Analysis of individual works by E. I

One autumn day, on my way back from a field I was leaving, I caught a cold and fell ill. Fortunately, the fever caught me in county town, at the hotel; I sent for the doctor. Half an hour later the county doctor appeared, a man of small stature, thin and black-haired. He prescribed me the usual diaphoretic, ordered me to put a mustard plaster on, very deftly slipped a five-ruble note under his cuff, and, however, coughed dryly and glanced aside, and was already quite about to go home, but somehow got into a conversation and stayed. The heat tormented me; I foresaw a sleepless night and was glad to chat with kind person. They served tea. My doctor started talking. He was not a stupid fellow, he expressed himself smartly and rather amusingly. Strange things happen in the world: with another person you live together for a long time and are on friendly terms, but you never speak frankly, from the heart with him; you will hardly have time to get to know the other - lo and behold, either you tell him, or he, as if in a confession, blurted out all the ins and outs to you. I don’t know how I earned my new friend’s power of attorney, only he, for no apparent reason, as they say, “took” and told me a rather remarkable case; and here I am now bringing his story to the attention of a benevolent reader. I will try to express myself in the words of a doctor. “You don’t deign to know,” he began in a relaxed and trembling voice (such is the effect of pure Berezovsky tobacco), “you don’t deign to know the local judge, Mylov, Pavel Lukich? .. You don’t know ... Well, it doesn’t matter. (He cleared his throat and rubbed his eyes.) Well, if you please, it was like this, how can I tell you not to lie, in the Great Lent, in the very warm weather. I sit with him, with our judge, and play preference. Our judge good man and play preference hunter. Suddenly (my doctor often used the word: suddenly) they say to me: your man asks you. I say what does he want? They say he brought a note, probably from a patient. Give me a note, I say. So it is: from the sick... Well, all right, this, you understand, is our bread... But here's the thing: a landowner, a widow, writes to me; says, they say, the daughter is dying, come, for the sake of our Lord God himself, and the horses, they say, have been sent for you. Well, that's still nothing ... But she lives twenty miles from the city, and it's night outside, and the roads are such that fa! Yes, and she herself is getting poorer, you can’t expect more than two rubles, and that’s still doubtful, but is it really necessary to use the canvas and some grains. However, duty, you understand, first of all: a person dies. I suddenly hand over the cards to the indispensable member of Kalliopin and go home. I look: there is a cart in front of the porch; peasant horses are pot-bellied, pot-bellied, the wool on them is real felt, and the coachman, for the sake of respect, sits without a hat. Well, I think it’s clear, brother, your gentlemen don’t eat on gold ... You deign to laugh, but I’ll tell you: our brother, poor man, take everything into consideration ... If the coachman sits like a prince, but doesn’t break his hat , and even chuckles from under his beard, and wiggles his whip - feel free to hit two deposits! And here, I see, it doesn't smell like that. However, I think there is nothing to do: duty comes first. I grab the most necessary medicines and set off. Believe me, I barely made it. The road is hellish: streams, snow, mud, waterholes, and then suddenly the dam broke through - trouble! However, I am coming. The house is small, covered with straw. There is light in the windows: to know, they are waiting. I enter. To meet me an old woman, such a respectable one, in a cap. "Save, he says, he dies." I say: "Don't you worry... Where is the patient?" - "Here, please." I look: the room is clean, in the corner there is a lamp, on the bed is a girl of about twenty, unconscious. The heat from her radiates, breathing heavily - fever. Immediately the other two girls, sisters, are frightened, in tears. “Here, they say, yesterday she was completely healthy and ate with appetite; this morning she complained about her head, and in the evening she was suddenly in such a position ... "I again say:" Do not worry, you know, a doctor's duty, - and set about. He bled her, ordered mustard plasters to be put on her, prescribed a mixture. Meanwhile, I look at her, I look, you know, - well, by God, I have never seen such a face before ... a beauty, in a word! Pity understands me. Such pleasant features, eyes ... Here, thank God, she calmed down; sweat came out, as if coming to her senses; She looked around, smiled, ran her hand over her face. .. The sisters bent down to her, asking: “What is wrong with you?” “Nothing,” she says, and she turned away ... I look - she fell asleep. Well, I say, now the patient should be left alone. So we all tiptoed out and went out; the maid was left alone just in case. And in the living room there is already a samovar on the table, and a Jamaican one is right there: in our business it is impossible without it. They gave me tea, they asked me to stay overnight ... I agreed: where to go now! The old woman is groaning. “What are you? I say. “She will be alive, don’t worry, but rather rest yourself: the second hour.” - "Yes, you will order me to wake up, if something happens?" - "I will order, I will order." The old woman set off, and the girls also went to their room; They made a bed for me in the living room. So I lay down - only I can not sleep - what miracles! What, it seems, has suffered. All my sickness does not go crazy with me. Finally, he could not stand it, he suddenly got up; I think I'll go see what the patient is doing? And her bedroom is next to the living room. Well, I got up, quietly opened the door, and my heart was still beating. I look: the maid is sleeping, her mouth is open and she even snores, the beast! and the patient is lying facing me and spreading her arms, poor thing! I approached ... When she suddenly opens her eyes and stares at me! .. “Who is this? who is this?" I got confused. "Don't be frightened, I say, ma'am; I'm a doctor, I've come to see how you feel." - "Are you a doctor?" - “Doctor, doctor ... Your mother was sent for me to the city; we let you bleed, madam; now, if you please, rest, and in a day or two, we will, God willing, put you on your feet. "Ah, yes, yes, doctor, don't let me die... please, please." - "What are you, God bless you!" And she has a fever again, I think to myself; felt the pulse: for sure, fever. She looked at me - and how she would suddenly take my hand. “I'll tell you why I don't want to die, I'll tell you, I'll tell you ... now we are alone; only you, please, no one ... listen ... "I bent down; she moved her lips to my very ear, touching my cheek with her hair—I confess, my head went round—and she began to whisper... I don’t understand anything... Oh, she’s delirious... so nimbly and as if not in Russian, she finished, shuddered, dropped her head on the pillow and shook her finger at me. “Look, doctor, no one ...” Somehow I calmed her down, gave her a drink, woke up the maid and went out. Here the doctor again took a savage sniff of tobacco and was momentarily numb. “However,” he continued, “the next day the patient, contrary to my expectations, did not feel better. I thought, thought, and suddenly decided to stay, although other patients were waiting for me ... And you know, you can’t neglige with this: practice suffers from this. But, firstly, the patient was really in despair; and secondly, I must tell the truth, I myself felt a strong disposition towards her. Besides, I liked the whole family. Although they were poor people, they were educated, one might say, extremely rare ... Their father was a scientist, a writer; he died, of course, in poverty, but he managed to give an excellent upbringing to his children; also left a lot of books. Whether it was because I was diligently busying myself with the patient, or for some other reason, only I, I dare say, was loved in the house as a native ... Meanwhile, the mudslide became terrible: all communications, so to speak, ceased completely; even medicine was delivered from the city with difficulty... The patient did not get better... Day after day, day after day... I would tell you, sir... (He sniffed the tobacco again, grunted and took a sip of tea.) I'll tell you without prejudice, my patient... as if it were... well, she fell in love with me, or something... or no, it’s not that she fell in love ... but, by the way ... really, like this, that, sir ... (The doctor looked down and blushed.) "No," he continued with liveliness, "which one I've fallen in love with!" Finally, you need to know your worth. She was an educated, intelligent, well-read girl, and I even forgot my Latin, one might say, completely. As for the figure (the doctor looked at himself with a smile) also, it seems, there is nothing to brag about. But the Lord God did not make me a fool either: I will not call white black; I laugh at something too. For example, I understood very well that Alexandra Andreevna - her name was Alexandra Andreevna - did not feel love for me, but a friendly, so to speak, disposition, respect, or something. Although she herself, perhaps, was mistaken in this respect, but what was her position, you judge for yourself ... However, - added the doctor, who delivered all these abrupt speeches without taking a breath and with obvious confusion, - I seem , I reported a little ... That way you won’t understand anything ... but, let me tell you everything in order. He finished his glass of tea and spoke in a calmer voice. - Yes, so-and-so. My patient got worse, worse, worse. You are not a doctor, dear sir; you cannot understand what is happening in the soul of our brother, especially at first, when he begins to guess that the disease is overcoming him. Where is the self-confidence going? You will suddenly become so timid that it is impossible to say. So it seems to you that you have forgotten everything that you knew, and that the patient no longer trusts you, and that others are already beginning to notice that you are lost, and reluctantly tell you the symptoms, look askance, whisper ... uh, bad! After all, there is a cure, you think, against this disease, you just have to find it. Isn't that it? Try it - no, it's not! You do not give time for the medicine to work properly ... then you grab on to this, then to that. You used to take a prescription book ... because here it is, you think, here! The right word, sometimes you will reveal at random: maybe, you think, fate ... And meanwhile a person dies; and another doctor would have saved him. A council, you say, is needed; I take no responsibility. And what a fool you look in such cases! Well, you'll get used to it in time, nothing. A person died - not your fault: you acted according to the rules. And then here's what else painfully happens: you see blind trust in you, but you yourself feel that you are not able to help. This is exactly the kind of trust that the whole family of Alexandra Andreevna had in me: they forgot to think that their daughter was in danger. For my part, I assure them, too, that nothing, they say, but at the very soul goes into the heels. To top off the misfortune, such a muddle approached that for medicine for whole days, it happened, the coachman drives. But I don’t leave the sick room, I can’t tear myself away, I tell different, you know, funny jokes, I play cards with her. I spend the night. The old woman thanks me with tears; and I think to myself: "I'm not worth your gratitude." I confess to you frankly - now there is nothing to hide - I fell in love with my patient. And Alexandra Andreevna became attached to me: she used to let no one into her room except me. He will start talking to me, asking me where I studied, how I live, who are my relatives, who do I go to? And I feel that it is not a trace for her to talk; but I can’t forbid her, resolutely that way, you know, I can’t. I used to grab myself by the head: “What are you doing, robber? ..” And then he would take my hand and hold it, look at me, look at me for a long, long time, turn away, sigh and say: “How kind you are!” Her hands are so hot, her eyes are big, languid. “Yes, he says, you are kind, you are a good person, you are not like our neighbors. .. no, you are not like that, you are not like that... How come I didn’t know you until now!” - “Alexandra Andreevna, calm down, I say ... believe me, I feel, I don’t know what I deserved ... just calm down, for God’s sake, calm down ... everything will be fine, you will be healthy.” And meanwhile, I must tell you,” added the doctor, bending forward and raising his eyebrows, “that they didn’t get along with their neighbors much because the small ones were not a match for them, and pride forbade them to know the rich. I tell you: the family was extremely educated, - so, you know, it was flattering to me. From one of my hands she took medicine ... she will rise, poor thing, with my help, she will take it and look at me ... my heart will roll. Meanwhile, she was getting worse and worse: she would die, I think, she would certainly die. Believe me, even lie down in the coffin yourself; and then my mother, sisters are watching, looking into my eyes ... and trust is gone. "What? How?" - "Nothing, sir, nothing!" And what nothing, sir, the mind gets in the way. Here, sir, I was sitting one night, alone again, near the patient. The girl is also sitting here and snoring in all Ivanovo ... Well, it is impossible to recover from the unfortunate girl: she also slowed down. Alexandra Andreevna felt very unwell all evening; the fever tormented her. Until midnight everything was tossing about; finally fell asleep; at least not moving, lying down. The lamp in the corner in front of the image is on. I'm sitting, you know, looking down, dozing too. Suddenly, as if someone had pushed me in the side, I turned around... My God, my God! Alexandra Andreevna is looking at me with all her eyes ... her lips are parted, her cheeks are burning. "What's wrong with you?" “Doctor, am I going to die?” - "God have mercy!" "No, doctor, no, please don't tell me I'll be alive... don't tell me... if you knew... listen, for God's sake don't hide my situation from me! - And she breathes so quickly. “If I know for sure that I must die ... then I will tell you everything, everything!” - "Alexandra Andreevna, have mercy!" “Listen, I haven’t slept at all, I’ve been looking at you for a long time ... for God’s sake ... I believe you, you are a kind person, you fair man I conjure you with everything that is holy in the world - tell me the truth! If you knew how important this is to me ... Doctor, for God's sake tell me, am I in danger? - "What can I tell you, Alexandra Andreevna - have mercy!" "For God's sake, I beg you!" - "I can't hide it from you, Alexandra Andreevna, - you are definitely in danger, but God is merciful ..." - "I will die, I will die ..." And she seemed to be delighted, her face became so cheerful; I was afraid. “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, death doesn’t frighten me at all.” She suddenly got up and leaned on her elbow. “Now ... well, now I can tell you that I am grateful to you from the bottom of my heart, that you are a kind, good person, that I love you ...” I look at her as if she were crazy; I’m terrified, you know ... “Do you hear, I love you ...” - “Alexandra Andreevna, what have I done to deserve it!” “No, no, you don’t understand me... you don’t understand me...” And suddenly she stretched out her hands, grabbed my head and kissed me... Believe me, I almost screamed... hid his knees and head in pillows. She is silent; her fingers tremble in my hair; I hear crying. I began to console her, to assure her... I really don't know what I was saying to her. “I say, wake up the girl, Alexandra Andreevna ... thank you ... believe ... calm down.” “Yes, it’s full, it’s full,” she repeated. — God be with them all; well, they'll wake up, well, they'll come - it's all the same: after all, I'll die ... And why are you shy, what are you afraid of? Raise your head... Or maybe you don't love me, maybe I've been deceived... in that case, excuse me." - "Alexandra Andreevna, what are you saying? .. I love you, Alexandra Andreevna." She looked me straight in the eyes, opened her arms. "So hug me..." I'll tell you frankly: I don't understand how I didn't go crazy that night. I feel that my patient is ruining herself; I see that she is not quite in my memory; I also understand that if she had not considered herself near death, she would not have thought of me; otherwise, if you like, it’s terrifying to die at twenty-five, having loved no one: after all, that’s what tormented her, that’s why, out of desperation, at least grabbed hold of me - do you understand now? Well, she does not let me out of her hands. “Spare me, Alexandra Andreevna, and spare yourself, I say.” - “Why, he says, why regret? After all, I must die ... ”She constantly repeated this. “Now, if I knew that I would stay alive and again get into decent young ladies, I would be ashamed, as if ashamed ... but what?” “Who told you that you were going to die?” “Eh, no, that’s enough, you won’t deceive me, you don’t know how to lie, look at yourself.” - “You will be alive, Alexandra Andreevna, I will cure you; we will ask your mother for a blessing ... we will unite in bonds, we will be happy. “No, no, I took your word from you, I must die ... you promised me ... you told me ...” I was bitter, bitter for many reasons. And judge, these are the things that sometimes happen: it seems nothing, but it hurts. She took it into her head to ask me what my name is, that is, not a surname, but a given name. It's such a misfortune that they call me Tryphon. Yes, yes, yes; Trifon, Trifon Ivanovich. Everyone in the house called me Doctor. I, there is nothing to do, I say: "Tryphon, ma'am." She narrowed her eyes, shook her head, and whispered something in French—oh, something bad—and then she laughed, not good either. So I spent most of the night with her. In the morning he went out, as if mad; went into her room again in the afternoon, after tea. My God, my God! You can’t recognize her: they put her in a coffin more beautifully. I swear on your honor, I don’t understand now, I don’t understand decisively how I withstood this torture. Three days, three nights my sick woman creaked... and what nights! What did she say to me!.. And on the last night, imagine to yourself, I was sitting next to her and I asked God for one thing: clean up, they say, her as soon as possible, and me right there ... Suddenly the old mother - shast into the room ... I already told her the day before, mother, that there is not enough, they say, hope, it’s bad, and a priest would not be bad. The patient, as her mother saw, said: “Well, it’s good that you came ... look at us, we love each other, we gave each other our word.” “What is she, doctor, what is she?” I died. “I’m delirious, I say, fever ...” And she: “Enough, enough, you just told me something completely different, and you accepted the ring from me ... what are you pretending to be? My mother is kind, she will forgive, she will understand, but I am dying - I have nothing to lie; give me your hand...” I jumped up and ran out. The old woman, of course, guessed. “I won’t, however, torment you any longer, and I myself, I confess, find it hard to remember all this. My patient died the next day. The kingdom of heaven to her (added the doctor quickly and with a sigh)! Before her death, she asked her people to come out and leave me alone with her. “Forgive me, he says, I may be to blame for you ... illness ... but, believe me, I have loved no one more than you ... do not forget me ... take care of my ring ... " The doctor turned away; I took his hand. - Eh! he said. Our brother, you know, is not a trace to indulge in such lofty feelings. Our brother, think of one thing: no matter how the children squeal and the wife does not scold. After all, since then I have managed to enter into a legal, as they say, marriage ... Well ... I took the merchant's daughter: seven thousand dowry. Her name is Akulina; Trifon something to match. Baba, I must tell you, she is evil, but she sleeps all day long ... But what about preference? We sat down in preference for a penny. Trifon Ivanovich won two and a half rubles from me and left late, very pleased with his victory.

Evgeny Zamyatin

county

Tale

Source: E. I. Zamyatin; Selected works in two volumes; Volume one. Publishing house: "Fiction", Moscow, 1990. OCR: Alexander Belousenko (belousenko$yahoo.com), 2005.

1. Quadrangular

Father endlessly saws: "Study and study, otherwise you will, like me, sew boots." And how can one study here when it is written first in the journal, and, therefore, as soon as there is a lesson, they immediately pull: - Baryba Anfim. Please, sir. And Anfim Baryba is standing, sweating, pulling his already low forehead to the very eyebrows. - Again, no belmes? A-ah-ah, but you’re a little old, it’s time to get married. Sit down, brother. Baryba sat down. And he sat thoroughly - for two years in the classroom. So, without hurrying, Baryba got to the last one. He was about fifteen years old at that time, or even more. They poured out mustaches like good winter, and ran with other guys to the Streltsy Pond - to watch how the women bathe. And at night after - even if you don’t go to bed: such hot dreams will creep in, such a round dance will lead that ... Baryba will get up in the morning, gloomy and goofing around all day. It will flood into the monastery forest until night. School? Oh, go to hell with it! In the evening, his father will begin to buzz him: "Again he ran away, silly, bastard?" And at least he, quite frantic, will grit his teeth, will not utter a peep. Only all the corners of his marvelous face will appear more prickly. It's true: corners. It was not for nothing that the county boys called him the iron. Heavy iron jaws, a wide, square mouth and a narrow forehead: like an iron, with the spout up. Yes, and all of Baryba is somehow wide, bulky, rumbling, all of hard straight lines and angles. But one thing is so fitted to the other that some kind of harmony seems to come out of the clumsy pieces: maybe wild, maybe terrible, but still a harmony. The guys were afraid of Baryba: the beast, under a heavy hand, will drive into the ground. They teased from around the corner, a mile away. But when Baryba was hungry, they fed him with rolls and immediately amused themselves to their heart's content. - Hey, Baryba, gnaw it for half a roll. And they shoved stones at him, choosing which ones are harder. “It’s not enough,” Baryba grumbles sullenly, “a bun. "Damn it, goon!" - but they will also find a roll. And Baryba will begin to gnaw pebbles for the fun of the guys, grind them with his iron crushers - you know, lay it down! Fun guys, curiosity. Fun with fun, but when the exams came, the amusing people had to sit down for books, even though green May was in the yard. On the eighteenth, for Tsarina Alexandra, according to the law, the exam is the first of the finals. So, one evening, my father put aside his dagger and boots, took off his glasses and said: - You remember this, Anfimka, chop on your nose. If you can’t stand it now, I’ll drive you out of the yard. As if something could be better: three days of preparation. Yes, for sin, the guys started tossing - oh, and an enticing game! Anfimka had no luck for two days, he lost all his capital: seven hryvnias and a new belt with a buckle. At least drown. Yes, on the third day, thank the Lord, he returned everything and even won more than fifty dollars clean. On the eighteenth, of course, Baryba was called first. The uyezdniks don’t googoo, they’re waiting: well, now it’s going to swim, poor fellow. Baryba pulled it out and stared at the white sheet of the ticket. From this whiteness and from fear, I felt a little sick. Gasped somewhere all the words: not a single one. On the first desks, the prompters whispered: - The Tigris and Euphrates ... The garden in which they lived ... Mesopotamia. Me-so-po-ta... Damn deaf! Baryba spoke - one after another began to chip off, like stones, words - heavy, rare. - Adam and Eve. Between the Tigris and... this... Euphrates. Paradise was a huge garden. Where the Mesopotamians lived. And other animals... Pop nodded, as if very affectionately. Baryba cheered up. “Who is this, from the Mesopotamians?” What about Anfim? Explain to us Anfimushka. - Mesopotamians... They are like that. Antediluvian animals. Very predatory. And here they are in paradise. They lived nearby... Pop grunted with laughter and covered himself with his beard turned up, the guys lay down on their desks. Baryba did not go home. I already knew - the father is a correct man, he does not let words go to the wind. What is said, it will do. Unless, besides, it will also shake well with a belt.

2. With dogs

Once upon a time there were Balkashins, respectable merchants, who brewed and brewed malt at their factory, but in the year of cholera they all somehow suddenly tried on. They say somewhere far away big city live their heirs, but that's all do not go. So it grieves, the escheated house is empty. The wooden tower was shattered, the windows boarded up crosswise with boards, weeds settled in the yard. Blind puppies and kittens are thrown over the fence into the Balkashin yard, and stray dogs climb under the fence from the street for prey. This is where Baryba settled. I took a liking to the old cow hood, since the doors are not locked and there are mangers in the hood, knocked together from boards: why not a bed? Grace to Baryba now: you don’t need to study, do whatever comes into your head, bathe until your teeth chatter, for an organ-grinder at least the whole day wander around the plantation, in the monastery forest - day and night. Everything would be fine, but there was soon nothing to eat. Will a ruble of some sort be enough for a long time? Baryba began to go to the market for a living. With clumsy bestial dexterity, long-armed, hiding inside himself and looking out from under his brows, he darted between the white shafts raised up, horses chewing oats, women tirelessly flailing with their tongues: a matryona gaped a little - well, and that's it, Baryba got himself dinner. If he doesn’t take him out to the bazaar, Baryba will run to Streltsy Sloboda. Where on foot, where crawling - prowling on the backs, gumens, vegetable gardens. The pesky smell of wormwood tickles the nostrils, and to sneeze - God forbid: the hostess is out there - out, the bed is flying, and a red scarf dives into the greenery. Baryba picks up potatoes, carrots, bakes at home - in the Balkashin yard, eats, burning himself, without salt - that's kind of like he's full. Not to fat, of course: I would live. No luck, no luck, another day - Baryba sits hungry and wolfish, envious eyes looks at the dogs: they crunch a bone, play with a bone merrily. Baryba looks... Days, weeks, months. Oh, and tired of living with hungry dogs in the Balkashin yard! Zachivrel, stale Baryba, overgrown, blackened; from thinness, the jaws and cheekbones stuck out even more rigidly, the face became even heavier, more square. Run away from dog life. People would be, in a human way something would be: hot tea to drink, sleep under a blanket. There were days - the whole day Baryba lay in his cloak, face down on the straw. There were days - the whole day Baryba rushed around the Balkashin yard, looking for people, something human. In the neighboring Chebotarev yard, in the morning, the people are leather men in leather aprons, carters with leather carts. in the Balkashin yard? The young woman, jumping like a wolf, lies in a bundle towards him, in the straw, and lies. Oh, if he came across these same carriers: he would have them - he would have them. .. Since noon in the Chebotarev yard - knives in the kitchen are knocking, it smells of slaughtered fried. The Indus will shake all over. Baryba at the crack at his fence and will not come off there until they finish dining there. They finish dinner - as if he would feel better too. They finish, and she crawls out into the yard of Chebotarikha herself: red, she sat down, she can’t walk from overfeeding. - Wow ... - iron on iron - Baryba gnashes his teeth. On holidays above the Balkashinsky courtyard, at the top of the lane, the Church of the Intercession rang - and the ringing made Baryba even more fierce. He rings and rings, buzzes in his ears, calls back ... "Why, that's where - to the monastery, to Yevsey!" - it dawned on Baryba with a ringing. Still a small boy, after the flogging, Baryba ran to Yevsey. And always, it used to be, Yevsey would give tea to drink, with monastery pretzels. Drinks - and he himself says, so something, anyhow to console: - Eh, little one! The other day the abbot grabbed me by the holy hair, I even then ... Eh, small ... Are you crying? Cheerful ran to the Baryba monastery: now he had left the Balkashin dogs. - Father Yevsey at home? The novice covered his mouth with his hand and cackled: You won’t find him even with the hounds: he took to drink, father Yevsey is spinning in Sagittarius all week. Yevsey is gone. End, nowhere else. Again to the Balkashinsky yard ...

3. Chickens

After the vigil or after mass, Father Pokrovsky will catch up with Chebotarikha, shake his head and say: - This is not like this, my mother. You need to walk, do prominage. And then, look, the flesh will completely overcome. And Chebotarikha on his ruler will spread like dough, and, pursing his lips, he will say: - It’s impossible, father, the beating of the heart is bizarre. And he rolls Chebotarikha further along the dust, sticking around the ruler - one whole with it, heavy, floating, spring. So, on their feet without wheels, no one saw Chebotarikha on the street. What is closer - to their Chebotarevskaya bath (the tannery and the trading bath were left to her by her husband), and then she went on the line, on Fridays - on a woman's day. And therefore this line is the same, and the gelding is piebald, and the coachman Urvanka is at Chebotarikha in high esteem. And especially Urvanka: curly-haired, strong, devil, and black all over - he was a gypsy, or something. Sooty, squat, wiry, all over like a knot of good rope. It was rumored that he, they say, was not only in the coachmen with Chebotarikha. Yes, they said from under the floor, loudly they were afraid: get caught by him, by Urvanka, - he’ll go crazy, brother, so that ... To beat a man half to death - Urvanka is the first pleasure: therefore - they beat him very was in horse thieves. But Urvanka also had love: he loved horses and chickens. He scratched and scratched horses, used to scratch his mane with his copper comb, otherwise he would start talking to them in some kind of language. Maybe it's true - he was not Christ? And Urvank loved chickens because in the spring they were chickens - yellow, round, soft. Chasing, it used to be, for them all over the yard: ooty-ooty-ooty! He will crawl under the water cart, crawl under the porch on all fours - and he will catch him, put him on his hand - and his first pleasure is to warm the chicken with the spirit. And so that no one saw him at that time. God knows what she was like. So, without looking, and not to imagine: Urvanka is the same - and a chicken. Wonderful! It so happened on Mount Barybino that he also fell in love with Urvankin's chickens: they are very tasty, he got into the habit of carrying them. There is no other, no third, - Urvanka noticed. And where the chickens have disappeared - and he won’t put his mind to it. Did the ferret wind up? After noon, somehow Urvanka lies under the barn in a cart. Zharyn, tends to slumber. The chickens - and then they hid under the shed, sat down in the shade near the wall, closed their eyes thinly, pecked with their noses. And they don't see, poor thing, that the board has been torn off from behind, and is reaching through the hole, a hand is reaching out to them. Tsop - and squealed, numb chicken in Barybin's fist. He jumped up, shouted Urvanka. Instantly jumped over the fence. "Hold him, hold him, hold the thief!" Wild animal run. Baryba ran back, backed into his manger, crawled under the straw, but Urvanka found him there too. He pulled it out and put it on his feet. - Well, you wait for me! I’ll give you - for my chickens ... And dragged me by the collar - to Chebotarikha: let her think up the execution for the thief.

4. Have mercy

The cook, Anisya the fat-faced, drove Chebotarikha away. For what? And for the very thing, so that Urvanka does not roll up. Driven away, and now at least burst. There are no cooks all over the place. I had to take Polka - so, a chilling girl. And in the Church of the Intercession they called for Vespers, this same Polka in the hall half of the chalk, sprinkled with drunk tea, as Chebotarikha taught. And Chebotarikha herself immediately sat on the covered creton sofa and died of boredom, looking into the glass flycatcher: in the flycatcher there was kvass, and flies drowned themselves in kvass out of boredom. Chebotarikha yawned and crossed her mouth. "Oh, Lord, fathers, have mercy ..." And he had mercy: some sort of stomping and uproar in the entrance - and Urvanka shoved Baryba in. Baryba was so taken aback - he saw Chebotarikha's very thing - that he stopped struggling, only his eyes, like mice, darted around in all corners. When Chebotarikha heard about chickens, she boiled up and spattered her with saliva. - On chickens, on God's little girls, did you raise your hand? Oh villain, oh villain! Polyushka, bring a broom. He-si, carry it, and I don’t want to know anything! Urvanka bared his teeth, hit his knee behind him - and in an instant Baryba was on the floor. He had a bite, curled like a snake - but what the hell was he against Urvanka: he spread out, saddled him, immediately tore off Baryba's pants full of holes and waited only for Chebotarihin's word - to begin reprisals. And Chebotarikha - from laughter she could not say a word, such laughter attacked. She opened her eyes forcibly: did they quiet down there on the floor? She opened it - and laughter stumbled, she bent closer to the tense, animal-strong body of Baryba. “Go away, Urvan. Get down, I say, get down! Let me ask him properly…” Chebotarikha did not look at Urvanka, she looked away into a corner. Urvanka slowly got down, on the threshold he turned around and slammed the door with all his might. Baryba jumped up, rushed quickly for his pants: fathers, from the pants there are only tatters! Well, run away without looking back... But Chebotarikha firmly held her hand: - Whose are you, boy, will you be? She still protruded her lower lip, instead of "boy" she said "soap", she still let on airs of importance, but Baryba sensed something else. “I’m a shoemaker ...” and immediately remembered my whole life, whined, howled. “For the exam-amen, my father drove me away, I lived ... to the ball ... To the Balkashi ... Chebotarikha threw up her hands and sang sweetly plaintively: "Ah, you are my orphan, oh, unfortunate one!" From home - a son of his own, huh? The father is also called ... She sang - and dragged Baryba somewhere by the hand, and Baryba walked melancholy-submissively. “...And there is no one to teach you good things. And the enemy is over there: steal and steal the chicken - right? Bedroom. Huge, with a mountain of featherbeds, bed. Icon lamp. The robes of the icons gleam. She shoved Baryba onto some kind of rug: "Get on your knees, get on your knees." Pray, Anfimushka, pray. The Lord is merciful, He will forgive. And I'll forgive... And she settled down somewhere behind, furiously whispered a prayer. Stunned, not moving, stood on his knees Baryba. "Get up, leave. Get up..." - What are you doing, huh? How were you taught to be baptized? - Chebotarikha grabbed Barybina's hand. - Well, like this: on the forehead, on the stomach ... - stuck around from behind, breathed into the neck. Suddenly, unexpectedly for himself, Baryba turned around and, clenching his jaw, thrust his hands deep into something soft, like dough. - Oh, you are like that, huh? Yes, what are you, what is it, huh? Well, so be it, I will sin for you, for the orphan. Baryba drowned in sweet and hot dough. At night, Polka laid out felt for him on a locker in the hallway. Baryba shook his head: well, miracles in the world. Fell asleep full and happy.

5. Life

Yes, it's not like life in the Balkashin yard. On everything ready, in peace, on soft featherbeds, in the rooms heated by the starnovka. All day he wanders in sweet idleness. At dusk, take a nap on a couch next to Vaska, who is purring in all serious ways. There is to hell. Oh life! There is up to the point that it throws you into the heat, up to sweat. There is from morning to evening, put the stomach in the food. That's the way it is with Chebotarikha. In the morning - tea, with baked milk, with rye donuts in the yurag. Chebotarikha in a white night blouse (not very much, however), her head is covered with a scarf. - And what is it all of you in a scarf? says Baryba. - That's what they taught you! Yes, net can a woman with a simple hair walk? Chai, I'm not a girl, it's a sin. Tea, crowned with her husband lived. These are uncovered ones who live, unlucky ones ... Otherwise, what other conversation will be useful for food: about dreams, about a dream book, about Martyn Zadek, about omens and about various dry spells. Back and forth - en, lo and behold, already the twelfth hour. It's time for noon. Jelly, cabbage soup, somovina, otherwise salty carp, fried intestines with buckwheat porridge, offal with horseradish, soaked watermelons and apples, and you never know what else. At noon - you can’t sleep or swim in the river: here it is, the demon of the afternoon - just grab it. And, of course, I want to sleep, the unclean one blazes, catches up with a yawn. Out of green boredom, Baryba will go to the kitchen, to Polka: a fool, a fool, but a person is still alive. He will find a cat there, Polkin's favorite, and let's put him in a boot. Squealing, sodom in the kitchen. The polka, like a mad woman, hovers around. - Anfim Yegorych, Anfim Yegorych, let Vassenka go, for Christ's sake! Anfimka bares her teeth, shoves the cat even deeper. And Polka begs Vassenka: - Vassenka, well, don't cry, well, be patient, baby, be patient! Now, let go now. The cat screams in a heart-rending voice. Polka has round eyes; - Go away, otherwise I’ll kick the very thing with my boot! Baryba launched his boot into the corner with the cat and is pleased, rumbles - rumbles over the potholes with a cart. They ate early, at nine o'clock. Polka will bring food - and sends her to Chebotarih to sleep so that his eyes do not hurt. Then he takes out a decanter from the slide. - Have a bite, Anfimushka, have another drink. They drink silently. The lamp squeaks and smokes subtly. Nobody sees for a long time. "Soot. Would you say?" thinks Baryba. But do not turn the sinking thoughts, do not pronounce. Chebotarikha pours water for him and for herself. Under the fading light of the lamp, her whole face is erased into one dull spot. And only one greedy mouth is visible and screaming - a red wet hole. The whole face is one mouth. And the smell of her sweaty, sticky body is getting closer to Baryba. For a long time, slowly the lamp dies in anguish. Black soot snow flies in the dining room. Stench. And in the bedroom - a lamp, flickering foil riza. The bed is open, and Chebotarikha bows on the rug beside him. And Baryba knows: the more bows, the more ardently she atones for sins, the longer she will torment him at night. "I would like to hide somewhere, climb into some crack like a cockroach" ... But there is nowhere: the doors are closed, the window is sealed with darkness. Not easy, to be sure, Baryba's service. But on the other hand, there is more and more Chebotarikha in him, day by day, he does not like the soul. He took such strength that only Chebotarikha now has thoughts of how else to appease Anfimushka. - Anfimushka, eat another plate ... - Oh, and something to be ashamed of in the yard none! Anfimushka, let me tie a scarf for you, huh? - Anfimushka, ah, does your stomach hurt again? Here are the sins! On-mowing, here is vodka with mustard and salt, drink it - the first remedy. Bottle-boots, a silver watch on a neck chain, new rubber galoshes - and Baryba walks like a market in the Chebotarev yard, setting up routines. - Hey, you, hamai, gouge-eater, where did you dump the skins? Where are you ordered? You look - and fined seven rubles, and the peasant already crumples his holey cap, and bows. Only one a mile away and bypasses Baryba - Urvanka. And then, after all, Chebotarikha will sometimes get the most. He endures, endures, and sometimes such a lucky night ... The next morning everything is muddy, he would have fled to the ends of the world. Baryba will be locked up in the hall, and he rambles, and rambles, as in a cage. Chebotarikha will settle down, quiet down. Calling Polka. “Polyushka, come and see how he is there?” And then call for dinner. Runs, giggling, Polka back: - Naydet. Angry, angry, and-and, so across the floor and walk! And he is waiting for Chebotarikha with dinner for an hour or two. And if he waits with dinner, if he breaks the holy dinner hour, that means ...

6. In the Churilovsky tavern

Baryba got bouncy in the clerk's position and on good bread. The postman Chernobylnikov, an old acquaintance, met him at Dvoryanskaya Street, spreading his hands so straight: - And you won’t know. Look what a merchant! He envied Baryba Chernobylnikov: the guy lives well. After all, but apparently, Baryba should sprinkle, treat his friends in a tavern: what is he worth to get rich? Persuaded, flattered the little one. By seven o'clock, as agreed, Baryba came to the Churilovsky tavern. Well, what a fun place, oh my God! Noise, noise, lights. Sexual whites sniffle, drunken voices flicker in the spokes of the wheel. Baryba's head was spinning, he was taken aback, and there was no way to find Chernobylnikov. And Chernobylnikov is already shouting from afar: - Hey, merchant, come here! Postman's buttons gleam at Chernobylnikov. And next to him some other little man. A small, sharp-nosed one, he sits - and it’s not like he’s sitting on a chair, but jumping on a perch like a sparrow. Chernobylnikov nodded at the sparrow: - This is Timosha, the tailor. Talkative. Timosha smiled - lit a warm lamp on his sharp face: - A tailor, yes. I change my brain. The lady opened her mouth, wanted to ask, but was pushed in the shoulder from behind. The floorman, with the tray out at the very head, was already putting the beer on the table. There was a roar, voices were confused, and above all stood one - a red-haired tradesman, a maklak of a horse, yelling: - Mitka, hey, Mitka, skugarevaya head, can you bring ah no? And he sang again: For you, the street is wide, Last time I'm going ... Timosha found out that he was from the district Baryb, he was delighted. - This priest himself, then, planted a pig for you? Well, well, I know him, I know. Shival to him. Yes, he does not love me, passion! Why don't you love something? - And for my conversations are different. The other day I say to him: “How is it, they say, our saints in the next world, will be in paradise? Timothy is merciful, my angel and patron, he will see how I will roast in hell, and paradise apple will it take? These are the many-merciful, these are the holy soul! And not to see me, not to know - he cannot, according to the catechism he must. "Well, the priest shut up, did not know what to say. - Cleverly!" Baryba neighed, rumbled, laughed. - pop me says it's better I did good deeds, than to wag my tongue like that. ”And I told him:“ Why, I say, should I do good deeds? I'd rather be evil. Evil ones are more beneficial for my neighbors, therefore, according to the Gospel, for my evil the Lord God will reward them a hundredfold with good in the next world ... "Oh, and the priest cursed! If only Timosha would have loved it for this, for having finished his priest so cleverly - he would have fallen in love, but Baryba was heavy, steeply fermented, it was impossible to twist him for love. a hairy fist thumped on the table. The tradesman yelled: "Well, tell me? Well, tell me again? Well, well, well? Some long-necked big man wriggled out of the dump, went up to the table, greeted Chernobylnikov, held his cap with a cockade under his arm. scornful lips. He sat down. On Timosha and Baryba - zero attention. He spoke with Chernobylnikov: the postman is still like an official. Timosha, without hesitation, explained aloud to Baryba: - He is the treasurer's son-in-law. The treasurer married him to his last, an overstay, and arranged a place for him, a clerk in the treasury - well, he puffs up. The son-in-law of the treasury did not seem to be listening and spoke even louder to Chernobylnikov: “And after the audit, they introduced him to the provincial secretary ... Chernobylnikov respectfully held out: “To Gubernia?” Timosha became unbearable - he got into the conversation. “Postman, Chernobylnikov, do you remember how the other day the district police officer from the nobility… shoved him out in the same place?” - I would ask ... Pok, I would very much ask! said the treasurer's son-in-law fiercely. And Timosha kept saying: - "... But you won't go!" - "An I'll go!" Well, word for word - about a bet. He got into the nobility. And on billiards, just the treasurer with the police officer played. Our dandy - to the father-in-law: he whispered in his ear, as if he had come for some business. Yes, he stayed there. And the police officer began to aim with a cue, kept backing away, backing away, and as if by chance he pushed him out like that, in the same place. Oh, my God, that was laughter! Baryb and Chernobylnikov burst out laughing. The treasurer's son-in-law got up and left without looking. “Well, we’ll make up again,” Timosha said. “And the kid was nothing. And now there is a cockade on the forehead, and a bard on the forehead.

7. Orange tree

Polka, the barefoot fool, has only one window in the kitchen, and the glass has bloomed on that one, it has become infected with old age. And on the window at Polka is a jar. I planted - a long time ago, about half a year - an orange seed in this Polka jar. And now, look, a whole tree has already grown: one, two, three, four leaves, tiny, glossy. He pushes around in the kitchen, rattles Polka with pots - and again he will come to the tree, sniffing the leaves. - Wonderful. There was grain, but ... I took care of it. Someone said that, they say, this is good for growth - she began to water the tree with soup, if there was left over from dinner. Since Baryba returned late from the tavern, he got up in the morning stingy, squeamish, took a sip of tea - and now go to the kitchen to take his soul away. Now Polka called him nothing more than a gentleman: very flattering. The polka was just at her window fussing, near the dear tree. -- Where is a cat? Polka, without turning around, swarmed. Shy, she answered: - They, master, left. Yes, somewhere in the yard, probably, where else? - What are you doing there? Silenced, srobela, silent. Saucer with soup in hand. - Soo-upom? Are you watering the grass? That's why you're given soup, are you such a fool? Now give it here! - Well, it's orange, master ... Polka fluttered with fear: oh, and what will happen now? - I'll show you the orange! Soup water, fool, huh? Baryba grabbed a jar of oranges. The polka roared. Yes, what is there for a long time with her, a fool, to get excited? He grabbed a tree by the roots and out of the window, and put the jar in its place. Very simple. The polka roared loudly, the dirty streaks were inherited from the tears on her face, she lamented like a woman: - My Pelsin, y-y, father, but how can I be without you ... Baryba merrily gave her a couple from behind, and she rolled out out the door, across the yard - yes, straight into the cellar. He gnawed some stone, right here, with Polka, with this orange - and he immediately felt better. Baryba bared his teeth, got drunk. I saw through the window how Polka went down to the cellar. Some kind of millstone turned slowly in his head - and suddenly his heart began to pound. He went out into the yard, looked around and darted into the cellar. He closed the door tightly behind him. After the sun - yes into the darkness: completely blind. He rummaged along the damp walls, stumbling: "Polka, where are you?" Where are you, stupid, sneezing? You can hear Polka squishing somewhere, whimpering, but where ... Musty, grave, damp. He felt with his hands on potatoes, tubs, knocked down a wooden circle from some kind of lid. Here she is, Polka: sitting on a pile of potatoes, smearing her tears. Some kind of tiny hole at the top - one sly, squinting ray crawled through and cut off a piece of Polka's braid with a rag ribbon, fingers, dirty cheek. - Waking up, waking up, don't cry, dry up! Baryba lightly leaned on her, and she fell down. She moved obediently and was all over, like a rag doll. It just whimpered more and more. His mouth was dry, Baryba's tongue was barely moving. Weaved something - so as to occupy her head, to distract her from what he was doing: - Yes, you see, what a thing, an orange! And you and roar? We'll buy you rubbish instead of orange, let's say it... Rubbish is... it's the most... spirited... Polka was shaking all over and whimpering, and this had its own special sweetness to Baryba. - Yes, so-so! Roar now, well, roar with might and main, - Baryba kept saying. Removed the polka. He himself remained still, stretched out on a pile of potatoes, resting. Suddenly Baryba smiled from ear to ear, pleased. He said aloud to Chebotarikha: - What, old featherbed, did you eat, huh? And showed in the dark the fig. He left the cellar, closed his eyes: the sun. He looked under the barn: Urvanka was busy there, with his back to him.

8. Timosha

We sat in a tavern for tea. Timosha kept looking at Baryba. - Uncomfortable you some, I'll have a look. They must have beaten you, that's how. “Bivali, of course,” laughed Baryba. It was even flattering: they beat me - and now come on, show yourself. - That's what you came out like, darling. You have souls, consciences - exactly like a chicken ... And he started his own - about God: there is no, they say, Him, but everything turns out, one must live in God's way; both faith and books. It was unusual for Baryba to grind so much with his millstone, Timoshina's tricky words tormented him. But he listened - a heavy cart dragged after Timosha. Whom to listen to if not Timosha: the head is a guy. And Timosha had already reached his very point, to the main thing: - Here, it will seem sometimes - there is. And again you turn, you estimate - and again there is nothing. Nothing: no God, no earth, no water - only swell under heaven. One visibility only. Timosha turned his head like a sparrow, something was throbbing. - One vision. Get to that point, oh! No, but with one nothing of this eye to eye to live, to feed on the air. Here, brother ... And I saw that Baryba had already lost his way, lagged behind, stumbled. Timosha waved his hand: - Eh, what! You don't need it, you live like a womb... You have an edible God. We left the tavern. June night, not hot, smells of linden, crickets in the grass are flooded. And Timosha was shaking himself in cotton wool, well, what an eccentric! - What are you, Timosha, kutafya kutafya? - Oh, yes! I wouldn't ask. Tu-ber-ku-loz, brother. So Fershal in the hospital said. To catch a cold - not my God. "Look, he's such a badass," and Baryba somehow suddenly sensed the heaviness of his bestial, strong body. He walked heavily contented: it was pleasant to step on the ground, trample the ground, crush it - so! Like this! At Timosha's, in a little room with tattered wallpaper, three guys, freckled, with sharp noses, were sitting at an unpainted table. - Where is mother? shouted Timosha. “She went to the zemstvo, they came,” the girl said timidly. And she began to put on half boots in the corner: it was embarrassing to be barefoot, some stranger had come. Timosha frowned. - Come on kulesh, Fenka. Yes, bring a bottle from the exit. “Mother didn’t order a bottle. - I'll give you a mother. Live, live! Sit down, Barry. We sat at the table. Upstairs a lamp squealed thinly, its tin lampshade hung with dead flies. Fenka from the bowl began to pour kulesh into the dugout for the guys. Timosha shouted at her: "What's that?" Are you rowing your father? Does the mother teach everything? Well, I'll teach her, let her, she'll come here! Hanging around ... The guys began to sip from a common bowl, not willingly, dejectedly. Timosha giggled crookedly and said to Baryba: “I am tempting the Lord God. In the hospital they say - she is, they say, sticky, consumption. Well, here, and I'll see: will it stick to the guys, oh no? Will rise from him, from the Lord God, a hand on the foolish guys - will rise oh no? There was a slight knock on the window, timidly. Timosha hurriedly flung open the frame and sang venomously: And then to Baryba: - Well, brother, pack your belongings. There is nothing else for you to see here. This is where things get serious.

9. Ilyin's day

Under Ilyin’s day, the evening is special, and the blessing is its own special: in the cathedral there is a throne, in a monastery there is a throne, cooks in all houses bake pies for tomorrow, and in the sky Ilya the prophet prepares thunders. And the sky under Ilyin’s day is what: clean and quiet, as in a hut, washed for the holiday. Everyone is hurrying to their churches: God forbid you be late for Ilyin's troparion, tears will flow all year like rain, laid down on Ilyin's day from time immemorial. Well, it’s someone who will be late, but not only Chebotarikha, she is the first pilgrimage in the Church of the Intercession. In-he, ahead of time, harnessed Urvank's horses. Harnessed, walks around the yard - just past the cellar. Look, the door is open. Urvanka growled: - Look, the devils, and the door has been loosened. People go to pray to God, and they - come on. Coolers! And salted a word stronger. I wanted to close the door, but no. He stood and smiled. He came to report to Chebotarikha: everything, they say, is ready. “Just allow me to ask you to go out through the back door...” and Urvanka tied a smile on his sooty face with a knot: go ahead, figure out what it means. "You're being smart about something, Urvanka!" said Chebotarikha. However, she swam, rustling in a silk, brown dress with flowers. She went down the stairs, panting. Passed by the cellar. “The door should have been closed, I guess. Tell them everything and show them ... - Chebotarikha is a sedate, economic woman, but will such an open door pass calmly? Although it is not necessary, it will close. - And how about them, will you order to lock them up there? - Who is - them? - How whom? And Anfim Yegorych with Polka? Chat, and would they need to go to vigil under Ilyin one day? "You're lying, you bastard!" I don’t believe in life that Anfimka is with her ... - Yes, Ilya will strike me with thunder tomorrow, if I’m lying. - Well, cross yourself? Urvanka crossed himself. It turned out to be true. Chebotarikha turned white and trembled like a dough swollen to the very brim of the bowl. Urvanka thought: "Well, howl." No, I remembered, you can see that she is wearing a silk dress. She puffed out her lip and said, as if nothing of the kind had happened: - Urvan, close the door. It's time for us, it's time for the church. - Listen, mother. He clicked the bolt, untied the horses, Chebotarihin's famous line became dusty along the way. Chebotarikha stood, as always, in front, by the right kliros. She folded her hands on her stomach and rested her eyes on one point, on the deacon's right boot. A piece of paper stuck to his boot, the deacon stood in front of Chebotarikha on the pulpit, and the piece of paper did not give him rest. "The sick and the suffering." .. And me, therefore, suffering. Oh, you, Lord, well, Anfimka is a scoundrel! She bowed to the ground, and a piece of paper on her boot - here it is, and flickers before her eyes. The deacon is gone - even worse: the damned Anfimka is gone from his head. And she was grooming him, huh? Only during "Praise" Chebotarikha did she have a little fun, she forgot about Baryba a little. No, what is it like: deacon’s Olgunya, educated, is standing like a pillar! Here it is, education, everything in its own way, not like everyone else. No, no, you need to sing about it to the deacon ... The watchman in a retired soldier's uniform was extinguishing candles in the church. The deacon brought Chebotarikha a loaf of bread on a plate: she was an exemplary parishioner, God-fearing, and she paid well. Chebotarikha pulled him by the sleeve and whispered about Olgunya in his ear for a long time and shook her head. Urvanka leaned forward and pushed back the bolt. Baryba jumped out as if scalded. "Please, have some tea," said Urvanka, grinning. "Didn't you say so?" thought Baryba. Chebotarikha was sitting in a standing silk dress, breaking into pieces the bread brought by the deacon and swallowing it like pills, very loudly: who chews holy bread? "Well, I should have told you sooner," waited Baryba, his heart fluttering and aching. - For tea, maybe, melted milk to order to bring? said Chebotarikha, as if kindly. "Is he bullied or? Or maybe he really doesn't know?" “Where can you find her, Polka, now?” Kurguzit begins, hung up a girl. You, Anfimushka, would look after her. So, simply, as if nothing at all, Chebotarikha told herself, she swallowed the bread piece by piece, swept the crumbs she had taken from the table and poured it into her mouth. "But he doesn't know how holy God is," suddenly Baryba became convinced. He cheered up, smiled with his square smile, neighed - he told how this fool Polka was watering the orange tree with soup. The sun was setting copper, ardent: Ilya will set a thunderstorm tomorrow. Aleli white cups, plates on the table. Chebotarikha sat pompous, silent, and did not smile even once. Baryba merrily bowed in the bedroom, next to Chebotarikha, and thanked some unknown saints: it passed, it passed, Urvanka did not say! The lamp went out. The night is stuffy, heavy under Ilyin's day. In the darkness of the bedroom - a greedy, gaping, drinking mouth - and the rapid breathing of a hunted beast. Baryba's heart stopped beating, green circles fidgeted before his eyes, and his hair stuck together on his forehead. - What are you, or are you crazy? he said, disentangling himself from her body. But she stuck around like a spider. - No, no, dear, no, no, my friend! You won't leave, no! And she tormented him with evil caresses, invisible and incomprehensible in the dark, and sobbed herself: she wetted Baryba's whole face with tears. Until morning. Through stone dream Baryba heard the bell - to Ilyinsky mass. In a dream, he heard some kind of singing and tossed and turned petrified thoughts, trying to figure it out. But he woke up only when they finished singing. Jumped up immediately as if tousled. "Why, it's the priests who sang a prayer service in the hall!" Dressed, eyes stuck together, someone else's head. The pops are already gone. Chebotarikha was sitting alone in the hall, on a Creton sofa. She was again in a silk, bast standing dress and in a lace front cap. - Overslept the prayer service of Ilinskaya, huh? Anfim Yegorych? Maybe because it was true - he overslept and it was already about noon, or maybe because there was a smell of incense in the room - Baryba felt awkward somehow, not at ease. "Sit down, Anfim Yegorych, sit down, we'll talk." She paused. Then she closed her eyes and made her face, as if it were not a face, but just like a rich pie. Head on one side - and in a sweet voice: - So, our sins are grave. And don't beg them. And in the next world - He, father, will remember everything, He, father, will smoke all the sulfuric dope in Gehenna. The barbarian was silent. "And where is she oppressing?" Suddenly Chebotarikha widened her eyes with might and main and, spraying saliva, shouted: Ay, you think I don't know anything about your tricks with Polka? To spoil a girl, you kind of depraved bastard - do you care? Dumbfounded, Baryba, silently, moved his jaws and thought: "But yesterday a pig was slaughtered - this, I suppose, is now for dinner." Chebotarikha was completely boiled over by Barybin's silence. She stomped, sitting, with her feet. "Get out, get out of my house!" Underground snake! I warmed him on the pile, the brat, and he - on-mow! To Polka - that's me, huh? Not understanding, unable to turn around the flooded thoughts, Baryba sat, as if buried, silently. I looked at Chebotarikha. "Look, how it burbles, it burbles, huh?" He came to his senses when Urvanka entered the hall and said to him with a cheerful smile: “Well, nothing, brother, nothing. Get lost. It's yours here, brother, there's nothing. And he pulled a cap on Baryba from behind. Before the Ilyinsky thunderstorm the sun burned. They waited - sparrows, trees, stones. Dried up, languished. Baryba, crazy, staggered around the city, sat down on all the benches along Dvoryanskaya. - Now what's next, huh? What now? Where? He shook his head and still couldn’t shake it off: the Balkashin yard, the manger, the hungry dogs fight over the bone ... Then he wandered along some back streets, along the green ant. A water carrier was passing by, one of the wheels jumped off, the tire rang. Baryba sensed that he was really thirsty, after all. Asked for a drink. And from the north, from the monastery, a cloud had already settled, breaking the sky into two halves: blue, cheerful, and blue, terrible. Blue kept growing, puffy. Somehow, not remembering himself, Baryba found himself under a canopy, at the Churilov tavern in the entrance. poured rain; some women huddled in the entrance, their hemlines pulled up over their heads; roared Ilya. Eh, it doesn't matter - go ahead, rattle, pour! Of course, somehow it turned out that Baryba went to spend the night with Timosha. And Timosha was not even the least bit surprised, as if every day Baryba went to spend the night with him.

10. Twilight in the cell

In the summer at four o'clock - the deadest time in our places. None of the good people will stick their nose out into the street: the fry is utter. The shutters are all closed, with a full womb he sleeps sweetly after dinner. Some whirlwinds, gray, dance like midday demons along the empty streets. A postman will come up to the gate, knock, knock. No, don't be angry: they won't open it. Inconstant, staggering, Baryba wanders at this time. It's like he doesn't even know where. And the legs are carried - to the monastery. And where else? From Timosha to Yevsey in the monastery, from Yevsey to Timosha. The wall is jagged, overgrown with moss. A booth, like a dog's, by the iron-studded gate. And out of the booth comes out, grimacing, with a mug Arsentyushka, blessed - a dance with him - a goalkeeper, collecting donations, obsessive. - Look, stuck, nayyy! Baryba put a semitka for him and walked along the white heated slabs, past the graves of eminent citizens behind gilded bars. Eminent people loved to be buried here: it is flattering for everyone to lie in a monastery, and so that day and night the angelic ranks pray for him. Baryba knocked on Evseev's cell. No one answered. He opened the door. At the table without cassocks, in only white trousers and shirts, sat two: Yevsey and Innokenty. Yevsey hissed at Baryba savagely: shhh! And again he stared, unblinking, full-bodied, glass-eyed, into his glass of tea. And Innokenty, a lip-slapped woman with a mustache, froze over his glass. The young lady at the lintel stopped, looked, looked: but what are they, crazy, or what? At the other lintel stood Savka the novice: oily, straight stick-hair, red, crayfish hands. Savka snorted deferentially to the side: Duck, a fly will sit in a glass to Father Yevsey. Oh, don't you see? Understanding nothing, Baryba slapped his eyes. -- Duck, how? This is their most daring game. Pyatak, there, they put a dime - and they wait, and they wait. Whoever gets a fly in a glass first to the father - that, therefore, won. Savka wants to indulge with worldly things. He says, all the time closing his mouth with a huge red hand out of respect: - Look at it, look at it, Father Yevsey. Yevsey, gray-haired, plump, leaned over to the glass, his mouth snarled wider and wider, and suddenly slammed, slapped his knee with his hand: Here she is, dove! My stud! -- and fished a fly out of the glass with his finger. Frightened off because it was a fly, then mother. He came closer to Baryba, stared with his glassy eyes, zabubuk: - And we, little one, did not expect to see you. Heard, he became completely blandachryst. They thought the woman would beat you to death. After all, Chebotarikha, she is a woman - I will give you, greedy! He made Baryba sit down to drink tea, he finished drinking the glass himself, from which he caught the mother fly. What is a meeting without green wine? Yevsey put the pigtail on the table. Savka brought in a second samovar. On the table are copper coins, a Psalter, pretzels, glasses with broken stems. Innokenty was somewhat upset after the vodka, his eyes were stuck together, every now and then he laid his head on the table, propping it up with his fist. Pitifully suddenly began to sing "Quiet Light". Yevsey and Savka pulled up. Savka sang in a bass voice, clearing his throat to the side and covering his mouth with his red hand. Baryba thought: "Oh, it's all the same!" - and also began to howl sadly. Suddenly Yevsey broke off and yelled: Stop - I'm telling you! And Savka was still pulling. Yevsey rushed to him, grabbed him by the throat and pressed him against the back of a chair, a half-witted savage. Suffocate. Innokenty got up, hunched over, walked up behind Yevsey with old woman's steps and tickled his armpits. Yevsey laughed, gurgled, waved his arms like a drunken windmill, let Savka go. Then he sat down on the floor and sang: On-a grief a cripple sits, Killed a man with something ... Everyone, silently, diligently pulled up, as before - "Quiet Light." It grew dark, merged, everything swayed in the drunken cell. The fire was not lit. Innokenty whined and molested everyone, shabby - an old woman with a mustache and a gray beard. It was said to him that he choked on something. It got stuck in the throat, and nothing more. Kolupal-kolupal finger: does not help: - Well, try you, Savushka, dear, with your finger? Maybe you will feel it. Savushka climbed in, then wiped his finger on the floor of his cassock. “Nothing, your reverence, no. So it is, a drunken demon blazes. Yevsey crouched down on the bed and lay like that for a long time, neither hearing nor breath. Then he suddenly jumped up, shaking his shaggy hair. - For me, guys, in Sagittarius, etta, now wave. For the joys of others. Little baryba, how are you? Money would only be intercepted where. Have a cellar? How, Savka, huh? Unseen, Savka neighed at the door. Baryba thought: "Well, he'll probably get away. I wish I could forget everything." "If you give it back tomorrow ... I have a little money, the last," he said to Yevsey. Yevsey cheered up, shook his head like a merry dog, and bulged out his glassy eyes. - Yes, I, before the True one, tomorrow I will give it, I have it, but only hidden far away. The four of us walked past the graves. The half-dead moon blinked from behind a cloud. Innokenty got his cassock caught on the bars, flinched, crossed himself, turned back. Three climbed over the wall on purpose, for the move, broken bricks.

11. Brokar's jar

Here it is again, a very hot, dense afternoon. White slabs on the monastery path. Linden alley, the buzzing of bees. Yevsey is in front, in a black hood, with fermented tufts: now it is his turn to serve Vespers. And behind - Baryba. He goes, yes, no, no, and again dissolves, like a gate, his quadrangular smile. “It hurts you, Yevsey, in a klobuk something wonderful and unattractive. A buckwheat would be for you a peasant or a hat, where it would be nicer. - Yes, I, small, and then - I wanted to become a cadet, but I got drunk inadvertently. Here under the monastery and pleased. Oh, Yevsey! What a red-faced, blue-nosed Cossack captain would come out of you. Or a parish clerk, a drunkard, familiar to the peasants. But, come on, by the will of God ... - And how did you, Yevsey, skate the dance yesterday in Sagittarius, huh? They entered the monks, they bought samovars. Yevsey grinned, shrugged his shoulders. No, in this woman's outfit - where is it. Yesterday - this is it: he girded his shirt with a rope in a rustic way, under the very armpits, dyed white trousers with blue stripes, a red beard with a shovel, the eyeballs of that and look pop out - a real village leshak, and dance dodger. The archery girls laughed a lot! They came. Baryba stood for a moment at the old church doors. Yevsey came out and beckoned with his finger. Well, go, little one, go. Nobody there. The watchman - and then went somewhere. A low, old, wise church - in the name of ancient Elijah. She saw the views: she defended herself from the Tatars, served in it, they say, boyar Fyodor Romanov, in monasticism Filaret, was passing by. Old linden trees look through the latticed windows. He thumps, makes noise, does not stop, and then Yevsey, the captain in the hood. Old, thin, big-eyed saints huddle along the walls - from waving his arms, bearded, loud Yevsey. Yevsey knelt down and groped under the altar. "Tuta," he said, and brought a dusty jar of Brocard's lipstick into the light. He uncorked, leafed through, slobbering, quarter notes. Baryba stirred restlessly with his iron. "Oh, the devil! A dozen, or even more. And why are they for him?" Yevsey put down one piece of paper. - And the rest - either I’ll leave it for the remembrance of the soul, or else, etta, somehow I’ll take it all away and give it to the archery girls for singing. White slabs of the monastery path. Bees buzz in old lindens. A heavy ringing turns a drunken head. "And why are they for him?" thinks Baryba.

12. Old nun

On a stone stool warm from the sun, near the Elias Church, an old nun is sitting. His duckweed faded, turned green, his gray beard turned green, his hands and face were covered. It lay here somewhere, like a treasure, under an old oak, they dug it up - they took it and planted it here in the sun to bask. - How old are you, grandpa? asks Baryba. “Oh, honey, I forgot. Yes, here is your Tikhon Zadonsky, I remember. Father served well, earnestly. Baryba keeps spinning around the green-faced nun, everything clings to him. Oh, no wonder! - Let's go, grandfather, to the church, I'll help you sweep. And they walk under dark cool vaults. Lovingly removes the nuns of his old church, whispers with the saints. The candle will light up - and it will become, admiring, glimmering in front of it. "Blow, that's it - and the candle and the nuns will go out," thinks Baryba. He follows the nun in the footsteps: he will give one thing, he will hold the other. Fell in love with Baryba nuns. The people have now gone to the infidel, they have forgotten all the old, there is no one to say a word with. And this one... - Grandfather, but it's scary, I suppose, at night alone in a church? - And-and what are you, Christ with you, is it scary with her, dear? - Grandfather, let me spend the night with you? He speaks sternly from the deep hollow of his nuns: “I spent the night with her one on one for forty years. And no one can fly around and spend the night in it. You never know what's in the church at night ... Take care of her, take care, jealous. True, you never know what in the night old church? "Okay, I'll wait," - and Baryba follows. During the vigil under Tikhon of Zadonsk, the old nun got tired of it. The people were innumerable. Then they cleaned up, cleaned up with Baryba, ended by force. He looked at the nuns at all the doors, checked all the rusty locks, and sat down for a moment to rest. He sat down - and the dilapidated went out, fell asleep. Baryba waited, coughed. He came up, touched the sleeve of the nun - he was sleeping. Hurry up to the altar, and well - to rummage under the throne. Fumbled - fumbled: found. The old nun is fast asleep - he is already accustomed to sleep in the sleep of death. The old nun heard nothing.

Dvoryanskaya ends, the last rundown stalls and lanterns. And further on - Streltsy Pond, old vines all around, a mossy slippery raft, knocking, bending down, women rolls, ducklings dive. At the very pond, on the Streltsy Sloboda side, Aprosin's hut sat down. Wow, warm, dry. Sheared thatched roof under the bracket, windows made of glass blooming verms. But how much does Aprosa and the little boy need together? I handed over the double-hearted allotment to the tenant, and there, look, by the holiday, the husband will send a gift - trash, five. And a letter: “And with love, a deep bow to my dearest wife Aprosinya Petrovna ... And I also inform you that we again added three rubles a year. - a young thing, and then faded away, the husband was forgotten in overtime. So, it seemed like some kind of stamp on a letter or like a seal: they say, his seal, his brand. And nothing more. So Aprosya managed, she became weather-beaten, she dug in the garden, sheathed the little boy, she went to the laundry. It was from Aprosi that Baryba rented a room. I liked it right away: homey, clean. Agreed for four and a half. Aprosya was pleased: the tenant was a respectable one, not some kind of outcast, and apparently with money. And not so much to be a charmer or a proud man when he speaks. She was now taking care of two: her little boy and Baryba. On her feet all day - weather-beaten, sedate, rye, strong-chested: it's a pleasure to look. Quiet, bright, clean. Baryba was resting from the old one. I slept without dreams, I had money: what the hell else do you need? Ate slowly, firmly, in large quantities. "Well, all right, please, so," thought Aprosya. Baryb bought books. So, popular prints, cheap stuff, but very alluring: "Chopper - the Lebedyan robber", "Criminal monk and his treasures", "Coachman of the Queen of Spain". Baryba was lying around, peeling sunflowers while reading. It didn’t feel like going anywhere: before the Chernobylnikov postman and before the treasurer’s son-in-law, it was kind of embarrassing: go, now everyone has checked in. And I didn’t even want to look at the women, after Chebotarikha the dregs had not yet settled. I went for a walk in the field, they mowed there. Evening brocade in the sky, gold rye dutifully falls, red damp shirts, braids tinkle. And so they threw it - and to the jars with kvass, they drink, drops on their mustaches. Ah, good work! Baryba thought: that would be so. Strong hands itched, chewing muscles clenched ... "And the treasurer's son-in-law? Suddenly he would have seen" ... - That's the same, he thought up, to go to the peasants. Still, perhaps, to carry leather at the Chebotarihin factory? The very thing…” Baryba muttered angrily at himself. Turn around, don’t turn around, but you have to invent something: so, without work, you can’t live on Evseev’s money, God knows how many thousands. Baryba thought and thought and wrote a petition to the treasury: maybe they would take him as a scribe, an assistant to the treasurer's son-in-law. If only a cap with a cockade - know ours! The closeness in the evening was mortal. Baryba nevertheless put on his velvet waistcoat (the rest of Chebotarikha's free life), a paper collar, trousers "on the street", and went to Dvoryanskaya: where, if not there, to find the treasurer's son-in-law. Here, of course. He walks, long-legged, skinny, hanger, looks sourly at everyone, waves his cane. And he wants to say: "Who are you? And I, you see, an official - a cap with a cockade." Baryba thrust a sour smile: "Ah, it's you!" Petition? Hm-hm. He perked up, pulled up his pants, straightened his collar. Felt like a friendly boss. - Well, I'll pass it on, okay. I will do what I can. Well, how, how, old acquaintance. Baryba went home and thought: “Wow, I would smear you, sour mug. But what can I say - he keeps himself educated.

14. Funky wine leaked out

Kelar Mitrofan sniffed out, found out everything, the dog, about the Evseev campaign in Streltsy. Maybe, of course, Yevsey himself proclaimed the gospel, boasted. And only the cellar knew everything to the last drop: and how Yevsey danced in a shirt alone, belted under his armpits, and this song: “You entered the monks,” and a merry ride on the lively ones along Sagittarius. Cellar, of course, to the abbot. The abbot called Yevsey and so smashed him that Yevsey flew out of the bathhouse as if from the top shelf. They put Yevsey in obedience to the baker. I didn't go to services. It's hot as hell in the baker's basement. The chief draftsman Silantius, shaggy, red, yells at the kneaders, and he himself waves pood loaves of bread into the oven on a shovel. The kneaders, in white shirts alone, tying up their hair with a string, turn the dough, grunt, work up to a sweat. But Yevsey slept, as he had not slept for a long time. And his glassy eyes seemed to have moved a little. There was no time to think about the pigtail. Everything would be fine, but obedience ended. The old one is gone again. Yevsey deserved it, muttered prayers. Again Savka the novice pokes her crayfish eyes into her eyes, whines Innokenty, the woman with the moustache. Savka told about Innokenty: - Anadys they, Father Innokenty, went to the bathhouse. There was one deacon, one of those exiled, cheerful. Ke-ek saw Father Innokenty in his natural form: "Father, he screams, yes, this is a woman, look, look, her breasts are sagging, therefore - giving birth." Innokenty wrapped the duckweed more tightly. “He is cold-hearted, your deacon. That's why he likes it. It was this deaconok who ruined Yevsey. The deacon came from outside, bored, of course, so he staggered from cell to cell. Wandered somehow to Yevsey. Yevsey and Innokenty sat over the glasses, again sulking "in a fly" - to whom the fly will fall into the glass first. He saw the deacon, died with laughter, collapsed on Yevseyev's bed, dangled with his legs, oh-oh-oh (his legs are short, small, his eyes are like cherries). The deacon tuned in to a cheerful mood - and went, and went. He laid out all his seminary anecdotes, he was a master at it. Modestly at first. And then he went on about the priest, the same one that he sent confessors to sin: he appointed them a penance of fifteen bows at a time - well, there was no way to count, everything came out with a fraction. And about the nun, who was caught up in the forest by tramps, as many as five, and then she said: "It's good, and plenty, and without sin." Well, in a word, he laid everyone down. Yevsey choked with laughter and pounded the table with his fist. - Hey, deacon! Well, he disrespected. I'll have to, apparently, treat you to deliver. Wait, fathers, huh? I'm in seconds. Where is the storm taking you? asked the deacon. - Yes, for the money. They, brother, lie under my bushel, imperishable. Here, not far. And you won't bat an eyelid... Indeed, the deacon didn't even have time to finish a new story, and Yevsey was already right there. He entered and leaned against the ceiling. “Go, get rich, go, present it,” the deacon shouted merrily and went up to Yevsey. Approached - and froze: Yevsey - and not Yevsey. It sagged, went limp, flowed out somehow: they pierced a hole in the side, and all the cheerful wine flowed out, leaving an empty wineskin. - Why are you silent? Or what happened? “They stole it,” said Yevsey, not to Yevseev, in a low voice, and threw the last two pieces of paper on the table: the thief left it for fun ... It was before, to tell the truth, Yevsey was quiet in mind, but here he went crazy from the last. I drank the remaining quarters. Drunk wandered around the city and begged for piglets to get drunk. The watchman took him to the station for his merry behavior on the street - he bloodied this watchman's whole nose and fled to the monastery. In the morning, friends came to see him: Savka the novice, and Father Innokenty, and the little deacon. They began to exhort him: come to your senses, what are you, the hegumen will put you out of the monastery, beg, or something, go? Yevsey lay on his back and remained silent. Then suddenly he began to sob, let the nurses down his beard: - Yes, how about it, brothers? I'm not from money, I don't feel sorry for money. And only earlier I, if you like, now I left the monastery. And now - like it or not... You were a liberal man, but now... the deacon leaned over to Yevsey. I didn't know, but now I know. Not ours, the worldly one. And nothing, after all, seems to be small, but ... He, there is no one else. Besides him, no one knew where my money was. Savka neighed: oh, I know, they say! In the evening, by candlelight, at an empty table - and it was reluctant to blow up the samovar - they judged, rowed, what to do. They didn't come up with anything.

15. Ivanikha

In the morning, after mass, Innokenty came in. He brought congratulatory prosvira. He whispered: "I know now, father Yevsey. I remembered. Let's go quickly to Ivanikha. Oooh, she's famous, she'll talk about a thief - she'll show up at the moment. The morning is dewy, pink, the day will be hot. The sparrows are celebrating. "Eka, picked it up early," muttered Yevsey. Innokenty walked with a small woman's gait, holding his cassock on his stomach. “No way, father Yevsey, you can’t. Or you don’t know, a conspiracy - it only has power on an empty stomach. - You're lying, go, Innokenty. So just, in vain we pass. Yes, and shameful - spiritual something. Ivanikha is a tall old woman, tall, bony, with eyebrows, eyebrows like those of an owl. Not very affectionately met the monks. - What do you want? What kind of lure did you come for? Ali with a prayer service? So I don't need your prayers. And fussed, clattered with pots on the stump. - No, we're talking to you about ... Father Yevsey was robbed. Will you talk to the thief? We heard... Father Innokenty was shy of Ivanikha. You could cross yourself, but you can’t cross yourself in front of her, perhaps: it’s a joke, you’ll frighten it off, nothing will come of it. Like a woman wearing a fur coat, Innokenty wrapped his duckweed on his chest. Ivanikha looked at him from above, lashed her with her owl eyes: - So what do you have to do with it? He was robbed - the two of us with him and stay. - Yes, I, mother, well, I ... I picked up the floors of the duckweed, bent over, trotted with womanish small steps. - What's your name? Ivanikha asked Yevsey. - Yevsey. - I know that Yevsey. Not you, but who do you think - what to call him. - Anfimka, Anfim. - What are you talking about? To the wind? Otherwise, it’s also good on an apron, if you spread it with branches over birch trees. Or maybe on the water? Yes, then it, a dove, to lure and drink tea on this very water. - In-in, it would be a tea, huh? That would be clever, mother, huh? Yevsey was delighted, zabubukal, believed: very respectable and strict old woman Ivanikha. Ivanikha scooped up water with a dug-out wooden crust, opened the door to the passage, put Yevsey outside the threshold, and stood on the threshold herself. She thrust a crust into Yevsey's hands. - Hold on and listen. Yes, look, not a word to anyone, otherwise everything will turn on you. She read it out slowly, intelligibly like this, and with eyes like an owl she lowered the water in the crust. - On the sea - on Kiyan, on the island of Buyan, there is an iron chest. In that chest lies a damask knife. Run, knife, to Anfimka the thief, pierce him to the very heart, so that he, the thief, would turn back the theft of the servant of God Yevsey, not conceal a blue gunpowder. And if he hides, be he, the thief, pierced by my word, like a damask knife, be he, the thief, damned to the underworld, to the mountains of Ararat, to seething pitch, to combustible ash, to swamp mud, to a homeless house, to a bath jug . If he hides, be he, a thief, stuck to the lintel with an aspen stake, dried up more than grass, colder than ice, and he will not die his own death. - Waking up now, - said Ivanikha - Drink some water on him, pigeon, booty. Yevsey carefully poured water into a bottle, gave Ivanikha a ruble bill, and went away contented: I'll untie your tongue!

16. You can't get through anything

She became attached to Baryba at night for no reason, for no reason at all. Shaking, shaking, unnatural dreams wove. In the morning I sat at the table in some kind of fog, rested my pood head on my hands. They knocked on the door. - Ask? And you can't turn your head, it's so heavy. Basque coughed at the door. - Savka, is that you? He is the most: hair-sticks, red crayfish hands. - Definitely requested. They missed you a lot, Father Yevsey. Then he came closer and neighed: “They want to give you tea that has been told.” And you - neither my God, do not drink. - How spoken? - Yes, it is known how: a thief slandered. - Ege! Baryba chuckled. It became very funny. Fool Yevsey! It was foggy, pounding in my head, something funny was grimacing. In Yevsey's cell there is a bluish smoke, smoky: the deacon smoked cheerfully. - Ah, dear guests! And, wobbling his backside, the deacon offered Baryba his hand with a pretzel. There was no vodka on the table: they deliberately decided not to drink, so that it would be clearer in the head - to catch Baryba. “Why have you lost weight, Yevsey. Ay dried you who? Baryba grinned. - You will lose weight. Haven't heard something? - Did your money slam? How did you hear it. Cheerful, caustic, the deacon jumped up: - But did you learn this from otkedov, Anfim Barybych? - And here - Savka said. That's what I found out. "You're a fool, Savka," Yevsey turned around dejectedly. Sat down for tea. One glass, half poured, stood alone on the tray, aside. Innokenty, fussing, topped up the glass with boiling water and handed it to Baryba. Everyone stared and waited: well, now ... Baryba interfered, took a sip slowly. They were silent, they looked. Baryba felt wonderful, unbearable, laughed - rumbled over the stones. Behind him, Savka neighed and the deacon sang thinly. -- What are you? - Yevsey looked, his eyes were fish, boiled. Baryba rumbled, rolled down, it was impossible to stop, thumping, green fog in his head. Ridiculous enthusiasm lifted, pushed to say: - I am the most. I stole it. Baryba drank, but he remained silent and smiled quadrangularly, bestially. Yevsey couldn't sit still. - Well, tell me something, Baryba. What is there. - What is there to tell about? - You know what about. - Oh, Akulya, you are sewing something not from the back! You're talking about money, huh? So I'm telling you: Savka told me. I only know everything. Baryba said in a deliberate voice: I’m lying, they say, but go ahead and catch it. The deaconok ran up to Baryba and patted him on the shoulder: “No, brother, you can’t get through any gap-grass. Strong, cast. Yevsey shook his hair: - Hey, perish! Run, Savka, for wine. We drank. Fuzzy, pounding in the head. Green smoke from the smoke. The deacon danced a sailor's dance. At dusk, Baryba returned home. And right at Aprosya's gate he suddenly sensed: his knees were buckling, his eyes were clouded. He leaned against the doorframe, got scared: this had never happened before. Aprosya opened the door, looked at the tenant: - But what is it that you don’t have a face on? Al can't, huh? Somehow, in a dream, I found myself on a bed. Bulb. Asking at the head. On the forehead wet, in vinegar, a rag. - You are sick, - said Aprosya comfortably and plaintively, a little in the nose. Aprosya ran to the neighbors, gave Baryba some medicinal powder. At night it clouded and again cleared up in my head, and I saw Baryba on a chair at the head of Aprosya dozing. On the third day, by morning it was relieved. Baryba lay under a white sheet, with gray, autumnal shadows on his face. He became more transparent somehow, more human. "And it's true, I'm a stranger to her, but I sat at night, did not sleep ..." - Thank you, Aprosya. - And what are you, my sickly. Tea, because you are sick. And leaned towards him. She was wearing only a mottled skirt and a linen shirt, and right before Baryba's eyes flashed two sharp piercing points on her chest under a rare canvas. Baryba closed it and opened his eyes again. A hot summer day looks through the windows. Somewhere out there, the Streltsy Pond sparkles, they swim, the body turns white ... It pounded in my head even hotter. Baryba moved his heavy jaws uneasily and pulled Aprosya towards him. - Vaughn what? she wondered. “Maybe it’s bad for you?” Well, wait, it's time to change the rag. She calmly changed the rag and carefully, economically lay down on Baryba's bed. And so it happened. A whole day fussing, hosting, rattling pots Aprosya, a streltsy soldier. Your boy, and then there is Baryba, and worry about him. He recovered from the disease, let’s say, alive, but still it’s not easy to manage alone. In the evening Anfim Yegorych will return from somewhere, drop in on Aprosa: - Come, already, in the evening. - Come, you say? OK. You have confused me now. And I had to do something - completely retaliated. Yes, I mean, take the eggs out from under the hens: again the damned ferret will drink. She ran to the kennel. Then she inflated the samovar. One of them was drinking Baryba tea, leafing through something. "And he reads everything, and he reads everything, how long does it take to spoil his eyes." She put her little boy to bed. She sat on a bench and buzzed with a spindle: she twisted gray woolen threads for winter stockings. A thick black cockroach plopped down from above, from the ceiling. "Well, then, it's too late, it's time." She scratched her head with the blunt end of the spindle, yawned, crossed her mouth. Diligently, spitting on the brush, she polished Anfim-Yegorychev's boots, undressed, neatly put everything in a corner on the bench, and carried the boots to Baryba. Baryba - waited. Aprosya put her boots by the bed and lay down. She left after half an hour. Yawned. She beat ten bows, read the Father and fell asleep soundly: she worked hard for the day, you won’t be without trouble.

17. Semyon Semenych Morgunov

Once once Baryba said to Timosha: - What kind of tailor are you? You don't have any shit here at home. And it's very simple why not. Timosha - after all, he is what: then nothing, nothing, but then how he will spin. Well, then disappear the customer's trousers: he will definitely drink it. They knew his manner and were afraid to give him home. So he went to sew at home. He sewed many merchants, as well as gentlemen - he sewed well, a swindler. By the way, he was his own, one might say, man with the lawyer Semyon Semenych Morgunov. That's what Morgunov called him: - My court tailor. Boots on Timosha were rare: more in a pawn. And he came to Morgunov in old rubber galoshes, and white canvas shoes wrapped in paper under his arm. In the front hall, he will definitely throw off his galoshes, put on white shoes - ready. And they will have unusual conversations with Morgunov: about God, about saints, about the fact that everything in the world is one appearance, and how one should live. Timosha understood Morgunov as smart person . Yes, he was like that, Semyon Semyonovich Morgunov. Morgunov - this, however, is not his real name, but it’s like a nickname, they teased him like that in the street. Yes, just look at him - you will immediately say: Morgunov is. The face of Semyon Semyonovich was thin, dark, some kind of icon painting. The eyes are huge, blackish. And either some amazed, or some unscrupulous - they are very great. There are only eyes on the face. And he blinked them constantly: morgue, morgue, as if he was ashamed of his eyes. Yes, it's the eyes. He winked all over somehow, Semyon Semyonitch. As soon as he walks down the street, he starts to fall on his left leg - well, as it is, all, with his whole being, winks. And the merchants loved him for his cunning! - Semyon Semyonitch, Morgunov? Ooh, doka, ulcer! This one, brother, will come. Goes in and out without soap. You look, look, it winks, huh? And so it happened that he conducted all their dark affairs with the merchants: bills of exchange there or - which is better - insolvent. And not by washing, so by skating, but the court will catch it and swim out. But they paid him well. Timosha took Baryba to Morgunov. Yes, it was about time. This autumn was so, somehow awkward: snow fell and snow melted. And with the snow melted Barybin-Evseev money. The answer came from the Treasury: they refused, the devils, who knows why, what the hell they still need. Well, here was the need for myself to find some kind of business. There is something you want. Semyon Semyonitch took Timosha aside and asked about Baryba: "Who will it be?" - And this is - so, like my assistant: I'm sewing, I'm talking - and he's listening. You can't talk without an assistant, you're talking to yourself. Semyon Semyonitch rattled and laughed. "Well, then, in the spirit: things will go smoothly," thought Timosha. - What did you do before? Morgunov asked Baryba. Baryba hesitated. "And he was a widow's playmate," Timosha helped, picking at her sewing with a needle. Morgunov rattled again: what a job, nothing to say. And Timosha imperturbably continued: - Nothing so special. Business business. Everything with us now, according to the power of the time, is a trading business, that's the only way we live. A merchant sells herring, a girl sells womb. Everyone in their own way. And what, say, is a womb worse than a herring, or than a herring is worse than conscience? Everything is a commodity. Morgunov was quite amused, winking, rattling, clapping Timosha on the shoulder. Then he suddenly became serious, he became an icon-painter, strict, his eyes were about to swallow. - Well, do you want to earn money? - asked Barybu. - There will be a case. I need witnesses. Your view is impressive, as if fit.

18. In Witnesses

And so Baryba began to go to Morgunov as witnesses. The matter is simple. In the evening, it used to be that Morgunov would fill Baryba: look, don’t forget this, Vasily Kuryakov, the merchant’s son, this fat one, - he only raised his hand first. And the tradesman struck first, a redhead who, well, yes, a redhead. And you, they say, were at the garden fence and saw everything with your own eyes. And in the morning Baryba stood at the world, smoothed, sedate, grinning at times: all this is very wonderful. He told me carefully, as Morgunov taught. The merchant's son Vasily Kuryakov triumphed, the tradesman was put in jail. And Baryba received a three-ruble note, a five-ruble bill. Semyon Semyonitch only knew - He praised Baryba: - You, brother, are very solid, and stubborn, thick-set. Don't confuse you. Soon I will take you on criminal charges. And he began to take Baryba with him to the neighboring town, where the ward was. A long-skirted frock coat, like a merchant's, made it to Baryba. In this frock coat for hours, Baryba staggered along the corridors of the ward, yawning and lazily waiting for his turn. Calmly and businesslike showed - and never got confused. It was the prosecutor or the defender there who tried to knock him off his pantalyk, but no, where: if he hits - not to knock him down. Baryba made good money on one will. Merchant Igumnov died. He was a respectable man, a family man, a wife, a girl. He kept the fish trade, and everyone in the city knew him, because the posts are very strictly observed in our country. Igumnov's hands were everything, as they are, all around in warts. They said that, they say, from fish: he pricked himself on fish feathers. Igumnov lived, thank God, like everyone else. And in his old age, a story happened to him: a demon in the ribs. The circle of his finger was twisted by his daughter's teacher, well, simply, a governess. He drove his wife and girl out of the yard. Horses, wines, guests, spilled sea. Just before his death, the old man woke up. He called his wife and daughter, asked for forgiveness and wrote a will in their name. But the first will remained with Madame, with this governess herself, and everything in that will was written to her. Well, the business started. Now, of course, Semyon Semyonitch by the side: - Semyon Semyonitch, my dear. That he wrote the second will out of his mind must be proven. Submit witnesses. I won't stand for money. Semyon Semenych and Baryba thought and wondered. Baryba rummaged and rummaged and remembered: he once saw Igumnov, a dead man - he ran out of the bathhouse in the winter and rolled in the snow. Our business is the most common. And in this sort they imagined that in winter he ran through the streets not in his form. And they still found witnesses: well, it’s true, many have seen it. And when Baryba showed this in court, he interpreted everything correctly and weightily, like he laid a stone foundation - he even believed it himself. And he didn’t blink an eye when Abbot’s widow, in a black shawl looking like a blueberry, looked at him very intently. And madam, after the trial, narrowed her eyes at him: - You are just my benefactor. She gave a kiss to the pen and said: "Come in when." Baryba was very pleased.

19. Times

“No, no, it won’t reach us,” Timosha said dejectedly. “Where are there. It’s like we live in the city of Kitezh at the bottom of the lake: we don’t hear anything at all, the water above our heads is muddy and sleepy. And upstairs, everything is blazing, the alarm is being sounded. And let them beat. So we used to say about this: - Let them go crazy there in Babylon. And we would like to live more peacefully. And it's true: how to read newspapers - they go crazy. Honor, how many centuries they lived, they feared God, they honored the king. And then - like dogs off the chain, forgive me, Lord. And where did such warriors come from only from rich and slimy ones? Well, we don’t have time to deal with these different trifles: if only we could feed the guys, after all, the guys have no end in sight. Out of boredom, or something, who knows why, the people who breed in our country to passion. And homely because of this, devout, sedate. The gates are on iron bolts, the chain dogs on the prowl run around the yards. To let a stranger into the house, they will ask three times from behind the door: who is this, and why. All the windows are lined with geraniums and ficuses. So it’s more true: no one from the street will look. They love heat here, they heat the stoves, in winter they go in wadded vests, skirts, trousers, quilted with wadding - you won’t find such things anywhere else. And so they live for themselves neither shaky nor rolls, they rot, like dung, in warmth. Yes, it’s even better: guys, look what kind of butuzes they nurse. Timosha and Baryba came to Morgunov. Morgunov is sitting with a newspaper. - So, the minister was slammed, did you hear it or not? Timosha smiles - he lit a cheerful lamp: - Heard how not to hear. We are walking through the bazaar, I hear people talking: "I feel very sorry for him: go, after all, he received twenty thousand a year. Very sorry." Morgunov shook with laughter: - Here they are, all here, ours: twenty thousand ... very sorry ... Oh, he killed me! They were silent, the newspapers rustled. - And here they also took Anyutka Protopopova in St. Petersburg, finished her studies, - Baryba remembered. Morgunov immediately became attached and went to incite - he knew how Timosha understands about women: to get involved with them in a serious matter is one thing that marmalade interferes with cabbage soup. - To visit a woman again - back and forth, you can let it in. And in himself - no, no. - Timosha threatens with his dry finger. - He let himself in - he disappeared. Baba - she, brother, roots - like burdock lets. And can't bear it. So the whole burdock and overgrown. - Burdock, - laughs, rumbles Baryba. And Morgunov knocks with his fist, yelling in an unnatural voice: - So they are, Timosha, so! And well, prophets yet, the king of the Jews! "And why does he break, why does he yell," thought Baryba. True, Semyon Semyonitch liked to break down. So kind of fake person was, a pretender, all winks, looks out, with a pebble in his bosom. And eyes - not that sighing, not that martyr. - Beer to us, beer, beer! yelled Semyon Semyonitch. The bright-eyed Dashutka brought her on a tray, fresh - well, now, after the rain, weed. -- New? - said Timosha and did not look at Morgunov. Morgunov changed them almost every month. White, black, skinny, fat. And Morgunov was equally affectionate to everyone: - Well, they are all the same. But the real one is still nowhere to be found. Over beer, you see, Timosha, he started talking about his beloved, about God, he began to press on Morgunov with tricky questions: if God can do everything and does not want to change our lives, then where is love? And how will the righteous stay in paradise? And where will God put these ministerial killers? Morgunov - does not like about God. A scoffer, a mocker, but here it will quickly darken, like the devil from incense. “Don’t you dare me about God, don’t you dare about God. And he speaks quietly somehow, and horror - to listen. Timosha is happy, laughs.

20. Merry Vespers

During the Great Lent, all the furious walk around, bite - with bad food: carp and kvass, kvass and potatoes. And Easter will come - and everyone will become kinder at once: from fatty pieces, from liqueurs, tinctures, from the ringing of bells. They will become kinder: for a beggar, instead of a penny, they will give two; to the cook in the kitchen - they will send a piece of the master's cake; Mishutka spilled the liquor on a clean tablecloth - they won’t flog for the holiday. It is clear that Chernobylnikov also got it when he went from house to house, handed out painted postcards and congratulated the owners on the holiday. Where they give a quarter, and where a fifty. He recruited Chernobylnikov - and took his friends to the Churilovsky tavern: Timosha, Baryba and the treasurer's son-in-law. By the spring Timosha has faded, plucked walks like an autumn sparrow, sways in the wind - but swaggers, invigorates there too. - You would have been treated, Timosha, by God, - Chernobylnikov collapsed. - Look what he has become. - Why be treated? Anyway, I'll die. Yes, it is, for me, and curious - to die. Well, of course: all my life in the settlement of a kitty, nowhere, but here - to unknown countries, to travel, on a free ticket. Chat, flattering. Know yourself Timosha laughs. “You wouldn’t drink at least like that, it’s bad for you.” No, whatever you are. He drinks, does not lag behind, according to his old custom - beer with vodka. And everyone coughs into a red cotton handkerchief: he got himself a scarf - a whole rope. “And this,” he says, “so that you don’t spit on the floor in a noble place.” They struck for the evening. Old man Churilov shifted the silver from his right hand to his left and crossed himself, earnestly, sedately so. - Hey, Mitka, get it! shouted Chernobylnikov. They left on Thursday. The spring sun is merry, the bells are dancing. Somehow, it’s reluctant to disperse, to break up the company. “Oh, I love Paschal Vespers,” Timosha screwed up his eyes. “Dancing, not Vespers. Let's all go together, shall we? Baryba called to the monastery, since he is close here: - And after Vespers, I’ll drink tea with a friend of a monk, - such an eccentric. The treasurer's son-in-law took out his watch: "It's impossible, it was promised for dinner, but it's not customary to be late at the treasurer's." - Oh, here's a bruise: it's not accepted! - Timosha laughed, coughed, reached for a handkerchief: no. - Stop, guys, dropped the handkerchief upstairs. Now I'm running away. He waved his arms, fluttered, - a sparrow. The merry bells are ringing, the well-dressed people are coming to the merry Easter Vespers. “Wait a minute, they’re yelling upstairs… what’s wrong there?” - Baryba pricked up his big bat ears. The treasurer's son-in-law grimaced. - Again, probably a fight. They don't know how to keep themselves in a public place. Z-zing! - landed glass at the top, fragments with a ringing - down. And immediately quieted down. - Wow, - Chernobylnikov listened, - no, there's something ... And suddenly, head over heels, red, disheveled, rolled out, panting, Timosha. “There they are… upstairs… ordered. And everyone ... raised their hands and stand. Tr-cancer, tr-cancer! crackled above. The treasury's son-in-law stretched out his long neck and stood for a moment, looking up with one eye, like a turkey at a kite. Then he shouted thinly and pitifully: shoot! And he took off running. And on the stairs they rumbled with boots, roared, everything rained down from above. - And-and-and! Hold on... And again: tr-cancer, tr-cancer. For a second: in the door ahead of everyone, a red, eyeless face. "It must have been out of fear that he closed his eyes," a thought flashed through his mind. And he, eyeless, already in the alley opposite, had already disappeared. And then everyone fell asleep from above like drunkards - wild, unbelted, hounds. - Hold him too! Don't let it go! BO-THAT-HERE he is! Someone downstairs at the entrance was grabbed, attacked, squeezed, beaten - and still they roared: hold it, - it was so easy, it was necessary to pour out through the throat. Bending his head like a ram, Baryba pushed his way forward. For some reason, this was necessary, he sensed with all his gut what was needed, clenched his iron jaws, something ancient, bestial, desired, robbery stirred. To be with everyone, to yell like everyone else, to beat everyone. On the ground, in a circle, lay a boy - such a black-haired one, with eyes closed. The collar of the shirt is torn on the side, and there is a black mole on the neck. Old man Churilov stood in the middle of the circle and kicked the boy in the side with his foot. So sedate, his beard is all tucked up here, his mouth is twisted - where has all the piety gone. - Taken away! Ah, devils! I ran away alone, I ran away with a hundred rubles! Ah, devils? And he drank again. Sweaty fists reached out from behind him to the recumbent, but did not dare: they stole from Churilov, he, it became, and the owner is here, and he should be beaten. Timosha suddenly emerged from somewhere, right in front of the old man Churilov, jumped up, red, angry, and pecked at him, fell asleep, waved his arms. - What are you, old bastard, wicked, sinister? Do you want to kill a kid for a hundred rubles? Maybe he killed it? Look, he's not breathing. Devils, beasts, or is a man not even worth a hundred rubles? Old man Churilov was taken aback at first, and then snapped: - Are you at the same time with them? Intercessor? You, brother, look. You also make good conversations in a tavern, people have heard something. Hold it, Orthodox! They approached closer, but hesitated: after all, Timosha seemed to be his own, but these were not ours. So this, in vain, probably, is an old man ... A red-faced, red-haired tradesman, a maklak of horses, on the occasion of the holiday, put on paper cuffs. In the junkyard, the cuffs had slipped down, red hair stuck out between the sleeve and the white, and were worse his huge hands. Hands reached out to Timosha and gently pushed him out of the circle. The red-haired philistine said: "Get out, get out, while you're safe, protector." We'll manage without you. And he busily began to rummage around the black-haired boy, turning him over like a carcass. Where is there to go to the monastery - before that? Baryba spent the whole evening at Timosha's. Chernobylnikov came up later. And he said: - I'm walking, then, along Dvoryanskaya ... I hear, they are sitting on a bench at the gate and they say: "And he helped them, he says, our Timoshka the tailor, here is a lost man." - Fools, - said Timosha. - Gossips. And Churilov, the evil one, the devil, is right. What will he lose from a hundred? Have they not eaten for two days? He paused and added: “Well, will it really come to us?” And if it came - by God, I would climb into the very pool. They’ll cut you off - well, there’s a road there, anyway - half an inch of my life is left.

21. Troubleshooting

Well, here, there was no sadness, so the devils pumped up. Hands up, over there, we have it! And now the police chief Ivan Arefitch is in trouble - you can't get enough of it. They came in large numbers from the province, a military court - and all because of some rascal boy. The chairman, a colonel, thin, with a gray-haired beaver, suffered from a stomach. What grief Ivan Arefyich had brought with him! He can’t eat that, he can’t eat the other - well, a real misfortune. The first time the uninvited guests arrived, Ivan Arefyich arranged a marvelous breakfast: bottles on the table, boxes opened, hams, kulebyak. And the colonel turned green even with anger. He pokes here and there with a fork, sniffs: - It seems very fat. And sour, and does not eat. The police officer Marya Petrovna was all in agony: “Ah, for God’s sake, Colonel, why don’t you eat? "Well, it will probably fly in now to my Ivan Arefitch." But the prosecutor-soul supported. Kruglyachok, bald, pink, like a pig. He probably goes to the bathhouse twice a week. And everything rolls up, laughs and puts only two pieces on itself. - Well, still mother's kulebyaki. Only, you know, in such moldy places, like your settlement, now in Rus' they know how to really, in the old way, bake pies ... And in the evening, candles were lit on the desk in the police officer's office (never lit in my life), laid out papers. Ivan Arefich puffs on his cigarette cannon and pushes the smoke aside: God forbid, the colonel will get smoke. The colonel re-read the papers and grimaced sourly: "What are we going to do with this boy alone?" When you can't get a word from him. Terribly embarrassing. That's why you're a police officer, to be able to find. Sitting on the bed, Ivan Arefyich pulled off his boots and pestered the police officer: “I can’t even put my mind to it, Masha. Give them more, one is not enough. But where will I get it, if he ran away? Yes, don’t forget something else: tomorrow at twelve oatmeal in milk for the colonel, boil it down well, and a bottle of narzan. Oh, I'm afraid of him, no matter how I messed up, furious! Marya Petrovna wrote down: "Hercules... Narzan... And here's what, Ivan Arefitch, you should consult Morgunov." He's a passerby, he'll get whatever you want - by God, try it. Ivan Arefich nailed it to his nose and slept a little more peacefully. In the square in front of the police, in front of the peeling yellow walls, there is a market. Hoisted and tied shafts, horses with oat-bags tied to their snouts, shrill piglets, tubs of sauerkraut, wagons of hay. Clap hands, bargain; calling loudly; carts creak; the coachman of the zemstvo in a sleeveless jacket tries the harmonica. And in the correctional officer's office they are interrogating. The Colonel longingly listens to himself, inside: his stomach growls dully. "Ah, Lord, it hasn't happened for a whole week, and now again, it seems ..." Old Churilov came in, a sedate, long-haired, gray-haired harrier. Crossed himself. - How was it? Yes, that's how, if everything is in order ... He told, wiped himself with a cotton handkerchief. He stood for a moment, thought: "It would be nice to press on Timoshka the insolent, the authorities, it seems, are kind." - Here's another, your honors, there is a tailor Timoshka here - a lost man, insolent. He began to intercede for this boy - for this very one who shot something. And I told him: are you, they say, one of theirs, or what? And he told me in front of all the people ... The old man was released. The prosecutor rubbed his soft, sweaty hands, unbuttoned the bottom button of his uniform, and said softly to the colonel: This Timosha... What do you think? Bargaining outside the window, shouting, creaking. The colonel couldn't stand it: "Ivan Arefich, close the window!" The head is cracking. What a manner - a bazaar right in front of the office! Ivan Arefitch, on tiptoe, closed the window and called: "Next." The treasurer's son-in-law spoke languidly, coaxingly. The prosecutor asked: - So, then he returned to the tavern, and then ran out again? Yeah. Well, what about the scarf? You seem to have mentioned something about a scarf? Did he come back for a scarf? The treasurer's son-in-law remembered Timoshkin's spat-out red handkerchief, grimaced sourly, and said in a nasal voice, with annoyance: "What handkerchief?" I don't remember any scarf. It was somehow indecent even to remember that scarf for him. Baryba followed the prosecutor's questions with his usual scent. And when it came to the handkerchief, he confidently said: - No, there was no handkerchief. He simply said: there is business at the top. When Baryba was released, the prosecutor took a sip of iced tea and said to the colonel: "Would you like me to write a decree on the detention of this very Timosha?" In my opinion, all these testimonies ... I know you are sometimes too cautious, but here ... The colonel's intestines seized, rolled up, and he thought: "Damn knows! That police officer, a fat fool, what a provincial manner of doing all fat..." - So, I say, Colonel... - Oh, leave me alone, for God's sake! Write whatever you like. I have a terrible stomachache.

22. Six quarter notes

How they took Timosha, no one was even surprised. - I've been looking at it for a long time. - He was a master of language. Infidel! He talked about God all the same as about the shopkeeper Averyan. - And everywhere, where he shouldn't, he poked his nose, judged everyone. Please tell me what kind of old woman Maremyana was found - she is sad about everyone. And Morgunov said: - Such heads do not last long with us. Here we live with Baryba. He patted Baryba on the back and looked at him with his iconic eyes, either contemptuously, or affectionately: go and find out from him - he's a pretender. In the evening of the same day, police officer Ivan Arefyich invited Semyon Semyonitch to his place for a cup of tea. And begged by Christ the God: - Instruct this one of yours... whatever he is... on the right path. Well, yes, Barybu something of this. To be more specific somehow in court showed. I know, he is your specialist, well, what's there, what's there, your own people. By God, they twisted my whole neck, those provincials, they should have finished with them - and down with the bell tower. And this colonel with his fastidious: something is wrong with him, this is not like that ... They bargained, agreed on six quarters. - Well, what there is not enough - not enough. And this ... like his ... some kind of place can be arranged for Baryba. What's even better? Well, as a clerk there, as a sergeant... And the next day, for Kronberg beer, Morgunov approached Baryba with all sorts of approaches, coaxing him. The baryba hesitated. - Yes, we were kind of friends, it was very strange somehow, awkward. “Oh, dear, should we be ashamed and think about something? We’ll get stuck with our heads, we’ll perish. As it is in some fairy tale: look around - die with fear. So it's better without looking back. Yes, it is still far from the court. If there will be a sore throat, you will have time to refuse. "And really, to hell with him, it's all the same consumption there ... And then there would be a place even if you get it ... Well, the whole century, or something, from bread to kvass?" And aloud Baryba said: "Unless it's only for you, Semyon Semyonitch." If it wasn't you, no way. - If it wasn't for me... Yes, I know, dove, that without me such a treasure would not have come out of you. Neither this nor that. And now... He paused, then suddenly leaned over to Barybin's ear and whispered: And I see every night in a dream, every night - you understand?

23. Annoying Murash

He agreed, and went to the police officer, and the police officer gave a whole bunch of money and promised such a thing ... Baryba should have been happy here. And here - something bothered, interfered. Some kind of small mosquito, goosebumps, climbed into the inside and crawled there, and crawled, and there was no way to catch it, crush it. Baryba went to bed and thought: "Tomorrow evening. That means a whole day before the trial. If I want to, I'll go and refuse. I'm my own master." Slept and did not sleep. And everything seemed to be thinking out in a dream some unthought-out thought: "Yes, and life is only half an inch in him." And again I dreamed of the district, exams, the priest, putting his beard in his mouth. "I'll fail again, a second time," thought Baryba. And he thought: "But he was brainy - Timosha, that's the truth to tell." "Why "was"? How is "was"?" I completely unfolded my eyes in the dark and could no longer sleep. Annoying goosebumps crawled, languished. "Why "was"?"

24. Farewell

Late, about noon, Baryba woke up in his little room in Streletskaya: everything around was bright, clear, and everything was revealed so simply that it was necessary to do at the trial. It was as if there was nothing that tormented me at night - nothing like that happened. Aprosya brought a samovar, a fine one, and stood at the threshold. The sleeves are rolled up, the left palm is under the elbow of the right hand, and on right hand laid down her foolish head. And to listen to Anfim Yegorych, to listen, to stand like that, horrified, sighing plaintively, shaking his head compassionately. Baryba finished drinking tea. Aprosya handed the coat to Anfim Yegorych and said: “You are somehow cheerful today, Anfim Yegorych. Ali receive money? "To receive," said Baryba. At the trial, Timosha - nothing, invigorated, turned his head, and his neck was long, thin, so thin - it was scary to look. And the dark-haired boy was quite some kind of wonderful: the donkey was all over, it seemed as if all his bones suddenly became soft, melted. So it fell to the side. The escort kept straightening him up and leaning him against the wall. Baryba spoke confidently and sensibly, but he was in a hurry: all the same, it would be better to get out of here as soon as possible. When he had finished, the prosecutor asked: "Why were you silent before?" So much valuable stuff. The court was about to leave, when Timosha suddenly jumped up and said: “Yes. Well, goodbye everyone! No one answered.

25. Market day morning

In the morning, on a merry market day, in front of the prison, in front of the places of attendance - the squeal of piglets, dust, sun; the smell of apple carts and horses; tangled bell ringing, plastered with market noise - somewhere goes procession asking for rain. Police officer Ivan Arefyich, in a green uniform, with a cigarette-cannon, pleased, went out onto the porch and said, looking sternly into the crowd: - The criminals have suffered their legal punishment. I pre-d-pre-wait for you ... In the quiet crowd, suddenly there was a rustling, swaying: as if a wind had blown in the forest. Some took off their hats and crossed themselves. And in the back ranks, away from the police chief, a voice said: "Gallows, devils!" Ivan Arefitch turned abruptly and went away. And right in front of the porch - as they woke up. Everyone started playing at once, hands were raised, everyone wanted to be heard. The red-haired tradesman waved away the seedlings. "They're lying, they didn't hang him," he said with conviction. Yes, he will give something, is he alive? It will be hands, teeth ... And so that the living one would let him hang around his neck - but is this something mental? "That's it, education, books," said an old merchant. the old man from above and saw that hair, long and gray, was growing out of his ears. “Keep quiet, you’re looking into the coffin yourself,” said the red-haired one. “Look, hair has already grown out of your ears.” The old man turned angrily and, climbing out of the crowd, muttered:

26 . clear buttons

A white tunic that has never been washed yet, silver suns of buttons, gold plaits on the shoulders. "Holy Mother! Is this really true? Balkashinsky yard and all that - but now I'm walking, Baryba, in uniform?" I felt: here, there is. Well, it turned out to be true. From the notary, from the entrance with a sign, the postman Chernobylnikov came out with a bag. Stopped and looked. He saluted, indulging himself: - To the sergeant-major. And Baryba froze with pride. He carelessly threw his hand up to the visor. - Has it been produced for a long time? - Yes, three days. The tunic has just been finished today. The trouble now is to sew the uniform. -- Important! Leadership, right? Well, I'm honored. We said goodbye. Baryba went on: to-day I must go to the police chief. He walked and shone, fed up with himself, the May sun, and shoulder straps. And he smiled a square smile. At the stockade Baryba stopped and asked the watchman: "Is Ivan Arefyich at home?" No, they're off to kill. And the watchman, from whom Baryba, who stole from the bazaars, once hid, the watchman saluted politely. Baryba was even glad that the police officer had left for the murder: he would still be like the sun in a new tunic, and that everyone would trump. "Oh, it's good to live in the world! And the fool - almost refused." The iron jaws clenched, - now they would have to gnaw some of the strongest pebbles, as happened in the county. - Ege-e! That's what! That's when to go to the father. The old fool - drove him away, but now let him take a look. Past the Churilov tavern, past the empty fair stalls, along the pavement of rotten boards, and then without any pavement at all, along the lane - along the grass. At the door upholstered with torn oilcloth - oh, an old acquaintance! -- stopped for a moment. Almost loved his father. Eh, what's there, the whole township would now kiss: how not to kiss when for the first time a tunic with epaulettes, with clear buttons is put on. Baryba knocked. The father came out. Wow, brother, aged something like! Gray stubble on his cheeks, lowered his glasses down his nose, stared for a long time. He found out - he didn’t find out, who knows him - is silent. -- What do you want? - growled. Look, angry. Well, I didn't know, obviously. "Well, don't you know, old man?" And you drove me away, remember? However, now you see. Three days as produced. The old man blew his nose, wiped his fingers on his apron, and said calmly: “I heard about you, I heard about you. Good people speak. Again he looked over his glasses calmly. “And about Yevsey, about the monk. And about the tailor too. The gray stubble on his chin suddenly jumped up and down. - And about the tailor, how, how. And suddenly the old man shook all over and squealed, spattered with saliva. "He's out of my house, get out, you scoundrel!" I t-told you not to dare to step on my doorstep. He went in, out! Crazy, Baryba goggled his eyes and stood, for a long time he could not understand. When he had chewed, he silently turned and walked back. It was already cloudy on the street. A dark breeze blew from the window. In the Churilov tavern, at a table, legs apart, hands in his pockets, sat Baryba, already well loaded. He muttered under his breath: “Well, don’t give a damn. Out of mind survived. Nap-spit ... But something has already settled at the bottom, something has muddied. There was no merry May day. In the corner opposite Baryba, three Krasnoryadsky clerks perched at the table: one, bending down, was telling something, two were listening. And suddenly all three roared, flooded. It must be something very wonderful - Ah, right? Ah, so are you? So I'll d-I'll show them to everyone, - muttered Baryba under his breath. His eyes were swollen, an evil square mouth grinned, and his chewing iron jaws tightened. The clerks cheered again. Baryba suddenly took his hand out of his pocket and tapped the plate with a knife - with drunken, stumbling blows. The clerk jumped up, Mitya with a dark head, bent down, grinning with one cheek turned to the clerks, and expressing respect with the other cheek - the mister constable. The clerks stuck out their noses and listened. - Ps-listen. T-tell them th-I won't let them laugh. I-I them ... We now s-strictly not allowed to laugh ... No, ps-stop, I'm on my own! Swaying, huge, square, oppressive, he stood up and, rattling, moved towards the clerks. It was as if not a man was walking, but an old resurrected kurgan woman, an absurd Russian stone woman. 1912

One autumn day, on my way back from a field I was leaving, I caught a cold and fell ill. Fortunately, the fever overtook me in a provincial town, in a hotel; I sent for the doctor. Half an hour later the county doctor appeared, a man of small stature, thin and black-haired. He prescribed me the usual diaphoretic, ordered me to put a mustard plaster on, very deftly slipped a five-ruble note under his cuff, and, however, coughed dryly and glanced aside, and was already quite about to go home, but somehow got into a conversation and stayed. The heat tormented me; I foresaw a sleepless night and was glad to chat with a kind man. They served tea. My doctor started talking. He was not a stupid fellow, he expressed himself smartly and rather amusingly. Strange things happen in the world: with another person you live together for a long time and are on friendly terms, but you never speak frankly, from the heart with him; you will hardly have time to get to know the other - lo and behold, either you tell him, or he, as if in a confession, blurted out all the ins and outs to you. I don’t know how I deserved the power of attorney of my new friend - only he, for no apparent reason, as they say, “took” and told me a rather remarkable case; and here I am now bringing his story to the attention of a benevolent reader. I will try to express myself in the words of a doctor.

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. The author of the story County doctor". Portrait by Repin

“You don’t deign to know,” he began in a relaxed and trembling voice (such is the effect of pure Berezovsky tobacco), “you don’t deign to know the local judge, Mylov, Pavel Lukich? .. You don’t know ... Well, it doesn’t matter. (He cleared his throat and rubbed his eyes.) Well, if you please see, it was like this, how can I tell you - do not lie, in Great Lent, in the very growth. I sit with him, with our judge, and play preference. Our judge is a good person and a hunter to play preference. Suddenly (my doctor often used the word: suddenly) they say to me: your man asks you. I say what does he want? They say he brought a note, must be from a patient. Give me a note, I say. So it is: from the patient ... Well, all right, - this, you understand, is our bread ... But here's the thing: the landowner, a widow, writes to me; says, they say, the daughter is dying, come, for the sake of the Lord our God himself, and the horses, they say, have been sent for you. Well, that's still nothing ... Yes, she lives twenty miles from the city, and it's night in the yard, and the roads are such that fa! Yes, and she herself is getting poorer, you can’t expect more than two rubles, and that’s still doubtful, but is it really necessary to use the canvas and some grains. However, duty, you understand, first of all: a person dies. I suddenly hand over the cards to the indispensable member of Kalliopin and go home. I look: there is a cart in front of the porch; peasant horses - pot-bellied, pot-bellied, the wool on them is real felt, and the coachman, for the sake of respect, sits without a hat. Well, I think it’s clear, brother, your gentlemen don’t eat on gold ... You deign to laugh, but I’ll tell you: our brother, poor man, take everything into consideration ... If the coachman sits like a prince, but doesn’t break his hat, and even chuckles from under the beard, and wiggles with a whip - boldly beat on two deposits! And here, I see, it doesn't smell like that. However, I think there is nothing to do: duty comes first. I grab the most necessary medicines and set off. Believe me, I barely made it. The road is hellish: streams, snow, mud, waterholes, and then suddenly the dam broke through - trouble! However, I am coming. The house is small, covered with straw. There is light in the windows: to know, they are waiting. I enter. A respectable old woman like that, in a cap, will meet me. “Save me,” he says, “he is dying.” I say: “Don’t you worry… Where is the patient?” - "Here, please." I look: the room is clean, and in the corner there is a lamp, on the bed is a girl of about twenty, unconscious. The heat from her radiates, breathing heavily - fever. Immediately the other two girls, sisters, are frightened, in tears. “Here, they say, yesterday she was completely healthy and ate with appetite; in the morning today she complained about her head, and in the evening she was suddenly in this position ... "I again say:" Do not worry, you know, a doctor's duty, - and proceeded. He bled her, ordered mustard plasters to be put on her, prescribed a mixture. Meanwhile, I look at her, I look, you know, - well, by God, I have never seen such a face before ... a beauty, in a word! Pity understands me. Features are so pleasant, eyes ... Here, thank God, she calmed down; sweat came out, as if coming to her senses; She looked around, smiled, ran her hand over her face ... The sisters bent down to her, asking: “What is the matter with you?” - “Nothing,” she says, and turned away ... I look - she fell asleep. Well, I say, now the patient should be left alone. So we all tiptoed out and went out; the maid was left alone just in case. And in the living room there is already a samovar on the table, and a Jamaican one is right there: in our business it is impossible without it. They gave me tea, they asked me to stay overnight ... I agreed: where to go now! The old woman keeps groaning. “What are you? I say. “She will be alive, don’t worry, but rather take a rest yourself: the second hour.” - "Yes, you will order me to wake up, if something happens?" - "I will order, I will order." The old woman set off, and the girls also went to their room; They made a bed for me in the living room. So I lay down - only I can not fall asleep - what miracles! What, it seems, has suffered. All my sick people don't go crazy with me. Finally, he could not stand it, he suddenly got up; I think I'll go see what the patient is doing? And her bedroom is next to the living room. Well, I got up, quietly opened the door, and my heart was still beating. I look: the maid is sleeping, her mouth is open and she even snores, the beast! and the patient is lying facing me and spreading her arms, poor thing! I approached ... How she suddenly opens her eyes and stares at me! .. “Who is this? who is this?" I got confused. “Don’t be frightened,” I say, “madame: I’m a doctor, I came to see how you feel.” - "Are you a doctor?" - “Doctor, doctor ... Your mother was sent to the city for me; we let you bleed, madam; now, if you please, rest, and in a day or two, we will, God willing, put you on your feet. "Ah, yes, yes, doctor, don't let me die... please, please." - "What are you, God is with you!" And she has a fever again, I think to myself; felt the pulse: for sure, fever. She looked at me - and how she would suddenly take my hand. “I will tell you why I do not want to die, I will tell you, I will tell you ... now we are alone; only you, please, no one… listen…” I bent down; she moved her lips to my very ear, touched my cheek with her hair—I confess, my head went round—and began to whisper... I don’t understand anything... Oh, she’s delirious... finished in Russian, shuddered, dropped her head on the pillow and shook her finger at me. “Look, doctor, no one ...” Somehow I calmed her down, gave her a drink, woke up the maid and went out.

Here the doctor again took a savage sniff of tobacco and was momentarily numb.

“However,” he continued, “the next day the patient, contrary to my expectations, did not feel better. I thought, thought, and suddenly decided to stay, although other patients were waiting for me ... And you know, you can’t neglige with this: practice suffers from this. But, firstly, the patient was really in despair; and secondly, I must tell the truth, I myself felt a strong disposition towards her. Besides, I liked the whole family. Although they were poor people, they were educated, one might say, extremely rare ... Their father was a scientist, a writer; he died, of course, in poverty, but he managed to give an excellent upbringing to his children; also left a lot of books. Whether it was because I was diligently busying myself with the patient, or for some other reason, only I, I dare to say, was loved in the house as a native ... Meanwhile, the mudslide became terrible: all communications, so to speak, ceased completely; even the medicine was delivered with difficulty from the city... The patient did not get better... Day after day, day after day... But here... here... snuff, grunted, and took a sip of tea.) I’ll tell you without prejudice, my sick ... how could it be ... well, she fell in love with me ... or not, not that she fell in love ... but anyway ... right, like this, that, sir ... (The doctor looked down and blushed.)

- No, - he continued with liveliness, - which one I liked! Finally, you need to know your worth. She was an educated, intelligent, well-read girl, and I even forgot my Latin, one might say, completely. As for the figure (the doctor looked at himself with a smile) also, it seems, there is nothing to brag about. But the Lord God did not make me a fool either: I will not call white black; I laugh at something too. For example, I understood very well that Alexandra Andreevna - her name was Alexandra Andreevna - did not feel love for me, but a friendly, so to speak, disposition, respect, or something. Although she herself, perhaps, was mistaken in this respect, but what was her position, you judge for yourself ... However, - added the doctor, who delivered all these abrupt speeches without taking a breath and with obvious confusion, - I seem to be a little I have reported... You won't understand anything that way... but let me tell you everything in order.

- Yes, so-and-so. My patient got worse, worse, worse. You are not a doctor, dear sir; you cannot understand what is happening in the soul of our brother, especially at first, when he begins to guess that the disease is overcoming him. Where is the self-confidence going? You will suddenly become so timid that it is impossible to say. So it seems to you that you forgot everything you knew, and that the patient no longer trusts you, and that others are already beginning to notice that you are lost, and reluctantly tell you the symptoms, they look askance, whisper ... uh, bad! After all, there is a cure, you think, against this disease, you just have to find it. Isn't that it? Try it - no, it's not! You do not give time for the medicine to work properly ... you will grab on to this, then to that. You used to take a prescription book ... because here it is, you think, here! The right word, sometimes you will reveal at random: maybe, you think, fate ... And meanwhile a person dies; and another doctor would have saved him. A council, you say, is needed; I take no responsibility. And what a fool you look in such cases! Well, you'll get used to it in time, nothing. A person died - not your fault: you acted according to the rules. And then here's what else painfully happens: you see blind trust in you, but you yourself feel that you are not able to help. This is exactly the kind of trust that the whole family of Alexandra Andreevna had in me: they forgot to think that their daughter was in danger. For my part, I assure them, too, that nothing, they say, but at the very soul goes into the heels. To top off the misfortune, such a muddle approached that for medicine for whole days, it happened, the coachman drives. But I don’t leave the sick room, I can’t tear myself away, I tell different, you know, funny jokes, I play cards with her. I spend the night. The old woman thanks me with tears; and I think to myself: "I'm not worth your gratitude." I confess to you frankly - now there is nothing to hide - I fell in love with my patient. And Alexandra Andreevna became attached to me: she used to let no one into her room except me. He will start talking to me, asking me where I studied, how I live, who are my relatives, who do I go to? And I feel that it is not a trace for her to talk; but I can’t forbid her, resolutely that way, you know, I can’t. I used to grab myself by the head: “What are you doing, robber?”. And then he will take my hand and hold, look at me, look at me for a long, long time, turn away, sigh and say: “How kind you are!” Her hands are so hot, her eyes are big, languid. “Yes,” he says, “you are kind, you are a good person, you are not like our neighbors ... no, you are not like that, you are not like that ... How did I not know you until now! "-" Alexandra Andreevna, calm down, - I say ... - I, believe me, I feel, I don’t know what I deserved ... just calm down, for God's sake, calm down ... everything will be fine, you will be healthy. And meanwhile, I must tell you,” added the doctor, bending forward and raising his eyebrows, “that they didn’t get along with their neighbors much because the small ones were not a match for them, and pride forbade them to know the rich. I tell you: the family was extremely educated - so, you know, it was flattering to me. From one of my hands she took medicine ... she will rise, poor thing, with my help she will take it and look at me ... my heart will roll. And meanwhile she was getting worse and worse: she would die, I think, she would certainly die. Believe me, even lie down in the coffin yourself; and then my mother, sisters are watching, looking into my eyes ... and trust is gone. "What? How?" - "Nothing, nothing, nothing!" And what nothing, sir, the mind gets in the way. Here, sir, I was sitting one night, alone again, near the patient. The girl is also sitting here and snoring in all Ivanovo ... Well, it is impossible to recover from the unfortunate girl: she also slowed down. Alexandra Andreevna felt very unwell all evening; the fever tormented her. Until midnight, everything was tossing about; finally fell asleep; at least not moving, lying down. The lamp in the corner in front of the image is on. I'm sitting, you know, looking down, dozing too. Suddenly, as if someone pushed me in the side, I turned around ... Lord, my God! Alexandra Andreevna is looking at me with all her eyes ... her lips are parted, her cheeks are burning. "What's wrong with you?" “Doctor, am I going to die?” - "God have mercy!" “No, doctor, no, please don’t tell me that I will be alive… don’t tell me… if you knew… listen, for God’s sake don’t hide my situation from me! - And she breathes so quickly. “If I know for sure that I must die ... then I will tell you everything, everything!” - "Alexandra Andreevna, have mercy!" “Listen, I haven’t slept at all, I’ve been looking at you for a long time ... for God’s sake ... I believe you, you are a kind person, you are an honest person, I conjure you with everything that is holy in the world - tell me the truth! If you knew how important this is to me ... Doctor, for God's sake tell me, am I in danger? - “What can I tell you, Alexandra Andreevna, have mercy!” "For God's sake, I beg you!" - “I can’t hide from you, Alexandra Andreevna, - you are definitely in danger, but God is merciful ...” - “I will die, I will die ...” And she seemed to be delighted, her face became so cheerful; I was afraid. “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, death doesn’t frighten me at all.” She suddenly got up and leaned on her elbow. "Now ... well, now I can tell you that I am grateful to you from the bottom of my heart, that you are a kind, good person, that I love you ..." I look at her like crazy; I’m terrified, you know ... “Do you hear, I love you ...” - “Alexandra Andreevna, what have I done to deserve it! - “No, no, you don’t understand me ... you don’t understand me ...” And suddenly she stretched out her hands, grabbed my head and kissed me ... Believe me, I almost screamed ... I threw myself on my knees and hid my head in the pillows. She is silent; her fingers tremble in my hair; I hear crying. I began to console her, to assure her... I really don't know what I was saying to her. “The girl,” I say, “wake up, Alexandra Andreevna ... thank you ... believe ... calm down.” “Yes, it’s full, it’s full,” she repeated. – God be with them all; well, they’ll wake up, well, they’ll come - it’s all the same: after all, I’ll die ... Yes, and why are you shy, what are you afraid of? Raise your head… Or maybe you don’t love me, maybe I was deceived… in that case, excuse me.” - "Alexandra Andreevna, what are you saying? .. I love you, Alexandra Andreevna." She looked me straight in the eyes, opened her arms. “So hug me…” I’ll tell you frankly: I don’t understand how I didn’t go crazy that night. I feel that my patient is ruining herself; I see that she is not quite in my memory; I also understand that if she had not honored herself at death, she would not have thought of me; otherwise, if you want, it’s terrifying to die at twenty-five, having loved no one: after all, that’s what tormented her, that’s why, out of desperation, at least grabbed hold of me, do you understand now? Well, she does not let me out of her hands. “Spare me, Alexandra Andreevna, and spare yourself, I say.” “Why,” he says, “why be sorry? After all, I must die ... ”She constantly repeated this. “Now, if I knew that I would stay alive and again get into decent young ladies, I would be ashamed, as if ashamed ... but what?” “Who told you that you were going to die?” “Eh, no, that’s enough, you won’t deceive me, you don’t know how to lie, look at yourself.” - “You will be alive, Alexandra Andreevna, I will cure you; we will ask your mother for a blessing ... we will unite in bonds, we will be happy. - “No, no, I took your word from you, I must die ... you promised me ... you told me ...” I was bitter, bitter for many reasons. And judge, these are the things that sometimes happen: it seems nothing, but it hurts. She took it into her head to ask me what my name is, that is, not a surname, but a given name. It's such a misfortune that they call me Tryphon. Yes, yes, yes; Trifon, Trifon Ivanovich. Everyone in the house called me Doctor. I, there is nothing to do, I say: "Tryphon, ma'am." She narrowed her eyes, shook her head, and whispered something in French—oh, something bad—and then she laughed, not good either. So I spent most of the night with her. In the morning he went out, as if mad; went into her room again in the afternoon, after tea. My God, my God! You can’t recognize her: they put her in a coffin more beautifully. I swear on your honor, I don’t understand now, I don’t understand decisively how I withstood this torture. Three days, three nights, my patient still screeched ... and what nights! What did she say to me! .. And on the last night, imagine, I’m sitting next to her and I’m asking God for one thing: clean up, they say, her as soon as possible, and me right there ... Suddenly the old mother - walk into the room ... I already told her the day before, mother, that there is not enough, they say, hope, it’s bad, and a priest would not be bad. The sick woman, as her mother saw, said: “Well, it’s good that you came ... look at us, we love each other, we gave each other our word.” “What is she, doctor, what is she?” I died. “He’s delirious,” I say, “fever ...” And she: “Enough, enough, you just told me something completely different, and you accepted the ring from me ... what are you pretending to be? My mother is kind, she will forgive, she will understand, but I am dying - I have nothing to lie; give me your hand…” I jumped up and ran out. The old woman, of course, guessed.

- I will not, however, torment you any longer, and I myself, I confess, find it hard to remember all this. My patient died the next day. The kingdom of heaven to her (added the doctor quickly and with a sigh)! Before her death, she asked her people to come out and leave me alone with her. “Forgive me,” he says, “maybe I’m to blame for you ... illness ... but, believe me, I didn’t love anyone more than you ... don’t forget me ... take care of my ring ... "

The doctor turned away; I took his hand.

- Eh! - he said. - Let's talk about something else, or would you like to be a little one? Our brother, you know, is not a trace to indulge in such lofty feelings. Our brother, think of one thing: no matter how the children squeal and the wife does not scold. After all, since then I have managed to enter into a legal, as they say, marriage ... How can I ... I took the merchant's daughter: seven thousand dowry. Her name is Akulina; Trifon something to match. Baba, I must tell you, she is evil, but she sleeps all day long ... But what about preference?

We sat down in preference for a penny. Trifon Ivanovich won two and a half rubles from me - and left late, very pleased with his victory.

Poetics of the county in the story of the same name by E. I. Zamyatin

The story of E. I. Zamyatin "County", published for the first time in 1913, was noticed immediately. Controversy arose around the work, although in general the assessment of critics was positive. Uyezdnoye owes its birth to the controversy about the tradesman and his metamorphoses in the era of the “mass uprising” (J. Ortega y Gasset), which unfolded in 1905-1907. For Russia, this was a time of severe social upheaval, from which she was never able to fully recover until the fateful 1917. Wishing to "clarify the historical perspective of his people", Zamyatin turns his gaze to the provinces, "to deep, soil Russia." “Deeply realizing that Russia is not in the capitals, but in the provinces, he looked at her not from the side and from above a metropolitan resident, but from the very thick of the “black earth inside”, responding like an artist to the darkest, most terrible, and to the purest and most lyrical notes of her life".

Zamyatin was often accused of disliking the Russian hinterland, called a "snob", "English-style European", "native, Petersburger", although this is not so. Some of his works really depict the squalor of the province, which, however, he sincerely loved. His love was like Remizov's love-sorrow, breathing from the pages of Remizov's "Word about the destruction of the Russian Land", about which Zamyatin in the article "Are Scythians?" wrote: “What a mournful love beats in every word - love for Rus', everyone and always: for the saint - and the sinner, for the light - and the dark!<…>this is love and sorrow - the soul of Remizov's "Word", and anger and fierce anger - come from this love like smoke from a fire. These words can rightly be attributed to artistic heritage Zamyatin himself and thus illustrate his true attitude towards the Russian provinces.

In love with the black-earth Russian outback, Zamyatin with pain clearly sees the disgusting ulcers on the body of his beloved homeland, once strong and powerful, but now immersed "in heavy flesh, sleepy stupefaction of immobility." It is "almost impossible to budge her, she is so heavy, so inert, so humbly put up with her life." The reason for such passivity Zamyatin considers the disease, which the writer refers to in one word - "district". "County" is a multifaceted phenomenon. It pervades all areas. human life, like an octopus, braids human souls, thoughts, destinies, relationships with its tentacles.

In the story there is wide circle issues related to the concept of county. What life phenomena can be considered county? What is a county man, what are his distinctive features? How do social changes affect the county person, and how, to what extent does it affect them? What forms the county psychology? What is the essence of his family and social relations, the peculiarities of his religious worldview?

So, "county" - a closed space of a provincial backwater. This concept is not so much geographical as philosophical. We are talking about a spiritual backwater, about a petty-bourgeois attitude to life, which is characterized by primitiveness, ignorance, inertia, inertia, spiritual impoverishment and is guided only by uterine instincts. The world of the Russian provinces is isolated, cut off from the outside world, closed to real life. “The county world, recreated by Zamyatin, is a world in which time is not felt, the presence of the intelligentsia, the state, and civilization. This is a “mossy”, enchanted, sleepy kingdom.”

By creating collective image- the world of provincial Russia, Zamyatin continues the traditions of Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chekhov, Gorky. Before us appears a typical Russian province. Here lives a "domestic ... pious, sedate", "out of boredom ... fruitful" people, who "sleep sweetly after dinner with a full womb." "Wickets on iron bolts<…>Warmly love<…>So they live for themselves neither shaky - nor rolls, they rot, like dung, in warmth. Russian province- this is “the city of Kitezh at the bottom of the lake ... we don’t hear anything at all, the water above our heads is muddy and sleepy.” It is no coincidence that the story has an impersonal title. This title emphasizes the writer's interest in this way of life.

The protagonist of the story, or rather the anti-hero, is Anfim Baryba. In the image of Baryba, the theme “ little man". Continuing the traditions of social determinism in the interpretation of the “little man” inherent in Russian classical realism, the writer, both in the portrait of the hero and in characterizing his inner world, “emphasizes that individual specificity of the hero as a person, which allows the environment to negatively influence him” . Thereby classic theme"little man" is interpreted in a completely new way. Baryba embodies the main features of the "district" evil, the main of which is the lackey spirit, distorting and denying human values. The lackey spirit, according to Zamyatin, is a vile fusion of a slave and a slave owner, which the writer vividly embodied in the image of the main character.

However, Baryba alone cannot be blamed for everything. As I.M. Popova rightly believes, the fate of the “wild absurd stone woman"- largely determined by the cruelty of the father. Thus, the theme of the family comes to the forefront of the story, “which has become the main one for Zamyatin’s work, and for all Russian literature of the 20th century,” since the family is “that imperishable thing that human society, Russian in particular, has always rested on. And if they are rotten, these foundations collapse, the world collapses.

The writer depicts 2 types of family relationships: between parents and children, husband and wife. “In all the variety of conflicts in the work, the family question is posed and finds resolution in the fates of all the main characters: Anfim Baryba and his father, Chebotarikha, lawyer Morgunov, local philosopher - tailor Timoshi, soldier Aprosi. The most varied family problems are also indicated by the writer in the fates of minor characters. This is also the story of a marriage arranged by the treasurer's son-in-law.<…>This is also the story of the merchant Igumnov. The tragedy of the county family lies in its total destruction. There is practically no example of a positive family in the story, whose relationship is based not only on the biological level, but also on the kinship of souls.

The relationship between Anfim Baryba and his father is, of course, central. This is confirmed by the very composition of the story. As L.V. Polyakova notes: “The type of composition of the story can be defined as a necklace composition, the construction of a work by “stringing” individual bead heads onto a single solid and closed thread, at the beginning and at the end of which there are scenes of a conversation between father and son. They are at the heart of the compositional ring, symbolizing the isolation, stability, immutability, eventfulness and at the same time the narrowing and hopelessness of their position.

In addition, this emphasizes the mental deafness of not only the “wild, ridiculous stone woman,” whose degradation and spiritual fall occurs throughout the story, but also of his parent, because Baryba, after all, is the offspring of his father. Being, according to the hero, “a right person”, relying on traditional moral guidelines, the father condemns the hero for violating the basic commandments: “do not commit adultery”, “do not steal”, “do not kill”, but he himself violates the commandment “love more than yourself”. myself". Namely, love, according to Zamyatin, is the cement, without which the world is threatened with complete destruction. Baryba's father, driving his son away, removes himself, abdicating all responsibility for the monster generated by himself, his severity, and thereby commits a great sin, because he refuses the "great moral duty" to exercise spiritual care for his son and entrusts this duty to society » .

The lack of love and respect is what characterizes the county families in the story, both between parents and children, and between husband and wife. Baryba's relationship with Chebotarikha, with Polka, with Aprosya does not go beyond physiology. In addition, the behavior of the hero with each of these women gradually reveals the worst sides of Anfim. With Chebotarikha, he is a silent slave who hates his mistress, but for the sake of a piece of bread is afraid to rebel, to throw off the hateful shackles of hated dominion. With Polka, this is a real slave owner, aggressive and cruel, reveling in his power over those who are weaker. Aprosya, at first glance, has a positive effect on the uterine, petrified Baryba: in her house, he “became somehow transparent, humanized” (p. 66). But even the “quiet, bright, pure” Aprosya is unable to “turn him around for love” (p. 43), completely humanize him.

Thus, exploring and analyzing in his story such a phenomenon Russian life, as a "district", the writer reveals all its ugliness and negative influence on the human personality.

1. Komlik N.N. creative legacy E.I. Zamyatina in the context of Russian traditions
folk culture. Yelets, 2000. P.3.
2. Zamyatin E.I. I'm afraid. Literary criticism. Publicism. Memories. M.,
1999. P.30.
3. Berdyaev N.A. Soul of Russia. L., 1990. P.14.
4. Comedy. N.N. Decree. op. P.32.
5. Zamyatin E.I. Favorites. M., 1989. P.78. This edition is cited below with reference to
pages in the text.
6. Filat T.V.
7. Popova I.M. "Alien word" in the work of E.I. Zamyatina (N.V. Gogol, M.E. Salty-
Kov-Shchedrin, F.M. Dostoevsky). Tambov, 1997. P.28.
8. Komlik N.N. Decree. op. P.35.
9. Kapustina S.N. The theme of the family in the story of E.I. Zamyatin "Uyezdnoe" // Creative Heritage
que Evgenia Zamyatina: a view from today. Book. 11. Tambov, 2003, p. 74.
10. Polyakova L.V. Evgeny Zamyatin in the context of assessments of the history of Russian literature 20
century as literary era. Lecture course. Tambov, 2000. P.61.
11. Comedy. N.N. Decree. op. P.41.

E. A. Nalitova
2004

Zamyatin Evgeny

EVGENY ZAMYATIN

1. QUADRANGULAR

Father endlessly saws: "Study and study, otherwise you will, like me, sew boots."

And how can one study here, when it is written first in the journal, and, therefore, as soon as the lesson, they immediately pull:

Baryba Anfim. Please, sir.

And Anfim Baryba is standing, sweating, pulling his already low forehead to the very eyebrows.

Again no belmez? A-ah-ah, but you’re a little old, it’s time to get married. Sit down, brother.

Baryba sat down. And he sat thoroughly - for two years in the classroom. So, without hurrying, Baryba got to the last one.

He was about fifteen years old at that time, or even more. They poured out their mustaches like a good winter, and ran with other guys to the Streltsy Pond - to watch how the women bathe. And at night after - even if you don’t go to bed: such hot dreams will climb, such a round dance will lead that ...

Baryba will get up the next morning, gloomy and goofing around all day. It will flood into the monastery forest until night. School? Oh, go to hell with it!

In the evening, his father will begin to buzz him: "Again he ran away, silly, bastard?" And at least he, completely rabid, will grit his teeth, not utter a peep. Only all the corners of his marvelous face will appear more prickly.

It's true: corners. It was not for nothing that the county boys called him the iron. Heavy iron jaws, a wide, square mouth and a narrow forehead: like an iron, with the spout up. Yes, and all of Baryba is somehow wide, bulky, rumbling, all of hard straight lines and angles. But one thing is so fitted to the other that some kind of harmony seems to come out of the clumsy pieces: maybe wild, maybe terrible, but still a harmony.

The guys were afraid of Baryba: the beast, under a heavy hand, will drive into the ground. They teased from around the corner, a mile away. But when Baryba was hungry, they fed him with rolls and immediately amused themselves to their heart's content.

Hey, Baryba, gnaw it for half a roll.

And they shoved stones at him, choosing which ones are harder.

Not enough, - Baryba grumbles sullenly, - a roll.

Damn it, go! - but they will also find a bun. And Baryba will begin to gnaw pebbles for the fun of the guys, grind them with his iron crushers - you know, lay it down! Fun guys, curiosity.

Fun with fun, but when the exams came, the amusing people had to sit down for books, even though green May was in the yard.

On the eighteenth, on Tsarina Alexandra, according to the law, the exam is the first of the finals. So, one evening, my father put aside his coat and boots, took off his glasses and said:

You remember this, Anfimka, chop it down on your nose. If you can’t stand it now, I’ll drive you out of the yard.

As if something could be better: three days of preparation. Yes, for sin, the guys started tossing - oh, and an enticing game! Anfimka had no luck for two days, he lost all his capital: seven hryvnias and a new belt with a buckle. At least drown. Yes, on the third day, thank the Lord, he returned everything and even won more than fifty dollars clean.

On the eighteenth, of course, Baryba was called first. The uyezdniks don’t googoo, they’re waiting: well, now it’s going to swim, poor fellow.

Baryba pulled it out - and stared at the white sheet of the ticket. From this whiteness and from fear, I felt a little sick. Gasped somewhere all the words: not a single one.

At the first desks, the prompters whispered:

Tigris and Euphrates... The garden where they lived... Mesopotamia. Me-so-po-ta... Damn deaf!

Baryba spoke - one after another began to chip off, like stones, heavy, rare words.

Adam and Eve. Between the Tigris and... this... Euphrates. Paradise was a huge garden. Where the Mesopotamians lived. And other animals...

Pop nodded, as if very affectionately. Baryba cheered up.

Who is this, from the Mesopotamians? What about Anfim? Explain to us Anfimushka.

Mesopotamians... They are. Antediluvian animals. Very predatory. And here they are in paradise. Lived near...

Pop grunted with laughter and covered himself with his beard turned up, the guys lay down on their desks.

Baryba did not go home. I already knew - the father is a right person, he does not let words go to the wind. What is said, it will do. Unless, besides, it will also shake well with a belt.

2. WITH DOGS

Once upon a time there were Balkashins, respectable merchants, who brewed and brewed malt at their factory, but in the year of cholera they all somehow suddenly tried on. They say that their heirs live somewhere in a big city, but they don’t all go. So it grieves, the escheated house is empty. The wooden tower was shattered, the windows boarded up crosswise with boards, weeds settled in the yard. Blind puppies and kittens are thrown over the fence into the Balkashin yard, and stray dogs climb under the fence from the street for prey.

This is where Baryba settled. I took a liking to the old cow hood, since the doors are not locked and there are mangers in the hood, knocked together from boards: why not a bed? Grace to Baryba now: you don’t need to study, do whatever comes into your head, bathe until your teeth chatter, for an organ grinder at least all day wander around the plantation, in the monastery forest - day and night.