Active love is the basis of life behavior, the moral core of Boris Ekimov’s heroes. "Living Soul" by Boris Ekimov

Kaverina Arina

2008 marked the 70th anniversary of his birth famous writer Boris Petrovich Ekimov. The topic of my project is related to one of the main themes of the writer’s work: “ Living soul» Boris Ekimov.

Project goals and objectives:

Consider the theme of the “living soul” in B. Ekimov’s story “The Living Soul”;

Analyze the characters from the point of view of their moral choices;

Show the writer’s humanism using the example of his work.

Boris Ekimov was born on November 19, 1938 in the city of Igarka, but his real homeland was the city of Kalach-on-Don, where he spent his childhood and youth.

The first stories of the aspiring Volgograd writer B. Ekimov appeared in the early 70s. Everyone who turned to his work noted the writer’s loyalty to the “truth of life” and genuine sincerity in all his stories. Today there is already a “world of B. Ekimov” or, as one of the researchers put it, “the country of Ekimiya”, which has very specific geographical coordinates: Vikhlyaevsky farms, Small and Bolshiye Sokari, Derben. They can be easily found on a map of the Volgograd region.

Ekimov’s favorite heroes have the main, in the opinion of their creator, dignity - a “living soul”; their moral strength is revealed in specific actions, in small good deeds.

The writer depicts the main characters with special love: old people and children. The old people of B. Ekimov are endowed with life wisdom, warmth of heart, memorable souls and hard work.

So in the story “The Living Soul” the writer depicts two types of people: some are representatives of the “living soul”, others are deprived of this quality. The heroes are given a task: to decide the fate of a calf that was born contrary to expectations. What do adults do? What is more important to them: a “living soul” or papers and orders?

One of the main characters, a guest, becomes an involuntary witness to those events. He's interested in further fate calf, where it will be assigned.

“Where...” the manager chuckled, looking away. - There... Otherwise you don’t know...

“I know,” the visitor lowered his eyes, “but somehow... Still a living soul.”

In this short dialogue, every word is significant. And the understatement and downcast eyes - all this very eloquently testifies to the remorse of conscience that both interlocutors experience. Yes, they are ashamed, but there are rules that contradict the norms of life. Here for the first time the definition of “living soul” is heard, which will become the main one in the entire story, and in the entire work of B. Ekimov.

But there are other heroes in this work - this is a boy, a grandfather and the image of Baba Mani.

Once again the author will put words about a living soul into the mouth of the boy, who will remember: “A living soul... This was a saying of the deceased woman Mani. She pitied all cattle, domestic, stray, wild, and when they reproached her, she justified herself: “But what about... A living soul.”

This is how a theme that is significant for B. Ekimov is introduced into the story - the theme of memory, the connection of generations. It is through the connection of generations, through spiritual continuity, that the “affirmation of good” occurs. The future, according to the author, is unthinkable without the memory of the past, without relying on its best traditions.

Maintaining faith in the “living soul” of the people, B. Ekimov worthily continues the most important traditions of Russian classics, looking for modern life kindness, humanity, the ability to compassion, all those qualities that are now in great short supply.

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“THE LIVING SOUL” BY BORIS EKIMOV

Goals and objectives To consider the theme of the “living soul” in B. Ekimov’s story “The Living Soul” To analyze the characters from the point of view of their moral choice To show the writer’s humanism using the example of his work

BORIS EKIMOV Born on November 19, 1938 in the city of Igarka, Krasnoyarsk Territory; In 1945, the family moved to Kalach-on-Don; In 1976 he joined the Russian Writers' Union; In 1999 - laureate of the State Prize of Russia and the All-Russian literary prize“Stalingrad”; In 2008 - laureate of the A.I. Solzhenitsyn Prize.

The writer’s creative credo “I don’t need something new, I need it kinder”

"Country Ekimiya"

Favorite heroes - owners of a “living soul” Old people Children

Story "Living Soul"

What do adults do?

“A living soul... This was the saying of the deceased woman Mani. She pitied all cattle, domestic, stray, wild, and when they reproached her, she justified herself: “But what about... A living soul.”

Spiritual connection between generations

CONCLUSION While maintaining faith in the “living soul” of the people, B. Ekimov is looking for kindness, humanity, the ability to compassion in modern life, all those qualities that are now in great short supply.

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Among the writer's heroes there are those who do not think about the meaning of life, about what is moral and what is immoral. Morality is manifested in their actions and practical actions. They just live by giving to other people native land your love, compassion, while maintaining conscientiousness, unostentatious kindness, human reliability. (14, p.211)

According to Boris Ekimov, the most important thing in a person is his soul.

“In the story “A Boy on a Bicycle,” one of the characters, reflecting on the meaning of life, comes to the following conclusion: “A person, in general, needs a piece of bread and a mug of water. The rest is superfluous. Bread and water. This is where he lives. And a living soul." One of B. Ekimov’s stories is called “The Living Soul” and several meanings can be read in this title. “A living soul” is the favorite saying of Baba Mani, whose death is so difficult for the eight-year-old boy Alyosha to come to terms with. A living soul is also a calf abandoned in the cold, useless to anyone. His life must fade away before it even begins: there are no conditions on the collective farm for raising “unplanned” calves, they are just a hassle for everyone. It is fortunate that little Alyosha did not have time to comprehend the sophisticated logic of adults; he knows and feels in his heart only one thing: the calf must not freeze or die, because it will never come to life again. “The dead don't come. They will never exist again, it’s as if they never existed.” A living soul is Alyosha himself, and in the end, this is the most valuable thing in any person, the only thing by which his life and his deeds should be trusted.

B. Ekimov's heroes are mostly ordinary, outwardly unremarkable people shown in everyday life. However, in a certain situation, they commit actions dictated not by personal gain or practical considerations, but by compassion for another person, the ability to understand someone else's pain. (6, p.211)

Children for Ekimov are “living souls” (so says Solonich, the hero story of the same name), that is, sensitive creatures capable of perceiving life adequately, in all the fullness of its joys and sorrows, without accepting the sometimes inherently cruel conventions generated by human experience.

Ekimov’s “living soul” child is capable of real feats and almost miracles. Ten-year-old Seryozhka (“Boy on a Bicycle”), who found himself in serious everyday situation, performs the duties of parents for his sister and owner in a large peasant farm.

The hero of one of the best, in our opinion, stories, “The Night of Healing,” the teenager Grisha heals his grandmother, Baba Dunya, whose “gray head was shaking and something otherworldly was already visible in her eyes.” Disease old woman The writer evaluates it not from a medical point of view, but from a general humanistic point of view. The medications prescribed by doctors did not help and could not, according to the author’s logic, help, because they were powerless to change a life already lived, full of hardships - so the old woman in her sleep continued to scream about acorns, then about lost bread cards, then about the hospital.

The author traces how attitudes change young hero to this drama: from fear and irritation to pity and compassion. The child failed to use the means tested by his parents - to shout at his sleeping grandmother, at the very last moment “the boy’s heart was filled with pity and pain, and he unexpectedly began to calm down Baba Dunya. Complicity in the suffering of a neighbor highlights the best in the child’s soul, which is inherent in him by nature and which contrasts him with his parents, who, under the influence of vain existence, have lost the acuteness of feeling the grief of others.

The lofty word “healing,” which is not typical for Ekimov’s dictionary, sounds only at the very end, combining the hope of getting rid of the old woman from loneliness, and faith in the triumph of the good principle in the child’s soul as a guarantee of the victory of good over evil in general: “ And healing will come." (9, p.203-204)

“Sometimes light and warmth human relations as if the text itself radiates, in which one can hear the living element of folk speech.

“Grandma, grandma,” calls the city granddaughter Olyushka, frightened by a cow approaching close (story “On the Cossack Farm”). “Ayushki, my dear, I’m here, here,” Natalya replies. “Don’t be afraid, my sweet, don’t be afraid, my sweetheart,” she reassures the girl. And when Olya, leaning against the hot side of a cow, mutters in her sleep: “Grandma, she loves me. “,” Natalya whispers in response: “He loves you, my dear, how can you not love you.”

This unconditional, original love, this tenderness is worth a lot. They sink into the soul and shape it, and in mature years, in difficult moments of life they keep from bitterness and despair, soften the bitterness of disappointment.” (21, p.230)

I try to read everything that Boris Petrovich Ekimov writes, since eleven years ago in Novy Mir I read his story “Fetisych” - about a nine-year-old boy whom everyone called Fetisych for his prudence and early independence. The story of how the only old teacher on the farm died, and the boy went to look for a replacement for her - this story struck, it seems, everyone who read it. The pedagogical newspaper “First of September” even completely reprinted this story, devoting half of the newspaper issue to it.

Many then discovered a new name in Russian literature - Boris Ekimov. But long before that there were “Kholushino Compound”, “For warm bread”, “Living Soul” and other stories, stories, essays.

Back in the early 90s, the then editor of Novy Mir, Sergei Pavlovich Zalygin, presenting Boris Ekimov’s essays in the magazine, wrote: “Years will pass, people will want to understand what “perestroika” was after all, and that’s where they they will require realism as such, like Ovechkin’s, Tvardovsky’s Novomirsky, and, probably, I won’t be mistaken if I say - like Ekimov’s.”

Almost all of Ekimov’s heroes are residents of Zadonsk villages and farmsteads. The plots of his stories rarely go beyond one, and very specific settlement. But at the same time, every thoughtful reader, having closed last page Ekimov’s story, he will say: this is about us, about me, about our life today - alarming, broken into fragments.

With the power of talent and exacting, strict love, Ekimov carefully collects these fragments into a narrative that, I am sure, will forever remain in Russian literature - as an honest testimony to everything that we have experienced in the last two decades.

Little left in modern literature names that have retained not only the trust, but also the love of readers. I have long dreamed of talking with Boris Petrovich Ekimov “for life,” about which he knows so much bitter and lofty things. But in Moscow it is difficult to meet a writer living on the Don. It’s all the more joyful that we finally met and wandered together under the pine trees near Moscow.

— I once heard that you had a hooligan youth...

“You yourself know that good things lie on the ground, and bad things run along the ground.” I really didn’t finish my studies at the Polytechnic Institute... I went to work at a factory. But there was no hooligan youth. Maybe even the opposite: the youth of someone who reads a lot, who thinks a lot young man. Hence the fate. And some “episodes” of youth, they are inevitable.

— When did you realize that your destiny was to be a writer?

- We are all born - one is a carpenter, the second is a joiner, the third is a writer. And the direction of this choice should probably be determined by the school, but my school was weak. And I did not understand my inclinations in my youth. I remember back in the eighth grade we were assigned an essay about ice drift, I wrote it, but the teacher began to publicly shame me for allegedly copying everything. For some reason it never occurred to her that I could have written it myself...

— And the essay is about ice drift on the Don?

- Yes, our entire village, Kalach-on-Don, came to look at this majestic spectacle. At that time there was still a real ice drift on the Don. It’s not the same now—the dams are standing. And besides, the ice begins to break ahead of time.

“I remember, even in our Vologda, where a very small river flows, both children and adults gathered on the shore to see how the river began to move, how the ice floes stormed the bridge with a roar...

— Such rare natural phenomena are always an event. Imagine if the starry sky was shown once a year - probably no one would sleep that night...

- Yes, about four years old. But not because the family was so educated. I don’t remember my father; he died when I was very young. But my mother had no time for reading. It was just a happy accident: a neighbor girl taught me to read.

— What did you especially like from what you read as a child?

- Fairy tales. Notes of travelers, “Dersu Uzala”. Historical narratives... Before I fell in love with something, I still had to read a lot, and then there was reading everything. Books were devoured completely spontaneously. If we talk about shock, this is, of course, a Russian classic. But she came later. At school they rather discouraged love for her, and everything turned out not to be a joy.

“But the library seems to have saved the future writer in you.”

- It seems so. When I re-read all the books in the school and children's libraries of Kalach, I was enrolled early as an adult. Everything good comes from there. My family gave me bread, but they couldn’t give me spiritual bread. We had such a time. And in general: a person is lonely, and a teenager is especially lonely. There is only one salvation: language and literature. They will help you find someone to talk to not only here, among those living nearby, but also in eternity. The world is large not only in space, but also in time. And the library is an opportunity to talk with Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov... Reading is a continuous conversation. When we read “War and Peace”, we talk all the time with both Natasha and Pierre...

— Several years ago I was sick and re-read “War and Peace.” And so, even putting the book down, it felt palpably to me: there, in the book, its own huge life continues, as if a river were flowing and voices were heard...

- Yes, a living, wise life... Therefore, reducing the hours of literature at school, closing the library means leaving a person alone. Now for each of us there are two policemen, three security guards, there are bars on the windows, all the doors are steel, there are countless locks, the dogs are shepherds... And the authorities think that the more barbed wire and police, the calmer it will be life. No, if you don’t allow a person to learn and be educated, then you won’t be able to stop him with any concentration camps.

- I would like to remember one of your heroes - Fetisych. After all, this is undoubtedly a documentary image...

“There cannot be pure reflection or photography in fiction... They said the opposite about this story: there cannot be such a boy, he does not exist.” But if he did not exist, he would not have been written, because Fetisych cannot be invented.

“There are a lot of children in the country who took on completely adult responsibilities early on. Much more than we see from the outside...

“They work just like adults, they work very hard. I just now arrived from the farm where I usually live since May. There are new neighbors there, they have a little boy, he is ten years old. He is always at work, he has a little sister, and he either pushes her in a stroller, or weeds the beds, or carries water. On our small farms, children good families they work a lot. Like ants...

“We in the cities know nothing about this life.”

“We always didn’t know very well about her.” I remember good writer Professor I. Grekov. Once we were in Maleevka, and I had just published a book, and I gave it to her. She read it and asked: “Is what you write true?” I say, of course, I’m not a science fiction writer. She was upset: “Everything is beautifully written, good... But this is some kind of Stone Age!”

Here in Russia it is so different life among people... But don’t think that the life of children like Fetisych is terrible. She's happy too. Farm life for children is such a wealth! It cannot even be compared with life in the city, in a stone bag, where you see nothing but the apartment, the entrance and the street. On the farm, the world is huge: steppe, river, field, forest, sky... And how full this world is: grass, trees, bushes, flowers, nearby domestic and free, wild animals and birds. Communication and care for calves, kids, kittens and chickens will leave so much good in a child’s soul that it’s impossible to appreciate...

Recently, on a farm, I approached the Don and saw a little boy poking around on the bank. I ask: “Do you catch minnows?” He answers: “I’m looking at leeches.” But I didn’t even know that there were leeches in the Don, I thought they were only in the lakes. They began to look together. True, it’s curious: small leeches, large ones, stick at once, but live under big stones. It's just a small leech. And how many living things are there: in the water, in the sky, on the earth...

- But how will he meet these children? big life outside the village...

— This is an eternal fear, an eternal question... I think a huge loss for Russia is that the influx of gifted peasant children into best universities. And they will no longer come to science, culture... The rural school is now in a difficult situation. There is still someone to teach, but there is no one anymore.

- IN recent years thousands of small ones have closed rural schools under the pretext of saving. They say: we will transport children by bus...

- What buses! Let alone a bus, “murmon” will not get through many of our farms. “Murmon” is our name for a three-axle military-style truck—and so it can still pass on dry ground, but whether it’s raining or snowing, it’s standing up. Children walk. What kind of buses are there? There are no books, textbooks, no Pushkin... I think that people, having seized power, quickly forget to whom and what they owe. First of all, they owe it not to mom and dad that they became presidents and prime ministers, but to the school, the teacher, and the library. They keep talking about power structures, not understanding that our main power structure is reason, conscience, and education.

— Where do you work best? At home?

— In my younger years, if you wanted to work, you worked everywhere. I remember I wrote the story “Journey to the South” in Igarka, in some hostel, in a room for 14 people. And nothing got in the way. And how did Vasil Makarych Shukshin write? On the knee and anywhere. When it's written, it's good everywhere.

— I always read your new works in Novy Mir, but for some reason you look lonely there, you fall out of the trend...

— Ours literary magazines They’re also in a hurry to get somewhere, and they actually have nothing to print. When I come to the editorial office, I ask: “Well, what good stuff can you read?” They shrug their shoulders: “Nothing.” Honestly, that’s what they say: a year has passed, and there’s nothing to read.

When I started, the most popular was Vikulov’s “Our Contemporary”. What was the competition and with whom! Shukshin, Belov, Astafiev, Kuvaev, Nagibin, Likhonosov, Rasputin, Bykov, Nosov... I only name the peaks, but even from these names it is clear how difficult it was to get into the room. I remember that “For Warm Bread” - one of the best, as it seems to me, my stories - I had to take it to another magazine. They couldn’t print it - the flow of good literature was so dense.

— It was probably very important to have this before your eyes high bar?

“You can’t jump higher than yourself.” You can’t set a task: but now I’ll write better than Bykov or Shukshin. This is stupidity. Everything is in you, in your heart, in your soul. You don’t really understand how it’s written. But the fact that literature was significant, that magazines were passed from hand to hand and read to the gills, was very important.

- What about censorship? Now some writers recall that she forced her to work more subtly, more accurately with words...

— I heard these fairy tales at one time: how to deceive the censors, create a second text, and subtext. This is all nonsense. If you start writing, then at this time you don’t think about any censorship. What did Sholokhov think about censorship when he wrote? Yes, he would not have written anything then. Another thing is that they then say: this cannot be, remove it. I had a phrase in the story: “How quickly it gets dark in winter, how early it gets dark, especially in the small villages of Rus'...” They demand: “Take it off, take it off!” We know what you’re trying to push through here!” I remember with the story “The Last Hut” I went to all the magazines and everywhere they told me that it could not be published. One of the managers told me: “Do you think, Boris Petrovich, What did you write?! Solzhenitsynism will not work for us! Remember: this story of yours will not be published - anywhere and never.”

It was such a time, but to dodge with subtext... I remember we had a poet, he loved to read poetry out loud, and so we listen, and he reads about a thunderstorm. There he has thunder and lightning... Then he asks: “Well, is it good?” “Okay,” we say. “So what did I write about here?” “About the thunderstorm...” “Fools! You don't understand anything! I wrote about Czechoslovakia!”

- They call you the last villager...

- All these are conventions, sweet nonsense. What is the last one? Is Russian literature over?

“But, looking over your shoulder, I really don’t see which of the young writers with such pain, with such knowledge of the matter, with such artistic power would continue rustic theme. Nowadays no one writes like that...

- Is it just now? ( Laughs.) Sergei Pavlovich Zalygin at the beginning of perestroika trends, when everyone wanted something new, said, as if making excuses: we also have writers who write as they wrote in the 19th century - here is Ekimov. Sergei Pavlovich wanted to justify himself, but... thanks to him for that. When I just started, Soloukhin, having read something from mine, said with his characteristic expression: “Nothing special, a classic Russian story.” However, I did not intend and do not intend to classify myself as a classic.

“For a writer, with all his solitary craft, it is important to feel a brotherly shoulder in literature. To have some like-minded people and interlocutors...

— You talk about a brotherly shoulder in literature, but in life? Can we always find someone with whom we can talk about our secrets? Not always. Therefore, we are forced to look for such people in the past, in eternity.

— Scientists have discovered that those who read Pushkin have increased lung capacity. That's probably why we grab onto the classics, which is what we need today's world not enough air...

— That’s why we were given Pushkin’s line: “I loved you, love is still there, perhaps...”? And we repeat it, and we don’t get tired of it. Or why do people sing: “The golden grove dissuaded...”? Re-reading the classics, we think: this is me, this is about me...

Do you think that only our collective farms collapsed? There is such a breakdown that literature, theater, and all culture have collapsed. Now there are very few people left in Russian fiction. My peers and several forty-year-olds. There is no one between us. There was a gap almost a generation long. Almost no one from this generation came to real literature, also because it was necessary to eat something, feed the family, and those who could become writers went to other places with more bread. Although at one time we did not go to literature for a piece of bread and butter.

“You even had the profession of an electrician in your hands; you could have lived without writing.” What was driving you?

- Something else.

- And what exactly do you think now?

- But no one will say this. Pushkin said: “I will shed tears over a fiction...” Why would a seemingly normal person shed tears over a fiction? Why, in honor of what does a person begin to write?.. Of those who tried to determine the most good definition Yesenin had: God's pipe.

— What writers are you interested in, who do you read?

- Age does not allow you to read everything. But here is Alexey Varlamov. I don't always like his stuff, but I feel his talent. Or Anton Utkin. “The Pale City” by Igor Savelyev from Ufa. Andrey Volos - I liked his first piece, it was great. Denis Gutsko from Rostov. Of course, there are still talented people.

But everyone feels the failure in literature, a certain shallowness. The trouble is that today's magazine literature has drawn to Moscow and is confined to one rather narrow circle of people. Critics suddenly began vying with each other to write novels and stories. Slavnikova, Novikov, Bykov - after all, they all started as critics. But they looked at former critic and translator Akunin and decided: why are we worse? And off we go. They began to write very boringly, if not poorly. To justify this infirmity, conversations about subtext begin. But if there is no word, image, landscape, gift in the end, nothing can save you. What they do can be called literature at a stretch, but not artistic literature.

- Everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere. Maybe it’s just how life is now and you need to quickly produce a text, release it, promote it and write a new one while they still remember you...

- It's not a matter of haste. Why was Dostoevsky in no hurry? I was in a hurry. But he remained Dostoevsky. Shukshin often wrote on his knee, in the kitchen or during a break between filming, but it was still Shukshin.

I remember in Igarka, in a hotel, in a room for twelve people, I wrote the story “Trip to the South” - it was well written. And sometimes in Peredelkino you walk from corner to corner for two weeks and don’t write anything.

— And yet, the current creative reactivity completely overturns the idea of ​​writing that previously existed in Russia. I’ve been writing for a newspaper for more than twenty years, where everything needs to be done quickly, but I don’t understand how you can write a text of six hundred pages in a couple of months...

— I say again: to the Russian artistic literature, all these “texts”, all this activity has nothing to do with it. This is a way to make money. If what you read is forgotten the next morning, it means it’s just literature. And if it touched me and I started thinking, this is fiction. It should be understandable to everyone - from academics to laundresses. It cannot be for a narrow circle.

Fiction is like air, the same for everyone, or like water - pure, key. What does money have to do with it? I will be reminded of Pushkin’s words: “Inspiration is not for sale, but you can sell a manuscript.” But it’s funny to think that Pushkin started writing for money. And Tyutchev, Tolstoy, Turgenev? And Dostoevsky - did he go into literature because of the money? The gift of speech is still a gift from God, and everything else is completely unimportant.

“But now we are being convinced that literature should not touch eternal questions, but should distract, entertain...

- Let them have fun for their health. This has happened before, just not on such a scale. But as long as humanity exists, there will always be fiction. If it were possible to discard it, they would have discarded it long ago. But the soul of the people is there.

— Do you ever have an aversion to your craft, to paper?

— I remember a moment in the early nineties when there was a feeling that there was no need to write, everything collapsed. But I came to Kalach for the summer, took out a box with letters from readers and began to read them. And when I read a lot of letters, I realized: what I did was not in vain. Everything I did was not in vain. And these people who wrote to me are still alive. And if I stop writing, then nothing good will come of it except emptiness - both for the reader and for me. No, you have to mind your own business.

- Yes, you have a special happiness - your reader. I know that people still write to you today. They ask you how to live?

- In Kalach, those who know me ask: what is happening and when will it end, they say, you are in Moscow, so tell us... But they are talking about everyday life. And when we're talking about about literature, then perhaps that’s the point fiction that people themselves find the answers in the book. When a person reads and thinks, he gets his answer.

People read my story “Speak, Mom, Speak...” in the December issue of Novy Mir and they tell me: they read it and remembered my mother. And others sigh: they really wanted to go to the village, to live there with their old people while they are alive. These are the answers. And they are not that I gave these answers, but that I pushed someone to thinking about life. This is Russian literature for me. When I read Chekhov or Blok, I don’t just read—I think. Sometimes one line or stanza is enough for me...

In the late eighties, I lived on the Kleimenovsky farm and wrote about its inhabitants. Often my stories were broadcast on the radio. They were listened to. We read it. Because books were available. They said: “We sat our granddaughter down to read your book. They heard that everything was true, everything was true...” Sometimes someone would get offended: “Why did you write that I’m fat, how fat am I?!” Even now, when there has been no such widespread reading for a long time, one acquaintance suddenly asks me: “Find me a book that you wrote about Seryoga...” - “About which Seryoga?” - “Well, about the fishermen, about Seryoga...” I say: “I have about the fishermen, but why about Seryoga?” - “We know, we know, this is about Seryoga...”

— For me, there is one mystery in your work. You don’t hide from life, and your stories are sometimes tragic, but from somewhere there comes light and in your soul after
reading - not melancholy, but a certain composure and readiness to overcome adversity. I can’t understand where it comes from...

— One of the teachers, reflecting, wrote: “Ekimov would not be Ekimov if he did not leave the reader hope, bright star" We have had a hard life for the last fifteen years. Was she sweet during the war? Was there anything sweet during the revolution? Every era can be difficult, but life cannot stop at our next misfortune. Life is light!

I recently had a grandson, Mitya, and I take his photo with me. You get up in the morning - sometimes it’s difficult for an old person - and then I look: the baby in the photo is smiling at me. Immediately it’s good, the thought appears: how many days and days, bright, joyful, he has ahead. The baby will walk on the ground, on the grass, to the same cheerful people. This is the time of humanity that we must strive to preserve! You smile at him and he smiles from ear to ear. He smells love and gives love. He still doesn’t need gold, cars, or a dacha; he doesn’t need to envy Abramovich and everyone else, because he knows from God that the main thing is love and a drop of milk.

“It’s not for nothing that in our church children under seven years old are in the rank of angels. But where does all this angelic disappears then?..

“It’s our fault, adults.” A person comes into the world with a smile, look - kids always have happiness on their faces. Lots of happiness! Until they start telling him: “You don’t know life. We need this, we need this...” They drove him to school and so he went, poor, bent under his backpack, and said with longing: “Well, at least take me to the stop...”

“National projects are glorified on every corner, but people leave and leave, almost a million a year. Even the president is surprised: what is happening to us?

“The president and his entourage don’t know how the people live and, it seems, they don’t want to know.” They hung these two hundred and fifty thousand on a string, but don’t you dare touch them. Live life carefully.

They don’t give birth because they are afraid - but how can we continue to live? Some breakdowns continue in the state. Everything is expensive, there is little work, the pay is low, and our demands are already high. Many people want to live like in Switzerland, have two cars, or like in England - four TVs per family. Why is this? You have to think: after all, only Europe and America live like this, and even then not everyone, but for the rest there is not enough bread. And we want Russia to feast on this unrighteous feast? So that she enters this “golden billion”, and at this time people somewhere will die of hunger?

- IN Soviet era We lived modestly, but the country’s leadership did not hesitate to remind us that many peoples do not have this wealth and that they should be helped somehow. And they helped - not out of abundance, but from the heart. I remember at school and university we either collected help for Chilean children or parcels for children in Nicaragua...

“Press the Internet button and you will see photographs of children with calls for help, with a mother’s plea: we need money for surgery, for treatment, otherwise the children will die. And walk around Moscow: some box with “exclusive”
gifts - 60 thousand. With this money in Kalach we can perform ten operations and save ten children.

- And in bookstores- books in brocade, gold, silver, leather...

— I recently went to the House of Books on Novy Arbat and asked James Herriot, a wonderful English writer and a veterinarian, it was published back in Soviet years. But Harriot is missing. Probably too wise...

— Your story “ Parents' Saturday” ends sadly: “Our old house together with the entire surrounding area... Some are in the cemetery, others are living out their lives somewhere...” And what will happen next on this beautiful land?

“It takes decades to get back on your feet.” Now on our street, new people have come to almost every yard, but they are just starting to settle down. Almost all of them are newcomers, it’s difficult for them...

— Have you heard about the program for the resettlement of compatriots? Will it be of any use?

— It’s possible to resettle, but where will these displaced people work? Where and what to live? Why do they leave our farms? There is no work. The collective farms are gone agriculture collapsed, production ended in small towns, and in large ones too. Here in Volgograd, remember what kind of tractor it was? Everything collapsed. Now many of my fellow countrymen are hired on a rotational basis to work - they go to Moscow, to the North, to Siberia. They live without families, often in terrible conditions, they are deceived, promised a lot, paid little. People work as hard as they possibly could only during the first five-year plans. Another question is what they work for, who is appropriating their work. But they work a lot and hard.

And at this time, our most popular talkers, beloved by television, endlessly convince the whole world that Russia is a country of quitters and drunkards. All this is “smerdyakovism”: blaspheming the people who fed you, and looking for your new pedigree on the side, as Shukshin’s hero accountant Baev did, thinking: “...Who am I so smart?.. Didn’t my deceased mother sleep with someone else?” ... I’m thinking: the Americans were rummaging around here, looking for something in the mountains. The jester knows him! They... are... nimble little people.”

— This year has been declared the year of the Russian language...

- Thank God it’s not in Russian. And then they say: Russian literature. Which Russian one? Russian! And there is also Tatar, Bashkir, etc. And what a year they called - these are bureaucratic games, they will hold two meetings and three rallies. All this flows outside of life, including the life of language. It would be better to publish with this money good books, but before publishing, they would ask teachers what is missing in schools. Need people's program book publishing. Recently, one of our Kalachevo schools won the All-Russian competition. With the money you receive you can buy computers and books. They were delighted and began to make a list, and they were sent another list and indicated that only this list could be used to order books - check them, check them. How old are you - two or five Coelho, Ulitskaya - five or ten? The teachers are almost crying: why do we need Coelho? We miss Pushkin, Aksakov, Yesenin - and they are not on the list. Then, they were told, you won’t get anything at all.

— You weren’t invited to join the Presidential Council on the Russian Language?

- Of course not. You yourself know that they will most likely invite Joseph Kobzon or Alla Pugacheva there.

— What, in your opinion, is happening now with the Russian language?

- Nothing special. Although there is now a lot that has come and gone, especially among young people. But I think this will gradually change if there is a good school and good books. The hope is that the Russian language and Russian literature are a fairly powerful, rooted tree.

For fifteen years I wrote essays about saying goodbye to collective farms. First, the land was abandoned, everything was destroyed, the cattle were destroyed. But now there is practically no empty land left, the land is all in someone’s hands and is slowly beginning to be cultivated. And despite all the tragedy of what happened, on earth, as in any industry, everything turned out somehow simpler than in morality, language, and literature. Destruction continues here. And start national projects it was necessary from spirituality, from culture, from the revival of the school, from education in in a high sense. I think we'll have to come to our senses.

— Valentin Grigorievich Rasputin spoke about this the other day. Commenting on the project to increase the birth rate, he bitterly said: “Russia needs not just population numbers, not livestock, but full-fledged citizens... Saving for subsequent corruption is not saving at all.”

- Without a doubt this is so. We need to remember about strengthening moral principles, but the authorities are always concerned about strengthening the police, about shackles for us, about prisons in the European style. To a well-mannered person, a worthy citizen of the Fatherland does not need a policeman, but if there is nothing in his soul, then it is ridiculous to rely on the police.

In Stalin and Soviet times, there were dozens of cultural awards, but now they have been reduced to two or three. Last year they didn’t give one in literature. Isn't this a sign?.. The previous government, although not shining in manners and morals, still understood the need for education. “Honestly” by Leonid Panteleev - this short story raised many, many. Now the authorities do not want to understand this and are going to educate the people with bayonets, barbed wire, handcuffs...

- And completely false talk about patriotism.

- Yes, with flags. But real patriotism is that your child does not have snot hanging under his nose, that the river under the window is clean, that there is mutual assistance between neighbors, that children do not rummage through garbage containers, that people have jobs and a decent salary for their work. I’ve been talking about this for a long time, but people accuse me of being down-to-earth. But so it was and so it will be: clean children, clean house, pure soul- here it is, patriotism. In a good family, he goes without saying - without shouting, without noise, without meetings, to the best of his ability.

— Do you see some kind of change in the moral climate thanks to the return of the Church to social life?

- Too much short term to see these changes. So that in ten or fifteen years something suddenly... There cannot be any “suddenly” in the spiritual sphere.

- Judging by your stories, your mother was a believer...

- How could she be a true believer if she was born in 1911? She was both a pioneer and a Komsomol member, but when she got old, she prayed. Maybe grandma's lessons. But her prayers and deeds were the same all her life: eternal concern for us, her children.

The same Komsomol where I was - did they go there for money or for privileges? This also imposed obligations on a person - akin to obedience: help people, be honest... By fulfilling them, a person became kinder and more sympathetic. My mother taught the children to read and write. There was both humanity and God in this. But then there was no church in the lives of most people; it was practically underground. Now there is a church, but it is still so weak that circles of goodness hardly diverge from it. Maybe because the old truth has been forgotten: faith is not in logs, but in ribs. And yet, something has moved, people went to churches, Sunday schools are slowly starting up, and thank God. There are children there. This is the main thing.

Of course, we are in a hurry: the age is short and we want bright things now. But we must understand that change is a long process, and therefore we sometimes repeat with sadness: “It’s just a pity - neither I nor you will have to live in this wonderful time...” But today is also beautiful - look at how the children smile, rejoice and smile in response.

The Tebyakins lived opposite the brigade office, across the road. Natalya herself was listed as a stoker and cleaner at the office. It was very convenient: the salary was solid and the house was at hand. Visiting people, when the office was empty, went to the Tebyakins and asked where to look for a manager, a livestock specialist, or someone else. They were told.

And on this clear January day, a visitor entered the Tebyakins’ yard, looked around, fearing the dog, and shouted from the gate:

- The owners of the house?!

Nobody answered him. The newcomer walked through the yard. The Vasika yard was spacious: the house was covered with tin, next to it was a warm outbuilding kitchen, sheds, and heels. People were swarming around the cattle station. The visitor came closer: the old man and the boy were removing manure, throwing it into a wooden sled with a box. In their lowered trousers, padded jackets, felt boots and galoshes, they worked in silence and did not see the guest.

- You live well! – the visiting man called out to them.

The old man raised his head.

“The mistress of the houses,” he said and ended the conversation, returning to work.

The boy didn’t even look up as he controlled the shovel.

“I brought you a bow from Uncle Levon, from Baba Lena,” said the guest.

The old man straightened up, leaning on his pitchfork, looked as if he had remembered, and answered slowly:

- Thank you. So, they are alive and well... Thank God.

At that moment the hostess came out onto the porch, and the old man called out to her:

- Natalya, face the man!

The boy, leaving the shovel, looked around at the loaded sled and said to his grandfather:

- We're lucky.

He only glanced at the newcomer with an indifferent glance, joining the sleigh team. The rope attached to the sleigh was long, allowing the boy and the old man to harness themselves comfortably. They took the loaded sled at once and pulled it along the packed snow rut to the bottom, into the garden. And the move of the old and the small agreed.

The hostess turned out to be friendly and talkative. In the house, without listening to reasons, she put out tea and snacks, eagerly asking about her relatives.

“The father-in-law is not very talkative,” said the guest.

“An Old Believer,” the hostess justified herself. – They used to be called Kulugurs. They took me, so I’m out of habit...” she laughed, remembering, and, sighing, added thoughtfully: “Baba Manya died among us.” Grandfather is bored, and so is Alyoshka.

We drank tea and talked. The guest remembered about business.

- I came to your office.

- He's on the farm. Alyoshka will take you there. Just come to us for lunch. Vasily will come. He always remembers Uncle Levon and his brothers. From a young age they... - The owner ran out into the yard, shouted to her son and returned. - Look at the manager, don’t come to dinner, come to us, to us. Otherwise Vasily will be offended.

The door opened, the landlady's son came in and asked:

- Did you call, mom?

- You take your uncle to the farm. You will find the government. Understood?

“We’ll take another sled with grandpa,” said the boy.

- Huh, busy... Otherwise, without you... With grandfather...

The son, without answering, turned and left. The mother shook her head and said apologetically:

- Conducts, conducts. Not a child, but a speck of powder in the eye. Kuluguristy... Bycha.

Last word the guest laughed, but as he and the boy walked, he realized that the word was accurate.

The boy spoke calmly: “yes” and “no.” The plump pink sponge protruded forward, the head was large and foreheaded. And he seemed to be nervous, looking incredulously, from under his brows.

- What class are you in?

- In the second.

- How do you study?

- No triples.

– Is there a school in Vikhlyaevka? - the guest asked and looked at the distant Vikhlyaevskaya Mountain, which rose above the surrounding area and now shone with snow.

- In Vikhlyaevka...

– On foot or by car?

“When?” the boy answered evasively.

– Have you been to the regional center?

- Come visit. I have a son who is the same age as you.

The boy was wearing a padded jacket, altered from a military, khaki color, with clear buttons.

- Did your mother sew a quilted jacket?

“Baba,” the boy answered briefly.

“And my grandfather rolled felt boots,” the guest guessed, admiring the neat black wire rods, soft even to look at.

- Well done, your grandfather.

The boy glanced sideways, making it clear that this praise was unnecessary.

The farm stood away from the farmstead, in a white field, blackened with stacks of hay, straw, and silage mounds. The squat buildings were drowning in the snow up to their windows. There are plump, tall hats on the roofs.

Autumn in the area dragged on for a long time, with rain. It wasn't until New Year's that it froze and it snowed for a week. And now it’s clarified. The whitish sun shone without warming. Another day the east wind blew hard. It's chalk below. Lazy drifting snow flowed in smoky streams around the snowy sastrugi.

On the farm, on its bases, there was a din of birds: flocks of sparrows flew from place to place, looking for easy pickings: heavy pigeons rose in a gray cloud, covering the sky, made a circle and descended; talkative magpies chirped; the prim crow sat on the fence poles, patiently waiting.

"Belarus", a blue tractor, snorting smoke, made its way along a deep rut along the bases. From the trailer, through the sleeve, a yellow mess of silage poured into the feeders. Cows hurried to feed, birds flocked.

The boy stopped the tractor and shouted:

- Uncle Kolya! Haven’t you seen the government?!

- In the water heater! – answered the tractor driver. - And father is there.

The last cattle were getting out of the dark caves of the cowshed, from the straw mound that rose in the middle of the base, from under the zagat, where it was quiet, under the wind, warmer and calmer. Now everyone was rushing to the silo, to the food, lining up over the feeders.

The base is empty. And then a red bull appeared in the middle of it. Small, disheveled, covered in icicles, he stood in the snow, his legs spread apart, the thread of his navel almost to the ground, his head lowered, as if sniffing.

The boy noticed him and called:

- Bycha, bycha... Why are you standing here?

Telok raised his head.

“You’re kind of... Mom didn’t lick it, stupid...,” the boy said and stroked the tousled fur.

The bull did not yet look like cattle, everything about him was childish: a soft body, thin, reed-like legs, white, unhardened hooves.

Telok touched the boy's hand with his nose and looked at him with large blue eyes, like Slitheen.

“You’re going to die here, boy,” said the boy. - Where is mommy?

It was difficult to wait for an answer from the chick, especially from such a one. The boy looked back at the newcomer and said:

“We should at least take him to Zagat, it’s warmer there.” Let’s go,” he nudged the chick and felt its fragile flesh.

The heifer swayed and was about to fall, but the boy led him, stumbling on the fossilized, potty ground. He brought the bull and the zagat - a straw wall - and here he released it.

- Just stay here. Understood?

The heifer obediently leaned sideways against the straw.

The boy, followed by the newcomer, left the base, the heifer followed them with his gaze and screamed in a thin bleating voice, stretching his neck.

“Dishkanit,” the boy said, smiling.

Outside the base gate stood a male cattleman with a pitchfork.

-Are you looking for your father? – he asked.

- Management. “Here it is,” the boy answered, pointing to the guest.

- Everything is in the water heater.

“And you have a heifer there,” said the guest.

- Yes... It didn’t seem like yesterday.

- So, she calved. Why don’t you define it anywhere?

The cattleman looked at the guest carefully and said cheerfully:

“Let him get used to it in a day or two, and he’ll get a little tougher.” And then we’ll determine it. That’s it,” he coughed.

The crow, sitting on the fence poles, lazily rose from his loud cough and sat down again.

“Smart bird,” the cattleman laughed and, throwing his pitchfork over his shoulder, went to the barn.

“He’ll die...” the boy said, without looking at the newcomer.

And the water heater was warm and crowded. The fire was humming in the firebox, the cigarette smoke was turning blue, and white and speckled watermelons, their rinds and a couple of slices with scarlet pulp in a puddle of juice lay on the table.

-Where do watermelons come from? - the visitor was surprised. The manager of the department rose from the bench to meet the guest and explained:

“When the silo was being laid, several truckloads of watermelons were dumped there. With melon equipment. And now they opened a hole, and they were really good. Eat.

The boy looked at his father, who understood him and gave him a piece. The guest ate, praising him, then asked the manager:

– Where do you get chicks for the base? You don’t have a lot of milk, do you?

– We are feeding the Yalov ones. And you see... God willing.

- Well, where are you going to take them?

“Where...” the manager chuckled, looking away. - There. Who is waiting for them where? They are considered barren. Try to replay it. And then you yourself don’t know...

“I know,” the visitor lowered his eyes, “but somehow... Still a living soul.”

The manager just shook his head. The boy finished the slice, his father wiped his wet mouth with his palm and said:

- Well, run home.

In freedom, the wind hit my face with coldness. But it was so easy to breathe after the smoke and steam! There was a fresh scent of straw and tart-bearing silage, and there was even a smell of watermelon from the open pit.

The boy went straight to the road, to the house. But suddenly he changed his mind and hurried to the cattle base. There, in the quiet, near the thatched wall of the zagat, the red heifer stood in the same place.

Without thinking twice, the boy approached the hay, the stacks of which rose nearby. In past years, when the domestic cow Zorka gave birth to calves, a boy and his late grandmother Manya looked after them. And he knew what kind of hay the little calf needed, although later. Green, with leaves. They hung it up in a bunch, and the heifer crunched.

It was more difficult to find such hay in a large collective farm stack, but the boy found a bunch or two of green leafy alfalfa and took the heifer.

“Eat,” he said, “eat, living soul...

A living soul... This was the saying of the deceased woman Mani. She pitied all cattle, domestic, stray, wild, and when they reproached her, she justified herself: “But what about... A living soul.”

Telok reached for a bunch of hay and sniffed it noisily. And the boy went home. I remembered the grandmother with whom they always lived, until this fall. Now she lay in the ground, in a snow-covered cemetery. For the boy, Baba Manya remained almost alive for now, because he had known her for a long time and separated recently, and therefore could not yet get used to death.

Now, on the way to the house, he looked at the cemetery: crosses were black in the white field.

And at home, the grandfather had not yet left the base: he was feeding and watering the cattle.

“Grandfather,” the boy asked, “can a heifer live on hay alone?” Small. Just born.

“He needs milk,” answered the grandfather. “Now our Zorka should bring it.” Chick.

“Today,” the boy rejoiced.

“Now,” repeated the grandfather. – You won’t have to sleep at night. Guard.

The cow stood nearby, large, side-chested, and sighed noisily.

And in the house the mother was preparing to welcome the guest: she was rolling out dough for goose noodles, and something was ripe in the oven, the sweet spirit of a hot stove was wafting through the house.

The boy had lunch and ran off to ride from the mound and showed up home only in the evening.

The lights were on in the house. In the upper room, at the table, the newcomer and all his relatives were sitting. Father, mother, grandfather in a new shirt, with a combed beard, aunt and uncle and sisters. The boy quietly entered, undressed, sat down in the kitchen and ate. And only then did they notice him.

“And we didn’t even notice that you came!” – the mother was surprised. - Sit down and have dinner with us.

The boy shook his head and answered briefly:

“I ate,” and went into the back room. He was shy about strangers.

“Wow, and natural,” the mother scolded. - Just an old man.

And the guest just looked at the boy and immediately remembered the calf. He remembered and said, continuing the conversation that had begun:

- Here is a living example. This calf is on the base. After all, the collective farm should be happy with the extra cattle.

“We’ve survived... The owners...” the grandfather shook his head.

And the boy turned on the light in the side room and sat down on the bed with a book. But it wasn't read. Relatives were sitting nearby, across the room, and you could hear them talking and laughing. But it was sad. The boy looked out the dark window and waited for his grandfather to remember him and come. But grandfather did not come. Grandma would come. She would come and bring a delicious cookie, one of those that was on the table. She would come, sit next to her, and you could lie on her lap, caressing and dozing off.

Outside the window the January evening was pouring into a thick blue. The neighboring house, Amochaevsky, seemed to shine from afar, and beyond there was darkness. No village, no surrounding area.

And again I remembered Baba Manya, as if alive. I so wanted to hear her voice, her heavy shuffling gait, and feel her hand. In a kind of daze, the boy got up, went to the window and, looking into the dull blue, called:

- Babanya... Babanya... Babanechka...

He grabbed the window sill with his hands and stared into the darkness with his eyes, waiting. He waited, tears in his eyes. He waited and seemed to see through the darkness a cemetery covered with white snow.

Grandma didn't come. The boy returned to the bed and sat down, now no longer looking anywhere, not expecting anyone. My sister looked into the room. He ordered her:

“Uh-oh, bull...” the sister reproached, but left.

The boy did not hear her, because he suddenly understood clearly: his grandmother would never come. The dead don't come. They will never exist again, it seems they never existed. Summer will come, then winter again... He will finish school, go into the army, but his grandmother will still be gone. She remained lying in a deep grave. And nothing can lift it.

The tears have dried. It seemed easier.

And then I remembered the heifer from the collective farm. He must die tonight. Die and also never come back to life. Other heifers will wait for spring and wait for it. With their tails raised, they will scamper around the melted base. Then summer will come, and it will be completely good: green grass, water, wandering around the pasture, butting heads, playing.

The boy decided everything at once: he would now take the sleigh, bring the bull and place it in the kitchen with the kids. And let him not die, because alive is better than dead.

He slipped into the kitchen, grabbed his clothes and rushed out of the house. The wooden sled with a box was light. And the boy trotted straight to the barns, and then along the smooth, well-worn road from the farmstead to the farm.

The yellow lights of the houses remained behind, and the vaguely white steppe and the sky above opened up ahead.

The moon was already melting, its white horn shone dimly: the well-worn road gleamed, the snow sparkled on the sastrugi. And in the sky the same milky path stretched across the starry field, but icy lights burned brighter than the earth’s, from edge to edge.

Yellow lanterns barnyard and the very timid, squinted windows of the farm illuminated nothing. The light shone brighter from the warm fireplace, where the man was now sitting.

But the boy did not need other people's eyes, and he walked around the cattle station from below, from the river. He felt in his heart that the heifer was now where he had left it, at the gate, under the wall of the zagat.

Telok was there. He no longer stood, but lay leaning against the wall of straw. And his body, cooling down, accepted the cold, and only his heart was still beating weakly in his warm interior.

The boy opened his coat and, hugging the calf, pressed against it, warming it. At first the heifer didn’t understand anything, then he started fidgeting. He smelled his mother, a warm mother who had finally come, and she smelled of a sweet spirit, which a hungry and chilled, but living soul had long been asking for.

Having laid straw on the sled, the boy threw the heifer into the box and covered it with straw on top, keeping it warm. And he moved towards the house. He was in a hurry, in a hurry. People in the house might have caught him.

He drove into the base from the hay barn, out of the darkness, and pulled the calf into the kitchen, to the kids. Smelling a man, the kids stamped, bleated, and rushed to the boy, expecting their mothers to be brought to them. The boy placed the calf near the warm pipe and went out into the yard.

- Well, my dear, come on, come on... Come on, Zoryushka...

- Grandfather! - the boy called.

The grandfather went out to the base with a lantern.

-What do you want?

- Grandfather, I brought a heifer from the farm.

- From what farm? – the grandfather was surprised. -What chick?

- From the collective farm. He would have frozen there by morning. I brought it.

-Who taught you? - Grandfather was confused. - What are you doing? Or have you lost your mind?

The boy looked up at him with questioning eyes and asked:

- Do you want him to die and be dragged around the farm by his dogs? And he is a living soul... yes!

- Wait. Pamorki fought off. What kind of chick is this? Tell me.

The boy told the story of today, the day, and asked again:

- Grandfather, let him live. I'll keep an eye on him. I can handle it.

“Okay,” the grandfather breathed out. - We'll think of something. Oh, father, father, something is wrong. Where is he, heifer?

- In the kitchen, the kids are warming up. He hasn't eaten today.

“Okay,” the grandfather waved his hand, suddenly it seemed to him that he needed it. - Seven troubles... If only Zorka doesn’t let us down. I can handle this myself. And keep quiet. Me myself.

-Where have you been? - asked the mother.

“At the Hats,” he answered her and began to get ready for bed.

He felt that he was getting cold, and when he found himself in bed, he made himself a tight little cave under the blanket, inhaled it until it was hot, and only then leaned out and decided to wait for his grandfather.

But at once he fell into a deep sleep. At first the boy seemed to hear and see everything: the fire in the next room, voices, and the horn of the moon in the upper spike of the window was shining for him. And then everything became foggy, only the white heavenly light became brighter and brighter, and there was a warm smell from there, so familiar and dear that, even without seeing, the boy realized: it was Baba Manya coming. After all, he called her, and she, in a hurry, goes to her grandson.

It was hard to open his eyes, but he opened them, and Baba Mani’s face, bright as the sun, blinded him. She hurried towards him, holding out her hands. She didn't walk, didn't run, she swam across the clear summer day, and next to her was a red heifer.

“Babanya... Bull...,” the boy whispered, and also swam, spreading his arms.

Grandfather returned to the hut while they were still sitting at the table. He entered, stood at the threshold and said:

– Rejoice, owners... Zorka brought two. Heifer and bull.

Everyone was blown out of the table and out of the hut at once. The grandfather grinned after him and walked to his grandson, turning on the light.

The boy was sleeping. Grandfather wanted to turn off the light, but his hand stopped. He stood and looked.

How prettier he is baby face when his sleep overtakes him. Everything of the day, having flown away, leaves no trace. Cares and needs have not yet filled the heart and mind, when night is not salvation, and daytime anxiety slumbers in mournful wrinkles, not going away. All this is ahead. And now the good angel with his soft wing drives away the unsweetened, and golden dreams are dreamed, and children’s faces bloom. And looking at them is a consolation.

Whether it was the light or the footsteps on the porch and in the corridor, the boy was disturbed, he stirred, smacked his lips, rustled: “Granny... Bull...” - and laughed.

Grandfather turned off the electricity and closed the door. Let him sleep.

Two friends live in a forest village.

One of them is tall, broad-shouldered, with a round face, which seemed to have been hit with a charge of buckshot, but the buckshot only made dents on the hard skin and bounced off.

The other is short, bow-legged, with a burr and an impossibly curly head.

Loggers heard the first one only on paydays. Having drunk a liter of vodka, his minimum dose, he began to chant: “There were corpses of glorious sailors sewn up in bags,” and at the same time he looked so sadly somewhere past the people that the cleaning lady, Aunt Sekletinya, began to blow her nose into her apron.

The other one chattered incessantly, spouting jokes and fables.

One of them worked as a tractor driver, the other as a choker maker. The eldest by age and work should have been in charge, but for some reason the second was dominant. He called his tractor driver playfully - Zhora, and he good-naturedly called him - Petrukha.

No one dared to disturb Zhora when, in a sad stupor, he sang a song in a dull, cold voice. Only Petrukha boldly sat down on his bed, hugged his friend’s powerful shoulders and said in a tenor voice: “The sea knew, the waves knew...”

In his sleep, Zhora ground his teeth. People in the hostel, passing by, sighed regretfully, and Aunt Sekletinya took off Zhora’s shoes and sat next to him for a long time, mournfully leaning on her hands.

Zhora was a sailor during the war. The ship on which he sailed was sunk by the Germans in the Baltic Sea. Zhora was wounded and captured. He was treated and shown to a man who patted Zhora on the back like a draft horse, and then clicked his fingers in satisfaction, and Zhora ended up in the mine. Maybe Zhora saw in a dream how a little German boy was jumping up to reach his face with his fist. Maybe he was dreaming of a spring day, the roar of airplanes—his own airplanes! Hearing him, Zhora rushed upstairs, and the overseer, a puny, scrofulous man with a sparrow's breast, blocked the way towards him, babbling angrily. Zhora hit this fascist lackey on the head with a piece of rock, stepped over him and, together with a crowd of prisoners, ran out of the mine into the sun to experience the joy of victory. But he experienced the most bitter insult in his life. He was suspected of treason against his homeland, and against his own will he ended up in the Urals, in a distant timber industry enterprise.

Several years passed until a misunderstanding was discovered and Zhora was restored to her rights and allowed to be called a Soviet citizen.

Closed by nature, Zhora became even more unsociable. Once the lumberjacks tried to question Zhora and tore him away from his sad contemplation of something known only to him. The sailor, instead of talking, suddenly became furious. The hostel was destroyed, its population fled to the nearby forest.

For three days after this incident, Zhora walked like he was scalded. He looked guiltily at people, begged them with his eyes to forgive him, but said nothing. The guys didn't pester him anymore. The girls always avoided him; and now even more so.

In the evening, Zhora sat motionless in the corner of the barracks, watching people boil potatoes, play dominoes, fry the stove until it was red, and write letters. He had nowhere to write and no one to write to.

But then one day he appeared in the barracks new guy, and maybe a little man - it was difficult to determine his age. From a battered soldier's duffel bag, he took out homemade rolls, onions, a slab of lard, and next to all this goodness he tapped half a liter, saying:

“We don’t live sparsely, we get a lot of bread.” We don’t starve our souls, we don’t cook anything!.. Come on, hero lumberjacks, come on! Let's open up this farm in honor of our acquaintance. My name is Petrukha. I am a Vyatka man, from the very province where the people are quick-witted and smart. If, for example, the grass grows in the bathhouse, we don’t mow it, but drag the cow to the bathhouse so that it can be eaten.

While talking, Petrukha moved benches to the table, which looked like bunks, and collected mugs on the bedside tables. With the word: “Just a minute!” - He took a folding knife from the hands of one guy, winked at Aunt Sekletinya and was the first to bring her a treat - a couple of sips at the bottom of the mug. Aunt Sekletinya began to ceremoniously refuse, saying that it was a sin, but Petrukha finally persuaded the old woman, and she became funny, taking a sip of the potion. Aunt Sekletinya waved her arms like a crow's wings, her eyes moved out of their sockets. Petrukha, at the tip of the folder, with politeness, thrust a cube of lard into her helplessly open mouth. The cleaning lady rolled the salt in her buzz-toothed mouth and asked in fear:

End of introductory fragment.

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