Korolenko Vladimir Galaktionovich
last beam
Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko
last beam
I
The Nyuy machine is located in a small clearing on the banks of the Lena. Several wretched huts press their backs against sheer cliffs, as if backing away from an angry river. Lena in this place is narrow, unusually fast and very gloomy. The soles of the mountains on the opposite shore are in the water, and here more than anywhere else, Lena deserves her name "Cursed crack". Indeed, it is like a giant crack, along the bottom of which a dark river swirls, lined with gloomy rocks, cliffs, gorges. In it, fogs stop for a long time, there is a cold dampness and almost continuous twilight. The population of this machine, even among the rest of the prilensky inhabitants, strikes with its lethargy, thinness and hopeless apathy. The dull rumble of larches on mountain ranges is an eternal accompaniment to this sad existence...
Arriving at this machine at night, tired and chilled, I woke up in the morning, apparently quite early.
It was quiet. Through the windows looked either a dim dawn, or a late evening, something filled with formless and twilight haze. The wind blew through the "gap" like in a pipe, and drove the night fogs through it. Looking up from the window, I could see shreds clear sky. This means that a bright sunny morning was already dawning all over the world. And past the machine, everything continued to rush, in clubs, cold haze ... It was gloomy, quiet, gray and sad.
In the hut where I spent the night, a simple kerosene lamp still burned on the table, adding its miserable yellowish light to the twilight of the room. The room was quite clean, the wooden partitions separating the bedroom were covered with newsprint. In the front corner, near the shrine, pictures from illustrations were densely full of pictures - mainly portraits of generals. One of them was Muravyov-Amursky, large and in regalia, and just yesterday I saw two small, modest portraits of the Decembrists nearby.
Lying on my bed, I could see through the partition a table with a lamp against the opposite wall. At the table sat an old man with a rather handsome but pale face. His beard was gray, with even thick gray hair, his high bare forehead shone with the yellowness of wax, his hair, sparse at the crown, was long and slightly wavy at the back. AT general figure she resembled a spiritual one, perhaps even one of the evangelists, but her complexion was unpleasantly pale and unhealthy, her eyes seemed dull to me. On the neck could be seen, like a tumor, signs of goiter - a disease very common in the Lena, which is attributed to the Lena water.
Sitting next to him was a boy about eight years old. All I could see was his bowed head, with flax-thin blond hair. The old man, screwing up his half-blinded eyes through his spectacles, moved his pointer along the page of a book lying on the table, while the boy read from the syllables with strained attention. When he failed, the old man corrected him with gentle patience.
- People-he... lo... lead-there is, and a short...
The boy stopped. An unfamiliar word, obviously, was not given ... The old man narrowed his eyes and helped:
“Nightingale,” he read.
- Nightingale, - conscientiously repeated the student and, raising his perplexed eyes at the teacher, asked: - So-lo-vey ... What is it?
"Bird," said the old man.
- Bird ... - And he continued reading. - "Word-like, si, good-yat-people, deeds ... Nightingale sat deeds ... on che ... on che-re ... on che-re-mu-he ..."
- What? - again sounded inquiringly, as if the wooden, indifferent voice of a child.
- On the cherry tree. Bird cherry, therefore, a tree. He did sit.
- Sitting ... Why sitting? .. big bird?
- Tiny, she sings well.
- He sings well...
The boy stopped reading and thought. It became quite quiet in the hut. A pendulum was pounding, fogs were floating outside the window... A tuft of sky above brought to mind a bright day somewhere in other places, where in the spring nightingales sing on bird cherry trees... "What a miserable childhood this is!" "No nightingales, no blooming spring... Only water and a stone blocking the view of the expanse of God's world. Of the birds - almost one crow, along the slopes - a boring larch and occasionally a pine..."
The boy read another phrase in the same dull, uncomprehending voice, and suddenly stopped.
- And what, grandfather, - he asked, - isn't it time for us, look? .. - This time, already living, excited notes were heard in his voice, and bright eyes, illuminated by the fire of the lamp, turned to the grandfather with visible curiosity.
He looked at the clock, indifferently ticking like a pendulum, then at the window with the haze swirling behind the panes, and answered calmly:
- It's too early. Only half!..
- Maybe, grandfather, the clock has gone bad.
- Well, well ... it's still dark ... Yes, it's stupid, it's better for us. You see, the wind ... Maybe it will drive away the troubles, otherwise you won’t see anything, like third days.
"Better," the boy repeated in his old submissive voice, and the reading continued.
Twenty minutes passed. The old man glanced at his watch, then out the window and blew out the light bulb. A bluish half-light spilled into the room.
“Get dressed,” said the old man, and added: “Quietly so that Tanya does not hear.”
The boy quickly jumped out of his chair.
- Aren't we going to take it? he asked in a whisper.
- Don't... where is she... And then she coughs... Let her sleep.
The boy began to dress with careful haste, and soon both figures - grandfather and grandson - flashed in the twilight of the room. The boy was wearing something like an urban-style coat, large felt boots on his feet, and a woman's scarf was wrapped around his neck. Grandfather was in a fur coat. The door creaked and they both stepped out.
I was left alone. Behind the partition, the quiet breathing of a sleeping girl and the hoarse tapping of a pendulum were heard. The movement outside the window grew stronger, the mists swept faster and more often, and in the intervals the harsh patches of dark rocks and gorges could be seen more and more widely. The room first brightened, then again plunged into twilight.
My dream has passed. The silent sadness of this place began to take hold of me, and I waited almost impatiently for the door to creak and the old man and the boy to return. But none of them were...
Then I decided to see what it was that lured them out of the hut into the fog and cold. I slept dressed, so it didn't take long for me to put on my boots and coat and go out...
Both - the old man and the boy - were standing on the porch with their hands in their sleeves and as if waiting for something.
The area seemed to me now even more gloomy than from the window. Above, the mist had lifted, and the peaks of the mountains stood out distinctly and severely against the lightened sky. Against the dark background of the mountains, only isolated horizontal wisps of mist swept past, but below there was still a cold twilight. The Lena streams, not yet frozen, but already heavy and dark, collided in a narrow channel, turned into funnels and whirlpools. It seemed as if the river was seething and tearing in mute despair, trying to break free from the gloomy crack... The cold pre-morning wind, which drove away the remnants of the night fog, ruffled our clothes and angrily rushed on...
The machine houses, scattered in indefinite heaps on the stone platform, began to wake up. In some places there was smoke, in some places the windows gleamed; a tall, thin coachman in a torn sheepskin coat, yawning, led a couple of horses to a watering hole and soon faded into the shadows of the bank slope. Everything was mundane and dull.
- What are you waiting for? I asked the old man.
- Why, my granddaughter wants to see the sun, - he answered and asked in turn: - Whose are you? Russian?
- Yes.
- Did you know the Chernyshovs there?
- Which Chernyshovs? No, I didn't.
- Where, go, know. Russia is great... They say the general was...
He paused, shrugging from the cold, and, after considering something, turned to me again:
- A traveler here alone said: Zakhar Grigorievich Chernyshov served under Tsarina Catherine ...
- Yes, it was...
The old man wanted to ask something else, but at that time the boy moved sharply and touched his sleeve...
I also involuntarily glanced at the top of the cliff that stood on our side, at the turn of Lena ...
Until now, this place seemed to be some kind of dark vent, from where fogs still continued to crawl out. Now above them, in the air, on the pointed peak of a stone cliff, the top of a pine tree and several already bare larches suddenly seemed to flare up and glow. Having broken through from somewhere behind the mountains of the opposite shore, the first ray of the sun that had not yet risen for us had already touched this stone ledge and a group of trees that had grown in its crevices. Above the cold blue shadows of our crack they stood, as if in clouds, and quietly shone, rejoicing at the first caress of the morning.
We all silently looked at this peak, as if afraid to frighten away the solemnly quiet joy of a single stone and a handful of larches. The boy stood motionless, holding onto his grandfather's sleeve. His eyes were wide, his pale face brightened with delight. In the meantime, something trembled and fluttered above, and another cliff, still immersed in the general blue of the gloomy background of the mountain, lit up, joining the illuminated group. Until recently, impersonally merging with the distant slopes, now they boldly stepped forward, and their background seemed to have become even more distant, hazier and darker.
The boy again pulled his grandfather's sleeve, and his face was already completely transformed. Her eyes sparkled, her lips smiled, her pale yellow cheeks seemed to blush.
On the opposite side the river also changed. The mountains still hid the rising sun behind them, but the sky above them had completely brightened, and the outlines of the ridge were drawn sharply and distinctly, forming a significant depression between the two peaks. Streams of milky-white fog were sliding down along the still dark slopes facing us, as if looking for places darker and damper ... And above, the sky was lit up with gold, and rows of larches on the ridge stood out against a light background with distinct purple silhouettes. Behind them, it seemed, something was stirring - joyful, restless and alive. In the deepening from mountain to mountain a light cloud floated, all on fire, and disappeared behind neighboring peak. Behind her was another, a third, a whole flock ... Something jubilant and joyful was happening behind the mountains. The bottom of the chasm flared up. It seemed as if the sun was rising from the other side, along the slopes of the ridge, to look here, into this miserable crack, this dark river, these lonely huts, the old man with the pale boy who were waiting for his appearance.
And so it appeared. Several bright golden rays streaked randomly in the depths of the cleft between the two mountains, punching holes in the thick wall of the forest. fire sparks they fell in bunches down into the dark valleys and gorges, tearing out of the blue cold twilight either a single tree, or the top of a slate cliff, or a small mountain clearing... Beneath them, everything moved and bustled. Groups of trees seemed to run from place to place, the rocks came forward and again sank into the mist, the clearings shone and went out... Stripes of fog snaked down below more disturbingly and faster.
Then, for a few moments, even the dark river lit up ... The tops of the unsteady waves that ran to our shore flared up, the coastal sand sparkled with black spots of coach boats and groups of people and horses at a watering hole. Oblique beams glided over the squalid shacks, were reflected in the mica windows, affectionately touched the boy's pale, admiring face...
And in the cleft between the mountains, a part of the fiery solar circle, and on our side the whole coast rejoiced and shone, sparkling, sparkling and shimmering with multi-colored layers of slate rocks and the greenery of fluffy pines ...
But it was only a short caress of the morning. A few more seconds, and the bottom of the valley again became cold and blue. The river went out and rushed again in its dark course, madly turning in whirlpools, the mica windows grew dim, the shadows rose higher and higher, the mountains covered the recent variety of their slopes with a monochromatic blue haze. For a few more seconds, a lonely peak burned on our side, like a fading torch above the dark mists ... Then it faded too. All the openings in the cleft were closed, the scaffolding closed as before in a continuous mourning border, and only two or three backward clouds moved above them, discolored and cold ...
"That's it," the boy said sadly. And raising his sad, faded eyes to his grandfather, he added inquiringly.

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko

last beam

Book: VG Korolenko. "Selected" Publishing house "Higher School", Minsk, 1984 OCR & SpellCheck: Zmiy ( [email protected]), May 25, 2002

The Nyuy machine is located in a small clearing on the banks of the Lena. Several wretched huts press their backs against sheer cliffs, as if backing away from an angry river. Lena in this place is narrow, unusually fast and very gloomy. The soles of the mountains on the opposite shore are in the water, and here more than anywhere else, Lena deserves her name "Cursed crack". Indeed, it is like a giant crack, along the bottom of which a dark river swirls, lined with gloomy rocks, cliffs, gorges. In it, fogs stop for a long time, there is a cold dampness and almost continuous twilight. The population of this machine, even among the rest of the prilensky inhabitants, strikes with its lethargy, thinness and hopeless apathy. The dull rumble of larches on the mountain ranges is an eternal accompaniment to this sad existence ... Arriving at this machine at night, tired and chilled, I woke up in the morning, apparently quite early. It was quiet. Through the windows looked either a dim dawn, or a late evening, something filled with formless and twilight haze. The wind blew through the "gap" like in a pipe, and drove the night fogs through it. Looking up from the window, I could see patches of clear sky. This means that a bright sunny morning was already dawning all over the world. And past the machine, everything continued to rush, in clubs, cold haze ... It was gloomy, quiet, gray and sad. In the hut where I spent the night, a simple kerosene lamp still burned on the table, adding its miserable yellowish light to the twilight of the room. The room was quite clean, the wooden partitions separating the bedroom were covered with newsprint. In the front corner, near the shrine, pictures from illustrations were densely full of pictures - mainly portraits of generals. One of them was Muravyov-Amursky, large and in regalia, and just yesterday I saw two small, modest portraits of the Decembrists nearby. Lying on my bed, I could see through the partition a table with a lamp against the opposite wall. At the table sat an old man with a rather handsome but pale face. His beard was gray, with even thick gray hair, his high bare forehead shone with the yellowness of wax, his hair, sparse at the crown, was long and slightly wavy at the back. In general, the figure resembled a spiritual one, perhaps even one of the evangelists, but the complexion was unpleasantly pale and unhealthy, and my eyes seemed dull. On the neck could be seen, like a tumor, signs of goiter - a disease very common in the Lena, which is attributed to the Lena water. Sitting next to him was a boy about eight years old. All I could see was his bowed head, with flax-thin blond hair. The old man, screwing up his half-blinded eyes through his spectacles, moved his pointer along the page of a book lying on the table, while the boy read from the syllables with strained attention. When he failed, the old man corrected him with gentle patience. - People-he... lo... lead-there is, and brief... The boy stopped. An unfamiliar word, obviously, was not given ... The old man narrowed his eyes and helped: - Nightingale, - he read. - Nightingale, - conscientiously repeated the student and, raising his perplexed eyes at the teacher, asked: - So-lo-vey ... What is it? "Bird," said the old man. - Bird ... - And he continued reading. - "Word-like, si, good-yat-people, deeds ... Nightingale sat deeds ... on che ... on che-re ... on che-re-mu-he ..." - What? - again sounded inquiringly, as if the wooden, indifferent voice of a child. - On the cherry tree. Bird cherry, therefore, a tree. He did sit. - Sitting ... Why sitting? .. Big bird? - Tiny, she sings well. - He sings well ... The boy stopped reading and thought. It became quite quiet in the hut. A pendulum was pounding, fogs were floating outside the window... A tuft of sky above brought to mind a bright day somewhere in other places, where in the spring nightingales sing on bird cherry trees... "What a miserable childhood this is!" "No nightingales, no blooming spring... Only water and a stone blocking the view of the expanse of God's world. From the birds - almost one crow, along the slopes - a boring larch and occasionally a pine..." The boy read another phrase in the same dull, uncomprehending voice, and suddenly stopped. - And what, grandfather, - he asked, - isn't it time for us, look? .. - This time, already living, excited notes were heard in his voice, and bright eyes, illuminated by the fire of the lamp, turned to the grandfather with visible curiosity. He looked at the clock, indifferently ticking like a pendulum, then at the window with the haze swirling behind the panes and answered calmly: - It's still early. Only half! .. - Maybe, grandfather, the clock has gone bad. - Well, well ... it's still dark ... Yes, it's stupid, it's better for us. You see, the wind ... Maybe it will drive away the troubles, otherwise you won’t see anything, like third days. "Better," the boy repeated in his old submissive voice, and the reading continued. Twenty minutes passed. The old man glanced at his watch, then out the window and blew out the light bulb. A bluish half-light spilled into the room. “Get dressed,” said the old man, and added: “Quietly so that Tanya does not hear.” The boy quickly jumped out of his chair. - Aren't we going to take it? he asked in a whisper. - Don't... where is she... And then she coughs... Let her sleep. The boy began to dress with careful haste, and soon both figures - grandfather and grandson - flashed in the twilight of the room. The boy was wearing something like an urban-style coat, large felt boots on his feet, and a woman's scarf was wrapped around his neck. Grandfather was in a fur coat. The door creaked and they both stepped out. I was left alone. Behind the partition, the quiet breathing of a sleeping girl and the hoarse tapping of a pendulum were heard. The movement outside the window grew stronger, the mists swept faster and more often, and in the intervals the harsh patches of dark rocks and gorges could be seen more and more widely. The room first brightened, then again plunged into twilight. My dream has passed. The silent sadness of this place began to take hold of me, and I waited almost impatiently for the door to creak and the old man and the boy to return. But they were all gone... Then I decided to see what it was that had lured them out of the hut into the fog and cold. I slept dressed, so it didn’t take me long to put on my boots and coat and go out ... Both - the old man and the boy - stood on the porch with their hands in their sleeves and as if waiting for something. The area seemed to me now even more gloomy than from the window. Above, the mist had lifted, and the peaks of the mountains stood out distinctly and severely against the lightened sky. Against the dark background of the mountains, only isolated horizontal wisps of mist swept past, but below there was still a cold twilight. The Lena streams, not yet frozen, but already heavy and dark, collided in a narrow channel, turned into funnels and whirlpools. It seemed as if the river was seething and rushing in mute despair, trying to break free from the gloomy crack... The cold pre-morning wind, which drove away the remnants of the night fog, ruffled our clothes and angrily rushed on... wake up. In some places there was smoke, in some places the windows gleamed; a tall, thin coachman in a torn sheepskin coat, yawning, led a couple of horses to a watering hole and soon faded into the shadows of the bank slope. Everything was mundane and dull. - What are you waiting for? I asked the old man. - Why, my granddaughter wants to see the sun, - he answered and asked in turn: - Whose are you? Russian? - Yes. - Did you know the Chernyshovs there? - Which Chernyshovs? No, I didn't. - Where, go, know. Russia is great... They say the general was... He paused, shrugging from the cold, and, after thinking something over, turned to me again: he was like that... The old man wanted to ask something else, but at that moment the boy moved sharply and touched his sleeve... I involuntarily also glanced at the top of the cliff that stood on our side, at Lena's turn. .. Until now, this place seemed to be some kind of dark vent, from where fogs still continued to crawl out. Now above them, in the air, on the pointed peak of a stone cliff, the top of a pine tree and several already bare larches suddenly seemed to flare up and glow. Having broken through from somewhere behind the mountains of the opposite shore, the first ray of the sun that had not yet risen for us had already touched this stone ledge and a group of trees that had grown in its crevices. Above the cold blue shadows of our crack they stood, as if in clouds, and quietly shone, rejoicing at the first caress of the morning. We all silently looked at this peak, as if afraid to frighten away the solemnly quiet joy of a single stone and a handful of larches. The boy stood motionless, holding onto his grandfather's sleeve. His eyes were wide, his pale face brightened with delight. In the meantime, something trembled and fluttered above, and another cliff, still immersed in the general blue of the gloomy background of the mountain, lit up, joining the illuminated group. Until recently, impersonally merging with the distant slopes, now they boldly stepped forward, and their background seemed to have become even more distant, hazier and darker. The boy again pulled his grandfather's sleeve, and his face was already completely transformed. Her eyes sparkled, her lips smiled, her pale yellow cheeks seemed to blush. On the opposite side of the river there was also a change. The mountains still hid the rising sun behind them, but the sky above them had completely brightened, and the outlines of the ridge were drawn sharply and distinctly, forming a significant depression between the two peaks. Streams of milky-white fog were sliding down along the still dark slopes facing us, as if looking for places darker and damper ... And above, the sky was lit up with gold, and rows of larches on the ridge stood out against a light background with distinct purple silhouettes. Behind them, it seemed, something was stirring - joyful, restless and alive. In a depression from mountain to mountain a light cloud swam, all on fire, and disappeared behind the neighboring peak. Behind her was another, a third, a whole flock ... Something jubilant and joyful was happening behind the mountains. The bottom of the chasm flared up. It seemed as if the sun was rising from the other side, along the slopes of the ridge, to look here, into this miserable crack, this dark river, these lonely huts, the old man with the pale boy who were waiting for his appearance. And so it appeared. Several bright golden rays streaked randomly in the depths of the cleft between the two mountains, punching holes in the thick wall of the forest. Fiery sparks fell in bunches down on the dark valleys and gorges, pulling out of the blue cold twilight either a single tree, or the top of a slate cliff, or a small mountain clearing. .. Under them everything moved and bustled. Groups of trees seemed to run from place to place, the rocks came forward and again sank into the mist, the clearings shone and went out... Stripes of fog snaked down below more disturbingly and faster. Then, for a few moments, even the dark river lit up ... The tops of the unsteady waves that ran to our shore flared up, the coastal sand sparkled with black spots of coach boats and groups of people and horses at a watering hole. Oblique rays glided over the squalid shacks, were reflected in the mica windows, affectionately touched the pale, admiring face of the boy ... And in the crevice between the mountains, a part of the fiery solar circle was already clearly advancing, and on our side the whole coast rejoiced and shone, sparkling, sparkling and iridescent multi-colored layers of slate rocks and the greenery of fluffy pines ... But this was only a short caress of the morning. A few more seconds, and the bottom of the valley again became cold and blue. The river went out and rushed again in its dark course, madly turning in whirlpools, the mica windows grew dim, the shadows rose higher and higher, the mountains covered the recent variety of their slopes with a monochromatic blue haze. For a few more seconds, a lonely peak burned on our side, like a fading torch above the dark mists ... Then it faded too. All the openings in the cleft were closed, the scaffolding closed as before in a continuous mourning border, and only two or three backward clouds moved above them, discolored and cold ... - That's it, - the boy said sadly. And raising his sad, faded eyes to his grandfather, he added inquiringly: - Will there be no more? - No, tea, - he replied. - You yourself saw: only the edge of the sun appeared. Tomorrow will go down. - Finished, brother! shouted the coachman returning from the river. - Hello, grandfather and grandson! .. Turning around, I saw that other huts also saw spectators here and there. The doors creaked, the coachmen went into the huts, the machine again sank into the discoloring cold fog. And this is already for many months! .. The old man told me that in summer the sun walks over their peaks, by autumn it sinks lower and hides behind a wide ridge, already powerless to rise above its edge. But then the point of sunrise moves to the south, and then for several days it is again shown in the mornings in a cleft between two mountains. First, it goes from top to top, then lower and lower, and finally, only for a few moments, golden rays sparkle at the very bottom of the depression. This is what happened today. The Nuy machine said goodbye to the sun for the whole winter. The coachmen, of course, will see him during their journeys, but the old people and children will not see him until the very spring, or rather, until the summer. .. The last reflections disappeared... Behind the mountains it was a full day, but below the fog was thickening again, the slopes of the mountains were covered with a muddy monochromatic haze. Diffused light seeped in from behind the mountains, cold and unfriendly...

- So you, you say, are also from Russia? - I asked the old man when we again entered the hut and he put a small, old samovar on the table. The boy went behind the partition to the awakened sister and began to amuse her. From time to time, faint children's laughter could be heard from there, as if someone were throwing pieces of glass. The old man straightened the miserable tablecloth and after a while answered somehow reluctantly: - Yes ... What is it ... They were born here, and so are the locals. Here they are, children, perhaps not of a simple family ... - What is your last name? I asked. - Yes, what! .. - he answered again, just as languidly. - Avdeevs, let's say, a surname. Yes, it is, vernacular. And his real name is Chernyshov... He suddenly left the tablecloth and looked at me with an attentive and interested look. - You, here, also read about Zakhar Grigorievich Chernyshov. Was there a general? - Yes, there was a general under Catherine. Only he was not exiled. - Well, not him, but apparently, of the same family ... Under Emperor Nicholas ... During the ascension, or something ... He peered searchingly into my face, but I could not remember anything about Chernyshov. The old man shook his head sadly... - They say he was a bookworm. He was dying, he punished the children: the main thing for the letter is to hold on tight ... He paused and then added: bad place... My daughter was after his grandson, after Evgeniev. So the Avdeevs went ... Not tenacious ... He himself died, his mother died, there were two left in his arms ... there won’t be left ... The door opened, the coachman entered, crossed himself on the icon and said: - Avdeev ... Go, write down the travelers ... At the headman. - Okay! - Is your name also Avdeev? I asked. - Come on, come on ... And me on them: Avdeev and Avdeev ... Once upon a time there were people ... And the old man, perhaps the only literate man on the Nyuy machine, took a tattered book under his arms and left. I could not learn anything more from the field of this vague genealogy and soon left the gloomy Nuy machine forever. Two hours later, turning to another stretch, I saw the sun right in front of me ... It was not high, but still flooded with fiery sparkles both the shores and the water ... And its quiet, even, perhaps, sad light seemed to me at that moment both bright and joyful.

Subsequently, when I returned to Russia, I tried to find out something about the exiled branch of the Chernyshov family. In the name of Zakhar Grigorievich Chernyshov, the pages are full of Catherine's story but he was never in exile. Once, while waiting for a steamboat on the Volga shallows, I heard from a fisherman a song about the Prussian captivity of a good Russian fellow, Chernyshov Zakhar Grigoryevich. The fisherman knew nothing of course. historical figure, - but the song was still an echo of a real event. During the time of Pugachev, the daring Cossack Chika assumed the name of Zakhar Grigorievich Chernyshov and added to people's memory to the popular name of the disgraced line; another song already speaks of a dungeon on the banks of the Volga, in the city of Lyskovo. daring good fellow, Chernyshov Zakhar Grigorievich, calls barge haulers and grassroots freemen to his place ... In general, for some reason this name was lucky in people's memory, and among the mysterious personalities of Siberia, the name Chernyshov also flashes quite often. This is how I explained to myself my meeting at the Nuya machine tool; obviously, actual origin the clan, perhaps an exile, was lost, and the old man unconsciously took a popular name ... Truthfulness and conviction were heard in his sad tone ... Quite recently, looking through a short note about the Decembrists, I came across one little known and little mentioned name too Decembrist ... "3.G. Chernyshov". Then the meeting at the Nuya machine tool surfaced again in my memory and seemed to be illuminated by a new light: so, I thought, old Avdeev was telling the truth. Further information, however, destroyed this certainty: the Decembrist Zakhar Grigorievich Chernyshov returned to Russia, married here and died abroad. Again a misty veil hung over the genealogy of the Avdeevs... In vast and gloomy Siberia, many lives were lost in the same way, and many genera from the peaks illuminated by the sun descended forever into these cold bottoms, into gorges and foggy valleys... Above Yakutsk, on on the banks of the Lena, there is a cliff along which a narrow path snakes over the abyss. Traces of habitation have been preserved in the cleft of the rock. A touching legend is connected with this place: some exile lived here for many years, formerly a noble man who fell into disgrace. In Siberia, he lived in different places and finally settled here, next to a poor village. He himself chopped wood and carried water. One day, when he was climbing a mountain with a bundle of firewood, a familiar figure appeared on the path above him. It was the wife who sought him out in that gorge. The exile recognized her, but from joy or fright he became ill: he staggered and fell into the abyss. I tried in vain to find out the name of this man and the details of this event: indifferent and cold Siberia does not store this information well, and the memory of this once, perhaps, bright life and tragic death fades away with the echoes of an obscure legend, connected only with the rock, but not with a person ... The origin of the boy whom I met at the Nyuysky machine tool is also unclear and indefinite. But when my memories turn to Siberia, this dark crack involuntarily arises in my imagination, and the fast river, and the miserable shacks of the machine, and the last reflections of the setting sun, fading in the sad eyes of the last descendant of some fading family ...

Notes

The story was written in November 1900. The first publication was in the magazine " Russian wealth"(Petersburg), 1901, book 1.

Korolenko Vladimir Galaktionovich

last beam

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko

last beam

The Nyuy machine is located in a small clearing on the banks of the Lena. Several wretched huts press their backs against sheer cliffs, as if backing away from an angry river. Lena in this place is narrow, unusually fast and very gloomy. The soles of the mountains on the opposite shore are in the water, and here more than anywhere else, Lena deserves her name "Cursed crack". Indeed, it is like a giant crack, along the bottom of which a dark river swirls, lined with gloomy rocks, cliffs, gorges. In it, fogs stop for a long time, there is a cold dampness and almost continuous twilight. The population of this machine, even among the rest of the prilensky inhabitants, strikes with its lethargy, thinness and hopeless apathy. The dull rumble of larches on mountain ranges is an eternal accompaniment to this sad existence...

Arriving at this machine at night, tired and chilled, I woke up in the morning, apparently quite early.

It was quiet. Through the windows looked either a dim dawn, or a late evening, something filled with formless and twilight haze. The wind blew through the "gap" like in a pipe, and drove the night fogs through it. Looking up from the window, I could see patches of clear sky. This means that a bright sunny morning was already dawning all over the world. And past the machine, everything continued to rush, in clubs, cold haze ... It was gloomy, quiet, gray and sad.

In the hut where I spent the night, a simple kerosene lamp still burned on the table, adding its miserable yellowish light to the twilight of the room. The room was quite clean, the wooden partitions separating the bedroom were covered with newsprint. In the front corner, near the shrine, pictures from illustrations were densely full of pictures - mainly portraits of generals. One of them was Muravyov-Amursky, large and in regalia, and just yesterday I saw two small, modest portraits of the Decembrists nearby.

Lying on my bed, I could see through the partition a table with a lamp against the opposite wall. At the table sat an old man with a rather handsome but pale face. His beard was gray, with even thick gray hair, his high bare forehead shone with the yellowness of wax, his hair, sparse at the crown, was long and slightly wavy at the back. In general, the figure resembled a spiritual one, perhaps even one of the evangelists, but the complexion was unpleasantly pale and unhealthy, and my eyes seemed dull. On the neck could be seen, like a tumor, signs of goiter - a disease very common in the Lena, which is attributed to the Lena water.

Sitting next to him was a boy about eight years old. All I could see was his bowed head, with flax-thin blond hair. The old man, screwing up his half-blinded eyes through his spectacles, moved his pointer along the page of a book lying on the table, while the boy read from the syllables with strained attention. When he failed, the old man corrected him with gentle patience.

People-he... lo... lead-there is, and a brief...

The boy stopped. An unfamiliar word, obviously, was not given ... The old man narrowed his eyes and helped:

Nightingale, he read.

Nightingale, - conscientiously repeated the student and, raising his perplexed eyes at the teacher, asked: - So-lo-vey ... What is it?

Bird, said the old man.

Bird ... - And he continued reading. - "Word-like, si, good-yat-people, deeds ... Nightingale sat deeds ... on che ... on che-re ... on che-re-mu-he ..."

What? - again sounded inquiringly, as if the wooden, indifferent voice of a child.

On the cherry. Bird cherry, therefore, a tree. He did sit.

Sitting... Why sitting?.. Big bird?

Tiny, sings well.

Sings well...

The boy stopped reading and thought. It became quite quiet in the hut. A pendulum was pounding, fogs were floating outside the window... A tuft of sky above brought to mind a bright day somewhere in other places, where in the spring nightingales sing on bird cherry trees... "What a miserable childhood this is!" "No nightingales, no blooming spring... Only water and a stone blocking the view of the expanse of God's world. Of the birds - almost one crow, along the slopes - a boring larch and occasionally a pine..."

The boy read another phrase in the same dull, uncomprehending voice, and suddenly stopped.

And what, grandfather, - he asked, - isn’t it time for us, look? .. - This time, already living, excited notes were heard in his voice, and bright eyes, illuminated by the fire of the lamp, turned to the grandfather with visible curiosity.

He looked at the clock, indifferently ticking like a pendulum, then at the window with the haze swirling behind the panes, and answered calmly:

It's too early. Only half!..

Maybe, Grandpa, the clock has gone bad.

Well, well ... it's still dark ... Yes, stupid, it's better for us. You see, the wind ... Maybe it will drive away the troubles, otherwise you won’t see anything, like third days.

Better,” the boy repeated in his old submissive voice, and the reading continued.

Twenty minutes passed. The old man glanced at his watch, then out the window and blew out the light bulb. A bluish half-light spilled into the room.

Get dressed, - said the old man and added: - Quietly, so that Tanya does not hear.

The boy quickly jumped out of his chair.

Why don't we take her? he asked in a whisper.

No... where is she... And then she coughs... Let her sleep.

The boy began to dress with careful haste, and soon both figures - grandfather and grandson - flashed in the twilight of the room. The boy was wearing something like an urban-style coat, large felt boots on his feet, and a woman's scarf was wrapped around his neck. Grandfather was in a fur coat. The door creaked and they both stepped out.

I was left alone. Behind the partition, the quiet breathing of a sleeping girl and the hoarse tapping of a pendulum were heard. The movement outside the window grew stronger, the mists swept faster and more often, and in the intervals the harsh patches of dark rocks and gorges could be seen more and more widely. The room first brightened, then again plunged into twilight.

My dream has passed. The silent sadness of this place began to take hold of me, and I waited almost impatiently for the door to creak and the old man and the boy to return. But none of them were...

Then I decided to see what it was that lured them out of the hut into the fog and cold. I slept dressed, so it didn't take long for me to put on my boots and coat and go out...

Both - the old man and the boy - were standing on the porch with their hands in their sleeves and as if waiting for something.

The area seemed to me now even more gloomy than from the window. Above, the mist had lifted, and the peaks of the mountains stood out distinctly and severely against the lightened sky. Against the dark background of the mountains, only isolated horizontal wisps of mist swept past, but below there was still a cold twilight. The Lena streams, not yet frozen, but already heavy and dark, collided in a narrow channel, turned into funnels and whirlpools. It seemed as if the river was seething and tearing in mute despair, trying to break free from the gloomy crack... The cold pre-morning wind, which drove away the remnants of the night fog, ruffled our clothes and angrily rushed on...