And Petka, he is a horse, he is also a rider, with all his might stretched out on the grass, catching his foot on a protruding root.
- Damn, you're tripping! - scolded Petka-rider Petka-horse. - As soon as I warm it up with a whip, you will not stumble.
He got up, wiped his hand, which had fallen into a puddle, and looked around.
The forest was thick and tall. Huge, calm old birch trees shone on top with bright fresh greenery. It was cool and dark below. Wild bees with a monophonic buzz circled near the hollow of a half-rotted, covered with growths of aspen. There was a smell of mushrooms, rotten leaves, and the dampness of a nearby swamp.
- Hayda, hay! Petka the horseman shouted angrily at Petka the horse. - I didn't go there!
And, pulling the left rein, he galloped to the side, on the rise.
“It’s good to live,” the brave horseman Petka thought as he galloped. - And now it's good. And when I grow up, it will be even better. When I grow up, I will sit on a real horse, let it rush. When I grow up, I will sit on an airplane, let it fly. When I grow up, I will stand by the car, let it rumble. I will skip all distant countries and fly around. I will be the first commander in the war. In the air I will be the first pilot. I will be the first driver of the car. Hyde, huy! Hop-hop! Stop!"
A narrow wet glade sparkled with bright yellow water lilies right under their feet. The puzzled Petka remembered that there should not be such a clearing on his way, and decided that, obviously, the damned horse had again taken him to the wrong place.
He went around the swamp and, worried, walked at a pace, carefully looking around and guessing where he had ended up.
However, the further he went, the clearer it became to him that he was lost. And from this, with every step, life began to seem to him more and more sad and gloomy.
After spinning a little more, he stopped, no longer knowing where to go next, but then he remembered that it was with the help of a compass that navigators and travelers always find the right path. He took a compass out of his cap, pressed a button on the side, and the freed arrow with a blackened tip pointed in the direction in which Petka was least likely to go. He shook the compass, but the arrow stubbornly showed the same direction.
Then Petka went, arguing that the compass could see better, but soon ran into such a thicket of overgrown aspen trees that it was in no way possible to break through it without tearing his shirt.
He walked around and looked at the compass again. But no matter how much he turned, the arrow with senseless stubbornness pushed him either into the swamp, or into the thick, or somewhere else in the most uncomfortable, impassable place.
Then, angry and frightened, Petka put the compass in his cap and went on just by eye, strongly suspecting that all sailors and travelers would have died long ago if they always kept their way where the blackened tip of the arrow points.
He walked for a long time and was about to resort to the last resort, that is, to cry loudly, but then, through the gap in the trees, he saw the low sun sinking towards sunset.
And suddenly the whole forest seemed to turn to him on a different, more familiar side. Obviously, this happened because he remembered how the cross and the dome of the Alyosha church always loomed brightly against the background of the setting sun.
Now he realized that Alyoshino was not to his left, as he thought, but to his right, and that Blue Lake was no longer in front of him, but behind him.
And as soon as this happened, the forest seemed familiar to him, since all the confused glades, swamps and ravines, in the usual sequence, firmly and obediently lay down in their places.
He soon guessed where he was. It was quite far from the junction, but not so far from the path that led from Alyoshin to the junction. He cheered up, jumped on an imaginary horse and suddenly fell silent and pricked up his ears.
Not far away, he heard a song. It was some strange song, meaningless, muffled and heavy. And Petya did not like this song. And Petka hid, looking around and waiting for an opportune moment to give his horse spurs and rush off quickly from the twilight, from the inhospitable forest, from the strange song to the familiar path, to the junction home.

Even before reaching the siding, Ivan Mikhailovich and Vaska, returning from Alyoshin, heard noise and roar.
Rising out of the hollow, they saw that the whole cul-de-sac was occupied by freight cars and flatcars. A little further away, a whole village of gray tents spread out. Bonfires burned, the camp kitchen smoked, boilers grumbled over the fires. Horses neighed. Workers fussed, dumping logs, boards, boxes and pulling wagons, harness and bags from the platform.
After hustling among the workers, examining the horses, looking into the wagons and tents and even into the firebox of the camp kitchen, Vaska ran to look for Petka to ask him when the workers arrived, how it was and why Seryozhka was spinning around the tents, dragging brushwood for fires, and no one does not scold him and does not drive him away.
But Petka's mother, who met along the way, angrily answered him that "this idol" had failed somewhere else since noon and had not come home to dine.
This completely surprised and annoyed Vaska.
"What's going on with Petya? he thought. - Last time he disappeared somewhere, today he also disappeared again. And what a cunning Petka he is! Quiet quiet, but he quietly does something.
Pondering over Petka’s behavior and disapproving of it very much, Vaska suddenly came across the following thought: what if it’s not Seryozhka, but Petka himself, in order not to share the catch, he took and threw a dive and now secretly chooses fish?
This suspicion was further strengthened by Vaska after he remembered that the last time Petka had lied to him that he was running to his aunt. In fact, he wasn't there.
And now, almost convinced of his suspicion, Vaska firmly decided to inflict a strict interrogation on Petka and, in which case, to beat him so that it would be discourteous to do so in the future.
He went home and from the entrance he heard how his father and mother were arguing loudly about something.
Fearing that he was in a fever and that something hit him, he stopped and listened.
- Yes, how is it so? - said the mother, and in her voice Vaska understood that she was excited about something. - At least let me change my mind. I planted two measures of potatoes, three beds of cucumbers. And now it's all gone?
- What you, right! - the father was indignant. - Are they going to wait? Let's wait, they say, until Katerina's cucumbers ripen. There is nowhere to unload the wagons, and she is cucumbers. And what are you, Katya, what a wonderful thing? Then she cursed: the stove in the booth was bad, and cramped, and low, but now she felt sorry for the booth. Yes, let them break it. She's gone to hell!
“Why did the cucumbers disappear? What wagons? Who will break the booth? - Vaska was taken aback and, suspecting something unkind, entered the room.
And what he learned stunned him even more than the first news about the construction of the plant. Their booth will be broken. Along the site on which it stands, sidings will be laid for wagons with construction cargo.
The move will be moved to another place and a new house will be built for them.
- You understand, Katerina, - the father argued, - will they build such a booth for us? It is now not the old time to build some kind of dog kennels for the watchmen. We will build a bright, spacious. You should rejoice, and you ... cucumbers, cucumbers!
The mother silently turned away.
If all this had been prepared slowly and gradually, if it had not all come crashing down suddenly, all at once, she herself would have been content to leave the old, dilapidated, cramped hutch. But now she is frightened by the fact that everything around was decided, done and moved somehow very quickly. It was frightening that events with unprecedented, unusual haste arose one after another. The junction lived quietly. Alyoshino lived quietly. And suddenly, as if some kind of wave, from afar, finally came here, and overwhelmed both the junction and Alyoshino. A collective farm, a factory, a dam, a new house... All this confused and further frightened me with its novelty, unusualness, and, most importantly, its swiftness.
- Is it true, Gregory, what would be better? she asked, upset and confused. - Is it bad, is it good, but we lived and lived. What if it gets worse?
“Enough for you,” her father objected. - Enough to fence, Katya ... Shame on you! You're talking, you don't know what. Is it then that we do everything to make it worse? You better look at Vaska's face. There he stands, the rogue, and his mouth to his ears. What else is small, and even then he understands that it will be better. So, what, Vaska?
But Vaska did not even find what to answer and only silently nodded his head.
Many new thoughts, new questions occupied his restless head. Like his mother, he was surprised at the speed with which events followed. But this speed did not frighten him - it carried away, like the swift course of a fast train rushing to distant lands.
He went to the hayloft and climbed under a warm sheepskin coat. But he didn't sleep.
From afar, the incessant clatter of boards being thrown was heard. The shunting locomotive puffed. Colliding buffers clanged, and the switchman's signal horn sounded somehow alarming.
Through the broken roof board, Vaska saw a piece of clear black-blue sky and three bright radiant stars.
Looking at these twinkling stars together, Vaska remembered how his father confidently said that life would be good. He wrapped himself even more tightly in a sheepskin coat, closed his eyes and thought: “And how good will she be?” - and for some reason remembered the poster that hung in the red corner. A big, brave Red Army soldier stands at a post and, clutching a wonderful rifle, vigilantly looks ahead. Behind him are green fields, where thick, tall rye turns yellow, large, unfenced gardens bloom, and where spacious and free villages are beautiful and so unlike the miserable Alyoshino.
And further, behind the fields, under the direct broad rays of the bright sun, the chimneys of mighty factories proudly rise. Wheels, lights, cars are visible through the sparkling windows.
And everywhere people are cheerful, cheerful. Everyone is busy with their own business - both in the fields, and in the villages, and at the cars. Some work, others have already worked and are resting.
Some little boy, who looks a bit like Pavlik Priprygin, but not so smeared, cocks his head and looks with curiosity at the sky, across which a long, swift airship is smoothly rushing.
Vaska was always a little envious of the fact that this laughing little boy looked like Pavlik Priprygin, and not like him, Vaska.
But in the other corner of the poster - very far away, in the direction where the Red Army soldier who guarded this distant country vigilantly peered - something was drawn that always aroused in Vaska a feeling of vague and indistinct anxiety.
There were black blurry shadows. There were outlines of embittered, bad faces. And it was as if someone was watching from there with intent, unkind eyes and waiting for the Red Army soldier to leave or turn away.
And Vaska was very glad that the smart and calm Red Army soldier did not go anywhere, did not turn away, but looked just where he needed to. I saw everything and understood everything.
Vaska was already completely asleep when he heard the gate slam: someone went into their booth.
A minute later, his mother called out to him:
- Vasya ... Vaska! Are you sleeping, right?
- No, mom, I'm not sleeping.
- Have you seen Petka today?
- I saw it, but only in the morning, but I didn’t see it again. And what is he to you?
- And the fact that now his mother came. Disappeared, he says, even before dinner and until now, no and no.
When the mother left, Vaska became alarmed. He knew that Petka was not very brave enough to walk around at night, and therefore he could not understand in any way where his unlucky comrade had gone.
Petka returned late. He returned without a cap. His eyes were red, tear-stained, but already dry. It was evident that he was very tired, and therefore he somehow indifferently listened to all the reproaches of his mother, refused to eat and silently crawled under the covers.
He soon fell asleep, but slept restlessly: he tossed and turned, groaned and muttered something.
He told his mother that he was simply lost, and his mother believed him. He said the same thing to Vaska, but Vaska did not particularly believe it. In order to get lost, you have to go somewhere or look for something. And where and why he went, Petka did not say this or carried something awkward, incoherent, and Vaska could immediately see that he was lying.
But when Vaska tried to expose him in a lie, the usually dodgy Petka did not even make excuses. He just blinked hard and turned away.
Convinced that you would not get anything from Petka anyway, Vaska stopped asking questions, remaining, however, in a strong suspicion that Petka was some strange, secretive and cunning comrade. By this time, the geological tent had moved from its place in order to move further, to the upper reaches of the Sinyavka River.
Vaska and Petka helped load things onto loaded horses. And when everything was ready to set off, Vasily Ivanovich and the other? - high - warmly said goodbye to the guys with whom they wandered through the forests so much. They were supposed to return to the junction only by the end of the summer.
- And what, guys, - Vasily Ivanovich asked in the end, - you didn’t run away to look for a compass?
- All because of Petka, - answered Vaska. - Then he himself first suggested: let's go, let's go ... And when I agreed, he rested and did not go. Called once, didn't go. Another time, it doesn't. So I didn't go.
- What are you? - Vasily Ivanovich was surprised, who remembered how ardently Petka volunteered to go in search.
It is not known what the embarrassed and hushed Petka would have answered and how the embarrassed and hushed Petka would have turned out, but then one of the loaded horses, having untied the tree, ran along the path. Everyone rushed to catch up with her, because she could go to Alyoshino.
Just after the blow of the whip, Petka rushed after it straight through the bushes, across the wet meadow. He splashed himself all over, tore the hem of his shirt and, jumping out of the way, clutched the reins tightly just before the very path.
And when he silently led his stubborn horse to Vassily Ivanovich, who was out of breath and lagging behind, he breathed rapidly, his eyes shone, and it was evident that he was indescribably proud and happy that he managed to render a service to these good people setting out on a long journey.

Distant countries, those that the children so often dreamed of, closing the ring tighter and tighter, were approaching the nameless junction No. 216.
Distant countries with large railway stations, with huge factories, with high buildings were now somewhere not very far away.
Still the same as before, an unrestrained ambulance rushed past, but the passenger forty-second and postal twenty-four were already stopping.
It was still empty and bare on the factory site pitted with pits, but hundreds of workers were already swarming on it, already crawling along it, biting into the ground and clanging with an iron mouth, an outlandish machine, an excavator, similar to a tamed monster.
Again, an airplane flew in for photography. Every day, new barracks, warehouses, auxiliary workshops grew up. A cinema mover, a sauna car, and a library car arrived.
The mouthpieces of the radio installations began to speak, and finally, with rifles over their shoulders, sentries of the Red Army came and silently stood at their posts.
On the way to Ivan Mikhailovich, Vaska stopped where their old booth had recently stood.
Guessing its place only by the surviving barrier posts, he came closer and, looking at the rails, thought that this shiny rail would now pass just through the corner where their stove stood, on which they so often warmed themselves with the ginger cat Ivan Ivanovich, and that if his bed had been put back in its original place, it would have stood right on the very cross, right across the railway track.
He looked around. An old shunting locomotive was crawling through their garden, pushing the boxcars.
Not a trace was left of the beds with fragile cucumbers, but the unpretentious potatoes through the sand of the embankments and even through the prickly gravel in some places stubbornly made their way upwards with bushes of dusty, juicy greenery.
He walked on, remembering last summer, when it was empty and quiet during those morning hours. From time to time, only the geese will cackle, the goat tied to the stake will ring with a tin bell, and the woman who has come out for water will rattle buckets at the creaking well. And now…
Heavy sledgehammers thudded muffledly, hammering huge logs into the banks of the Quiet River. Rails being unloaded rumbled, hammers rang in the locksmith shop, and incessant stone crushers crackled like machine-gun shot.
Vaska crawled under the cars and came face to face with Seryozha.
In his glue-stained hands, Seryozhka held a brace and, bending down, looked for something in the grass strewn with brown, oily sand.
He had apparently been looking for a long time, because his face was preoccupied and upset.
Vaska looked at the grass and accidentally saw what Seryozhka had lost. It was a metal perk that is inserted into the brace to make holes.
Seryozhka could not see her, since she was lying behind the sleeper on Vaska's side.
Merezhka glanced at Vaska and bent down again, continuing his search.
If Vaska caught something defiant, hostile or a little mocking in Seryozhka's eyes, he would go his own way, leaving Seryozhka to search until nightfall. But he did not see anything like that on Seryozhka's face. It was an ordinary face of a man, preoccupied with the loss of a tool needed for work and upset by the futility of his search. "You're looking in the wrong place," Vaska broke involuntarily. - You are looking in the sand, and she lies behind the sleeper.
He picked up the pepper and handed it to Seryozhka.
- And how did she get there? - Seryozha was surprised. - I ran, and she jumped out and that's where she flew.
They were already ready to smile and enter into negotiations, but, remembering that there was an old, unceasing enmity between them, both boys frowned and carefully looked at each other.
The earring was a little older, taller and thinner. He had red hair, gray mischievous eyes, and he was somehow flexible, quirky and dangerous.
Vaska was wider, stronger and perhaps even stronger. He stood with his head slightly bowed, equally ready to part with the world and to fight, although he knew that in the event of a fight, he would still get more, and not his opponent.
- Hey guys! - a man called out to them from the platform, in which they recognized the head master from the mechanical workshop. - Come here. Help a little.
Now that there was no choice left and starting a fight meant refusing the help that the master asked for, the guys unclenched their fists and quickly climbed onto the open cargo platform.
There were two boxes lying there, smashed by an unfortunately fallen iron beam.
From the boxes along the platform, like peas from a sack, small and large, short and long, narrow and thick iron nuts scattered and rolled.
The guys were given six bags - three for each - and asked them to disassemble the nuts by grade. Mechanical nuts in one bag, gas nuts in the other, meter nuts in the third.
And they set to work with that haste that proved that, despite the failed fight, the spirit of competition and the desire of everyone to be the first in everything had not faded at all, but had only taken on a different expression.

FUR COAT

The damp highway, streaked with wheels, choosing where it is more comfortable, rises in a wide arc to the slope. On the road and arable land, traces of recent sleepless hot work are still visible, when everything that she had time and managed to give birth to people in a short summer got out and was torn out of the earth. Either a beetroot crushed by the wheels came across in a rut, then a link from a tractor caterpillar or some other unknown piece of iron dropped in a hurry by a car, then aside, among the black, whitish stacks of young straw. And by the side of the road, a dry sunflower, hunched over like an old man, was sticking out accidentally not touched by a plow. The wind rustled the tatters of its leaves, and he kept nodding and bowing to the travelers with his uncovered disheveled head.

The suffering had subsided, and now, on both sides of the highway, the earth, humbled like autumn, was turning black, cloddy and awkwardly laying down to rest.

Dunyashka and Pelageya hurried along the side of the road. The deserted fields did not cause them any thoughts: they lived here, and everything was familiar and imperceptible, like this autumn field air that they breathed. They walked side by side and chatted animatedly about all their worldly affairs.

Pelageya, still a nimble, lean woman, walked light in a gray checkered scarf and Stepka's wadded jacket with tin crossed hammers in the buttonholes. A white, frilled apron, worn for a solemn occasion, protruded from under the jacket, which the headwind either blew in bubbles or stuffed between the thin Pelagian knees. But she did not pull back, but just walked on, slapping on her skinny calves with wide tops of rubber boots.

Dunya tried to keep up. Although she was taller than her mother, her teenage coat with short sleeves narrowed her at the shoulders and somehow seemed both shorter and younger, hiding two years - exactly those years during which Dunyashka had grown up, prettier and already attracted some people.

Carried away by the conversation, they all added and added pace, until, out of breath, Pelageya could no longer say anything coherently, except for separate words interrupted by rapid breathing, after which she stopped and looked around in surprise at the village, saying:

“What are we…so…running?” Look, already where... yards. I suppose ... not on fire.

But, after a moment's rest, they turned again and walked quickly and hurriedly. Such a village road: from childhood, they were not accustomed to waddling along it. The woman always has some urgent business at the end of this road: whether it’s children, whether it’s kneading with dough, whether it’s an unfed piglet – if you go from the field, and if you go into the field, then even more than anything else, especially when the suffering arrives. No matter how rich the collective farm is in equipment - combines, and cultivators, and all sorts of seeders, winnowers, and tractors of eighty horsepower - and yet there are still so many holes that every smart chairman, if he wants things to go without a hitch without a hitch, by all means will throw a cry: “Well, babonki, we will help! - and add for encouragement: - Technique is technology, but still the women on the collective farm are a great force! And the women are piling up. The men drive the tractor back and forth across the sugar beet, pull the levers, turn the steering wheel, pick out beetroot with a cultivator. And the women, like jackdaws behind a plow, with a clamor, if they are not yet tired, or already silently by the sunset of the day, they all collect and collect the beets in baskets and skirts and drag and drag them, in clods of heavy earth across the plowed field in heaps. And then, having gathered in a circle, interspersed with empty conversations and gossip, they imperceptibly turn over many tons of beetroot again, beat it from the ground, cut off the tops, cut off the tails and put them in heaps. And only when it gets dark and you can’t make out whether it’s beets or just a pile of earth, they rise in a motley flock and run, run along the field road, at the other end of which other urgent household chores await them.

And is it really possible to do without it? Or haymaking? On the farm? Where are you going without her? A simple car - a woman, easy to use, not picky about food, does not drink like a man, and does not roam when calculating. A man takes one and a half workdays for turning the steering wheel on a tractor, although he works with a shift worker, she agrees without any shift and half share, because she understands: you need to turn the steering wheel wisely. And where is the woman to get the mind? Mind something all the peasants got.

But she is especially in a hurry if, breaking away from business, she gathers in the city. This does not happen often, and therefore visiting the city is almost a holiday. Hang around in shops, look at calicoes, and if there is money, unfold their caustic, untouched, joyfully motley freshness - daisies and forget-me-nots - choose and worry, wondering in your mind how it will suit a grown girl, or even yourself. You want something too!

And what scarves! It’s scary to take on silk: it sticks to your hands. The hands are rough, and the matter is like your smoke - it blew, and flew! And every shoe, and combs. Candy and gingerbread - already ripples in the eyes. All day long, stunned, joyfully carried away, she walks around the shops and stalls, she won’t eat, she won’t sit down, because there is nothing more exciting for her than different goods and new items.

If he buys a cap for a boy or a peasant, he doesn’t hide it in a basket, but puts it on over a scarf and carries it all the way so that it doesn’t wrinkle for an hour, but more so that people see the new thing. The cap is the whole price of two rubles, and she carries it as if she had bought God knows what. And if there is a chintz or a staple on a dress, then he stops all the way, looks into the basket, feels it, whispers something over it and suddenly blushes embarrassedly if acquaintances accidentally catch this sacrament ...

- Yes, I bought a new one, - he will say more seriously. - And I don’t know, whether I pleased, or not? - But then she herself will decide: - It will be sewn - demolished. Not a lady.

And Pelageya had even more important reason to hurry: Dunyashka was going to buy a coat. Not some simple one. A good, real winter. So that with a fur collar, on a silk lining, and so that the cloth was good. It's not often that you have to do such expensive upgrades. She doesn't even remember when she bought it. With a collar, yes. Read, she lived for fifty years, but she never wore a fur collar. Yes, they somehow didn’t exist before, except for sheepskins. She threw on a scarf - that's the whole collar. Now everyone has gone. Under a different animal. In all their family, Dunyashka will be the first to put on. Girlfriends have already corrected, and she still runs around in this shorthand. It's embarrassing against people. And even then to say - the bride is already. On the third day, Pelageya went out in the evening to milk the cow, looked through the wattle fence, and Dunyashka and the guy were standing at the gate. It's nothing with the guy. Already independent. This autumn I earned two hundred thousand on the collective farm. Five hundred rubles have already sold out, they bought a little pig, a penny of hay, and so, on trifles, it was spent. If you don't buy, they will sell out. Then wait until next year. And then she will be dressed.

That's why she parted Pelageya with her boots, like a matchmaker, preoccupied and excited by the upcoming serious business. Somewhere out there, as in a fairy tale, behind the mountains, behind the valleys, in who knows what store, in what department store, who knows what else - blue, black or brown, or maybe even more beautiful, hangs the only one with a fur collar, which Pelageya has to find, choose, and not miscalculate in the slightest, so that Dunyashka has to just right. It's not that easy.

All these thoughts and worries swirled in Pelageeva's head, along with the words that Dunyashka uttered as she walked. Thoughts are on their own, words are on their own.

Dunyashka, calling to her mother, was also thinking about her own. Her lived life is shorter, there are fewer worries, but on the other hand, many of her girlish thoughts are connected with the purchase of a coat, from which her eyes turn blue with joy and her cheeks burn ruddy all the way.

Climbing to the very top of the slope, where the road again met with telephone poles that ran up the mountain straight along the very steepness, Pelageya stopped to take a breath of air. Both looked back and, resting, looked at the village. It was still visible as a gray strip of thatched roofs among the black chill and spacious strips of overgrown winter. The village seemed quite small between a boundless swarm of land rearing up with hills and an even larger sky swirling gray with autumn clouds.

Pelageya, running her eyes over a row of huts similar to one another, unmistakably found hers and, preoccupied, said:

- I ordered Styopka to go to the general store for kerosene. Runs - does not go ...

And Dunyashka found a long white block of her poultry farm on the outskirts of the village, wondered if grandfather Alexei would guess to drag the brought fishmeal under the shed, remembered her favorite chicken Mota, who had disappeared yesterday, which she knew how to distinguish among hundreds of other white ones. Motya was slow and sluggish, but she carried large eggs. Then Dunyashka, like Pelageya, began looking over the huts with her eyes. But she was looking not for her own, but for another ... Here she is, under a young, not yet flown red poplar. My heart fluttered and shed warmth ... Under this poplar tree on the bench last time - God forbid, mother finds out! Sasha kissed her. She, internally blazing with shame and happiness, tore off the bench and ran, bowing her head. Only her legs did not obey, and her heart was pounding so loudly under her little coat that she did not hear how he caught up with her and walked beside her ...

Dunyasha, forgetting herself, looked for a long time with misty eyes at the red poplar until Pelageya called:

- Let's go, girl! What are you?

And going out on a level and dispersing a little, she asked:

- The third day, someone stood under us?

- Who are you talking about, mother? Dunyashka asked as simply as she could, and she herself puffed, since there was nowhere else to puff.

“Well, don’t be foolish,” Pelageya scowled. “I don’t think she’s deaf. The voice seemed familiar, but she didn't recognize it.

"Sashka was standing," Dunyashka said evasively.

— Whose is it? Akimihin, right?

- Aunt Frosya ... Like a hut under a poplar.

— Ah! Well, well! .. Served, so?

- He served in Germany.

- Did you bring something?

I don't know, I didn't ask. I something that!

“I must bring it,” Pelageya decided.

They ran across a large puddle filled with rain, in which both paths trodden nearby drowned: Pelageya on the right, Dunyashka on the left. And when they got together again, Pelageya asked:

- Will he live with his mother or move to the city?

- I do not know.

“And you would have asked.

— I didn't ask.

How can you not ask about it? Pelageya was surprised.

He told me about Germany. Interesting so! And there was no talk about it.

— Look! Pelageya slapped herself on the apron. And so - what's the point of escorting?

Dunya blinked her eyes, turned away, looking at the bare roadside bushes.

- Oh well! Pelageya said conciliatoryly. “Only if you come again, try it.” There is nothing shameful here.

"I won't ask," Dunyashka shook her head angrily.

“You won’t, so I’ll find out myself,” Pelageya said decisively, deftly jumping over the ditch.

- What a shame! And don't you dare! And don't even think!

- A fool is a fool.

- Let! But don't you dare! I need him to hurt me!

- You are standing at the gate - therefore, you need it.

- I insisted a lot! Dunyashka shrugged her shoulders and ran forward, striving to overtake Pelageya, to go alone. “I only know: to the farm and home.”

- Do I forbid it? The guy is quiet. He studied to be a tractor driver. Stop. But you just have to be smart. Such a girl's business ... Let's buy a coat ...

But Pelageya did not finish, because she herself did not know what should be when they buy a coat.

We got onto the highway just in time for the bus itself, drove for an hour and a half, separated by crowding, patiently enduring the crush and shaking, and finally fell out at the bus station. Pelageya - without one pair of tin hammers in her buttonhole, Dunyashka - with a knitted scarf fluffed up on the back of her head and such as if she had a bath with a birch broom. She immediately began to look around, marveling at the motley city bustle, and Pelageya immediately put her hand into the bosom of Styopka's jacket and scratched the jacket under her chest: “Intact? Intact ... Oh!

They came out onto the main street, and the city took them in with its biting whirlpool of people.

Caps and kerchiefs, overcoats and overalls, scarves and scarves walked past Dunyashka. The passing spectacles glanced at Pelagein's apron in surprise and shortsightedly. The fidgety berets looked more at Dunyashka. She even heard one beret say to the other: “Look, what a cherry! Shine! Natural drink! And she stiffened from timidity and embarrassment. Passed all sorts of hats - sullenly pulled down and dashingly broken. And all sorts of hats. Dunyashka marveled at the flower pots and pots for buckwheat porridge, small plates and enameled bowls, and just like nothing else. String bags filled with potatoes and bread darted around, nets with tangerines swayed smoothly, cloth boots propped up by a crutch shuffled timidly. And above all this human flow, houses rose like stone steep banks.

Dunyashka rarely visited the city, and each time it opened up in a new way. When she came with her mother as a little girl, she was so struck by a heap of sweets, gingerbread cookies and a lot of all kinds of dolls that she did not remember anything else, and then for a long time in the village she dreamed of a gingerbread city in which cheerful, beautiful dolls lived. An older woman, she read signs, looked at the policeman, how he brandished a striped stick and turned back and forth, and while Pelageya stood in line for something, looked at the cash machine knocking out checks.

But now, most of all, she was interested in people.

“How many of them, and they are all different!” Dunya wondered, pushing her way behind her mother. Thousands passed by, but there are no similar ones! And not that the person, clothes or years. And something else, which Dunyashka could not understand, but vaguely felt this dissimilarity. In their village, people are somehow even - both in face, and in clothes, and in life.

On the way, Pelageya and Dunyashka went into shops, looked at clothes, but did not take them on. Pelagia said:

“Let’s go to the main and have a look.

It seemed to her that the best coat should be in a department store. But she didn't want to go straight there. You can’t do it like this: you ran, paid off the money - and goodbye! Who buys like that? Pelageya was flattered how the saleswomen—beautiful, white-faced—removed one or another coat from the hanger, threw it on the counter in front of her, and although she knew that she would not buy yet, and there was no suitable price, she was busily pulling her coat, felt the top, blew on the collar, examined the lining. Meanwhile, Dunyashka stagnated in the haberdashery.

My God, how much is there! The stockings are simple, the stockings are elasticated, the stockings are thin, in a cobweb, like those of their teacher. Monista! Blue, in a round bead, a red mountain ash, a green transparent gooseberry, and ribbed, and faceted, and in one thread, and in a whole bunch ... And brooches! And the earrings! What blouses! Combs and completely unprecedented! Dunyashka looked at all this, and even the salesmen noticed how their eyes widened from the unprecedented beauty, how Dunyashka's plump lips opened by themselves from admiration. Pelageya approached slowly, looked at all this wealth, full of inner pride, that if she wants, she can buy everything.

The sellers looked at Dunyashka, waiting for what she wanted, what she would choose. And Dunyashka hurriedly whispered to Pelageya:

- Look at those earrings! Not expensive, but like gold! and pleadingly tugged at her mother's sleeve.

- Go-go! Once here! Pelageya said anxiously.

And Dunyashka:

- Mom, at least a comb!

But Pelageya was heading for the exit, and only beyond the threshold, so that people would not hear, she said in a goose whisper:

- We'll buy a comb, but not enough for a coat. Need to understand!

They reached the department store only after lunch. True, they themselves had not yet eaten anything: there was no time, and they did not want to. At the entrance to the store, people spun like water in a mill whirlpool. It sucked, swirled and threw out dozens of people at once. From the doors of the department store came a muffled continuous rumble, as if millstones were heavily turning there.

Pelageya and Dunyashka pushed their way inside, hastily ran around the first floor, but there was not what they needed for sale, and they went up. On the landing, between the first and second floors, they saw themselves in a huge mirror built into the wall. The mirror silently suggested to everyone passing by what exactly he needed to replace or what was missing in his clothes.

Pelageya climbed the stairs, kneeling her frilled apron high with her knees. She looked at herself in an aloof way and suddenly said:

“Fathers, I have lost the hammers!” Now the little one will kill...

Dunyashka went up one step lower. She looked into the mirror with all her eyes, because she saw herself like this, all at once, for the first time in her life. In her knitted kerchief, which made her head round and ordinary, in a short, narrow-shouldered gray coat, from under which protruded long, strong legs in chrome-spattered boots, Dunyashka looked like a young gray hen, whose elegant comb had not yet properly cut through, the goiter did not round, the tail did not rise up, but strong, enduring legs had already grown. But her cheeks still glowed tirelessly, and the mirror whispered: “How can you walk under a red poplar tree in such a coat?” There were not very many people in the department of women's outerwear, coats and fur coats hung behind the counter in a huge long salon in reverent silence and the tart smell of furs and mothballs. They were placed in long rows, like cows in stalls on a model state farm, sleeve to sleeve, suit to suit, breed to breed. Each of them had cardboard tags. Between the rows in solemn respect, talking in an undertone, buyers walked, took tags in their palms, asked the price.

- You for a girl? - looking closely at Dunyashka, asked a plump elderly saleswoman in glasses and a dressing gown, who looked like a veterinarian from a neighboring state farm department. - Please, go through. Forty-six to the right.

Pelageya, followed by Dunyashka, timidly entered the barrier upholstered in red plush and began their inspection from the edge. But Dunyashka whispered: “I don’t want black,” and they went to the beige ones. The beige ones were good. Large horn buttons. Soft brown collar. Cream silk lining. Pelageya crushed the corner of the floor in her fist - it does not crumple.

Dunya, read on.

- One thousand two hundred.

“Well, well,” Pelageya drew her eyebrows together. “Marko hefty. Over there at the agronomist's. I rode in the car - stained. Now at least drop it.

- Mom, look, there are dark blue ones! Dunya whispered.

- Nothing bad! Pelageya approved.

- The collar is beautiful! Just fluff! Dunya whispered.

- What about the price? You read the price.

One thousand nine hundred and sixty.

- Is this the year indicated?

- No ... rubles.

- Ah ... rubles ... Painfully expensive something. The coat is so-so. And the collar is like a dog. Neither fox nor cat.

- I suppose they are also expensive, - said Pelageya, - a thousand and a half, no less.

- Well, did you pick anything? the saleswoman asked.

“Yes, they don’t like something,” Pelageya said anxiously.

The saleswoman, throwing a barely perceptible glance at Pelagein's apron, asked:

- What price would you like?

Pelageya thought.

“Yes, I don’t know myself,” she said. “It’s risky to take something expensive. The daughter will continue to grow. For now, seven hundred rubles. And that can be cheaper.

“Of course, of course,” the saleswoman nodded understandingly. “The girl is still growing.

- You really, please, try.

We have a great coat for her! - said the saleswoman. - Inexpensive, but very decent. Let's go. We will undress her now.

The saleswoman went to the very end of the row and, after rummaging, filed:

- Here you are.

The coat was indeed good. Herringbone brown. The collar is black. Cotton wool is not quilted inside, but as it should be. Warm coat! Pelageya blew on the collar - the fur fluttered, ran it over the wool - the fur lay down, shone like a raven's wing.

- Drap, cat collar, - the saleswoman explained, turning the coat on her finger. - Please, silk twill lining. Cleanly. Do you like it? she asked Dunya.

Dunya smiled shyly.

- Well, that's great! - the saleswoman also smiled. - Let's try it on. Here is a mirror.

With joyful trepidation, Dunyashka put on her coat. He smelled of new cloth and fur. Even through the dress, Dunya could feel how smooth the lining was. She was cool only at first, but then immediately embraced the body with a cozy warmth. Around the neck fluffy, affectionately lay the collar. With trembling fingers, Dunyashka buttoned up the tight buttons, and Pelageya, flushed with concern, rushed to help her. As soon as the buttons were fastened, Dunyashka immediately felt taut and slender. Her chest did not press, as in an old coat, but on her hips and at the waist she felt that very harmony of well-fitting clothes, when not tight and not loose, but just at the right time.

Almost all buyers who were outside the barrier came to see the fitting. Some old man with a washed-out white beard, a pilot and his wife. A lady in a black coat and a black-and-smoky fox with a very decent-looking man in a red scarf also approached the fitting room.

Dunya looked in the mirror and froze. She and not her! Immediately matured, improved, rounded, where it should be. She saw her own eyes shining a happy blue, and for the first time she felt like an adult!

- Just the bride! said the old man.

- It suits you very well, - the pilot's wife noticed. - Take it, do not hesitate.

- Well, what a charm girl! - smiled the lady in the fox. - What does it mean to dress a person properly! No wonder they say: “They meet by clothes ...” Allow me, dear, I will tuck your pigtail. Like this! Miracle, not a coat.

- Write out? the saleswoman finally asked, and she pulled out a checkbook from her pocket.

“Since people are praising, then we’ll take it,” said Pelageya. “My daughter is eighteen years old.” How not to take.

- Please: six hundred ninety-three rubles twenty-one kopecks. Cashier nearby.

Pelageya ran off to pay, and Dunyashka, reluctantly parting with her new overcoat, pulled on an old one and tied a scarf around her.

“This girl has a happy time,” the lady sighed. “The first coat, the first shoes ... Everything for the first time ...

The saleswoman deftly wrapped the purchase in paper, with a few strokes of her hand she wrapped the twine around it, and, clicking the scissors, handed it to Dunyashka.

- Wear it in good health.

"Thank you," Dunyashka thanked quietly.

“Thank you, good people, for your advice and help,” said Pelageya. “Thank you, daughter, for your kind word,” she said to the lady.

- What are you doing! the lady smiled. “It was nice to see your girl. What class are you in?

"I'm on the farm," Dunyashka said shyly, and stared at her big red hands holding the purchase.

“She works as a poultry keeper on the collective farm,” Pelageya explained. “She worked out three hundred den. With her money, the coat was done.

- Well, that's really nice! said the lady, and once more looked enchanted at Dunyashka.

I didn't want to leave the store right away. Pelageya and Dunyashka had not yet cooled down from excitement and for a long time they were jostling around in different departments. After buying a coat that Dunyashka wore under her arm, looking at him all the time, she wanted something else. And they, looking at the goods, said that it would be nice to buy boots for such a coat. “There, those with the edge.”— “They say they are unbearable.”— “How unbearable? Katya Abolduyeva wears the third winter. ”-“ Okay, we’ll buy it. We have such people in the general store.” “Mom, look at those hats!” “Are you crazy? Will you wear it!” - "Yes, I'm so simple." - "You should now have a downy handkerchief."

So they went around the whole floor and again, passing by the outerwear department, they stopped to look at the hanging coats in parting.

Beyond the barrier they saw a lady trying on a fur coat. A man in a red scarf stood next to me. He was holding her coat.

The fur coat was made of some kind of small skins with dark brown backs and reddish edges, which made it look striped. The saleswoman, unfolding her fur coat, threw it over the lady, and she immediately drowned from head to toe in a mountain of light red fur. All that was visible was a comb of beaten-up hair the color of strong tea at the top, and below, from under the edge of the fur coat, the ankles of the legs and black shoes.

“Hefty wide,” Pelageya remarked in a whisper. “You can’t see a person at all.”

Dunya's fur coat also seemed very spacious and long. It hung from the shoulders in wavy folds, the sleeves were wide, with large lapels, and the collar spread from shoulder to shoulder. Maybe that's how it seemed after the black coat, which sat very well on the lady?

It was a very good coat, brand new, both material and fox collar. It can still be worn and worn, and if Dunyashka had such a thing, she would not take a fur coat, but would buy a downy scarf and boots.

Dunyashka wanted to talk about this lady, wanted to show concern, to advise something, as they had just advised her during the fitting. But, of course, she wouldn't do anything. It's just like that, to herself. She did not know what words to say, and was generally shy in front of this affable, but somehow inaccessible woman.

The lady shrugged her shoulders, causing the fur coat to go down her back in wide folds, and looked at herself in the mirror. Dunyashka saw her beautiful, at that moment slightly pale face, embraced by a wide red collar. Lively light brown eyes looked attentively and sternly, and tinted lips slightly smiled.

Philip, do you like it? the lady asked, running her arched hand over her cheek and hair.

“In general, nothing,” the man said. “Perhaps even better than that ...”

- How is the back?

- Three folds. Just what you love.

Maybe we won't take it? I don't really like the collar.

- From what? The coat suits you. And the collar - invite Boris Abramovich. Will remake.

- I don't want any of it. Marina Mikhailovna said that he ruined her fur coat. I'll call Pokrovskaya - she has a good furrier.

The lady took another look at herself in the mirror.

“All right, I’ll take it,” she said. “If anything, Elka is blown away.

- May I write it out? the saleswoman asked politely.

- Yes, yes, honey...

The man went to pay. He unzipped his briefcase and placed two gray centes, intercepted with paper tape, on the cash plate.

Is this all for one fur coat?! Dunya gasped.

The coat was wrapped in paper. The saleswoman with a serious face, on which all the solemnity of the moment was written, wrapped the package with twine with a few habitual waves of her hand and, handing it to the lady, as well as to Dunyashka, wished:

- Wear it in good health.

- Thank you.

- Here we are with you and with new clothes! smiled the lady, noticing Dunyashka, and affectionately patted her on the cheek.

In her hands was exactly the same package as Dunyashkin, almost the same size, in the same white paper with red triangles, also tied crosswise with twine. Put side by side - you can't tell.

The man took the package from her and they left.

Outside, it was raining lightly. The asphalt shone. Dunyashka and Pelageya saw how the lady and the man got into a wet shiny black car and drove off. In the back window flashed the fox muzzle of a collar with a red mouth.

"Good people," said Pelageya. "Courteous."

Dunya looked at her package. The rain drummed against the wrapper, and the paper became stained. Dunya unbuttoned her coat and hid the purchase under the floor.

“Mom, I want to eat,” she said.

With change from their coats, they bought a bun and ice cream each from the hawker, and hid the rest of the change for the road. We went behind the newspaper booth and started eating. They ate greedily and silently, because they were hungry, and also because it was embarrassing to eat in public. And everyone walked past with raised collars and hats, caps and overalls, glasses and berets, slippers clattered and cloth boots shuffled. From time to time swollen briefcases passed by, and it seemed to Dunya that they were full of hundreds. Sometimes foxes floated by, nestled comfortably under umbrellas. They didn't drip.

- Well, let's go, right? said Pelageya, brushing the crumbs off her jacket. "I don't know if Styopka bought kerosene..."

They got off the bus before dark. The rain had stopped, but the highway was slippery and gleamed dully among the black, heavily settled damp earth. Pelageya tucked her apron under her jacket and, riding with her boots along the beaten path, walked ahead of Dunyashka. Now she was in a hurry to go home, because she still had time to wash Stepka's linen. Tomorrow it is too early for him to go to the mechanization school. Dunya ran after her. She also wanted to get home as soon as possible.

Already in front of the hillside, the sun suddenly peeped through. It struck with a beam of rays into a narrow gap between earth and sky, and the highway sparkled with countless puddles and flooded ruts.

Having reached the very steep, they stopped to rest. After the rain it was quiet and warm. The city tired Dunyashka with its hustle and bustle, but here, in the field, it was quiet, good, and everything was so familiar. A calf stood near a sunflower that stood alone by the road. He plucked at the damp, limp leaves and chewed them leisurely, poking the stalk with his tongue. Having stopped eating and spreading his ears, he stared thoughtfully at Pelageya and Dunyashka. A half-eaten stalk protruded from his wet, pinkish lips.

"We'll be back soon," said Pelageya. "Come on, give it here..."

She took the bundle from Dunyashka and pierced the paper with her finger. The lining peeked through the gap. It was the color of a milk liver and shimmered silky in the light.

- Nice lining! - Pelageya approved. - Well, look.

- At least on a dress! - said Dunyashka. - Mom, what kind of top? I forgot...

Picked up the paper in another place, got to the top.

- And the top is good! Dunya made sure once more.

- Well, the top - no demolition! Say that you gave a thousand.

- For a thousand, it can be worse. Remember that hung, beige?

"And there's nothing to see!"

- Mom, let's see the collar. Haven't looked at the collar yet.

The collar was soft and black as a raven's wing. Great collar!

“What collar did she say?”

- Under the cat.

— Ah... Look at you! Dear one.

- Mom, and warm!

- Warm, daughter. - Pelageya looked at the bundle on her hand. - There is nothing to say about warmth. What about a fur coat? Only one name. No heat, no beauty. Like a zipun. She would be whole. And then from the patches. Togo and look, it will burst at the seams. Yes, and wipe off. And this is beauty! And to the face. And he sits well.

"I'm like a grown-up in it," Dunyashka smiled shyly.

- Shut up, girl, we'll sell the calf - we'll fix the downy scarf.

- And boots! Dunyashka lit up all over.

Let's fix the bots! Let's do it!

It was easy to run downhill. To shorten the road, we went straight across the grassy slope. Ahead, snatched by the sun from the dark arable land, the village was white with khatami. Dunyashka, trembling with quiet secret joy, looked for the red poplar with her eyes.

Both villages are 15-20 kilometers away from Suzdal. The icon-painting workshop in the 17th century was in Suzdal. Could it not be that the same master painted two identical faces of the Kazan Mother of God? Couldn't two neighboring villages have the same icon in churches? In the future, the fate of the icons, as we see, diverged. One was exalted to the rank of miraculous and is now tremblingly kept by the pious Aunt Pasha, and the other is in the kitchen of the drunkard Uncle Peter, with whom we are eager to get to know each other as soon as possible.

That same marvelous, amazing “merciless beauty” is in my hands, and the case turned from complete hopelessness into confidence, and everything is so simple. Now Uncle Peter will come, whom “for a quarter, even bring him out of the hut” ... and then, the icon is not miraculous, which means that they will not hold on to it with irresistible religious fanaticism. You will not approach the miraculous. And here is exactly the same, but simple. Just as beautiful, just as beautiful, but no longer a queen.

“Where is your father, Uncle Peter?” I asked Vladislav.

- Went to another village. To godfather. Get drunk.

- Coming soon?

- He is now for two days. They don't get shorter with their godfather. Wait, I'll call my mother now. She is the flight of the ridge.

Vladislav was gone painfully long. During this time, a sucking unpleasant feeling arose in me, a presentiment that the icon that I hold in my hands will eventually have to be put on a shelf.

A short, lean, energetic woman, looking about seventy, but, of course, younger, with bare hair, her hands dirty from garden soil, appeared on the threshold. Or rather, her loud, angry voice first appeared in the passage:

- Well, what about him?

- I don’t know, he looks at the icons.

“Now I’ll look at the icons for him!” There is nothing to look at them, not in the market. I'll take a look at him now.

After these words, I was surprised that Aunt Dunya appeared on the threshold without a twig or a grip, but just like that, with bare hands smeared with fresh earth. She was not tall, but, standing on the threshold, she looked down at me like a hawk, and in response to my timid ingratiating “hello,” she sharply asked:

- So what? What do you want? Get up, get up.

- Aunt Dunya, you sit down, calm down. Listen to me. I'll tell you everything now.

- I'm clueless. So you don't have to tell me anything. I still don't understand. - However, she sat down on a bench, put her hands on her knees with open palms up. The earth dried up on the palms.

After an hour and a half, during which I had exhausted all eloquence, all persuasiveness, using now sincere, now demagogic, but no less convincing methods, Aunt Dunya continued to say:

“You have been told that I am clueless. As for the icon, I won't change. So that I give the icon to carry away from the hut? Can something like this be? So that I would hand her over to the wrong hands, and then you began to mock her?

- Do not scoff, Aunt Dunya, on the contrary, everyone will look at her like a picture, admire, admire her. Here, they say, what a beautiful Russian painting.

- I'm saying: do they admire an icon? They pray for her. A light is lit in front of her. Is she a naked girl to be admired?

- You misunderstood me, aunt Dunya.

- I say that I'm stupid, so don't ask. As for the icon, I will not change. So that I put my icon in the wrong hands ... She will come to me at night and ask: “Where did you give me, Ovdotya, to the first person you met?” What will I say to her, my dear?

Despair gripped me. And it was getting dark, and I had to leave, but as soon as I looked at the beautiful face of the Virgin, I felt a fresh surge of strength.

“Money!” meanwhile Aunt Dunya was indignant. - Do they sell icons? Here she comes to me at night and asks: “For how many pieces of silver do you give me. Judas, unfortunate, sold?

- Aunt Dunya, how do you say that they don't sell icons? Where did they get them before? At the farmer's market.