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Solzhenitsyn alexander ipanteleimon novels - stories of the soviet years. Panteleimon Sergeevich Romanov "good people

Solzhenitsyn alexander ipanteleimon novels - stories of the soviet years. Panteleimon Sergeevich Romanov "good people

06.03.2019

A. Solzhenitsyn

WRITER'S DIARY

PANTELEIMON ROMANOV - STORIES OF THE SOVIET YEARS

From the "Literary Collection"

I am reviewing two collections of short stories here. One - "Enchanted Villages", 1927, when it was still possible to sometimes print boldness about Soviet life. (This collection first fell into my hands in the Lubyanka cell, in 1945, and gave me a strong impulse of feelings. Another time, to refresh the impression, I took it in the States, in 1991.) And the second is the collection of Hoodlitt 1988, first resolved after half a century of author's ban.

And how still timid, looking around this collection of times of deafening Glasnost: the best of the 1920s he does not dare to print. But in these "Selected Works" - in the form of some kind of political justification, a weak pre-revolutionary story-etude "The Russian Soul" (1916) is included. And the name is propaganda (it was printed under it in the Korolenka magazine), and there is no reflection that has been going on for two years Great War; the priest - without prayers, without services, one gluttony; and the author’s direct explanation: “they lived here without any effort of will, without any effort to fight” - and according to the novel “Rus”, Romanov saw Russia as such uncreative, unstressed, inactive recent years. (This sketch is a preparation for "Rus".) However, placed next to a condensed lump of sharp stories from the Soviet era, this sketch unfavorably represents that traditional, exhausted to the point of sterility, exposure of pre-revolutionary Russian life - in a stormy stream of absurdities of the newcomers. Some from "liberationism", some from artistic modernism - how many authors of the beginning of the 20th century did not see the healthy and important changes that were then taking place in Russia.

Is it because the life of P. Romanov was bypassed by the German war, and the civil war, and all major events revolutionary years, but rather due to the fact that on large subjects he predictably avoided encountering Soviet censorship, or rather, due to the natural inclination of his writing gift, rich in humor, P. Romanov immediately became a sharp-sighted, most faithful everyday writer of the Soviet era in his most private, small , everyday household fragments. His eyes and ears are open, his eyes and ears are open, and he gives us priceless pictures and sound recordings, which we could not collect anywhere, could not be found. And the more reliable their testimony is that they were written and printed in the hottest wake of the flowing living life. (And let other writers and intellectuals of that time do not lie to us, with a 30-year delay, after the 20th Congress, that, they say, at that time "it was still impossible to understand", "it was not immediately obvious", - and here's something else as you can see , in the 20s, everything is in the palm of your hand!)

This is his description of the early Soviet years - now, in the distance, it becomes all the more irresistible evidence of that era. Captured life! - so diligently then and smeared, and forgotten. The liveliest people of that time! The acute popularity among readers was not accidental either - his stories were in great demand, his name was sensational, despite the vigilant furious Soviet criticism. (And the story "Comrade Kislyakov" was immediately, in 1930, withdrawn from circulation by Glavlit, although it fluttered into foreign translations, under the title "Three Pairs of Silk Stockings"; we do not consider it in the review of stories. Its discarded titles were: "Fellow Traveler" and "Degeneration". Romanov himself about her in his diary: "I feel that I wrote terrible thing, "the last chapter in the history of the Russian intelligentsia".)

Among the stories about Soviet awkward life, many are marked only by the density of humor, as if by the desire to laugh heartily. - "Enchanted Villages", "Smoke" (insincere and futile struggle of rural authorities with the brewing of moonshine). " Disaster". (An exorbitant harvest of apples, with collective ownership, how to deal with it? "It happened that even a worm would attack her, hit her with hail", but here, "as if it were a sin, there are few pigs"; where would "find a man?" - then there is an entrepreneur. This is 1925 - and how the whole Soviet system a century ahead.) - "About cows" (freedom of divorce, moreover - chaos and self-interest). "Fists" (1924, and already - all the nonsense Soviet life, even then every possibility of vigorous work was repulsed: they are afraid of a good harvest, they do not repair roofs, they do not drive bees so that they would not be considered rich, they do not burn bricks, they abandoned winnowing machines. "Before, they sat, did nothing, because everything around was alien; now everything is ours, but nothing can be done again.") - "Bunny" (railway disorder during the civil war). - "Bad goods." (This is sugar carried in a bag suspended between the legs - from the dashing of the raging food-barrage detachments.) - "Heavy things" (a red round-up in the bazaar). - "In the dark". (The densest military-communist life in a five-story building; they unscrewed all the light bulbs and frosted over the steps with ice so that they would not move in and dashing people would not come at night.) - "Italian Accounting" (thinking about the next questionnaire, how safe it is to lie). - "Speculators" (women rent children so that they can skip the line at the railway ticket office with them). - "Badge" (violent street subbotnik, but people here are also chasing the miserable distinction of a badge). - "Instruction" (all luggage must be weighed, here is a cage with a bird, although the scales are heavy). - "Weak heart" (epidemic of continuous institutional moves). - "Blue jacket" (peasants "unanimously" elect to the committee against their will). - "Inventory" (the authorities copy small children for an undeclared purpose, mothers hide - they say, they will be selected; and the inventory - for children's supply). - "House No 3" (the most lively scene, how they suddenly arrived, kicked out all the residents and broke a solid house; by the end it turned out that it was necessary to break not this one, but the neighboring one - 3-a). - "There will be no business behind this" (an iron Komsomol member fell under a tram; but an even more iron-hearted mother did not utter a tear - the extremes of Soviet coarsening of morals). "Empty heads" (like on Easter, spitting, even the old women leave the church service and crammed into a free club, the power of Soviet temptation!).

And in other stories (dated 1917, 18, 20 ...) the very sources of Soviet people's power gape. (And these, the most merciless, stories are not included in the collection of 1988, although all were in 1927: Gorbachev's Glasnost of the "perestroika" years could not stand such truth yet ...) Let's name a few here. -" Green army and smart commanders", 1918. (How they were driven into the Red Army by force and deceit. Threats: otherwise you will lose all your freedoms! - they acted poorly, the peasants confidently: "The skin is more expensive than freedom." However, the mobilizers took the peasants by taking away the pigs, "We know from history that they were simply shot for evasion. They drove the conscripts into the wagons, but promised in return to allow them to rob at the front. Where in all of Soviet literature can you find such frankness? And it worked: such was the eclipse of minds that after forty years, in the early 60s, Vasily Grossman wrote in "Everything flows": "they went to the civil war" - and, as a result, victoriously defeated the white generals ...). The most meaningful story, the peasant's thinking of 1917. It is written along a living thread: they are already deceiving, the land is being given - temporarily. The authenticity of the peasant arguments is given, the flame of deceit is blazing - and the guesses of the peasants. And - as it is written! - in the whole story there is not a word superfluous, not a small twist.) - And only the “Strong People”, 1920, consoles. (For years and beyond the possibilities, the people endure everything unthinkable. “A year ago they said that we couldn’t stand it for five months, everything would be covered ... no, we’re still crawling.”)

Romanov clearly draws from his life experience, from what cannot be seen with simple eyes. However, the enticing wind of the era did not remain without influence on him. In his diary we find an entry: "One time I light up the prospects of the revolution, another - I see it in the darkest light, the third time somehow."

It's interesting to compare. The life material of Panteleimon Romanov is in many respects in common with Andrei Platonov. But P. Romanov (1884), 15 years older, as having been brought up in the former world, from the beginning and clearly sees through and through the absurdity, the absurdity of Soviet life, although he swallowed it, the mirage of communism, by cubic centimeters. And Platonov is infected with socialist faith and breaks through Soviet existence as a particle of self-thinking matter, but he also passes through such tragic depths of Soviet existence that Romanov passed closer to the surface.

No less important is the strip of P. Romanov's stories about Russian folk (peasant) psychology. Brightly, stylko, vividly it is written. Here he develops only what was outlined, begun in the epic "Rus". He now has much to add to the features of the centuries from what he observed in the unbridled years of the revolution. He looks gloomily at the spiritual essence of the people, partly, perhaps because - through the eyes of a city dweller? (But with all the conscientiousness in the transfer of peasant life - that deep-inner look that Gleb Uspensky had, understanding of the peasant's living connection with labor and creative impulse - is completely absent. But this was not given to Bunin, and even more so to the biased Gorky. )

And here - there are very weighty stories. - "Inheritance", "State property". (How senselessly they destroy and plunder everything that belongs to the landlords. The assigned watchman: “They steal from all the people, where can you keep track of”; “They didn’t pay me anything, just steal it yourself,” “if only we ourselves stole, but didn’t give to others.”) - "Good Committee" (1917: good, if all the property of the military unit is divided among the soldiers, and they are taken home; where the machine guns were divided by cogs, and where they were sold, and the money was divided). - "Courageous little one." (Conversations in line at a department store, a characteristic swing of the people's gaze: "What kind of conscience you need to have in order to steal at such a time." - "Now just steal. You won't take it - others will steal it.") - "Gift of God." (Women fight for a bag of flour on the buffers of a freight train, one falls under a train. A terrible impression - but this is no longer actually popular, this is already from the area of \u200b\u200bShalamov's beyond-human beyond.) - "Beasts" (get into the car, not let others in: let them freeze, if only we are not crowded). - "Thirteen logs" (because of the order of priority, they do not complete the construction of a profitable, necessary bridge for everyone). "Apple Blossom". (The old woman is touched by the kindness of the guest artist, but the whisperers poison her with anxiety, greed and self-interest - alas, a true story, here is a very deep thought: after all, you won’t be good, some people will be good - so others are even worse. The story is cut short with great feeling measures.) - "Order" (come home from work without fail drunk and drink everyone, drink what you have earned). - Blue Dress. (Accidentally he seriously wounded his wife; grief intertwined with peasant calculations: let him die, where is the cripple now? And do not give her the best dress in the coffin. A very cruel story.) - "Wealth". (The peasants were stunned by the excess paper money, and they became stingy, and do not dress, do not line up, refuse beggars: "When there was little money, then they were less sorry for them.") Separately - "Blessed". (The Germans, from whom it is so easy to steal: “That’s how damned, honest, well, just ...”, at the stations “they don’t even check how much you ate, it’s like they’re ashamed, it used to be, eat three rubles for a ruble, but say fifty. .. here's someone to shoe"; and right there - like ours: thirty rubles for a glass of bail, and they make sure that the plate with the spoon does not rest.)

Very thoughtful and "Bunch of robbers." This name is about the Soviet authorities in the countryside. That they are robbers is clear to all peasants. But - two types of peasant behavior, in different villages: one - they immediately rush to rob, whatever they can, at the first Bolshevik call; others, as it were, resist the authorities in that, and rob involuntarily.

To this series, about folk psychology, one can also include more lightweight ones: " worthy person". (A meeting of peasants in a teahouse before the election of a priest, the selection of candidates is, alas, a primitive popular understanding of church services.) "A harmful thing" (the tenants of the former landowner's garden, condemning the former greed of the landowner, themselves just as eagerly tremble for apples). - "The wrong person "(A notorious thief is elected as the chairperson of the volost, but not a nerd).

However, in the stream folk stories P. Romanov stand alone a few amazing masterpieces.

"Death of Tikhon". (Separately published fragment from "Rus".) Under such a story, right, even the late Tolstoy would undertake to sign. Severity, conciseness, chastity of a simple soul before death. Nothing superfluous, and sentiment will not chill anywhere.

"Promised Land" - the first sowing on the landowner's land. The sacred, prayerful mood of the old generation, everything is under God and the deification of Mother Earth, and the cheeky, businesslike, dry younger generation. The story is even stronger at the distance of almost a century, when we know how all these hopes ended. - Two smokes to the sky: from the censer with incense, and from the cigarettes of youth. Great, genuine dialogue.

"At the ferry". And in this story there is Chekhov's - but not a simple change, but the adoption of the spirit - and into a new Soviet time, and with new topic: in the traditional night, transportation, talking about devils around the fire - Soviet novelty crashes: the guy does not want to go to church with his girlfriend, and she will never go without church. Written with deep feeling from both the author and with a classic sense of proportion.

"Black cakes" (village wife, and the husband in the city is the "chairman", on the other). Soviet reality not with exposure, but - how it inevitably falls on the hearts. Very responsive, lifelike. Watercolor paints.

I wonder what Tvardovsky thought about P. Romanov? Could not not know, not to read. I didn't ask him.

One can single out a group of stories around the topic: an intellectual and Soviet reality, an intellectual and the Soviet regime.

"Stars" (1927). An idealist student and his comrade in the civil war, a village communist who succeeded in Soviet life. The eternal plot, but on the Soviet fabric it sounds in a new way. However, it is drawn out and clumsily executed, without the liveliness of dialogue that is usual for P.R.

"Lights" (1926). The promising image from Korolenko is deliberately parodied: unknown lights, so calling us to the future. A major artist - however, you don’t feel large, rather a figure for reasoning, the fabric of art is omitted, it’s bachelor - on a tour in the wilderness. The author is trying to understand this topic for himself: the intellectual in the new "Great Movement". The opposition of the intellectual to the regime is given by the author without sympathy - sincerely? Or out of caution? The artist's arguments against the regime are rejected by the author as if to please: to adapt the arguments to the gradual justification of the regime. As if neither the regime nor the new system is to blame for the downfall of the artistic soul. You read, after all, with the expectation of significance, but it is not there: there is reasoning, but there is no true tension of thought. When departing from the life of the common people, something prevents P. R. from gaining the full strength of the pen; some kind of "average" narrative style.

"The Right to Life" (or "The Problem of Non-Party", double title, 1927). Not immediately, with great difficulty, the story went into a magazine publication, was violently crushed by criticism, and from 1929 was completely banned. Just a year later, the same problem is described by the artist-regime in all its ruthlessness, and with such frontal attacks on the regime that one is amazed. With all his spiritual and political passion, P. Romanov already sees the whole future of Soviet literature. But also: he writes dryly businesslike, without any finishing and in a jumping manner. The living situation (the threat of losing the apartment) is captured cruelly, rightly, almost without exaggeration. - Soul straightening through death, and death is almost accidental - good. loving woman strokes the face of the deceased, not realizing that he is not alive: he is still warm.

But the writer Ostankin himself is not very well explained, he is only a herald of the idea of the story, a generalized type of the downtrodden. (For example: how did he survive war communism hanging food? After all, it was impossible to hold on there, not to steal, they would have been kicked out right away.)

"Brilliant Victory" (1931, unpublished). - The same topic has already been brought to despair and caricature: how can an artist fit into the regime? - the theme of industrialization and sovietization is inflated to the point of monstrosity, to extreme hack-work.

The earlier one stands apart.

"Vision" (1925) - an undoubted success. The problem, which had not yet hardened at that time, was touched upon: are we and abroad? return from there? The plot develops very correctly psychologically, interestingly, with unexpected turns, you can’t guess the denouement ahead. (Only in vain the author still explains the psychology of the character on his own.) And - it is sincerely written about emigrants, this is not a rude agitation against them, but - an insult to them. - Here the author also directly touches on politics and - scolds the power of the Bolsheviks, without risking anything: this is, as it were, justified by the course of the emigrant plot.

Still apart

"Sorrow" (1927). The only such story in Romanov: all in the first person, lyrical, with a craving for philosophical profundity. But - delayed. Yes, and the whole idea of the story: having, we do not appreciate, having lost, weep. And again superfluous, from the author, interpretations. "The soul has been forgotten" - in Soviet times it is useful to recall this.

P. Romanov’s diary also contains the following entry (1926): “When I write, I always have an idea that it may not pass under censorship conditions ... And this reduces my possibilities and the truth of what you write by 50 In general, all the time you feel a ceiling above you, beyond which you cannot grow. Justified Marxism, Marxist scribblers bind hand and foot."

And Soviet criticism constantly gave P. Romanov in the teeth and bones. From Kirshon, the Napost-Rapp gang, from the now forgotten reviews of Katanyan, Beck, Selivanovsky, Prozorov and more, and more, and more, under the headings "The right to vulgarity" (M. Levidov), it's still good when "The Talent of Indifference" (S . Packentreiger) - that is, "objectivism", "without the necessary sharpened design"; eager to reveal in this "indifferent writer of everyday life" - "the face of a class enemy." Panteleimon Romanov was smashed to pieces by this unrelenting directed attack. (Now it is clear that she smashed, distorted the 2nd volume of "Rus" - and leaving for "Rus", perhaps, was for him an attempt to escape from modernity.)

However, on a truly Soviet scale, the persecution of Mikhail Bulgakov was much more violent and lengthy, and the unforgettable, indelible list of baiters-beaters is much longer, by many dozens of honest communist feathers.

In the case of Romanov, another discussion rumbled, not at all politically dangerous, but multi-scandalous and spilled much wider than this bunch of critics on society itself and especially on students. "Love without bird cherry" - for a long time, and stepping over the death of the writer, entered into Soviet speech, into a proverb, for decades, most of all glorified Romanov.

"Without bird cherry" (1926). And in that story, in fact, there was no noticeable artistic success, but only the piercing vigilance of the author's gaze. The story is spoiled by the girl's confession, which is too rational, in a dry, rational language. Why do we care so much about the beauty of everyday life and behavior? "disregard for everything beautiful"? Guys (university students) of female classmates "accustom to mother tongue"- matu, and this tone" girls also like ", it's easier to behave this way. Here, I want "first love to be a holiday," but "all peers look differently." ". And suppressed in pride and wounded by fleeting jealousy, the girl dutifully goes to a fellow student, where he lives alone with a friend, in a tattered room of a terrible appearance, with a sketched eggshell, dirty uncleaned dishes, cigarette butts not swept from the floor and two crumpled, uncovered, unclean beds. A fellow student hurries: "What to talk about, only time is running out," a friend will come soon. And in haste puts her in bed, as it turned out later, and not in his own. And the girl confesses to her friend: she was disgusted with herself and him.

The public storm caused by the story was: are we like this? - or not? so it should be - or else how? And, characteristically, for the 20s: the voices of the disputants were strongly and strongly divided.

A smaller, but also significant storm was caused by the story written in response to "Cheryomukha"

"Trial of a Pioneer" (1927). The pioneer detachment is excited that one of the pioneers is "systematically corrupting" a pioneer woman (over fifteen): he goes to escort her from the club to her village, although he himself lives in another place. They immediately decided: secret supervision of them, surveillance. It began with the fact that he picked up a dropped handkerchief for her. But - he went to see her off, and when crossing the perches through the stream - he gave her a hand, and she leaned on it! Then the bag carried her! The sleuths did not manage to eavesdrop on the conversation itself, but they heard that he was reading some poems, it is not known whose. - And the detachment is alarmed to the extreme: "behavior disgracing the entire detachment"! With the greatest seriousness, a trial was appointed for both. "If you wrote your poems and read them not to the team, but to your lady, then this, brother, is not a private matter." And "if you needed her for physical intercourse, you could honestly, comradely tell her about it, and not corrupt." "We won't go to prostitutes because we have comrades." "One - you could be with her for intercourse, this is your own business, because you do not tear her away from the team, and so - you bring up a whole direction in her." - "Such love is the same as religion, that is, a dope that weakens the revolutionary will."

Pioneer - expelled, selected the coveted red tie. And to her - a strict suggestion ("they saw in her an unconscious victim", "they looked at her with curiosity and compassion").

Farce? No. True picture, living Twenties! - and let's not pretend to forget them. (It is all the more offensive that both of these stories are not worked out artistically, abandoned in haste.)

Yes, of course, in the descriptions of Soviet life, P. Romanov allowed himself to stories that were already reduced to a feuilleton: "Strong nerves", "People's money", "The Wall", "Herod's tribe", "Good boss", "Potato", "White Pig", "Artists", "Moscow Races" (directly and written for "Crocodile"), "Machine", the same and "Brilliant Victory". Yes, maybe already out of desperation that they don’t understand it, and if only they would print it? (Partly for this reason, the young Bulgakov also occasionally fell into feuilleton.) But even from these private, semi-careless sketches, a devastating picture of Soviet life emerges.

A contemporary of many "avant-garde" movements, Panteleimon Romanov has always been firmly committed to the traditional realistic manner and did not deviate from it in any way. Already in this, he "did not keep up with the century", the fashion (however transient). He does not need any "new tricks": his strength is the liveliness of dialogue, especially everyday life, an abundance of juicy humor (sometimes with a bias towards satire) and a sharp vision of problems - despite the inexhaustible novelty of Soviet life.

His dialogue (usually - the talk of the crowd) is masterful, consistently good, good-natured, often very funny. And the genuineness of the dialogue is achieved - without noticeable, characteristic words and even without the individuality of the speech of the speakers - but very much alive. But in the remarks to the dialogue - it sometimes has redundancy. Often, with the shortening of remarks, his dialogue would have intensified.

It is not surprising that with the frequent mass character of characters, P. Romanov has no place to give portraits. He does not even try, to distinguish between speakers he often gets off with details of clothing. His portrait is almost absent, even in cursory lines: P. Romanov hears more than he sees. individual person often not visible. If he cites a bit of portrait features, then they are some low-individual, not attached.

For the most part - the stories are very short, and some ask: even shorter! This is from excessively explanatory phrases, when it is clear without them.

No complex inventive plots: the whole construction of stories is usually wide open. The names of the stories are also unsuccessful: you can’t remember what it’s about, you can’t connect with the plot. Yes, there are stories - and just sketches. Still, weak stories are also a significant proportion.

He has no metaphors at all - and out of place, out of place, they would look out of place here. There are many comparisons, but all of them are not pickups, they do not reveal anything new to us in their eyes. Usually they are tautological, it is, as it were, a presentation in more lengthy words of what is already visible due to the circumstances. “The way they look when the question of life is being decided, and as if deciding to directly raise some painful question for her.” (And in the presence of both, there is no comparison.) - "Kept in the shadows, as people who have lost influence keep." (That is exactly the situation.)

With their social density and sharpness, the stories of P. Romanov of the 1920s and 1930s leave almost no room for landscape (so generously given in Rus). But when there are landscapes, they are very good: in Apple Blossom, The Hunter, By the Ferry.

Romanov's language cannot be called lexically rich. But the necessary working minimum is always there.

It will flash: "what did you look like?", "what are you weaving?" Also "finishing" (adverb) - but it is this word that he repeats many times (intimidated to finish, avoided to finish, strangled to finish ...).

In the lips of men ("Kulaki") suddenly: "incognito" - a blunder. Good: "horse class", "the dog does not know kinship."

The epic "Rus" mentioned several times, I will leave aside here. (An essay in the series "Techniques of Epics" is dedicated to her.) Panteleimon Romanov wrote it since 1922, especially the pre-revolutionary 1st volume, with his soul surrendering to the memories of a life lost forever (and carefully covering his feelings from Soviet censorship). There we will also meet spacious landscape descriptions, in my opinion, not inferior to Turgenev's, but in a string of types, noble and peasant, quite worthy of Gogol's pen. So the 1st volume of "Rus" became the last roadside memorial sign or a tombstone of a long Russian noble literature. Volume 2, about the World War, is already heavily distorted by the introduction of Soviet ideology, and in itself hasty, crumpled. It was completed in 1936, two years before the death of the author, with news of February Revolution in Petrograd, and at that the epic ended, one must think: most of all due to censorship circumstances.

Etude

Professor of Moscow University, Andrei Khristoforovich Vyshnegradsky, in the third year of the war received a letter from his two brothers from the village - Nikolai and Avenir, who asked him to come to them for the summer, visit them and relax himself.

“You must have turned sour there in the capital, you forgot your native, but here, brother, the Russian soul is still alive,” Nikolai wrote.

Andrey Khristoforovich thought about it and, going to the telegraph office, sent a telegram to his brother Nikolai, and the next day he left for the village.

The intense life of Moscow was replaced by the spaciousness and silence of the fields.

Andrey Khristoforovich looked out the window of the carriage and watched the plowed hills running past him swell and fall, the bridges being repaired with the sleepers scattered downhill rush by.

Time definitely stopped, got lost and fell asleep in these flat fields. Trains stood at each stop for an infinitely long time - why, why - no one knew.

Why are we standing for so long? Andrey Khristoforovich asked once. - We are waiting for someone?

No, we are not waiting for anyone, - said the important chief conductor and added: - we have no one to wait for.

We sat on transfers for hours on end, and no one knew when the train would come. Once a man came up, wrote with chalk on the blackboard: "Train number 3 is late for 1 hour and 30 minutes." Everyone came and read. But five hours passed, and there was no train.

They didn't guess, - said some old man in a chute.

When someone got up and walked with a suitcase to the door, then they suddenly jumped up and all vied with each other rushed to the door, crushed each other, climbed over their heads.

It's coming, it's coming!

Where are you going with the knot?

The train is coming!

Nothing goes: one, maybe, got up for his own business, and everyone shied away.

So why is he getting up? Here's the accursed one, look, please, he messed up like everyone else.

And when the professor arrived at the station, it turned out that the horses had not been sent.

What am I going to do now? said the professor to the porter. He felt embarrassed. He did not see the brothers for 15 years, and they themselves called him and still remained true to themselves: either they were late with the horses, or they mixed up the numbers.

Don't worry, - said the porter, a nimble little man with a badge on his apron, - at the inn we will provide you with any horses you want. We have one word on this score!..

Well, take me to the inn, just don't get your suitcases dirty, please.

Be calm ... - the little man waved his hand over the covers, threw the suitcases on his back and disappeared into the darkness. Only his voice was heard somewhere ahead:

Along the wall, along the wall, sir, make your way, otherwise there is a puddle on the side, and a well to the right.

The professor, as he became, rolled somewhere from the first step.

They didn’t please ... - said the peasant. - It's true that it's a little dirty. Well, yes, we will dry soon. We live well here: there is a wide square right here for you, to the left - the church, to the right - the priests.

Where are you? Where to go here?

Indulge in me, in me, otherwise here now the pits will go. Last week, a land surveyor cracked one of his forelocks, and they dragged him out by force.

The professor walked, every minute expecting that the same thing would happen to him as to the surveyor.

And the little man kept talking and talking endlessly:

Our area is good. And the rooms are good, Seleznevsky. And the people are good, remembering.

And everything was good with him: both life and people.

We must, apparently, knock, - said the peasant, stopping near some wall. He dumped the suitcases right into the mud and began banging on the gate with a brick.

Would you be quieter, why are you thrashing like that?

Do not worry. Otherwise, you won't wake them up. The people are strong. What are you doing there, oh, everyone went crazy! Are there horses?

There is ... - a sleepy voice was heard from behind the gate.

That's it - there is! Always reschedule so that you chop all your hands.

Please go upstairs.

No, you prepare a place for me in the carriage, I will sit down, and you harness and go. So it will be more likely ... - said Andrei Khristoforovich.

It's possible.

Is the road good?

The road is one word - Lub.

Lub ... splint, that is. Very smooth. Our seats are good. Well, sit down, I'll be in one minute.

Andrey Khristoforovich groped for the step, sat down in a huge sob, which was standing in a shed under a shed. He smelled of dusty felt and some kind of acid. Andrei Khristoforovich stretched out his legs on the hay and, leaning his head against the back, began to doze. From time to time a fresh, cool breeze swept over his face, coming in from above through the crack of the closed gate. There was a pleasant smell of tar, fresh hay and horses.

Through his drowsiness he could hear the luggage being tied down, pulling the rope behind the carriage. Sometimes his driver, saying: “Oh, you, honest mother!”, Repaired something. Sometimes he ran away to the hut, and then there was silence, from which the legs hummed pleasantly, as if at a stop while riding a sleigh in a snowstorm. Only occasionally did the horses snort and step over the straw as they chewed oats under the shed.

Half an hour later, the professor woke up in fright with the feeling that he was hanging over an abyss, and clutched the edge of the sod with his hands.

Where are you going! Hold your horses, crazy!

Be calm, we won’t leave, - a calm voice said from somewhere behind, now I’ll support the other side.

It turned out that they were not hanging over the abyss, but were still standing in the yard, and the driver was only going to grease the wheels, raising one side of the carriage.

As soon as we left the yard, it began to rain, direct, large and warm. And the whole neighborhood was filled with the steady sound of falling rain.

The driver silently reached under the seat, pulled out some tattered rubbish and covered himself with it, like a priest with a robe.

Half an hour later the wheels were already moving with a continuous murmur over deep ruts. And the sobs all somewhere pulled to the left and down.

The driver stopped and slowly looked back from the goat, then began to look around, as if studying the area in the dark.

What has become? Hey, are you lost?

No, it's like nothing.

What are you? There are ravines, right?

No, there are no ravines.

Well, so what then?

You never know what ... here, just look, you will hang out somewhere.

Yes, be careful! Where are you turning?

And the devil knows, - said the driver, - so you go - nothing, but like rain, then pick up your boots ...

Nikolai wrote that it was only 30 versts from the station, and Andrei Khristoforovich expected to arrive in three hours. But we drove 4-5 hours, stopped at an inn from an impossible road, and only by morning had overcome these 30 versts.

The carriage drove up to a low house with two whitewashed chimneys and a wide boarded porch, on which a white rooster stood perched on one leg. Not far away, in the open gates of a wattle shed, crouching on the ground by a carriage, a worker was busy tying a windrow, helping himself with his teeth and not paying any attention to the newcomer.

And from the back porch, picking up a semi-caftan around the corners and rolling with galoshes in the mud, some old priest was in a hurry.

Seeing the professor, he waved his arms and remained in this position for some time, as if he were a ghost.

Hey, have you arrived? We're just going to send for you. Why a whole day earlier? Hey, what happened?

Nothing happened. I telegraphed that I would arrive on the 15th, and today the 16th.

My dear you! The sixteenth - you say? .. This means that yesterday they forgot to tear off a leaf from the calendar. What are you going to do here! Well, hello, hello. What a fine fellow you are, fresh, tall, slender. Well, uh...

This was younger brother Nikolay.

Let's go to the house quickly. Why are you looking at me like that? Aged?

Yes, very old...

What will you do to it suits... Lower, lower your head, - he shouted in fright, - otherwise you will knock.

Why did you make such doors for yourself? ..

What can you do ... - And he smiled slowly and kindly. - Why are you all looking at me?

The book includes satirical and lyric-psychological stories by Panteleimon Sergeevich Romanov (1884–1938) of the 1920s and 1930s. Their theme is the difficult years of post-revolutionary devastation and formation Soviet power; the psychology of people adapting and accepting a new system, the development of new relationships between people, the search for new foundations of morality.

Romanov Panteleimon

stories

Russian soul