Original text According to A. Voronsky
... Natalya is from a neighboring village, about ten years ago she immediately lost her husband and three children: during her absence they died from smoke inhalation.
Since then she sold the house , gave up farming and wanders.
Natalya says quietly, melodiously, innocently. Her words clean as if washed, the same close, pleasant as the sky, field, bread, village huts. And all Natalya simple, warm, calm and majestic. Natalia is not surprised by anything: she saw everything, experienced everything, O contemporary affairs and incidents, even dark and terrible ones, she tells, as if they were separated from our lives by millennia. Natalya does not flatter anyone; very into it it’s good that she doesn’t go to monasteries and holy places, not looking miraculous icons. She - worldly and talks about everyday things. In it no extras, no fussiness.
Natalya bears the burden of a wanderer easily, and buries his grief from people. She has an amazing memory. She remembers when and why such and such a family was ill. She talks about everything willingly, but in one thing she is stingy with words: when they ask her why she became a wanderer.
... I was already studying at the bursa, was known as “inveterate” and “desperate”, took revenge on the guards and teachers from around the corner, revealing remarkable ingenuity in these matters. During one of the breaks, the students informed me that “some woman” was waiting for me in the locker room. Baba turned out to be Natalya. Natalya walked from afar, from Kholmogory, she remembered me, and although she had to give a detour about eighty miles, how could she not visit the orphan, not look at his city life, her son had probably grown up, wiser for the joy and consolation of his mother. I listened inattentively to Natalya: I was ashamed of her bast shoes, boots, knapsack, her whole village appearance, I was afraid of losing myself in the eyes of the students and kept looking sideways at my peers snooping past. Finally he couldn’t stand it and said rudely to Natalya:
Let's get out of here.
Without waiting for consent, I took her to the backyard so that no one would see us there. Natalya untied her knapsack and handed me some village flatbread.
I don’t have anything else in store for you, my friend. And don’t worry, I baked them myself, in butter, in cow’s milk.
At first I sullenly refused, but Natalya insisted on donuts. Soon Natalya noticed that I was shy of her and was not at all happy with her. She also noticed the torn, ink-stained jacket I was wearing, my dirty and pale neck, my red boots, and my haunted, sullen look. Natalya's eyes filled with tears.
Why can’t you say a kind word, son? So, it was in vain that I came to see you.
I dully poked at the sore on my arm and muttered something listlessly. Natalya leaned over me, shook her head and, looking into my eyes, whispered:
Yes, my dear, you seem out of your mind! You weren't like that at home. Oh, they did something bad to you! Dashingly, apparently, they let you down! This is the teaching that comes out.
“Nothing,” I muttered emotionlessly, moving away from Natalya.
Alexander Konstantinovich Voronsky (September 8, 1884, Khoroshavka village, Tambov province - August 13, 1937, shot) - Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, writer, literary critic, art theorist .
· The problem of repentance for what has been done.
· The problem of selfishness, callousness, cruelty, heartlessness.
· The problem of human spirit.
· The problem of human inner beauty.
· The problem of attitude to life's difficulties.
An essay based on a text by Voronsky about the wanderer Natalya, who visited a scumbag student.
In this text, the Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, writer, literary critic, art theorist, Alexander Konstantinovich Voronsky talks about the wanderer Natalya and about his meeting with her in childhood, when he studied at the bursa and “was known as “inveterate” and “desperate”, took revenge from “around the corner to the guards and teachers.” It is clear that, when describing Natalya, the author makes her almost a saint, almost ideal, and when talking about her feelings, she emphasizes her own callousness and dependence on the opinions of her peers.
Probably the author-narrator, a student boy, and Natalya are from the same village; they most likely have similar moral principles, a similar upbringing. It is no coincidence that Voronsky, describing Natalya, emphasizes that “her words clean as if washed, the same close, pleasant as the sky, field, bread, village huts».
Thus, we can say that Voronsky, surprised by his behavior, asks the question: why did he become unkind so easily? Why is he ashamed of Natalia? Why is he so unfree, hunted, insensitive, and “Natalya is like this” simple, warm, calm and majestic»?
Natalya thinks that the boy, to whom she walked “about eighty miles” to “look at his city life”, “is not at all happy with her”, will not say a “kind word” because studying and city life they did it that way. Natalya’s eyes filled with tears, and she said: “As if she’s not herself!” You weren't like that at home. Oh, they did something bad to you! Dashingly, apparently, they let you down! This is the teaching that comes out.” This is how Voronsky’s text ends.
However, both the writer and revolutionary himself, and the readers understand that the matter, of course, is not about the teachings and the corrupting influence of the city, but about human strength and weakness. Natalya, a simple “some kind of woman”, is very strong internally, external appearances will not change her, therefore “she talks about modern affairs and incidents, even dark and terrible ones, as if they were separated from our lives by millennia.” The boy Voronsky talks about is still weak, he wants to be considered desperate and is already revealing “remarkable ingenuity” in low and petty matters.
Thus, it becomes clear and author's position. Voronsky is delighted with the simplicity and strength of a simple woman and is shocked by his own weakness and baseness (or the boy). Also, I think, the reader understands that if the boy is ashamed, then there is hope that he is not a complete person, he’s just “not himself!” not the same as it was at home.
I agree with Voronsky that a person should remain a person, not be deceitful, not be mean. I also agree that it is important for a person to remember his beginning, his roots. For example, Chekhov’s Firs Dunyasha speaks about this, and there is a lot about this in Pushkin’s “The Captain’s Daughter”: common moral and human things bring the Grinevs and Mironovs together and help them to survive and save themselves, despite external war and bitterness.
It would seem that every person values kind word. It would seem that everyone needs affection and everyone is looking for sympathy and support. However, in reality, our sincere and benevolent impulses are often met with coldness and indifference.
The author of this fragment also raises the problem of insensitivity in his work. Main character, the narrator, during his studies at the bursa, was rather indifferent to the feelings of others.
He allowed himself to bully his peers, did dirty tricks and annoyed his elders. But his insensitivity is especially clearly shown by the case of the wanderer Natalya, his old friend. A woman makes a difficult journey for him and brings him donuts she made with her own hands as a gift. And in response, he treats her in a truly insulting manner. In order not to earn ridicule from the students, he takes her to the backyard and tries to quickly get rid of the unwanted visitor. For the sake of his reputation as a bully, he pushes away a sincere and kind person. Natalya grieves as she observes these changes in the boy.
The author's position is that insensitivity brings sadness and disappointment to people. I agree with this statement because the tragic consequences caused by indifference cannot always be corrected.
In “Dubrovsky” by A. S. Pushkin, the evil genius and example of insensitivity is the despotic landowner Troekurov. Guided by his own considerations and desires, he marries his daughter to a rich and old prince. To the grief of Masha, who by that time had fallen in love with Dubrovsky, he remains indifferent and with the wedding dooms her to a joyless life with an unloved person.
And in the novel by Mikhail Sholokhov “ Quiet Don"The insensitivity of her husband, Grigory Melekhov, and his selfishness push him legal wife for a crime. Having learned that Grigory is again with Aksinya, Natalya decides to have an abortion, murder unborn child. As a result of an operation performed by an ignorant midwife, she dies, and only after the death of his wife does Gregory realize how dear she was to him.
Thus, a person should take care not only of his own feelings, but also be attentive to the people around him, in order to prevent a tragedy from causing a fatal mistake.
Current page: 4 (book has 21 pages in total)
...Usually Ivan basked peacefully in the sun near the barn, but sometimes he got drunk and then became warlike.
- Step arsh! – he commanded himself, standing at attention, but not moving from his place. - Step arsh! - he repeated even more loudly and menacingly, stomping and waving his arms. - Oh, two. Hey, two!.. Stop!.. Hey, red-haired Sivoldai!.. - From his own shout, Ivan shuddered, froze and “ate his superiors with his eyes.” - How are you standing, your vile mug! - Khrya!.. Khrya!.. I will teach you, scoundrel!..
Polkan was the first to respond to the “performance.” Rattling his chain, he lazily crawled out of the kennel, sat down in the sun, squinted his eyes at Ivan and tilted his muzzle in his direction, raising his ear. He watched Ivan condescendingly and even a little mockingly. However, when Ivan noticed him, Polkan pretended that he had absolutely nothing to do with the hero of the Crimean campaign and that he, Polkan, came out of the kennel to stretch his legs, look at people and show himself off. Polkan, a great diplomat, did not like complications and knew that when drunk, Ivan was quick to take revenge.
Behind Polkan, I also appeared from the garden with a gun, with a saber, girded and tied with belts.
- Stop, Uncle Ivan! – I shouted to the Nikolaev veteran. – Now I’ll help you, we’ll show them!..
Ivan looked at me with his cloudy, red-lidded eyes. Under his command, equipped with purely Russian expressions, I did “front”, “heels together, toes apart”, took the gun “ready”. The thickest nettles grew near the barn; it was she who should have been given over to fire and sword...
- Oh, two! Asya, two!.. Peselniks, forward!.. Soldiers, brave boys, where are your wives? Our wives' guns are loaded, that's where our wives are!..
Ivan wheezed and continued to mark time, meanwhile I was steadily approaching the nettles, my eyes bulging, my head raised, with my gun at the ready. I heroically crashed into the bushes, worked with a bayonet, the bayonet became covered with green blood; With a sharp saber I cut off nettle heads in one fell swoop and mercilessly trampled corpses. Ivan led the battle; I added war cries to his command; they would make the enemy’s green hair stand on end.
Polkan, who had until then been observing the battle good-naturedly, could not stand it, stretched out, at first he barked lazily, then he dispersed more and more, and now he was pouring out as loud as he could and breaking free from the chain. Cunning, he pretended to be frantic, and at a time when the nettles burned my legs unbearably, he preferred to rush from side to side. I was ready to retreat shamefully from the nettle “paws”, even tears came to my eyes, but Ivan kept pressing on behind me - “Kill them!” Ruby! Fire!” – And I continued to mercilessly shed nettle blood.
Sometimes the aforementioned Pitersky, also drunk, joined the “case”: weren’t he and Ivan getting drunk together? Pitersky was shaking his trousers with enormous baggage, his hair stuck out wildly; thin, very long - he added incredible swearing to our hubbub, and even the experienced Ivan fell out of tone and looked sideways with doubt at his combative and overly zealous comrade. Polkan at this time was losing his balance of spirit and was already seriously trying to get to Pitersky, to grab his bare, scabbed foot, to which the old man paid no attention, which confused Polkan. It was difficult to understand who was meant by Pitersky’s frantic abuse; I attributed it to nettles, but now, it seems to me, he brought it down on all of us, and on the village, and on his entire miserable and absurdly spent life.
Ivan’s hoarse command, my war cries, Polkan’s barking, Pitersky’s heart-rending swearing merged into one utter chaos. Men appeared at the neighboring huts, and housewives looked out of the windows. Village children gathered around us, taking whatever part they could in the “war.” The noise, commotion, and confusion grew. Uncle Ermolai hurried from another order with a bucket, believing that the hut at our end had been occupied. Someone's calf, tail in the air, was racing across the pasture. The chickens scattered in all directions, cackling. And Alexey was already hurrying towards us, shaking his head, waving his arms, and muttering protractedly and condemningly. Sweaty and frantic, he grabbed me by the armpits and dragged me home; I resisted, yelled and in a rage kept waving my gun or saber, looking back at Ivan, at Polkan, at Pitersky and at the horde of guys. At that moment the horde was advancing on the pond, where a brood of ducks was swimming in the dirty, rusty water. Away from sin. The brood wisely made its way to the opposite bank, the ducklings shook themselves off and quacked to express disapproval of the reprehensible human behavior. I tore myself out of Alexei’s strong arms with an exasperated cry, either because I wanted to fight some more, or because my legs and arms were burned by nettles, or for both reasons. The hubbub at the pond stopped when Nikolai Ivanovich appeared on the porch. Polkan was the first to give in, he began to wag his tail slavishly and treacherously: don’t confuse me with these good-for-nothing mischief-makers! Following Polkan, the guys jumped everywhere, showing their black heels. Ivan muttered something unintelligible and retreated under the canopy. Pitersky was the most stubborn of all; he continued to “clean” the pond, and the ducklings, and his uncle, and Polkan, until his old woman came for him and lured him with promises of vodka, and showed him a bottle of water from under her apron or from under her skirt.
Ivan did not get along closely with anyone, was not friends; inflexible, obstinate, he had no attachments; He respected, perhaps not for fear, but for conscience, only his grandfather. Seeing him, Ivan stood up, straightened his lower back and back with difficulty, bowed earnestly to his grandfather, followed him with a gaze and did not sit down until he disappeared. Ivan never stood up in front of the others.
Ivan died suddenly. In the morning they found him under the barn shed, already cold and covered with dew. Long before his death, he was completely dry, and his corpse resembled a relic: his temples sank, his cheeks were deeply sunken, his cheekbones stood out sharply, his collarbones protruded; his eyes went under his forehead, his bent knees stuck out like sticks. Green flies swarmed in the corners of his blue-black lips and woodlice crawled across his face... How lonely, bitter and untold a person’s life can be!
...Behind the vegetable gardens there is hemp. The rye is ripening. On the hill, the mill flaps and flaps its wings tirelessly, it would fly, but the earth holds tightly. It smells of dill, cucumber, and sometimes the wind brings the hot, bitter smell of wormwood. The sky is about to open up and become surrounded by mirages.
I decided to make humanity happy. Raw eggs lathers excellently. I stole three eggs from under the chickens “for experiments.” In the tin there are yolks, salt, blue, cherry glue is added to them, the glue will harden, the liquid will turn into solid, and an excellent soap is ready. Should I add more ink for coloring?.. So, I will become a famous soap maker, get rich, travel... Maybe I should also add some sugar? For what? We'll see there. Or better yet, lime. However, quicklime, if you pour water on it, hisses and burns. Wouldn't lime make something explosive instead of soap, say, gunpowder? Well, this is not bad for a young chemist! It’s even wonderful to invent gunpowder. Some sweat stench all their lives, but don’t invent gunpowder... We must be careful: what if the tin explodes! I put a piece of lime into the mixture and even close my eyes in fear. Glory to the creator, nothing happened!..
A woman comes down from the hill from the mill; closer and closer she flashes in the thick and tall rye. No one should guess about my secret chemistry studies. I diligently hide the tin under a mound. Today soap and gunpowder didn’t work out, so don’t be discouraged: they’ll definitely work out tomorrow. I recognize the woman as the wanderer Natalya. Her head is tied with a gray cotton scarf, the ends of the scarf stick out like horns above her forehead, and she has a wicker knapsack on her back. Natalya walks quickly, easily, leaning on the staff. She is over forty years old, but it is difficult to determine her age by her face: she is tanned and weathered almost to blackness. She is wearing a homespun plaid skirt, a white woolen zipun, and her legs are in dusty bast shoes, tightly and neatly wrapped with onuchas and twine. I call out to Natalya.
“Hello, dear, hello, master,” Natalya answers warmly, firmly wiping her lips into small wrinkles. -Will you welcome a guest into the house? Is everyone alive and well?
- Thank you. Everyone is alive and well. I will accept you for a visit.
I speak gravely, as if I really am the owner. I waddle next to Natalya, like a peasant.
Natalya is from a neighboring village; about ten years ago she immediately lost her husband and three children: while she was away, they died from smoke inhalation. Since then, she sold the house, abandoned the farm and wandered.
Natalya speaks quietly, melodiously, innocently. Her words are pure, as if washed, as close and understandable as the sky, the field, the bread, the village huts. And all of Natalya is simple, warm, calm and majestic. Natalya is not surprised by anything: she has seen everything, experienced everything, she talks about modern affairs and incidents, even dark and terrible ones, as if they were separated from our lives by millennia. Natalya doesn’t flatter anyone; It’s very good about her that she doesn’t go to monasteries and holy places, doesn’t look for miraculous icons. She is worldly and talks about everyday things. There is nothing superfluous in it, no fussiness. Natalya bears the burden of a wanderer easily and she buries her grief from people. She has an amazing memory. She remembers when and why the children in such and such a family were ill, where Kharlamov or Sidorov went to earn money during Lent, whether they lived well and well enough there, and what kind of renewal they brought to the housewives.
Seeing the wanderer, Alexei hums joyfully and rushes to put on the samovar. From her knapsack, Natalya slowly takes out the popular book “Guac or Invincible Loyalty.” She gives her sister a wooden doll, and her mother a towel embroidered with roosters. Over tea, carefully biting off sugar with strong and juicy teeth, supporting the saucer on her outstretched fingers, Natalya narrates:
-...I went to a Tatar near Kazan, and his peddlers also asked for the night. The Tatar is old, over sixty years old; the neck is all in folds and the scar is blue from the lip to the chest; my eyes are watering. He treats the peddlers, and they ask, “Where is your mistress?” The Tatar laughs - “My hostess is young, she’s afraid of guests.” – There is an accordion in the corner on the bench. - “Who, master, plays the accordion?” - “And my wife plays.” The peddlers pestered: show and show the hostess, let her play the accordion, we’ll give you a mirror and a comb. One of the peddlers is elderly, and the other is very young, about twenty years old, no more. The Tatar brings his wife out from the other half, she resists, lowered her head, doesn’t look at us, is all crimson, blushing. She looks like a girl; with small rowan spots around the eyes, so pleasant and clean. She sat down on the windowsill, buried herself and covered her face with her palm, unaccustomed to it. They begged her, she took the accordion, started playing, and she played well; enough for the heart. It’s sad, and everyone seems to be crying in accordion. She played well. The young peddler does not take his eyes off the Tatar woman and only with a high eyebrow, no, no, and he will lead; and I listen and think: he is playing about his unenviable life with the old man. Even as a wanderer, I feel sick to my stomach as soon as I look at the old man’s scar, his Adam’s apple, and the wrinkles, but she, who is young, doesn’t have any pleasant experiences with him at all: with someone like that there’s no joy in him. She played, covered her face with her palm again and ran away. And the guy just sighed after her with his whole chest and ran his hand over his forehead... The next day I said to the Tatar: “Your wife is not a match for you, Akhmet, not a match for you. Why are you, old man, you didn’t spare the little green girl: this ten suited you, but she hasn’t seen the world yet.” “My first wife,” the old man replies, “died, someone needs to look after the guys.” And this one served as a nanny. Well, that's how it happened. She’s well-fed, she’s got shoes, she’s dressed, and she used to be a beggar, she’s a big orphan...” He paused, frowned: “You’re with me, Natalya, don’t knock her down. We have our own law, you have your own law; go quickly where you came from...” That’s what they are, our women’s affairs!..
– What did you see in the Caucasus?
“I was there, dear, I was there too.” The mountains are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. You stand on a mountain, and below you the heavenly clouds float like a river; The height is breathtaking. The snow on the mountains lies in white strands, pure and pure. They hurt my eyes. There are many oak forests, and the rivers are so fast.
I left those places and at first I was happy; a year has passed - I’m homesick for the mountains: they’re pulling me towards me; You’ll remember them, and your mother would definitely give you some kind of gift. They even began to appear in our dreams, honestly... But they don’t live there like us, they live hard. We don’t have any ease either, but for those there it’s even worse. Sometimes you look at a man with a jug of water, barely moving his legs from steep to steep for an entire hour. The hay is cut at a terrible height and lowered down on ropes; that's not the point. People are toiling. That is why there must be desperate ones among them. Oh, not everyone there welcomes us, some will look up - it’s worse than a fire, the scarf is about to get caught...
I listen to Natalya in bewilderment. From books I know about Caucasian captives, about “Mtsyri”, about Tamara’s castle, about our Russian heroes, about the treachery of the highlanders. Not once did I think that these mountaineers plow, mow, reap, and graze sheep and cows. The mountaineers are always on horseback, in shaggy cloaks, hung with weapons; they attack each other, village against village, and even more often they lie in wait for “ours.” “Our people” don’t let them down either. From Natalya’s stories, it seems different: all these Ossetians, Chechens, Kabardians, Ingush are doing the same thing that our men are doing, they also live unenviably and are even poorer than ours. Why are we fighting with the mountaineers, what do we need from them? And who to believe: Natalya or your favorite books? Do they really make things up in books? And it’s true, they don’t say anything about how the Kabardians carry water on themselves, how they mow and harvest hay, how they graze their herds, but they, the mountaineers, should be doing this, so they don’t perish from hunger. And Natalya doesn’t lie, she’s not like that. Here she rests her cheek on her hand, her eyes are kind, tired, truthful, truthful, and her dry wrinkles around her mouth... Books, then, deceive. But their deception is expensive. It’s hard to part with the world they create... If the books are wrong about the Circassians, then maybe the other things are also wrong. The passion of Christ may be invented, and Prophetic Oleg, and Vladimir the Red Sun, and the Crusades, and none of this happened, and if something did happen, it happened in a completely different way. For the first time, something dark opens up before me, an all-consuming abyss, something silent, blind, faceless and indifferent to all living things. Thousands of years are falling there in landslides, centuries, kingdoms, peoples are falling in small fragments, people are disappearing like rubbish - an indistinct roar is heard, dark piles devoid of an image are barely noticeable - and they are no longer there, they have fallen out of memory forever - from whose memory? - and even the inscriptions have already been erased on the gloomy marble of the slabs... Time still passes, deadlines are being fulfilled - and so the slabs themselves are swallowed up by eternity.
Natalya lives with us for about ten days and comes to spend the night, and not every day. She sews, does laundry for men she knows and relatives, and helps in the gardens. In the evenings, Natalya willingly talks about many things, but in one thing she is stingy with words: when they ask her why she became a wanderer.
“I’m running from grief and looking for new grief...” She smiles and turns the conversation to something else.
Her grief is great, but light, it does not fall on life as a dark shadow, does not croak as a black raven, does not crest as a bug-eyed owl, her grief flies like a light bird, like a crane's wedge in the high and blue skies, casting an indistinct and sad crowing on the autumn earth.
...I was already studying at the bursa, and was known as “inveterate” and “desperate.” I went wild, walked around bullying my peers, spoke a special Bursat language, vile, akin to thieves; He didn’t wash his face for weeks, scratched his skin until it bled from the “chicks,” took revenge on the guards and teachers from around the corner, revealing remarkable ingenuity in these matters. During one of the breaks, the students informed me that “some woman” was waiting for me in the locker room. Baba turned out to be Natalya. Natalya walked from afar, from Kholmogory, remembered me and, although she had to make a detour of about eighty miles, how could she not visit the orphan, not look at his city life; The son has probably grown up and wiser to the joy and consolation of his mother. I listened inattentively to Natalya: I was ashamed of her bast shoes, onuch, knapsack, her whole village appearance, I was afraid of losing myself in the eyes of the students and kept looking sideways at my peers snooping past. Finally, he couldn’t stand it and said rudely to Natalya:
- Let's get out of here.
Without waiting for consent, I took her to the backyard so that no one would see us there. Natalya untied her knapsack and handed me some village flatbread.
“I don’t have anything else in store for you, my friend.” And don’t worry, I baked them myself, I have them in cow’s butter.
At first I sullenly refused, but Natalya insisted on donuts. Soon Natalya noticed that I was shy of her and was not at all happy with her. She also noticed the torn, ink-stained jacket I was wearing, my dirty and pale neck, my red boots, and my haunted, sullen look. Natalya's eyes filled with tears.
- Why can’t you say a kind word, son? So, it was in vain that I came to see you.
I dully poked at the sore on my arm and muttered something listlessly. Natalya leaned over me, shook her head and, looking into my eyes, whispered:
- Yes, my dear, you seem out of your mind! You weren't like that at home. Oh, they did something bad to you! Dashingly, apparently, they let you down! This is the teaching that comes out.
“Nothing,” I muttered emotionlessly, moving away from Natalya.
Natalya was still grieving. After she left, I ran into the empty restroom and threw the donuts into the pit with feces, and at another break I beat the kid for no reason.
I would gladly forget all this now.
I never met Natalya again...
... Nikolai Valunov was nicknamed Weasel, probably because he was restless and fidgety, thin and short in stature. Otherwise, Valunov did not resemble a ferret. Ferret was distinguished by his carelessness and laughter. He loved to laugh at people and at himself, at his poverty, at his unlucky life. In the fight, his front teeth were knocked out, besides, Ferret mowed his head, his rough, sharp, almost beardless face wrinkled, but Ferret assured that he had no end to girls and women; He squinted at the same time, his eyes sparkling with fun and mischief.
His wife Avdotya kept blaspheming Weasel all over the street, so much so that in the hut there wasn’t even a piece of black bread for the two youngsters. The ferret laughed it off, or went to the market, where he jostled among the visiting men, at the shops, at the carts, at the stalls. As if in mockery of his miserable life, he planted flowers in front of the hut; the flowers were blooming magnificently, meanwhile the top of the hut remained open - in winter there was not enough straw - and two dark windows with dull green glass were falling in different directions.
Ferret judged his fellow villagers condescendingly and did not approve of their lives: Ferret was considered “freaky,” “unlucky.” The ferret responded with jokes to the effect that you won’t be able to work for the masters even before the second coming. He argued: happiness is one-eyed, and the eye of happiness is at the very top of the head. Happiness walks around the world, looking for its missing child. He sees a person: is this not my own child? - lifts it higher and higher to the very top of the head, sees: no, not mine, - throws it in his heart. One remains alive, but the other is killed.
The ferret was by no means a lazy person or a quitter. He got a job as a church watchman, guarded melon fields in the summer, went as a shepherd, and worked for merchants piling rye and oats. But he did not learn to keep quiet where he should, did not lose his independence, and therefore did not settle firmly anywhere. He was kicked out with abuse for his witty words, cheated, fined, deceived; The ferret only laughed in these cases. He willingly told fairy tales, fables, and while telling them, he made them up before his eyes. Sometimes he suddenly fell silent and asked himself out loud:
– What the hell am I talking about?
I suggested:
“He comes to the forest at night for a treasure, but has forgotten his sworn words...
“Here, here,” the Ferret picks up easily, “he forgot the real word, he can’t remember... they hit him in the head with a straight butt... knocked him off... And here he goes, you know, through the forest, makes his way, the word keeps spinning, and in he doesn’t give a hand... he forgot... He walks... as if he’s not himself, and he wants to find that treasure, he really wants to die, well, but there’s no attack on the treasure... He’s walking... what can you do... There’s nothing you can do... he’s swearing... it’s the same thing not moving, not here, not here... this is just a mess...
Ferret is an inventor, a poet. He spent his time hunting, fishing, set a snare, lured quails. He also knew many village songs and sang them soulfully. Ferret often made fun of me too.
“Well, you don’t even have enough grief,” he said, sitting on a stump and looking intently into the distance at the road, although no one was visible on it, “they’ve knocked down some kind of domino... chambers... with a tin roof... it’s so shiny.” all in the sun...
It was difficult to mistake “Domino” for “chambers”, but we really have an iron roof...
- And you have a garden, but we don’t have a garden.
“Just think, a vegetable garden,” the Ferret answers, squinting, “there are nettles in that vegetable garden and thistles and wild horseradish... You have a cow.”
-You also have a cow.
“My cow will certainly stretch her legs by Christmas, but your cow’s sides are all torn apart from the feed.”
– You have a bug, it watches you at night. But we don’t have a Bug; thieves can get into our place.
- It was you, brother, who cleverly tricked me. Thieves will never get to my chests. Bug, brother, he won’t let anyone down. One word - beast. My little bug looks like a horse, but he has more intelligence than a general with crosses; I saw: he serves on his hind legs, straight - a complete general. And there is no expense for it; finds his own food. He doesn’t sit on someone else’s neck... I take care of my chests, but you need to think hard about yours; It’s not even an hour - they will still stubbornly, there are many hunters.
A slippery smile twists Weasel’s face, slanted eyes run somewhere to the side, above me. The ferret fills his pipe with a tube, takes a deep drag with his entire chest, and watches the blue smoke.
...I involuntarily compared Alexey, Ivan, Natalya, Khorek with my relatives, with the circle of rural clergy. The relatives lived leisurely, neither rich nor poor, occupying the places of priests, deacons, psalm-readers, and teachers of parochial schools.
Most of all, both adults and children loved Uncle Senya, a psalm-reader from a neighboring village, a merry fellow, a joker, and the inventor of a perpetual motion machine.
It happened that my uncle convinced himself and his family that he had invented a perpetual motion machine. Despite the persuasion, he informed the governor, the bishop, the minister of internal affairs, and the Holy Synod by telegrams that humanity had been made happy by him, the Ozerkov psalm-reader. The uncle was so confident in his invention that he left his place and moved with his belongings and the boys to Nikolai Ivanovich, settled in his bathhouse, where he began carrying out the “final experiments.” The parishioners saw him off with the ringing of bells, asking him not to forget them, weak men, his uncle shed tears, and rashly donated his only cow to the world. The final experiments were unsuccessful. The telegrams, fortunately, did not have any negative consequences. Uncle Sena had to return to Ozerki “under the shadow of the streams”; the whole world managed to drink the cow to death. Uncle, however, did not lose faith in the perpetual motion machine and in himself and continued to buy scrap iron all over the area... There is nothing that is a tenacious human dream. No force can deal with her!
...In the evenings, usually at Nikolai Ivanovich’s, or less often at ours, my mother’s sisters would gather - there were four of them in one village. Friends also came for a get-together. Aunt Avdotya, a widow with lopsided shoulders and a restless tongue, was more involved in the courts and gossip. Accompanied by the whirring of the spinning wheel and the rapid flashing of knitting needles, Avdotya, almost without taking a breath, said:
- I come, sisters, come to Makarikha for the third time, she is trying on a new dress in front of the mirror. And what do I see, my girls? She will be close to forty with a crochet hook, but she sewed herself a white striped dress: it’s so dazzling in your eyes, just so dazzling. And what else did she come up with: with fancy clothes, like a noblewoman; But what the big-nosed merchant’s wife doesn’t understand is that these same fags have been out of fashion for so many years. There are flounces on the sides, a neckline at the back, lace hanging around it, a parrot and that’s all. And the train will be two arshins long. And she also wears a bustle, and what kind of bustle does she need: God forgive me, you saw for yourself, half of the fillet needs to be cut off and sold at the market at the right time... It’s hilarious...
I try to lose myself in Zhukovsky’s “Svetlana,” but my aunt’s voice continues to pester me, and I can’t help but hear that she is already “cleansing” her older sister’s husband, the station manager, Vasily Nikitich:
– ...I came from Voronezh, brought balyks, stellate sturgeon, oranges, and the children were dressed in whatever they could. Nadyushka’s shoes have completely fallen apart, and Alexey only knows how to roam around with a gun and dogs without his father’s eye. The dogs were bred full yard, some wolfhounds; It’s just pure passion to look at them. Yesterday I came to them, and these same wolfhounds are on me, on me! Mothers, fathers! Almost got eaten! Thank you, the cook Lizaveta came out with the slop and beat it off... Lizaveta is also, I tell you, good! In the slop, I looked with one eye, bread crusts, cabbage, potatoes - and it pours and pours straight into the hole. - “Why are you doing this? – I ask her seriously. – Is it possible to pour such goodness into a hole? They would get pigs, and by Christmas they would sit with their baked hams; and we, the guests, would be treated to the glory of God!..” And Lizaveta only grins her teeth in response! Took me by the heart. - “Don’t show me your teeth!” Look, I’ve worked my ass off!” - “Pigs,” he says, “breeding is not my business, it’s the owner’s business!..” - “Oh, the owner’s? And you don’t have the masters to convince you to do a good job!..” Look at the servants who have gone now! They don’t even care enough about the owner’s goods, they would rather get drunk and go broke... That’s why everything goes up in price. On Monday, at the market, I wanted to buy eggs, but there was no way to get to them, eight kopecks per dozen, just robbery in broad daylight and that’s all. I fought with Stepanida Kopylikha. “You’re not afraid of God,” I reproach her, “you’re not ashamed of people!” Where have you heard of selling eggs for eight kopecks?” “To each his own, mother,” she responded to my words, “I have four too,” she says, “four are squeaking, and I’m still carrying a fifth.” “I see, she really... that’s it... And where they are producing so many children is completely incomprehensible.” You go out into the street, there’s nowhere to put your feet from the guys; Just know they are sparkling naked... Without any supervision... right in the middle of the road. How long before sin: someone comes from the market, gets drunk in a tavern, buries himself in the hay, only his legs are sticking out, even if you shoot him right in the ear with a cannon, you won’t wake him up. What is the demand for a horse? the horse is a dumb creature; she just walks, wagging her head and wagging her tail; to fight off flies and horseflies... Also new fashion Took: trim the horses' tails. What they don’t understand is that a horse without a tail is no good…
Sleep sticks to my eyelids, and it seems to me that I am a horse, and my aunt’s words are swirling around me like countless swarms of horseflies, and there is nowhere to escape from them. With effort I open my eyes. Everything is incomprehensible: it is not clear why Avdotya interferes in everything, pokes his nose in everywhere, why both adults and I need to listen about the merchant’s wife Makarikha, about her hoops and bustles, about slops, about Stepanida, about wolfhounds. Boring! The world seems like a huge storeroom, where all kinds of rubbish are piled up in disarray. Nobody needs my generous robbers, Ruslans, Ermak, wandering Kaliki, Martha-planters. From the intricacies of the aunt they become dull, they seem “not real”, and where it is, “real”, is unknown... And Avdotya’s sudacity is still not forgotten. I listen to the conversation, participate in the conversation, ask, answer, and how often I am amazed at the nonsense, jumble, stupidity, verbal garbage, nonsense that we throw at each other! The aunt doesn’t count: what can you take from her, although these idle women have not disappeared to this day, although they are sometimes found even in places where, it would seem, there should have been no trace of them long ago - and besides, you find them in in such circles that you have to goggle your eyes in surprise... Let us, however, give the nimble aunt the well-deserved peace, but even if we take the average, enlightened modern culture man, you often throw up your hands here: his conversations, judgments and opinions are so flat, wretched, gray and vulgar! How much idle talk, gossip, trifles! You listen and ask yourself: were there or weren’t Homer, Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Dante, Shakespeare, Newton, Kant, Darwin, and what revolutions did they make in human consciousness? The worst thing is that these great people are average cultured person unusually skillfully and consistently dupes them and makes them no less flat and boring than he himself.
Undoubtedly, the revolution washed away a lot, but how much more, but how much more remains!.. And now again and again we have to ask, when will this be translated?..
...I also noticed that adults say one thing to their friends and relatives to their faces and another when they are not there. Teacher Vozdvizhensky or Doctor Karpov comes to visit. They are cordially treated, they are praised: Vozdvizhensky has a school for the entire district, and sick souls dote on Dr. Karpov. With the departure of the guests, it turns out that Vozdvizhensky is a good teacher by nature, but he hurts him a lot and then hits the guys on the head with a ruler, without distinguishing between those who are right and those who are guilty, while Doctor Karpov is greedy for bribes, plays recklessly in cards, and you often can’t tear him away from them to the sick; Moreover, his wife is a pure witch, proud and does nothing but purse her lips and who knows what she imagines about herself. At the same time I was taught to speak alone the real truth. People demand the truth. And again I saw the “unreal” around me. I looked closely at my relatives and compared them with Alexey, with Natalya, with Ivan, with the neighboring men. The conversations and judgments of these people were also not distinguished by either complexity or novelty, but their opinions were inextricably linked with the work and life of the village. Everything here was simple, clear, necessary. Nikolai Ivanovich's worker, Spiridon, talked about the weather, about the need to harrow or plow tomorrow, and lazily quarreled with the cook over dinner, which was served late. Natalya talked about the fire in Terpigorevka, about the death of livestock in Mordovia - men and women howling there; Alexei explained with gestures that the next day he should go into the bushes to break brooms for winter. Informed Perepelkin regretted that his tugs were stolen, and repeated for the twentieth time how he left them on the threshing floor and did not have time to turn away, but the tugs were no longer in sight: the devil had stolen them, or something! - All this corresponded to life, it came from it, returned to it, and even gossip here was firmly connected with working life. And I vaguely felt the truth of this life and the untruth of our life.
[email protected] in category, question opened 09/22/2017 at 20:40
...Natalya is from a neighboring village, about ten years ago she immediately lost her husband and three children: during her absence they died from smoke inhalation.
Since then, she sold the house, abandoned the farm and wandered.
Natalya speaks quietly, melodiously, innocently. Her words are pure, as if washed, as close and pleasant as the sky, field, bread, village huts. And all of Natalya is simple, warm, calm and majestic. Natalya is not surprised by anything: she has seen everything, experienced everything, she talks about modern affairs and incidents, even dark and terrible ones, as if they were separated from our lives by millennia. Natalya doesn’t flatter anyone; It’s very good about her that she doesn’t go to monasteries and holy places, doesn’t look for miraculous icons. She is worldly and talks about everyday things. There is nothing superfluous in it, no fussiness.
Natalya bears the burden of a wanderer easily, and buries her grief from people. She has an amazing memory. She remembers when and why such and such a family was ill. She talks about everything willingly, but in one thing she is stingy with words: when they ask her why she became a wanderer.
...I had already studied at the bursa, had a reputation for being “inveterate” and “desperate,” and took revenge on the guards and teachers from around the corner, revealing remarkable ingenuity in these matters. During one of the breaks, the students informed me that “some woman” was waiting for me in the locker room. Baba turned out to be Natalya. Natalya walked from afar, from Kholmogory, she remembered me, and although she had to give a detour about eighty miles, how could she not visit the orphan, not look at his city life, her son had probably grown up, wiser for the joy and consolation of his mother. I listened inattentively to Natalya: I was ashamed of her bast shoes, boots, knapsack, her whole village appearance, I was afraid of losing myself in the eyes of the students and kept looking sideways at my peers snooping past. Finally he couldn’t stand it and said rudely to Natalya:
-Let's get out of here.
Without waiting for consent, I took her to the backyard so that no one would see us there. Natalya untied her knapsack and handed me some village flatbread.
-I don’t have anything else in store for you, my friend. And don’t worry, I baked them myself, in butter, in cow’s milk.
At first I sullenly refused, but Natalya insisted on donuts. Soon Natalya noticed that I was shy of her and was not at all happy with her. She also noticed the torn, ink-stained jacket I was wearing, my dirty and pale neck, my red boots, and my haunted, sullen look. Natalya's eyes filled with tears.
- Why can’t you say a kind word, son? So, it was in vain that I came to see you.
I dully poked at the sore on my arm and muttered something listlessly. Natalya leaned over me, shook her head and, looking into my eyes, whispered:
- Yes, dear, you seem out of your mind! You weren't like that at home. Oh, they did something bad to you! Dashingly, apparently, they let you down! This is the teaching that comes out.
“Nothing,” I muttered emotionlessly, moving away from Natalya.