this, all means are good. No need to be shy. Everything is like in the market. You are a commodity. And any seller knows that at the beginning the buyer is attracted only by the appearance of the product, and only then by the taste. They will try you later. On tours.

Now you have decided that you do not have external data for the acting profession? Not very beautiful and too plump? But what about then Evgeny Pavlovich Leonov, Alexei Nikolaevich Gribov, Faina Georgievna Ranevskaya, Tatyana Ivanovna Peltzer and Inna Mikhailovna Churikova? Let's just say they're not handsome. However, they can be safely attributed to the category of great actors. They are the glory of the Russian theater and our pride.

A small explanation: the course needs students with different external and internal data. different. And preferably in two or even three copies, in case of illness or expulsion of one of the students. Please note that the head and teachers of the course must stage graduation performances, and for this, performers of various roles are needed. So don't worry. Everyone is taken to this "ark": tall, short, fat, thin, beautiful and ... not very.

I advise you to watch on MTV or on the Internet the series "America's Next Top Model" with Tyra Banks. Even in the modeling business, different people win. Including Tyra herself, who has a very problematic lower body.

So, at the stage of preliminary auditions, the most important thing is the right attitude, correctly selected reading material and a good appearance - clothes, hairstyle and competent make-up for girls (make-up).

About reading material a little later. Now about the mood and appearance and its use.

Psychological adjustment to a creative competition is the most important element of your preparation.

It must begin with work with imaginary images, in other words, with fantasies. Imagine passing the exam as a fait accompli with a positive result for you. These representations should be bright and very realistic. With all the details, including smells, sounds, music, voices of people and machines, the actions that people perform in your images. Add to that the taste experience. The picture should be complete, like in a 3D cinema.

You need to start this preparation two weeks before the preliminary audition in order to develop in yourself a stable attitude to win as an intermediate goal in your acting career, and an attitude towards entering the school as the most joyful event in your life. I recommend repeating this training as often as possible. At least once a day.

During the competition itself, before reading your material, I recommend sniffing something with a strong but pleasant smell. This will help you keep the right attitude in such a nervous environment.

By the way, Innokenty Mikhailovich Smoktunovsky sniffed oranges at the rehearsals of The Idiot. And that helped him a lot.

By the way. Please note that in most cases, the school accepts people who came to the exam for the company with friends, just to support them. The mood of such applicants was the most correct. At that moment, they were interested in the process of getting friends, and not their own result. It was this attitude that helped them to show their natural potential at the competition as much as possible.

Now about the appearance and its use.

Clothing, as well as hair and make-up, should, if possible, hide flaws and reveal advantages.

For girls. Dresses, skirts, blouses. And no trousers or trouser suits, T-shirts and strapless bras peeking out from under the clothes. This is how you will dress when you go to college. Top with long sleeves. From excitement, the vessels narrow and the blood supply is disturbed. Hands look blue. It's better to cover them up. Do not cut too deep on the chest and neckline. There are many women on the admissions committee. Your breasts may be better than theirs. And the receipt for you will end in a fiasco. But if the reception is carried out by men, then it is better to have a blouse with buttons.

All teachers are people and nothing human is alien to them.

The bottom should show that you have legs. The length is better than the classic, five to ten centimeters below the knees. Who has a problem with the legs - the length is up to the ankle. Be careful with mini skirts and slits, the recommendations are the same as with the neckline. In general, in my opinion, a free-cut dress to the knees or slightly lower is better. Color and pattern on clothes can be any. Preferably pastel colors. Avoid polka dots, very small and colorful checks, and flowers that are too large or too small. From them ripples in the eyes and irritates already tired teachers. The middle strip is perfect. But we must remember that the vertical one lengthens the figure and is suitable for not tall and full, while the horizontal one makes it look fat and visually makes the figure shorter. Remember this and use it wisely.

Young people with a well-proportioned figure will suit a slightly fitted top with long sleeves. It can be a shirt, a turtleneck or, at worst, a sweatshirt. Preferably not colorful colors, and without pictures and inscriptions on the chest. Hawaiian style shirts and T-shirts will not work. Children with a non-standard figure should use striped clothes that create the illusion of a harmonious figure. The recommendations are the same as for girls.

Bottom - better trousers, not jeans. They should be loose-fitting so that your manhood does not stick out. It is necessary to demonstrate it to girls in bed, but to teachers. But it's up to you.

Now, the trick. Detail matters in clothing. Bright, catchy, which others do not have and which can be quickly changed. Shawl, tippet, scarf or belt for girls. Tie, neckerchief or pocket square for boys. You need to take a few of them with you and change them depending on how others in your top ten are dressed. Also, in extreme cases, you can use a jacket, sweater and jacket. Don't change your clothes, especially on tours. Teachers may not remember you.

The hairstyle should reveal your face, especially your eyes. As they say, the eyes are the mirror of the soul and the main expressive means of the actor. For boys and girls. Get your bangs out of your eyes! They are very annoying teachers in the selection committee.

For girls. Open the neck and ears, if there are no obvious problems with them (very large or too protruding).
Now tricks. Long curls along the face will help hide large cheekbones. Dumped forward on the chest - a short neck. The bangs raised on the pile - a small forehead, slightly lowered - too large.

Pin up your hair in a bun or ponytail if most of the girls in your top ten are fluffy, and vice versa, loosen it if they are short.

For guys. Hair can be any length, but not below zero and not longer than the line of the shoulders. And not any dirty, greasy patches. The hair should be clean, the hairstyle decent and slightly sloppy.

If all the boys in your group are combed, then slightly tousle your hair. Otherwise, apply with a little water. Do this quickly right before entering the listening room.

Girls. There should be almost no make-up ... visible. It must be extremely natural. Many girls do Mohawk war paint on their faces. Apply tone and emphasize the eyes.

Guys. Tone acne and boils on the face. For you, this is everything.

I advise you to look on the Internet at specialized sites for more detailed information.

Now they will start “trying” you to the fullest, but don’t be shy - we’ll break through.

At this stage, the most rigorous selection of future students takes place. And you have to come well prepared. Here you need to show all your data, all natural potential: charisma, emotionality, organics. Everything you can do and more. On tours, there are usually three of them, although there may be additional ones, you have to take risks and go to the end. There may not be a second chance. It is necessary to hit the consciousness of the members of the selection committee, to surprise them to the core.

How to do it?

With the help of well-chosen and very well read prose, poems and fables.

There is only one criterion for choosing reading material, and I am convinced of this - it should be close to you in spirit and excite you emotionally. No. Not just like it, but it should excite you, excite you to the core. And these experiences must be absolutely sincere.

Made at school with a tutor will not work. You will be bitten. The fact that the material is done, experienced teachers see immediately. They have been sitting in the commission for more than a year, and during this time they have seen many different things. Their task is to find a diamond that is not faceted, and you are trying to sell them fake jewelry. Let perfectly made, but not real. Who will like it?

Understand. It is not important how you read correctly, with or without accents, whether you keep a backlash or not, where you put stresses. This will be taught to you in school. What matters is what this reading reveals in you. And this is NATURAL POTENTIAL! Revealing it is the most important thing. Remember this.

Only such an approach to reading material will lead to success and you will read it perfectly.

Now, why precisely prose, poem and fable? The secret is simple.

Prose or prose passage. They help to see in you the ability to create in your imagination and convey to the audience visual pictures of what you are talking about. The ability to attract the attention of the audience, the so-called mankost. As well as the ability to lead a thought to its logical conclusion.

Poem. Reveals the degree of your emotionality and sense of rhythm.

Fable. It shows how free you are, as well as the ability to quickly transform and be different. When reading a fable, it is very important to be organic and not depict anything.

Recommendations:
Do not take too long passages of prose. Better take a few minutes and a half maximum different in character and genre. I assure you, they won't listen any longer, and if they ask you to continue, you'll have something else. The passage should be with one strong and very bright event somewhere in the middle, and it is imperative that there be a beginning and an end.
No need to tempt fate with monologues from plays. Especially Shakespeare. The level of the material is not yours yet. Don't pull.

Choose small poems. Lyrical, heroic, tragic, dramatic, love, but not philosophical. Emotions are needed, gentlemen, emotions!

Do not read works of a gender other than your own. Young people choose poems and prose for men, and girls for women. Otherwise, it may raise strange questions. And it sounds terrible.

It is better to take fables by I. Krylov or S. Mikhalkov, I do not advise taking Aesop. It is more difficult because of the translation.

And once again I will repeat. You should not only like prose, poems and fables, but evoke an emotional response in you. This is the key to success.
Yes, and read like the last time in your life. After that, at least the flood.

On tours, you may also be asked to complete some task. For example, surprise or frighten those present, squat down, climb onto a chair and crow, open an imaginary can of canned food in which a live snake sits.
All this in order to determine the degree of your freedom and imagination, the reactivity of your brain. Here you just need to let go of yourself and do the first thing that comes to mind - it will be true.

You won’t be able to guess how to do it right, so don’t try to please the teachers. Act, and only then think like an animal. Rather, as a primitive man. Trust your intuition. She will guide you on the right path.

The Movement Examination is designed to test the coordination and working qualities of your musculoskeletal system.

Clothes for this exam can be taken in a simpler, but better dark color. A long or short sleeve T-shirt, sweatpants, sneakers or jazz shoes will do. For dancing - shoes for girls and shoes for boys with a small heel.

Please note that if you have passed the main rounds, this exam is a pure formality. It is sometimes used to screen out controversial applicants. I hope you are not. True, there are stubborn stage movers and crazy dance teachers. So, still be on the lookout.

But the vocal exam is a more serious matter. Especially if the artistic director gravitates toward musical theater. There can be only one recommendation here - SING! And preferably, sing well.

The colloquium, as I said, is a conversation with the artistic director and teachers of the future course to find out your cultural level and how strong and conscious the desire to become an actor or actress is in you. Actually, it's more like an interview. Questions and answers.

I must say right away that the artistic director and teachers are interested in recruiting capable students. The attitude towards them and new sets for their courses are highly dependent on who they graduate and how many of them are in demand in the future. Take them with the above in mind. They are your good friends, not enemies.

Therefore, behave calmly and answer with dignity, slowly. No need to flirt and grimace. If you do not know what to answer, it is better to ask again. There will be time to think.

Finally, a few tips.

You have to be well prepared to go. Your psychophysical apparatus must be in working condition throughout the entire creative competition, and this is not easy.
To do this, you need to accumulate emotions all the time and spend them only on exams.

Therefore, do not enter into quarrels and conflicts, do not run to discos and noisy parties with friends, do not drink alcohol and do not use any energy drinks there.
You need to drink tea, preferably green or plain water.
Food should be natural and rich in carbohydrates. Emotions are very energy intensive things.
Try to get enough sleep, but don't oversleep.
Listen to music, preferably jazz.
Watch classic movies. I advise you to watch old comedies.
It is important. Recharges your emotional pillow.

Take a bottle of plain water with you to the competition, it will not allow dry mouth to form. Avoid sugary drinks, energy drinks and juices. The saliva in the mouth will become viscous and when reading, half of the letters will disappear.

And you also need to take five heels of Bon-Pari type candies. Eating a candy five minutes before entering the listening room will dramatically increase your carbohydrate levels. This will give you a new surge of strength.

If suddenly right before reading you feel that your mouth is dry and numb, lightly bite the tip of your tongue. Everything will pass right away. Bite carefully! The language will also come in handy.

I wish you to enter the theater school and, thereby, begin to study the acting profession. Good luck with your art competition.

P.S. Next time we will touch on the topic of acting training. And we will do it according to the most progressive methods. Do you know what techniques and exercises to use? Then you will know.

Stay with me and appreciate each other!

Yours, Igor Afonchikov.

Publications in the Literature section

7 excerpts from Russian literature about the school that are still relevant today

Colleagues from the online education publication Newtonew have collected for us from Russian literature 7 excerpts about the school that are still relevant today.

The bitter share of tutors performed by Fonvizin, the professional burnout of a teacher according to Tolstoy, the load of paper work noticed by Chekhov.

Literary works are the very mirror that cannot be blamed. The images and scenery, masterfully rendered by talented contemporaries, will tell the attentive reader a lot about people, their relationships, features of the era and time-tested values.

We have selected several images related to teaching practice from the works of those writers who pass through the school and are safely forgotten after graduation. These passages, perhaps, will not only resurrect ambiguous memories from their own school childhood, but also arouse interest in the classics of Russian literature.

Clueless Science in "Undergrowth"

Denis Fonvizin. "Undergrowth" (1782)

A topical comedy about the provincial nobility. Tsyfirkin is one of the teachers of the lazy Mitrofanushka, a retired sergeant. An excellent illustration of the peculiarities of the time: teachers in many merchant families were hired for show - to teach the growing young men the obligatory literacy, receive a “crown letter”, give them to the service and marry.

It looks like the late Soviet and post-Soviet “Study, dumbass, otherwise you won’t go to college, you’ll go to the janitors”?

Mitrofan. Well! Get the plank, garrison rat! Set what to write.

Tsyfirkin. Your honor, always bark around idle.

Ms. Prostakova (working). Ah, my God! Don't you dare even choose Pafnutich! Already angry!

Tsyfirkin. Why be angry, your noble? We have a Russian proverb: the dog barks, the wind carries.

Mitrofan. Set your butts, turn around.

Tsyfirkin. All backs, your honor. Vity with tasks a century ago and remained.

Ms Prostakova. None of your business, Pafnutich. I am very pleased that Mitrofanushka does not like to step forward. With his mind, fly far, and God forbid!

Tsyfirkin. Task. You deigned, on the butt, to go along the road with me. Well, at least we'll take Sidorych with us. We found three...

Mitrofan(writes). Three.

Tsyfirkin. On the road, on the butt, three hundred rubles.

Mitrofan(writes). Three hundred.

Tsyfirkin. It came to division. Smekni-tko, why on a brother?

Mitrofan(calculating, whispering). Once three - three. Once zero is zero. Once zero is zero.

Ms Prostakova. What, what about the division?

Mitrofan. Look, three hundred rubles that they found, three to share.

Ms Prostakova. He's lying, my dear friend! Found money, didn't share it with anyone. Take everything for yourself, Mitrofanushka. Don't study this stupid science.

The teacher's authoritarianism in Boyhood

The exiled teacher from the House of the Dead

No matter how something came out of "The Man in the Case"

Director's honor in the "Cadet Monastery"

Nikolay Leskov. "Cadet Monastery" (1880)

Those who graduated from school remember Leskov except for the story of the savvy flea. But Nikolai Semenovich is a personality in Russian literature no less resonant than Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin. A former office worker, and then an employee of an industrial and agricultural company, Leskov became an expert on Russian treasury, corruption and everyday life, and quickness of mind and observation allowed him to engage in literary and journalistic activities. This story is really a processed transcript of the memories of a former cadet. We get acquainted with a positive character - Mikhail Stepanovich Persky, director of the cadet corps.

“He was with us in the corps without a break. No one remembered such a case that Persky left the building, and once, when they saw him with the orderly accompanying him on the sidewalk, the whole corps began to move, and incredible news was transmitted from one cadet to another: “Mikhail Stepanovich walked down the street!”

He, however, had no time to roam: being at the same time director and inspector, he, on this last duty, four times a day, without fail went around all the classes. We had four lesson breaks, and Persky was sure to attend every lesson. He will come, sit or stand, listen and go to another class. Definitely not a single lesson could do without him. He made his rounds accompanied by a messenger, the same tall non-commissioned officer, musician Ananyev, just like him. Ananiev accompanied him everywhere and opened doors for him.

Persky was exclusively engaged in the scientific part and removed from himself the front part and punishments for discipline, which he could not stand and could not endure. We saw only one punishment from him: he used to lightly touch a lazy or negligent cadet on the forehead with the tip of his ring finger, as if pushing him away from him, and say in his clear, distinct voice:

Du-ur-rnoy cadet! .. - And this served as a bitter and memorable lesson, from which the one who deserved such a reproach often did not drink or eat and tried in every possible way to correct himself and thus "comfort Mikhail Stepanovich."

It should be noted that Persky was single, and we were convinced that he would not marry for us either. They said that he was afraid, having pledged himself to the family, to reduce his concern for us. And here the place will say that it seems to be quite fair. At least those who knew Mikhail Stepanovich said that to comic or serious conversations with him about marriage, he answered:

Providence has entrusted so many other people's children to me that I have no time to think about my own, - and this, of course, was not a phrase in his truthful lips.

Persky spent his evenings doing inspection work, compiling and checking timetables and considering the progress of students with the parts of the program that had not been completed. Then he read a lot, finding in this a great help in the knowledge of languages. He thoroughly knew the languages ​​French, German, English and constantly practiced them by reading. Then he went to bed a little later than us, in order to get up again a little earlier tomorrow.

An excerpt from the story
Chapter II

My mommy

I had a mother, affectionate, kind, sweet. We lived with my mother in a small house on the banks of the Volga. The house was so clean and bright, and from the windows of our apartment one could see the wide, beautiful Volga, and huge two-story steamships, and barges, and a pier on the shore, and crowds of strollers who went out to this pier at certain hours to meet the incoming steamers ... And my mother and I went there, only rarely, very rarely: mother gave lessons in our city, and she was not allowed to walk with me as often as I would like. Mommy said:

Wait, Lenusha, I'll save up some money and take you up the Volga from our Rybinsk all the way to Astrakhan! Then we'll have fun.
I rejoiced and waited for spring.
By the spring, mommy saved up a little money, and we decided to fulfill our idea with the very first warm days.
- That's as soon as the Volga is cleared of ice, we will ride with you! Mom said, gently stroking my head.
But when the ice broke, she caught a cold and began to cough. The ice passed, the Volga cleared up, and Mom kept coughing and coughing endlessly. She suddenly became thin and transparent, like wax, and kept sitting by the window, looking at the Volga and repeating:
- Here the cough will pass, I will get better a little, and we will ride with you to Astrakhan, Lenusha!
But the cough and cold did not go away; the summer was damp and cold this year, and every day mommy became thinner, paler and more transparent.
Autumn has come. September has arrived. Long lines of cranes stretched over the Volga, flying to warm countries. Mommy no longer sat at the window in the living room, but lay on the bed and shivered all the time from the cold, while she herself was hot as fire.
Once she called me to her and said:
- Listen, Lenusha. Your mother will soon leave you forever... But don't worry, dear. I will always look at you from the sky and rejoice in the good deeds of my girl, but ...
I did not let her finish and wept bitterly. And Mommy also cried, and her eyes became sad, sad, exactly the same as those of the angel whom I saw on the big image in our church.
After calming down a little, Mom spoke again:
- I feel that the Lord will soon take me to Himself, and may His holy will be done! Be smart without a mother, pray to God and remember me... You will go to live with your uncle, my brother, who lives in St. Petersburg... I wrote to him about you and asked him to take in an orphan...
Something painfully painful at the word "orphan" squeezed my throat ...
I sobbed, wept, and thrashed around my mother's bed. Maryushka (a cook who had lived with us for nine whole years, from the very year of my birth, and who loved mother and me without memory) came and took me to her, saying that "mother needs peace."
I fell asleep all in tears that night on Maryushka's bed, and in the morning ... Oh, what a morning! ..
I woke up very early, it seems at six o'clock, and I wanted to run straight to my mother.
At that moment Maryushka came in and said:
- Pray to God, Lenochka: God took your mother to him. Your mom has died.
- Mom's dead! I repeated like an echo.
And suddenly I felt so cold, cold! Then there was a noise in my head, and the whole room, and Maryushka, and the ceiling, and the table, and chairs - everything turned upside down and swirled in my eyes, and I no longer remember what happened to me after that. I think I fell to the floor unconscious...
I woke up when my mother was already lying in a large white box, in a white dress, with a white wreath on her head. An old gray-haired priest recited prayers, the choristers sang, and Maryushka prayed at the threshold of the bedroom. Some old women came and also prayed, then looked at me with pity, shook their heads and mumbled something with their toothless mouths...
- Orphan! Round orphan! said Maryushka, also shaking her head and looking at me pitifully, and weeping. Old women were crying...
On the third day, Maryushka took me to the white box in which Mama was lying and told me to kiss Mama's hand. Then the priest blessed mother, the singers sang something very sad; some men came up, closed the white box and carried it out of our house...
I cried out loud. But then the old women I already knew arrived in time, saying that they were carrying my mother to be buried and that there was no need to cry, but to pray.
The white box was brought to the church, we defended the mass, and then some people came up again, picked up the box and carried it to the cemetery. A deep black hole had already been dug there, where Mom's coffin was lowered. Then they covered the hole with earth, put a white cross over it, and Maryushka took me home.
On the way, she told me that in the evening she would take me to the station, put me on a train and send me to Petersburg to my uncle.
“I don’t want to go to my uncle,” I said gloomily, “I don’t know any uncle and I’m afraid to go to him!”
But Maryushka said that she was ashamed to speak like that to the big girl, that her mother heard it and that she was hurt by my words.
Then I quieted down and began to remember my uncle's face.
I never saw my St. Petersburg uncle, but there was his portrait in my mother's album. He was depicted on it in a golden embroidered uniform, with many orders and with a star on his chest. He had a very important look, and I was involuntarily afraid of him.
After dinner, which I barely touched, Maryushka packed all my dresses and underwear into an old suitcase, gave me tea to drink, and took me to the station.

Lydia Charskaya
NOTES OF A LITTLE GIRL STUDENT

An excerpt from the story
Chapter XXI
To the sound of the wind and the whistle of a blizzard

The wind whistled, squealed, grunted and hummed in different ways. Now in a plaintive thin voice, now in a rough bass rumble, he sang his battle song. The lanterns flickered almost imperceptibly through the huge white flakes of snow that fell in abundance on the sidewalks, on the street, on carriages, horses and passers-by. And I went on and on, on and on...
Nyurochka told me:
“We must first go through a long big street, on which there are such tall houses and luxurious shops, then turn right, then left, then right again and left again, and there everything is straight, right to the very end - to our house. You will immediately recognize him. It is near the cemetery itself, there is also a white church ... such a beautiful one.
I did so. Everything went straight, as it seemed to me, along a long and wide street, but I did not see any tall houses or luxurious shops. Everything was obscured from my eyes by a living loose wall of noiselessly falling huge flakes of snow, white as a shroud. I turned to the right, then to the left, then to the right again, doing everything exactly as Nyurochka told me, and everything went on and on and on without end.
The wind ruthlessly ruffled the floors of my burnusik, piercing me with cold through and through. Snow flakes hit my face. Now I was not going as fast as before. My legs felt like lead from fatigue, my whole body shivered from the cold, my hands froze, and I could barely move my fingers. Having turned almost for the fifth time to the right and to the left, I now went on a straight path. Quietly, barely perceptibly flickering lights of lanterns came across to me less and less often ... The noise from the horse-drawn carriages and carriages on the streets subsided considerably, and the path along which I was walking seemed to me deaf and deserted.
At last the snow began to thin; huge flakes did not fall so often now. The distance cleared up a little, but instead it was such a thick twilight around me that I could barely see the road.
Now neither the noise of the ride, nor the voices, nor the exclamations of the coachmen could be heard around me.
What silence! What dead silence!
But what is it?
My eyes, already accustomed to the semi-darkness, now distinguish the surroundings. Lord, where am I?
No houses, no streets, no carriages, no pedestrians. In front of me is an endless, vast expanse of snow... Some forgotten buildings along the edges of the road... Some kind of fences, and in front of me is something huge black. It must be a park or a forest, I don't know.
I turned back... Lights flicker behind me... lights... lights... How many of them! Without end... without counting!
- Oh my God, this is a city! City, of course! I exclaim. - And I went to the outskirts ...
Nyurochka said that they lived on the outskirts. Yes of course! What is darkening in the distance, this is the cemetery! There is a church, and, not reaching, their house! Everything, everything happened as she said. And I got scared! That's stupid!
And with joyful animation, I again cheerfully walked forward.
But it was not there!
My legs now barely obeyed me. I could barely move them from exhaustion. The incredible cold made me tremble from head to toe, my teeth chattered, my head was noisy, and something hit my temples with all its might. To all this, some strange drowsiness was added. I was so sleepy, so terribly sleepy!
"Well, well, a little more - and you will be with your friends, you will see Nikifor Matveyevich, Nyura, their mother, Seryozha!" I mentally cheered myself up as best I could.
But that didn't help either.
My legs could hardly move, now I could hardly pull them out, first one, then the other, out of the deep snow. But they move more and more slowly, everything ... quieter ... And the noise in my head becomes more and more audible, and something hits my temples more and more strongly ...
Finally, I can’t stand it and sink into a snowdrift that has formed on the edge of the road.
Ah, how good! What a sweet way to relax! Now I don't feel any fatigue or pain... Some kind of pleasant warmth spreads all over my body... Oh, how good! So I would sit here and not go anywhere from here! And if it were not for the desire to find out what happened to Nikifor Matveyevich, and to visit him, healthy or sick, I would certainly fall asleep here for an hour or two ... I fell asleep soundly! Moreover, the cemetery is not far away... You can see it there. A mile or two, no more...
The snow stopped falling, the blizzard subsided a little, and the moon emerged from behind the clouds.
Oh, it would be better if the moon did not shine and I would not know at least the sad reality!
No cemetery, no church, no houses - there is nothing ahead! .. Only the forest turns black as a huge black spot far away, and a white dead field spreads around me with an endless veil ...
Horror gripped me.
Now I just realized that I was lost.

Lev Tolstoy

Swans

Swans flew in herds from the cold side to the warm lands. They flew across the sea. They flew day and night, and another day and another night they flew over the water without rest. There was a full moon in the sky, and far below the swans saw blue water. All the swans are tired, flapping their wings; but they did not stop and flew on. Old, strong swans flew in front, those that were younger and weaker flew behind. One young swan flew behind everyone. His strength has weakened. He flapped his wings and could not fly further. Then he, spreading his wings, went down. He descended closer and closer to the water; and his comrades further and further whitened in the moonlight. The swan descended into the water and folded its wings. The sea stirred under him and rocked him. A flock of swans was barely visible as a white line in the bright sky. And it was barely audible in the silence how their wings rang. When they were completely out of sight, the swan bent his neck back and closed his eyes. He did not move, and only the sea, rising and falling in a wide strip, raised and lowered him. Before dawn, a light breeze began to stir the sea. And the water splashed into the white chest of the swan. The swan opened his eyes. In the east the dawn was reddening, and the moon and the stars became paler. The swan sighed, stretched out his neck and flapped his wings, rose and flew, catching his wings on the water. He climbed higher and higher and flew alone over the dark rippling waves.

Paulo Coelho
Parable "The Secret of Happiness"

One merchant sent his son to learn the Secret of Happiness from the wisest of all people. The young man walked for forty days through the desert and,
Finally, he came to a beautiful castle that stood on top of a mountain. There lived the sage he was looking for. However, instead of the expected meeting with a wise man, our hero ended up in a hall where everything was seething: merchants entered and left, people were talking in the corner, a small orchestra played sweet melodies and there was a table laden with the most delicious dishes of the area. The sage talked with different people, and the young man had to wait for his turn for about two hours.
The sage listened attentively to the young man's explanations about the purpose of his visit, but said in response that he did not have time to reveal to him the Secret of Happiness. And he invited him to take a walk around the palace and come back in two hours.
“However, I want to ask for one favor,” added the sage, holding out a small spoon to the young man, into which he dropped two drops of oil. - Throughout the walk, hold this spoon in your hand so that the oil does not spill out.
The young man began to go up and down the palace stairs, keeping his eyes on the spoon. After two hours he returned to the sage.
- Well, - he asked, - have you seen the Persian carpets that are in my dining room? Have you seen the park that the head gardener has been creating for ten years? Have you noticed the beautiful parchments in my library?
The young man, embarrassed, had to confess that he had not seen anything. His only concern was not to spill the drops of oil that the sage had entrusted to him.
“Well, come back and get acquainted with the wonders of my Universe,” the sage told him. You can't trust a man if you don't know the house he lives in.
Calmed down, the young man took a spoon and again went for a walk around the palace; this time, paying attention to all the works of art hanging on the walls and ceilings of the palace. He saw gardens surrounded by mountains, the most delicate flowers, the delicacy with which each piece of art was placed exactly where it needed to be.
Returning to the sage, he described in detail everything he saw.
“Where are those two drops of oil that I entrusted to you?” the Sage asked.
And the young man, looking at the spoon, found that all the oil had spilled out.
“That is the only advice I can give you: The secret of happiness is to look at all the wonders of the world, while never forgetting two drops of oil in your spoon.

Leonardo da Vinci
Parable "NEVOD"

And once again the net brought a rich catch. The fishermen's baskets were filled to the brim with heads, carps, tenches, pikes, eels and many other victuals. Whole fish families
with children and household members, were taken to the market stalls and were preparing to end their existence, writhing in agony in hot pans and boiling cauldrons.
The fish remaining in the river, confused and seized with fear, not daring even to swim, dug deeper into the silt. How to live on? One cannot cope with the seine alone. It is thrown daily in the most unexpected places. He mercilessly kills the fish, and in the end the whole river will be devastated.
- We must think about the fate of our children. No one, except us, will take care of them and save them from a terrible delusion, - the minnows, who had gathered for advice under a large snag, argued.
- But what can we do? - Tench asked timidly, listening to the speeches of the daredevils.
- Destroy the net! - minnows answered in unison. On the same day, omniscient nimble eels spread the message along the river
about a bold decision. All fish, young and old, were invited to gather tomorrow at dawn in a deep, quiet pool, protected by spreading willows.
Thousands of fish of all colors and ages sailed to the appointed place to declare war on the seine.
- Listen carefully! - said the carp, which more than once managed to gnaw through the nets and escape from captivity. - A net as wide as our river. To keep it upright under water, lead sinkers are attached to its lower knots. I order all the fish to divide into two flocks. The first must lift the sinkers from the bottom to the surface, and the second flock will firmly hold the upper nodes of the network. Pike are instructed to gnaw through the ropes with which the seine is attached to both banks.
With bated breath, the fish listened to every word of the leader.
- I order the eels to immediately go on reconnaissance! - continued the carp. - They should establish where the seine is thrown.
The eels went on a mission, and the fish schools huddled along the shore in agonizing expectation. Minnows, meanwhile, tried to encourage the most timid and advised not to panic, even if someone fell into the net: after all, the fishermen would still not be able to pull him ashore.
Finally the eels returned and reported that the net had already been abandoned about a mile down the river.
And now a huge armada of fish flocks swam to the goal, led by a wise carp.
- Swim carefully! - warned the leader. - Look at both, so that the current does not drag in the net. Work with might and main fins and slow down in time!
A seine appeared ahead, gray and ominous. Seized with a fit of anger, the fish boldly rushed to the attack.
Soon the net was raised from the bottom, the ropes holding it were cut by sharp pike teeth, and the knots were torn. But the angry fish did not calm down and continued to pounce on the hated enemy. Grasping the crippled leaky seine with their teeth and working hard with their fins and tails, they dragged it in different directions and tore it into small pieces. The water in the river seemed to boil.
The fishermen talked for a long time, scratching their heads, about the mysterious disappearance of the net, and the fish still proudly tell this story to their children.

Leonardo da Vinci
Parable "PELICAN"
As soon as the pelican went in search of food, the viper sitting in ambush immediately crawled, stealthily, to its nest. Fluffy chicks slept peacefully, not knowing anything. The snake crawled close to them. Her eyes flashed with an ominous gleam - and the massacre began.
Having received a fatal bite, the peacefully sleeping chicks did not wake up.
Satisfied with what she had done, the villainess crawled into the shelter in order to enjoy the grief of the bird from there.
Soon the pelican returned from hunting. At the sight of the brutal massacre inflicted on the chicks, he burst into loud sobs, and all the inhabitants of the forest fell silent, shocked by unheard-of cruelty.
- Without you there is no life for me now! - the unfortunate father lamented, looking at the dead children. - Let me die with you!
And he began to tear his chest with his beak at the very heart. Hot blood gushed from the open wound in streams, sprinkling the lifeless chicks.
Losing his last strength, the dying pelican cast a farewell glance at the nest with the dead chicks and suddenly shuddered in surprise.
O miracle! His spilled blood and parental love brought dear chicks back to life, snatching them from the clutches of death. And then, happy, he expired.

lucky
Sergey Silin

Antoshka ran down the street, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his jacket, stumbled and, falling, had time to think: “I’ll break my nose!” But he didn't have time to get his hands out of his pockets.
And suddenly, right in front of him, out of nowhere, a small, strong man the size of a cat appeared.
The peasant stretched out his arms and took Antoshka on them, softening the blow.
Antoshka rolled onto his side, got up on one knee and looked at the peasant in surprise:
- Who are you?
- Lucky.
- Who-who?
- Lucky. I will make sure you are lucky.
- Does every person have a lucky one? - asked Antoshka.
“No, there aren’t many of us,” the man replied. - We just go from one to another. From today I will be with you.
- I'm starting to get lucky! Antoshka rejoiced.
- Exactly! - Lucky nodded.
- And when will you leave me for another?
- When required. I remember that I served a merchant for several years. And one pedestrian was helped for only two seconds.
- Yeah! thought Antoshka. - So I need
anything to wish?
- No no! The man raised his hands in protest. - I'm not a wish maker! I only help a little smart and hardworking. I just stay close and make sure that a person is lucky. Where did my invisibility cap go?
He fumbled around with his hands, felt for the invisibility cap, put it on, and disappeared.
- Are you here? - just in case Antoshka asked.
“Here, here,” said Lucky. - Don't look at
me attention. Antoshka put his hands in his pockets and ran home. And wow, lucky: I had time to the beginning of the cartoon to the minute!
Mom came home from work an hour later.
- And I got an award! she said with a smile. -
Let's go shopping!
And she went to the kitchen for the packages.
- Mom also got lucky? Antoshka asked his assistant in a whisper.
- No. She's lucky because we're close.
- Mom, I'm with you! shouted Antoshka.
Two hours later they returned home with a mountain of purchases.
- Just a streak of luck! Mom wondered, her eyes sparkling. All my life I have dreamed of such a blouse!
- And I'm talking about such a cake! - Antoshka cheerfully responded from the bathroom.
The next day at school, he received three fives, two fours, found two rubles and reconciled with Vasya Potereshkin.
And when, whistling, he returned home, he discovered that he had lost the keys to the apartment.
- Lucky, where are you? he called.
A tiny, unkempt woman peeked out from under the stairs. Her hair was disheveled, her nose, her dirty sleeve was torn, her shoes were asking for porridge.
- You didn't have to whistle! - she smiled and added: - I'm unlucky! What, upset, huh? ..
Don't worry, don't worry! The time will come, I will be called away from you!
- Clearly, - Antoshka became despondent. - The streak of bad luck begins ...
- That's for sure! - Unlucky nodded happily and, stepping into the wall, disappeared.
In the evening, Antoshka got a scolding from dad for the lost key, accidentally broke his mother's favorite cup, forgot what was asked in Russian, and could not finish reading the book of fairy tales, because he left it at school.
And in front of the window the phone rang:
- Antoshka, is that you? It's me, Lucky!
- Hello, traitor! Antoshka muttered. - And who are you helping now?
But Lucky didn't take offense at the "traitor".
- One old woman. Guess she's been unlucky all her life! So my boss sent me to her.
Tomorrow I will help her win a million rubles in the lottery, and I will return to you!
- Is it true? Antoshka rejoiced.
- True, true, - Lucky answered and hung up.
At night Antoshka had a dream. As if he and Lucky were dragging four string bags of Antoshkin's favorite tangerines from the store, and from the window of the house opposite, a lonely old woman who was lucky for the first time in her life was smiling at them.

Charskaya Lidia Alekseevna

Lucina life

Princess Miguel

“Far, far away, at the very end of the world, there was a large beautiful blue lake, similar in color to a huge sapphire. In the middle of this lake, on a green emerald island, among myrtle and wisteria, intertwined with green ivy and flexible lianas, stood a high rock. a palace, behind which was laid out a wonderful garden, fragrant with fragrance, a very special garden, which can only be found in fairy tales alone.

The powerful king Ovar was the owner of the island and the lands adjacent to it. And the king had a daughter growing up in the palace, the beautiful Miguel - the princess "...

A motley ribbon floats and unfolds a fairy tale. A number of beautiful, fantastic pictures swirl before my spiritual gaze. Aunt Musya's usually ringing voice is now lowered to a whisper. Mysterious and cozy in a green ivy gazebo. The lacy shadow of the trees and bushes surrounding her throw moving spots on the pretty face of the young storyteller. This tale is my favorite. Since the day my dear nanny Feni, who knew how to tell me so well about the girl Thumbelina, left us, I have been listening with pleasure to the only fairy tale about Princess Miguel. I love dearly my princess, despite all her cruelty. Is it really her fault, this green-eyed, pale pink and golden-haired princess, that when she was born into the light of God, instead of a heart, the fairies put a piece of diamond into her childish small chest? And that a direct consequence of this was the complete absence of pity in the soul of the princess. But how beautiful she was! She is beautiful even in those moments when, with the movement of a tiny white hand, she sent people to a fierce death. Those people who accidentally fell into the mysterious garden of the princess.

In that garden among the roses and lilies were small children. Motionless pretty elves, chained with silver chains to golden pegs, they guarded that garden, and at the same time plaintively rang their voices-bells.

Let us go free! Let go, beautiful princess Miguel! Let us go! Their complaints sounded like music. And this music had a pleasant effect on the princess, and she often laughed at the entreaties of her little captives.

But their plaintive voices touched the hearts of people passing by the garden. And they looked into the mysterious garden of the princess. Ah, it was not for joy that they appeared here! With each such appearance of an uninvited guest, the guards ran out, grabbed the visitor and, on the orders of the princess, threw him into the lake from the cliff

And Princess Miguel laughed only in response to the desperate cries and groans of the drowning...

Even now I still cannot understand how such a tale, so terrible in essence, such a gloomy and heavy tale, came into the head of my pretty cheerful aunt! The heroine of this tale, Princess Miguel, of course, was an invention of a sweet, a little windy, but very kind Aunt Musya. Ah, it doesn’t matter, let everyone think that this fairy tale is an invention, an invention and the very princess Miguel, but she, my marvelous princess, has firmly settled in my impressionable heart ... Whether she ever existed or not, what was it to me in essence it was when I loved her, my beautiful cruel Miguel! I saw her in a dream and more than once, I saw her golden hair the color of a ripe ear, her deep green eyes, like a pool of forest.

That year I was six years old. I was already sorting out the warehouses and with the help of Aunt Musya I wrote clumsy, awry and awry letters instead of sticks. And I already understood the beauty. The fabulous beauty of nature: the sun, forests, flowers. And my eyes lit up with delight at the sight of a beautiful picture or an elegant illustration on the page of a magazine.

Aunt Musya, dad and grandmother tried from my earliest age to develop an aesthetic taste in me, drawing my attention to what other children passed without a trace.

Look, Lusenka, what a beautiful sunset! You see how wonderfully the crimson sun sinks into the pond! Look, look, now the water has become quite scarlet. And the surrounding trees seem to be on fire.

I look and seethe with delight. Indeed, scarlet water, scarlet trees and scarlet sun. What a beauty!

Y. Yakovlev Girls from Vasilyevsky Island

I am Valya Zaitseva from Vasilievsky Island.

A hamster lives under my bed. He will fill his full cheeks, in reserve, sit on his hind legs and look with black buttons ... Yesterday I thrashed one boy. She gave him a good bream. We, Vasileostrovsky girls, know how to stand up for ourselves when necessary ...

It's always windy here on Vasilievsky. It's raining. Wet snow falls. Floods happen. And our island floats like a ship: on the left is the Neva, on the right is the Nevka, in front is the open sea.

I have a girlfriend - Tanya Savicheva. We are neighbors with her. She is from the second line, building 13. Four windows on the first floor. There is a bakery nearby, a kerosene shop in the basement... Now there is no shop, but in Tanino, when I was not yet born, the first floor always smelled of kerosene. I was told.

Tanya Savicheva was the same age as I am now. She could have grown up a long time ago, become a teacher, but she remained a girl forever ... When my grandmother sent Tanya for kerosene, I was not there. And she went to the Rumyantsev Garden with another girlfriend. But I know everything about her. I was told.

She was a singer. Always sang. She wanted to recite poetry, but she stumbled on words: she would stumble, and everyone thought that she had forgotten the right word. My girlfriend sang because when you sing, you don't stutter. She could not stutter, she was going to become a teacher, like Linda Avgustovna.

She has always played teacher. He puts on a large grandmother's scarf on his shoulders, folds his hands with a lock and walks from corner to corner. “Children, today we will do a repetition with you ...” And then he stumbles on a word, blushes and turns to the wall, although there is no one in the room.

They say there are doctors who treat stuttering. I would find this. We, Vasileostrovsky girls, will find anyone you want! But now the doctor is no longer needed. She stayed there... my friend Tanya Savicheva. She was taken from besieged Leningrad to the mainland, and the road, called the Road of Life, could not give Tanya life.

The girl died of starvation... Doesn't matter why you die - from hunger or from a bullet. Maybe hunger hurts even more...

I decided to find the Road of Life. I went to Rzhevka, where this road begins. I walked two and a half kilometers - there the guys were building a monument to the children who died in the blockade. I also wanted to build.

Some adults asked me:

- Who are you?

- I'm Valya Zaitseva from Vasilyevsky Island. I also want to build.

I was told:

- It is forbidden! Come with your area.

I didn't leave. I looked around and saw a baby, a tadpole. I grabbed onto it.

Did he also come with his district?

He came with his brother.

You can with your brother. It is possible with the region. But what about being alone?

I told them

“You see, I don’t just want to build. I want to build for my friend... Tanya Savicheva.

They rolled their eyes. They didn't believe it. They asked again:

Is Tanya Savicheva your friend?

- What's so special about it? We are the same age. Both are from Vasilyevsky Island.

But she's not...

What stupid people, and still adults! What does "no" mean if we're friends? I told them to understand

- We have everything in common. Both street and school. We have a hamster. He will fill his cheeks ...

I noticed that they did not believe me. And to make them believe, she blurted out:

We even have the same handwriting!

— Handwriting? They were even more surprised.

- And what? Handwriting!

Suddenly they cheered up, from the handwriting:

- This is very good! This is a real find. Let's go with us.

- I'm not going anywhere. I want to build...

You will build! You will write for the monument in Tanya's handwriting.

“I can,” I agreed. Only I don't have a pencil. Give?

You will write on concrete. Do not write on concrete with a pencil.

I have never painted on concrete. I wrote on the walls, on the pavement, but they brought me to a concrete plant and gave Tanya a diary - a notebook with the alphabet: a, b, c ... I have the same book. For forty kopecks.

I picked up Tanya's diary and opened the page. It was written there:

I got cold. I wanted to give them the book and leave.

But I'm from Vasileostrovskaya. And if a friend's older sister died, I should stay with her, and not run away.

- Get your concrete. I will write.

The crane lowered a huge frame with a thick gray dough at my feet. I took a wand, squatted down and began to write. The concrete blew cold. It was difficult to write. And they told me:

- Do not rush.

I made mistakes, smoothed the concrete with my palm, and wrote again.

I didn't do well.

- Do not rush. Write calmly.

While I was writing about Zhenya, my grandmother died.

If you just want to eat, it's not hunger - eat an hour later.

I tried to fast from morning to evening. Endured. Hunger - when day after day your head, hands, heart - everything that you have is starving. First starving, then dying.

Leka had his own corner, fenced off with cabinets, where he drew.

He earned money by drawing and studied. He was quiet and short-sighted, wearing spectacles, and kept creaking with his drawing pen. I was told.

Where did he die? Probably in the kitchen, where the “potbelly stove” smoked like a small, weak engine, where they slept, ate bread once a day. A small piece, like a cure for death. Leka didn't have enough medicine...

“Write,” they told me quietly.

In the new frame, the concrete was liquid, it crawled over the letters. And the word "died" disappeared. I didn't want to write it again. But they told me:

- Write, Valya Zaitseva, write.

And I wrote again - "died."

I am very tired of writing the word "died". I knew that with each page of the diary, Tanya Savicheva was getting worse. She stopped singing a long time ago and did not notice that she stuttered. She no longer played teacher. But she did not give up - she lived. I was told... Spring has come. Trees turned green. We have a lot of trees on Vasilyevsky. Tanya dried up, froze, became thin and light. Her hands trembled and her eyes hurt from the sun. The Nazis killed half of Tanya Savicheva, and maybe more than half. But her mother was with her, and Tanya held on.

Why don't you write? they told me quietly. - Write, Valya Zaitseva, otherwise the concrete will harden.

For a long time I did not dare to open the page with the letter "M". On this page, Tanya's hand wrote: “Mom on May 13 at 7.30 am.

morning of 1942. Tanya did not write the word "died". She didn't have the strength to write that word.

I gripped my wand tightly and touched the concrete. I did not look into the diary, but wrote by heart. Good thing we have the same handwriting.

I wrote with all my might. The concrete became thick, almost frozen. He no longer crawled on the letters.

- Can you write more?

“I’ll finish writing,” I answered and turned away so that my eyes could not see. After all, Tanya Savicheva is my ... girlfriend.

Tanya and I are of the same age, we Vasileostrovsky girls know how to stand up for ourselves when necessary. If she had not been from Vasileostrovsky, from Leningrad, she would not have lasted so long. But she lived - so she did not give up!

Opened page "C". There were two words: "The Savichevs are dead."

She opened the page "U" - "Everyone died." The last page of Tanya Savicheva's diary was with the letter "O" - "There is only Tanya left."

And I imagined that it was me, Valya Zaitseva, left alone: ​​without mom, without dad, without sister Lyulka. Hungry. Under fire.

In an empty apartment on the second line. I wanted to cross out that last page, but the concrete hardened and the wand broke.

And suddenly I asked Tanya Savicheva to myself: “Why alone?

And I? You have a girlfriend - Valya Zaitseva, your neighbor from Vasilyevsky Island. We will go with you to the Rumyantsev Garden, we will run, and when we get bored, I will bring my grandmother's scarf from home, and we will play teacher Linda Augustovna. A hamster lives under my bed. I'll give it to you for your birthday. Do you hear, Tanya Savicheva?

Someone put a hand on my shoulder and said:

- Let's go, Valya Zaitseva. You've done what it takes. Thank you.

I don't understand why they say "thank you" to me. I said:

- I'll come tomorrow ... without my district. Can?

“Come without a district,” they told me. — Come.

My friend Tanya Savicheva did not shoot at the Nazis and was not a partisan scout. She just lived in her hometown at the most difficult time. But, perhaps, the Nazis did not enter Leningrad because Tanya Savicheva lived in it and many other girls and boys lived there, who remained forever in their time. And today's guys are friends with them, as I am friends with Tanya.

And they only make friends with the living.

Vladimir Zheleznyakov "Scarecrow"

A circle of their faces flashed before me, and I rushed about in it, like a squirrel in a wheel.

I should stop and leave.

The boys jumped on me.

"For her legs! shouted Valka. - For the legs! .. "

They threw me down and grabbed my legs and arms. I kicked and jerked with all my might, but they tied me up and dragged me into the garden.

Iron Button and Shmakova dragged out the effigy mounted on a long stick. Dimka followed them and stood aside. The scarecrow was in my dress, with my eyes, with my mouth up to my ears. The legs were made of stockings stuffed with straw, tow and some kind of feathers stuck out instead of hair. On my neck, that is, on the scarecrow, a plaque dangled with the words: "Scarecrow is a traitor."

Lenka fell silent and somehow all faded away.

Nikolai Nikolaevich realized that the limit of her story and the limit of her strength had come.

“And they were having fun around the stuffed animal,” Lenka said. - They jumped and laughed:

"Wow, our beauty-ah-ah!"

"I waited!"

“I figured it out! I came up with! Shmakova jumped for joy. “Let Dimka set fire to the fire!”

After these words of Shmakova, I completely ceased to be afraid. I thought: if Dimka sets fire, then maybe I'll just die.

And Valka at this time - he was the first to succeed everywhere - stuck the stuffed animal into the ground and poured brushwood around it.

“I don’t have any matches,” Dimka said quietly.

“But I have!” Shaggy put the matches into Dimka's hand and pushed him towards the effigy.

Dimka stood near the effigy, his head bowed low.

I froze - waiting for the last time! Well, I thought he would now look back and say: “Guys, Lenka is not to blame for anything ... It’s all me!”

"Set it on fire!" ordered the Iron Button.

I could not stand it and screamed:

"Dimka! No need, Dimka-ah-ah-ah! .. "

And he was still standing near the stuffed animal - I could see his back, he stooped and seemed somehow small. Maybe because the scarecrow was on a long stick. Only he was small and fragile.

"Well, Somov! said Iron Button. “Finally, go to the end!”

Dimka fell to his knees and lowered his head so low that only his shoulders stuck out, and his head was not visible at all. It turned out to be some kind of headless arsonist. He struck a match, and a flame of fire grew over his shoulders. Then he jumped up and hurriedly ran away.

They pulled me close to the fire. I kept my eyes on the flames of the fire. Grandfather! I felt then how this fire seized me, how it burns, bakes and bites, although only waves of its heat reached me.

I screamed, I screamed so much that they let me out of surprise.

When they released me, I rushed to the fire and began to scatter it with my feet, grabbed the burning branches with my hands - I did not want the stuffed animal to burn. For some reason, I really didn't want to!

Dimka was the first to come to his senses.

“What, are you crazy? He grabbed my arm and tried to pull me away from the fire. - It's a joke! Don't you understand jokes?"

I became strong, easily defeated him. She pushed so hard that he flew upside down - only his heels flashed towards the sky. And she pulled out a scarecrow from the fire and began to wave it over her head, stepping on everyone. The stuffed animal was already caught in the fire, sparks flew from it in different directions, and they all shied away from these sparks in fright.

They fled.

And I was spinning so fast, dispersing them, that I could not stop until I fell. There was a scarecrow next to me. It was scorched, trembling in the wind and from this as if alive.

At first, I lay with my eyes closed. Then she felt that she smelled of burning, opened her eyes - the scarecrow's dress was smoking. I patted the smoldering hem with my hand and leaned back on the grass.

There was a crunch of branches, receding footsteps, and silence fell.

"Anne of Green Gables" by Lucy Maud Montgomery

It was already quite light when Anya woke up and sat up in bed, looking in confusion at the window through which a stream of joyful sunlight poured and behind which something white and fluffy swayed against the bright blue sky.

At first, she couldn't remember where she was. At first she felt a delightful thrill, as if something very pleasant had happened, then a terrible memory came. It was Green Gables, but they did not want to leave her here, because she is not a boy!

But it was morning, and there was a cherry tree outside the window, all in bloom. Anya jumped out of bed and with one jump was at the window. Then she pushed open the window frame—the frame creaked as if it hadn't been opened in a long time, which it really was—and knelt down, peering out into the June morning. Her eyes sparkled with delight. Oh, isn't that wonderful? Isn't this a lovely place? If only she could stay here! She imagines what remains. There is room for imagination here.

A huge cherry tree grew so close to the window that its branches touched the house. It was so densely strewn with flowers that not a single leaf was visible. On both sides of the house stretched large gardens, on one side - apple, on the other - cherry, all in bloom. The grass under the trees looked yellow with blooming dandelions. Some distance away in the garden, lilac bushes were visible, all in clusters of bright purple flowers, and the morning breeze carried their dizzyingly sweet aroma to Anya's window.

Beyond the garden, green meadows covered with lush clover descended to a valley where a stream ran and many white birch trees grew, their slender trunks rising above an undergrowth that suggested a wonderful rest among ferns, mosses and forest grasses. Beyond the valley was a hill, green and fluffy with firs and firs. There was a small gap among them, and through it peeped the gray mezzanine of the house that Anne had seen the day before from the other side of the Lake of Glittering Waters.

To the left were large barns and other outbuildings, and behind them green fields sloped down to the sparkling blue sea.

Anya's eyes, receptive to beauty, slowly moved from one picture to another, greedily absorbing everything that was in front of her. The poor thing has seen so many ugly places in her life. But what was revealed to her now exceeded her wildest dreams.

She knelt, forgetting everything in the world except the beauty that surrounded her, until she shuddered as she felt a hand on her shoulder. The little dreamer did not hear Marilla come in.

"It's time to get dressed," said Marilla curtly.

Marilla simply did not know how to talk to this child, and this ignorance, which she herself disliked, made her harsh and resolute against her will.

Anya stood up with a deep sigh.

— Ah. isn't that wonderful? she asked, pointing with her hand at the beautiful world outside the window.

“Yes, it’s a big tree,” said Marilla, “and it blooms profusely, but the cherries themselves are no good—small and wormy.

“Oh, I'm not just talking about the tree; of course, it is beautiful ... yes, it is dazzlingly beautiful ... it blooms as if it is extremely important for itself ... But I meant everything: the garden, and the trees, and the stream, and the forests - the whole big beautiful world. Don't you feel like you love the whole world on a morning like this? Even here I can hear the brook laughing in the distance. Have you ever noticed what joyful creatures these streams are? They always laugh. Even in winter I can hear their laughter from under the ice. I'm so glad there's a stream here near Green Gables. Maybe you think it doesn't matter to me if you don't want to leave me here? But it's not. It will always please me to remember that there is a stream near Green Gables, even if I never see it again. If there weren't a stream here, I would always have an unpleasant feeling that it should have been here. This morning I am not in the midst of grief. I'm never in the midst of grief in the morning. Isn't it wonderful that there is a morning? But I'm very sad. I just imagined that you still need me and that I will stay here forever, forever. It was a great comfort to imagine it. But the most unpleasant thing about imagining things is that there comes a moment when you have to stop imagining, and this is very painful.

“Better get dressed, go downstairs, and don’t think about your imaginary things,” said Marilla, as soon as she managed to get a word in. - Breakfast is waiting. Wash your face and comb your hair. Leave the window open and turn the bed around to let it air out. And hurry, please.

Anya, obviously, could act quickly when it was required, because after ten minutes she came downstairs, neatly dressed, her hair combed and braided, her face washed; her soul was filled with the pleasant consciousness that she had fulfilled all of Marilla's demands. However, in fairness, it should be noted that she still forgot to open the bed for airing.

"I'm very hungry today," she announced, slipping into the chair Marilla pointed out to her. “The world no longer seems to be such a gloomy desert as it was last night. I'm so glad the morning is sunny. However, I love rainy mornings too. Every morning is interesting, isn't it? It is not known what awaits us on this day, and there is so much room for imagination. But I am glad that today there is no rain, because it is easier not to lose heart and endure the vicissitudes of fate on a sunny day. I feel like I have a lot to endure today. It's very easy to read about other people's misfortunes and imagine that we could heroically overcome them, but it's not so easy when you actually have to face them, right?

“For God's sake, hold your tongue,” said Marilla. A little girl shouldn't talk so much.

After this remark, Anne was completely silent, so obediently that her continued silence began to irritate Marilla somewhat, as something not quite natural. Matthew was also silent - but that was natural at least - so breakfast passed in complete silence.

As it neared its end, Anya became more and more distracted. She ate mechanically, and her large eyes gazed steadily, unseeingly at the sky outside the window. This annoyed Marilla even more. She had an unpleasant feeling that while the body of this strange child was at the table, his spirit soared on the wings of fantasy in some transcendental land. Who would want to have such a child in the house?

And yet, what was most incomprehensible, Matthew wanted to leave her! Marilla felt that he wanted it this morning as much as he had last night, and that he was going to want it more. It was his usual way to get some whim into his head and cling to it with amazing silent persistence—an persistence ten times more powerful and effective through silence than if he talked about his desire from morning to evening.

When breakfast was over, Anya came out of her reverie and offered to wash the dishes.

— Do you know how to wash dishes properly? asked Marilla incredulously.

- Pretty good. I'm actually better at babysitting. I have a lot of experience in this business. Too bad you don't have kids here for me to take care of.

“But I don’t want to have more children here than at the moment. You alone are enough trouble. I have no idea what to do with you. Matthew is so funny.

“He seemed very nice to me,” Anya said reproachfully. - He is very friendly and did not mind at all, no matter how much I said - he seemed to like it. I felt a kindred spirit in him as soon as I saw him.

"You're both weirdos, if that's what you mean by kindred spirits," snorted Marilla. - Okay, you can wash the dishes. Do not spare hot water and dry thoroughly. I've got a lot of work to do this morning because I have to go to White Sands in the afternoon to see Mrs. Spencer. You will come with me, and there we will decide what to do with you. When you're done with the dishes, go upstairs and make the bed.

Anne washed the dishes rather quickly and carefully, which did not go unnoticed by Marilla. Then she made the bed, but with less success, because she had never learned the art of wrestling with feather beds. But still the bed was made, and Marilla, in order to get rid of the girl for a while, said that she would allow her to go into the garden and play there until dinner.

Anya rushed to the door, with a lively face and shining eyes. But on the very threshold, she suddenly stopped, turned sharply back and sat down near the table, the expression of delight vanished from her face, as if it had been blown away by the wind.

"Well, what else happened?" asked Marilla.

“I don’t dare to go out,” Anya said in the tone of a martyr who renounces all earthly joys. “If I can't stay here, I shouldn't fall in love with Green Gables. And if I go out and get acquainted with all these trees, flowers, and a garden, and a stream, I can not help but love them. It's already hard on my soul, and I don't want it to get even harder. I so want to go out - everything seems to be calling me: "Anya, Anya, come out to us! Anya, Anya, we want to play with you!" - but it's better not to. You shouldn't fall in love with something from which you will be cut off forever, right? And it's so hard to resist and not fall in love, right? That's why I was so glad when I thought I'd stay here. I thought there was so much to love here and nothing would stop me. But that brief dream was over. Now I've come to terms with my fate, so I'd better not go out. Otherwise, I'm afraid I won't be able to reconcile with him again. What is the name of this flower in a pot on the windowsill, please tell me?

- It's a geranium.

— Oh, I don't mean that name. I mean the name you gave her. Did you give her a name? Then can I do it? May I call her… oh, let me think… Darling will do… may I call her Darling while I'm here? Oh, let me call her that!

“For God's sake, I don't care. But what is the point of naming a geranium?

— Oh, I love things to have names, even if it's just geraniums. This makes them more human-like. How do you know you're not hurting a geranium's feelings when you just call it "geranium" and nothing else? You wouldn't like it if you were always called just a woman. Yes, I'll call her Honey. I gave a name this morning to this cherry under my bedroom window. I named her Snow Queen because she is so white. Of course, it won't always be in bloom, but you can always imagine that, right?

"I've never seen or heard anything like it in my life," Marilla muttered as she fled to the cellar for potatoes. “She's really interesting, as Matthew says. I can already feel myself interested in what else she will say. She casts a spell on me too. And she's already unleashed them on Matthew. This look, which he gave me when he left, again expressed everything that he spoke about and alluded to yesterday. It would be better if he was like other men and spoke openly about everything. Then it would be possible to answer and convince him. But what do you do with a man who only looks?

When Marilla returned from her pilgrimage to the cellar, she found Anne again in a reverie. The girl sat with her chin resting on her hands and her gaze fixed on the sky. So Marilla left her until dinner appeared on the table.

“May I take the mare and convertible after dinner, Matthew?” asked Marilla.

Matthew nodded and looked sadly at Anya. Marilla caught this glance and said dryly:

“I'm going to go to White Sands and sort this out. I'll take Anya with me so Mrs. Spencer can send her back to Nova Scotia right away. I'll leave you some tea on the stove and get home in time for the milking.

Again, Matthew said nothing. Marilla felt she was wasting her words. Nothing is more annoying than a man who doesn't answer... except for a woman who doesn't answer.

At the appointed time, Matthew hitched up the bay, and Marilla and Anne got into the cabriolet. Matthew opened the gates of the yard for them, and as they drove slowly past, he said aloud, to no one, it seemed, addressing:

“There was this guy here this morning, Jerry Buot from Creek, and I told him I'd hire him for the summer.

Marilla did not answer, but whipped the unfortunate sorrel with such force that the fat mare, unaccustomed to such treatment, galloped indignantly. As the cabriolet was rolling along the high road, Marilla turned and saw that the insufferable Matthew was leaning against the gate, looking mournfully after them.

Sergei Kutsko

WOLVES

Village life is so arranged that if you don’t go out into the forest before noon, don’t take a walk through the familiar mushroom and berry places, then by the evening there’s nothing to run, everything will hide.

So did one girl. The sun has just risen to the tops of the fir trees, and in the hands is already a full basket, wandered far, but what mushrooms! With gratitude, she looked around and was just about to leave, when the distant bushes suddenly shuddered and a beast came out into the clearing, its eyes tenaciously followed the figure of the girl.

— Oh, dog! - she said.

Cows were grazing somewhere nearby, and their acquaintance in the forest with a shepherd's dog was not a big surprise to them. But meeting with a few more pairs of animal eyes put me in a daze...

“Wolves,” a thought flashed, “the road is not far, to run ...” Yes, the forces disappeared, the basket involuntarily fell out of my hands, my legs became wadded and naughty.

- Mother! - this sudden cry stopped the flock, which had already reached the middle of the clearing. - People, help! - three times swept over the forest.

As the shepherds later said: “We heard screams, we thought the children were playing around ...” This is five kilometers from the village, in the forest!

The wolves slowly approached, the she-wolf walked ahead. It happens with these animals - the she-wolf becomes the head of the pack. Only her eyes were not so ferocious as they were inquisitive. They seemed to ask: “Well, man? What will you do now, when there are no weapons in your hands, and your relatives are not around?”

The girl fell to her knees, covered her eyes with her hands and wept. Suddenly, the thought of prayer came to her, as if something stirred in her soul, as if the words of her grandmother, remembered from childhood, were resurrected: “Ask the Mother of God! ”

The girl did not remember the words of the prayer. Signing herself with the sign of the cross, she asked the Mother of God, as if her mother, in the last hope of intercession and salvation.

When she opened her eyes, the wolves, bypassing the bushes, went into the forest. Slowly ahead, with her head down, walked a she-wolf.

Boris Ganago

LETTER TO GOD

This happened at the end of the 19th century.

Petersburg. Christmas Eve. A cold, piercing wind blows from the bay. Throws fine prickly snow. The hooves of horses clatter along the cobblestone pavement, the doors of shops slam - the last purchases before the holiday are being made. Everyone is in a hurry to get home as soon as possible.

Only a small boy slowly wanders along the snow-covered street. Every now and then he takes out his cold, reddened hands from the pockets of his shabby coat and tries to warm them with his breath. Then he stuffs them deeper into his pockets again and moves on. Here he stops at the bakery window and looks at the pretzels and bagels displayed behind the glass.

The door of the store swung open, letting out another customer, and the aroma of freshly baked bread wafted out of it. The boy swallowed convulsively, stamped his feet and wandered on.

Twilight falls imperceptibly. There are fewer and fewer passers-by. The boy pauses at the building, in the windows of which the light is on, and, rising on tiptoe, tries to look inside. Slowly, he opens the door.

The old clerk was late at work today. He has nowhere to hurry. He has been living alone for a long time and on holidays he feels his loneliness especially acutely. The clerk sat and thought bitterly that he had no one to celebrate Christmas with, no one to give gifts to. At this time, the door opened. The old man looked up and saw the boy.

"Uncle, uncle, I have to write a letter!" the boy spoke quickly.

— Do you have any money? the clerk asked sternly.

The boy, fiddling with his hat, took a step back. And then the lone clerk remembered that today was Christmas Eve and that he so wanted to give someone a present. He took out a blank sheet of paper, dipped his pen in ink and wrote: “Petersburg. 6th January. Sir...”

- What is the lord's name?

"That's not the lord," the boy muttered, still not fully believing his luck.

Oh, is that a lady? asked the clerk, smiling.

No no! the boy spoke quickly.

So who do you want to write a letter to? the old man was surprised

— Jesus.

How dare you make fun of an old man? - the clerk was indignant and wanted to show the boy to the door. But then I saw tears in the eyes of the child and remembered that today is Christmas Eve. He felt ashamed of his anger, and in a warm voice he asked:

What do you want to write to Jesus?

— My mother always taught me to ask God for help when it is difficult. She said that God's name is Jesus Christ. The boy went closer to the clerk and continued: “Yesterday she fell asleep, and I can’t wake her up.” There’s not even bread at home, I’m so hungry,” he wiped the tears that had come to his eyes with his palm.

How did you wake her up? asked the old man, rising from his desk.

- I kissed her.

- Is she breathing?

- What are you, uncle, do they breathe in a dream?

“Jesus Christ has already received your letter,” said the old man, embracing the boy by the shoulders. “He told me to take care of you, and he took your mother to Himself.

The old clerk thought: “My mother, leaving for another world, you told me to be a good person and a pious Christian. I forgot your order, but now you will not be ashamed of me.”

Boris Ganago

THE SPOKEN WORD

On the outskirts of the big city stood an old house with a garden. They were guarded by a reliable watchman - the smart dog Uranus. He never barked at anyone in vain, vigilantly watched strangers, rejoiced at his owners.

But this house was demolished. Its inhabitants were offered a comfortable apartment, and then the question arose - what to do with a shepherd? As a watchman, they no longer needed Uranus, becoming only a burden. For several days there were fierce disputes about the dog's fate. Through the open window from the house to the sentry kennel, the plaintive sobs of the grandson and the menacing shouts of the grandfather often flew.

What did Uranus understand from the words he heard? Who knows...

Only the daughter-in-law and grandson, who brought him food, noticed that the dog's bowl remained untouched for more than a day. Uranus did not eat in the following days, no matter how he was persuaded. He no longer wagged his tail when approached, and even looked away, as if he no longer wanted to look at the people who betrayed him.

The daughter-in-law, who was expecting an heir or heiress, suggested:

- Isn't Uranus sick? The owner in his hearts threw:

“It would be better if the dog died on its own.” Then you wouldn't have to shoot.

The bride shuddered.

Uranus looked at the speaker with a look that the owner could not forget for a long time.

The grandson persuaded the neighbor's veterinarian to look at his pet. But the veterinarian did not find any disease, only thoughtfully said:

“Maybe he yearned for something... Uranus soon died, until his death, slightly moving his tail only to his daughter-in-law and grandson, who visited him.

And the owner at night often remembered the look of Uranus, who had faithfully served him for so many years. The old man already regretted the cruel words that had killed the dog.

But is it possible to return what was said?

And who knows how the sounded evil hurt the grandson, tied to his four-legged friend?

And who knows how it, spreading around the world like a radio wave, will affect the souls of unborn children, future generations?

Words live, words don't die...

In an old book it was told: one girl's father died. The girl missed him. He was always kind to her. She lacked this warmth.

Once dad dreamed about her and said: now you be affectionate with people. Every kind word serves eternity.

Boris Ganago

MASHENKA

Christmas story

Once, many years ago, the girl Masha was mistaken for an Angel. It happened like this.

One poor family had three children. Their father died, their mother worked where she could, and then fell ill. There was not a crumb left in the house, but there was so much to eat. What to do?

Mom went out into the street and began to beg, but people, not noticing her, passed by. Christmas night was approaching, and the words of the woman: “I ask not for myself, for my children ... for Christ's sake! ” drowned in the pre-holiday bustle.

In desperation, she entered the church and began to ask Christ Himself for help. Who else was there to ask?

Here, at the icon of the Savior, Masha saw a woman kneeling. Her face was filled with tears. The girl had never seen such suffering before.

Masha had an amazing heart. When they were happy nearby, and she wanted to jump for happiness. But if someone was hurt, she could not pass by and asked:

What happened to you? Why are you crying? And someone else's pain penetrated into her heart. And now she leaned towards the woman:

Do you have grief?

And when she shared her misfortune with her, Masha, who had never experienced a feeling of hunger in her life, imagined three lonely babies who had not seen food for a long time. Without thinking, she handed the woman five rubles. It was all her money.

At that time, this was a significant amount, and the woman's face lit up.

Where is your house? - Masha asked in parting. She was surprised to learn that a poor family lives in a nearby basement. The girl did not understand how it was possible to live in the basement, but she firmly knew what she needed to do this Christmas evening.

Happy mother, as if on wings, flew home. She bought food at a nearby store, and the children happily greeted her.

Soon the stove blazed and the samovar boiled. The children warmed up, sated and quieted down. A table set with food was an unexpected holiday for them, almost a miracle.

But then Nadia, the smallest, asked:

Mom, is it true that on Christmas Day God sends an Angel to the children, and he brings them many, many gifts?

Mom knew perfectly well that they had no one to expect gifts from. Thank God for what He has already given them: everyone is fed and warm. But babies are babies. They so wanted to have a tree for the Christmas holiday, the same as that of all the other children. What could she, poor thing, tell them? Destroy a child's faith?

The children looked at her warily, waiting for an answer. And my mother confirmed:

This is true. But the Angel comes only to those who believe in God with all their hearts and pray to Him with all their hearts.

And I believe in God with all my heart and pray to Him with all my heart, - Nadia did not retreat. - May he send us His Angel.

Mom didn't know what to say. Silence settled in the room, only the logs crackled in the stove. And suddenly there was a knock. The children shuddered, and mother crossed herself and opened the door with a trembling hand.

On the threshold stood a little fair-haired girl Masha, and behind her - a bearded man with a Christmas tree in his hands.

Merry Christmas! - Masha happily congratulated the owners. The children froze.

While the bearded man was setting up the Christmas tree, the Nanny Car entered the room with a large basket, from which gifts immediately began to appear. The kids couldn't believe their eyes. But neither they nor mother suspected that the girl had given them her Christmas tree and her gifts.

And when the unexpected guests left, Nadia asked:

This girl was an angel?

Boris Ganago

BACK TO LIFE

Based on the story by A. Dobrovolsky "Seryozha"

Usually the brothers' beds were side by side. But when Seryozha fell ill with pneumonia, Sasha was moved to another room and was forbidden to disturb the baby. They only asked to pray for the little brother, who was getting worse and worse.

One evening Sasha looked into the sick room. Seryozha lay with open, seeing nothing, and hardly breathed. Frightened, the boy rushed to the office, from which the voices of his parents could be heard. The door was ajar, and Sasha heard his mother, crying, say that Seryozha was dying. Pa-pa answered with pain in his voice:

- Why cry now? He can no longer be saved ...

In horror, Sasha rushed into the room of his sister. There was no one there, and with sobs, he fell to his knees in front of the icon of the Mother of God, which hung on the wall. Through the sobs, the words broke through:

- Lord, Lord, make sure that Seryozha does not die!

Sasha's face was filled with tears. Everything around was blurred, as if in a fog. The boy saw in front of him only the face of the Mother of God. The sense of time is gone.

- Lord, You can do anything, save Serezha!

It's already quite dark. Exhausted, Sasha stood up with the corpse and lit the table lamp. The gospel lay before her. The boy turned over several pages, and suddenly his eyes fell on the line: “Go, and as you believed, let it be for you ...”

As if having heard an order, he went to Se-rezha. At the bedside of her beloved brother, mother sat silently. She gave a sign: "Don't make noise, Seryozha fell asleep."

No words were spoken, but this sign was like a ray of hope. He fell asleep - it means he is alive, so he will live!

Three days later, Seryozha could already sit up in bed, and the children were allowed to visit him. They brought brother's favorite toys, a fortress and houses, which he cut and glued before his illness - everything that could please the baby. The little sister with a big doll stood near Seryozha, and Sasha, rejoicing, photographed them.

These were moments of true happiness.

Boris Ganago

YOUR CHILD

A chick fell out of the nest - very small, helpless, even the wings have not yet grown. He can’t do anything, he only squeaks and opens his beak - he asks for food.

The guys took it and brought it into the house. They built a nest for him out of grass and twigs. Vova fed the baby, and Ira gave water to drink and took out in the sun.

Soon the chick got stronger, and instead of a fluff, feathers began to grow in it. The guys found an old birdcage in the attic and, for reliability, put their pet in it - the cat began to look at him very expressively. He was on duty at the door all day long, waiting for the right moment. And no matter how much his children drove, he did not take his eyes off the chick.

Summer has flown by. The chick in front of the children grew up and began to fly around the cage. And soon he became cramped in it. When the cage was taken out into the street, he fought against the bars and asked to be released. So the guys decided to release their pet. Of course, it was a pity for them to part with him, but they could not deprive the freedom of someone who was created for flight.

One sunny morning, the children said goodbye to their pet, took the cage out into the yard and opened it. The chick jumped out onto the grass and looked back at his friends.

At that moment, a cat appeared. Hiding in the bushes, he prepared to jump, rushed, but ... The chick flew high, high ...

The holy elder John of Kronstadt compared our soul to a bird. For every soul the enemy hunts, wants to catch. After all, at first the human soul, just like a fledgling chick, is helpless, unable to fly. How can we preserve it, how can we grow it so that it does not break on sharp stones, does not fall into the net of a catcher?

The Lord created a saving fence behind which our soul grows and strengthens - the house of God, the Holy Church. In it, the soul learns to fly high, high, to the very sky. And she knows there such a bright joy that she is not afraid of any earthly nets.

Boris Ganago

MIRROR

Dot, dot, comma,

Minus, the face is crooked.

Stick, stick, cucumber -

Here comes the man.

With this rhyme, Nadia finished the drawing. Then, fearing that they would not understand her, she signed under it: "It's me." She carefully examined her creation and decided that something was missing from it.

The young artist went to the mirror and began to look at herself: what else needs to be completed so that anyone can understand who is depicted in the portrait?

Nadia loved to dress up and spin in front of a large mirror, tried different hairstyles. This time the girl tried on her mother's hat with a veil.

She wanted to look mysterious and romantic, like long-legged girls showing fashion on TV. Nadia introduced herself as an adult, cast a languid glance in the mirror and tried to walk with the gait of a fashion model. It didn’t turn out very pretty, and when she stopped abruptly, the hat slid down her nose.

Good thing no one saw her at that moment. That would be a laugh! In general, she did not like being a fashion model at all.

The girl took off her hat, and then her eyes fell on her grandmother's hat. Unable to resist, she tried it on. And she froze, making an amazing discovery: like two peas in a pod, she looked like her grandmother. She didn't have any wrinkles yet. Bye.

Now Nadia knew what she would become in many years. True, this future seemed to her very far away ...

It became clear to Nadia why her grandmother loves her so much, why she watches her pranks with tender sadness and sighs furtively.

There were steps. Nadya hurriedly put her cap back on and ran to the door. On the threshold, she met ... herself, only not so frisky. But the eyes were exactly the same: childishly surprised and joyful.

Nadenka hugged her future self and quietly asked:

Grandma, is it true that you were me as a child?

Grandmother was silent for a moment, then smiled mysteriously and took an old album from the shelf. Turning over a few pages, she showed a photograph of a little girl who looked very much like Nadia.

That's what I was.

Oh, you really look like me! - the granddaughter exclaimed in delight.

Or maybe you look like me? - slyly narrowed her eyes, asked the grandmother.

It doesn't matter who looks like who. The main thing is similar, - the baby did not concede.

Isn't it important? And look what I looked like...

And the grandmother began to leaf through the album. There were just no faces. And what faces! And each was beautiful in its own way. Peace, dignity and warmth, radiated by them, attracted the eye. Nadia noticed that all of them - small children and gray-haired old men, young ladies and smart military men - were somewhat similar to each other ... And to her.

Tell me about them, the girl asked.

Grandmother pressed her blood to herself, and a story about their family, coming from ancient centuries, began to flow.

The time for cartoons had already come, but the girl did not want to watch them. She was discovering something amazing that was long ago, but lives in her.

Do you know the history of your grandfathers, great-grandfathers, the history of your family? Maybe this story is your mirror?

Boris Ganago

PARROT

Petya wandered around the house. All games are boring. Then my mother gave an order to go to the store and also suggested:

Our neighbor, Maria Nikolaevna, broke her leg. She has no one to buy bread. Barely moves around the room. Let me call and see if she needs something to buy.

Aunt Masha was delighted with the call. And when the boy brought her a whole bag of groceries, she didn't know how to thank him. For some reason, she showed Petya an empty cage in which a parrot had recently lived. It was her friend. Aunt Masha looked after him, shared her thoughts, and he took it and flew away. Now she has no one to say a word to, no one to take care of. What is life if there is no one to take care of?

Petya looked at the empty cage, at the crutches, imagined how Aunt Mania was hobbling around the empty apartment, and an unexpected thought came into his head. The fact is that he had long saved up the money that was given to him for toys. Didn't find anything suitable. And now this strange thought - to buy a parrot for Aunt Masha.

Saying goodbye, Petya ran out into the street. He wanted to go to the pet store, where he had once seen various parrots. But now he looked at them through the eyes of Aunt Masha. Which one would she be friends with? Maybe this one suits her, maybe this one?

Petya decided to ask his neighbor about the fugitive. The next day he told his mother:

Call Aunt Masha... Maybe she needs something?

Mom even froze, then pressed her son to her and whispered:

So you become a man ... Petya was offended:

Wasn't I a human before?

There was, of course there was, ”my mother smiled. “Only now your soul has also woken up… Thank God!”

What is a soul? the boy was worried.

This is the ability to love.

The mother looked at her son questioningly.

Maybe call yourself?

Petya was embarrassed. Mom picked up the phone: Maria Nikolaevna, sorry, Petya has a question for you. I'll hand him the phone now.

There was nowhere to go, and Petya muttered in embarrassment:

Aunt Masha, can you buy something?

What happened at the other end of the wire, Petya did not understand, only the neighbor answered in some unusual voice. She thanked him and asked to bring milk if he went to the store. She doesn't need anything else. Thanks again.

When Petya called her apartment, he heard the hasty clatter of crutches. Aunt Masha did not want to make him wait extra seconds.

While the neighbor was looking for money, the boy, as if by chance, began to ask her about the missing parrot. Aunt Masha willingly told about the color and behavior ...

There were several parrots of this color in the pet store. Petya chose for a long time. When he brought his gift to Aunt Masha, then ... I do not undertake to describe what happened next.

17 responses

I would read Chekhov's Gooseberry in its entirety or this part

And he ate greedily and kept repeating:

Ah, how delicious! You try!

It was harsh and sour, but, as Pushkin said, "the darkness of truth is dearer to us than the uplifting deceit." I saw a happy man, whose cherished dream came true so obviously, who achieved the goal in life, got what he wanted, who was satisfied with his fate, with himself. For some reason, something sad was always mixed with my thoughts about human happiness, but now, at the sight of a happy person, a heavy feeling, close to despair, took possession of me. It was especially hard at night. They made a bed for me in the room next to my brother's bedroom, and I could hear how he did not sleep and how he got up and went to a plate of gooseberries and took a berry. I thought: how, in fact, there are many satisfied, happy people! What an overwhelming power! Look at this life: the arrogance and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and bestiality of the weak, impossible poverty all around, cramped conditions, degeneration, drunkenness, hypocrisy, lies... Meanwhile, in all the houses and on the streets there is silence and calmness; out of fifty thousand people living in the city, not one who would cry out, loudly indignant. We see those who go to the market for provisions, eat during the day, sleep at night, who talk their nonsense, get married, grow old, complacently drag their dead to the cemetery, but we we do not see and do not hear those who suffer, and what is terrible in life happens somewhere behind the scenes. Everything is quiet, calm, and only dumb statistics protest: so many went crazy, so many buckets were drunk, so many children died from malnutrition ... And such an order is obviously needed; Obviously, the happy one feels good only because the unfortunate bear their burden in silence, and without this silence, happiness would be impossible. This is general hypnosis. It is necessary that behind the door of every contented, happy person someone stands with a hammer and constantly reminds by knocking that there are unfortunate people, that no matter how happy he is, sooner or later life will show him its claws, trouble will strike - illness, poverty, loss, and no one will see or hear him, just as now he does not see or hear others. But there is no man with a hammer, the happy one lives for himself, and petty worldly worries excite him slightly, like the wind does aspen - and everything is going well.

I want to give another passage that immediately came to my mind as soon as I saw this question. This is also not Russian literature, but still a classic. 3-4 paragraph from chapter VIII. People of the "Planet of Humans" Exupery:

To understand a person, his needs and aspirations, to comprehend his very essence, you do not need to oppose your obvious truths to each other. Yes you are right. All of you are right. Anything can be proven logically. Even the one who takes it into his head to blame the hunchbacks for all the misfortunes of mankind is right. It is enough to declare war on the humpbacks - and we will immediately inflame with hatred for them. We will begin to take cruel revenge on the hunchbacks for all their crimes. And among the hunchbacks, of course, there are also criminals.

In order to understand what the essence of a person is, one must at least for a moment forget about disagreements, because every theory and every faith establishes a whole Koran of unshakable truths, and they give rise to fanaticism. You can divide people into right and left, into hunchbacked and not hunchbacked, into fascists and democrats - and you cannot refute any such division. But truth, as you know, is what makes the world simpler, not what turns it into chaos. Truth is a language that helps to comprehend the universal. Newton did not at all "discover" the law, which remained a mystery for a long time - only puzzles solve this way, and what Newton did was creativity. He created a language that tells us both about the fall of an apple on the lawn and about the rising of the sun. Truth is not what is provable, truth is simplicity.

Why argue about ideologies? Any of them can be supported by evidence, and they all contradict each other, and from these disputes you only lose all hope of saving people. But people around us, everywhere and everywhere, strive for the same thing.

We want freedom. Anyone who works with a pick wants to have meaning in every blow. When a convict works with a pick, each blow only humiliates the convict, but if the pick is in the hands of a prospector, each blow elevates the prospector. Hard labor is not where they work with a pickaxe. It's terrible not because it's hard work. Penal servitude is where the blows of the pick are meaningless, where labor does not unite man with people. And we want to escape from hard labor.

In Europe, two hundred million people vegetate senselessly and would be glad to be reborn for true existence. Industry has torn them away from the life that generation after generation leads as a peasant family, and has locked them up in huge ghettos, similar to marshalling yards, packed with strings of wagons black with soot. People buried in workers' settlements would be glad to wake up to life.

There are others who have been drawn into tedious, monotonous work, the joys of a discoverer, a believer, a scientist are inaccessible to them. Some have imagined that it is not so difficult to elevate these people, it is only necessary to clothe them, feed them, satisfy their daily needs. And little by little they raised them to be philistines in the spirit of Courteline's novels, rural politicians, narrow-minded specialists without any spiritual interests. These people are well trained, but they have not yet joined the culture. Those for whom culture is reduced to hardened formulas have the most miserable idea of ​​it. The last scholar in the department of exact sciences knows much more about the laws of nature than Descartes and Pascal knew. But is a schoolboy capable of thinking like them?

All of us - some vaguely, some more clearly - feel: we need to awaken to life. But how many false paths open up... Of course, people can be inspired by dressing them up in some form. They will sing martial songs and break bread in the circle of their comrades. They will find what they were looking for, they will feel unity and community. But this bread will bring them death.

You can dig up forgotten wooden idols, you can resurrect old, old myths that, for better or worse, have already shown themselves, you can again inspire people to believe in Pan-Germanism or in the Roman Empire. It is possible to stupefy the Germans with arrogance, because they are Germans and Beethoven's compatriots. So you can turn your head and the last chimney sweep. And it's much easier than awakening Beethoven in a chimney sweep.

But these idols are carnivorous idols. A person who dies for the sake of a scientific discovery or in order to find a cure for a serious illness, by his very death serves the cause of life. It may be beautiful to die in order to conquer new lands, but modern warfare destroys everything for which it is allegedly waged. Now it is no longer a matter of shedding a little sacrificial blood to revive an entire people. From the hour when the plane and mustard gas became weapons, the war became just a massacre. Enemies hide behind concrete walls, and each, not knowing how to find a better way out, night after night sends out squadrons that get to the very heart of the enemy, bombard his vital centers, paralyze industry and means of communication. Victory will go to the one who rots last. And both opponents are rotting alive.

The world has become a desert, and we all yearn to find comrades in it; in order to taste bread among comrades, we accept war. But in order to gain this warmth, in order to strive shoulder to shoulder towards the same goal, there is no need to fight at all. We are deceived. War and hatred add nothing to the joy of the general rapid movement.

Why should we hate each other? We are all one, carried away by the same planet, we are the crew of one ship. It is good when something new, more perfect is born in a dispute between different civilizations, but it is monstrous when they devour each other.

To free us, we only need to help us see the goal to which we will go side by side, united by the bonds of brotherhood - but then why not look for a goal that will unite everyone? The doctor, examining the patient, does not listen to the groans: it is important for the doctor to heal the person. The doctor serves the laws of the universal. They are also served by the physicist, who deduces almost divine equations in which the essence of the atom and the stellar nebula is determined at once. They are served by a simple shepherd. It is worth the one who modestly guards a dozen sheep under the starry sky to comprehend his work - and now he is no longer just a servant. He is a sentry. And each sentry is responsible for the fate of the empire.

Do you think the shepherd does not seek to comprehend himself and his place in life? At the front near Madrid, I visited a school - it was on a hillock, behind a low fence made of stone, five hundred meters separated it from the trenches. In this school, one corporal taught botany. In the rough hands of the corporal was a poppy flower, he carefully parted the petals and stamens, and from all sides from the trench mud, under the roar of shells, pilgrims overgrown with beards flocked to him. They surrounded the corporal, sat down right on the ground, legs crossed, chin rested on their palms, and listened. They frowned, clenched their teeth, the lesson was not very clear to them, but they were told: “You are dark, you are animals, you are just getting out of your lair, you need to catch up with humanity!” - and, stepping heavily, they hurried after.

When we comprehend our role on earth, even the most modest and inconspicuous, then only we will be happy. Only then will we be able to live and die in peace, for what gives meaning to life gives meaning to death.

A man departs in peace when his death is natural, when, somewhere in Provence, an old peasant, at the end of his reign, gives his sons his goats and his olives for safekeeping, so that the sons in due time give them to the sons of their sons. In a peasant family, a person dies only half. At the appointed hour, life disintegrates like a pod, yielding seeds.

One day I happened to be standing with three peasants at their mother's deathbed. It was bittersweet to say. The umbilical cord was torn a second time. The knot that connected generation to generation was untied for the second time. The sons suddenly felt lonely, they seemed clumsy, helpless to themselves, there was no longer that table at which the whole family gathered on a holiday, that magnet that attracted them all. And I saw that here not only the connecting threads are torn, but life is given a second time. For each of the sons in his turn will become the head of the clan, the patriarch around whom the family will gather, and when the time comes, he will in turn hand over the reins of government to the kids that are now playing in the yard.

I looked at my mother, at an old peasant woman with a calm and stern face, at her tightly compressed lips - not a face, but a mask carved from stone. And in him I recognized the features of sons. Their faces are a cast from this mask. This body molded their bodies - perfectly sculpted, strong, masculine. And here it lies, devoid of life, but it is the lifelessness of a decayed shell, from which a ripe fruit has been extracted. And in their turn, her sons and daughters mold new people from their flesh. In the peasant family do not die. Mother is dead, long live mother!

Yes, it is bitter, but it is so simple and natural - the dimensional tread of the kind: leaving on the way one after another the mortal shells of gray-haired workers, constantly renewing itself, it moves towards the unknown truth.

That is why that evening, in the death knell that floated over the village, I heard not grief, but hidden meek joy. The bell that glorified funerals and christenings with the same ringing again announced the change of generations. And this song filled the soul with quiet peace to the glory of the betrothal of the old toiler to the earth.

This is how life is transmitted from generation to generation - slowly, like a tree grows - and consciousness is transmitted with it. What an amazing climb! From molten lava, from that dough from which stars are molded, from a miraculously born living cell, we - people - came out and rose higher and higher, step by step, and now we are writing cantatas and measuring constellations.

The old peasant woman passed on to her children not only life, she taught them her native language, entrusted them with wealth that had been accumulating slowly over the centuries: the spiritual heritage that she got to keep is a modest stock of legends, concepts and beliefs, everything that distinguishes Newton and Shakespeare from the primitive savage .

That hunger that drove the soldiers of Spain to a botany lesson under fire, that drove Mermoz to the South Atlantic, and another to poetry - this eternal feeling of unsatisfaction arises because man has not yet reached the peak in his development, and we still need to understand ourselves yourself and the universe. It is necessary to throw bridges in the darkness. This is not recognized only by those who consider selfish indifference as wisdom; but such wisdom is a pitiful deceit. Comrades, my comrades, I take you as witnesses: what are the happiest hours of our life?

And on the last pages of this book, I again recall the aged officials - our escorts at the dawn of that day when we were finally entrusted with a mail plane for the first time and we were preparing to become people. But they were like us in everything, but they did not know that they were hungry.

There are too many people in the world who have not been helped to wake up.

Several years ago, during a long trip by rail, I wanted to explore this state on wheels, in which I found myself for three days; For three days there was nowhere to go from the incessant knocking and roar, as if the surf was rolling pebbles, and I could not sleep. At about one in the morning I walked the whole train from end to end. The sleeping cars were empty. The first class carriages were also empty.

And hundreds of Polish workers huddled in third-class carriages, they were expelled from France, and they returned to their homeland. In the corridors I had to step over the sleeping ones. I stopped and by the light of the nightlights began to look closely; the car was without partitions, just like a barracks, and it smelled like a barracks or a police station, and the course of the train shook and tossed bodies dumped by fatigue.

A whole people, immersed in a heavy sleep, returned to bitter poverty. Large, shaved heads rolled on wooden benches. Men, women, children tossed and turned from side to side, as if trying to hide from the continuous roar and shaking that haunted them in oblivion. Even sleep was not a safe haven for them.

The economic ebb and flow tossed them around Europe from end to end, they lost their house in the department of Nore, a tiny garden, three pots of geraniums, which I once saw in the windows of Polish miners - and it seemed to me that they had lost half their human appearance. They took with them only kitchen utensils, blankets and curtains, miserable belongings in loose, somehow tied knots. They had to leave everything that was dear to them, everything they were attached to, everyone they had tamed in four or five years in France - a cat, a dog, geraniums - they could only take pots and pans with them.

The mother was breastfeeding the baby; deadly tired, she seemed to be asleep. In the midst of the nonsense and chaos of these wanderings, life was transmitted to the child. I looked at my father. The skull is heavy and bare as a rock. Shackled by sleep in an awkward position, squeezed by work clothes, a shapeless and awkward body. Not a man - a clod of clay. So at night, on the benches of the market, homeless vagrants lie in piles of rags. And I thought: poverty, dirt, ugliness - that's not the point. But after all, this man and this woman once met for the first time, and, probably, he smiled at her and, probably, brought her flowers after work. Perhaps shy and awkward, he was afraid of being laughed at. And she, confident in her charm, out of purely feminine coquetry, perhaps, was pleased to torment him. And he, now turned into a machine, only capable of forging or digging, was languishing with anxiety, from which his heart sank sweetly. It is incomprehensible how they both turned into clods of dirt? Under what terrible pressure did they fall? What made them so twisted? The animal retains grace even in old age. Why is the noble clay from which man is fashioned so mutilated?

I walked on among my fellow travelers, who slept in a heavy, restless sleep. Snoring, groans, indistinct muttering, the grinding of rough shoes on wood, when the sleeper, trying to get comfortable on a hard bench, turns from side to side - everything merged into a deaf, incessant noise. And behind all this - the incessant rumble, as if pebbles are rolling under the blows of the surf.

I sit down opposite the sleeping family. Between the father and mother somehow nestled the baby. But then he turns in his sleep, and by the light of the night lamp I see his face. What a face! From these two, a wonderful golden fruit was born. These shapeless heavy coolies gave birth to a miracle of grace and charm. I looked at the smooth forehead, at the plump tender lips and thought: here is the face of a musician, here is little Mozart, he is all - a promise! He is just like a little prince from a fairy tale, he would grow up, warmed by vigilant reasonable care, and he would justify the wildest hopes! When in the garden, after a long search, a new rose is finally brought out, all the gardeners are excited. The rose is separated from others, she is vigilantly cared for, cared for and cherished. But people grow up without a gardener. Little Mozart, like everyone else, will fall under the same monstrous pressure. And he will begin to enjoy the vile music of base taverns. Mozart is doomed.

I returned to my wagon. I told myself: these people do not suffer from their fate. And it is not compassion that torments me. It's not about shedding tears over a never-healing sore. Those who are struck by it do not feel it. The ulcer did not strike an individual, it corrodes humanity. And I do not believe in pity. The care of the gardener torments me. It is not the sight of poverty that torments me; in the end, people get used to poverty, just as they get used to idleness. In the East, many generations live in filth and do not feel unhappy at all. What torments me cannot be cured by free soup for the poor. Painfully not the ugliness of this shapeless, crumpled human clay. But in each of these people, perhaps, Mozart is killed.

The Spirit alone, touching the clay, creates a Man out of it.

An excerpt (the last paragraph, to be more precise) from I. A. Bunin's story "The Caucasus". I remember I was shocked by the ending when I read it for the first time:

“He was looking for her in Gelendzhik, in Gagra, in Sochi. The next day, upon arrival in Sochi, he swam in the sea in the morning, then shaved, put on clean linen, a snow-white tunic, had breakfast in his hotel on the restaurant terrace, drank a bottle of champagne, drank coffee with chartreuse, slowly smoked a cigar. Returning to his room, he lay down on the sofa and shot himself in the whiskey with two revolvers.

No. Today, everything is taken in a hurry, little by little, removing foam. Art requires a different kind of immersion, reflection and a look of effort, and if only to cast a glance at the simplest things, both the opera and the play - any word will seem empty. Not only do we need to read - we need to think and put together a mosaic in our memory. Not so great is a writer, a master, and in general any creator, as our service, work, dialogue is great - we talk with a poet, with a playwright, although the other plays a role, but, listening, we are involved: without us, culture dies, and eternity not eternal. And snatching five minutes for distraction in the stream of days and the hustle and bustle of affairs - everything will be forgotten in an instant, only the nerve will touch the thoughts, but the thought will not give birth.

She sank into a chair and burst into tears. But suddenly something new shone in her eyes; she looked intently and stubbornly at Aglaya and got up from her place:

Do you want me now ... come, do you hear? only tell him, and he will immediately leave you and stay with me forever, and marry me, and you will run home alone? Do you want, do you want? she cried like a mad woman, perhaps almost not believing herself that she could utter such words.

Aglaya, frightened, rushed to the door, but stopped at the door, as if chained, and listened.

Do you want me to drive Rogozhin away? Did you think that I already married Rogozhin for your pleasure? Right now, in front of you, I’ll shout: “Go away, Rogozhin!”, And I’ll say to the prince: “Do you remember what you promised?” God! But why did I humiliate myself before them? Is it not you, prince, who assured me that you would follow me, no matter what happened to me, and you would never leave me; that you love me, and forgive me everything, and I have ... uva ... Yes, you said that too! And just to untie you, I ran away from you, but now I don’t want to! Why did she treat me like a dissolute? Am I dissolute, ask Rogozhin, he will tell you! Now that she has dishonored me, and even in your eyes, and you will turn away from me, and take her by the arm with you? Damn you after that because I believed in you alone. Go away, Rogozhin, you are not needed! she screamed almost without memory, with an effort to let the words out of her chest, with a distorted face and parched lips, obviously not believing an iota of her fanfare, but at the same time, at least for a second, still wanting to prolong the moment and deceive herself. The impulse was so strong that perhaps she would have died, at least it seemed to the prince. - Here he is, look! she finally shouted to Aglaya, pointing with her hand at the prince. “If he doesn’t come to me now, doesn’t take me and doesn’t leave you, then take him for yourself, I give in, I don’t need him! ..

Both she and Aglaya stopped as if in anticipation, and both looked at the prince like crazy. But he, perhaps, did not understand the full force of this challenge, one can even say for sure. He only saw before him a desperate, insane face, from which, as he let slip to Aglaya, "his heart was pierced forever." He could no longer bear it, and turned to Aglaya with a plea and reproach, pointing to Nastasya Filippovna:

Is it possible! After all, she ... so unhappy!

But that was all he managed to utter, speechless under Aglaya's terrible gaze. This look expressed so much suffering and at the same time endless hatred that he threw up his hands, screamed and rushed to her, but it was already too late! She could not endure even a moment of his hesitation, covered her face with her hands, cried out: "Oh, my God!" - and rushed out of the room, followed by Rogozhin, to unlock the bolt for her at the door to the street.

The prince also ran, but on the threshold they wrapped their arms around him. The stricken, distorted face of Nastasya Filippovna looked at him point-blank, and her bluish lips moved, asking:

For her? For her?..

She fell unconscious into his arms. He picked her up, carried her into the room, laid her in an armchair, and stood over her in a dull expectation. There was a glass of water on the table; Rogozhin came back and grabbed him and splashed water in her face; she opened her eyes and for a minute did not understand anything; but suddenly she looked around, shuddered, cried out and rushed to the prince.

My! My! she cried. - Has the proud young lady left? Ha ha ha! she laughed hysterically, ha-ha-ha! I gave it to this young lady! What for? For what? Crazy! Crazy!.. Go away, Rogozhin, ha-ha-ha!

Rogozhin looked fixedly at them, did not say a word, took his hat and went out. Ten minutes later the prince was sitting beside Nastasya Filippovna, looking at her without stopping, and stroking her head and face with both hands, like a little child. He laughed at her laughter and was ready to cry at her tears. He did not say anything, but listened intently to her impetuous, enthusiastic and incoherent babble, hardly understood anything, but smiled softly, and as soon as it seemed to him that she began again to yearn or cry, reproach or complain, he immediately began her again stroke her head and gently run his hands over her cheeks, comforting and persuading her, like a child.

"A Hero of Our Time", a letter from Vera and Pechorin, who rushes to Pyatigorsk. A scene in which the main character opened up to me from a completely different side.

Like a madman, I jumped out onto the porch, jumped on my Circassian, who was led around the yard, and set off at full speed on the road to Pyatigorsk. I mercilessly drove the exhausted horse, which, wheezing and covered in foam, raced me along the rocky road.

The sun was already hidden in a black cloud resting on the crest of the western mountains; the valley became dark and damp. Podkumok, making his way over the stones, roared muffled and monotonous. I jumped, panting with impatience. The thought of not finding her in Pyatigorsk hit my heart like a hammer! - one minute, one more minute to see her, say goodbye, shake her hand ... I prayed, cursed, cried, laughed ... no, nothing will express my anxiety, despair! .. With the opportunity to lose her forever, Vera became dearer to me everything in the world - dearer than life, honor, happiness! God knows what strange, what frenzied ideas were swarming in my head ... And meanwhile I kept galloping, chasing me mercilessly. And so I began to notice that my horse was breathing more heavily; he had already stumbled twice out of the blue... There were five versts left to Essentuki, a Cossack village where I could change horses.

Everything would have been saved if my horse had had enough strength for another ten minutes! But suddenly, rising from a small ravine, at the exit from the mountains, at a sharp turn, he slammed into the ground. I quickly jumped off, I want to pick him up, I pull on the reins - in vain: a barely audible groan escaped through his clenched teeth; after a few minutes he died; I was left alone in the steppe, having lost my last hope; I tried to walk - my legs buckled; exhausted by the anxieties of the day and insomnia, I fell on the wet grass and wept like a child.

And for a long time I lay motionless and wept bitterly, not trying to hold back my tears and sobs; I thought my chest would burst; all my hardness, all my composure - vanished like smoke. The soul was exhausted, the mind fell silent, and if at that moment someone saw me, he would have turned away with contempt.

Vladimir Nabokov "Other Shores". Every evening I open a random page and read aloud. One of my favorite passages (chapter 6, last paragraph):

"And the highest pleasure for me - outside the devilish time, but very much even inside the divine space - is a landscape chosen at random, no matter what strip, tundra or sagebrush, or even among the remains of some old pine forest near the railway between the dead in this context Albany and Schenectady (one of my favorite godchildren flies there, my blue samuelis) - in a word, any corner of the earth where I can be in the company of butterflies and their food plants. It's like some instantaneous physical emptiness, where everything I love in the world rushes to fill it. It's like an instant thrill of tenderness and gratitude addressed, as they say in American official recommendations, to whom it may concern - I don’t know to whom and to what - whether it’s a brilliant counterpoint of human fate or benevolent spirits pampering the earthly lucky one.

In the early morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, in a white cloak with a bloody lining, shuffling with a cavalry gait, the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, entered the covered colonnade between the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great.

More than anything in the world, the Procurator hated the smell of rose oil, and everything now foreshadowed a bad day, since this smell began to haunt the Procurator from dawn. It seemed to the procurator that the cypresses and palms in the garden exuded a pink smell, that the accursed pink stream was mixed with the smell of leather and guards. From the wings in the rear of the palace, where the first cohort of the twelfth lightning-fast legion, which had come with the procurator to Yershalaim, was located, smoke was drifting into the colonnade through the upper platform of the garden, and the same greasy pink spirit. Oh gods, gods, why are you punishing me?

"Yes, no doubt! It's her, her again, the invincible, terrible disease of hemicrania, which hurts half the head. There is no cure for it, there is no escape. I'll try not to move my head."

An armchair had already been prepared on the mosaic floor near the fountain, and the procurator, without looking at anyone, sat down in it and held out his hand to the side.

The secretary respectfully placed a piece of parchment in that hand. Unable to restrain himself from a painful grimace, the procurator glanced sideways at what had been written, returned the parchment to the secretary, and said with difficulty:

Under investigation from Galilee? Did they send a case to the tetrarch?

Yes, Procurator, replied the secretary.

What is he?

He refused to give an opinion on the case and sent the death sentence of the Sanhedrin for your approval, - the secretary explained.

The procurator twitched his cheek and said quietly:

Bring the accused.

And immediately, from the garden platform under the columns to the balcony, two legionnaires brought in and placed a man of about twenty-seven in front of the chair of the procurator. This man was dressed in an old and tattered blue tunic. His head was covered with a white bandage with a strap around his forehead, and his hands were tied behind his back. The man had a large bruise under his left eye, and an abrasion with dried blood in the corner of his mouth. The man brought in looked at the procurator with anxious curiosity.

He paused, then quietly asked in Aramaic:

So it was you who persuaded the people to destroy the Yershalaim temple?

At the same time, the procurator sat like a stone, and only his lips moved a little as he uttered the words. The procurator was like a stone, because he was afraid to shake his head, burning with hellish pain.

The man with his hands tied leaned forward a little and began to speak:

A kind person! Trust me...

But the procurator, still not moving and not raising his voice in the least, immediately interrupted him:

Are you calling me a good person? You're wrong. In Yershalaim everyone whispers about me that I am a ferocious monster, and this is absolutely true, - and he added in the same monotone: - Centurion Ratslayer to me.

It seemed to everyone that it had darkened on the balcony when the centurion, the commander of a special centurion, Mark, nicknamed the Ratslayer, appeared before the procurator.

Ratslayer was a head taller than the tallest soldier in the Legion, and so broad-shouldered that he completely blocked out the low sun.

The procurator addressed the centurion in Latin:

The criminal calls me "good man". Get him out of here for a minute, explain to him how to talk to me. But don't hurt.

And everyone, except for the motionless procurator, looked after Mark Ratslayer, who waved his hand to the arrested man, indicating that he should follow him.

In general, everyone watched the Ratslayer, wherever he appeared, because of his height, and those who saw him for the first time, because of the fact that the face of the centurion was disfigured: his nose had once been broken by a blow from a German club.

Mark's heavy boots tapped on the mosaic, the bound man followed him noiselessly, complete silence fell in the colonnade, and one could hear the cooing of pigeons on the garden platform near the balcony, and the water sang an intricate pleasant song in the fountain.

The procurator wanted to get up, put his temple under the jet, and freeze like that. But he knew that this would not help him either.

Taking the arrested person out from under the columns into the garden. Ratslayer took a whip from the hands of the legionnaire, who was standing at the foot of the bronze statue, and, swinging slightly, struck the arrested man on the shoulders. The movement of the centurion was careless and light, but the bound one instantly collapsed to the ground, as if his legs had been cut off, he choked on air, the color fled from his face and his eyes became meaningless. Mark, with one left hand, lightly, like an empty bag, lifted the fallen man into the air, put him on his feet and spoke in a nasal voice, pronouncing the Aramaic words poorly:

The Roman procurator is called hegemon. Do not say any other words. Stand still. Do you understand me or hit you?

The arrested man staggered, but controlled himself, the color returned, he took a breath and answered hoarsely:

I understood you. Do not hit me.

A minute later he was again standing in front of the procurator.

My? the arrested man hastily responded, expressing with his whole being his readiness to answer sensibly, not to arouse more anger.

The procurator said quietly:

Mine - I know. Don't pretend to be more stupid than you are. Your.

Yeshua, - the prisoner hastily answered.

Is there a nickname?

Ha-Notsri.

Where you're from?

From the city of Gamala, - the prisoner answered, showing with his head that there, somewhere far away, to his right, in the north, there is the city of Gamala.

Who are you by blood?

I don't know for sure, - the prisoner replied briskly, - I don't remember my parents. I was told that my father was a Syrian...

Where do you live permanently?

I don’t have a permanent home,” the prisoner answered shyly, “I travel from city to city.

This can be expressed briefly, in one word - a vagabond, - said the procurator and asked: - Do you have any relatives?

There is no one. I am alone in the world.

Do you know grammar?

Do you know any language other than Aramaic?

I know. Greek.

The swollen eyelid lifted, the eye veiled in a haze of suffering stared at the prisoner. The other eye remained closed.

Pilate spoke in Greek:

So you were going to destroy the temple building and called the people to this?

Here the prisoner perked up again, his eyes ceased to express fear, and he spoke in Greek:

I, dob ... - here horror flashed in the eyes of the prisoner because he almost misspoke, - I, hegemon, never in my life was going to destroy the building of the temple and did not incite anyone to this senseless action.

Surprise showed on the face of the secretary, hunched over a low table and taking down his testimony. He raised his head, but immediately bowed it again to the parchment.

Many different people flock to this city for the holiday. There are magicians, astrologers, soothsayers and murderers among them,” the procurator said in a monotone, “but there are also liars. For example, you are a liar. It is written clearly: he incited to destroy the temple. This is what people testify.

These good people,” the prisoner began and, hastily adding: “hegemon,” he continued: “they didn’t learn anything and everyone mixed up what I said. In general, I begin to fear that this confusion will continue for a very long time. And all because he incorrectly writes down after me.

There was silence. Now both diseased eyes looked hard at the prisoner.

I repeat to you, but for the last time: stop pretending to be crazy, robber, - Pilate said softly and monotonously, - there is not much written down for you, but enough written down to hang you.

No, no, hegemon,” the prisoner began, straining to convince, “walks, walks alone with goat parchment and writes incessantly. But once I looked into this parchment and was horrified. Absolutely nothing of what is written there, I did not say. I begged him: burn your parchment for God's sake! But he snatched it from me and ran away.

Who it? Pilate asked with disgust and touched his temple with his hand.

Levi Matthew, - the prisoner eagerly explained, - he was a tax collector, and I met him for the first time on the road to Bethphage, where the fig garden comes out at the corner, and talked with him. Initially, he treated me with hostility and even insulted me, that is, he thought that he was insulting me by calling me a dog, - then the prisoner grinned, - I personally don’t see anything wrong in this beast to be offended by this word ...

The secretary stopped taking notes and surreptitiously cast a surprised look, not at the arrested man, but at the procurator.

However, after listening to me, he began to soften, - continued Yeshua, - finally threw money on the road and said that he would go traveling with me ...

Pilate grinned on one cheek, showing his yellow teeth, and said, turning his whole body towards the secretary:

Oh, the city of Yershalaim! What can you not hear in it. Tax collector, you hear, threw money on the road!

Not knowing how to answer this, the secretary found it necessary to repeat Pilate's smile.

Still grinning, the procurator looked at the arrested man, then at the sun steadily rising above the equestrian statues of the hippodrome, which lay far below to the right, and suddenly, in some kind of nauseating torment, he thought that it would be easiest to drive this strange robber from the balcony, uttering only two words: "Hang him." Expel the convoy as well, leave the colonnade inside the palace, order the room to be darkened, lie down on the couch, demand cold water, call Bang's dog in a plaintive voice, complain to her about hemicrania. And the thought of poison suddenly flashed seductively into the procurator's sick head.

He looked with dull eyes at the prisoner and was silent for some time, painfully remembering why, in the merciless morning sun of Yershalaim, the prisoner was standing in front of him with a face disfigured by beatings, and what other useless questions he would have to ask.

Yes, Matvey Levi, - a high, tormenting voice reached him.

But what did you say about the temple to the crowd in the bazaar?

I, hegemon, said that the temple of the old faith would collapse and a new temple of truth would be created. I said it so it would be clearer.

Why did you, vagabond, embarrass the people in the bazaar, telling about the truth about which you have no idea? What is truth?

And then the procurator thought: "Oh, my gods! I'm asking him about something unnecessary at the trial ... My mind does not serve me anymore ..." And again he imagined a bowl with a dark liquid. "Poison me, poison!"

The truth is, first of all, that your head hurts, and it hurts so badly that you cowardly think about death. Not only are you unable to speak to me, but it is difficult for you to even look at me. And now I am unwittingly your executioner, which saddens me. You can't even think of anything and only dream of your dog coming, apparently the only creature to which you are attached. But your torment will now end, your head will pass.

The secretary widened his eyes at the prisoner and did not finish the word.

Pilate raised martyr eyes at the prisoner and saw that the sun was already quite high above the hippodrome, that a ray had penetrated the colonnade and was creeping up to Yeshua's worn-out sandals, that he was shunning the sun.

Here the procurator got up from his chair, clasped his head in his hands, and horror was expressed on his yellowish, shaven face. But he immediately suppressed it with his will and sank back into his chair.

The prisoner, meanwhile, continued his speech, but the secretary did not write down anything else, but only, stretching his neck like a goose, tried not to utter a single word.

Well, it's all over, - said the prisoner, looking benevolently at Pilate, - and I am extremely glad about this. I would advise you, hegemon, to leave the palace for a while and take a walk somewhere in the vicinity, well, at least in the gardens on the Mount of Olives. A thunderstorm will begin, - the prisoner turned, squinted at the sun, - later, towards evening. A walk would be of great benefit to you, and I would gladly accompany you. Some new thoughts have occurred to me which I think you might find interesting, and I would gladly share them with you, the more so as you give the impression of a very intelligent person.

The secretary turned deathly pale and dropped the scroll to the floor.

The trouble is, - continued the unstoppable bound man, - that you are too closed off and have finally lost faith in people. After all, you must admit, you can’t put all your affection in a dog. Your life is poor, hegemon, - and then the speaker allowed himself to smile.

The secretary now thought of only one thing, whether to believe his ears or not. I had to believe. Then he tried to imagine what kind of bizarre form the anger of the hot-tempered procurator would take at this unheard-of impudence of the arrested person. And the secretary could not imagine this, although he knew the procurator well.

Untie his hands.

One of the escort legionnaires rapped his spear, handed it to another, approached and removed the ropes from the prisoner. The secretary held up the scroll, decided not to write anything down for the time being, and not to be surprised at anything.

Confess, - Pilate asked softly in Greek, - are you a great doctor?

No, procurator, I'm not a doctor,' replied the prisoner, rubbing his crumpled and swollen crimson hand with pleasure.

Steeply, from under his brows, Pilate bored into the eyes of the prisoner, and in these eyes there was no longer turbidity, familiar sparks appeared in them.

I didn't ask you, - said Pilate, - maybe you also know Latin?

Yes, I know, - the prisoner answered.

The color came out on the yellowish cheeks of Pilate, and he asked in Latin:

How did you know that I wanted to call the dog?

It's very simple, - the prisoner answered in Latin, - you moved your hand through the air, - the prisoner repeated Pilate's gesture, - as if you wanted to stroke, and lips ...

Yes, Pilate said.

There was a pause, then Pilate asked a question in Greek:

So, are you a doctor?

No, no, - the prisoner answered briskly, - believe me, I am not a doctor.

OK then. If you want to keep it a secret, keep it. This has nothing to do with the case. So you're saying you didn't call for the temple to be destroyed... or set on fire or otherwise destroyed in any way?

I, hegemon, did not call anyone to such actions, I repeat. Do I look like an idiot?

Oh, yes, you don't look like an idiot," the procurator replied quietly and smiled with some kind of terrible smile, "so swear that it didn't happen.

What do you want me to swear? - He asked, very animated, unleashed.

Well, at least by your life, - answered the procurator, - it's time to swear by it, as it hangs by a thread, know that!

Don't you think you hung her, hegemon? - asked the prisoner, - if so, you are very mistaken.

Pilate shuddered and answered through his teeth:

I can cut this hair.

And in this you are mistaken, - the prisoner objected, smiling brightly and shielding himself from the sun with his hand, - agree that only the one who hung it up can probably cut the hair?

So, so, - Pilate said with a smile, - now I have no doubt that idle onlookers in Yershalaim followed you on your heels. I don't know who hung your tongue, but it is hung well. By the way, tell me: is it true that you came to Yershalaim through the Susa gate on a donkey, accompanied by a crowd of mob, shouting greetings to you as if to some kind of prophet? - Here the procurator pointed to a scroll of parchment.

The prisoner looked at the procurator in bewilderment.

I don’t even have a donkey, hegemon,” he said. - I came to Yershalaim exactly through the Susa Gate, but on foot, accompanied by one Levi Matvey, and no one shouted anything at me, since no one knew me then in Yershalaim.

Don't you know such people, - continued Pilate, without taking his eyes off the prisoner, - a certain Dismas, another - Gestas, and a third - Bar-Rabban?

I don’t know these good people,” the prisoner replied.

Now tell me, why are you always using the words "good people"? Is that what you call everyone?

Everyone, - the prisoner answered, - there are no evil people in the world.

This is the first time I hear about it,” Pilate said, smiling, “but perhaps I know little about life! You don’t have to write down the rest,” he turned to the secretary, although he didn’t write anything anyway, and continued to say to the prisoner: “Did you read about this in any of the Greek books?

No, I came up with this on my own.

And you preach it?

But, for example, the centurion Mark, he was nicknamed the Ratslayer, - is he kind?

Yes, - answered the prisoner, - it is true, he is an unhappy person. Since the good people have mutilated him, he has become cruel and callous. It would be interesting to know who crippled him.

I can gladly report this,” Pilate replied, “for I was a witness to this. Kind people rushed at him like dogs at a bear. The Germans clung to his neck, arms, legs. The infantry maniple got into the bag, and if the cavalry turma had not cut in from the flank, and I commanded it, you, philosopher, would not have had to talk with Ratslayer. It was in the battle of Idistaviso, in the valley of the Devas.

If I could talk to him, - the prisoner suddenly said dreamily, - I am sure that he would change dramatically.

I believe, - Pilate replied, - that you would bring little joy to the legate of the legion if you thought of talking to one of his officers or soldiers. However, this will not happen, fortunately for everyone, and the first person to take care of this will be me.

At this time, a swallow swiftly flew into the colonnade, made a circle under the golden ceiling, descended, almost touched the face of the copper statue in the niche with its sharp wing, and disappeared behind the capital of the column. Perhaps the idea came to her to build a nest there.

In the course of her flight, a formula formed in the procurator's now bright and light head. It was as follows: the hegemon examined the case of the wandering philosopher Yeshua, nicknamed Ha-Notsri, and did not find corpus delicti in it. In particular, I did not find the slightest connection between the actions of Yeshua and the riots that took place in Yershalaim recently. The wandering philosopher turned out to be mentally ill. As a result of this, the procurator does not approve the death sentence of Ha-Notsri, pronounced by the Small Sanhedrin. But in view of the fact that the insane, utopian speeches of Ha-Nozri can be the cause of unrest in Yershalaim, the procurator removes Yeshua from Yershalaim and subjects him to imprisonment in Caesarea Stratonova on the Mediterranean Sea, that is, exactly where the residence of the procurator is.

“Yes, this has been my fate since childhood. Everyone read on my face signs of bad feelings, which were not there; but they were supposed - and they were born. I was modest - I was accused of slyness: I became secretive. I deeply felt good and evil; no one caressed me, everyone insulted me: I became vindictive; I was gloomy - other children are cheerful and talkative; I felt superior to them—I was placed inferior. I became envious. I was ready to love the whole world - no one understood me: and I learned to hate. My colorless youth flowed in the struggle with myself and the light; my best feelings, fearing ridicule, I buried in the depths of my heart: they died there. I told the truth - they did not believe me: I began to deceive; knowing well the light and springs of society, I became skilled in the science of life and saw how others without art were happy, enjoying the gift of those benefits that I so tirelessly sought. And then despair was born in my chest - not the despair that is cured at the muzzle of a pistol, but cold, powerless despair, hidden behind “courtesy and a good-natured smile. I became a moral cripple: one half of my soul did not exist, it dried up, evaporated, died, I cut it off and threw it away, while the other moved and lived at the service of everyone, and no one noticed this, because no one knew about the existence of the deceased half of it; but now you have awakened in me the memory of her, and I have read her epitaph to you. To many, all epitaphs in general seem ridiculous, but not to me, especially when I remember what lies beneath them. However, I do not ask you to share my opinion: if my trick seems ridiculous to you, please laugh: I warn you that this will not upset me in the least. At that moment I met her eyes: tears ran in them; her hand, leaning on mine, trembled; cheeks glowed; she felt sorry for me! Compassion, a feeling that all women submit so easily, let its claws into her inexperienced heart. During the whole walk she was absent-minded, did not flirt with anyone - and this is a great sign! M. Yu. Lermontov "A Hero of Our Time"

Anton Chekhov "WALLET" Three wandering actors - Smirnov, Popov and Balabaykin walked one fine morning along the railway sleepers and found a wallet. Opening it, they, to their great surprise and satisfaction, saw in it twenty bank notes, six winning tickets of the 2nd loan and a check for three thousand. First of all, they shouted "hurrah", then they sat down on the embankment and began to indulge in delights. - How much is it for each? said Smirnov, counting the money. - Dads! Five thousand four hundred and forty-five rubles each! My dears, you'll die from this kind of money! - I'm not so happy for myself, - said Balabaykin, - as for you, my dear fellows. You will not starve now and walk barefoot. I'm glad for the art... First of all, brothers, I'll go to Moscow and go straight to Aya: you give me a wardrobe, brother... I don't want to play peyzans, I'll switch to the role of veils and dudes. I will buy a top hat and hat. For veils gray cylinder. “Now I would like to have a drink and a bite to celebrate,” remarked the jeune premier Popov. - After all, we ate dry food for almost three days, now we need something like that ... Eh? .. - Yes, it would be nice, my dear darlings ... - Smirnov agreed. - There is a lot of money, but there is nothing, my precious ones. That's what, dear Popov, you are the youngest and lightest of us, take a ruble from your wallet and march for provisions, my good angel ... Voooon village! Do you see the white church behind the mound? It will be five versts, no more ... See? The village is big, and you will find everything there... Buy a bottle of vodka, a pound of sausage, two loaves of bread and a herring, and we will wait for you here, my dear, my love... Popov took the ruble and got ready to leave. Smirnov, with tears in his eyes, hugged him, kissed him three times, crossed him and called him a darling, an angel, a soul ... Balabaykin also hugged him and swore eternal friendship - and only after a series of outpourings, the most sensitive, touching, Popov went down from the embankment and directed his steps towards the darkening village in the distance. “After all, such happiness!” he thought on the way. if the whole wallet were mine, well, then it’s another matter ... Such a theater person would roll, such that my respect. Strictly speaking, Smirnov and Balabaykin - what kind of actors are they? These are mediocrity, pigs in a yarmulke, stupid ... trifles will take away, but I would benefit the fatherland and immortalize myself ... That's what I'll do ... I'll take it and put poison in vodka. They will die, but on the other hand, there will be a theater in Kostroma, which Russia did not know yet "Someone, it seems, MacMahon, said that the end justifies the means, and MacMahon was a great man. While he was walking and reasoning like this, his companions Smirnov and Balabaikin sat and talked like this: “Our friend Popov is a nice fellow,” Smirnov said with tears in his eyes, “I love him, I deeply appreciate his talent, I’m in love with him, but ... you know? - this money will ruin him ... He will either drink them away, or he will start a scam and break his neck. He is so young that it is too early for him to have his own money, you are my good darling, my dear ... "Yes," Balabaikin agreed and kissed Smirnov "What does this boy need money for? We're another matter... We're family people, positive... An extra ruble means a lot to you and me... (Pause.) You know what, brother? We won't talk for a long time and let's go and kill him!.. Then you and I will have eight thousand each. We'll kill him, and in Moscow we'll say that he was hit by a train... Total. In addition, he is mediocre and stupid, like this sleeper. - What are you, what?! - scared Smirnov. - This is such a nice, honest ... Although, on the other hand, frankly, you are my dear, he is a decent pig, durrrak, intriguer, gossip, swindler ... If we really kill him, then he himself will thank us , my dear, my dear ... And so that he would not be so offended, we in Moscow will print a touching obituary in the newspapers. It will be friendly. No sooner said than done... When Popov returned from the village with provisions, his comrades hugged him with tears in their eyes, kissed him, assured him for a long time that he was a great artist, then suddenly attacked him and killed him. To hide the traces of the crime, they put the dead man on the rails... Having shared the find, Smirnov and Balabaykin, touched, speaking affectionate words to each other, began to have a snack, in full confidence that the crime would go unpunished... But virtue always triumphs, and vice is punished . The poison thrown by Popov into a bottle of vodka belonged to a highly active one: before the friends had time to drink from another, they lay lifeless on the sleepers ... An hour later, crows were flying over them with a croak. Moral: when the actors with tears in their eyes talk about their dear comrades, about friendship and mutual "solidarity", when they hug and kiss you, then don't get too carried away.

Boris Pasternak "Doctor Zhivago"

excerpts from experiences: 04/02/2009 1) I see a man getting up from the bushes, from the ground, he has a fork in one hand, I asked him: “What are you eating there?” He walks towards me and replies with a smirk: "No...

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The speech was rhythmic, and rather like a poetic one, this is the most difficult, because one cannot do without it - poetic excerpts legends are simply necessary along with prosaic ones. I will not dissemble, I have a version of such an epic, at least ... a draft version of 600 pages of printed text, where poetic excerpts side by side with prosaic tales, legends, traditions, myths. The main events unfold in the reserved forest - the same...

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…individual excerpts from a philosophy essay. (The author, - in the global network of the Internet, .. - unfortunately, has not been established. “And yet, in comparison with the Infinite World, the picture turns out ... both being and non-being, that is, a visible person and an invisible one; and how separately, and above all and in inseparable unity. ” Obviously, the author of the abstract ( excerpts from which we cite here) was somewhat embarrassing, .. more precisely, he did not want to edit his “absolutely right”, .. which he wrote about above ... Isn’t that why it’s so difficult ...