(text by Alexander Fin)

I am a VILLAGE RESIDENT. I have a wife and two children. And two horses, two dogs and two cats.
I live far from the city, far from the highway. Between hills and forest. AND TWO YEARS AGO I WAS A COMPLETELY SUCCESSFUL CITIZEN

CAREER, PENSION AND OLD AGE?
I lived in the city, studied, received my red diplomas, had fun with friends. Then I met my woman - Irina. A son was born, then a second. Days followed days that rarely differed from each other.

I got an interesting job, delved into it, achieved success. And on the threshold of the next increase, I saw what was ahead. Career, retirement and old age. Like everyone around. Like my parents.

I tried to escape this sense of hopelessness by changing jobs. Sometimes he worked for two at once. My plans were formulated a long time ago: to buy an apartment, earn more money, then buy a bigger apartment ...

And in the summer, for two weeks, I went on kayak trips or to a fishing camp. I lived happily these days, I waited out the rest of the year: “When summer comes, I’ll go to nature.” From childhood, a familiar program: “when you go to school, then ...”, “here you finish school, then ...” you will become an adult, get a job, retire, and then you will live. Until then, do what you're told.
I came to a city apartment with a feeling of longing: I had already repaired all the sockets, threw out the garbage ...

One day my wife asked:
- Do you feel good anywhere?
- Yes, - I answered, - two weeks a year, in nature.
"Then why do you live in the city?"

LOOKING FOR YOUR HOME
And I realized that I had to leave. Since my earnings were connected with the city, I did not dare to go far. But, just in case, I gradually mastered web design and began to earn money with this as well.
We were looking for a home. We did not like the suburbs: the city dumps burned nearby, the neighboring fences pressed right against the windows of the houses that were offered to us. But to think about how to go further than the city bus, I was just afraid.

And then one day we came to visit friends - in a distant wilderness, 80 km from the city. They lived in a large village stretched between the hills and the river. It was very interesting there. One day I realized that every weekend I try to find a reason not to go looking for a house in the suburbs, but to go to visit friends in a distant village.
It's very beautiful there. The wide Don, above which the hills rise. Huge apple orchards and an alder forest that extends beyond the garden. I was looking for my place. And one day I realized that I want to live here.

In the spring we packed all our things and moved to this village, to a guest house of friends. It was an old reed house - without a foundation, wooden poles stand right on the ground, reeds are sewn between the poles, and all this is smeared with clay. And we began to master the village life and look for a house to buy.

A BRAND NEW LIFE
The urban feeling that only old age is ahead has been replaced by a sharp sensation: "EVERYTHING IS JUST BEGINNING!" We settled down, got used to the fact that the sky and grass are visible through the windows, there is silence and delicious air around.
Earned through the Internet. Dreams that were impossible in the city came true. My wife always dreamed of having a horse. And we have a one-year-old Oryol trotter. I wanted a big dog and bought an Alabai. Sons (at that time they were two and five) from morning to evening ran through the hills and built huts in all the surrounding thickets.
And all this time we continued to look for a house. At first they wanted to settle very close to friends. The idea of ​​joint projects and common space was in the air. But then I realized: I need not a common, but my land, where I can be the Master.

As a result, we found a log house on the very outskirts, with a vegetable garden extending into the forest, with an excellent hay barn, with a stable and a huge old garden. Agreed on a deal and ... thought.
A distant dream threatened to become a reality. A frightening "forever" loomed on the horizon. We doubted whether we made the right choice. These days, one evening, our young horse ran into the meadows, into the floodplain of the river. I, as usual, went to catch her. My wife took a bicycle and followed us around on the road. I caught up with the horse on the shore, she stood and waited for me. I took her by the reins and walked towards the house. After a while, Irina joined us. We walked through the meadow, before us lay the whole village, behind it the hills. Nearby, about twenty meters away, two storks landed on the meadow. It was drizzling with blind rain, there were two rainbows in the sky, and through the clouds a ray of light fell on our future home. This place made us smile. And we were glad that we stayed.

MEN'S MATTERS
I have been living in the village for almost two years. New families are constantly moving here, and I communicate with them. Together we fix our houses, fix our cars and mow the grass. I like that I spend a lot of time at home. When I want to see friends or parents, I get into the car and drive to the city. And at home and in the yard there is always something to put your hands on. Here my male concern for the family is expressed in simple and concrete deeds.

It's not just about making money. I resumed my massage and bone-cutting, which I had abandoned in the city. I also make simple furniture for us, take care of the garden and the horses. Gradually, the house was improved, and now our life is even better than in the city. I see how my actions change the life of my family, and from this I change myself. And I have the opportunity to stop, think, look at the clouds in the sky. Or take my dog ​​and go wander alone with the whole world. And then I get back to business. I think if I had stayed in the city, I would not have reached the level of awareness that appeared here for many more years.

When I look from here now at what my family care in the city looked like, I have simple cynical words. I paid off money from my relatives. I paid them for not being with them. And he spent his life with candidates for deputies, with clients, performers, contractors, but not with his family. I came home to eat, sleep, and most often my thought was this: "Leave me alone, I'm tired, I was making money." This was the pattern my boys saw. I remember from childhood the parental wording: if the refrigerator is full, then nothing more is required from the father.

In the city, I changed masks: “specialist”, “family man”, “friend on vacation”…. Like all the men around.
Arriving in the village, I did not suddenly become different. There's just no need for masks. Here I act in different situations in different ways, but it's always me.
And now I will add these lines, we will take the saddles and leave together with my wife on horseback to the apple orchard, and then to the forest, and further to the hills ...

The village is the perfect place for love. No fancy clubs or other temptations for you. But dramas in the countryside are sometimes played out such that the capital's tricks never even dreamed of. Books about the village and love will tell you about the strength of the feelings of ordinary people who are not looking for ornate arguments, but if anything, they will use a shovel. The love of the village is not complicated, but it does not tolerate neglect. Find out what passions sometimes flare up in the picturesque countryside.

A book about how you can have a good time in the countryside. Two city girls, at first did not want to go to the dacha in the village in the summer. The trip turned out to be successful. The girls met a good, cheerful company and even fell in love with the rural boys.

How do people live in small villages? What are they doing? The author of the book will describe life in a French village of 33 people. In order not to die of boredom, residents open a marriage agency and give single people hope for love. And in their free time, they love to cook.

The story tells about an ordinary Siberian village, even before the war. A city girl moved to the village, who was very different from other girls from the village. Very soon she got used to the role of an ordinary rural beauty and met her love there.

The hero of the book, urban writer. Tired of the bustle of the city, he decides to leave for the countryside in order to live life there and start a family. But strange things begin to happen to him in the village. The people who live there are fighting with themselves all the time. Can the writer find his happiness there?

A book about people living in a village near forests and swamps. About how they survived in cruel conditions, doomed to eternal life in the Belarusian outback. A love that simply takes your breath away. The hero of the book will receive hope for a change in life, for the better.

Old Anna is the heroine of the story. The book is at the same time about the love of an old woman for her children, who are far from her, and about love for her native place. Matera is a village that is planned to be destroyed. For the locals, this is a tragedy. They are full of love and hope to the last.

The book brought the writer popularity and the Nobel Prize. His book is known all over the world, tells about the tragic events in human life. The main characters have passed all the tests, for the sake of their love. Survived betrayal and hatred in their lives.

A story about a legendary woman living in a village who plows in order to feed her daughter and sick husband. Although she bears a great burden of resentment towards life, herself, she does not intend to give up. The woman is madly in love with her family, no matter what.

Hares get drunk from the smell of clover.
The main character Alexei is an ordinary village boy. At first glance, it seems that there is nothing special about it. He, like everyone else, has a dream and he can do it. He is capable of love, suffering, knows how to do things. So will he fulfill his dream?\\

Agathon, tired of everyday life, was forced to leave for the Lower Urals in order to somehow change his life, look for new sensations, or maybe find his happiness. He, along with his friends, after a while will understand how to find happiness in love and in everything else.

The heroes of the novel are people who have experienced difficult years of life. Everyone can envy their strength of spirit. Such people are capable of true and pure love. What trials will these people have to go through? Can they survive no matter what? Is there enough strength for this?

A wonderful story about true, sincere love. The main character is Ivan Murzina. The book describes his entire life. All the difficult and beautiful moments are captured. Love, true friendship, experience, emotions, all this can be found in the book.

The book is about an urban, self-confident family that did not know how to appreciate the life that was. They had everything, money, work, a beautiful and big house. But misfortune rained down on this happy and loving family. Having lost everything, they were forced to move to the village and somehow survive there.

The village is not people.
The heroine of the book is an unhappy village girl who falls madly in love with her classmate's father. You can’t hide anything from the villagers, and very quickly everyone learned about their relationship. The son of this man died in a random situation and this poor girl was blamed for his death.

A novel about the love of two teenagers, the shepherdess Chloe and the shepherd Danfis. Their fates are very similar. They grew up in foster families, since childhood they were in love with each other. After passing many obstacles, they will be together, they will get a good fortune from the people who raised them.

An unusual novel about unusual people. Thanks to him, the author became famous. A novel about Latin American magical realism. The life of free people, their love and hatred, jealousy and devotion. How hard is it for these people?

This is a book about the life of a large and loving family. Their history connected with the Russian history of the 20th century. The book describes all the happy episodes from the life of the family. So are the tragic events that they must overcome and score like a bad dream.

The book includes novels and stories about the life of village people. This book guides you to the right choice of life path. How to find your happiness, find love and be devoted to it in any situation. The book will be able to change your outlook on life and teach you to distinguish between true happiness.

Askold Epov, at school they call him Ep, carried away by his ingenuity, forgot about the lessons and got a deuce from the English language. His teacher's younger sister came to his aid to improve his English. But then, she falls in love with a schoolboy.

This is a mystical story known all over the world. About Vakula's love for the beautiful Oksana. For her sake, he did crazy things to prove his love to her. She considered him unworthy of her love, but Vakula proved the opposite to her and Oksana eventually reciprocated.

For the first time in recent years, I had a long summer vacation. Previously, everything somehow worked out in fits and starts: to escape for a week or another; add an extra day to the holiday weekend. And that's it. And here - more than a month ... And I left for the village.
He left with the firm intention of finishing a book he had begun long ago. Somewhere else it would have been so, but not in the village, which suddenly knocked on my heart. Luckily, I heard that hidden knock. Thus was born this book of stories, which personally brought me the joy of returning to the roots.
Joys, if they are real, are extremely simple and unsophisticated: unhurried, unhurried life in the wilderness, in a village family home; the incessant muttering of turtledoves outside the window: - go-and-and you, go-and-and you... And you can’t understand in any way whether they quarrel or have mercy - either you go away from me, or it’s you and no one else who come to me; like a sparrow, a nimble flock of goldfinches, early in the morning clinging to a tub of water, specially placed for them the previous evening. Eternal music and pictures of the living world.

It’s not a pity for life with a weary breath,


A. Fet

I recognized you shadow

Having moved a little away from the hot, like a frying pan, August afternoon, when the unbearable sun rolled down to the round tents of walnut and "barrel" trees, I went on my first walk.
Upon arrival here, I made a vow to myself every day, by all means, walk my planned kilometers. Along the usual route - field roads along the local spacious fields.
At any time of the year, these fields are beautifully unique. In spring, it is a freshly sown field, still shining with glossy cuts of black soil, or an emerald brush of oat shoots; in summer - a cornfield waving under the wind and shimmering with amber, dryly ringing with ears; in autumn - bare, under the root, shaved stubble, over which tireless field birds hover and tremble.
On my last visit, I wandered between high - on both sides of the road - fences of corn. This time, the walls along the road were formed by sunflowers rustling their leaves with emery.
The fields here are flat, like a table, so that a bottle of corn waving higher than others or a repentantly bowed head of a sunflower can be seen no less than a kilometer, or even two. Probably, also because the air here is transparent, light and clean throughout the entire space of life - from the earth's crust to the very abyss of the sky.

I went to meet the sun, but it blinded me, piercing through the tinted glasses and the long visor pulled low. And I resolutely turned around in the opposite direction.
Turned around and froze. In front of me lay a clear, thick, long shadow, the existence of which I had long forgotten and never remembered. The shadow was exactly as I had left it on the back road of my childhood exactly sixty years ago.
But I recognized her immediately. On the same thin legs, like those of Shemyakin's sculptures, set with compasses in short pants to the knees. The same disproportionately large torso with short handles; the same strongly sagging, sloping shoulders. And the head on the neck peg was the same, despite the fact that now it was wearing a mandatory baseball cap, and not the best cap in the world - an eight-piece cap, with a cloth button or a loop on top.
I raised my hand, the shadow did the same; I waved my other hand, and so did the shadow; I put my “hands on my hips”, the shadow depicted exactly the same samovar. I jumped, and she jumped.
How did I stand now on this road? An elderly person with severe shortness of breath, with constant listening to the heart - how does it beat there - tapping? -, with persistent and already habitual pulling pain in the lower back.

And still the shadow wanted to play with me. I didn’t even realize how it happened, but I hid my stick, which I always took for walks, in the nearest furrow, spread my arms, made a roaring sound of a starting engine and, humming evenly at normal speeds, together with a blond boy who had taken it out of nowhere, I smoothly took the helm. And in Chkalovsky - in Chikalovsky, - the boy corrected with pressure, - we rushed in a race with a shadow that uncompromisingly flew ahead of us. But this did not offend us, and we, affably shaking our wings, climbed higher and higher. And suddenly a recognizable girlish voice rang in my ears:
The pilot circled around
Over my, over my hut,
He me, he bewitched me
Boy, oh yes, winged boy.

The girl assured that this winged boy would definitely turn back, fly over the house again, and regretted that there was no airfield in the yard, otherwise he would have sat right at the very porch-porch.
Who would have seen this picture from the outside. Not only does this visiting old man constantly wander aimlessly through the fields, but he also undertook, spreading his arms, circling on the road like a crazy plague sheep.
We flew to a distant copse and it did not matter to us at all that this copse was only a narrow strip of acacia protection. We immediately rounded last year's sloppy stack of straw and again lay down on a sunflower course ...

Apparently, the shadow is tired. She stretched and thinned right before our eyes, her head completely disappeared somewhere in the thickets of shaggy roadside grasses, her contours blurred, became less and less clear and saturated ...
Thank you, shadow, I recognized you, you are me, - the blond boy said to the shadow. He waved his hand again, the shadow vaguely marking the return wave. The boy slowly, as if still waiting for something, turned towards the sun. It was just sinking into the golden melt, covered with a pink-gray scum falling from the bottom of a cloud that did not have time to escape from the sunset horizon.
No, he did not disappear with the shadow, did not melt in the rays of the setting sun, my thin-legged little companion. Obeying his lightness, I walked elastically along the road. Together we searched and found a hidden stick. Yes, and we entered the village from the other end together, marveling at these countless molehills - cities.
A young peasant sitting on his haunches at the last house inoffensively called out to me: - What, grandfather, are you walking around the village with a stick, are you afraid of dogs?

The man did not notice the boy. Yes, it seems that he was no longer with me.
Well, goodbye, my little one. Maybe we'll meet again. Yes, we will definitely meet, you just need to believe that childhood will live in you, lead and guide you to the very end.
An alarmed father-in-law was waiting for me on a bench near the front garden: - I’ve already begun to think, what didn’t work out? No and no, no and no. All right, you say? Well, if so, let's go to the table, everything is ready for a long time, we'll sit down, have tea on the air, it seems that we let go a little ...
That's all.
No, not everything.
That night, in my sleep, I wept inconsolably.

Y-y-y, y-y-y…

When a village father-in-law appeared in my destiny - before there were only city mothers-in-law - the village returned to me. Not the one, my dear, now abandoned and dying, but the other. Spacious, like the Azov steppe itself, with wide - with an asphalt strip in the middle - streets, along which grew "high", "strings", and even a mighty walnut, wormed into a row of acacia or poplar.
At first sight I fell in love with this wide, but waterless village, near which there was neither a river, nor a pond, nor a spring. He fell in love with our adobe, brick-lined, multi-window house with almost year-round - from tulips to "oak trees" - flowers in the front garden; with a well-kept and generous garden; with a mighty spruce near the porch, which was chosen for residence by several families of doves.

I love the quiet country joys: my lonely walks through the fields in the evening, the lonely voice of the oriole in the nearby thickets of cherries. I love the indomitable and brave rooster Petya. In fact, he is not Petya at all, but the villain Zabiyakin, jealously and desperately boldly guarding his hectic and stupid harem from me ...
You will ask, reader, and you will be right, but what does this absurdly terrible heading from one of the most absurd letters of the Russian alphabet have to do with it?
If so, then forget about my happy village moments and believe me that besides them, there is a lot of sorrow and a lot of sadness in the village ...

The order in which our father-in-law's house stands is running wild and dying out. The restless drunkards have gone into another world - the neighbor on the left and the neighbor on the right. The same hopeless drunkards are still holding on - their sons and the widow.
Our houses are separated from one another by a sagging chain-link mesh. Therefore, everything that is said and happens in our yards is all before our eyes and ears, and there is no getting away from it.
Mother and son are fighting. When there is something to drink - they drink, when there is nothing - they fight. It is unacceptable in relation to the mother, to the woman who gave birth to him, whatever she may be, the son swears obscenely and dirty. She snaps when she can, just as rude and obscene.
And when he can’t, he beats her, and she cries. And it's hell for me.
Go to intercede?
Do not interfere, - my strict father-in-law interrupts my doubting impulse, - they started without you, they will figure it out without you. Don't get tired of running every time.
An elderly, worn-out, exhausted, battered old woman, unwashed, uncombed, with a face completely covered with rough, scabbed, crusted, cries and whimpers with the weeping of a child, a small defenseless little man. This hardest ordeal puts pressure on me, leads me to despair, and she cries bitterly and plaintively: - s-s-s-s, s-s-s-s. She cries for hours, and I climb the wall from this endless crying.
In the morning I see her at home on a bench. I'm walking past the store.

Hello, - I say, - a neighbor, maybe I can treat you with a pile - a check?
No need - answers - I do not drink. I'm sick.
Well then fine. Don't worry, and I went my own way.
Hey, this one, neighbor, - I hear after me, - take a sip of beer.
Who the hell is this beer! - A lame-legged neighbor opposite swooped in like a whirlwind, - and to me: - give me twenty-seven hazel grouses, they brought a good one yesterday.
Spread out. Yes, as long as you hobble, yes there, yes back - the neighbor annoyedly jerked her hand.
And I'm not going! – with the same impatient fervor dismissed neighbor. Come on here,” he shouted to his neighbor’s nephew who was moving sluggishly, “a man gives fifty kopecks, and he crawls like an undersuppressed cockroach ...
An hour or two later I went out the gate again. This time the neighbors did not notice me point-blank. And I guessed why. All of a sudden I’ll ask you to treat me, all of a sudden I’ll demand my share, otherwise I’ll start downloading the rights, they say, my money, and you’re here, so yours and razedak!
With their faded, watery, festering eyes, they now did not want to see or hear anyone - neither me, nor God, nor all this white light.
They also talked about something else. It is impossible to understand. These were not familiar words and sounds, but some completely new, unfamiliar words. But they understood each other and liked each other.
Lord, - I prayed, - at least today carry this Egyptian execution past me, so that at least today I will not hear her deadly cry.

night road

I tell you a secret - not all of us will die,
but everything will change
Epistle to the Corinthians

The night caught me in a mowed cornfield, where I was collecting cobs pressed to the ground and not getting into the car in a cart.
While it was day and it was light, local women were running around on the field. Under bags of corn, they adapted bicycles. If men worked, then these came on motorized carts, scooters and even cars.
Belarusian harvesters - freaks with a hanging, to match themselves, GDR mower, planned a corral, mowed the first row, and a car walking next to it just created this crumpled strip of corn, on which we are all now huddled.
Another tractor was already running from the harvested edge of the field, uprooting and plowing in powerful corn roots.
We collected cobs with an eye on the road - suddenly the authorities would come, drive them away, confiscate them, fine them.
Although why? After all, they immediately plow, thereby breeding hordes of a field mouse, which then they themselves will costly poison with poisons. And here people voluntarily, for the benefit of themselves and for the field, clean the sloping array.

I lost hopelessly the competition in the selection of cobs. The locals worked in teams, family contracts, two or three; from time to time, husbands appeared on the field, took away what they had collected. And I, with my cart, which I dragged behind me like a snail house, picked up only what was left of them, more dexterous and skillful. And my plan was oh what - to pick up a full bag of cobs, bring it to my yard and get a stingy smile from my father-in-law as a reward. Therefore, when it began to get dark and one brigade after another began to leave the field, I pulled ahead and walked without looking back and walked along the planned row. And he woke up only when the setting sun dived into a light sunset cloud and, having slipped through it, immediately rolled over the smoky horizon.
I also saw and heard how the tractors and combines fell silent, how the truck picked up the workers and took them away from the field. And I was left alone in all this vast space that had become silent...
What I did not expect was that the night would fall on the quiet fields so quickly. I did not take into account that this is not only a southern night, but also a village one. It is difficult to catch the transition from day to night in the city. The sun, before leaving the horizon, hides behind tall houses for a long time, gradually thickening the evening shadows. And when they become more or less noticeable, the electric light turns on. And in time we are guided by the clock: oh, already ten, but imperceptibly. Not the same here, in the open field. The evening dawn was just playing, but at some point it was as if a toggle switch was turned: coolness immediately swept in, a mysterious evening haze and still gray darkness. During the day, forest belts separated from each other immediately merged into one darkening wall; the horizon vanished, retaining, nevertheless, a sense of immeasurable space.
I decided to go to the other side of the field, go to the transverse road, and go along it to the main dirt road, which will lead me straight to the village.
The cart was getting heavier with every step, clinging to tall wads, getting stuck in the furrow. For some reason, she was doing now what she had not done during the day. I stopped to rest more and more often, and at these moments I was seized by an unaccountable anxiety. But why worry? These fields and open spaces have long been walked and crossed, everything is known and studied, what lies where, what grows where. Indeed, the anxiety passed, giving way to the delight of experiences associated with the transformations of the early night.
In the southern edge of the sky, there was a nascent edge of the month, its lower bow could not hold the bucket in any way and, therefore, tomorrow there will be a bucket, that is, good weather.

Quiet Ukrainian night! Yes, and this one, near the Azov, oh, how quiet. Why, they are sisters, why would they be quiet, similar to each other, not to be. There she is, Ukraine, lies beyond that horizon, and from that corner Mariupol from time to time poisons a walnut and a vine. Next, next to Ukraine, on all radio - and television waves does not give a pass. It must be admitted that you get used to the Ukrainian “movie” quickly, some words and phrases express the essence of things much more accurately, more figuratively, more capaciously, and the programs themselves, even the same news bulletin, are presented more lively, more truthfully, and more interesting than on our escheated television and radio field.
And I began to peer and listen into the night. And when he slid down from the field onto the road, he began to stop for a long time, trying to comprehend the sensitive language of the night. Soul trembled:
It’s not a pity for life with a weary breath,
What is life and death? What a pity for that fire
That shone over the whole universe,
And goes into the night, and cries leaving.

Everything and everything: a harvested field touched by the hand of autumn, and roadside weed bushes that turned into a forest in the night, and a deserted road, and the creak of the wheels of my cart, reaching the black sky, and wormwood bitterness, which even my sense of smell, even in the army youth killed by heptyl - all this gave rise to a mystical conjecture that opens up to you, the mystery of fading life.
I am not a religious person, but I believe that the soul lives in another dimension. And now in my aging body, she turned out to be the same soul that she was at the beginning of life. And someone else sang inside me: - “The night coolness blows from the field ...”
I moved the cart, which I was now pushing in front of me, and again, and again, the awakened, disturbed memory trembled and burned me: - “here I am wandering along the high road ...”
Man is strange. He always assumes to live and frivolously does not intend to die. Well, someone inside me objected, people have always known about it. They may not have always known that in the sky - look, take a good look at this tent - there are only eighty-eight constellations. They did not always know this, but something else? What you!
O my prophetic soul,
O heart full of anxiety,
Oh how you beat on the threshold
Like a double existence.

Double life...
Yes, that is right. How else can I explain that the most distant memories have now become the closest to me? And they are getting brighter and sharper. And I seem to understand why people who have passed away take up so much space in my frantic memory. They created me and without them I would not be who I am. It turns out that nothing in life was accidental, everything left a trace, everything has a continuation. Probably, only in your declining years comes the understanding that everything that happened to you - both beautiful and terrible - is the links of one chain, which is your unique life. And all of it will be yours only when not a single link is thrown out of this life chain. We draw strength from the memory of love. Memory is the extension of humanity in man.
In my memory, in my double being, everyone who was, is and will continue to live. I know all about them because they are me. I live and die with them.
And I dreamed this, and this
I dream;
And this is me someday
dream,
And everything will repeat itself
be incarnated
And you will dream everything
what I saw in my dream.

I must be a man of the nineteenth century, if not the eighteenth. In a sense of poetry - exactly. The poets of my childhood were Nekrasov, Fet, Nikitin; Lermontov, Blok, Yesenin became poets of youth. In maturity and old age, Baratynsky, Pushkin, Tyutchev were added to them. And as the purest examples of spiritual independence, Mandelstam, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Akhmatova, Brodsky ...
But in this, alas, already the twenty-first century, I still have desires that warm my dreams and soul. It seems to me that if I have to die, and desires still live in me, I will experience a keen sense of injustice.
One thing scares me. I see around me old people not so much older than me. But I guess that they, especially the villagers, no longer have my desires. They are somehow closer to everyday worries: a new peg to drive in, but where to get it? If only someone would come, but the garden propopolil, uproot the weed grass to the vigorous mother. Cat? Why feed her, pamper her, she will feed herself. If it doesn't feed, let it die.
I feel how disapprovingly they watch me - how I brush my teeth, shave, smear creams on my face. Not that they were against: - preen, but only how much water do you spend, the counter, he, the bastard, twists and twists, twists and twists. You leave, and he will turn everything ...
Are these also desires, because of which you don’t want to die, is it possible that in just a few years the considerations of plant life will be more important to me than the experiences and feelings of this night, through which I am making my way now, violating its mysterious peace with the creak of my cart ... No, no , probably, everything is much simpler and more complicated. A person grows old and fades away when he gets tired of life, stops loving it. It seems to me that I will love life in all its manifestations until my very last breath.

The thought came that nature, fortunately, is irresistible, contrary to everything that I read and know about the rape of her by a man. I thought that this night breath, this wormwood coolness, this silence and silence, these rustles in the crowns of acacias - is there a bird rustling in a dream? - enough for her, this steppe, to take on the blows and a new invasion of man in the morning: the clang and roar of tractors; the smell of fuel oil and diesel fuel; iron chirp of mowers; the snarl of cars scurrying from the combine to the silo pit, back and forth, back and forth.
What to do, in the being of both nature and man there is both one and the other, and the third; everything is there, what is needed and without what it is impossible. And in desires too. Everyone has their own. To this, here, to write a book, a man is blessed - a book! Who needs her? Go to school, to the school library, there are these books! I took one. I read it for two winters, it's called "Harem". Do not read? Good, thick. They stole some lady somewhere, but they sold her to a Turk, to a Sultan in a harem. Well, she gave them soot there, they were not happy that they bought it. Get it, read it. Good, thick.
I remembered, once I ran into the market. As everywhere now in the toilets - with payment. There are books on the table where money is accepted. I look and do not believe my eyes: four volumes of Veresaev - all of his Pushkin and all of his Gogol.
- Do you sell? And how much?
- By weight, like watermelons, six rubles per kilo.
- Are you, hostess, a teacher in the past?
She gathered her mouth into a mournful bundle, lowered her eyes, answered with a sigh: - yes.
At night, on this road, reflections on books seem to me reflections from some completely distant, long-lived life, although they may have been yesterday. But now memories of them seem prehistoric, unnecessary, ridiculous and meaningless. Why are they? For what? For what?
How is a person supposed to live?
I am almost at the outskirts, but the village is not even guessed. No sound, no light, only a slightly thicker patch of garden trees. Has stopped. There is nowhere to rush and there is nothing to worry about, here it is the outskirts - within easy reach ...

But really, how should a person live?
How much has been said about this, how many morals and religions, prohibitions and temptations have been invented. And if you discard everything and get to the last essence, you will suddenly be struck by lightning: why guess, all you need to do is come as close as possible to understanding biblical values.
- Well, you know...
- You don't need to know. There are only ten of them! There are ten commandments in total. And the seven deadly sins. It is in them that the whole human life fits, which consists only of collapse and the emergence of hopes.
You begin to understand that many things do not matter and that you do not need to plan your life years in advance. After all, she can stop at any moment. Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Right now, standing on the night road, which has become soft underfoot, having finally heard the lonely chirping of someone there - cicadas? cricket? - I guess how meaningless everything in life is with two or three exceptions: writing, listening to music, at least the same cricket, trying to think ... And one day I understand that from all the fire of life only love remains inextinguishable, unburned.
God is love, man is love, talent is love...
- What about happiness?
- And happiness is what it was.

Stream of consciousness, flies and quail hunting

Yesterday I undertook my farthest walk as far as the edge of the horizon. The day before yesterday's broken plans prompted me to do this. The day before yesterday, as always, I went out the gate with a firm and desirable intention to make such a detour, so that after admiring the fall of the orange disk of the sun in the bare steppe beyond the distant line of the window, I would soon find myself at the gate of the house. That was the plan. But this time I did not go straight to the steppe, but along an asphalt street, which ended with a primer that was rolled and strong, like concrete. And soon he ended up in the now dead, but once seething with life and teeming with people, the kingdom of the military.
Once upon a time there was a military airfield and training fighter jets, either one by one, or in a pair, or in a flight, tirelessly ironed and smoothed the high sky. I have not seen this airfield, but I have heard a lot about it.
Doubly beautiful pilots ran from him to the village girls, among whom was my future wife, on their first love dates. Because they doubly studied not just as pilots, but as naval pilots.
And this is far from the same thing. These have uniforms, unfeigned severity in cadet habits and posture, and many other things that you can’t help but fall in love with.
Girls ran to the pilots more often. It's easier for them, of course. A girl's first love is not that impatient, but hotter, more dreamy. And their affairs are not the same as those of the pilots. You can't throw an airplane away like a briefcase, and you can't dismiss a commander like a mother.

Her reproachful voice is still heard: - and who water the cucumbers? But you are already sedately, and even as if indifferently, arm in arm with a sincere friend, you are going to the treasured hole in the fence; you are already rejoicing and suffering: it will come - it will not come, it will break out - it will not break out. And the heart from the chest - that's for sure - is about to break out.
My wife was friends with Alyosha, and she was friends with Timur.
A few years ago, when, as always, I was sitting at some urgent papers, and she was watching TV, I suddenly heard her sorrowful and desperate cry. She loudly called me: - Hurry. I hurried to the voice, and we saw a portrait of a naval pilot. General, commander of an aviation division, one of our few aces who knew how to land and lift a heavy combat vehicle from the ship's deck. He just died, crashed. The wife was crying, because the concentrated but smiling general with a short Georgian surname was the same Timur, her close friend and, no less important, the closest and most reliable friend of her boyfriend.
Calm down, - I console my wife, - half a century has passed.
- No, - she sighs sadly, - it was yesterday ...

Now there is nothing left of the former airfield facilities, except for one terrible reinforced concrete structure, as if five letters “P” were put in one line.
Whenever this construction catches my eye, I tense up, afraid to see something terrible. For all time the gallows. And everything else was overgrown with game, impassable thistles, weeds and dung beetle. Whom to ask why the places of the former habitation of people are overgrown with such obscene herbs, which on the free steppe, and even on abandoned farms, never grow so quickly and violently, so crowded and impassable? As if taking revenge on people for their betrayal.
On the third day, a large wedge of the former airfield field burned here. In the gloomy ashes I counted at least two hundred molehills. Not only tubercles, but also very large in height, perhaps at least half a meter, tubercles. Were the moles still alive, was this field their breadbasket? With the Lord God, all fire victims are the same - both people and animals; that the birds of heaven, that the moles of the underground.
And a little further away - I already found these times - the space center was based. One must think, one of the closed chain of tracking centers. Belarusian steep-assed, large-breasted girls from the center were running around the village here, persuading lonely widowed old men: - Uncle, take care of yourself, I will be a good housewife and look after you, otherwise they will steal us to Chita.
From them, from the pilots and space attendants, there was a small clump of trees: lilac, wild pear, visharnik. The waste of life is brought here from all over the village. They dump - some from the side of the car, some from a motorized cart, some from a manual wheelbarrow. They screwed up, they screwed up, they screwed up. But all the same, through the skeleton of a discarded refrigerator, a leaky bucket, a rusted basin makes its way and reaches for life by a chamomile - dandelion, an unkilled bush of horse sorrel, burdock. Now, however, more and more ambrosia. This one is truly unkillable.
Lord, what fools we people are! The village is not so poor, its leaders are not so bastard, so as not to enclose this territory with a picket fence, clean it, sprinkle it with gravel, sand? - found paths and paths, conduct light, put benches. Here is a ready-made park for you, expanse and joy for children and the elderly. Why only for children and the elderly? And the young liked it, more than one love here would have been conceived under a lush lilac bush, under the gentle song of the oriole.

No, none of this will happen, but there will be another dump, which, according to the law of human meanness, will come closer and closer to the village until it devours one street after another. One day they will set fire to it, or it will catch fire by itself and become a stinking piece more on this destitute land.
In the captivity of my gloomy thoughts, I made my way to the third military point. Probably, either an automobile battalion or even an automobile regiment of some kind of service was stationed here then. There were covered cars with special bodies, with all sorts of personal belongings, in two or three rows around the entire perimeter. And around, except for the road to the gate, pierced by tractors, there were not just jungles. The Russians were jungle: two-meter thickets of burdock, thistle, tatar, thistle, and what the hell is impassable. But I have to go past this part to my favorite steppe. And the road led straight to a huge gate with a formidable inscription: “Stop! Show me your pass."
A solid village dweller perceived me, I think, as a little small-minded, if not completely stupid, visiting city dweller: glasses on my nose, panama hat on my head, panties, called shorts, on white legs, a shirt - a fly-away to the navel and a self-cutting stick in my hands.
Do you see me reader?
This is how the lazy man saw me, stupefied from boredom and heat, sentry-orderly.
On duty to me, - suddenly for no reason, and not thinking of saying all this, - I squealed. And without taking a breath, he imperiously demanded: - lieutenant colonel to me!

In the sleepy eyes of the sentry, shrouded in a veil of languor, something woke up, moved for a moment: “And who will you be?”
- Fulfill the order, around the march!
The orderly seemed to have been changed. He twitched the way a dog twitches in a dream, then turned and dived behind the green protective curtain that hung over the doorway. I heard the murmur of voices. And probably, to the question: who is there?, the orderly answered clearly and loudly, so that I also heard: - I don’t know, comrade lieutenant colonel, some kind of general!
I finally began to understand the meaning of my infinitely stupid act. But it was too late to think. A lieutenant colonel was moving toward me on unsteady legs, fastening the buttons on his chest and the fly of his trousers as he went.
He introduced himself: - Lieutenant Colonel Epaneshnikov.
Major General such and such, - I called myself - here, I arrived, I walk, I fall into childhood. But you, lieutenant colonel, made me fall into amazement. What are you, gouging, overgrown with lichen, what are you doing in these kushyrs ?! Tomorrow, at the same time - I looked at my watch - I'll come and check that you are here like Annushka was - five or five.
This - so that like Annushka - five or five - was the favorite saying of my battalion commander, Captain Gorokhov. Transport battery. Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine, in a simple way, heptyl. The matter is dangerous. So the frantic battalion commander thundered from morning to evening and from evening to morning: - a fluorine gasket on the flange, so that, like Annushka's, five or five; tighten the stuffing box, so that like Annushka's; in the toilet, on the parade ground - everywhere with him - so like Annushka, so five or five, so that it’s round.

I again repeated Gorokhov's saying, which had surfaced in my memory. Oddly enough, Lieutenant Colonel Epaneshnikov understood it as it should: - exactly, Comrade Major General, it will be performed like Annushka's.
- Do it.
And I turned back along the road, and wondered with my back: - will they catch up? Do not catch up? Will they hit you in the neck or will they bring you up with pendels?
I was walking back quite late in the evening, and although I gave a big circle from this ill-fated part, I could not help but notice some movement there in the light of many car headlights.
The next day, I did not dare to check the completion of my task. I thought that for a day, for sure, they made inquiries. They asked the village authorities: - what kind of general came to you here? To whom, if not a secret? And in response: - what the hell is a general, we never had higher ranks than a captain.
They could double-check and call the military commissar in the city and hear in response: - Epaneshnikov, so yours and razedak, you got drunk right there in your kushyry and went crazy to delirium tremens that you are already imagining generals. You, Epaneshnikov, will get yours even without the general, if you don’t bring the promised diesel fuel and the seventy-fifth!
And that's it, and a skiff to me. I remember how, at the Novobasmannaya guardhouse, they threw one or two suspensions to us, privates, and that’s it, but some captain, completely drunk, was beaten to death almost to death. Or maybe to death. For the captain's four stars with clearance. And here is the impostor general, shoulder straps with gold embroidery ...

And now there was nothing left of the auto-batteries, not a bush, not a trace. I could not even orient myself where this Mesozoic site was. Probably smelled, probably gone under the arable land.
You leave, you're not going anywhere. If a hillock thirty meters high, just outside the outskirts - they poured for the pilots: to shoot cannons, machine guns for aviation - it was like a razor cut. They took it away for household needs: - but nothing is clay, greasy, thick and soaked through with lead, it will hold firmly.

This stream of consciousness did not dry up either after a walk through memorable places, or at night; he walked and walked - this stream of consciousness - with a new pressure and new stratifications, and when I went out on my yesterday's, if you don't forget, the farthest walk.
Stream of consciousness, where does it come from?
How about from where? From there, from the student days, from the fashionable then fashionable foreign writer Joyce.
Have you read Joyce? Not? Well, you know.
- And what about him, this Joyce?
- Yes, you can’t say briefly, he has - if you want - a stream of consciousness.
The time has come to admit that I do not love Joyce, I do not love and never loved, I only pretended and was fashionable. If I were offered to re-read Joyce now, I would refuse. There is not much time left, to have time to read what you want, yes, at least, Tolstoy's diaries or Emma Gerstein's memoirs ...
In general, in these names - Joyce, Hemingway - some kind of catch seems to me. How it seems that they are joking with you, they take you for a gullible simpleton, when they show and teach you to understand Malevich's "Square" and roll their eyes: brilliant! Vertex! This is beyond the control of God!
I heard that the "Square" was sold for some fabulous price, one of the "Squares", either at number four or at number five. This is a black, with curved edges, a square spot, this is a brilliant creation, either behind the number four, or behind the number five.
Who do they take me for? What is it to me, what is it to them in this square? Do they not see in him what I see, see what I do not see, blinded by insensibility and ignorance? No, I can't believe it! Regular primed canvas on a stretcher.
Or Dali. Well, what do I care about the fact that before the arrival of the woman he loved, he smeared himself with feces? Why do I need to feel and worry? Why should I, for what part of the soul or mind of his unimaginable, even brilliant, - but not for me brilliant, but for others - it's their business - his dream and a host of monsters?

I've lost a lot of interest in Hemingway, now I don't like his ostentatious machismo, the glorification of murder. Although, when I had the opportunity to visit his villa, I, then, with a pretense of teaching other people, enthusiastically stumbled on "Ham", to his countless shoes, spinning rods, guns. And much later, he flatly refused the opportunity to visit Trotsky's villa, the very one where the hero, Chekist Mercader, broke his skull.
But what was, was. During his student years, a photograph of Hemingway, like an icon, hung over almost every student bed.
But when I weaned myself a little from the ignorant and omnivorous respect for the authors of once exclusively fashionable books, I began to guess that foreign authors, far from the best in their homelands, occupied too much space in me - the fruits of ideology. Now it has finally become clear to me that these are not at all outstanding literary examples: Dreiser, Remarque, Zegers, Sagan, Salinger. But there are no such number of them on my bookshelves! Although, yes, there are others nearby: O Henry, Pinter, Chesterton, Irving ...
How about taking the music? On the black plate of the loudspeaker, hanging in the collective farm yard, for hours, days, months they drove and drove piano concertos. All the best for you, new people of the new world! All for you - Heifitz and Stravinsky, Ashkenazi and Gohar Gasparyan. What to give you, comrade, in a concert by request? D major, B minor? Opus number one hundred and thirty-seven, Ode to Joy, or Bubble Solveig's song? It is, of course, we live up to our ears in shit and pianos in our huts - there have never been and never will be reading rooms. And we don’t have second pants to replace, and the Selpovsky ran out of bread, and when they bring it in, they don’t say ... But, here, a play. "Education of the senses". Haven't heard of this one? But you don’t need it, you need it, the hut will gather in the evening - it will enlighten ...
Since then, we have been living, all as one, music lovers, theater-goers, experts in piano pieces. Though Glinka is for you, even Pyotr Ilyich himself.
Shostakovich? Yes, everything is somehow painfully chaotic with him, like after fresh milk in the belly. Not our man.
Of course, I am aware that I am probably too subjective and my words are not at all indisputable.
But there was such a policy, there was a replacement, a substitution of everything root that originated in the depths of centuries ...
Branches were cut off, roots were cut off of everything that grew on the soil of the rejected, discarded past, that began back there - in hoary antiquity and on which the self-consciousness of people was based.
The violent, unnatural, anti-people cultural break has charred, robbed, destitute the soul of the people. Classical Russian romance - Foggy Morning; the classic folk song - "Far, far away, the steppe has gone beyond the Volga" - then you can’t. Corrupts, relaxes, disarms. And who wrote these songs? People? Oy! Either a gentleman, or a count, or even a grand duke; either a German, or a baron, or, in general, what a rogue with an unknown surname.

And they have achieved that the soul of the people will not find itself until now, it will not recognize itself among others. And that is why he rushes about and torments himself, magnifies himself and gets lost, grabs whatever he gets from someone else's table ...
And she is all hammered, that, they say, our songs, they are different.
rich, stupid
And I can't sleep with the treasury
The man is naked like a falcon
Sing, have fun.
One of the leader's favorite songs, by the way. Remember.
What are we? What kind of people are we? Yes, we will turn the hell out of the horns if we pile on an artel. Heard, I suppose, how Fyodor Ivanovich is shaking?
The Englishman is a wise man to help work,
Behind the car invented the car,
And our Russian Ivan, if you can’t work,
He will tighten his own club.

That's all, and that's enough about it.
It is generally accepted that the artist draws his own will from the color, the writer - from the word, and then the text itself chooses its reader. Fortunately, I was chosen by good texts, notes, pictures. And now it gives me some right to an independent view. Anyway, I want to hope that it is.

I walked and walked along the field road, rejoicing that I was walking without shortness of breath. And I thought that here, among the village huts and deserted roads, I could live ten years longer.
He could, if he now received his pre-reform pension of republican significance in the amount of one hundred and thirty-seven rubles and fifty kopecks. Yes, even concessions in rent, services, and in two or three years a free ticket to some provincial sanatorium. So what, what a prodigy! Sanatorishko, with bathing, rinsing, washing ...
Now what? Tomorrow to die, and now to work. And happiness, if they take it out feet first not from a stale bed, but straight from the service, from the table, from the pulpit ...

So I thought, striding my kilometers, catching the lightening evening breeze; watched a lone crow that unsuccessfully tried to fly across the air current. Nothing worked for her. I even heard how she puffed, how her wings creaked. Finally, the crow gave up, turned its ailerons and slanted swiftly over the forest belt to the plowed empty field.
I was ready to come to terms with everything in myself and with everything around me, I already began to think about such strange categories as space and time, their elusive flow of one into another; to think about immortality, including death itself as a necessary and justified link in it, when an object lying on the road attracted my attention. I picked it up. It was a cartridge case from a hunting cartridge. How did she end up on this road, where virgin, like the footprints of Friday, lay my footprints the day before yesterday. But there was a sleeve. Blue-greenish color. Plastic, which in my time was not and could not be. Twelfth gauge, shot number seven. "Falcon" - was written on the sleeve, "Fetter" - on the other side.
Still not guessing anything, I remembered my quails, which each time took off almost from under my feet: - f-r-r-r- and three pieces were carried away into the cornfield; f-r-r-r– and another couple dived into the sunflowers.

I fiddled with the cartridge case in my hands, wondering if it was from it that the wedge of the former airfield was set on fire.
Far ahead of me, I saw objects incomprehensible to me right on the field. Closer it became clear that these were cars. They stand off the road, quiet and deserted. Have the lovers gone away from human eyes? What if something else? Come and see, besides me there is not a soul around? Something prevented me from coming closer, looking into the salon through the window. I decided that if they stand on the way back, so be it, I’ll come up and look.
Suddenly - toh, and then - toh - toh ...
And somewhere aside, through the woods: - toh - toh.
Fir-trees-sticks, shoot! On the other side of the wedge, I saw a hunter, a dog, and heard commands. Probably hit, gave commands to the dog - look.
And then I saw him up close. Not a bird hunter, but an overseas ranger: lace-up high boots, a panama hat; spotted uniform; belts along and across; shotgun; a few miserable soft lumps dangle lifelessly on the belt.
What a bastard! Is he going to eat them? He will come home, begin to pluck, gut, pick out grains and cook. And eat! Lord, is there really not enough food for him, is there really no sausage?
Also, probably, a bastard, in his youth he read Hunter. The one who perekoloshmatil half of the African herd of lions and tigers. I took his book, bought at the dawn of a foggy youth, from the shelf and threw it out, and in this place I put the best book in the world about wolves. It's called "Don't Scream Wolves". The author's name is Farley Mowatt. Bow to you on earth from me, Farley Mowatt, if you are still on this earth ...

And what's with the flies?
Oh, flies are a separate topic and a separate philosophy - a hymenopteran blood-sucking individual.
On my path the fly haunts me. When will she come to her senses, will she be frightened that she has flown away from home with me, that she will not find her way back to the house?
Damn! I walked and walked, and she kept tossing and rushing from my left to my right ear. Now I, you such a bitch, will stop, wait until you sit on your hand, and slap you. But the fly vanished into thin air. No whack from her, no call. Yep, got rid of it. And, satisfied, I moved on. And he did not take a step, as she instantly took up her own. Yes, how, bitch, took! Even through the thick fabric of the T-shirt, she stung cruelly and mercilessly.
Is it really just one persistent fly? Or are there a lot of them, I just don’t have time to catch it?
No, a fly - or flies? - did not leave me alone either when I was walking along the road, or when I crossed the forest belt. Behind a strip of forest, a field of ripening lentils was waiting for me, and the fly and this new world, at least henna, it was at home here too - vz-z-z, vz-z-z.

I walked back tired and sad. The car stood as it was, and there was nothing to approach it, and the second one - with a luxurious red setter inside - moved to another plot. And the blows to the nerves continue: - toh, toh - toh!.
I was halfway across the cornfield when my trio of quails took off right from under my feet. And, as usual, in corn. And soon another couple noisily broke and disappeared into the sunflowers.
That's good, that's the glory of God, everyone is alive and well, know yourself furkat wings. Yes, they are clumsy, they fly hard, under the fly, it’s necessary differently.
And as soon as I thought so, the quails soared up steeply and went down to the ground in a curved arc like a stone.
That's better!

A fly - or flies? - lagged behind me at the very outskirts. So, not the village ones - fat and furry, but the field ones - angry and indomitable, like mustangs.
The fly was not alone. Now I know for sure. They passed me from one brigade to another, like traffic cops on the road. He passes on the radio to a comrade in front: - they say, he is going there alone, don’t let him go for nothing, pump him over properly.
So are flies. They sit on their own, waiting for their hour. And now he has struck, this hour. After drinking blood and tasty sweat, the fly transmits in front of the sitting companions on its walkie-talkie: do not yawn, girls, a mountain of fat is coming at you, a tank of blood is moving at you. Fly in, feast. There is enough for everyone, for all our time, given to us by the fly god. And tell others further that a holiday has come to our street ...
Still, even with the sun, I managed to slip through a strip of forest, to go out to a clean place in order to see him off to the very last aureole.
And then there was a happy night, the shadow of which was imprinted in these artless lines.

Don't die village

So fate happened that at the very beginning of the journey a village happened in it and, now, at the end - again it is a village. And the main life passed far away from them. Do not consider student merry trips either for potatoes, or for a current, or for sorting vegetables as communion with the village.
My childhood village actually no longer exists. In a broader sense, that Village - with a capital letter - from which we all left once and a part of which each of us took away with us and in ourselves, no longer exists. You cannot return to it, just as you cannot return the past or turn the river back. We have put down new roots in other parts and lands, and now in these places there are not only children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but also expensive graves.
And we ourselves, the villagers, have also been gone for a long time from this, still flowing, life.
No, you are mistaken, dear friend,
We lived then on a different planet.
And we are too tired
And we're too old
And for this waltz, and for this guitar.

When the trees were large, in my village our garden seemed infinitely huge. With long rows of potatoes that had to be weeded and weeded, and the end of the edge was not visible to this damned weeding; with a pumpkin plot; with long - from the boundary to the boundary - beds of cucumbers and beets; with holes of tomato and cabbage. Watering was hard. The handles are thin, the strengths are small, the bridge is flimsy - on willow pegs stuck in the muddy bottom, on top - a plank. From her two or three steps up, which on the second bucket were already impossibly slippery, and to carry another hundred buckets. You can’t resist, with full or empty buckets, how many times you will fill up until you pour everything ...
Buckets are heavy. And if you chose lighter buckets, then, then, two buckets should be poured under each root, into each hole.

Pumpkins are unbearable. How many pumpkin roots did we have, ten or more? Cabbage - exactly - forty-nine holes - seven rows of seven holes each. A family of seven ... Two tubs in the cellar for gray and white cabbage. Gray - for cabbage soup, white - for stuffing. And without filling - by itself as it is - to the festive table ...
From all the variety of the future: technical achievements, unimaginable yet machines, nothing attracts me. There is no envy of future people who will see, know and use all this. For some reason, it’s more interesting for me to find out even during my lifetime: is it really true that something like a ship has stuck on Mount Ararat, is it really Noah’s Ark? And another, even more naive, question, to which there is probably an answer, but I don’t know it: - how many acres were in our garden? I'm cleaning my father-in-law's garden and I see that, approximately the same number of roots. Two or three rows of cucumbers, two rows of tomatoes, a row of carrots, three pumpkin roots. And that's it. This is our village garden with my mother? I’m estimating, standing in the dough garden: yeah, there was a river flowing over there; on a hillock there is a pile of swollen adobe and scale - a ruined bathhouse; on the back, that is, right here, right in front of my eyes, lay a spot of manure, here it was rolled out, chopped into squares, put into ventilated, folded cone heaps.
I remember that my mother stood on the porch of the house and did not strain her voice much when she called out to me, standing on the lower garden: - did you water it? If watered, go to dinner ...

Now I have another village that I have been visiting for the past few years. She is completely, completely different. Almost seaside, Azov, root, all the inhabitants are descended from the Cossacks of the Zaporizhzhya Sich, and their surnames speak: Burmaks and Skachedubs, Khinki - Finki and countless "enks" - Onoprienki, Usachenko. All stubborn, splintered, resourceful, agile ...
On occasion, for a good drinking minute, they can still remember and depict on their incredible surzhik something like this, for example: // Vitras are blowing from the pid makitra, // Dumplings dmuzza, // And I remember for the smitan, // Already my lips are shaking.

Maybe the village will survive. Near the city, seaport, military airfield, which in the summer season also works as an airport. Although from conversations with the local intelligentsia: engineers, agronomists, mechanics - they are all the main ones here - the chief agronomist, chief mechanic, chief engineer ... - I conclude that they are not sure about the prosperous fate of their village. The leaders grabbed six hundred hectares of land; a penny is given out of the sleeve; their cardan flew - a piece of iron as long as an arm - put twenty-five thousand rubles. And the owners have in mind to bankrupt the economy, finally take possession of it and become landowners.
Bidding was announced in the newspapers. Five hundred and sixty residents, two hundred and seventy workers, twelve thousand hectares of arable land and land, a livestock complex, equipment, buildings were valued at three million dollars ...
Three million dollars for everything about everything. In the capitals, fifteen million of the same dollars are asked for a football player; they say that the local governor put a thoroughbred stallion in the presidential office for about that kind of money - or whose is it? - stables.
But the villages - mine, killed, and this one - still alive, of course, are incomparable.

I have a dream - to visit at least once again in my small homeland. It will be difficult to realize this dream. I serve in an institution where the reformation has begun. And the reformation in our country is the same as once the Tatar-Mongol invasion - the same breaking of destinies, way of life, way of thinking.
I don't want to be on the sidelines of life. And I want to see people from my small homeland when I am still in business.
- Well, how did you become the boss, so you work for them?
- Was the chief, now here is a pensioner.
- Pension-e-e-r. Well, at least the pension, I suppose, is not like ours? Big?
- Nowhere else, as much as three thousand.
- Won she what. So, you, as follows, were smitten. Mother honest, what is going on in this world?
And deep disappointment, even sadness, spills over the face of a random interlocutor. You can understand him. I wanted to take my soul away with a visitor, I hoped something interesting to hear, they said, the boss. And he, it turns out, is the same shelupon as we sinners.
No, I want to come to the village when I’m still interesting to them, so that they can talk to me and “complain” about this unfair life - life: - You, there, in the city, what do you need? You have everything, went out, took it and you don’t know grief. And here, wherever you throw it, everywhere is a wedge. Look, what's written on the paper? And then they brought it, they didn’t really say anything. But I myself can’t read anymore, I’ve become completely blind, not even letters, but all the lines merge, there is only one ripple. And it doesn't pass. They prescribed drops, I drip, but there is no sense.

Well, as in young years, the eyes will no longer be. God grant that at least so they looked at the white world.
- Yes, that's it...
I talk to them and the village pours into me with steep waves of revived memory. It pours directly into the soul, returning and putting in place everything that once was. It merges in all its integrity and inseparability with my fate, with the fates of the people with whom I grew up together in my impoverished, but thoughtlessly happy years.
So how could it happen that this spring the phone rang out of the blue in my house? From the Ivanteevsky district, the Traktorist grain farm, from its central estate. I do not know what it is now - this grain farm - is called. Calling Maria Kotova. I think in a stunned way and just can’t figure out - Maria Kotova? Finally, it comes to consciousness - this is Manya Kotova, whom I saw for the last time, probably in the fifty-second - third year. I already understood everything, but just in case I clarify:
- Is this Maria Kotova? Which Mania? Which mosquito?
Yes, - replies, - Manya, mosquito, the same one.
And I remember - as it dawned on me - you, - I ask, - probably Pavlovna?
- Yes, I am Maria Pavlovna, Kotova!
- Aunt Anyuta's daughter?
- Yes, Aunt Anyuta's daughter.
Aunt Anyuta and Aunt Alena were married to brothers Pavel and Nikolai Kotov. Each family had two girls - according to Mana and Valya.
With this Manya Kotova, we have common preschool years and elementary school years. But why she was a mosquito, I can’t find explanations, I can neither understand nor remember.

And she shouts to me, maybe she doesn’t have the habit of talking on the phone, maybe, like me, she’s very excited, but she shouts: “Kolya, I tell my grandson about you all the time, I tell him, he definitely has your habit - he twists his hair, makes curls for himself . And I tell him, you, straight, exactly like Kolya Sanin.
Kolya Sanin, it's me. Something seemed to break in me, as if my heart sank somewhere down: - it means that somewhere on earth there lives a little man who, just like me sixty years ago, does a twist-twist on his head ... Where does it come from? Why?
Even now, I probably could, especially when I think about it, twist my hair on my finger, wind my thick strand, but only my hair has become thin and I cut my hair short. The wife insists, reminds every time: - cut your hair shorter, it doesn’t age so much ...

For a long time, Maria Kotova and I shouted into the phone about nothing, asking and immediately interrupting each other. And Manya, Marusya Kotova, Maria Pavlovna suddenly said to me a great phrase that would greatly help me live. She said: - Kolya, I'm happy, I've lived a happy life. Yes, - says, - husband drinks. Of course, he drinks, who here, - says, - does not drink? And it's hard, Kolya, this and that, but I'm happy, I've lived a happy life.
I don’t know who she was in life, my interlocutor Maria Pavlovna, who she worked with: a pigger, a trailer, an accountant; I don’t know if she studied where, does she have an education? Or was four classes enough for happiness? I don’t know what kind of husband she has, who is he - a machine operator, a shepherd, a cattleman?
And I? And I rushed about, studied, spun, revolved, looked at the greats of this world when I sat in the hall, and they were in the presidium; I looked at the orphans of this world when they were sitting in the hall, and I was in the presidium. We have different destinies, different paths and roads, but at the end: Kolya, I, - he says, - happy, I lived a happy life, children, - he says, - grandchildren ...
Manya, I don’t know if I will see you on this earth, I don’t know if you will hear my living voice, but thank you. You gave me a good example. And hope.

I still don’t understand, Manya, how you fell on me, what prompted you to make this unintentional hectic call. And only when months later I received a regional newspaper from Ivanteevka by mail, I realized something. The newspaper published a story about me, about my literary and bureaucratic work, there was a photograph. The newspaper caught your eye, and then the technical twenty-first century came into its own.
So, Manya Kotova, an accident brought us together, framed by the hand of a completely unfamiliar journalist to us - or a teacher, or a librarian, we don’t know anything about this - Natalya Smorodina, the author of that same newspaper article.
From the phrases casually said in the article, I only understood that Natalya Smorodina belongs either to the generation following ours, or even a generation later.

I send you, beautiful stranger Natalya Smorodina, my heartfelt gratitude, a grateful kiss, I press your talented head to the side of the chest where the heart is located.
No need? Husband jealous?
That's good that he's jealous. Jealousy is good because it gives the husband the opportunity to see his wife from the outside, to look at her with different eyes: - oh, Christmas trees, it turns out she is both talented and beautiful, and they admire her, but I’m here side by side - I don’t see, I don't hear.
I bow to you, Natalya Smorodina.
And I bow, of course, to the editors of the regional newspaper. I understand how much work it took to carve out not a strip of a hundred lines, but a whole newspaper page. It was also necessary to improve the time so that this material would not overlap with the worries and troubles about sowing, haymaking, harvesting ... They improved it, found an opportunity, maybe not without jealousy. Journalists, they are all writers at heart. But they printed it.
So I became a writer on my own, and a writer assigned to the Ivanteevskaya land, I became thanks to Natalya Smorodina and the regional newspaper.

I have a desire to see the head of the district administration. I liked her in a large photograph, next to the former governor, posted on a banner in Vavilov Dol. I will say differently - I liked her in the photo, where the governor is next to her. She has a good face. And if you match the face and mind and soul? Yes, someone has already managed to whisper to me that she does not hold character, will, and efficiency. We would meet, sit, and not necessarily in a public place, in an office, under portraits of leaders, but somewhere on the porch, at sunset ...
Ask her what she thinks, what she counts on, does she want to save my dying village? Schoolchildren sent me a newspaper with a story about the plight of the village. And have they gone far or not far from my relatives Shchigry, or are they also breathing hard - nearby Ivanovka, Gorelovka, Chernava, Gusikha?

With strong spiritual threads, I tied myself to another talented Ivanteevka girl. Well, the girl is a husband's wife and mother, a university teacher in Samara. Erokhina Elena Nikolaevna deals with the science of tissues, their properties for bending, twisting, compression, stretching, shrinkage and deformation. Makes experiments, subtle calculations and miscalculations. Outwardly - in what the soul rests, and the mind is large and accurate. From the tribe of "young, unfamiliar." I believe that an essay about her will definitely appear in the regional newspaper - “a detachment of scientists brought up by Ivanteevskaya land has arrived ...”
Lives in Perelyub Viktor Vasilyevich Erokhin. They are strong people with his wife Lyudmila. The wife is beautiful, independent, original, with roots from the Volga Cossack families. The rural intelligentsia, the support and stronghold of the collective-farm, even anti-collective-farm system. They write to me that you, they say, have long been from the village, you may not understand our torment and pain, as the work of a lifetime - a fine-fleeced sheep of the Merino breed went under the knife because of starvation and reform itching. All twenty-five thousand heads.
My brother, my distant brother, to understand or not to understand the pain and anguish of another depends on the state of the soul, and not on the person's place of residence. I understand your pain. It is impossible not to understand it, just as it is impossible not to understand the indestructible village fidelity to duty, the village naivety and simplicity that remains in a person forever, even if you become a city dweller a hundred times. I have a friend of youth Ivan. We met through the abyss of years, together we went to my village. In Vavilov Dol, at the holy spring, having crossed himself, he gulped down two buckets of icy spring water. Stands in the sun naked, tall, gray-haired, like a blessed one. They got into the car. Turns: - Kohl, well, you're a smart person, tell me, will you help?
- Vanya, why?
- Yes, my prostate, Kol, is heavy ...
No, this generic naivety, which is the very spiritual purity, we absorbed it with mother's milk.
My Samara friends Mila Lebedeva, Shcherbaki - Arthur and Elena, city dwellers to the marrow of their bones, aesthetes, scribes, theater-goers, could adorn any salon, any noble gathering. We talk and it turns out that Mila would like to go to her village Selizharovo, to the sources of the Volga, to her native Tver land. What can you say? And you don't have to say anything. Everything is clear without words.

I imagine how one day I will get out of the car in Chernava, go to the obelisk, on which there is the name of my father, I will stand, be silent, then slowly, slowly go to my Shchigry.
Even having come true, in the spiritual dimension, this dream of mine is unrealizable. I would like, for example, that Vasily Kirillovich met me at the outskirts or near his house.
Will not meet. For a long time lies in the damp earth. And his wife is by his side. About ten years ago he met me, and I went to spend the night with them. I had not seen his wife before that for half a century.
How, I ask, is life, Valya, how are you?
It’s bad, - he says, - Kolya, there’s not a damn good health, his head hurts and hurts.
And our conversation began to flow, as if there had not been these years of separation between us; parted yesterday, met today: - Well, how did you sleep?
- It's bad, my head hurts and hurts ...
Another time I met Nastya Lomovtseva on a bench near the house. According to her husband Lomovtsev, but she herself is from Polyansky.
- Nastya, you?
- And you, Kolya, what will you do?
- Nu as, Nastya, health? - Nastya is wrapped up, despite the heat, in a heavy dense scarf.
- No, Kolya, health. They took me to the region twice, they did the operation, it doesn’t help ...
I would like Nina Karlova to sit on a bench by the house when I enter the village. In a sweatshirt in the middle of summer. Does it get cold? Oh, it was combat; oh, dancer; oh groovy...

To meet Pavel Nikolaevich Yulin, once long, like a well crane. The only one of the foremen who knocked on the window of our house with my mother, it's time, they say, to work. Others took a stick to reach the window, and this index finger knock-knock into the glass: - Sanya, come on out, it's time.
So that at the former gate of the house - but where is the gate? - And the jester knows her, how they took it down for twenty years, and no - Nyura Ulyanova met me - Anna Egorovna Ryazantseva.
- Well, what, Kol, did you get bored? Let's go to the yard, why stand at the gate. Kohl, yes, you are like a native to me, so, straight, I was waiting for you.
In the courtyard of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, darkness, and I also fell on my head, came not dusty. But I believe in her sincerity, in which there is not a gram or half a gram of pretense: - but why didn’t you take a wife, shtol?
We stand and weep tears of joy.
The warm images of these people, the grateful memory of them, I carry, as it has now become clear, through my whole life, as a believer carries an icon in his heart.

With renewed vigor, these ancestral feelings were stirred up in me by a new village in my life, where I am visiting my unfussy father-in-law. This time I'm staying for a long time - for two whole weeks. I live like a gentleman - I get up late, I go to bed early, but I do three of my things regularly: I sit at the table for days, I think, I write; in the evenings I work in the garden barefoot on garden soil fluffed up like a feather bed; I walk in the fields. I thought of and folded two new books in my head. One, I hope, grows into a big thing, into a novel whose action will cover the entire past century. I do not yet know if I will enter the present age with my heroes. It does not depend on me, but on my heroes, who act and live separately from my will. It’s a well-known case, even if Pushkin himself complained, here, they say, what a thing my Tatiana escaped with me ...
And the second book has already acquired the title: "In the vicinity of the last loneliness." As an epigraph to it, I took the words of Henry Lawson:
My friend, my reliable friend,
Don't you know
All my life I've been climbing out of my skin
In order not to become, oh God,
Who I could be...

After a simple dinner, back to the table. I could sit until the morning, but I need to save light. And in the morning, wash your face sparingly, do not splash with water, as in a river. And the foam from the cheeks should not be thrown into the sink, it is bursting there and it does not let water through.
Television? And why look there, again someone crashed, someone was killed again.
Radio? Yes, well, him. There is only one fool.
But I learned a new word - ogudina, that is, a cucumber or watermelon long lash.
Feeding the kitty that had come to the house. He brought her a package of food, bought sausages, causing great displeasure of his stingy owner: - a cat with sausages ... Well, tell me, how is it?
And she got prettier, rounder, the fur shone. Even with reproach, he can look when you serve something tasteless, but you grabbed it on the fly, no matter what you throw. Not only people quickly get used to good things. Here the soul hurts - I’ll leave, how will it be here without me? Father-in-law says: - probably won't survive the winter.
In the house, - I say, - let me go.
What! - resolutely objects, - breed fleas!
She is smart, - I say, - many people are smarter, and from fleas I will send the collar. Yes, then cat fleas do not jump on a person.
- How they jump. In our workshops, where he worked, they let a cat in, so the fleas got divorced, they did disinfection.
- When was it?
Yes, right after the war.

Poor cat. My sorrows are not enough, my worries are not enough, now the cat does not get out of my head.
Pity for everything that fits between me and the rest of the world becomes my essential feature. I can't kill, beat, slap anyone. If the understanding came to me that in my life I had already done everything that I wanted, and life itself still had some left, I would like to live out the rest of it under the spruce by the porch with my beloved cats. And that would be true freedom of choice. It is given only to man - the ability to change himself and everything that surrounds him. This is the greatest gift, but also the greatest responsibility. You can choose good, or you can choose evil. You can hate life, or you can enjoy it as the greatest gift. There is a wonderful story about this.
In one place lived people who were dissatisfied with their lives. They walked gloomy, embittered, they all complained about life. If one of them was lucky, others immediately began to envy. And then a wise man came to that area, who promised to teach these people joy. He gathered them all around him and said: "Let everyone bring here the most valuable thing that he has." After some time, a mountain of different things grew on this place. And now, said the sage, let everyone take from this pile one object that seems to him the most expensive and important. Five minutes did not pass, as the mountain disappeared, as it was not there. And each person stood and held in his hands the very value that he himself had just brought. It was then that people realized that in any case, the most precious thing for a person is what he already has.
Seeing what people do with others and with themselves, I think that they do not know how, have not learned to appreciate what they have. Hence envy and cruelty, hence all the evil of the world.

Some kind of beetle was crawling along the road. Who's to say useful or not useful? Stepped over, did not crush. Since it crawls, it means that it needs something, since it exists, it means that nature, the universe like it. I exist and he exists, why should I crush him? We stand on that, we were born that way. We are a village, in a word.
Don't die village.

Remembering the future

So I love the countryside? As soon as I took a step out of the bus and found myself under the hot dome of the thick blue August sky, my heart skipped a beat with the anticipation of a short holiday happiness. I walked along the street, along which the crowns of poplars and acacias froze in a thoughtful half-asleep, and on which the goats taken for a joke, nervously shaking their short tails, stared at me inquiringly with their enigmatic eyes.
And suddenly I thought: - and stay here forever, for the rest of my life. Throw everything that spins me like an obscure speck of dust in the hectic whirlwind of the city, where everyone and no one needs me individually, and live here as a quiet hermit, a living personification of Chekhov's, whether Bunin's characters; to live and squint at the vanity of the world...
Before coming here, I made a plan for myself, from which I did not intend to deviate under any pretext: to sit at my desk all day from early morning until the softness of the evening, and then either walk through the fields or work in the garden.

And so that there are no temptations - not to go to a nearby city with its cozy, hot, sea beach; nor a trip to a long sandy spit, where heavily loaded cars with capital numbers flew in a continuous stream; nor accidental fishing on the estuary, where carp, from the fullness of life, sit on the hook themselves. Nothing of the kind, but only to reflect, to notice, to remember.
I did not deviate from the planned plan, and the village - step by step, moment by moment - conquered and conquered me, drawing into itself the predawn, saturated with multicolor, play of colors before sunrise; then on a quiet, windless, warm night, infused with field herbs, when the sickle of the moon, longing for loneliness, clung to the top of a tree, dived over the roof of a barn, started a game with twinkling garlands of stars; then the dead peace of half a day, when all living things froze in languid immobility: ladybugs on a thread of knotweed; a chicken in a hole dug in the ground; a cat in a ghostly muslin of shadow by a red-hot brick wall. And then it seemed that God himself was advising you to close your eyes, to freeze in oblivion for an hour or two, so as not to interfere with the triumph of midday universal languor under swooning skies.
With all my readiness and desire to succumb to this measured flow of times, trying on myself for a village life, I could not, however, not try to put another visiting city dweller in my place. He - this other city dweller - densely, like peas, scattered around the village on Friday evenings. And then the drumming music began to rumble from the cars; the voices of granddaughters and grandchildren rang out; a fragrant shish kebab smoke wafted from the farmsteads, where fishing tackle was hastily sorted out next to the fire. The life twisted into a spiral was soon carried away by a whirlwind to other temptations and limits, so that on Sunday evening it would finally melt away like a mirage.

And what could make them stay here for an eternal settlement? There is no club, no cinema, no television - in their usual volume and variety - no, no newspapers, no books, no restaurant, no normal light and heat. There is no sufficiency. School and nursery will soon be gone. There is nothing that a city dweller needs. But most importantly, there is no basis for life, no work. Of the locals, some live better, some worse, and some do not live at all. The village hid, went into its yards-burrows. Deceived, distrustful, she sullenly fills with hatred for everything and for everyone who has deprived her of her usual way of life, beliefs and guidelines. Each house is a fortress closed from prying eyes. And what passions are raging there, what plans are being built, what hopes are swarming - no one but themselves knows. Close relatives gather at rare weddings and frequent funerals. At the funeral - commemoration they are silent. At weddings, maybe they sing and dance? I don't know, didn't see it. And just like that, simply, to gather on a bench, to sing - to cry, as in the village of my childhood, this does not exist, and, apparently, it will never happen again.

But how will I myself live here, live and make good? Or live, if I have it? How if I am not a machine operator, not an accountant, not a paramedic, not a teacher, but a pensioner?
No way out. And what will I write books about? And to whom?
The promised paradise collapsed in my soul. I will not succeed in a pastoral life among humble peasants. So, goodbye, village, and with it - goodbye, my crazy desire, my dreamy impulse. My life is there, in a fantastic human anthill, where there are no dawn mornings, thoughtful evenings, intoxicating silence, the lonely voice of a bird. And there is a world bubbling in all directions, which will burst here and there, tear to pieces, stick together again, not noticing and not taking me into account.

Comforting myself, I begin to think that the village will not die. At least as long as we are alive, it will live inside us, remaining the basis of everything that was and is eternally earthly in us.
What else can happen in my destiny to give new beginnings in my later life? What is it that can be compared with the beginnings given to me by the village?
As an individual, I began in my preschool years. It was summer. I lay on the grass near the house, fell asleep, whether I was delirious in reality - I don’t know. But in the direction where the neighboring village lay, the existence of which I did not and could not guess, I saw - clearly, clearly, as in the picture in the still forthcoming primer - a tetrahedral, multi-tiered silhouette of the church bell tower.
In my later years, this silhouette completely merged with the silhouette of the bell tower of the Makaryevsky or Trinity Monastery, standing alone in the middle of the river above the drowned city of Kalyazin.
What was it? Who is this miracle? Why was it revealed to me? I asked myself these questions all my subsequent life, and I found the answer to only one. I realized that it was a moment of divided consciousness. From that moment on, I began to understand and perceive myself separately from the whole, before that undivided, world. This is how my “I” began, which, living and enjoying this white light, did not go beyond the borders of my native village, which encompassed a school, a street, a house, a garden. Everything.

And one day this world was blown up. My abandoned, God-forgotten village suddenly told me that the world from it, from the village, is just beginning, that it continues beyond its outskirts. This is when I turned in my hands the first letter in my life addressed specifically to me. On the envelope, which I also saw for the first time, and not on a triangle, my name and the name of the village were printed in block letters, and at the bottom, also large, the return address: Ostrava region, Czech Tesin, Libuše Sukova. With her surname, which sounds completely unacceptable in my village, my addressee has greatly let down both herself and me.
In subsequent years, I visited Prague, visited Bratislava and, in a crazy way, wanted to find this Libusha in the Ostrava region. And then, embarrassed to say aloud a dissonant, especially within the walls of the school, surname, we decided - both the teacher and the students - that someone evil and stupidly played a trick on us and put a shame on the hitherto spotless honor of the school.
But be that as it may, the world was open.

And then another letter overtook me - triangular, as it should be. A letter to my sister from our cousin, whom we never met. And I don’t know anything about him, about my cousin, ten years older than me, except that his name is Ivan Kartashov. This brother Ivan sent a letter to his sister, on which the return address was indicated in one word - the city of Drohobych. And then the numbers - the number of the military unit.
Drohobych! Who will tell me what this incomprehensible name sounds like - Drohobych? More recently, he again swam into my memory when I heard a similar name of a famous football player, however, from a completely, completely different part of the world. And then? Oh, then Drohobych opened the door for me not just to the world, but to the world in which, it turns out, my relatives also live. Years later, I visited these places and fell in love with Galicia, and the meadows, and all these Drohobychi and Kolomyia with an enduring love.

The village taught harshly and persistently, as if saying: - I am a village, I can do this and that, but you - if you are like that - don’t do it, you can’t.
I could have fallen desperately, hopelessly, passionately and irrevocably in love with a girl named Emma Burlak. Everything. In addition to the name and surname, which also seemed to be some kind of stubbornness, some kind of mockery, well, it would be okay - Burlakova, otherwise Burlak, like a barge hauler, which is "Barge haulers on the Volga." And it's a catchy name. I don't remember anything else about her. Only radiance where she stood, only electrified air where she passed.
We were finishing the eighth grade, and miraculous transformations took place with us. The girls turned into princesses, the boys began to speak in voices that were not their own; I let go of the wavy, flowing cap of hair, and therefore constantly, like a restive horse, threw my head back and a little to the side. But so far we only liked ourselves: girls - to themselves, boys - to themselves.

Last fall, my elder sister sent me a gift from the city for the winter of unprecedented, indescribable luxury - a beige-colored vigonian undershirt. The beauty of this lovely shirt was indescribable - with long elastic bands - cuffs on the sleeves, with a deep neckline on the chest and the edge of the neckline was trimmed with a wide curly braid. It was such a miracle that the very idea of ​​"hooking" this shirt under the top shirt seemed stupid and unacceptable. And here is spring, and here is the graduating class, and here is this vibrating air around Emma Burlak, and with trepidation, delight, fainting, I put on this beige vigonian luxury for the prom rehearsal. Mother even shed a tear when she saw me in such a royal attire. Go, son, - she blessed me, - you are the best of all today, if only my father would see, rejoice. And she wiped away a happy tear.
To the area, to the party, I flew on wings. He flew to stumble upon the eyes of Emma Burlak. What was in that look? Is it really a guess that this is not worn from above? Or what else? But this look confused me, plunged me into dumbness, into horror, and I ran away from the evening. Now some Brad Pitt went out to the public in such a shirt, and no one would raise an eyebrow, and tomorrow, you see, all the bohemian people would dress up in similar shirts.

And then he struck, this hour, when fate picked us up on its swift wing and carried us - in all directions - over the cities and villages of our native land. But the village was in no hurry to give me a vacation pay. And only the last three impressions, which became the tuning fork of my whole life, finally allowed me to shout jubilant words: - Farewell, village, I broke away from you, I'm leaving for my high and happy flight.

The first of them is rails and trains flying along them. I also put nickels and kopeck pieces on the rails so that, crushed into a thin cake, I could show them to my village lads. But more and more often I just looked at the rails, which converged far, far away to a point from which at first a barely noticeable smoke grew, then a black spot, then, as it grew and approached, the rails began to tinkle, tense up and tremble, and now a fire-breathing car with a long line of wagons, on which the eye managed to snatch out the name of unknown distances and cities, is already rushing past you.
The second is airplanes. They took off and landed right above my sister's house and I saw sheets of duralumin smoked from below, small red stars outlined in white, a cockpit lantern and a glazed nose with small figures of pilots. And if you go straight to the airfield fence and stand exactly on course, then when the plane was already disappearing from sight, you were belatedly doused with hot air, kerosene vapor, which rolled over everything from head to toe in elastic waves.
This is if a heavy four-engine “bomber” “flying fortress” was going to take off and land, and if it was a cozy, softly gliding, two-engine Douglas, then you just saw how it all vibrated and trembled, how its wide, with smooth contour, wings.
Thus ended the languor of the dream. Now it took on real features - a small figure of a pilot or navigator in a pressure helmet, which swiftly swept past the eyes.
I was already a worker, I was already handing over to the inspector the parts turned with a micron tolerance, when a young specialist came to the shop after distribution - a technologist, a graduate of an aviation technical school.
Well, this one, for sure, was a city dweller, this one was not some kind of blue-legged hillbilly, this one was an idol. The idol had three trousers: cream, gray and light blue. And three related colors, matching trousers, shirts. Every day he came to his shift in a new outfit. This stunning appearance of the prince became my not only an unattainable dream, but simply an obsession.
But in the early years it was an unaffordable luxury, and when it became possible, the daily change of pants no longer seemed to be the main goal and dream of life.

There was a time when I thought that the village was gone forever from me and from my changeable fate. And my jubilant cry - "farewell village" rarely, rarely, in some special moments, evoked only a slight pain of memories and sadness of parting.
I was wrong ... I may have run away from the village, but she didn’t leave me, but hid somewhere at the very bottom of her soul and humbly waited for me to ask to forgive me for countless betrayals and ask me to let me back.
Of course I won't come, of course I won't come back. Poisoned by the city, we are condemned to fight in it until our last breath! But let him know, our merciless electric city, that somewhere else there is a village that will shelter and forgive its prodigal sons.
Hello village. And further - dreamily: and to give up everything and stay here forever.
I don't hesitate...

Manyavsky Skete

My wife and I spent our short vacation in a charming place in the Carpathians, and when we were offered to go to the Bogorodsky district, to some Manyava and visit the Manyavsky Skete there, we did not want to go, even for one day to leave the Sinegorye that had bewitched us.

But let's go.
Some Manyava turned out to be a large village of twenty thousand inhabitants, a real, like Ipatyevo, open-air museum. And then we were met by the restrainedly severe grandeur of the Manyavsky Skete. We were warmly welcomed into the skete. As it turned out right away, we were almost the first visitors from Russia in a continuous stream of tourists from Japan, Germany, and America. What about them? - the caretaker who met us noticed, - they looked around, took a souvenir as a keepsake and let's go further, to take a look at other places. They do not need our history and are not interested.
I don’t know how anyone else, but the words about our history strongly hooked me, and I began to listen more carefully and peer into the history of the skete. Before that, an indifferent memory woke up, and step by step I began to recognize something long forgotten, but now it turned out to be close and dear, like blood. The voice of memory is the voice of the heart, it is not said today.
The surging feelings were not frightened away by the inspection of the art gallery, where two walls, full-length, all in gold and braid, lined up with red-bellied Polish pan hetmans.
The ascetic decoration of the cells, in which the creator of the alphabet Methodius, the philosopher Skovoroda, once lived, fell on the parched earth like fertile raindrops. And here is an ancient copy of the "Apostle", printed in the skete printing house.

The skete stood at the crossroads of all paths and faiths, there was a brilliant diplomatic court, whose favor was sought by north and south, west and east. This was evidenced by the rich gifts of Russian tsars, papal prelates, Polish kings, Turkish sultans, Crimean khans. With a proud feeling, even with delight, I noted the traces of our history, rejoiced at its deep roots, which it had planted in the ancient Galician land. In a fit of feelings, I made a respectful bow to the old man, who was writing intently at the table - he could be seen through the wide-open door of the cell - which turned out to be a skillfully made dummy.
We visited deep and spacious dungeons, where a hundred-meter-deep underground well has worked since ancient times; where there were bins with food supplies in case of famine or siege. There were many years of sieges in the life of the monastery, but he did not submit to anyone and did not surrender to anyone at the mercy of the winner.

I absorbed the history of the Manyavsky Skete as my own history, as a previously unknown part of the great history of my native country and antiquity. This unity of the soul and history, its past and my current self-consciousness could hardly have arisen, say, in Samarkand or Gobustan. Of course not. There can be no doubt about this, of course. They have theirs, I have mine.
There is such an expression - the heart of the Motherland. For some time now, I began to guess and understand that the Motherland has not one, but many hearts. One is in the Volga Ples, the other is here, in the Manyavsky Skete, the third is somewhere else, beating for centuries in the vastness of the Slavs.
I returned to these thoughts again when we witnessed a village procession. The whole village was moving - from ancient old people to small children. And this spectacle also easily and organically entered the soul. It did not cause a violent rejection, as when I happened to see a crowd of Mohammedans, also walking on their own, and at the same time whipping themselves with whips on their bleeding backs. I saw this spectacle once, not just anywhere, but in a Volga Tatar village. Then, too, there was a much clearer understanding: this is theirs, but not mine. And I won’t look, I can’t, it’s disgusting and scary.
When I had a chance to visit a bullfight, I left with disgust and indignation, when people around were yelling, jubilant and raging.

The procession, which we saw now, was perceived by me in a completely different way. People walked with deep faith on enlightened faces. I tried to imagine myself walking among them. But I couldn’t, although I believe in God, sometimes I go to church, but I don’t live by faith, like these people. That's the whole point. But in my feelings there was something even more important, there was involvement in these people, nourished by the very atmosphere of celebration and celebration, bouquets of blueberries, banners and panagias, on which the images of saints shone, and among them - Princes Vladimir and Alexander Nevsky, Princess Olga , princes Boris and Gleb. People went to their God, who was also my God. Ancestral signs, great-memory of the heart.
Oh, original Russia, I thought that you were already “behind the Shelomian,” but you took it and solemnly revealed yourself to us on the farthest edge of the Slavic land and faith. And at once all the strings of a soul thawed and trembling with happiness sounded.

Afterword

On Pokrov I will be sixty-seven years old. It's hard to imagine how quickly everything went by. Perhaps that is why the winds of idle, optional in the story, reasoning, distractions, and reflections constantly flew into the space of my stories. I do not presume to judge whether this is good or bad. Let the reader, whom I trust entirely, judge this. What is obvious to me is that these winds set the tone for the stories, the book as a whole, mostly, of course, in a minor key. Again, it could not have been otherwise. I will only add that the winds are not alien to me and not alien to me. My lullaby was the mournful howl of the wind, which for weeks whistled over the free, empty steppe; groaned in the chimneys; knocked on the window; whined piteously under the roof. Melancholic, minor mood and attitude are in our blood, steppe dwellers. This internal state could not break my mostly noisy, sometimes reckless, life of the years allotted to me by fate.
I thought, what if all these arguments, guesses and sensations are put on one page? What will happen?

Here's what happened.

Life has passed. It's funny to believe
Haven't lived yet and, now, already,
To me, my doors are knocking,
And I, like a plowman on the boundary, -
I didn’t sow there, the day is overdue,
There's a blue window of heaven
The silent chirping of the magpie
Calling, beckons to a distant forest.
The fire of desire still burns
Still a delightful white light,
Confessions not yet made
To all those who are not with me
No bows yet
My captivating star
Salvation that has become and support
In my changing fate.
Still a soul, warmed by warmth,
Plays a trumpet solo
And does not want to know the answers
What, why, when and where?
Blessing the moment running,
For these songs on the trumpet
I enter under the vaults of the days to come
With hope, faith, etc.
____________________________
© Erokhin Nikolay Efimovich

Parents decided to spend the summer in the village with their grandmother. What nonsense I have so many plans for the summer with my friends. I was against living in the wilderness for the best three months of the year, without friends and a computer. But it was impossible to convince the parents. After collecting our things, we went to the station. There, in a big train, we traveled for twelve hours, and even with a change. Even then I realized that this would be the most terrible vacation of my life. We arrived in a small village, there were only ten houses and one shop in it. We arrived in the evening, it was already getting dark, in the village there was a terrible smell of manure, and a lot of dirt. I felt disgusted and sorry for myself, because I would have to live here for three whole months. The house was even worse: wooden floors, a roof that leaked just a nightmare. The bed was not comfortable, and I hardly got enough sleep, and even in the morning I was awakened by an annoying rooster. I glanced at the clock on the wall, it was only six in the morning. There was nothing to do but go to breakfast. The breakfast wasn't good either. Grandmother fried pancakes and gave milk, but I don't like it. I had to go to inspect the village hungry. The women hurried to the cowsheds and fed the cattle, the men were in the field, and the children played in the mud, they had fun and were not at all disgusted, grimacing, I went to the store. I must say I have never seen such small shops. There are large supermarkets in the city, with a huge amount of choice, but here there was almost nothing, but the locals were proud of it. As it turned out, this is the only store in five villages. I felt terrible and wanted to go home to fall into a soft bed and sit in contact. But my parents did not pay attention to all my persuasion to leave, saying that I would still like it here. A week has passed, I already wanted to run away from here, but I had to endure. Country food was disgusting to me and I ate almost nothing. Out of boredom, I did not know where to put myself. And so my grandmother sent me to the forest for mushrooms. Making my way through the bushes, I tore my new clothes and got dirty, I picked mushrooms, thinking how to take revenge on my parents for such a terrible vacation. And suddenly it started to rain. Wet through and through, I stood under a sprawling oak tree, when suddenly there was laughter. I already wanted to kill the one who laughed so loudly, and I saw a barefoot guy who, bursting into laughter, rushed through the wet under the tree where I was standing. The first thing I noticed was shoulder-length blond hair, then ocean-blue eyes. He, laughing, circled in the rain and nearly knocked me off my feet. His blue eyes looked at me curiously. He saw a short girl with brown hair and gray eyes. I was never proud of myself, considering myself ugly, and now I lowered my eyes, seeing such a handsome guy in front of me. I immediately blushed, my clothes were torn and I got dirty. Filled with tears, I wanted to run away, but the guy grabbed my hand and pulled me to him, calmly wiped my tears and hugged me. I felt uncomfortable, and he noticed this, released me from his arms and looked at me seriously. You are not local. It sounded like a statement, not a question. I nodded. - You know, walking through the forest in such clothes is not only uncomfortable, it's just dangerous. – Looking at me with blue eyes, he said it in such a way that I felt ashamed. I really wanted to run away, but the guy grabbed my hand and led me along. The guy dragged me to a neighboring village, it turned out that he lives here. It is necessary to clarify his name was Misha. He took me to the house. Everything is just like Grandma's. I saw a very beautiful woman, she busied herself around the house. She had long black hair braided into a tight braid, green eyes, she was a real village beauty. - Mom, I'm not alone. Misha said. Who this time. Cat dog? The woman asked and turned around. She looked at me in surprise. - Did you climb in the swamp? - We were in the forest. And I'm generally clean, and she's from the city. - The guy answered. - Now it's clear! Smiling, my mother said. The woman took my hand and led me away. Misha's mom washed and dressed me, I was terribly awkward. She gave me a beautiful flowery dress. Thinking about it, I returned home. My parents looked at me in surprise. I walked in a beautiful dress that I would never wear in the city. They decided enough was enough and wanted to leave, but I agreed to stay. Getting up early in the morning, along with the roosters, I went down to breakfast, today there were pancakes with milk that I didn’t like so much. Grandma put an empty plate in front of me, saying that I didn’t eat anything anyway. “Grandma, forgive me. I want to eat. I hugged my grandmother tenderly. She smiled and gave me breakfast. I ate pancakes and drank milk. My parents and grandmother looked at me smiling. After breakfast, I again went to the forest for mushrooms, since I did not bring them yesterday. Gathering mushrooms, I kept thinking about Misha. Lost in my thoughts, I did not notice anything. - Hey! - came from behind me. I turned around and saw the one with whom all my thoughts were occupied. – What is your name, anyway? Misha asked. - I'm Arina. The guy looked into my basket and laughed - There are only grebes here. - I don't understand them. - I said calmly. - Can I help you? Misha suggested. I nodded. He led me to the river. There were a lot of mushrooms, while I was picking them, Misha picked a bunch of beautiful flowers and gave them to me. Now life in the village did not seem so terrible to me, I was happy. Misha did not let me get bored, we went to the forest or to the river, he showed me a bunch of beautiful places. I forgot my city friends and fell in love with Misha with all my heart. He was absolutely not like the city guys, kind, affectionate and very caring. It's time to say goodbye. I didn't know how to tell Misha about my feelings and I had to leave. After saying goodbye to my beloved, I did not say a word about my feelings, but said that I would come next summer. My parents and I came to the city. Now it's hard for me to breathe here. I missed Misha, my grandmother, peace and quiet, the smell of fresh milk, even the annoying rooster. I went to school and saw that people in the countryside are much better than in the city. I was disappointed in city friends. And melancholy came upon me. One morning I was awakened by a scream. - Arina, Arina. I looked out the window and saw Misha. I was surprised how he found me and at the same time I was glad. It turned out that he could not live without me, he found out from my grandmother where I live, and rushed to me. It was raining and we hugged. I convinced my parents and went to live with my grandmother. She studied and lived in the countryside. This is how my best vacation went.

Vovka stood on the slippery bridges, held the fishing rod with both hands and, biting his tongue, carefully watched the plastic float.
The float swayed, not daring to either go under water or lie on its side ...
There was no bite, crucian carp were taken badly and uncertainly, they sucked bloodworms for a long time and did not want to be detected. During the whole morning, Vovka caught only two - they were now swimming in an aluminum can, stained with dry duckweed.
Behind something cracked, as if shot, someone cursed muffledly, and Vovka turned around - some men were coming out of the reserved hemlock thickets, in which the ruins of an old collective farm poultry house were hiding. How many of them there were, and who they were - Vovka did not make out; he immediately turned away, pressed the rod more tightly against his stomach and stared at the float, drunkenly staggering among the silver glare.
- Boy, what kind of village is this? they asked him. The voice was unpleasant, hoarse, smelling of tobacco and fumes.
- Minchakovo, - answered Vovka.
The float was a little tucked in and froze. Vovka held his breath.
- Do you have a policeman somewhere living?
- No ... - Vovka understood that talking to adults with his back turned to them was impolite, but he couldn’t get distracted now - the float tilted and slowly moved to the side - which means that the crucian was large, strong.
Are there strong men? Help us, we're stuck there.
“There are no men,” Vovka said quietly. “Only grandparents.
There was a whisper behind his back, then something shot again - it must have been a dry branch under a heavy foot - and the peeling float abruptly sank into the water. Vovka pulled the fishing rod, and his heart sank - the light birch rod bent, the stretched line cut the water, his palms felt the lively thrill of the fish caught on the hook. Vovka was thrown into a fever - if she hadn’t broken, she wouldn’t have left!
Forgetting everything, he pulled the prey towards him, not risking lifting it out of the water - the crucian has a thin lip, it will burst - only they saw him. He fell to his knees, grabbed the fishing line with his hands, threw back the fishing rod, leaned towards the water - here it is, a thick side, golden scales! He did not immediately, but picked up the crucian by the gills with his fingers, dragged him out of the water, grabbed him under his belly with his left hand, squeezed so that the crucian grunted, and carried him ashore, marveling at the catch, not believing in luck, choking with happiness.
What did he care about some men now!

Minchakovo hid in the very wilderness of the Alevteevsky district, among swamps and forests. The only road connected the village with the regional center and with the whole world. In the off-season, it became so limp that only a caterpillar tractor could pass through it. But the villagers did not have tractors, and therefore they had to stock up on provisions ahead of time - a month or two in advance.
In this road, except for the local residents, nobody needed it, and the villagers saw the cause of all their main troubles. If there were asphalt here, but if there was a bus to the district center, would the youth leave? There would be a normal road, and work would be found - there is peat around, there is an old gravel quarry, there used to be a sawmill, a poultry house, a calf barn. Now what?
But on the other hand, look - there is a road to Brushkovo, but the troubles there are the same. Two and a half residential houses remained - old people live in two, summer residents come to one for the summer. In Minchakovo, summer residents also sometimes run into, and there are more people - ten yards, seven grandmothers, four grandfathers, and even Dima is feeble-minded - he is over forty, and he is like a child, now catching grasshoppers, then burning dry grass in the glades, then he torments the frogs - not out of malice, but out of curiosity.
So maybe it's not about the roads? ..

Vovka returned for dinner. Grandmother Varvara Stepanovna was sitting at the table laying out cards. Seeing her grandson, she jerked her head - do not interfere, they say, it’s not up to you now. She saw something bad in the cards, Vovka immediately understood this, did not ask anything, slipped into a dark corner where clothes hung, climbed up the wide steps of the stairs onto the stove.
The bricks were still warm. In the morning, my grandmother baked pancakes on the coals - she threw a bundle of brushwood intercepted with wire into the oven, put two birch logs next to her, called her grandson to light the fire - she knew that Vovka loves to strike matches and watch how curls of birch bark curl with a crack, how thin ones burn twigs crumble to ash.
Pancakes were baked for an hour, but the warmth lasted for half a day ...
Vovka liked the stove. It was like a fortress in the middle of the house: climb on it, pull the heavy ladder behind you - try to get it now! And you can see everything from under the ceiling, and you can look at the kitchen, and into the room, and into the nook where clothes hang, on the closet and on the dusty shelf with icons - what's going on where ...
From whom Vovka was hiding on the stove, he himself did not know. He was just calmer there. Sometimes the grandmother will go somewhere, leave him alone, and immediately it becomes creepy. The quiet hut becomes as if dead, and it is scary to disturb it, like a real dead person. You lie down, listen intently - and you begin to hear different things: either the floorboards creak by themselves, then something rustles in the stove, then someone seems to run along the ceiling, then it tinkles under the floor. Turn on the TV at full volume, but my grandmother does not have a TV. The radio hangs hoarse, but you can’t reach it from the stove, and it’s scary to get off. Sometimes Vovka can’t stand it, he jumps off the stove, rushes across the room, flies up onto a stool, turns the round handle - and immediately back: his heart seems to have come off and pounding on his ribs, his soul is in his heels, the scream is clamped in his teeth, the announcer’s voice flies after him ...
Feet pounded on the porch, the front door creaked - someone was walking into the house, and the grandmother, leaving the cards, rose to meet the guests. Vovka, embarrassed by strangers, drew the curtain, took the book, and turned on his side.
- Is it possible, hostess ?! - shouted from the threshold.
- What are you asking? Grandma said angrily. - Come in...
There were many guests - Vovka, without looking, felt their presence - but only one person spoke to his grandmother:
- They stopped at Anna's.
- How many of them?
- Five. They ordered everyone to gather at once and come to the hut.
- Why, they said?
- Not. They seem to have one boss there. He is in command. The rest are sitting in the street, watching... What do you say, Varvara Stepanovna?
- I won't say anything.
What do your cards say?
- How long have you been listening to my cards?
- Yes, as the need arose, so it became.
“There is nothing good in the cards,” Grandmother said dryly. Well, that doesn't say anything yet.
Vovka guessed that they were talking about those people who had come out of the hemlock thickets, and immediately lost interest in the conversation. Just think, unfamiliar men came to the village for help - their car got stuck. Maybe hunters; maybe some foresters or geologists.
Vovka loved to read, especially in bad weather, when the wind blew in the chimney and the rain rustled on the roof. The only trouble is that my grandmother had few books - all with blue stamps from a long-destroyed school library.
“If they tell us to go, let’s go,” Grandma said loudly. And she added: - But I won't let Vovka go.
“That’s right,” a male voice agreed with her, and Vovka only now realized who it was - grandfather Semyon, whom his grandmother always called Cleaver behind his back for some reason. - I didn’t order Dima the fool to take either. Is there a little…

When the guests left, the grandmother called her grandson. Vovka pulled back the curtain, looked out:
- Yes, ba?
- You, hero, did you catch anything today?
- Yeah ... - Vovka sat down, dangling his legs from the stove, resting his head on the ceiling beam. - Here it is! - He slashed his forearm with his palm, as real fishermen did, that in the city on the embankment they caught roach and bleak.
- Where is he? What's in the tank? Did this fit?
Grandmother called a forty-liter flask standing under a drain as a tank. In a good rain, the flask was filled in a matter of minutes, and then the grandmother took water from it for chicken drinkers, which looked like upside-down iron helmets. Vovka, on the other hand, adapted to launch his catch into the “tank”. Each time, returning from fishing, he poured crucian carp into an aluminum flask, sprinkled them with bread crumbs and looked into her dark insides for a long time, hoping to see the mysterious fish life there. At first, my grandmother cursed, saying that it was not a good idea to keep crucian carp in a tank, if he had already caught it, then immediately under the knife and into the pan, but one day Vovka, embarrassed, admitted that he felt sorry for the fish, and therefore waited until they, slumped, begin to emerge belly up. Grandmother grumbled, but she understood her grandson - and since then she has been waiting with him for the fish to weaken; she took into the pan only those that were barely alive floating on top - those that the crows and neighboring cats had not yet managed to catch.
"I'll take him, your carp," said Varvara Stepanovna. - I need it, Vova.
Vovka did not argue - he felt that his grandmother was seriously alarmed, and that her desire was not an empty whim.
- Don't go for a walk. Stay at home for now.
- Okay…
Grandmother nodded, looking intently at her grandson, as if trying to make sure that he really would not disappear anywhere, and then went outside. She returned with a crucian in her hand - and Vovka was again amazed at the unprecedented catch. Throwing the crucian on the kitchen table, grandmother for some reason removed buckets of water from the bedside table and began to move it to the side. The bedside table was heavy - made of oak boards upholstered in plywood. She rested on the floor with strong legs, not wanting to leave her familiar place, and yet she moved a little bit, collecting a rag rug with an accordion.
- Let's help! - suggested Vovka, from behind the chimney watching the torment of his grandmother.
- Sit! she waved her hand. - I'm almost there.
Pushing and unfolding the bedside table, the grandmother knelt down and rattled the iron. Vovka did not see from the stove what she was doing there, but he knew that there was some kind of chain under the bedside table. It can be seen that the grandmother was busy with this chain now.
- What's there, bah? - not holding back, he shouted.
- Sit on the stove! She peeked out from behind the bedside table, the way a soldier peeks out from behind cover. In her hand was an unlocked padlock. - And do not peep! .. - She took out a knife with a sharpened black blade from a drawer, took a crucian, looked sternly at her grandson, and said angrily: - Shoot! - And Vovka hid behind the pipe, thinking that his grandmother did not want him to see how she would let out the intestines of a living, tail-slapping fish.
After adjusting the mattress and pillow, Vovka lay on his back, pulled out an old biology textbook from a pile of books, opened it to the page where the internal structure of a fish was depicted, and began to look with interest at the picture in which an unknown schoolboy left an ink blot.
Something creaked and banged in the kitchen. Vovka paid no attention to the noise. It is said - do not peep, then you must obey. Grandmother Varvara Stepanovna is strict, everyone listens to her, even grandfathers come to her for advice ...
After looking at the fish, dreaming about future catches, Vovka put down his textbook and took a book of poems. The verses were strange, slightly incomprehensible, they fascinated and slightly frightened. The pictures were even more frightening - dark, foggy; people like them looked like monsters, a strong wind ruffled dirty clothes, bare trees, like chopped off chicken paws, scraped their claws over black clouds, sheer cliffs rose into the sky, and a formidable sea raged, tossed and turned - there were a lot of seas in this book.
Vovka began to read, lost the sense of time - and then seemed to wake up. It was quiet in the hut, only the clocks on the wall clicked the pendulum, and in these clicks a strange musical rhythm seemed to be.
- Ba? called Vovka.
Silence...
- Ba! - he felt terribly, as happened more than once when he was left alone with this house. - Ba!..
He looked towards the kitchen. The bedside table now seemed like a clumsy beast, deliberately standing across the kitchen. There seemed to be something menacing in the brought rug.
- Baaa ... - Vovka said plaintively and looked at the radio.
He was ashamed of his fear, and did not understand it. He wanted to run out into the street - but an even greater fear lurked in the dark corridor.
- Ba ... - He lowered his foot onto the stairs, and the step board creaked familiarly, slightly reassuring him. He slid down, feeling how he was accelerating, overtaking the click of the pendulum, his heart.
- Ba...
Grandma is gone. Has perished. He didn't hear the doors slam. She was in the kitchen. And now she's gone. Only buckets are standing. And a nightstand. And the rug...
- Ba...
He dropped to the floor, telling himself not to be afraid. On tiptoe, clenching his teeth, holding his breath, he stepped towards the kitchen, stretched out his neck.
A swollen drop fell from the nipple of the washstand, hit the iron sink - Vovka shuddered, almost screamed.
- Ba...
Legs were trembling.
He forced himself to step out from behind the stove, involuntarily raised his head, met the gaze of the black face on the icon, froze in indecision. Then he slowly reached for the bedside table, gently touching it with his hand. And he stepped closer - dragged himself into the kitchen.
- Ba...
He saw a dark hole in the floor.
And a wooden lid studded with iron strips.
And a chain.
And a castle.
He realized where his grandmother had gone, and the tension released him. But the heart did not let up, and the legs still trembled.
- Ba? He leaned towards the hole in the underground. Downstairs it was dark, from there it blew cold and earthy rot. Dense nets hung on the dusty steps with cocoons of unborn spiders and dry skeletons of dead spiders.
- Ba! - Vovka didn't know what to do. He could not go down into the underground - he was afraid of deep darkness, and a heavy smell, and vile spiders. It seemed to him that it was worth going down the stairs - and the massive hinged lid would fall by itself, and the chain would rattle with links, crawling into the brackets, and the lock would jump off the table, clanging with a bow, as if with a jaw ...
Vovka was even afraid to lower his head.
And he was on his knees, softly moaning:
- Ba... Well, ba...
And when he heard a strange sound - like a giant crucian carp being pressed hard on its belly - and when movement seemed to be in the swampy darkness - he took off, flew up to the stove, picked it up, pulled the ladder behind him and dived headlong under the covers.

Having got out of the underground, the grandmother first looked at her grandson. Asked:
- What pale what? Scared?.. Did you, like, call me, or did I hear it?
- What do you have there, ba?
- Where?
- Underground.
- BUT! All junk, here I climbed to check. But don't go there! She shook her finger at Vovka and hurried on:
- Our people are already going, I need to ...
She closed the hole in the cellar, closed two bolts, pulled a rattling chain through the brackets, and locked it. She moved the bedside table to a new place - to the washstand itself. She covered the lid of the manhole with a rug, put a stool on top, and a bucket of water on it. She looked around, dusting off her hands and apron, and went to the door.
- Ba! Vovka called out to her.
- What?
- Turn on the radio.
“Oh, hurdy-gurdy,” Grandmother said disapprovingly, but turned on the radio.
When she left, Vovka got down from the stove, turned up the volume and ran back to his fortress - to books, notebooks and pencils, to chess pieces and gnawed plastic soldiers. The concert was broadcast by request on the radio. At first, Alla Pugacheva sang a cheerful song about a clumsy wizard, then the benevolent presenter congratulated the birthday people for a long and boring time, and after that there was some kind of music - Vovka kept waiting for the singer to enter, but never did. It seems that no one was able to write words for such music - probably, it was too complicated.
He tried to compose something himself, exhausted three pages, but nothing came of it either.
Then there was news, but Vovka did not listen to them. The announcer's voice spoke of uninteresting things: elections, dry summers and forest fires, regional olympiads, and escaped prisoners.
Vovka was reading an adult book. It was called "The Headless Horseman".
And when the news ended with the weather forecast, and a humorous program began, the grandmother returned to the house. Mumbling something angry, she turned off the roaring radio, sat down by the window and began laying out the cards.

Varvara Stepanovna had no native children - God did not give, although she had two husbands in her life: the first - Grisha, the second - Ivan Sergeevich. For Grisha - an accordion player and a chef - she married a girl. With Ivan Sergeevich - a retired agronomist from the district center - she got along almost like an old woman.
Both times, family life did not work out: a year after the wedding, Grisha was stabbed to death in the city market, where he took state farm potatoes, and Ivan Sergeevich did not live after registration for two years - he rode a bicycle to the regional center to his relatives and got hit by a car.
Varvara Stepanovna saw her stepdaughter only at the funeral. Ivan Sergeevich's daughter was dressed in black and elegant, her tear-stained eyes were thickly lined with mascara, and her dyed red hair stood out from under a black scarf like tongues of flame.
At the wake, they sat down side by side, got to know each other and started talking. The stepdaughter's name was Nadia, she had a husband, Leonid, and a son, Vova. They lived in a city three hundred kilometers from Minchakov, they had a three-room apartment, an imported car, money work and a serious illness of a child.
Nadia had several photographs with her, and she showed them to Varvara Stepanovna.
Varvara Stepanovna looked at one of the cards for a particularly long time.
She really liked the blond smiling granddaughter.
There was something of Ivan Sergeevich in him. And, oddly enough, from Grisha the harmonist too.

Soon the strangers came. Grandmother, apparently, was waiting for them - it was not in vain that she looked out the window, but listened to something. And when she saw two men striding on the path, she immediately got up, mixed the cards, and shouted to her grandson:
- Get on the bed, hide under your clothes and don't show your nose until I tell you! Bad people, Vovushka, come to us!..
The wooden floor between the stove and the wall was littered with empty baskets, littered with old felt boots and rags. Vovka has been buried there more than once, frightening his grandmother with his disappearance - but come on, it turns out she knows his secret hiding place!
The porch groaned under heavy feet.
- Climbed up?
- Yes.
- And shut up, Vovushka! Whatever happens here! You are not at home!
The door slammed. Feet stomped across the room.
- Do you live alone? asked a voice reeking of tobacco and fumes.
“One,” Grandma agreed.
- And it seems that your grandson was catching fish.
- My.
- What are you pouring, that one?
- So he does not live. He is visiting.
- Not back yet?
- Not.
- Look, grandma! I have scars all over my ass, I can smell a whistle from a kilometer away.
- I say - there is no it yet.
- Well, no, there is no trial ... Hey, puppeteer, gouge her box with hipish.
There was a sound of impact, glass clinked, something crunched, fell, crumbled. Vovka cringed.
- TV where? asked a hoarse voice.
- I don't have a TV.
- Do you have a bicycle?
- Not.
- Puppeteer, run around...
For some time no one said anything, only the floorboards groaned, the soles of boots rattled, cabinet doors creaked, something overturned and fell. Then for a couple of seconds there was such silence that Vovka's ears were blocked.
"All right," said a hoarse voice. - Live for now.
They clapped their hands on their knees, the chair creaked. Vovka, biting his lip, listened to the strangers leaving the house and was afraid to breathe.
The grandmother sobbed and stopped. She muttered something, either a prayer or a curse.
And again it became quiet - even the clocks did not click.
- Get out, Vova... They left...
Vovka crawled out from under his clothes, pushed back his felt boots, got out from behind the baskets, climbed down from the stove, went up to his grandmother, clung to her. She hugged him with one arm, the other circled around:
- So why? Fiends...
A mangled speaker fell out of the broken grille of the radio station - like a crushed tongue from broken teeth. Overturned cupboard drawers scattered jars, buttons, photographs, letters, postcards, Vovka's expensive medicines on the floor. The clock shot through the tulle curtain with its spring. A pile of clothes lay under the hanger, the bed was thrown off the bed, the mirror, cloudy from old age, warped, three shabby sperm whale suitcases vomited their contents ...
Vovka had no idea that my grandmother had so many things.

At night, sleep did not go to Vovka. He closed his eyes - and saw a float swinging among the glare. It was hot. A light was on in the kitchen, where my grandmother drank tea with her neighbors. They whispered monotonously, softly rattled cups and saucers, rustled the wrappers of stale sweets - the sounds sometimes covered Vovka, drowned out his consciousness, and he forgot for a while. It began to seem to him that he was sitting next to the guests, sipping hot tea and also saying something important and incomprehensible. Then suddenly he found himself on the shore of the pond, and pulled another crucian out of the water. But the fishing line broke - and Vovka sat down on the wet slippery footbridge with a flurry, and noticed a swollen leech on his ankle, a thin trickle of blood and a slap of brown-green mud. And the float jumped on the shining waves, leaving farther and farther. Acute disappointment brought Vovka to his senses. He opened his eyes, tossed and turned, saw a light on the ceiling, heard voices, and could not understand what time it was...
One day he woke up and did not hear voices. The light in the kitchen was still on, but it was barely visible now. Silence pressed on her temples, she wanted to hide from her, but she was waiting under the covers and under the pillow. There was also a float on a glowing silver ripple.
Vovka tossed and turned for a long time on the downed sheet, listening intently to see if the hidden old people would betray their presence. Then he could not stand it, got up, looked into the kitchen.
There really was no one there. And from the open underground, which now looks like a grave, light poured in a wide pillar.
Like the picture in the children's bible.

Early in the morning the bright sun peeped into the hut and woke up Vovka, tickling his eyelids and nostrils. Grandmother slept on the bed, her face turned to the wall, her head covered with a patchwork quilt. The room was in order - only the clock and the radio were gone, and a fresh scar on the tulle curtain was white.
Trying not to disturb his grandmother, Vovka got down from the stove, dressed quickly, took a piece of dried bread out of the breadbasket, and put it in his bosom. He tiptoed across the room, quietly unhooked the locking hook, slipped into a dark corridor, rushed through it, opened another door and jumped out onto a spacious bridge flooded with light, from where there were two exits to the street - one straight ahead, the other across the courtyard. Taking a fishing rod from a corner, a can stained with duckweed and a tin for bait, Vovka left the hut.
Yesterday was almost forgotten, as nightmares are forgotten during the day. The hot sun cheerfully semaphored: everything is in order! A light warm wind ruffled her hair approvingly and affectionately. The pichugs chimed and chimed carelessly.
And somewhere in the pond, in the mud, a hefty crucian tossed and turned like a pig. You can't catch a moth like that. What is a moth to him? This should be taken on a fat lively worm, always bright pink and with a brown rim. And on a big hook, not on an ordinary swallow ...
There used to be a dunghill in the backyard. It has long been overgrown and overgrown with grass, but there were notable worms there. Vovka discovered this by chance, when, having read about archaeologists and the scientist Champollion, he decided to do excavations around his grandmother's house, and found out that the richest area in terms of archeology is behind the courtyard. His prey then became shiny clay shards, someone's large bones, a horseshoe in a rusty husk and a green glass stone, very similar to an emerald...
Vovka threw his fishing rod onto the dewy grass, placed a can next to it, and took a shovel leaning against the crown of the log house. And then, from around the corner of the yard, someone tall and thin stepped into the light, in a wrinkled checkered shirt, faded soldier's trousers and boots. His long arms dangled like ropes, and there was brown blood on his thin fingers. Vovka almost screamed, threw up his head.
- Are you Aunt Varvara's grandson? the man asked, and Vovka recognized him.
“Yes,” he said uncertainly, not knowing how to talk to an adult fool.
"She's a witch," said the weak-minded Dima, and squatted down, looking at Vovka with strange eyes. - Everyone knows this ... - He smiled, showing rotten stumps of teeth, nodded often and small, puffed out his neck. Then he exhaled sharply - and quickly, as if he was afraid to choke on words, he spoke:
- Yes, a witch, I know, Aunt Varvara is a witch, everyone knows, even in Tormosovo they know, and in Lazartsevo they know, before everyone went to her, were treated, but now they don’t go, they are afraid. And how not to be afraid - she had two husbands, and both died, but there were no children, but there is a grandson. A witch, as if I’m telling you, everyone knows, but she has a witcher in the underground, she fed him husbands, and she will feed you, and she will feed everyone - like she feeds chickens, she will give blood to drink, she will feed meat ...
Vovka backed away, not daring to turn his back on Dima the Fool, unable to take his eyes off his plague eyes. A light cloud covered the sun, and in an instant it became chilly.
- Do not trust? Dima got up slowly. - Do not believe about the grandmother? And she chopped chickens at night, I saw the moon was shining, and she hit them on the neck with an ax - one! they flap their wings, they want to run away from her, but the head is gone, and blood spurts, foam comes from the neck, hisses, and they are already dead, but still alive, she shakes them, lo, lo, lo! - He pulled chicken heads out of his trousers pocket, handed them to Vovka on dirty palms. And he dropped the shovel, shied to the side, slipped on the wet grass, fell with his hands into the chicken droppings, rolled over, jumped up, stumbled painfully on the cast-iron drinker and, not feeling his legs, forgetting about the fishing rod, about the worms, about the crucian pig, rushed back, into the house, on the stove, under the covers.

At half past seven, an old alarm clock rattled on the closet, and Grandma got up. First of all, she went to the window, opened it, looked out into the street, muttered:
- It's going to rain by noon...
Vovka sat quietly, but the grandmother seemed to sense something was wrong:
- Are you sleeping, baker?
- Not.
- You're not sick?
- Not.
- Didn't you go to the street?
- I'm quite a bit.
Grandma sighed.
- Oh, poor head. She said, don't go for a walk yet... Who saw you?
- Dima.
- Fool? He did what?
- I do not know.
- Scared you?
- Yes a little bit...
- He said, tea, whatever. Did you call me a witch?
- He called.
“You, Vova, don’t listen to him,” Grandma said sternly. - He's a fool, what to take from him ... - She again went to the window, slammed it, lowered the copper latch. - I have to go. At eight o'clock we were ordered to gather again. Now, twice a day, they will drive us like cattle, and count on our heads, if anyone is missing ... You, Vova, sit by the window. I will tell them again that you went into the forest without asking in the morning. I'll cover the house, but if you see a stranger coming, hide, as you hid yesterday. Good?
- Okay, ba...
Left alone, Vovka sat down at the window hung with yellow tulle. He saw grandfather Semyon limping past the well, leaning on a stick, whom his grandmother for some reason called Cleaver, how the neighbor woman Lyuba, the only one who had the strength to hold the cow, came out from behind the lilac bushes onto the path, how she stood under the clumsy and waited for grandmother Varvara Stepanovna, and then together they went to the hut of grandmother Anna Sergeevna, which was in another suburb near the wrecked school, with its head overgrown with nettles. There were already people standing there, but Vovka could not make out who they were - newcomers or local old people. Forgetting about his fear of an empty house, he followed the gathering people, and felt a new fear born in his chest - rational and concrete - fear for his grandmother, for the local old people, for himself and for his parents.
Everything was very similar to one movie about the war, where muzzled fascists with voices smelling of tobacco and fumes drove obedient people into a heap, and then locked them in a barn and, having covered them with straw, burned them.

Grandma returned not alone, but with three strange men, unshaven, gloomy, scary. One of them held the grandmother by the elbow, the other two walked far ahead - the first had a thin crowbar on his shoulder, the second had an ax tucked into a soldier's belt. They knocked down the lock and tumbled into the hut - Vovka heard how strong soles rattled on the bridge, and climbed under a torn sweatshirt, piled dusty bags on top, fenced himself off with baskets and felt boots, pressed his back against the log wall.
A few seconds later, strangers were already in the house: they moved and overturned furniture, tore off clothes hanging on nails, rummaged through the closet. Then one climbed onto the stove - and baskets and rags flew down from the beds. Vovka clutched tightly at the quilted jacket that covered him, gently tucked his legs up. A stranger was breathing nearby, hysterically and terribly breathing like a beast - he was cramped and uncomfortable under the ceiling, he was on all fours, he was afraid to climb on flimsy beds, and therefore stretched far forward, to the sides, raking out the junk that had accumulated here for many decades.
And then the breath stopped, and an evil voice solemnly announced:
-Here he is, bitch!
A cold, rough hand gripped Vovka tightly by the ankle, and an irresistible force pulled him out of hiding.
Vovka squealed.
He was dragged out like a naughty puppy, thrown into the middle of the room, turned over with his foot, pressed to the floor.
And then two peasants beat the grandmother - busily and lazily, as if they were kneading dough. Grandmother covered her face with her hands, was silent, and for some reason did not fall for a long time.

At noon it became dark, as if late in the evening. A blue-black cloud crawled in from the north, driving the wind with dusty breakers in front of it, announcing its approach from afar with a thick roar. The first drops fell heavily, like acorns, nailed the wind and dust, stained the roofs. Lightning flashed, went into the ground somewhere near the old ford, thunder checked the strength of the window frames. And suddenly it poured so that the furnaces buzzed ...
The first to appear was grandfather Osip, wrapped in a military cape. He undressed on the bridge, went into the house, looked around the mess, sat down near his grandmother, who was lying on the bed, took her hand, shook his head.
"I'm fine, Osip Petrovich, don't worry," she said, smiling a little at him.
Vovka was right there, near his grandmother, he huddled in a corner and thoughtlessly twisted nickel-plated balls on the slatted headboard.
- Now the rest will gather, - said Osip Petrovich and went to the kitchen for stools.
Five minutes later grandfather Semyon and grandmother Lyuba appeared, a little later grandmother Elizaveta Andreevna came, and soon the bearded Mikhail Efimovich knocked on the window.
- It seems that everything, - said Osip Petrovich, when the old people sat down near the bed. - I didn’t call other grandmothers, but Lyoshka already knows everything.
- Maybe the grandson on the stove is better? - quietly asked grandfather Semyon.
“Let him sit,” said the grandmother. And after a pause, she added: - But you should be careful here.
- This is understandable, - Mikhail Efimovich shook his wet beard.
“Begin, Osip Petrovich,” Grandmother ordered. - Necha rubber pull. What did you learn there?
Grandfather Osip nodded, wiped his mouth, cleared his throat, as if before a big speech. And said:
- I had a chance to talk to Anna. They are waiting for the car. They have a hunting rifle and a machine gun.
- Tomorrow is Thursday, - grandfather Semyon remarked. - The truck has to come.
- That's what I'm talking about. The shop will arrive, and these are right there. They will not contact the driver, he will be immediately consumed. Some of us will be taken with us. Or maybe everyone - the van is big.
“They will take you hostage,” Mikhail Efimovich nodded.
“Maybe he won’t come tomorrow,” Grandfather Semyon remarked. - Suddenly Kolya got drunk?
- What's the difference? Baba Lyuba waved her hand at her grandfather. - Not tomorrow, so the day after tomorrow. Not a mobile shop, so for Vovka, mother and father will return from the city. Or your grandson will show up for the weekend.
- And the saleswoman Masha is a prominent, young girl, - Elizaveta Andreevna sighed. - Oh, be in trouble ...
"Don't cry out for trouble," Varvara Stepanovna snapped at her. - God willing, we will survive.
- Are you ready, Barbara?
- Done, Michal Yefimitch. Raised.
- Can we do it?
- Yes, somehow, he is not yet in full force ... And what remains to be done?
- There is nothing to do, - the grandfather agreed with a sigh.
“They don’t open the shutters,” continued Osip Petrovich. - Except for doors and gates, they have nowhere to get out. Anna said that one of them always does not sleep at night, she guards the rest. They don’t let her go anywhere alone, apparently, they are afraid that we will light a fire if she runs away. But on her stove there is an iron box, still Andrei Ivanovich, he was alive, covered up. She will hide in that box, and wrap the door with wire from the inside, there are suitable brackets there. She had already greased the hinges, and brought the wire. He says he will wait until he is there ... The shutters are strong, Andrey Ivanovich, let him have land, he was an economic man, but we will still support them just in case. We'll open the door with a knife, where a hook can easily be lifted through the slot if you know how. And as soon as we launch, we immediately lock it outside ...
“Oh, we have started a terrible thing,” Elizaveta Andreevna sighed. - Maybe, all the same, otherwise how should it be?
- Terrible ... - admitted Osip Petrovich. - Yes, but these are not people, Liza. They are worse than animals ... - Osip Petrovich cast a glance at the quiet Vovka, averted his eyes, lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper. - Anna said they had half a bag of meat with them. They said - "telok", ordered her to cook. And she looked... Not veal, no... Not veal at all... And she couldn't... Then they did it themselves... They fried and ate... Do you understand, Lizaveta? They cut, they fried. And they ate...

Lulled by the voices of the old people and the sound of the downpour, Vovka himself did not notice how he dozed off. I woke up from a frightening feeling of loneliness. And indeed - there was no one nearby, only empty chairs and stools surrounded the crumpled bed.
It was a little brighter outside, and the rain was no longer beating so hard on the windows. The floor was almost dry, but the mess had not gone away, and therefore it was thought that the old people did not leave the house themselves, but were carried away to no one knew where by the storm that swept through the hut ...
The hole in the underground turned out to be open - and Vovka, having discovered this, was not at all surprised. He did not approach him, inappropriately remembering the words of Dima the Fool about the witcher sitting in his grandmother's underground, to whom she fed her husbands, and to whom she would still feed the whole village. Vovka went around the black square of the manhole, clinging to the stove, and - could not resist - craned his neck, looked into it.
But he didn’t see anything special, only sounds seemed to him - uterine grumbling, as if thunder was rolling under the ground, and a metallic clang ...
The gray day wore on slowly.
Grandmother crawled out of the underground, closed it, disguised it with a rug and a stool, lay a little on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Having rested, she called her grandson, and the two of them began to slowly restore order.
The rain subsided, it drizzled sadly. The grandmother, who looked out into the street, called him morgoth. She reproached that the road might become sour, and then the mobile shop would arrive only next week. But there is no more bread, only crackers are left, and the last sugar, and the tea leaves are about to end ...
She spoke distantly, thinking about something completely different, but as if wanting to calm both herself and her grandson with her grumbling.
After a belated dinner they played cards. Grandmother tried to joke, and Vovka tried to smile. Several times he wanted to ask who was locked in the dark underground. But he did not dare.
And when the alarm clock rang overhead, Vovka shuddered so that he dropped the cards from his hands. They scattered across the blanket with pictures up, the grandmother looked at them carefully, shook her head and told her grandson to pack up.
Vovka dressed and thought that, probably, those people from the cinema, whom the Nazis later burned in a barn, dressed just as obediently and quietly.

The meeting ended quickly, but not at all in the way the old people thought...
From the blind house of Anna Sergeevna came the same people who beat Vovka's grandmother. One - wider, with a gun hanging across his chest - went down to the lined up old people. The other - taller, with a short machine gun under his arm - remained on the porch. They both had piercing eyes, heavy chins, and slanting thin mouths. But Vovka did not look at their faces. He looked at the weapon.
It was raining and it was pretty chilly. The old men stood gloomy, looked at the ground, did not move. Even Dima the Fool, swollen from the beatings, crooked, stood still, at attention, only puffed out his cheeks...
A man with a gun walked along the line, spat out a chewed plane tree, turned to his comrade, nodded:
- All.
- Grab the rodent, - said the one who was standing on the porch. And the man with the gun took Vovka by the shoulder, pulled him out of line, grabbed him by the collar.
Grandma Varvara threw up her hands. Grandfather Semyon leaned forward.
- Stop! - upturned machine gun. - Quiet! Nothing will happen to him. He will perekantuetsya with us, only the mind will be typed ...
Vovka was pushed onto the porch, shoved through the doorway, dragged along a dark corridor.
- And now to the huts! a hoarse voice yelled in the street. - That's it, I said! Briefly speaking!..

He was not touched; pushed into the corner, where grandmother Anna was sitting with her hands folded on her knees, and they left him alone, they didn’t even say anything.
The room was very smoky - a dim light bulb seemed to be drowning in a fog. The icons in the red corner lay face down, as if they were bowing. Dirty crockery was piled on a round, tableclothed table. A kerosene stove smoked on the windowsill, and a viscous dark brew gurgled in a sooty saucepan.
“It’s all right, Vova,” Grandmother Anna said softly. - Don't be afraid of anything, just don't go anywhere, and if you need something, ask permission...
The strangers went about their business. One slept on a bench by the stove. The other two, sitting on the bed, were playing cards - just as they had recently played with Vovka's grandmother. The man with the gun, sitting on the floor, began to sharpen a Finnish knife with a bar - and from the dry, ominous shuffling, Vovka's head began to spin, and goosebumps ran down his back.
"I'm afraid," he whispered.
“Nothing, nothing,” Grandmother Anna smoothed his hair. - Everything will be fine, Vova. Everything will be fine...

Late in the evening, all the strangers gathered around the table. Grandmother Anna brought them a bowl of boiled potatoes, a dish of lightly salted cucumbers and heels of eggs.
- Sparsely, - muttered one of the uninvited guests.
“They’ve already eaten everything,” she said calmly.
By this time Vovka had already climbed onto the stove. He was sick, his head ached badly, but he was strong, and was only afraid that the disease, which he began to forget about in the village, would now return and kill him.
Anna Sergeevna's stove was much wider than grandmother's. A significant part, however, was occupied by a stupid iron box, but the remaining space would have been more than enough for three adult men. But the ceiling was too low - Vovka could not even sit down properly. If a noise happens at night - you jump up, twitch, you will definitely hurt your forehead. Or the back of the head.
Vovka rolled over on his side, pulled his knees up to his stomach, whimpered softly.
Downstairs strangers were champing, sipping something, talking about something, whispering, hissing like snakes. Vovka now represented them as snakes - large, thick, twisted into rings - exactly such a snake was poked with a spear by a rider on one grandmother's icon.
- Aren't you sleeping yet, Vova? - Anna Sergeevna asked, standing on the step of the ladder.
- Not.
- Come here ... Listen carefully ... - She spoke barely audibly, in my ear. She turned, turned around, looked around. And she continued: - We will climb into that box tonight. Quietly so that no one can hear us. Can you?.. All right... It will be noisy here, but don't be scared. No one will touch us in the box. It won't get it... And then it will all be over. Everything will end well... And quickly... The main thing is to get into the box... But don't touch it yet... Nod if you understand... Well, that's fine...
Grandmother Anna went down to the floor, disappeared from sight. She appeared in the room, collected some dishes, took them away, rattled, knocked on the kitchen. When she returned, she said loudly:
- I'm going to bed.
She was nodded.
"Well, good night then," she said, turning around.
And Vovka noticed that she was smiling coldly.

Vovka did not sleep at all that night.
Grandmother Anna tossed and turned nearby, pretending to be asleep. Strangers snored loudly in the room in various ways. The dim light of the night lamp barely illuminated the clock face. If you look closely for a long time, you could notice how the minute hand moves - black on dark gray. Vovka watched her and thought about fishing, about her grandmother Varvara Stepanovna and about her parents. He also thought about how he would climb into the iron box.
On a creaky chair in the middle of the room, one of the bandits sat facing the door. On his knees lay a machine gun. The bandit did not sleep, he fidgeted in his seat and from time to time struck a match, lighting a cigarette. At two o'clock in the morning he woke one of his comrades, gave him the machine gun and, moaning with pleasure, stretched out on the floor. A minute later he was already snoring, and Vovka was trying to make out what his reliever was muttering ...
The time was dark and viscous, like a brew on a kerosene stove.
At the beginning of the fourth grandmother Anna opened her eyes.
- Sit, wait, - she whispered to Vovka and, grunting, climbed like a worm from the stove.
In the room, she said something to the man with the gun, who got up. Together they went out the door and disappeared for almost ten minutes - Vovka had already begun to worry, and wondered if it was time for him to get into the box. But the door opened again - a spot of light, similar to an eye, jumped into the room onto the wall. Has gone out. Two dark figures stepped over the threshold one after another, stood up, talking quietly about something. It seems that Grandma Anna wanted to leave the door open in order to at least ventilate the room a little. Persuaded - opened wide, put a round tub. And, having taken a sip of water in the kitchen, she again climbed onto the stove.
“I opened the vent in the toilet,” she said quietly to Vovka, laying down next to her and propping her head on her fist. - As we agreed with Osip - a sign to him. Now let's wait half an hour and climb... Don't sleep...
The less time remained before the appointed time, the stronger Vovka's heart was pounding. Lying down and just waiting was unbearable. Vovka did not know what was about to happen in this house. I guessed. But he didn't know for sure. And the ignorance choked him.
"It's time," Grandmother Anna whispered, rolled over on the other side, moved, crowding Vovka, and carefully pulled the iron door with a mesh of small holes towards her.
Anna Sergeevna climbed clumsily, slowly; the hole was small, a little larger than the cutout in the duvet cover, and she crawled into it piecemeal: first she put her head in, then one shoulder, the other, her torso, buttocks, legs ... Not much room was left for Vovka.
Somewhere - apparently on the street - there was a distinct thud, a clang.
The man with the machine gun raised his head and sniffed the air noisily.
“Hurry, Vova,” Grandmother Anna hurried.
The sound repeated - louder, closer; iron rattled, wood creaked, and there was a smell of draft.
And Vovka, realizing that the last seconds were coming out, climbed feet first into a strong cramped box.
Don't forget to close the door...
In the darkness of the corridor, something seemed to fall, roll, rattling. The bandit jumped up and pointed a machine gun at the door. The snoring stopped, the bed creaked. A sleepy voice asked indignantly:
- What is Schucher?
- Someone's there!
- Turn on the light.
- A bug at the very door. I'm afraid.
- You're afraid of me, wahlak! What's the tapestry for?
Something stupidly poked at the windows. And as if bare feet slapped on the floorboards. Stopped.
- I see ... - a whistling whisper.
- Sleepers, fool!
Flash, shot. And the blow is juicy, like a watermelon has been dropped; wheeze, scream, guttural growl. Immediately - a long automatic burst, swearing and shouting - reflections of a muzzle flame, swift shadows on the ceiling.
- Wire, Vova! Wire! Roll up faster!
A wet slap, a crunch, a crackle, a wild scream. Powerful blows, roar, mat, roar, screams. Groan, rattle, wheeze...
And champing, sniffing, squelching - like a huge crucian sucking mud.
- Quiet, Vova ... - in the very ear. - Quiet... Just don't hear... Quiet...

They lay endlessly in an iron coffin and listened to terrible sounds. His legs and arms were paralyzed, the iron ribs cut painfully into his living ribs, his head was spinning from the heavy smell, and his stomach was compressed into a lump.
Then the nails being torn out creaked, the axes clattered - and gray morning light poured into the hut.
- Here he is, I see! Hurry before the light stuns him!
- Don't worry, Simon! Now he's not going anywhere. He ate himself like a leech.
The voices faded, but after a few seconds they crowded into the house:
- Lyosha! Get the net here! Barbara, where are you going! Stay close, keep up! With a grip on the neck, so, yeah! Lizaveta, your mother! Hold his leg, how much I have to explain to you! And a mirror, a mirror! To his light! Baba, shine like a mirror! And you shield move! Like this!
- Do not leave, my dear! Heavier!
- I say, the light stunned him!
- Yes, he is always so sleepy during the day.
- Enough for you! Loops better let's!
- Lord! How did he steal them!
- Vovka! Anna! Are you alive there?
Rumble on iron.
- Alive!
- Well, thank God. Get out of your tank...

Vovka was led through the room, covering his eyes with his hands. He felt slippery and chewy under his feet, and he knew what it was.
Grandmother Varvara Stepanovna met her grandson on the street, rushed to him, sat down, hugged him tightly:
- How are you, Vovushka?
He pulled away and looked into her face for a long time, seeing her eyes darken, filled with fear. He answered when there was so much fear that it became unbearable to look at him:
- They didn't touch me.
- And I was so scared! Didn't know what to do. We already thought, but that's how it all happened ... - She began to cry - it was fear that left her eyes with tears. - Forgive me, Vovushka... I'm sorry... So it happened...
“Ba,” Vovka said seriously. - And who was it?
- Bandits, Vova... Very bad people...
- No, I'm talking about this ... - He held out his hand. - Well, who lives in your underground ...
- Ghoul it, Vova ... - turning around, said the grandmother. - Ghoul our ...
The ghoul was led by seven men, tied to long strong poles. He was smeared with blood from head to toe, his skin hung in greasy folds, his short legs with large feet were tearing tufts of turf out of the ground, his bald, knobby head was trembling, and even from his back you could see how the huge jaws were constantly moving. The ghoul shook from side to side, he swayed like a float on water. And seven people were running around with him.
- Don't look at him, Vovushka. And then it will be a dream.
- He's not scary, bah ... I was scared there, but now I'm not.
- Well, that's good... That's fine...
They stepped aside and sat on the stump of a long-sawn willow, turning their faces to the hazy sun and inhaling the fresh air with full breasts.
“Or maybe not a ghoul,” said the grandmother. - That's what we called him, and the dog knows who he is... Only you, Vova, don't tell anyone about him, okay?
"All right," Vovka promised easily. - And where did you get it, ba?
So he has always lived with us. As long as I can remember ... Or rather, I did not live. You can’t kill him, so he doesn’t live ... - Grandmother sighed. - It is useful, you just need to know how to approach, and the habit is needed. We even plowed on it during the war. And as the fascists showed up here, so three once ... That's how it is today ... There are no more rats and mice from him. And cockroaches are translated. And all diseases pass, who is next to him. That's why I persuaded your mother for so long ... So that she would come to me ... Well, that's why we are reputed to be healers and sorcerers. And we live long, we don't get sick... Ghoul strength heals. Only now she does not protect from trouble ... - Grandmother looked at her serious grandson, ruffled his hair, remembered both her husbands, the driver Grisha, and the agronomist Ivan Sergeyevich, and tears welled up in their eyes. - She doesn’t protect, Vovushka, and doesn’t bring happiness ... - Her voice trembled, and she coughed, and then blew her nose into her sleeve for a long time and wiped her tears, and kept looking high into the sky, and hoped that someone was also at her now looks from there, attentive, understanding and all-forgiving.
And why not: since there are ghouls on earth, it means that there must be angels somewhere ...
Why not...

story two: Black male Beetle

Fyodor Ivanovich was weaving his own coffin.
He liked to tell this to new people, of whom there were few in Olenin, and he had fun like a child, seeing their distrust.
- Himself, with these hands! He showed his hardened palms. - From willow vines, soaked, skinned - everything is as it should be. Just like my father taught me. Like a grandfather. We, the Fomichevs, have been weaving vines from time immemorial. Everything we have is made from vines. Absolutely everything!..
Fyodor Ivanovich's household was the most ordinary: a log hut, covered over old shingles with wavy, already mossy slate; a rickety yard with a hayloft and three flocks; a cracked whitewashed stove, a creaky sofa with uncomfortably protruding springs, an oak table upholstered in oilcloth, a black-and-white Horizon TV set hung with a dusty napkin, a mirror infested with flies, and a set of worn glass glasses.
- Is that all right? - Strangers did not believe.
- Everything! Fyodor Ivanovich nodded furiously. - Even the monuments on the graves - and those of the vine. And now I'm weaving a coffin. For myself. It's time to...
If a doubting interlocutor asked to be shown this same coffin, Fyodor Ivanovich squinted slyly, bared his rare yellow teeth and invited the guest into the house. In the middle of a spacious room littered with baskets, bunches of wicker and piles of skins, the owner would stand up in a theatrical pose, spread his arms and say:
- Here!
While the guest was looking around, trying to look at least something remotely resembling a coffin, Fyodor Ivanovich explained with pleasure:
- We, the Fomichevs, from time immemorial earned a living by weaving. In the past, so many baskets were made during the winter that they could not take them away on three wagons. And they wove lari - whole chests, and caskets, and trays, and vases. And how many dvuhushki handed over to the collective farm - do not count! Everything that is here - everything was purchased with the proceeds from weaving. Only those have always lived. The whole family, all ancestors. I, it was a sin, left the family business in my youth, but now, life again put everything in its place. Every cricket know your hearth. - Fyodor Ivanovich nodded his head, agreeing with the old folk wisdom, and smiled kindly, rubbing his large kurguzny palms.
His pension was small - barely enough for food. Therefore, the weaving of baskets, baskets, boxes, caskets, as well as toy bast shoes and fragile straw hats was a tangible financial help for him. Fedor Ivanovich was not engaged in selling his products - he rented everything in bulk to Volodka Toporov from neighboring Moseytsev, and he delivered the goods to the markets: on Friday he traded in the district center, went to the city for the weekend, and on Wednesday he went to the neighboring region, to the museum-monastery, where exactly on that day foreign excursions were brought in huge buses-aquaria.
- How much are you selling my work to foreigners, Volodya?
- I'm not selling. Wife.
- So, tea, do you know the price?
- I know. Only you, Uncle Fyodor, I won't tell. And then you lose sleep.
- So, after all, I don’t sleep anyway.
“So you stop eating…”
Sometimes Fyodor Ivanovich, tired of the monotonous work, put off the vine for several days and with his soul made an unprepossessing scarecrow out of straw and rags. He dressed him up in linen, made eyes out of beans, a nose out of an acorn or a hazelnut, put a straw hat on his head, glued a sheaf of wheat or oats into his wash hands, put short legs in birch bark shoes. Volodya called these scarecrows “little brownies”, said that they sold well and asked Uncle Fyodor to make more of them. But he refused - it was a painfully dreary business, costly. Baskets weaved much easier and faster.
Fyodor Ivanovich put most of the money he earned in an old clay pot, in which his wife once kept sour cream.
“I earn money for my funeral,” Fyodor Ivanovich cheerfully admitted to the guest, without showing, however, the cherished egg-pod. - So it turns out that I weave a coffin for myself. From the vine. These are the hands...

The black dog appeared at Fyodor Ivanovich's in the fall, at a time when the quiet Indian summer had just given way to gloomy October rains.
- I picked it up in the forest, - Fyodor Ivanovich told a neighbor who came to visit. - Near the road, where the turn to Timofeevskoe was. They tied him to a tree with a chain - it looks like he ran back ... Look, he tore his whole neck when he was torn from the chain ... Oh, what kind of people are they! ..
The dog was bad. He was lying near the stove on an old sweatshirt; his skinny, peeled sides walked heavily, his cloudy eyes watered, and saliva, viscous, like mucus, flowed from his mouth.
- Well, how mad? - the neighbor cautiously looked sideways at the dog.
- Well no! Fyodor Ivanovich waved him off. - Crazy waters are afraid. And this one is not. Drink for a sweet soul.
- Healthy what.
- Big, yes. Pedigree, probably.
- Where is he to you, Fedor?
- So you shouldn't leave it in the forest...
The dog was sick for a long time. Until the very snow, Fyodor Ivanovich nursed him, stuffed him with human medicines, gave him milk, fattened him with porridge and pasta - he never cooked for himself like this dog.
- He is recovering, he will guard my household.
- Yes, what do you have to guard something?
- And at least there is a TV set, - Fyodor Ivanovich laughed, and he thought about the pot of money. - Yes, and it will not be so boring with an animal ... You look, look at him. We talk, and he moves his ears - he listens. He understands what is about him. Hey beetle!
And so a new nickname became attached to the dog.

Fyodor Ivanovich became close friends with the foundling dog. Everywhere they went together, as if tied - whether for water, for firewood, or to visit someone. But not everyone allowed a hefty dog ​​into the house. Grandmother Tamara, who lived opposite, did not like the dog at all, grumbled at the meeting:
- What a devil settled at your side!
The beetle, sensing her displeasure, tucked its tail in and hid behind its owner.
“Don’t hurt the animal, Tamara,” Fyodor Ivanovich was angry.
- Look better, no matter how your animal offends us ...
However, not much time passed, and Grandma Tamara became kinder to the dog. This happened after the Beetle caught a fox in the master's yard that strangled the chickens in the whole village.
- What a devil! - Now the neighbor said sternly, having met Fyodor Ivanovich with a faithful four-legged companion, and reached into her pocket for a lemon caramel. The dog did not like sweets, but he accepted Grandma Tamara's sweet offerings - and grunted, drooling on the snow, and looked at the stern old woman with cautious gratitude.
In the month of January, the Beetle caught a robbing ferret.
In early February, he destroyed the weasel's nest.
And how many rats he strangled - uncounted!
Fyodor Ivanovich was often visited by guests with only one request:
- You would let your Beetle into our yard for the night. And now there are so many rats - the fear of God ...
On quiet moonlit nights, frosty to the crack, a howl was heard in the distant forest. Sleeping near the stove, the Beetle, hearing the echoes of chilling wolf songs, raised its heavy head, pricked up its ears, bared its fangs and grumbled softly. The fur on his neck stood up. Fyodor Ivanovich woke up, raised himself on his elbow and flipped the lever of the night light.
- Well, what are you making noise? he quietly asked the dog. And he himself listened to the distant howl, shaking his head.
The reddish light of the night lamp reminded him of the glow of a burning torch, and it seemed to Fyodor that he was transported back to his childhood, to a time when wolves, starving for the winter, came close to the village, and in every house there was a gun, and the peasants tried not to travel alone, always they gathered in the city in a large convoy, armed themselves, took torches with them ...
“... bye-bayushki-bye, do not lie down on the edge ...”
He fancied his mother's voice, and the creak of a cradle suspended on a hook from the ceiling beam. And he got scared.
There were no wolves here for forty years.
And here it is, come back.
“... a gray top will come and bite on the flank...”
"Sleep," Fyodor said hoarsely. - They won't get there.
And he thought: oh, they will get there! just give it time...
A dozen residential yards, but there is no gun in any of them ...
In the morning Fyodor Ivanovich dressed for a long time, tying a heavy sharp cleaver in a felt sheath to his belt; smoothing his hair, he would put a shabby, long-lost three-piece on his head, put on wide skis on his felt boots, and, propping the door with a stick, would go into the copses for material. The Black Beetle galloped nearby, grabbing the sparkling snow with its hot pink mouth. Fyodor Ivanovich looked at him and thought that it was good to keep a dog - and more fun with her, more joyful, and calmer in the soul.

Winter ended only in April - and, it seems, in one night. In the evening there was still a blizzard of chalk, and in the morning, lo and behold, the heavy snow sank, the log walls of the huts darkened from moisture, a fine gray drizzle covered the distant forest.
Fyodor Ivanovich woke up sick - bad weather broke his bones. He fiddled for a long time, not wanting to get out from under the quilt, but the cold slowly creeping into the bed forced him to get up. He threw a jersey over his shoulders, put his feet into mashed felt boots, yawned deliciously - and froze.
Between the stove and the sofa, where the Beetle often put his prey, lay something dark, like the broken body of a child.
Fyodor Ivanovich sighed.
The black male Zhuk raised his head and waved his tail affably.
- What did you do? groaned Fyodor Ivanovich. And he stopped short, catching himself.
Where would a child come from here, in a remote village, even at this time? Especially for such a small one. Yes, the house was locked. Unless the Beetle, who had recently learned to open doors with his paw, could go out into the yard. To the yard - but not to the street.
Or?..
- Where did you get it from?
The dog, sensing something was wrong from the master's voice, pressed himself to the floor.
- Who is it?..
No, not a child. But, like, and not a beast.
For a long time Fyodor Ivanovich gazed at the creature strangled by the dog, not daring to touch it with either hand or knife. Then he got dressed and ran out of the hut. He returned five minutes later, dragging a gloomy neighbor behind him.
- Look, see for yourself, Semyonitch.
From two sides they approached a small calf. They hung over him.
“Like a monkey,” the neighbor said uncertainly.
- How do we get a monkey! - Fyodor Ivanovich was indignant.
The neighbor shrugged. He asked cautiously:
- Are you sure it's dead?
- I do not know...
That morning the whole village visited Fyodor Ivanovich's house. The beetle, unable to withstand the noisy attention, ran out into the street and hid under the porch. Grandmother Tamara came last, wrapped in black. She only glanced at the lying corpse, and immediately declared:
- It's brownie.
- What? Fyodor Ivanovich was surprised.
- Togo! - mimicked his neighbor. - Brownie. Master of the house. Never heard of it, have you?
Fedor Ivanovich, of course, heard about brownies. But he also happened to listen to the speeches of visiting lecturers about the dangers of various prejudices.
- Duc! - he said shortly, not knowing what to answer Tamara. And threw up his hands.
“Master,” the grandmother nodded. - I'm telling you exactly. In Minchakovo, I heard, one fool was busy with chicken offal, and even endured a geek under his arm? Looked like this, yours. Tamara pointed to a small furry body. - Your dog strangled him, not for nothing that he has circles under his eyes.
- And what now? - Fyodor Ivanovich was completely taken aback.
- But nothing ... Live for yourself. Maybe it's just the housework that's not going right now. He is the owner, after all, to look after the house.
Tamara left, and Fyodor Ivanovich, wandering a little about the hut, rolled up a cigarette from the newspaper and went out into the street to breathe in the damp spring air.
As he descended the porch, a step cracked under his foot.

After that day, Fyodor Ivanovich's life ceased to go well. Everything went wrong. Cold melt water flooded the cellar - although all the years before it had barely filled a specially dug hole in the far corner. Either due to flooding, or for some other reason, the hut noticeably leaned over - its northern corner rose, and a noticeable gap formed between the back wall and the roof of the courtyard. Under the weight of the wet straw, the poles of the hayloft broke. The woodpile that had stood all winter fell apart. The glass in the front window burst and fell out. The stove cracked. The porch, which until recently seemed solid, now staggered and creaked angrily.
Fedor Ivanovich was not up to weaving. He scooped up the incoming water from the cellar, pulled out cabbages and seed potatoes to dry, as if he was covering up a diverging crack in the stove side, tapping, forging a porch, patching the roof. And he thought bitterly that, apparently, he would have to climb into the pot in which his wife once kept sour cream.
In addition to major troubles, there were minor troubles: either the washbasin starts to leak, then the plate rolls off the shelf, then the electric light bulb explodes, and the plastic tab of the old switch falls off. The molted hens began to peck their eggs, and they began to rush not in baskets-nests, as expected, but in places where one cannot reach without a ladder.
- Yes, what is it! - Fyodor Ivanovich complained anxiously to his neighbors, and if they were not around, then to a black dog. - Directly attack some!
- This is because the owner is not in the house, - grandmother Tamara told him.
- I'm the owner! Fyodor Ivanovich was angry.
- Well, here you go, - the neighbor grinned maliciously.
For two months Fyodor Ivanovich endured such an awkward life, but after an oak shelf fell from its eternal place in the closet, splashing glass jars collected for many years on the floor in a sharp crumble, he could not stand it. He cursed and went to Tamara for advice.
The neighbor greeted him gloomily, but seated him at the table and poured tea. For a long time she listened to Fyodor's complaints, was silent, dipped a dry bagel into a cup, sucked with her toothless mouth.
- I don't know what to do now. Who else would have told - would not have believed in life. And then ... Himself ... Maybe you will advise something, Tamara?
- Maybe I will.
- Well?
- Move you, Fedor, to your other owner.
- And where can I get it, another one? And how to transport?
How, I can't tell you exactly. My mother knew, but I don’t remember the right words. But I think that simple words can do. And do it like this...

On the shore of a pond overgrown with reeds, bogged down in the ground almost to the very windows, stood a warped hut with a roof that had collapsed near the chimney. Ten years ago, this house was still inhabited, the quiet God-fearing Masha Zakharova lived here. No one considered her years, but everyone knew that she served as a girl in the house of Gleb Maximilianovich Krzhizhanovsky. The old woman remembered little from that time, but she loved to tell how the wife of a politician affectionately called her prominent husband “Glibasenka”.
After the perestroika that happened, Masha Zakharova became very ill. And once fell ill - and did not rise. Arriving relatives took her out of the village and placed her in some kind of almshouse. Where Masha is now, whether she is alive - no one in Olenin knew about this.
The house stood right, as if waiting for the return of the hostess.
It was to him that Fyodor Ivanovich went after a conversation with Tamara. In his right hand he held a broom-golik, in his left - a piece of white bread dipped in goat's milk.
There was no lock on the front door. A rusty chain was threaded through the brace hammered into the jamb and the doorknob. The double iron knot did not immediately succumb to the efforts of Fyodor Ivanovich. It took even longer to move the door that had grown into the ground.
Sideways, soiling his clothes on rotten, sour wood, Fyodor Ivanovich squeezed through a narrow gap. The tiny hallway greeted him with a heavy smell of uninhabited. Daylight barely filtered through the dusty, web-covered strip of glass. A filthy kerosene stove stood on a narrow table, and an overturned cast-iron frying pan lay beside it.
Fyodor Ivanovich sighed heavily, feeling a bitter lump rising in his throat.
He remembered the owner well. I used to boil a kettle myself on this kerosene stove. I ate scrambled eggs from this pan. And he listened to the unhurried stories of the lonely Masha Zakharova, a quiet old woman who had seen in her awkward life such views that not every man could endure.
The door leading to the house gave unexpectedly easy - it did not even creak. Fyodor Ivanovich bent down, cautiously stepped over the high threshold, and immediately got up, not daring to go further. He was afraid to leave a legacy in the room, understanding with his mind, however, that there would be nothing terrible in that. The hostess has long been indifferent to who walks around her house, she will neither grumble nor swear, and then no one will bend down to wash dirty footprints from the floor ...
This is what confused Fyodor Ivanovich. The fact that the footprints of his boots would remain here for years, if not decades, terrified him in a strange way. Yes, and the whole situation was unpleasant for him: in this house he felt like a boy who ended up in a cemetery in the evening.
It was quiet, dead and dark.
The knocked-down rug lay exactly as it had ten years ago. A mug was resting on an oilcloth-covered table: once there was tea left in it, then it got moldy, dried up, turned into brown dust.
A cloudy mirror in a heavy frame looked at the door.
A knotted handkerchief hung over the back of a chair.
On the window sill covered with flies, there were glasses with thick glasses and temples wrapped with electrical tape.
A huge chest of drawers, the dream of every housewife, kept letters and photographs that no one needed in a wooden womb.
The walkers who got up lowered the weight-bump to the floor.
Tapestry with three heroes...
Half torn calendar-calendar...
Gloomy icons behind a black lamp...
Fyodor Ivanovich sighed again, sniffed and took a small step forward. Squatting down on his haunches, he put a broom in front of him, thrust the soaked bread into the twigs, closed his eyes and plaintively, frightened by his own voice, dragged on:
- Father, hostess, come with me. Get on the broom, taste the treats, I'll take you to live with me...
He did not know how long it would take to persuade the brownie, and therefore the conspiracy invented by Grandmother Tamara was repeated ten times. Then he waited a few minutes, listening intently to the dull silence of the empty house, and opened his eyes.
Nothing changed.
Golik lay as before.
Is it just...
Fyodor Ivanovich shook his head.
No... It can't be...
He cautiously lifted the broom with both hands, pressed it to his chest like a child, and, backing away, left the room.
It seemed to him that the golik became noticeably heavier.
And he tried to convince himself that he was just imagining it.
As well as the bread crumbs at his feet.
As well as a path of barely noticeable traces going from the stove to the rug.
“I imagined,” Fyodor Ivanovich said to himself, running out into the street. He was out of breath, his eyes widened and he was choking.
- I imagined, - he then convinced Tamara and Gennady's neighbor.
- I imagined, - he said to Zhuk and with a trembling palm stroked the dog's hard neck.

Since May, the Beetle has been on a leash. Fyodor Ivanovich knocked together a kennel for him outside the porch, stuffed straw into it, attached a tin can for water to the side; stretched steel wire along the wall to the very fence. A metal ring with a leash attached to it glided easily, and the dog had much more freedom than other watchdogs. But the Beetle did not understand this and did not appreciate it. For the first few days, he struggled fiercely from the leash - the leash and collar must have reminded him of the terrible time spent in the forest. Then the dog calmed down a bit. But Fyodor Ivanovich felt that Zhuk began to treat him with some bewildered resentment.
Fyodor Ivanovich felt guilty, and therefore, next to the kennel, he built a bench out of two blocks of wood and a board. He now spent much of his time here. He sat, wearing boots hemmed with rubber, smoked a chewed cigar, was engaged in basket business and slowly talked with the dog:
- In two days Volodya will arrive, but we have nothing. It would be necessary to make at least five more baskets - consider an extra ten rubles, or even fifteen ... Pouting, tea, still? And don't pout. The dog should not live in the house. This is not your apartment, you know. What did you keep at home? So, you were sick. Yes, it was winter, remember. Now, here's the blessing. And the weather is good, and you're getting stronger, slicker ... Pamper you, or what? Hey, he wagged his tail. You understand everything! - Fyodor Ivanovich winked at the dumb four-legged interlocutor, threatened him with his finger. - All right, all right, I'll order Volodya, let him bring this one next time ... how is he? .. Pedi Gris. From after all, they came up with the name, damn it! ..
Sometimes Fyodor Ivanovich took Zhuk with him into the forest. Through the village, he led the dog on a leash, untying it only outside the outskirts. The neighbors were now afraid of the dog, grumbled, advised Fyodor to get rid of him.
- God forbid, he will bring something worse. It won't work without the police. You sit down!
- There is no such article to sit down for a brownie, - Fyodor was angry. And he marveled at the wonderful conversation. Is it a thing you have seen, because of some fabulous evil spirits, swearing with your neighbors!
The beetle, which turned out to be free, seemed to be a fool. He ran through the fields with an enthusiastic bark, rolled in the grass, chased birds, recklessly moused. Fyodor Ivanovich looked at the pranks of the dog with a broad smile, lured his shaggy companion into the bushes, and laughed loudly at his bewilderment.
Life got better - whether the new brownie brought on a broom was the reason for this, or the losing streak just ended by itself - it is not clear. Nevertheless, the renovated house no longer collapsed, the dishes did not break, the glass did not burst, but it worked quickly and well.
- Do you think I'm weaving baskets here? - Fyodor Ivanovich addressed the male. - No, brother. I am making my own coffin. My wife, Anna Vasilievna, do you know where she lies? A hundred kilometers from here. In the town. It's not good that she's there, I'm here, but what can you do. I’ll die, and if there’s enough money, I’ll lie down next to her. Here we have something, everything is simple here: you died, they put you in a coffin of five boards, buried you, put up a cross. But there is no, there every person needs money. For a place, for a monument, for work... I want to go to bed like a god. Our graveyard is overgrown with epic and nettles, no one cares about it. In twenty years from him, tea, and there will be no trace left. But in the city, it's not like that. There, special people are assigned to the cemetery, they look after the graves, they clean the paths ...
The dog, listening, yawned. He curled up, snapped his teeth in the wool, tugged at his drooping ear with his hind paw.
Fyodor Ivanovich fell silent, smiled sadly and put aside his next product.

From the leash, the Beetle broke at night. And, stupefied with freedom, he disappeared for three days.
Fyodor Ivanovich could not find a place for himself. In the light, he wandered through the nearest forests, whistling a dog, returned home at dusk, did not sleep at night, barely dozed, recovering from the slightest noise.
“And it’s for the best that it happened,” Grandmother Tamara reassured him. - Now, tea, will not return. Wolves, come on, pulled up.
Fyodor Ivanovich yelled angrily at her.
- Don't croak! Runs - turns back, - he said. And he didn't believe in himself.
But on the morning of the fourth day, Fyodor Ivanovich was awakened by a familiar quiet whining. Waking up at once, he raised himself on his elbow and looked in the direction of the stove.
- Oh, damn you! - burst out of him. - He's back! Came!
The beetle, as if nothing had happened, lay in its usual place. Hearing the owner's voice, the dog barked merrily and thumped the floor with its dirty tail.
- How did you get into the house? From the yard, right? Hungry, I guess. He ran, walked. Not in Kovorchino, did you run to some bitch? Ah, it's young. When I was your age, I used to go to dances ten miles away...
Fyodor Ivanovich, coughing forcefully and mumbling something about troubled youth, put his feet on the floor, felt his worn felt boots with his bare feet, sat for a while, pinching his sparse beard.
And only then did he notice that behind a sheaf of willow twigs, between the stove and the sofa, three terrible carcasses lay in a row.

You need to get rid of the dog - so the whole village decided. The deadline for this was two days.
- Where can I put it? - Fyodor Ivanovich plaintively asked the truce truants who appeared.
“Give it to Volodya Toporov,” grandma Tamara ordered.
- He won't take it.
- Let him take you somewhere far away, and tie him up by the road. Maybe someone will...
It was a pity for Fyodor Ivanovich the dog. It's a pity to tears, to an anguish in the throat. But he understood that it was not worth going against the neighbors. Yes, and I myself saw that it was impossible to keep such a dog in the village. Look, in the morning, at Granny Komarikha, burning paper was blown out of the furnace, and right onto the birch bark and dry logs. Well, the buckets were full of water, they did not let the fire spread, only the floor in front of the stove burned out. And at Ivan Orlov's, exactly at lunchtime, the moonshine still exploded. It worked properly for fifteen years - and then it suddenly burst, so much so that an iron fragment stuck into the ceiling.
Now it is clear who the black dog visited, whose house he left without an owner.
What can I say - at the very Fyodor now suddenly a shelf with dishes collapsed.
Three houses - three carcasses. Everything converges.
“And if you can’t, let me talk to Volodya,” Tamara said a little softer.
- No need. I myself...
Fyodor Ivanovich thought for a long time what he should do with Zhuk. I did not want to leave him in the forest to certain death. Poison - even more so. If you just take it to hell and let it out ... Well, how will it find its way back?
- If you were a cat, - Fyodor Ivanovich reprimanded the subdued Zhuk, - I would take you to the farm. There is milk and mice. I would live somehow.
The dog humbly looked at the owner, moved the tubercles above the intelligent eyes, quietly smiled with his toothy mouth.
Or maybe leave him? thought Fyodor Ivanovich uneasily. - Hide until things calm down. Then say he's back...
No.
Murder will out.
Well, how will someone throw a poisoned piece? Ilyukha Samoilov can. Desperate.
Or who will set the traps?
There will be no life for a dog here.
We need to do something with it...

Volodya Toporov arrived on Monday, pushed the battered Niva back to the porch.
- You're not waiting, are you? shouted from the cockpit, honking abruptly.
“I’m waiting,” Fyodor Ivanovich shouted back, looking out of the window. - How...
They both went outside and shook hands. There was not much work - they quickly dragged all the baskets from the house, loaded them into the trailer. Stupid flower vases, painted with ink, Volodka arranged in the back seat. Caskets and chests placed in the trunk.
Fyodor Ivanovich helped him, but he himself still could not decide whether it was worth starting a conversation about the fate of the Beetle tied in the house.
- Something you, Uncle Fyodor, are sad today. - Volodya took out his wallet. - What happened?
- Yes, - Fyodor Ivanovich shrugged his shoulders.
- What? Speak. Maybe I can help.
- BUT! Fedor Ivanovich waved his hand. - Washbasin broke today. And the porch began to rot again. What a direct attack.
- Of course. It's an old house.
- Old, not old ... - Fyodor Ivanovich sighed, looked back at the windows of Tamar's hut. And, having made up his mind, he chattered:
- You would, Volodya, take something from me, a dog. I don't need it, it's a burden. And you would have been in business. The house would guard.
- No, it won't. My wife is afraid of dogs. Yes, I don't like them either.
- But in vain, in vain. Good dog, smart.
- Do not even persuade, Uncle Fyodor. Uselessly.
- Well, maybe you will give it to your friends?
- Who needs him? Judge for yourself - if a person needs a dog, he would rather take a puppy. And here - such a hell of a healthy.
- At least where would it be, eh?
- To the flayer, perhaps, - Volodya chuckled. And he was frightened when he saw how Fyodor Ivanovich's face twisted. - What are you doing? I joked, I joked. Do you really want to get rid of him?
- I do not want. Necessary.
- How can this be understood?
“Better not ask,” Fyodor Ivanovich said bitterly. “You should have taken him away somewhere.
- What did he do? Volodya asked quietly.
Fyodor Ivanovich only waved his hand.
- Take me away, by God I ask. Tie up somewhere near the road in plain sight. Maybe someone will regret picking it up.
- Well... okay... Will he bite me?
"No, he's affectionate," Fyodor Ivanovich said in a barely audible voice, and suddenly, abruptly turning away, twitched his shoulder.
- What are you doing, Uncle Fyodor?
- Take the hell away! growled the old man.
- Okay... Okay... But you... It's... Just don't cry...
Fyodor Ivanovich twitched, gurgled in his throat, slowly sank to the ground and, leaning back against the dirty wheel of the Niva, clasped his head in his hands.
“Here you go, take this money,” said Volodya, confused, hurriedly pulling a brand new hundred from his wallet and trying to hand it to the old man.
- Not ... - Fyodor Ivanovich croaked. - Don't... You... Buy him... This... Like him... Pedi Gris... Pamper... Finally...

Fyodor Ivanovich was tormented for two days, he did not know what to do with himself. And in the late evening of the second day, he could not stand it - he tied two baked potatoes left over from the last dinner, a tomato, a hastily boiled egg and a stale crust of rye bread in a scarf. He dressed thoroughly, put on tarpaulin boots on flannel footcloths, grabbed matches, a cleaver in a felt sheath - and left the house.
First of all, I went to Tamara.
- Where are you going for the night? she was surprised.
- Do what you want with me, but I won’t let the Beetle offend! - Fyodor Ivanovich said desperately and stamped his shoed heel.
Grandmother Tamara was silent for a long time, looking at the late guest who stood on the threshold. She shook her head. Finally, she spoke quietly and, as it were, with understanding:
“So you went after him?”
"I'll go look for it," Fyodor Ivanovich nodded. “I’ve come to warn you, otherwise you’ll miss it - but I’m not there ... Throw grains from the barrel once a day for the chickens.
- Okay. Kinu... And where are you going?
- On the way to.
- Long away?
- I do not know yet.
- Well, all right... - Tamara got up heavily from the stool, pulled out the drawer of the table, with one wide movement she raked the letters and postcards laid out on the tabletop into it. Said:
- Wait a minute.
And she went behind the curtain into a small room, from where loudly - for the whole house - an old alarm clock clicked with a worn mechanism, trying to keep up with the swift moments. The hostess returned five minutes later and handed Fyodor a bright, orange-and-blue backpack.
- Here, take it. left the grandson. There I put a bottle of milk for you, and a dozen pancakes. Eat on the way.
- Thank you, - Fedor Ivanovich thanked.
“But can you still wait until morning?” It's not a matter of going out into the night.
- I can not. So it's easier.
- Well look. There is a head on the shoulders.
- That's it, - said Fyodor Ivanovich. He threw his backpack behind his back, turned on his heels, opened the door, stepped over the threshold - and stopped. Slowly turning his head, he glanced sharply at Tamara and repeated meaningfully:
- That's it.

It was not scary to go under the open sky. The moon shone brightly, the stars scattered in the high darkness twinkled; it was quiet and sleepy. But when the forest began, black and hidden, Fyodor Ivanovich felt uneasy. He took out a cleaver - but this did not make him calmer. He thought that a lantern would be in order now. And then he decided that there would be no use from a yellow spot jumping on the ground.
In the darkness that surrounded the road, someone lived. There they tossed and sighed. They groaned and moaned. They creaked and crackled. Closed trees strove to catch an annoyingly bright backpack, pull it off the shoulders of a man. Vague figures moved out of the mist and stood motionless ghosts a step away from the curb. Soundless winged shadows glided across the stars. Sometimes the gray moon looked down, and then the forest changed in a monstrous way: ugly shadows striped the road, each hollow was filled with thick darkness, birch trunks began to shine creamy, and the dense wall of closed trees split, exposing the previously invisible, heavy and gloomy...
Fedor Ivanovich walked for a long time, unconsciously holding his breath and struggling with overwhelming fears. He gripped the hot handle of the knife tightly. He forced himself to walk widely and measuredly, drove away frightening thoughts, convinced him not to believe in deceptive ghosts, knew that the figures standing along the road were ordinary snags and shabby bushes, that quiet shadows sliding against the background of stars were owls and bats.
But then he saw something that seemed to clang in his head - and split into hundreds of heavy, sharp pieces, and the constricted heart immediately broke off and fell into his stomach, fluttered there, jumped, beat.
A creepy four-legged creature with a disproportionately large, shapeless head was running rhythmically along the forest road, along the swaying shadows.
Fyodor Ivanovich let out a strangled gasp, put the cleaver in front of him and began to slowly sink, feeling a strange emptiness in his head.

It seemed to him that he was at home lying on an uncomfortable sofa; his hand hung down to the cold floor, and his fingers were licked with a rough, hot tongue by the black dog Zhuk.
Fyodor Ivanovich smacked his lips and woke up.
He lay on the ground. Something hard was pressed against the right side. Stars peeped through the woven openwork crowns.
He was in the forest. On the road, not on the couch.
But the hot tongue continued to lick his hand.
- Bug?
The dog barked familiarly, and Fyodor Ivanovich rolled over.
- Bug!
The dog jumped up, jumped in one direction, then in the other, crouched to the ground, turning its tail. He decided that the owner started a game with him.
- Oh, you filthy bastard! Well, you, infection, almost sent me to the next world! I even ... Ah ... How ... - Fyodor Ivanovich suffocated, suffocated into his fist. Clearing his throat, catching his breath, he wiped his hand on his pants, picked up the cleaver, put it in the sheath. Sat, shaking his head, saying in confusion:
- Oh, you, such an infection ... How, huh? .. How ...
The dog, seeing that the game was not coming out, calmed down, came closer. He poked his head into the knees of the owner, as if begging for forgiveness for something.
- Well, what, what? .. Oh, you, a healthy dog ​​... - Fyodor Ivanovich sniffed, grabbed the Beetle by the neck, felt for a piece of rope, felt blood under his hands. - It was impossible so ... It's not human ... Eh! - He clung to the dog, stroked his spine, scratched his side. - Let me cut off your noose... Wait a minute... Right now... Just stand still!..
Then they sat for a long time on an empty road. If pancakes and bread soaked in milk, chewed potatoes and told each other about what had happened to them - each in his own way, in his own language.
They were surrounded by a living black thicket. In it someone tossed and sighed, groaned and moaned. Indistinct figures stepped out of the mist and stood a few steps from the roadside, winged quiet shadows glided over the smoldering stars - but now nothing frightened Fyodor Ivanovich.
And when they got ready and set off on their way back, Fyodor Ivanovich understood why, when they met, the dog seemed so scary to him.
God knows from what distance the Beetle was dragging its next prey in its mouth.
And, apparently, he did not intend to leave her.

So this is a kikimora, ”Tamara said, only glancing towards the carcass lying on the floor.
- Yah! - Fyodor Ivanovich did not believe.
- And who else could it be? Judge for yourself: green hair, a muzzle with a fist, membranes, like a goose. How to drink give - kikimora! ..
The beetle lay in its usual place near the stove. He smiled as only dogs can smile, and tapped his dirty tail on the floorboards.
- And what kind of dog do you have? Tamara muttered, looking sternly at the collapsed dog.
The beetle showed her pink tongue and yawned.
It was light outside. From the yards came the cock's call. Buckets clanged at the well, taking in the cold water; the chain of the well rattled dully, and the ungreased gate shrieked abruptly.
Fyodor Ivanovich covered the strangled kikimora with a potato sack and announced:
- Do what you want with me, but I'll leave the Beetle. I’ll keep an eye on it, I’ll patch up the fence, I won’t let one go through the gate - but I won’t kick it out either.
“That’s how I understood it,” Grandma Tamara said. - But how will you be without a master? He complained that it was hard.
- Are you talking about a brownie, or what? So I came up with everything. There are so many abandoned huts around, and we have here, and in Nikulkino, and in Shiryaevo. I'll take a broom, as you taught me, I'll bring myself a new house elf. And if I don’t keep track of Zhuk again, I’ll drag one more to me. There are many empty huts, enough for my age.
- Isn't it a pity?
- Whom? Brownies? Maybe a pity. Yes, just judge for yourself, death to them in any case comes out. How long will these houses last? Before our eyes, they rot, wither, fall apart.
"Maybe you're right," Tamara said quietly. - My heart bleeds when I look at such huts. And what is it like for the owner alone - it’s scary to think ...
“Their age is coming to an end, Tamara,” said Fyodor Ivanovich. Yes, ours too. You know, I'm not weaving baskets here. I'm making my own coffin...
The kettle boiled and they sat down at the table. Fyodor Ivanovich took out gingerbread and vanilla crackers. Grandma Tamara took out a bag of caramel in sticky paper wrappers from her pocket.
They didn't talk much over tea. They were fine anyway.
Awakened by the master's hand, the radio muttered about a new government program. There were chickens under the window. Behind the fence, aspen logs were torn with a crack from the blows of a cleaver - desperate Ilyukha Samoilov was chopping firewood for a bath.
“But I’m still wondering if Volodya bought him a Pedi Gris,” Fyodor Ivanovich muttered thoughtfully.
Tamara did not understand what he was talking about, but did not ask again. She took a sip of hot tea, sucked on a gingerbread, and said pleadingly:
“Maybe you can give me the Beetle tomorrow?”
Fyodor Ivanovich looked at the guest in bewilderment. And she, shrugging her shoulders in embarrassment, explained:
- It became scary to go to the bath. The last time I washed myself, I began to draw water from the boiler - and suddenly, as if someone hugged me from behind. She screamed, cursed, turned around - it was empty ... With Zhuk, I would have been calmer.
- Take it, of course.
- Well, thank you...
After Tamara left, Fyodor Ivanovich sat at the table for a long time. He sipped cooled tea from an iron mug, languidly gnawed crackers, and thought hard about something. After about forty minutes, he slapped his knees and stood up abruptly, exhaling:
- Need to work!
He brought from the kitchen a sharp finka, carved by an acquaintance prison chemist from an automobile spring. He took out a piece of tarpaulin from the bed and spread it on the floor. He rolled out of the corner into the middle of the room a block of wood cut with a cleaver, stuck a knife into it. He poured water into a bowl.
And, after a little hesitation, he pulled off a dusty bag from the dead kikimora.

Indian summer is over. A cold wind was blowing from the side of the lake, penetrating to the bones, and therefore Zina Toporova moved from her usual place closer to the monastery walls. On plywood tables with dural legs, she laid out all her goods in the usual manner: tiny baskets, neat wicker boxes, pairs of bast shoes, birch bark tueska, willow planters, trays, vases.
- They're coming! - announced Irka Samoilova, who sells figured clay whistles and porcelain bells. She blew into her chilled palms, looked at her watch, and added:
- Late today something.
Zina turned around.
Along the cobbled street, past the old two-story mansions, shabby and unsightly, past the bare lindens and poplars, past the filthy cast-iron railings and gray theater pedestals, a huge glass bus, like an aquarium shining from within, rolled majestically.
- There should be two more flights, - said the all-knowing Olga Masterkova, who sells icons, Khokhloma-painted spoons and thick pencils with the image of the monastery belfry on the side. The season is over, girls. Soon we will suck paw ...
The bus turned around on the square in front of the monastery gates. Doors hissed, crawled sideways. Enthusiastic, smartly dressed people poured out of the hole. Shouted, clicked cameras, frightening the crows. We saw the souvenirs laid out for sale, rushed to them.
Zina Toporova patted her frozen cheeks, straightened her scarf and smiled broadly at the approaching customers.
- Good day! she said loudly. - Ai um, believe Glad Si Yu.
The foreigners hummed in admiration.
- You are lucky, Zinka, - Irka Samoilova said enviously. - Teach me, or something, their language.
- I studied at the university for five years, - Zina answered over the crowd. And she smiled even wider, hurrying to show foreign guests as much goods as possible, readily responding to every question, every gesture, every glance.
In fifteen minutes she sold six caskets, ten pairs of bast shoes, two vases, a planter and a basket with a lid. Then the wave of buyers subsided; the inhabitants of the wheeled aquarium dispersed around the square - they were waiting for the guide to allow them to enter the wrought iron gate. Only one elderly man could not tear himself away from the zinya tray. His attention was riveted on three figures standing in the most prominent place.
- Pliz, take, - allowed Zina. And he immediately took one of the figurines, with enthusiastic surprise, twisted, squeezed, even sniffed it. He asked what it was made of, what it was called, how much it cost.
Zina could not answer the first question. Where the husband took the goods, she really did not know.
As for the title...
“Its Russian brownie,” Zina said confidently. - Do-mo-howl. Exclusive. Special Fo Yu. Fotin dollars.
The foreigner crumpled the brownie stuffed with sawdust, not understanding how it was possible to tailor such a miracle with almost no seams, stroked the thick wool with his fingers, said the international “okay” and reached into his pocket for his wallet.

story three: Ivan Ivanovich

There was a storm, and the old rotten linden, unable to withstand the onslaught of the elements, broke in half and collapsed, covering the rickety frame of the well.
Other trees also got it - the dumpy willows growing around the pond scattered peeled branches across the shallow rotten water, the wild apple trees lost the apples that had not yet ripened, and the pine tree growing on the hillock lost its huge paw and became miserable, like a disabled animal.
But here's the lip!
Baba Masha sighed.
This linden was planted by her older brother Fyodor on the day he left for the front.
“I was here with my grandfather alone,” he said quietly, taking his little sister aside. - He advised me everything. I, therefore, put my hair in the roots of this linden, and an old shirt. I did everything as my grandfather ordered. Now if anything happens to me, the tree will show you.”
The schoolgirl Masha did not believe in such nonsense, she called them superstitions, but soon she had to change her mind. On the ninth of July, during a thunderstorm, a strange, thin, like a rope, lightning struck a tree, leaving a scorched mark on the trunk. And two months later, Fyodor returned home crouched, blackened face. Limping, he approached the linden tree, touched the mutilated trunk with his hand, and said quietly: “But the grandfather didn’t lie.”
And only Masha understood what he was talking about.
The tree never recovered from that storm. It seemed to grow upwards, but black internal rot slowly ate it. Throughout the war and twenty years after, Fyodor presided over the collective farm, firmly pulled the state economy, never remembered his sores, did not complain, he only looked at the linden, but in public, laughing, felt sorry for her out loud.
He died somehow quietly, imperceptibly - alone in his blind-sighted hut. And on the day of the funeral, in the month of August, the linden suddenly shed all its foliage and wrapped itself in a thick gray cobweb that had come from nowhere.
A few years later, she nevertheless recovered, turned green with a crown, and even the black scar dragged on a little. Maybe because Masha began to bury her hair under her roots, or maybe for some other reason.
Was it not Ivan Ivanovich who then helped the dying tree? ..
Shaking her head, Baba Masha walked around the well covered with linden.
What to do now? On the key, or what, to go for water? Long away. Yes, and he has been uncleaned for so many years. Dragged on, tea, mud ...
Picking up the buckets left on the path, Baba Masha went to the neighbor's house.

Utekhovo has never been a big village. In the best days - before the fire - there were twelve yards here. Children ran to study six kilometers away in Lazartsevo: there, in addition to the school, there was a village shop, a club with a library and billiards, and a public bathhouse.
But here it is! The time has come - the villages have become equal: that in Utekhov two houses remained residential, that in Lazartsevo. And as if they moved away from each other, not six kilometers separated them, but all sixty. The straight road was overgrown, the ford across the river was dragged on with mud, the forest turned into former meadows and arable land. Children used to run for an hour one way. And the old people now have to drag almost all day.
So now no one from Utekhovo goes to Lazartsevo. There is no need: the store closed a long time ago, the bathhouse burned down, the club was dismantled for firewood. And if you want, you can also send the news through Lyoshka Ivantsev, when he rolls up from the district center on his “Niva”, bread, tea, and sugar for sale, he will bring - and at the same time he will check whether the lonely old women have died, whether those surrounded by forest are still alive villages.

The neighbor looked out as soon as Baba Masha lightly tapped her finger on the window pane.
Did you see what happened last night?
- But how! I was afraid that the roof would blow off.
- My linden was filled up. Straight to the well. Now don't come close.
- You wait, I'm right now ...
The window sash banged, the latch creaked.
Baba Masha turned away, leaned sideways against the log wall. She squinted at the mutilated pine from under her arm and shook her head sadly.
She was restless.
Well, for good reason, the linden broke! Maybe it's a sign?
Oh, you shouldn't have dug her hair into the roots! ..
The neighbor came out, wrapping herself in a gray shawl, leaning on a juniper stick:
- Let's go, let's see, or something, what happened there for the trouble. And I didn't leave the house today. Kurei just let out of the yard. Something makes me sick. She even fired up the stove - she was shivering.
- So after all, tea, not twenty years, - Baba Masha answered absently.
I didn't have to go far - the well was nearby, behind the woodshed, behind the rotten frame of the harvester, behind the overgrown lilacs.
“Here,” Baba Masha said, spreading her arms wide. - We here, Lyubasha, can not manage on our own.
- Yes, - the neighbor drawled, slowly bypassing the well and the linden that had collapsed on it. - Or maybe pull it with a tractor?
“Then the whole frame will fall apart. We should at least chop off all the branches, but we won’t get in there ... This is not a woman’s job, Lyuba. Ivan Ivanovich should be called.
“Oh, I don’t know…” Baba Lyuba shrugged her shoulders. - I don't want to worry him.
- You screwed up again! What kind of waste is this?! And so the whole summer they did not touch him! There are so many things to do, so much to do: the manure must be raked out, hay must be felled, firewood must be saved at least a little. Enough, tea, walked up over the summer. Autumn is on the nose, the potatoes will have to be pulled into the underground. Or are you planning to do everything yourself?
“Maybe she herself,” Baba Lyuba said quietly. - You, Marya Petrovna, do not swear. I'm not just like that ... I'm ... I'm afraid Ivan Ivanovich will not come to us anymore.
- Is that how it is?
- And like this ... The last time in the spring, remember, we called him? He was already dissatisfied. Angry.
- For what?
- How we meet him, how we thank him. He was fed up with pies, he was fed up with pancakes. He's bored with us, that's what. Let's call him, he will come, look that nothing has changed, turn around - only we saw him.
- Yes, how is it, - Baba Masha was confused. How will we be without a man? Do you know exactly what you're talking about?
- You can ask him yourself.
- Are you laughing? Or forgot that I can't understand his lowing?
- I say: he will leave, if he has not already left. I haven't met him for a long time. Look, since May...

Baba Lyuba met Ivan Ivanovich a long time ago - either under Stalin, or already under Khrushchev. She then mowed forest clearings - prepared hay for a goat. This matter seemed to have been resolved, but the young Lyuba, like other peasants, was hiding just in case. The surrounding meadows were entirely collective-farm, that is, state, even those where the grass never knew the spit. Try to cut even the edge of the Lithuanian there - you won’t say hello. Therefore, the villagers were reinsured: in the morning - it was dark - they went with scythes to uncomfortable forest plots, in the evenings - at dusk - they carried dry hay.
Love was doubly hidden. Various rumors went about her around the district, they said that she was an herbalist, a healer either by God's gift, or by a damn curse - and she was afraid that these conversations would not reach strangers.
And she really had a gift: she guessed the healing power in herbs, felt with intuition what ailments should be treated with what. For science, she went to her grandfather alone - to the very one who once advised his neighbor Fyodor to plant a linden tree near the house before leaving for the front.
Lyuba spent a lot of time in the forests, sometimes spending the night in the wilderness itself, not being afraid of anything. Probably, Ivan Ivanovich noticed her even then. And he left when she, slipping on a bump, broke her scythe and leg. He did not leave right away - only in the evening, when Lyuba had already lost her voice and was exhausted. Ivan Ivanovich picked her up from the ground, put her on his shoulder, and carried her to the edge of the forest, from where the roofs of the houses and the spreading pine growing on the hillock were visible ...

It was warm in the hut, almost hot. A fire roared in the furnace, red-hot the iron door; cubes of coals glowed in the open blower. The radio hanging over the table was humming about something; ringing, a large fly beat against the window glass.
“We can’t do without a man,” Baba Masha repeated plaintively, smoothing the candy wrapper from the “School” candy with her fingers. - You would think of something, huh?
Baba Lyuba was chipping a torch for a samovar with a large knife with a black sharpened blade.
- What can you think of?
- I would talk to him. Maybe he'll say something good himself.
- What will he say? Baba Lyuba angrily waved the knife away. - You better think what to do with the well. Maybe Leshka Ivantseva, when she arrives, ask for help?
- There is no hope for Leshka, as if you don’t know. Yes, and you will not save money. It used to be easy, you could pay for everything with a bottle of moonshine. And now there are no such fools, now give everyone money. You need your own man, a real one, not some kind of covenant.
- The men are gone, Masha. Now we have to live. As everybody.
- Here you are! Okay, if you don't want, I'll call you myself. The thing is simple.
- It's easy to call. And how are you going to keep it?
- Yeah, I'll think of something.
- Well, think about it now.
They fell silent.
A log fired loudly in the oven; again, buzzing, a fly that had been hushed up beat against the glass; squeaked time signals on the radio.
“I’m scared, Lyuba,” Baba Masha said with a sigh. - I've been putting my hair under Fedorov's linden for many years. And she - it is necessary! - take it and break it.
- Why are you putting it down?
- I don’t know myself ... I collect everything I own - hair, nails. And under the tree.
- And why are you collecting?
- Otherwise, you don’t know ... In the other world, after all, every dropped hair, every nail is to be found, but they will force you to pick it up. It's all right, I'll do it somehow ... But here I lived for three more years in Sverdlovsk ...
- Oh, you fool, Marya Petrovna! And she was also a Komsomol member!
- And I went to church as a Komsomol member! .. Tell me something, Lyubasha, can Ivan Ivanovich come up with something with my linden tree, help somehow? .. Maybe, right? The roots, after all, remained, well, he would have started a new tree from them. That would be good. And the memory of Fedor, and I'm calmer ...
For a long time the neighbors sat at a table upholstered with worn oilcloth, drank tea from darkened saucers, looked into the nickel-plated samovar, listened to regional news on the radio.
“And I need to fix the roof,” Baba Masha recalled.
Emboldened mice rustled behind the wallpaper.
- Yes, and your porch rotted a long time ago.
Rowan branches tapped on the window.
- And the heifer will soon need to be slaughtered.
Magpies, unkind messengers, flocked from somewhere, crackled in the yard.
- And the manure was so caked that now I can’t overpower it.
“All right,” Baba Lyuba said with a sigh. - I know how to please Ivan Ivanovich. Yes, I strongly doubt whether this is a good deed ... Is the tractor on the move with you? Prepare - you will go to the regional center.

Baba Masha's tractor was left from her husband. During perestroika, when the collective and state farms abandoned by the state began to fall apart, selling off their property on the sly, the former foreman and honorary pensioner Pyotr Stepanovich decided to take up farming - all kinds of television programs painted very enticing prospects for this business. Using old connections, he bought for a pittance a broken twenty-five-horsepower tractor "Vladimirets", which no one called except "fart", as well as a small single-axle trailer, a plow and a cultivator. Pyotr Stepanovich collected the rest of the iron in the fields, and at abandoned landfills. There he found a good harrow, spare tires, a mower in need of repair, and many other useful things.
Pyotr Stepanovich became seriously interested in farming. But he never got rich, but only lost his health. He died from the heart - one morning he got dressed, was about to go to plow potatoes, but felt a sharp pain in his chest, sat down on a bench, leaned forward, his face turned blue - and fell, no longer breathing.
In addition to the tractor, Peter left his wife six calves, two dairy cows and an uncounted herd of sheep. And two years later, from all the cattle, Baba Masha had the cow Galya, and the sheep of the Field - but even they barely had enough strength. If not for a tractor, but not for the help of Ivan Ivanovich, Baba Masha would have kept some hens.
And Baba Masha handled the tractor well. Under Khrushchev, she worked for several years at the local MTS, and later, under Brezhnev, she more than once had to drive the wheeled T40 and the levers of the caterpillar DT75. Until now, she kept in a chest of drawers a clipping from a local newspaper, where a familiar bespectacled correspondent, now long drunk, called her “our Angelina Pasha”.

There was a little bit of diesel fuel left in the three-hundred-liter barrel, and Baba Masha, taking out the money wrapped in a rag from the chest of drawers, counted out a few bills. Gasoline prices grew rapidly, and diesel fuel now cost a little cheaper than gasoline, but Baba Masha hoped that she would have enough money for one full gas station. It may even be possible to replenish the “strategic reserve” in the barrel.
The tractor started up immediately, without being capricious - it blew blue smoke, coughed and immediately rattled evenly, trembling like a rabbit caught by the ears.
Cautiously, in reverse, Baba Masha brought the tractor out of the yard. She stopped in front of the house, opened the door, waved her hand to a neighbor, shouted, over the crackling of a diesel engine with her voice:
- Look after the chickens, give them grain at lunchtime! And by the evening I, tea, will be back! If I'm late, feed the cattle! The swill is standing by the stove, it is already ready, you just need to dilute it with warm water!
- I'll do everything, not the first time. Ride in peace.
- OK...
The tractor moved - dived with its front wheels into the overgrown rut of the old road, jumped up, barked with effort, spewing smoke - and rolled, slowly accelerating, dangling from side to side, crushing tall grass, breaking branches of nearby bushes.
The path was not close - it was twenty-five kilometers to the regional center, and even more to the place where Baba Masha was heading. Moreover, she was going to call in Matveytsevo to relatives - and this is a fair circle will come out.
Baba Masha hurried, hurried, drove the tractor along the road potholes, sparing neither herself nor the car. Crouching, clinging to the steering wheel wrapped with electrical tape, she stared tenaciously at the road broken by timber trucks, deafening from the diesel rumble. Absent-mindedly I thought about life, figured out how much money to save from my pension to buy firewood, decided if it would not be easier to quietly pull a few fallen birches out of the forest with a tractor, and cut them myself.
Most - with the help of Ivan Ivanovich.
Not a stranger, tea. Won't refuse now. He won't leave, he won't quit.
Oh, God forbid!
Baba Masha remembered her brother Fyodor and her husband Peter, she also remembered Ivan Ivanovich who replaced them ...

Lyuba brought him to the village, probably in the ninety-fifth year - a few years after Peter's death. On that day, I remember, Paul's stupid sheep fell into the cesspool of an abandoned house. Getting her out of there turned out to be an impossible task for two elderly women, but, watching Marya Petrovna being killed, listening to the cattle stuck in the mud yelling in a wild voice, Baba Lyuba could not stand it:
- All right, I'll bring an assistant. Only you, Masha, stay at home, and don't show your nose out of it.
Baba Masha sat in the hut all day, consumed by curiosity. Where did Lyuba find an assistant? In Lazartsevo, or what? So far away! And what kind of assistant is this that you need to hide from him? ..
Lyuba came in the evening, knocked on the glass, shouted:
- They pulled out your Polka, she is grazing at the well under a linden tree. You give me milk, you need to pay off the assistant.
- What's his name? - Baba Masha asked, passing a pot out the window.
- Ivan, - Lyuba answered a little hesitantly. - Ivan Ivanovich.
Since then, it has become a tradition: as soon as some unbearable business appeared, Baba Masha ran to a neighbor:
- You should have called Ivan Ivanovich, Lyuba. We can't manage without him. And I would like to thank you in any way I can. Dough, out, kneaded in the morning ...
Lyuba did not refuse her, apparently, Ivan Ivanovich really liked the treat, apparently, he himself willingly did peasant affairs. He dug new poles for the fence, cut down the blackthorn, uprooted the old apple tree, leveled the rickety yard, dragged a new boiler into the bath instead of the old one.
And soon Baba Masha had a chance to see a mysterious assistant. She was very surprised then, even scared to the point of hiccups at first, and then she remembered that Lyubasha was always talked about, and, it seemed, she calmed down, considered that nothing special, as it were, had happened.
The main thing is that there is a man.
And what he is all of himself - this is the tenth thing.

Baba Masha did not stay in Matveytsevo for one extra minute. Her brother lived here - the seventh water on jelly. Baba Masha did not favor him, although she herself could not explain why. They rarely talked - out of necessity; met mainly at the funeral of common relatives.
- I'm in debt! Baba Masha shouted to her brother digging in the garden. She didn't even turn off the tractor, she just opened the door and put her foot on the dirt-stained steps. - Hello!
The tall, tanned man slowly straightened up; squinting against the sun, he looked from under his arm at the rushing relative, wiped the sweat from his forehead with a broad gesture. Slowly, swinging, he came closer, opened the gate ajar:
- Would go into the house, or something, Marya Petrovna.
- Once, Vasily Stepanovich. I'm in a hurry. Will you return the money that you took six months ago?
- I have no money now, Marya Petrovna.
- And I should ... Maybe you can re-borrow from someone?
- Yes, it seems that there is no one to re-borrow from ... But will you take the debt in gold? - brother Vasily tilted his head, narrowed his eyes cunningly.
Oh, Baba Masha did not like such a squint.
- You're kidding, aren't you?
- No, I'm not kidding. Priest's gold, old, real.
- Where?
- We know where... I found the treasure.
- Where is it?
- Tell you everything... Do you remember the stone house on the other side of the village?
- Presidents?
- He is. That house is no more. It crumbled ... Only you ... - Vasily caught himself, glared around. - Don't make a fuss about the gold. It is of no use to us.
- Is it really a treasure?
- I'm telling you: the priest's gold was buried in the chairman's house. Will you take money instead?
- You bring it, and I'll take a look.
Vasily nodded and, slowly, waddling, went into the house. He disappeared for a long time - Baba Masha was already going to turn off the tractor, sparing the diesel fuel. Vasily returned somewhat quiet, as if even cringing. A cobweb hung on his left shoulder - either in the attic, or in the underground, his brother climbed for the hidden gold.
- Here, look, - He approached the tractor, extended his hand, unclenched his scratched fist. On the palm lay a golden cross with a small green pebble in the middle.
- In the city, I suppose, they will give big money for it, - Vasily said quietly. - A pebble, for sure, an emerald.
- All right, - said Baba Masha. - I'll take it.

About an hour later, the tractor drove onto the asphalt. The road sign suggested that there were three kilometers left to the regional center, but today Baba Masha was not going there, and therefore immediately turned left. The rest of the journey took her another twenty minutes.
The roadside eatery "Romashka" was the only eatery on the entire highway connecting the district center with the regional city. Therefore, this institution was very popular, and not only among truck drivers. Nevertheless, it was the truckers who were the most here. Huge cars with long, like wagons, wagons stood on the roadside; rare "Muscovites" and "Zhigulenki" looked among them like small boats, jammed with hummocks.
First of all, Baba Masha drove to a gas station, where she found out that diesel fuel had almost doubled in price. Having spent all the money on diesel fuel, she brought the tractor to the road, stopped it away from other cars, drowned it out and got out of the cab.
Nearby, a young guy in an orange, oil-stained vest was intently kicking the wheel of a truck. Baba Masha's appearance distracted him from this occupation; he looked with interest and, perhaps, with surprise at the dilapidated old woman, quickly glanced in the direction of the tractor, and asked:
- You, mother, maybe you need some help?
"I'll take care of myself," she answered briskly.
He chuckled approvingly.
- Well, look.
She looked: at a trio of men gathered at a table under a canopy near the barbecue, at a bored waitress in a gray hospital gown, at a man in a chef's hat and a canvas butcher's apron yawning in the doorway of the summer kitchen, at dogs lightly napping near garbage cans, at the high cabin of a driver dressed in jeans, a woman dozing in a Zhiguli, a bare-legged, bare-haired girl walking among the cars.
Two or three other girls of the same kind were probably inside the Romashka now, munching something greedily, or just sitting in the corner, looking closely at the drivers coming inside, waiting for one of them to beckon one of them along.
- Wait a minute, daughter ... - Baba Masha caught up with the girl, walked beside her, not knowing where to start the conversation, lost and embarrassed.
- What? - The gum bubble burst on brightly painted lips.
- What's your name?
- Natasha. And what?
- How old are you?
- And you, grandma, what's the matter? Will you educate? No need. Better go where you were going.
- So I went to you, - Baba Masha hurried. She fussily took out the “School” candy prepared for such an occasion from her pocket, handed it to the girl, feeling terribly embarrassed. - Here, take it. And listen to me, the old one, what I want to say ...
The girl looked doubtfully at the candy. I took it. Unfolded. Put it in my mouth:
- Well?..
- You're, it's... With men... for money... Yes?
- It happens and not for money. Life is like that. And what?
- Look at that... - A golden cross with a green pebble in the middle flashed on a withered, almost black palm. - Gold, real, antique. And an emerald. Before the revolution, more was done... In the city, for such a thing, do you know how much they will give?
Interest flashed in the girl's eyes.
- How?
- Ten thousand! - Baba Masha called the first figure that came to mind. And then she was afraid that the girl would not believe in such a fabulous amount. - Ten thousand. If you bargain. Real gold, priestly, old! And a pebble too. Ten thousand, I say for sure, nothing less.
- And what do you want?
- Yes, yes, - Baba Masha nodded, rejoicing that now you can get down to business. - I have a friend who is a man. A good man, hardworking, kind. You would have pleased him. Tea, you know how. And then in our village it is difficult with the girls, there are only two grandmothers left. And he's still strong, man. He can't do without this.
- Ten thousand? - The golden cross shone in the girl's black eyes.
- Yes. We will feed you properly, we will soar in the bathhouse. Maybe you like it with us, and even decide to stay.
The girl chuckled doubtfully.
- How far is the village?
- Not really. Don't worry, I'll take you. There, my tractor is standing.
- Ten thousand?
- Ten, ten.
I have never seen such money.
- You can sell it in the city. It is possible in the regional center, but then they will give less.
- What's the man's name?
- He is Ivan Ivanovich. Kind. Industrious.
"Ten thousand," the girl shook her head. - Okay. Just give me the cross right away.
- Of course. As soon as we enter the village, I will immediately give it back.
They nodded at the same time, pleased with each other, and headed for the tractor standing to the side.

It was crowded for two in the iron cabin.
The girl sat sideways, pressing her cold thigh against Baba Masha's dry knee, resting her angular shoulder against the dusty glass. Hunched over, with her long thin legs drawn up, she now looked like a frozen marsh heron. Throwing a thin arm behind the back of an elderly woman, she tightly clutched the back of the only chair here and looked at the road with a detached look.
What was she thinking?
Baba Masha could not imagine how life should turn out so that such a young girl, a stupid little woman, would give up everything she had and go from hand to hand. Well, how could she understand what was going on in the head of this Natasha?
- Where are you from?
- From Kovorchino.
- Where do you live?
- Where it is necessary, there are a lot of acquaintances. I think to go to the city. Maybe even to Moscow... Only money will be needed there... Do you have anything else like this cross?
- Let's find...
The tractor rolled off the embankment of the highway and jumped into the deep rut of the dirt road.
- How long do we have to go?
- We'll make it before dark.
The sun was just setting in the west. Shadows of clouds crawled across the meadows and abandoned fields, and a huge blue-black cloud slowly emerged from behind a toothy strip of forest.
“It will rain again,” Baba Masha sighed and, after a pause, unexpectedly began to tell the story of the linden tree planted by her brother Fyodor before leaving for the front. The roar of the diesel muffled her words; she almost screamed to be heard, and because of this her usual story became like a desperate complaint.
The storm began when they entered the forest. Lightning flashed very close, thunder roared deafeningly, hard streams of downpour struck the roof. In a matter of seconds, the tractor plunged into thick darkness and seemed to even get stuck in it.
And Baba Masha screamed, tearing her already shrunken voice:
- Our places are deaf, special! And this forest is not simple. Even on the road a stranger can not pass! Get lost! Here we have recently escaped bandits disappeared without a trace! ..
The tractor swayed measuredly and seemed to float out of time, out of space, moving from one world to another.
Hardly recognizable black figures were moving around: either bushes and trees that seemed to be alive, or forest monsters frozen by magic. Headlights and lightning flashes snatched out of the haze cut by jets of ugly boughs-paws stretching towards the car and trunks-trunks leaning towards it.
Natashka suddenly remembered that in the same way - plunging into the stirring darkness under the roar of electric discharges - the time machine worked in some old science fiction film that she had once seen on TV. She became terrified.
Another flash of lightning briefly illuminated the blurry road. Natashka squealed: it seemed to her that on the side of the road, leaning against a ghostly white birch, there was a huge monster resembling a man and measuredly, like a machine, waving to the tractor.
Baba Masha, clutching the steering wheel, quickly glanced at the girl, shouted, opening her uneven, toothless mouth wide:
- Do not be afraid! This is Ivan Ivanovich greeting us! Her wrinkled face, illuminated from below by the dim light of the dashboard, seemed ugly and dead, like a rubber mask.
Natashka closed her eyes, squeaked, and quietly crawled down to the cold bottom of the cabin.

The rest was like a dream: an incomprehensible turmoil, noise, darkness, someone's hands, gentle voices:
- What a beauty ... Did you give her a candy right away?
- Yes.
- When did it work?
- Recently, it must be.
- Head, hold her head ... Drink, dear, drink ...
Something sweet and fragrant poured down her throat, flowed onto her chin.
- You swallow, dear... And now get up... And let's go, let's go... Hold on to me... And-and, one leg... And-and, two other...
She was supported from both sides, she was helped to walk. She was like drunk - her thoughts were confused, her legs were tangled, before her eyes everything swam, swayed, trembled - and it was very funny.
- She smiles, beauty ... That's right. Laugh, laugh...
She was taken to a warm and bright place. Stripped. They made me sit down.
- Hand, hand lift ... Now let's leg here ... Here, well. Here, smart...
They poured hot water on it, dipped it, scrubbed it, and lathered it. Then they wrapped her in something big and soft, put something tasty and crumbly into her mouth.
She wanted to sleep.
But strange hands tirelessly shook her, and kind voices kept demanding something from her:
- Chew... Get dressed... Drink... Get up... Lie down...
Then she fell somewhere for a long time and listened, listened, listened to the intoxicating gentle voice:
- Bride ... Well, a pure bride ...

By morning the storm had subsided.
Throwing her husband's sweatshirt over her shoulders, Baba Masha went out to look at the linden tree. Several times she walked around the well and the fallen tree, and then noticed in the grass at the roots two weak sprouts with heart-shaped leaves. And it warmed my heart at the same time.
- That's how nice it is! Now Ivan Ivanovich will take care of you, he won't let you go to waste...
The gates of the neighbor's yard creaked strainedly - Lyubasha let out chickens. Baba Masha went to her, shouted from afar, barely passing the rusty frame of the combine:
- Isn't it time?
- It's time! the neighbor responded.
The morning was clear and sonorous - like a wine glass. The sun was just about to show a curved burgundy edge from behind the trees, and it was as if a weak manganese solution spread across the luminous sky, richly saturating the loose cotton wool of the clouds. Outside the outskirts, a cuckoo generously counted someone's years of life, in the garden magpies flew in from the forest, and in Baba Masha's yard, a young cockerel tried its voice angrily and clumsily ...
They met at the woodshed: Baba Lyuba led Natashka by the arm.
- How is she? Baba Masha asked softly.
- Good...
Dressed in a long white shirt, Natasha barely moved her legs. Eyes with huge pupils were covered with a cloudy film.
Baba Masha took the girl by the elbow, pressed her to her.
- Let's go, shall we? - Baba Lyuba asked uncertainly for some reason.
- Let's go to...
They walked slowly along the dewy grass through the quiet village: past the crooked hut of Vaska Likhachev, past the choir of Pyotr Petrovich Varlomeev, past the still strong house of Fedot Soldatenkov, past the plot overgrown with nettles, where the farm of the Nefyodov brothers had once been.
We walked to a pine tree standing on a hillock.
“And I put the dough for pancakes,” Baba Masha said quietly, holding the girl’s relaxed hand tightly. - Just in time for dinner.
- And I'm thinking of making pies with mushrooms for dinner.
- And there will be fresh milk, and sour cream.
- I made jam two days ago.
- There will be something to put on the table.
- Let's find...
They climbed a hillock and stopped, looking around. The nearby forest breathed mist, shuddered chillily, dropping the remnants of night rain and morning dew from the heavy crowns.
“Hold her for now,” Baba Lyuba said and, bending down, picked up a piece of steel pipe from the ground.
Baba Masha nodded and, going behind Natasha, hugged her tightly.
Baba Lyuba stepped forward. She hesitated a little, gathering her courage, then swung her arm wide and hit the rusty plowshare hanging on a sharp fragment of a pine branch with a piece of pipe.
The clang shattered the glassy morning.
Baba Masha felt Natasha shudder.
Screeching, frightened magpies fell off the fences.
The cuckoo stopped, the cuckoo fell silent.
And again Baba Lyuba hit metal on metal, causing the echo to go into hysterical crying.
Once again.
And further...
- Quiet, girl, quiet, - Baba Masha admonished the twitching Natasha. - Everything is fine, and I will give you the cross today, and we will feed you, and wash you again, and put you to bed ...
- Quiet, you, quiet ... - She whispered into the girl's ear under a jerky clang. And then she raised her head, cast a glance in the direction of the forest, and shuddered herself - as she always shuddered when she saw Ivan Ivanovich.
I could not get used to it, although for how many years we had lived side by side.
Huge, over two meters tall, densely overgrown with hair, mossy, he walked, widely waving his long powerful arms, and the fog ran from under his clubfoot legs, curling in whirlwinds, rising in waves.
Natasha wheezed, moaned, seeing the approaching forest monster. She tried to break free, but, drunk with a potion, she quickly lost her strength and went limp in the arms of Baba Masha. And she kept saying quickly, trying not to look at Ivan Ivanovich, who was already close:
- Do not be afraid, child. Don't be afraid. You, tea, did not meet with such animals. This one only looks scary, but he is so affectionate. Do not trust? Ask Lyuba, our Leshachikha, she knows, she will tell. He is kind and hardworking. A good man, not a beast of some kind. You should be kind to him. You're with him somehow ... And everything will be fine. Everything is fine. You will stay here with us until the summer, and there, you see, you yourself will stay. We can't live without a peasant, Natasha... It's impossible... Oh, it's impossible...

story four: The house on the outskirts

Anna Nikolaevna saw a black man when she was returning home from a distant berry field late in the evening.
“And I’m looking,” she told everyone the next day, making round eyes and dabbing her slobbering mouth with the corner of her headscarf. - Stranger. Not ours. And wonderfully dressed. Hello, I tell him. And he turned around so strangely, as if he had twisted his neck, and seemed to hiss at me, inaudibly. I took a closer look - fathers! - and through it the window is visible. Stepanov's window at home - shines through. At this point it seemed to hit me in the head - and I don’t remember anything. Horror! I woke up in a hut. She drew the curtains, climbed onto the stove, lay there, I think, now someone will knock on the window or on the door - I will immediately die of fear.
“So it was Father Hermogenes,” Grandfather Artemy said importantly, after listening to his neighbor. - He has appeared before. I, it was the case, saw him somehow. Exactly as you say: big, overweight, in a black cassock, and you can see through it.
But Vasily Drannikov did not believe the grandmother. He remarked judiciously, as it should be for a person with a higher education:
- In the twilight of what you just do not dream. You wouldn't make people laugh. Thought up too: a black man.
And his wife, Svetka, added with a smile:
- You are a pure magpie, Baba Anya. We will know everything through you. Now a black car, then a black man. What will happen next?
Anna Nikolaevna was offended by the magpie. Muttered:
- Laugh, laugh. They also said about the car that they had a dream ...
Anna Nikolaevna noticed the black jeep two days ago. Early in the morning, still dark, I went to the forest for blueberries, and passing by a stone, long abandoned house, I saw a flat lacquered car roof behind the bushes. I was surprised who it could be, at first I thought that, probably, the townspeople drove into a wild neglected garden. Yes, but it’s not the season: there are almost no raspberries, the blackthorn has not ripened, the apples have not been born at all, and it’s too early for apples.
So what do they want here?
Anna Nikolaevna crept closer. She marveled at the unprecedented car, inside which, probably, ten people could safely sit down. From the mud that stuck to it and from the footprints, I understood why no one heard how this iron monster arrived in the village: it arrived from the untraveled side, along the old road that went past the cemetery and got lost in the forest. Once it was a short cut to the neighboring area; now you can only drive a tank here.
Well, or on such a hulk: there are wheels, wider than tractor ones.
Something rumbled in the house: as if some kind of piece of iron had been dropped or deliberately thrown, and Anna Nikolaevna shuddered. I remembered how, five years ago, the same strangers killed an old woman in neighboring Ivashev, took out all the icons and a porcelain service from the house.
Many people are now in the habit of driving around abandoned villages: some floors in abandoned huts are being removed, others are looking for various junk in the attics, others are just hooligans: the remaining furniture is crushed, windows are beaten, stoves are torn apart. For fun, they can set fire to the whole village.
And what is needed for this? Why did they come quietly, at night, from an abandoned side? Lost, did not know the real road or are hiding?
Something flickered in the boarded-up window, and Anna Nikolaevna was completely frightened. Forgetting about the berries, she bent down and turned back. At first she walked quickly, looking around, then she could not stand it and ran. By the time she got to the last residential hut, she cursed everything: herself, old, clumsy, and uncomfortable boots, and footcloths inopportunely strayed, and the uneven path. She burst into the village red, panting, barely alive. She alarmed the sleeping Stepanovs: she drummed on them at the window, shouting herself without understanding what, in a hurry to express everything at once, and therefore straying, chattering in vain.
Well, pure forty.
Ivan Stepanov went out onto the porch with a gun. In shorts, a sweatshirt on a naked body - and with a loaded gun in his hands. He asked, sharply looking around the area from under gray eyebrows:
- What?
And Anna Nikolaevna suddenly realized how ridiculous and far-fetched her fears were, she waved her hand in a lost way and, feeling her legs being taken away, sank down on the bench that had been dug in by the father of the current owner ...
Toward evening, the assembled men nevertheless went to see who it was that had arrived at the abandoned house. Stepanovskoe gun so far decided not to take. And when they returned, they said:
- From the city. Three. One, as it were, for the main one. He says he wants to buy a house.
- President's house? - Grandfather Artemy, who did not go with the peasants, was surprised. - Stone, on the outskirts?
- His.
The grandfather frowned and shook his head.
- Oh, no matter what happens. No one has lived in that house for many years. And for good reason...

Everyone knew the history of this house in Matveytsevo. It was built in the first years of Soviet power, in vague and incomprehensible times, when visiting strangers destroyed the old way of life and urged to go to a new bright life.
Mishka Karnaukhov, the unlucky son of Pyotr Ivanovich Karnaukhov, returned to the village after three years of an unknown absence. He was dressed in a leather jacket and military-style harem pants, his sleeve was tied with a red stripe, and on his head there was a cap, dashingly shifted to the back of his head. Mishka had a revolver in a homemade lime holster and a whole stack of various papers, letters and decrees, from which it turned out that he, Mikhail Petrovich, was the entire local government and a representative of the party that sent him.
First of all, Mishka organized a committee of the rural poor.
Then he exiled Fyodor Neznantsev to Siberia, who had a job, worked as a boy.
And after that, he zealously undertook to fight the priestly obscurantism, which is why he soon received the tightly stuck nickname “cursed”.
This struggle ended with a big explosion and spilled blood.
On special request, a box of explosives was sent from the city. The accursed Mishka laid charges under the very foundation. Beating the tocsin, he gathered the people to see how the local onion-headed stronghold of obscurantism would collapse, hacked off by the explosion. Only - that's bad luck - he locked himself, barricaded himself in the church, the priest Hermogenes with a priest and a juvenile priest.
It didn't take long for Mishka to persuade them to come out. Evil as hell promised them a direct path to their paradise, and lit the fuses.
Like a flame blazed out of the underworld, licked the white walls of the temple, reached for the scarlet dome, for the gilded cross - and fell. It rumbled so that glass flew out of the windows of the nearest huts.
But the church survived. Only the whole was covered with cracks, split into several parts.
And then the Red Bear ordered the people to take up axes, crowbars and sledgehammers. Brick by plan, he ordered the church to be dismantled, and the mutilated bodies of the priestly family were ordered to be buried in the forest.
Not everyone obeyed the accursed man, even though he threatened with a revolver. But there were people who helped Mishka. And he already conceived a new business: from the remains of the church, from old bricks, he decided to build a house for himself. I chose a place on the outskirts, not far from the cemetery, away from people. He called in an artel of builders to help, saying that he was building a public club with a reading room.
In a month and a half, he built himself a stone mansion with a tin roof and a turret. Moved to a new place from a cramped father's hut. But life didn't work out for him. People saw that Mishka had changed: he became quiet, his face turned pale, he lost a lot of weight. Every night the windows of the stone house shone - the darkness frightened the damned Mishka. And different things began to be said in the village: it seemed that someone heard screams coming from a house standing on the outskirts, then, as if, someone saw a black figure, similar to Father Hermogenes, sitting on a tin roof near the turret.
A year later, Mishka Karnaukhov moved out of the stone house.
And soon collectivization broke out, and Mishka, who became the chairman of the Leninsky Testament collective farm, ordered to arrange a board in the house he had left. Almost every day he sat in his office, but he never lingered here until night. People saw that Mikhail Petrovich was afraid of the dark, and even a loaded revolver did not save him from this fear.
Seven years lasted "Lenin's testament". Mishka Karnaukhov presided for seven years. And then a directive came from the region, and on the basis of several collective farms, in a matter of weeks, a large cattle-breeding state farm “Leninsky Put” was created. The no longer needed board was emptied. Mishka, who was relieved of his post, threatening to return soon, left in a hurry for the area, where he took some new place and received a state-owned apartment.
And the house, built from the bricks of the ruined church, remained abandoned. Over the years, his unkind fame grew stronger, and more and more terrible stories were told by local residents standing on the outskirts of a stone building, not forgetting to commemorate the accursed Mishka Karnaukhov and the family of Father Hermogenes killed by an explosion.

The visitors showed up the next day. They went through the whole village, inspecting the huts and, at times, stopping to exchange a few words with the villagers that came across. They spoke sparingly, as if they were saving their words, or were afraid to blurt out something superfluous. They greeted each other, asked how things were going, and after listening to a usually short answer with an air of boredom, they moved on.
Vasily Drannikov invited visiting guests to the house. They looked at each other, played dumbly with their faces - and agreed.
Vasily laid the table in a cool room. Reluctantly, I put out a bottle of “Wheat” vodka, from Soviet stocks, and a can of moonshine. His wife, Svetlana, brought a snack: pickled cucumbers, fried potatoes in vegetable oil, two cans of sprats in tomato sauce, and thinly sliced ​​yellow lard.
The guests did not eat much: either they were disdainful, or such food was unusual for them. But a bottle of "Wheat" was persuaded quickly. Then they took up the muddy moonshine, infused with juniper root.
And they all had a strange conversation.
Vasily, slyly squinting, unobtrusively tried to convince the strangers that their idea was stupid and unnecessary. This house is old, not good, stands on the outskirts, the cemetery, again, is nearby. Yes, and their village, Matveytsevo, although not very far from the regional center, is still a seedy and endangered region. There is no future here, another twenty years - and all the huts will be overgrown with nettles and Ivan-tea up to the very windows. Why buy a house in such a hopeless place? Why waste money?
Vasily flushed from alcohol, sold out, got excited: he told the story of the house, remembered the appearance of a black man, even though he himself did not believe in this horror story. I almost began to threaten that, they say, if you buy this house, then do not expect anything good ...
The guests listened attentively. And a strange gleam appeared in their eyes when the owner named the accursed Mishka's name. They looked at each other, grinned, nodded their shaved heads in understanding: we know, they say, why you are driving us out of here. And they also began to threaten: if you interfere with us in something, then you will not do well. And if we find out what you took from that house, what you were not supposed to take ... - return it better, do not lead to sin. They smiled, threatening, but some unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and, oddly enough, understandable words were inserted into their speech: thieves speak such an assertive language, they will shut up any talker with their Fenya.
The guests are gone. In parting, their leader, who called himself Mikha, as if by chance showed a pistol hidden under his loose shirt.
And Vasily sat for a long time in the cold room, rolled an empty bottle on the countertop and, frowning, wondered if the guests themselves came up with an idea that he had been holding in his head for a long time, or who had advised them.
Vassily sighed bitterly, slapped his palm on the table in annoyance.
Stole! The uninvited came - and at once all the plans were broken!
Otherwise, why would they need a house of chairmen? ..
Vasily felt as if these city strangers had robbed him in broad daylight in front of all the people, and so cunningly that now neither truth nor justice could be found against them.

Vasily Drannikov was a hard-working, economic and very neat man. In the yard he always had everything laid out on the shelves. He put the haystacks evenly on a plumb line, and combed them out with a rake so that they seemed to even begin to shine. Yes, and his house was - one feast for the eyes. The architraves are new, carved, the doors are always freshly painted, on the chimney a tin cock with its nose shows where the wind blows from.
The villagers treated Vasily differently, but no one could say a bad word about him. So what if he's a little weird? Does anyone have any strange things? Look, Izmailov's grandmother, in her old age, began to collect candy wrappers from under sweets. She would save money for a funeral, but she irons colored pieces of paper, and puts them in a chest.
Vasily had a different strangeness: from childhood he dreamed of different things. Because of these dreams, he did not even join the army. The doctor said that something was wrong with his head. Although, this is how to look. We still need to look for such clear heads.
About fifteen years ago, Vasily made a windmill with an electric generator, led the light into the chicken coop - so his chickens began to rush twice as good as the neighbors.
And ten years ago he built an iron box behind the yard, brought pipes near it, let them into the house. Now he gets gas from manure and slops, he no longer needs cylinders, and saves on firewood.
Not everything, of course, was possible for Vasily. Somehow he decided to build an aircraft, so that he could fly through the air to any off-road to the regional center. Nothing came of this venture, he only spent a lot of money, and he himself almost crashed to death. But, after leaving the hospital, he soon made a snowmobile with a two-meter birch propeller and a tractor launcher instead of an engine. These sledges roared so that they could be heard for several kilometers - but they drove, and quickly! And they didn’t need a road, there would only be snow.
Vasily then sold the off-road car to a friend from the regional center. Money was required for new ventures, and there was no longer any normal work in the village. Vasily was spinning as best he could: he raised cattle for meat, collected scrap metal for delivery, fished for sale with self-made fishing rods. And he kept thinking about how to breathe new life into his native village - he wrote down his thoughts in notebooks, drew plans on red sheets of graph paper.
It turned out that in place of Matveytsev, a place of rest should be created. And for this it was necessary to block the Ukhtoma river with a dam, so that a reservoir would form near the village. Cheap electricity would come from the dam, and sandy beaches could be organized on the banks. The resulting reservoir should have been fished: pike and crucian carp would have bred themselves, but carp had to be brought in. Visiting fishermen can sell inexpensive licenses, rent small log cabins for housing in winter and summer. Organize trips around the neighborhood: for berries and mushrooms, and just look at beautiful places, there are a lot of them, and the city dweller is greedy for this business. And, of course, it would be necessary to build sights, so that a foreign guest would come here, and it would be doubly interesting for his own: to restore the blown-up church, to make a museum, or rather several, to build baths - special, Russian ones, to set up a children's park. And, of course, the road needs to be improved. And advertise.
- There is such a thing as the Internet, - said Vasily. - Here I would have a computer with a modem, I would have made a website in a week. And this is an advertisement for the whole world!
Wherever Vasily went with his plans: both to the district and to the region. He even wrote letters to Moscow, to the ministries. Some answered: the tourism development department promised its help if there were investors; the diocese positively reacted to the idea of ​​reviving the temple, undertook to send workers if Vasily manages to raise money for a good undertaking; the governor himself sent a letter in which he promised to follow the progress of construction when it begins.
It seemed to Vasily that it was in his power to move a great cause. And he felt offended when he suspected that with the purchase of the chairman's house, city strangers would begin to implement his carefully worked out plan.
That's why Vasily dissuaded them.
That's why he scared.
I wanted to do everything myself - as I always did.

There was shooting during the night.
A black jeep, drilling into the darkness with a dozen headlights, roaring and honking, rolled around the village from end to end several times. He stopped near the well, almost knocking it over with a winch mounted on the bumper. Drunken strangers fell out of the car, began to bawl, cursing obscenely:
- Come out to build!
Ignoring the vicious barking of dogs, they walked around the nearest huts, kicked locked doors with heavy boots, broke several windows.
- We'll show you! They wanted to scare us!
Then shots rang out - as if someone had clapped their hands several times.
The men did not climb on the rampage. Without turning on the lights, they quietly left the houses, armed with axes and pitchforks, gathered in the dark in the backyards. They went out to the enraged guests in a crowd of twenty people. The first to walk was Ivan Stepanov with a gun in his hands.
Seeing the villagers, the strangers fell silent, retreated to a jeep that looked like a fortress.
- Why are you making noise? - immediately asked Ivan.
Why don't you let us sleep? shaven-headed Mikha snapped at him. Did you decide to scare us? Or are you kidding around here?
His broad-shouldered comrade, moving forward, glanced at the hunting rifle, spat through his teeth:
- Take away, father, your tapestry. And then tomorrow there will be five cars with fighters.
“And don’t scare me with fighters,” Ivan glared at him, and the man himself is strong, of considerable size. - We are here on our own land, we will find justice for you.
“It will be seen who will find control over whom,” Mikha grinned.
“Come on, you better get some sleep, guys,” said Timofey Galkin peacefully, hiding a large bread knife behind his back. - Nobody cares about you. Do whatever you want in your house, just don't interfere with us here. And we will not interfere with you.
- That's the same ... - Mikha gritted, looking around the peasants with a heavy look. - Yes, I'm for such jokes ...
It went off without a fight. The city guests disappeared in a jeep, and the peasants, having chatted for order on the street, dispersed in about twenty minutes. The rest of the night passed quietly, although no one in the village closed their eyes. Until the morning, a black car stood near the well. Several times strangers got out of it, walked in circles around the village, no longer making noise. Guessed that a lot of people are watching them now. They looked around, looked around haunted. They were afraid of something. And as it began to get light, they started the car and drove off towards the cemetery, returned to the stone house.
The villagers had something to talk about in the morning.
There was something to listen to.
- Told ya! Grandfather Artemy proudly exclaimed, shaking his stick. - I warned you - it would not work out! There is no good from tovo's house. And never was.
Every minute, Anna Nikolaevna, who was baptized, nodded in agreement with her grandfather, and said in a whisper that she had seen from the window how a large man in a black cassock followed on the heels of a trinity of drunken strangers.

After dinner, guests burst in to Vasily. They walked without taking off their shoes into the house, stood up, blocking the exit. The owner at that time was resting, lying on a sagging sofa, watching TV through slumber.
The frightened Svetka, gasping, disappeared into the kitchen, hid behind the stove, fell silent, clutching the heavy poker.
“You don’t live well,” said Mikha hoarsely, leaning against the jamb.
Vasily hastily got up. He did not get up on his feet, he only sat down, turning his face to the guests. Nodding:
- I don't want to get rich.
- Okay, if so ... Or maybe you're hiding some wealth? - The visitor's gaze became tenacious, attentive.
Vasily chuckled.
- Well, yes ... I'm hiding ... Let's look. If you find it, then share it with me. I'll be glad.
- You don't joke with us ... We thought about it, decided that it was you who came dressed up at night. Who else? Yesterday he scared me, told stories about ghosts, drove us out of the village. Here comes...
- Disguised? At night?
- Don't be silly. If you show up again, you will definitely get a bullet in the forehead, understand?
- Yes, I did not go to you, guys! I speak the truth!
- Well, well ... Tell me, why don't you want me to buy a house? You stole something from it, are you afraid that it will open?
- No! What can be stolen there? For a long time everything was stolen, you yourself, tea, saw it.
The guests looked at each other.
- Look at me! Mikha threatened with a curly finger. - I'm here, it will be necessary, I'll turn everything upside down. Give it time!
The strangers were silent for a long time, breathing fumes, then turned around in unison, as if on command, and left one by one.
The floorboards moaned under the boots. The door slammed. Shadows flickered outside the window; a wide hand lay on the glass, clenched into a fist - and disappeared.
- Yes, what is it done, Vasya? asked his wife plaintively, peering into the room.
- It's all about money, Sveta... - said Vasily, blindly looking at the TV. - The wolves sensed the life ... Eh, I didn’t have time ... I almost didn’t have time ...

In the evening of the same day, a black man appeared to the whole village. He came out of the forest, from the side where, it seems, Father Hermogenes and his family were buried. Zina Gorshkova was just untying a goat that was grazing near the bushes. She straightened up with a rope in her hands, looked - and was already shaking.
The black figure seemed to be floating above the grass. And white birch trunks dimly shone through it.
The widow Tanyusha Smolkina, who lives on the edge of the village, went out to lock up the hens that were perched on the perches. She saw a man in a cassock walking past, realized who it was, squealed - and broke off, instantly dumbfounded. Three days later, she stuttered again.
Aleksey Zlobin, an avid fisherman, pulled a wire top out of the pond, took out five carp heels, on the scales of which the evening dawn shone, turned to the bucket standing behind - and was dumbfounded, opening his mouth.
A puffy black figure moved noiselessly along the mowed path. Instead of a face, there is a cloudy spot with holes in the eye sockets, thorny grass stems pierce bare feet, and from a white hand, as if fashioned from transparent wax, blood flows in a scarlet stream to the ground - as if a thread is twisting.
A ghost passed through the whole village.
He walked slowly, as if he wanted to show himself to everyone.
The Zakharievs, and the Prokopievs, and Izmailov's grandmother, and grandfather Kondratenkov saw him. Vasily Drannikov also saw him.
People died from fear, grew dumb. Someone was covered with cold, someone, on the contrary, was covered with fine perspiration from the heat that had rolled in. No one dared to disturb the ghost. Only grandfather Artemy, having gathered his courage, barely audibly called Hermogenes by name. He paused and turned slowly. And, like, sobbed. Grandfather later swore and swore that he saw how a shapeless gray face for a moment took on human outlines.
Terrible, he said, it was a face ...
Ivan Stepanov was the last black man to see.
“It’s hard to scare me,” he said afterwards. - But then the heart seemed to fall into the stomach and froze there. Hair stood on end - and as if someone invisible with an icy hand ran over the head ...
A black man passed near Stepanov's house, not noticing the high fence, and disappeared behind the bushes.
It was clear to everyone where he was going.

The news that the stone house collapsed at night was brought by Anna Nikolaevna. In the morning she, as usual, went for berries. She turned a little off the road, bypassing the cemetery, went up the hill, looked - but the chairman's house was nowhere to be seen. Only the black jeep gleams with its varnished back.
The house collapsed, crumbled - as if it had been shaken by an explosion, or even more than one.
Yes, but there was no explosion at night. It was a quiet night.
With shovels, with crowbars, the men ran to the ruins. They dismantled the broken roof, dragged it aside, took up the brick rubble, but quickly realized that they could not cope with this work alone.
“We can’t do without technology,” Ivan Stepanov said, puffing. - It would be worse not to do it. Yes, you have to wait for the police.
- And how are the people? - asked compassionate Timofey Galkin.
- What about people? Look, it's a natural grave. There are no living people there. Everyone who was there was immediately crushed ... Let's go home, men. And no matter what happens...
Slowly, the men dispersed. Only Vasily Drannikov remained in the ruins. The mysticism that had happened did not give him peace of mind, a man with a higher education. How can that be? - A strong house stood for eighty years, and then suddenly, in an instant, it crumbled brick by brick. Maybe something really exploded? Gas, maybe accumulated in the basement? Why didn't anyone hear anything then?
Vasily wandered for a long time through the remains of the house, talking to himself, looking out for himself, not knowing what. He picked pieces of cement with a crowbar, turned over bricks, stirred up stone chips with his feet. I thought about my plans; Embarrassed by his restrained joy, he thanked fate for the second chance. He decided where to start implementing his plans: whether to build a dam, or start restoring the church.
In order to build the smallest dam, a bunch of different papers must be signed, many offices must be bypassed. With the church, it seems to be much easier. The diocese will help, promised. And the building material - so here it is, under your feet. Enough for a foundation. Start building now.
Oh, just a little more money...
The toe of his boot poked into something heavy, echoing with a muffled clatter.
Vasily leaned over. Pushed back a piece of wall. He threw away a plate of hardened cement.
A bag protruded from the rubble. Or something very similar to a bag.
Vasily kicked the find again, checking to see if it was a corpse.
No.
He sat down. He felt the soft fabric. He pulled it - and the rotten fibers easily dispersed.
Vasily froze.
Glittering metal poured out of a hole on the cement dust, on the crumbling brick: ancient coins, chains, bracelets, rings. Vasily gasped, pressing the hole with his palms, he felt how many more jewels were hidden in the bag. Turned around, looked around.
Nobody!
What to do now?
What's there to think about, fool?! Wanted money? So here you go! Now you just need to be faster, faster! But with an eye! Pull out the bag, shove the change in your pockets, hide the large nearby.
Ah, not good!
Well, how else? How?..
He picked up the spilled gold with a handful and shoved it into a deep pocket. With clumsy fingers he picked up two silver coins, a cross with a green stone, a chain with a pendant.
There will be, there will be a church in Matveytsevo now! It seems to be new. But how old.
Everything is correct now. Everything converges now.
Everything will now...

A month after these strange events, grandfather Artemy, who returned from the regional center, with undisguised pleasure told the villagers everything that he managed to find out through his great-nephew Grishka, who worked in the police.
- This trinity was from Yaroslavl. They are brothers, cousins, or something - I don’t know for sure. They were looking for treasure here. They found an old letter with them, everything was written there. Do you know whose letter? - grandfather Artemy squinted slyly. - Bears cursed. He, commissar, a little gold, apparently, pretty much picked up. Well, I hid it at home. Miscellaneous gold - and from the dispossessed, exiled to hard labor, and church. These three were looking for him here. Yes, they searched so zealously that the house was brought down.
- Well, yes?
- Yeah ... I don’t agree with this either, I just said so to my nephew. But the police need to write a competent paper. So they decided: they dug a treasure, but fell asleep.
So did you find gold?
- Yes, what kind of gold is there! grandfather waved. - Mishka, probably, took him out of here in ancient times. Go now, find the ends, how much time has passed ... And to hell with it, with gold! You listen to the most important thing: do you know the names of these three from Yaroslavl?
- Well?
- They are Karnaukhov. All. And this Mikha is just like that - Mikhail Petrovich. Exactly like Mishka cursed. Now it’s clear where they got the letter about the treasure from? That's it! They are relatives, his great-grandchildren or great-great-grandchildren. So I think, guys, that the house collapsed for a reason. It's not gas at all, as Vaska says. It was the dead father Hermogenes who avenged his family on the accursed Mishka. I didn’t get the killer himself, so he took revenge on his relatives. Here is how it comes out. Here's what the truth is...